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I spent last weekend on trying out my new tripod and shooting some panorama photos.

This is how it turned out..
www.increator.pri.ee/pano/
(enable Javascript to view 360-degree photos)

Problem is, they all vary too much, thus resulting a crappy panorama. Now, I don't have an eye of photographer yet nor good skills at photoshop...

Is there a way to easily make sets of photos (8-10) match in terms of tone, contrast and brightness? Some macro or something? I tried to do this by eye, but even if I get first few about similar, first and last vary like day and night... Three PS auto-adjusters don't work neither... I want to adjust ALL photos to same properties. Or some other program to do this? Plugin?

Or some tips to photograph better maybe?

Ah, and I have PS CS4.

[is]

How does it work?

Let's say, I'm about to sell some tutorials, 3d models or a simple puzzle game.

Point is, it is distributed digitally, so there's no shipping. And for a really little price, let's say, $5.

What do I need? How it's done usually?
I've heard about paypal... what would be other, proven ways to handle money? Like, standard setup for such little business?
And downloads? How should this work? E-mail? Some crazy java/php system with passwords to e-mail?

Being a citizen of one of the most corrupt hellholes on earth, getting that money out from paypal/whatever simple handling service would probably cost more additional fees to local bank than I would actually earn. How to handle this? And survive generally without getting ripped off too much?

Let's share some wisdom here, people.
Because as much as I learned from Google, selling "dr. XXX's internet business secrets" to dumb people is the damn business.

It's tied to NUMEROUS programs. Programs that let you browse for file.

Sometimes (and 'sometimes' means annoyingly often), when I'm browsing for saving/opening file and browsed folder is currently Desktop, program closes. No warning, no dialog, nothing INSTANT QUIT.

Daemon Tools, 3ds max, ArtGem, Photoshop, and some other programs have this anomaly.
I draw for few hours, decide to save, when picking save name accidentally browse to desktop - BANG! - program closed.

Lost a LOAD of things due this anomaly.

Why does it happen? It happened on previous machine and other version of XP too. What is this dark and mysterious power of browsing Desktop that kills an active program?

But it's random. Some day, it never happens. Other day, it happens all the time. It's not dependent of antivirus etc things, that I know. It's directly tied to Windows XP, happened on Professional and happens now on Home Edition.

Anyone has a clue?

Alright, I did some hardcore drawing work tonight.

Meet my old (2004) sprite of John Landy, if you haven't yet:
      
Original closeup portrait by pixelcat

That's correct, the witty protagonist from The Hamlet, one of winners of AGS Team Challenge in 2004.

Well, I decided to remake this character and got here:
   
Note that my version of closeup is nowhere as cool as pixelcat's original


Now, what I ask help on, would be colors of John's coat. I'm quite satisfied with rest, but I couldn't get shading and colors on overcoat right. The dark shade seems to be too dark, yet I've experimented alot and cannot get it right.
Also, general C&C would be welcome too, on both images.

Just don't make completely new redraws of whole character, because I probably won't be using those.

Additional question you might ask: Will there be a game? Since me completing a game takes a miracle or dozen, most likely not. Then again, there will always be a possibility...

Here's my christmas present:


A Canon Rebel XS / EOS D1000 - tech stuff below
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0806/08061002Canon1000D.asp

Really neat, huh? 

Well, I plan to take up amateur photography and aside everyday shooting, use this hell machine to make some nice textures for 3d. I believe the machine is more than enough for this.

Problem is - I know ditto about modern digital photography. All those f/s whatever shutter speeds, image stabilizers, ISO thingies, digital noise - I know nothing, or just enough to connect the term to photography, but not much else. 

And this camera is FULL of buttons! Buttons, buttons everywhere! It took a while to even find shoot button!

Well, and it's quite difficult to find a way to learn. Google gives everything, but most of this everything I found is too much for a beginner, including wikipedia entries.

The camera had 4 manuals, none of which were english or estonian, or even russian (languages I could read). No PDF format manual or user guide on driver disc neither However, I aquired it from Canon homepage.

I'd like to have those terms and stuff explained in a nutshell, dumbed down enough for me to make direct connections how this and that actually makes better or worse picture. Like what ISO does. What shutter speed does, which numbers should be high and what do I have to use/observe if I want a picture in low light or close-up, etc. I'm sure I don't even need half of the possibilities, but I need to know ones that benefit in getting a good photo.

