Another great free alternative is Paint.NET[^] - there's still Paint in the name, but it's actually closer to Photoshop than to Paint, at least when it comes to working with images for the web.

Jörgen Sigvardsson wrote:

Really? Maybe I was just visiting bad tourist sites then. I did quite a lot of research (customer reviews) before settling for a hotel, and the name "Majorca" was very common. It seems that Mallorca is a very popular with German tourists, because many of the customer review forums were in German.

Indeed, I see that at least the German wikipedia redirects Majorca to Mallorca, so there must be at least some people here who use that spelling. I'm probably also waaay out of touch with the average German Ma_j_orca tourist, which I guess is a good thing[^]... :~

I of course don't know what you typically enjoy seeing, but I liked: - Sa Calobra: The famous winding road to a touristy village close to a small, nice beach at the start/end of an impressive gorge. It is advisable to go there when the tourist buses are not there yet or have already left. I liked walking into the gorge; the beginning is very easy and you can just stop and go back as soon as it becomes too difficult. - Puig d'Inca: Easy to get on top by car, nice view[^] over the interior of the island - Cala Figuera: Beautiful village[^] on the SE coast. - Artà: Walk to the top of the hill[^] - Lluc Monastery[^] (climb the stairs to the top of the little hill, and the short 'botanical garden trail' behind the buildings is nice as well) I think Sa Calobra is a "must see", but you will probably have read about it in your travel guide; the others are not overwhelming, but just very nice places. I personally don't think Mallorca has so many absolute must-sees, but lots of small, nice places outside of the touristy areas. It all depends on how much time you are prepared to spend in a car, though. (I do assume you will have a car. Beware of the bikers, in particular in the mountains, who will recklessly block the road in groups and who appear to think driving in single file is only for cars, who they are intent on annoying as much as possible.) Regarding the spelling and pronunciation, I am German and didn't know there are people who write "Majorca" or not pronounce it "My Orca"... :doh:

I also only had good experiences with Ibis hotels so far, in different countries. I stayed in Ibis Tour Montparnasse[^] (not to be confused with Ibis Gare Montparnasse) last May and what Caslen wrote applied there as well: It was perfectly adequate, plus the staff was friendly and helpful. In general, I'd recommend to skip the hotel breakfast in Paris - too expensive for what little you usually get. I also stayed in Hôtel Coypel[^] earlier this year, but wouldn't really recommend it; it was just adequate, but the bed was too short for me, and there were ants in the tiny bathroom.

Michael Dunn wrote: Vista opens the tray without any warning I'd really hate this (as soon as I use Vista, which will be in a hopefully very distant future). I already hated it when my old computer closed the tray after power-on or reboot. I once had a disc partially inserted when this happened; it survived, but badly scratched. Another example: My old case[^] had a door in front of the slots for the CD/DVD drives, and it was usually closed (how often do you really need a CD/DVD in these days of disc images and large HDDs, after all?). By accident, I once told an application to open the tray without opening that door before. There were some really nasty noises, but fortunately no damage. I'd hate to know that one misplaced click now suffices...

but to be fair I would probabily be the only one to use it Wrong. I'd love to browse the lounge on my Palm TX :-) It surely isn't what Chris is looking for, but I have to say that the number of occasions on which I have to take my laptop with me has shrunk considerably since I got the TX.

Chaque homme de culture a deux patries: la sienne - et la France. (Thomas Jefferson)

hello i need the code project of 8-puzzle (in c++ or c# or ...) No problem, here's the code, in ...: .. .... . . ... .. .. ... ... .. . .. .... ....... .... . .. .. ... .. . . .. ..... .. . .. ... . .. . ..... .. ..... ... . ... . .. .. .... ... ...... .. .. ..... ... .. ... ..... .. ... ... .. ..... . . ..... ... .... ... ... ..... .... .... . . . ... . ... .... .... .. . ... .. ... This should work with versions .... and above of the standard ... compiler. Just save it to a text file, for example C:\......., and run ... ........

