For Beginners. They don't have to worry about which libraries to include, where to put the semi-colon or how many times to press TAB. They can just enter Print "Hello" and it will. BASIC is a great way to get people into programming. If they want to take it further they can move on to other languages. If they just want to write an app which beeps their phone at 7am every weekday, I'm sure BASIC would do the job.

I have nineteen titles on amazon: four novels in my science fiction comedy series, one novel in a junior science fiction series, and a bunch of short stories and collections. They're all on Kindle/Smashwords/Apple/etc except the junior SF novel, which is Kindle only. So, I just switched that one over to Amazon Kindle Select just to see what happens.

It's still available in print, and the only reason the junior novel didn't make it to Smashwords is because they insist on DOC files.

I have Firefox set up to purge all cookies on exit, except for a long list of whitelisted sites. I'd like Firefox stop trashing my permissions.sqlite file from time to time, deleting all these settings. (Seemed to happen on the 6 -> 7 upgrade, and again on 7 -> 8.)

Just wanted to add: I only use the bounce (which is a manual process) in two scenarios. The first is when someone starts sending me funny pic o' the week or forwarding 10-year-old hoaxes, in which case I bounce a message, wait for them to email me, then inform them my email client often refuses such messages and it's best not to send them. (The alternative is to email and ask, but sometimes they get sniffy about this. It's better to blame my computer and/or software.)

The second scenario is when big companies somehow add me to a marketing list, and their unsubscribe link doesn't work or is missing altogether. If the message is addressed to me directly (not BCCd), I'll forge a bounce. This often works to remove me from their list of victims ... er, valued marketing partners.

yMail2 (Windows, free to download & use) offers a bounce facility, and the entire program is written in Visual Basic 2008.

I have a road bike, a flat bar and a hybrid. The hybrid is the most comfortable for long distances, but I added a pair of tri-bars which allows me to lean forward and put the weight on my elbows. I'm used to spending hours in that position, which is probably why it's the most comfortable way to ride.

I still play dungeon master regularly using an ST emulator. The spell creation is great, as is using portcullis doors to pound monsters into the dust.

All my freeware apps include translations sent to me by users of the software, and I've been doing this since 2000. I just included a template people could modify, and a header asking them to send me a copy of the file. As someone else suggested, people like to translate software for friends and family who don't speak English (or any of the other existing languages.)

What they should do is apply a 1c tax on every trade placed with every major share market. Collect the lot, split it up and wire the funds to a basket of deserving charities. Even better if they could do it without an admin overhead - set the splits once a year and use automated transfers.

Maybe I'm too old to be a gamer, but I've always chosen to do the good things instead of the bad. On the other hand, my kids would always sacrifice followers in Black and White to gain mana.

Why can't they just leave nice simple books alone? If they want to invent new paradigms to value-add to the ocular experience they should go waste their time adding 3D to movies or some such shit.

Exactly. Faxes are cheap, ubiquitous and if you really don't want the physical device you can plug an old 33.6 modem into the serial port of any Linux server, configure and run Hylafax, and install free client software on your Windows PCs for sending. As a plus you don't get woken at 3am by the BRRRRRRRR of a thermal printer spitting out some spammy graphic-laden ad. And it's easy to configure TSIs to block said spammers.

A friend of a friend suggested keeping an unsecured wireless access point powered up, but not connected to your network.

My 13 yo daughter has been running her own minecraft server for quite a while now. She's registered a domain name and runs her own forum & website for the group she plays with. She's also coding the web pages by hand, using a text editor. (Computer programming is her fave topic at school.) Keep 'em off the streets, that's what I say.

It's legos without running out of bricks.