Can anyone provide a link for stuff I need? As I explained, simple enough to understand? BUT practical. I don't care much for theory, if it doesn't give me practical results. I mean, good pictures and textures.
Maybe something that helped yourself much?

The ones I found are similar to modelling tutorials: you can't use some, because you're not advanced enough, even though it's a tutorial.

Help me!

...have just time travelled to 30000 B.C, Stone age.

Human beings live in small groups of 30-60. They wear animal skin and yield clubs, very primitive bows and stones. They are hunters. Most valuable resource is flint, which makes quite sharp weapons, yet is rare and hard to find.
They have no buildings to speak of and live in caves or lean-to's. When there's prey, they hunt and eat till there's food. If it ends, they go back hunting. They don't grow anything and rarely store any food for difficult periods. If game gets rare, they relocate to better hunting grounds, moving around often. They haven't domesticated dogs yet.
Most valuable thing is fire, which is guarded day and night and tied with beliefs of hunting luck of the tribe.

So, you arrived. An educated, advanced human from distant future. You've seen planes and TV's, internet and other planets.

They greet you kindly and are amazed by your clothing. You see how primitive and badly organized their life is. Your knowledge will surely prove useful.

-----------------
This is kind of thing i've been wondering sometimes. To be honest, I personally could do very little with all my space-age knowledge to provide practical help. Their tools would be way too primitive to build or mine anything, I wouldn't recognize crops or know how to grow them, I don't know how to build a crossbow or recognize most of ores.

* If we'd came upon iron-rich clay, I probably could handle building a little smelter and introduce them to metals.
* I do know a bit about basic principles of taming a horse.
* I could give some very basic tips about building a hut and introduce them to oven
* I can make fire with sticks. It was one of greatest discoveries and in this age, still very little known
* Fish nets can be made of animal intestines or strips of fur
* I know where and how to build a well

Still, coming from our time, this sounds like nothing.
---

How could you help them?
I mean, so it would be really doable?

Eh, I recall many noob threads with same title.
Sadly, couldn't find any.

Anyway, I have an idea that requires large amount or low-resolution isometric graphics.
There's 2 ways to go: Either MSpaint till I'm bald, or find something better...

Does anyone know something better? Iso-oriented, maybe?
And still pixel-art. Not those strange things like World Creator 1.5 (which I failed to get to start and which was best Google had to offer)

I remember building editor for SimCity2000 which was specially designed for isometric drawing. It had some weird tools and automatic isometric cropping and whatnot.

http://news.softpedia.com/images/extra/GAMES/large/simcity2000pc_003-large.jpg

Anything else like this in the depths of internet?

And please, don't say Photoshop. Unless you're a pro, making pixels in Photoshop is like sharpening a pencil with a pneumatic drill.

There's a question haunting me since childhood. A feeling I tend to feel, and I haven't heard about such thing anywhere... Even on the almighty Internet.

If someone is doing something, close to me, with his or her hands, for SOME people, I get this strange vibe.
Since emotions are very difficult to explain, I try my best:

* My breathing gets slower and harder, like something is pressing onto my cheeks and blocking nose
* I get very calm, close to hypnosis or meditation, I cannot force my eyes off from the person
* My heart rate gets quicker
* and most important and best felt - I get this strange warm fuzzing or buzzing or vibration in the back of my head, like in the lower side of brain or something. I totally feel it. My head feels like there's a little engine working in it, generating warm, relaxing, arousing and very enjoyable feeling

It's incredibly good feeling. I totally go crazy and enjoy every second of it, regret the moment when it's over.
What causes it? What do I know about it?

* It's definitely linked to someone's hands. I don't have to see them, but be quite close, atleast in same room. The closer, the stronger the feeling.
* It's not erotic, love-related or sexual in any way. It doesn't count sex or age.
Because I feel same or even stronger for men, and older people. A bit clumsy or different people. Really old people, sometimes.
* Person who induces it, is always very concentrated onto something, and doing something with hands. First times I felt anything like this was at barber's. Little sounds fingers make on working, like touching sounds or little scissors snipping or so.
* Very few people are able to give me such "vibe". As I said, they are usually slow-moving, maybe a bit clumsy (like old people are), something like this.
* Person doing whatever he/she is doing doesn't have to be in direct contact with me, and most often they are not. I simply observe them doing something and suddenly this warm pulsating starts in my head.