Comparison: http://www.jumpingpixels.com/images/ice6.jpg[^] http://www.skyandsummit.com/Glacegeneve/pages/DSCN7714.html[^] Those are the very same cars at the very same place, except that there is even more ice on the first photo.
Chaque homme de culture a deux patries: la sienne - et la France. (Thomas Jefferson)

They're from Switzerland: http://www.skyandsummit.com/Glacegeneve/index.html[^]
Chaque homme de culture a deux patries: la sienne - et la France. (Thomas Jefferson)

I am using AntiVir (www.antivir.de[^] (page should also be available in english); free personal personal version: www.free-av.com[^], www.free-av.de (German)[^]. I only use the free personal version, and from my experiences with it, I would recommend AntiVir; it works silently in the background most of the time and doesn't seem to slow down my system. I recently helped update a PC that had Norton AV installed; extracting XP SP2 took about 10 minutes with Norton enabled, and 1-2 minutes with Norton disabled.
Chaque homme de culture a deux patries: la sienne - et la France. (Thomas Jefferson)

I really hate sites that use Flash for no reason other than flashy animations, but I'll try to put that aside for now... 1. Technical issue: Setting the sound volume to "off" on the site does turn off the music, but it does not turn off all the sounds (like the on-mouse-over sounds of the links). Consider renaming that setting to "music", or better yet, make it turn off all sounds. 2. Usability issue: The site uses flash, so I cannot use the browser's back button. Therefore, the site itself has to provide a substitute. At the moment, it is very hard to figure out how to get back to the first page once you clicked on one of the "What we do"-links, for example. Also consider making your logo a link to the start page; most sites do this. 3. Design/usability issue: More than half of my screen area is just grey background on the page at the moment, and I am "only" running at 1280x1024. I don't like sites wasting my screen area, so if possible, consider making the site resize dynamically with the browser window. 4. Readability issue: The light blue links on bright white background are a little bit difficult to read, at least on my screen. Now that I've complained enough ;P, there are of course also positive aspects: Colour: I do like the colour scheme; it looks good and is consistent. The logo fits in well. Design: The overall appearance, with the rounded corners and the grey or white areas, goes down well for me. I think it looks nice, but still very professional. I hope this comes across as constructive criticism; despite my dislike for Flash based sites :rolleyes:, I did not intend to be negative.
Chaque homme de culture a deux patries: la sienne - et la France. (Thomas Jefferson)

Chris Losinger wrote:

what we should see

Hiroshima. The peace museum usually leaves quite an impression, and if you go through the surrounding memorial park after visiting the museum, its beauty and the cheerful groups of japanese students might seem somewhat surreal. In addition to that, I found Hiroshima to be different from most other japanese cities in being more orderly and much less cluttered (at least that was my impression). Links: Wikipedia[^], Wikitravel[^] Should you visit Hiroshima, also go to Miyajima – it is a classic tourist destination, but if you take the "Mountain Path" to the top of Mt. Misen instead of the cable car or the direct road, you get a nice hike through a beautiful landscape. The area between the cable car's valley station and the town of Miyajima, around a small river, is also strikingly beautiful. Links: Wikipedia[^], Wikitravel[^], Wikipedia[^] If you go to Kyoto, you will surely visit sites like Nijo castle, the Golden Pavillon and Mt. Hiei; if you go a little bit to the east, to the shore of Lake Biwa and the city of Otsu (which, by itself, is principally like any other medium-sized japanese city), you should consider visiting Ishiyama temple; it is a rather large temple area with beautiful gardens. Link: photoguide.jp[^]
Chaque homme de culture a deux patries: la sienne - et la France. (Thomas Jefferson)

K(arl) wrote: Why didn't Dresden vote? The candidate for Dresden of the NPD died less than two weeks ago, so they had to 1) let the NPD nominate a new candidate and then 2) reprint the ballots and restart the postal vote, so the whole voting in that part of Dresden had to be delayed.
Chaque homme de culture a deux patries: la sienne - et la France. (Thomas Jefferson)

Jörgen Sigvardsson wrote: Saarbrücken Correct. Although I wish to add :rolleyes: that although Saarbrücken is a nice city (at least in summer), I have been living here for a little less than a year now and, at heart, am more Ostfriese than Saarländer :)
Chaque homme de culture a deux patries: la sienne - et la France. (Thomas Jefferson)

Note - 160 is the number of the electoral district in Dresden that did not vote today. I first thought there are now only 160 votes difference...

