soongmak

I see you like your western classics. I don't see any Anthony Mann westerns in your list. He is my favourite western director. Every movie he did with James Stewart (Winchester '73, Bend of the River, The Naked Spur, The Man from Laramie, The Far Country) is great, as are The Tin Star with Henry Fonda and Man Of The West with Gary Cooper.

I am jealous. That's two great movies I have already seen that you are still unacquainted with.

I'll give it a try. Downloading as we speak...

i liked it, but it is definitely not for everyone. It's a slow moving film, but I thought it was beautifully photographed, and it managed to keep my interest up. Other movies I recently watched and I thought were very good: The Ghost Writer: a 70s style thriller, slow moving but very interesting, well written and acted. For people who like 70s thrillers like Three Days Of The Condor and the Parallax View. Gone Baby Gone: Boston based thriller directed by Ben Affleck, based on a novel by Dennis Lehane of Mystic River fame. I thought this movie was even better. The Town, also directed by Ben Affleck, also set in Boston. Not as good as Gone Baby Gone, but still very enjoyable. This guy can really direct!

I just saw Harakiri (1962). Black and white, Japanese (anti-)samurai and very talky, but it completely blew me away. Brilliant film. For those of you that occasionally have patience for an old film, this one is worth your time.

Just saw Inception. It's never a good sign if at the start of the movie they need to talk you through the basic principles of what is actually gonna happen next, otherwise it wouldn't make any sense to you. That kind of defeats the purpose of making movies. Give this one a miss.

Just saw the losers. It's a B-film actioner. Story is ridiculous with a kind of Bondlike adversary who wants to control the world. Acting was under par, and that made that several great one-liners got lost in the delivery. Favourite one liner in the movie: "It's like handing a gun to a 6-year old. You never know how it's gonna end, but you're pretty sure it's gonna make the papers!"

I really liked I Love You Phillip Morris. The protagonist was such a compulsive liar and such an enormous cheat! Some of the stunts he pulled were really outrageous. Definitely fun to watch. Ewan McGregor knows how to portray a gay man without overdoing it. I didn't like the movie Chloe though. Too predictable. After only 10 mins. I could sense how it would end. It was like Fatal Attraction, but worse. A lot worse.

Couple of movies I saw recently: Shutter Island: Interesting movie and thought provoking. Not what you'd expect from Scorsese or Hollywood. Recommended. From Paris with Love: Wildly over the top actioner. A guilty pleasure. Was fun, but check your brain at the door. Still, recommended. Zombie Nation: Wildly over the top horror/actioner. A guilty pleasure. Was good clean gory fun. Liked it even better than From Paris With Love. Recommended. Up In The Air: Better than average Hollywood movie with George Clooney as a consultant who's job it is to fire people. Busy man clocks a lot of airmiles and avoid relationships in his personal life. Could have been better, but I thought it was a pretty good effort to make a decent movie that doesn't revolve around saving the world in 90 minutes. Recommended. Edge of Darkness: Better than average paranoia thriller with Mel Gibson. Recommended.

Junglesoup, That is some tough news to handle. I admire your courage to come out and say it. It is much easier to walk away from this message board, than share it with us like you did. I feel the worst part is over for you. you confronted your fear and got that test. Yes, it came back positive, but at least you can get on with your life. Only good can come from it. Don't beat yourself up about things you may have done wrong. We are all humans and we all make mistakes sometimes, but bad things happen for no reason. It is up to you to make the most of it. It could be a blessing in disguise. Life's what you make it. I wish you all the best!

I don't use this kind of software, but you can find a bunch of them on Webattack.com: both freeware and shareware . Picaloader seems to meet most of your rquirements. Cheers, soongmak

Hi wowzer, Thanks again for the tip on Karen's replicator. I just bought an external hard drive and it made backing up my docs a breeze!

For anybody who owns a digital camera and who occasionally likes to print them, JpegCrops is an excellent freeware utility. Most digital camera's produce pictures with a 4:3 aspect ratio while most studios print on paper with a 2:3 aspect ratio. If you order a 6' X 4' inch print this means that either you do not get your money's worth because they deliver you an 5.3' X 4' inch print, or they butcher your picture by cutting of part of the picture (usually exactly that part that makes your picture so interesting!)If you use JpegCrops however, you decide yourself which part of the picture is redundant. You can crop your pictures to a preset aspect ratio and rotate your pictures without loss of quality. This little gem makes preparing your photos for printing a breeze! http://ekot.dk/programmer/JPEGCrops/index.en.html

Hi Bibblies, It's not paranoia, it's simply answering somebody's question about spyware and whether you can detect spyware on your comp - and the answer is that most of us can't. I agree with you that there are more things to worry about, but a manager of an internetshop with some good spyware and too much time on his hands can easily monitor all screens in his internetshop - real time. If that is the sort of thing that worries you, you shouldn't conduct any confidential business from an internet cafe - period. About Avant Browser - it looks good, I use the similar MyIE2. I can say it really enhances your internet experience. Cheers, soongmak

How can you check to see if the machine you are using has this spyware installed? Wouldn't it show up as a running process with task manager? You will never be sure whether the computer you're working on has a keylogger installed. The better ones make sure not to show up as a running process in your taskmanager. So accessing important information on a public machine is definitely a no-no! Cheers, soongmak