It was one of those reaaallly rare and strange feelings during most of my life. I felt it once a year, at most. For 24 years.

After I got new job few months ago, moving into print/design business, suddenly - this goes like, on daily basis. There's always people gluing or folding something, inspecting my designs etc. And some of them give really strong vibe. They like, turn completed design, look here and there, fingers make quiet sounds when handling carton or fiberboard, they think-think-think.... and I watch and get semi-hypnotized and suddenly my brain goes "brrrrrr" 

What's even more strange that I'm sometimes and somehow able to induce this vibe all by myself now. I work on something, and like, this starts from my own concentration and handicraft. Rarely, but it does. It never happened previously in my life.

I repeat, it's not sexual in any way - for a male, it's really easy to determine such thing, but it feels even better sometimes, and totally disorients and hypnotizes me.
---

What could that be?

Am I getting telepathic links in environment of extreme concentration?
Or getting part of some "energy fields" those wannabe shamans on TV talk?
Or being sensitive to/absorbing bioelectricity?
Or having frequent internal brain bleeds and somehow translate them as good feeling?

Or am I simply going insane?

Has anyone ever felt something like this?

[How would you cut out a really complex shape easily in Photoshop (CS2)?]

The title of the thread is pretty descriptive.
How to select something from a photo, yet maintain clean edges and not go nuts during this?

I'm making a 3D game and for foliage texturing, grass and leaves specifically, I gained a load of photos.
Problem is, it takes a millennia to gather even one plant from a photo, clean it so only plant remains and not the background. I tried acquiring photos as trouble-free as possible, often put something single-colored behind the plant or took a picture where ground is totally different color than grass lump, etc.

Still, there's loads of little bits of background between reeds and grass/plant/branch shapes are way too complex to manually select. It takes ages using magnetic or polygonal lasso tool, and outcome isn't still good. I tried to select by color range, but it works in ways of inhuman knowledge, I couldn't select grass greens so it wouldn't horribly antialias edges and make large loads of green color semi-transparent. Of course, magic wand tool wouldn't help here either, I could cut grass out, but all edges would be like little bugs had a big feast eating grass - full of little holes. Going manual to fix this would be more trouble than it's worth.

How would you cut out a really complex shape easily in Photoshop (CS2)?

I recall seeing a demo version of some kind of PS plugin that processed image, finding all similar colors and dividing whole photo into single-color portions for easy selection, and it worked like magic!
...but I can't recall name... maybe someone knows it or something similar? The link I saw was most likely here, at AGS, but it was long time ago.

Help me, please.

PS: of course I did Google for tutorials and plugins. Fact is, all selection tutorials are for much, much simpler cases and plugins, well, didn't find anything that would ensure me that buying this would solve even half of the problem.

In a dreamful mind of Microsoft developers, it should work like this:

Start -> Programs -> Subfolder(s) -> easy and accessible joy of getting things done

Throughout the whole time Windows XP exists, for me, it's been like...

Start -> Programs -> omfg how do I ever find anything in this mess?!

It's really, really annoying. And, I can't find simple way to organize my start menu. What irritates most are two things:

1) game/program companies, in their idiocy, imagine that every PC user is total fan of their company and knows every product created. So, it's good idea to name start menu item with company name. Yeah, I have mood for a quick game of Company of Heroes... Aw damn, who made/released this? Atari? Eidos Interactive? Electronic Arts? THQ? I can't find anything in this mess--! Why didn't just use name for a game?!

2) Even most unimportant, single-shot software (and there's lot's of this, especially freeware) tends to clutter start menu too. Why?!

Even AGS games that come with installer.
Do I really need a start menu item for every AGS game I try?

I installed this, I KNOW where I did install it. I can browse for it much quicker than spend 10 minutes looking at mess in programs section (start menu) and try to find it by another imaginative name you gave to yourself when releasing (and defaulting for installer path!  ).

Of course, most installers ask how start menu entry should be named. Or - with latest and (typically very good quality) software, it even asks if you DO want to create start menu item. But many things don't ask anything. They simply take a dump at my already painful start menu. This goes usually for all kinds of drivers or software that comes with hardware...

* After last XP fresh install, I decided to always name things properly, to have some order...
* After awhile, it became too time consuming. So I created start menu folder "trash" and forced all shortcuts I would never use to be there...