Oh, if you like maps showing red and blue areas based on election results, you might like this one[^] :)
Chaque homme de culture a deux patries: la sienne - et la France. (Thomas Jefferson)

Let's keep in mind that 220000 people in Dresden have to wait two more weeks until they can vote - this might become very interesting.
Chaque homme de culture a deux patries: la sienne - et la France. (Thomas Jefferson)

I don't think this differs from my projections Not much, though I think your description of the SED PDS left party is exaggerated. They pose no immediate threat, they are just a bunch of populists and disappointed socialists who have no purpose but opposition. They merely make things more difficult for "serious poiliticians" (though you might doubt there are (m)any at all). The grand coalition will lead a politics of status quo Most probably. which will lead to gradual economic collapse and more extremism. At least disappointment. Whether disappointment leads to extremism is determined mainly by the alternatives - when there are none, yes, it will lead to extremism. Let's hope there will be some politicians who show better alternatives. The red red green coalition would legalize extremism. The left party forming part of the government would at least be a compelling reason for emigration. There are no good options on German desk, except for Neuwahl. Have reelections until the voters vote the right way? I don't see this as very democratic. <utopia mode> IMHO, the perfect solution would be a government made up of independant experts, maybe selected by all the parties in the parliament. They would at least know what they are doing, they would not be influenced too much by partisan politics, and they would look for varying majorities for their projects in parliament. </utopia mode> The situation is relatively stable, but will be much more difficult and dangerous in four years, if no reforms are undertaken. Agreed, at least it will be more difficult. Dangerous, see above. I wouldn't take European peace for granted under such circumstances. I think (hope?) the european idea is already so deep in the hearts and minds of people that European Peace is not at risk in the foreseeable future. And the left party is definitely not in a position to be a threat to european peace. Linke built campaign on Neidkultur and Angstpolitik (SPD did too). And Neidkultur is the primary problem of this country, it impedes almost every reform. The extremists received over 8% of votes In my electoral district, they received 20,9%. I hope the only reason is that Oskar Lafontaine as a person is traditionally very popular here... :~ It is a mistake to underestimate this threat to democracy. Things change. If five years ago one would describe the scope of anti-Americanism in Germany today one w

A more objective view[^] And regarding your gloomy view of the "Linke" - while I still wonder what kind of person votes for the SED[^] (the "Linke" is its direct successor), they are, in fact, mostly harmless. And, fortunately, none of the other parties want to have something to do with them (at least that's what they have been telling us all the time :~ ).
Chaque homme de culture a deux patries: la sienne - et la France. (Thomas Jefferson)

Miranda IM for instant messaging: The basic application works great, and with a bunch of plugins, it fits all my needs almost perfectly. TortoiseSVN for source control, as it doesn't require me to set up a server. Firefox for browsing. It crashes about once or twice every two weeks, but there is simply no alternative in terms of security and tabbed browsing (now if only Microsoft would integrate Visual Studio's "tabbing" into IE...). Thunderbird for E-Mail. I have some issues with it (sometimes I can't delete messages, and message filters don't work well with the "new mail" notifications), but it still does the job. I used the GraphViz visualization tools once, and they are quite nice for drawing large tree-like structures automatically. I would use them again when there is a need. I'm currently getting used to writing documents with LaTeX; at least, it's easier than I expected :) I am currently forced to use Dia for UML in one project, and it is the worst application I have seen for years. Crashes at least twice every hour, and the UI is an ugly mess of not-implemented-here.
Chaque homme de culture a deux patries: la sienne - et la France. (Thomas Jefferson)