h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Oh, do you mean Violet, Phil?
*Springie meeps agreeably with her mouth full*
Mindspring and Pierrot hail from the same jungle, so there's no reason why they shouldn't get along. At the moment, there's no telling with Violet, except she's in charge of that windowsill.

Pierrot should be able to come and go through there as he pleases, unless she grows. Now THAT could be an interesting face-off!

It was the hooligans I was thinking of...

But now you mention it, Violet does have a grin which aught to have it's own smiley

Are the windows proper sash? if so, why not open the top half so Pierrot can move in and out and even perch on the window without getting in Violets way. If they're not, then there could be problems.

How fast is Violet?

She's fast, but her range of motion is limited...

That's an idea about the window; I just drew the one quarterpane that Violet was in.

Well have a think about it.

I'm trying to decide if it's worth the effort of digging through the pile of CDs to find the Beach Boys as I'm sat here with a beer, the sun has been shining down all weekend and I want some sunny music. The other choice is to put the Andy Williams on and go into loungecore mode. It's a hard life when these are some of the worries I have

I have a friend with two parrots irl, so I know something about the upkeep. But with this being h2g2, there's no problem with keeping the window open. I wonder what will happen if Pierrot gets into magic acorns?

I wish I could loan you my new Clapton/BB King CD. It is SO good.

A friend from uni was a tropical bird specialist. Last I heard he was working as a keeper at Chester Zoo, somewhere in the birdhouse I believe.

I saw the BB King/Clapton album when out yesterday and it looks good. You recomend it then? I nearly bought the new Belle and Sebastian album, `Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant' but decided that I didn't really have the money. Other than those two, a new Sabbath best of CD, remastered tracks mostly, but should be good.

Talking about music, I've been listening to my Derek & The Dominoes album. Now they are cool!

Outlook Express is being a fanny. For some reason all my contacts from our three accounts have appeared in my account, including recently-spoken-to MSN contacts. One is in there twice. Grr.

So, just removed 23 contacts!

Outlook Express is crap. I wouldn't use their install cd as a cup holder. Besides, I've heard that it has a tendency to open attachments without asking, and that's the best way I know of to get a virus.

Oh what joyous fun QMike

I've decided that I'm going to trash my system and start again. Now I've got to download that CD image at work and then get the burner to work...

Music, I was looking for the Beach Boy's but found the best of ELO instead. Mr Blue Sky, spectacular!

Especially if the attachment is a VBS file and you've got the windows scripting host switched on (as many people found out when they recieved a love letter a while back...)

Well, I've never had any of my attachments opened without mine asking, and we've had Outlook for nine months.

What's this VBS and scripting host stuff?

VBS - Visual Basic Scripting, a way of extending an application by allowing users to write extras. It was one of these files which was used to launch the Love Letter virus¹ on the world.
Not sure about the windows scripting host stuff (I don't use MS WinXX) but I think it can auto launch scripts attached into documents, but this also includes email in outlook as well as the legitimate XL spreadsheet.

¹It wasn't really a virus but a worm but thats getting too technical really I think

That depends... are you asking about my article on email viruses? Beware when you read that one... there is an error of fact in it that I corrected, but it arrived on the sub's pile before I did so. The sub has been contacted on it, though, so hopefully it'll be worked out before approval.

Well, I'm afraid I still don't understand you Phil

Visual Basic is a whole other programming language that some programs use to let you do extra things. It's very much like Java scripts for the web. You can only do so much with HTML and its variants, so if you want to have objects flying all over your web page, for example, you need a script to add to your HTML. VBS works basically the same way.

Microsoft Word utilizes Visual Basic scripts (and this is the mistake I made in that article) to run macros. A macro is a shortcut or hot eky type thing that executes many different instructions. Say, for instance, that you want a shortcut that saves the current document you are wroking on, closes it, then opens the next one on the drive. If you were an editor, this could save you a bit of time, having all the articles saved to the same folder on the server, and then you could work through them, one at a time. You would create a VBS that performed all those commands, and then put that macro in your menu.

The problem this causes is that a visual basic script can do an alarming number of things, including copy itself and mail it out to your friends in your Outlook Address Book, delete various file types from your hard drive, etc. And any time you open a word document, word opens it in your normal template, normal.dot. When you close that application, normal.dot will save itself, which will include any new macros that were in that file. You now have the virus, and you had no idea it was there.

Thank you Colonel, that's a better way of putting it than I could think of
Hope you understand a bit better now QMike and sorry that my explanation wasn't good enough

My privacy article has disappeared again, so hopefully it might make the guide soon (it has been subbed already).

Yes, I think I understand now. Thanks you Gargleblaster (and kudos to Phil for trying)

Look, Mindspring! Real geek talk!
*Springie doesn't even open her eyes*

No, real geek talk is all in binary 1001101010010110101100101001010010101011100100101010011001010110001110101011001001110001010010010101010101010010010110101101000111010101011110001001010100110101010011011010101011101000110101110010101010

If you want The Real Geek Talk, I can start discussing IPv4 and IPv6 and why I hate HEX.