For example, AGS, 3ds Max, Artgem, Photoshop, FruityLoops...) I occasionally use them. I will never uninstall them (they WILL outlive XP installation, or specifically, die with it). I have shortcuts in my quicklaunch or desktop. Why the hell would I ever need a start menu item?

Thanks, NVidia. I will make sure I use your start-menu shortcut on daily basis, despite you also created one into control panel, another one into system tray, right-click menu, display settings window, asked if I also want quick launch one... your drivers control panel is a really useful thing, every human being having your video card alters brightness and resolution settings atleast twice a day. 5 points for thinking for me!

* After this, I forgot to use "trash" many times. Now both "trash" and main of start menu is one long scrolling, unexplainable mess. I will NEVER find anything there.

Is there some kind of way out of this mess? Or is there something I'm doing wrong?
How do you manage this (unless you're Excel-Word-and-Solitaire-user)?

Huh. I have this serious urge to play a good adventure game for last few weeks.

Problem is, nobody makes really good adventure games anymore...
And classic ones, It kind of feels like I've played them all. But that can't be truly possible!

I would really appreciate some hints on gems I hadn't discovered yet.

What do I like?

I like murder mysteries. Point'n'click interface. A good story. Decent graphics. Third-person (!).
I like either serious or truly humorous themes. But no cartoons (sorry Sam'n'Max).
I loved everything LucasArts did. I played almost every Sierra game (minus later Space Quest, later King's Quest and Quest for Glory games).
I hate action sequences and billion-verb games (the ones where you can select 6+ action verbs from list).
I don't like text parser much. But it's a game with REALLY good story, I don't mind (completed Gold Rush! few days ago).

Games that can be described as "deep" are probably my favourite. I mean Prodigal, Pleurghburg, BJ series (to name some AGS-made), and of course others - Dreamweb, KGB, Fascination, anything that leaves a strong impression...
But anything well thought-out would do. I had gazillion favourite games, but I suddenly feel old: I can't remember any good titles!

Deep isn't really required. They could be comedy games. I never got into Monkey Island games, found them only well-crafted and playable but not very interesting. To crack me up, it takes Gobliiins or DOTT, semi-serious games won't fall either side. I liked Leisure Suit Larry series...

Sci-fi with spaceships and time totally unlike current one is out of the list. I have nothing against science fiction (like X-files, Dune, anything else semi-realistic), but if it leaves modern boundaries and becomes totally some alien-races-in-intergalactic-bar, I won't like it. That's why I skipped last 3 games of Space Quest. Also, as hardcore fantasy settings aren't interesting for me too. Medieval times or historic settings are cool, but finding pixie dust for a troll in order to  acquire letter for Elf king - no-no.

Can anyone name something that's worth picking up?
9.99 out of 10 that I've already played it, but I still have a hope for some good gaming experience. Also, after excellent graphics wasted on horrid crap of a story in Syberia 2 I lost all hope into modern adventure games so I don't know much about games made after 90's. Maybe there's some quality stuff to recommend here?

Ah, and name AGS games too! I've played yahtzee things and BJ series, but there's surely some gems in AGS history I've missed.

Well, I've always liked those little movies before games. What's your most favourite ones?

Best ones I always watch (always!) and never skip are

Battlefield 2 intro
(This orchestral hit at beginning and end gives me shivers and pumps up for game!)

Knights of Honor
This one got some awards. I clearly see why.
Best. Thing. Ever. 300W subwoofer helps the experience and gives neighbors their share, too

There's some more I can't recall right now.
What's yours?

Right. After 4 fully-detailed hours-overspent high-hair-cost two-erased-by-accident versions I came down to this one:


2x:


(anti-aliased mostly by hand)

That's supposed to be a cellar of a flat-type house.
What do we think?

I have an issue with my computer and due lack of technical knowledge, I'm pretty confused.

Inside the main case is a cooling fan, that's supposed to circulate air inside the case (Not the cooler on processor or one in power unit. An additional one).  By Intel Chassis Guide, it's supposed to blow heated air out of the case.


The marked one!

Well, it's broken. When I start computer, it won't go around, but vibrates very little and produces clicking sound. Continuously. Just like it's trying really hard to spin, but doesn't have power to do so.
And of course, everything starts heating up.

When I give it even a slightest push, it starts rotating, and keeps doing it nicely until poweroff.

So, basically every time I start my machine, I must open case and manually push fan to work. Sometimes, when I turn machine off for only brief period, like half an hour, fan starts with computer nicely. But longer period, it's all manual.

