Snakebite

Well if it's too grusome for you, it's not my problem just telling how it is. That fact my uncle died at such a young age especially on my 18th birthday put me off of smoking completely. He didnt even manage to reach retirement age, that sucks. I'm not telling you to stop smoking, just asking you to think about how you want to die when your older. They do say if you are not a heavy smoker and stop smoking before you hit 35 then you have a good chance of reaching retirement age and hopefully live a normal life. Though i've heard of people dying from lung cancer when they are only 30. I want to live till i'm old and grey and hopefully be still around for my grand children.

The main people that Microsoft are likely to go after are ICQ, Yahoo Messenger and the programmers/webmasters of Website forums and any other software company that currently incorporates smileys into their applications. Thats the whole point of the patent to stop other people using it unless they pay a licence fee to microsoft for it.

Yes it is but now you will now have to pay microsoft for the priviledge of using it as part of an application or website forum or they can legally sue you.

If enough people are behind overturning this patent it could possibly done by appealing to the patent offices in question, on the basis that the use of smiley's/emoctions were in general circulation before the patent was filed therefore declaring it invalid. The patent itself it relates to the actual methods used to implent the use of smileys in a text format which can then be represented as an image like in web forums and instant messengers. I cant see how they can patent that since smileys have been around in one form or another for years

Grease monkey does allow you to run powerful scripts does it not? Just like ActiveX does. They may do it differently but can have the same effect like accessing files on your PC without your consent, which is what happened just recently.

I'm not saying it is, but as it gets more popular with the hope of overtaking Internet Explorer, hackers will attack it more often. As long as Firefox is used by the minority it will be safer, but how long will it stay that way.

Firefox is new, when internet explorer first came on the scene it was deemed better than netscape for security and just look at it now. It's the lull before the storm, give it a couple of years and the hackers will catchup.

I have a hardware & software firewall and I still periodically find spyware occasionally. Point to Point software is maybe to blame like bit torrent etc, websites could still be as bad

I havent found it to be faster in effect quite the opposite. Everytime I start Firefox it takes more than a minute to open up. Internet Explorer takes less than 30 seconds. The only reason I've found that it is less prone to spyware is that most hackers attack Internet Explorer but recent major attacks show that hackers are now turning on Firefox, so pretty soon it will just be as bad.

Firefox was majorly hit by hackers yet again which is the third major incident since it's release. Greasemonkey which is an addon for Firefox that provides similar capabilities as Active X does for Internet Explorer was found to have a major security flaw. Malicious websites were able to access and read files on peoples home pc's. See Press Report below. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1093&e=3&u=/pcworld/20050722/tc_pcworld/121918 Firefox was touted to be the better alternative to Internet Explorer as it was deemed to be more secure. However recent attacks including the theft of user information stored on the Spread Firefox marketing site, and a Firefox update that broke many third-party extensions have just shown that it is as vunerable as Internet Explorer. So what should you use Internet Explorer or Firefox?

Microsoft has patented the use of Smiley's or custom Emoctions as they are called on MSN Messenger see Press report below: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050722/152/fnyso.html Link to the Patent is below: http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220050156873%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20050156873&RS=DN/20050156873 This has major implications at stopping other applications or website forums using this method of language communication. Smiley's have become part of the online community to allow people to express themselves more effectively. What can be done to prevent Microsoft from taking over the use of this widely accepted online language?

Okay how about this my eldest uncle, Smoked heavily, drank heavily died of a heart attack at age 55. He was the lucky one it was quick, unlike my other uncle. My Second eldest uncle who was 5 years younger again smoked heavily, drank heavily and his arteries to his legs became blocked and packed in because of this. He had an operation to replace them and ended up losing a toe because it went gangreen. The following year he went in to get gaul stones removed. After the operation his lungs collapsed and before they realised what was going on the new arteries that they made for him the year before collapsed under the strain and his bowel went gangreen. The doctors advised him there was nothing they could do for him. He ended up dying a slow and painful death 3 days later aged 55.. What made it worse for me was the fact that he died on my 18th Birthday, which I will never forget. Both of my uncles died due to smoking and drinking and I know too many other people that have died before their time due to smoking and drinking. People should drink moderately and not too excess. Smoking should be banned completely if only to stop children from taking it up when they're old enough and ending up dying in a similar manner. If tobacco had just been discovered today instead of years ago it would be illegal due to the danger it poses to peoples health. Since when is inhaling smoke good for you or anyone else. all it does is slowly kill you bit by bit until you die a painful death like my second eldest uncle, who after his bowel went gangreen and told he was going to die was put on a morphine drip for 3 days in an attempt to try and suppress some of the pain of him dying. Just imagine how that feels, knowing your going to die but unable to end it quickly. Yes everyone says they could get knocked down by a bus tomorrow, but what if you dont. Do you really want to endure several painful days of dying instead? I certainly dont.

Obviously you have never heard of streamlining. It's where you take say several different information storage systems (both paper & electronic) which all hold similar information about you and combine all of these different systems into one electronic system. Therefore instead of say 30 different people inputting the same information into each separate system (which is time consuming and wastes money) the information is inputted once therefore reducing your overheads. Also since the information can be referenced more quickly it again reduces your overheads even more. Okay you have physically install and setup the new system but once it's up and running your overheads are reduced, therefore in the long term it saves money. As the old saying goes 'You have to spend money to save money' Thats the modern approach to business these days and it works. In most large companies you literally have a paperless system for doing everything which saves the company money and from an environmental point of view you use a lot less paper.

It ended when terrorists started blowing things up. Under British Law you are not entirely free anyway, all British Citizens are considered to be servants of the Queen