I cleaned it as well as I could, it isn't too dusty anyway, tried to shake it a little (if it has bad angle or something), checked for obstacles, checked wires... nothing. I just have to start it manually every time like an old motorcycle.

I want to get rid of this problem. But guarantee is expired, and even if it wasn't, I would dare to live few days to a week without my machine. Also, I guess that by opening case, I voided warranty anyway. So, if anyone could answer any of those questions, my gratitude is yours eternal.

* What could possibly be the problem?
* Is there something that could work?
* Is there a way to give it deeper cleaning? Screwing it out or not?
* Is changing a fan difficult?
* Does it have to be original (Intel) fan then?
* If I buy a fan, is there any parameters I have to follow? Like voltage or spin speed or something?
* Anything else that I could check/try?

I bought this baby today, and instantly loaded some some songs from Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion onto it. Music in this game is simply too good to stay in game, and I like to carry it into "outside world" for casual listening.

Apart from TES4:Oblivion, I find main theme of Stronghold very good, also some. good. tracks from Age of Empires 3 and many-many songs from Hitman games. Jesper Kyd is simply a magician. There was some other music I liked too much, but unfortunately I can't remember those game titles right now.

Is there music you like in game so much that you take it outside?

Alright, chemistry. Most horrible thing Man ever invented.
For me, atleast.

If I want to finish (finally) highschool, I have to learn chemistry.
And learn, as get to know with the subject from its very start. Even though theoretically, I should have been studied chemistry from 7th or 8th grade, which should make 4 or 5 years of friendship with this terrible subject.

Well, it's not really like this.

Basic (or middle) school in Estonia covers grades 1 to 9. Then it's 3 grades of highschool. But basic school I went to, was something similar to those movies where teacher is sent into hell on earth. I live in city part that pretty much equals to a ghetto in western cities. And the school was equal also. As were most of the people in my class.

In 8th grade (If I remember correctly), when puberty kicked in and people in my class turned into complete idiots/ultraviolent hormone bombs, my introduction to chemistry was something I regret till today.

The teacher happened to be total failure, and she didn't even try to teach anything or maintain order in class: the huge cardboard periodic table of elements was set to fire once, fights/bullying during lesson happened on daily basis, one desk was covered in magnesium and sat on fire, that wet rag that's used for cleaning the blackboard hit teacher more times that I could count, chairs and backpacks were thrown out of window to irritate teacher (3rd floor!), the list is endless.

In this earthly teenage hell, beloved miss teacher often simply shat up and just stood there till the end of the lesson.
Well, and failed everyone.

I can't blame her for this, but that didn't help the ones who wanted to study. Every crazed male (and some females) in this class were testing the boundaries of behavior and this teacher didn't set any at all. So, I recall only 2 or 3 more or less "normal" lessons during last  2 years of basic school. But I never reached chemistry, and passed school with lowest possible grade to pass it at all. Leading teacher of the class literally pushed me to graduate, I really didn't pick much up in this hell. Which caused alot of downfall and failed tries to resurface later, but that's a longer story.
Needless to say, there was NO lab work or actual experiments in this class. Even if teacher wanted to bring kids into chemistry, there was no equipment or resources for this.

Short story is this: chemistry is still something that sounds like chinese to me.

As an artist with strong visual memory, I can fairly quickly learn anything that I can SEE or what is drawable. Or, if it has very STRICT set system and behavior, so at average level, I can also handle maths(calculus,geometry,etc) and physics. Or languages. Works also for things I can imagine, draw a mental picture in my head -- history is my favourite subject.

This is where chemistry fails, being totally theoretical, with actually almost zero things to see or remember. I see a desk and keyboard infront of me. If I try really hard, okay, I can imagine and believe atoms and molecules buzzing around instead of this black keyboard my eyes witness. But 11th grade chemistry is a bit tougher than simple belief. Alicyclic compounds, hydrocarbons, carbonyl compounds, levels of polymerization, polar single bounds or whatever they were called, etc. And of course, formulas. In Estonia, educational system expects you to become a writer, historian, biologist, mathematician, rocket scientist and what else after graduating, so there's no voluntary subjects and everything is taken through VERY deeply.

Trying to read a chemistry books does nothing but confuses and makes me sleep quite quickly. Main problem is of course that I don't have any base to learn. You cannot simply jump into something and start learning it if you don't know any basics. It even isn't that hard to study. I can mechanically remember all this chinese and write on paper next day. This is how I made into 11th grade. But as soon as I walk out of classroom, the "chinese" in my head is gone. It almost feels like my brain rejects chemistry. Rejects really aggressively.

I have time until May. In May, I have to know chemistry like I had been learning it for last 5 years. And I'm so clueless on what to do.

Is there something in this world that could help me?
Maybe a webpage that goes from "what is atom" to "how to build an atom bomb" with loads of pictures and other stuff to make it be less chinese? Or maybe a strong drug to study? Educational computer game? Good tips? A visit to a shrink? Something?

I mean, most of gamers have this one or two games they occasionally play. New games come and go, but this one, like a ritual, is played on daily basis. Usually multiplayer one.
I'm getting bored of my usual and I'm looking for new long-lasting addictions...

For last few years, I was playing Battlefield 2, then some mods for it, and hoped to switch to Team Fortress 2 now. Which failed, since TF2, despite good looks and interesting concept, proved to be total bulls**t in my opinion. I've tried this and that, but found nothing that could hook me for longer period.

So, what's your game? Please don't say WoW.

-very long post ahead!-

Registration. Username. Password. E-mail activation.
Repeat.
And again.

I'm totally tired of this digital burden that's for some unknown reason so hellishly popular nowadays.
Want to see my brand new cool forum with 2 registered members? Sign up!
Want to download this little piece of crap game you will delete after trying 3 minutes? Sign up!
Want to read my stupid blog? Browse our catalog? Read news? Just make sure you will never return to this site? Sign up!
Want to simply ask a question about something? One question? Sign up!
Want to simply SEARCH our forum for one tiny thing? Sorry, search is available for registered members only. Sign up!
Forgot your password? Click here!
Aaaagh!

One stupid, meaningless, unimportant entry in MySQL database makes web programmers put me through electronic nightmare or hundreds of forgotten usernames and passwords, e-mail activation, and overall mess.

Especially since these entries are mostly useless. Which is why should use genuine password for this next piece of crap forum/stupid web/whatever so if something happens, not all other hundreds of digital identity pieces wouldn't be gone. I really, really, really hate this tiny "sign up!" link in almost EVERY web page. Well, if I really have to sign up. But guest-friendly sites are fading away at rapid speed.

Now anyone that uses web actively, say you haven't felt atleast once same way.
Can I sleep safely, knowing that on at least 100 sites, I've registered and entered personal info?
Most of which I don't ever remember and never return?

For example, there's that new cool 3D game engine up on devmaster.net, so I download it, don't understand a thing, and to find answer to my first very basic question, I try to search engine community forums, which won't happen if I don't sign up, so I - sigh-- sign, find that engine is once again totally pointless, unfinished and overpriced, and never return.
Thinking about this, 100 registrations are maybe highly underrated number, I've been "online" for 10 years quite actively already. Even though I've developed some "default" usernames, passwords and e-mail addresses for least important sign-up events, there's still more than 20 I think, and I don't remember most.

Even worse, I find myself bumping quite often into places where I have had registered already, and I don't remember which one of those numerous "default" settings were in use this time. For example, I have over 5 GameSpy accounts, atleast 3 GameSpot ones, cannot count FileShack ones.... And still can't login into any of these, because I'm quite tired of making new accounts, and can't remember what data did I use when registered 5 years ago.
---

Anyway, I was thinking about it and came up with somewhat controversial idea -- universal e-ID.

Like one big service that's universal and every site uses. Well, as an addition for classic signup.
I imagine server farms at Google scale, MD5 encryption and other sci-fi stuff... The base line should be that you log in into your e-ID and you can use it everywhere, like on MSN, eBay, MySpace, web banks, chatrooms?, Steam and  AGSForums, for example. Probably as a client-software - so you log on as soon as you boot your machine up or something, and all affiliated sites would automatically detect if you're logged into you e-ID. Client program thingy would be for security, I guess -- nobody trusts cookies... and for things like ICQ and MSN Messenger and Steam and GameSpy Arcade and so on, which are actually programs in your computer, this would work better too.

Even with my limited knowledge, I still imagine that every more serious website has it's own variables about member so classic sign-up won't go actually away, it just simplifies login. eBay still holds data in their server about your bids and comments and so on, but authorizing login data would come via e-ID servers. They would simply add e-ID authorizing possibility bit to their system. I don't have enough knowledge about networking to give my idea more serious shape, but I still believe that this project is totally possible to create.

I even think I foresee some potential flaws in my flawless plan   

1. Of course, internet is a perverts' paradise. So here could come first criticism to my idea: individual sign-up guarantees anonymousness up to some scale, so boys who play girls in anime/furry forums, foot fetishists, lonely old men and all other likeable fellows I didn't mention won't be using e-ID... but no-one cares anyway, since traditional sign-up stuff still stays on place.

2. Single identity is a strong security risk. Yes, e-ID should employ uberhigh levels of security for maintaining identities, as I said, complex encryption with additional science fiction, cavity-search its employees on daily basis and software better than CIA uses... but this is still doable.

And come on, is using same password for many sites more secure? Like you're doing now? I know you're doing this, no need to lie. Oh, you added "1" to the password. Very clever indeed.

3. e-ID itself. Now, this is real science fiction: While progressive governments have heavy data on their citizens, e-ID - being universal and thus international would have things on people even CIA couldn't track. Reminds me of X-Files -- the human being registry.
Well, and that's a serious dent in my plan, which needs to be reworked somehow.

But if whole thing works as software in people's computer, I think that e-ID servers wouldn't need to know the data at all. Like, data moving between client's software, e-ID server and affiliated website could be encrypted heavily enough so the password and username would actually be known to person only. You enter your user/pass, encrypted thing goes to e-ID, it somehow knows it's you, and sends another encrypted bulk to AGSForums, which knows that this bulk means that you proved to e-ID that you are you and they back this up. And -- "You have logged in!". But I cannot think this thought further due lack of knowledge on the subject.

Any thoughts?

Even if my idea is totally stupid, I wouldn't be surprised if after few years someone simply steals it, modifies to something real and becomes a billionaire. Microsoft?

But if you like the idea, know(someone who can/how to)  make this work and have a rich relative to fund a crazy project, let's team up and get rich... even if monthly e-ID fee is $1, well, if there's billion, or atleast a million frustrated internet users, I see bright future.

Heh, we have all kind of crap threads in "popular threads" subsection, but I really didn't find anything like this.

Either people don't read nowadays or no-one came to that thought.
Anyway, clue on a good book is always handy. So, what's that book or two that you pick up again and again and have skipped a night's sleep over it? And what is it about?

I have three:

1. Eclipse of the Crescent Moon (Egri csillagok) by Hungarian writer Géza Gárdonyi.

I can't count how many times I've read it. IMO, it's most interesting, breathtaking historical novel ever written by humankind. Every nation should have a book like this about it's people and past. I recommend it to anyone who's even a bit into history, especially (late) medieval era.
(English version available on Amazon, reviews say it all.)

2. Skies of War by three-time Soviet Hero Aleksandr Pokryshkin.

The author was one of the best fighter pilots during WWII and book describes his life during war from being an ambitious plane mechanic to becoming one of most feared aces over Europe and after war, Marshal of Soviet Air Force.
He invented many airborne battle tactics, maneuvers, and his experience helped to improve fighter planes alot.

Unfortunately, book was never translated into English, but it's a really good reading. Even despite Soviet censorship appearing in almost every paragraph.

3. Death is the very last option (might be incorrect translation) by Bulgarian writer Bogomil Rajnov

I don't even know why I like this book so much. It's a short spy novel about Bulgarian intelligence operative infiltrating crime syndicate in Soho, London. Which later turns out CIA cover to smear Soviet Union via drug trafficking. But the way it's written, desperate situation of protagonist and extremely well executed atmosphere makes it better than any Bond movies or other spy stories. Protagonist isn't superhuman suit-guy with technical gadgets. All he has is sharp mind and special training. He gets beaten to almost death many times, survives many murder attempts and makes desperate decisions in more than desperate situations. A how-to-book for anyone trying hand at interesting crime novel.

The book seems to be really rare, and Google doesn't know a thing about it. Neither does Amazon.

Title says it all.

I want to make some button onto my gui, and little help (not AGS text, but on a image) to change whenever mouse is over button.

For example, there's a disk shaped button, and when mouse is over it, a text "click here to save your game" appears.

How do I do it? Browsing help didn't help much.
I know how to change button graphics/label text, but can't figure out what the function is, to determine if mouse is over particular button or not.

I'm using older AGS, not 3.0