Nationalism does not Imply Blind Obedience to your Government

I blogged about one week ago about a poll and discussion that was going on at deviantART.com about trust in governments, which then spun off into a discussion about the current US administration, 9/11, the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act and also some positive developments that are actually getting people from around the world and from different cultures together, things that help to strengthen peace efforts and support global understanding and tolerance.

The discussion continued after I made the arguments that you can read in my previous post. First was there a misunderstanding that needed remedy. The fellow deviant thought that there is a misunderstanding about our positions and the actual meaning of "Anti War" or "not Anti War" etc.

He stated…

P: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean anti-war to come off that I was Pro-war. I was merely talking about the people who believe that we should never go to war no matter the cause. I see that by the posting above that you are not anti-war as I originally thought. I am not Pro-war, but I believe there are times when war is necessary."

That required of course a response on my part.

Me: No need to be sorry, communication worked, misunderstandings clarified, everything peachy hehe.

p.s. I am Pro-Peace, not Anti-War. That's a big difference."

"Anti – Anything" is bad in any case, because it implies opposition, resistance, blocking, refusing, denying, hating, violence, destruction and other negative things that are usually unwanted side effects that come from the "Anti" part of it. Being "Anti" something is usually not helping the issue and more often a reason why things escalate rather than de-escalate and resolve.

The right approach to do something about something you do not like is not to be Anti it, but "Pro" it’s opposite. By supporting and promoting the opposite of the things you do not like, you automatically cause the effect that the thing you do not like spreads further and further in the society, because it cannot spread where you’re a conflicting view and opinion is predominant, unless it is better and viewed by others as the right choice versus yours. That means that you seem to have the wrong opinion that requires rethinking and probably adjustment.

Well, we went off talking about the videos that I pointed out to him. He explained his not questioning what the government is doing with his sense of nationalism.

P: "I see what you are saying and you raise a good point, but I am probably going to be one of those people who no matter what evidence are placed in front of him he will still believe in his country. I am a nationalist and that comes from the heart sometimes and not the head, and it is a lot harder to change someone's heart than to change their mind. Let me say though that I respect your argument. Which actually all of this reminds me of a friend of mine who served in Afghanistan and is very nationalist, even more so than me (if you can believe that), but he tends to let his nationalism get in the way of his arguments sometimes and tends to say immature things against someone who is arguing with him. This does not convince people of anything. I have tried explaining this to him in the past, but he is the type of person who hates someone for what they believe. I on the other hand do not dislike someone for what they believe. I only dislike them if they act upon something which I believe is against my beliefs and morals, and even then I usually don't hate them for it. I just don't understand why they choose to do so."

Nationalism is no excuse for blind obedience though. Love of your country and trusting the people that you elected into power to run the country are not the same thing and never should be the same. Here is how I explained the why…

Me: "Then you should be even more critical and alert than any of those flaky folks who live of sensational journalism and controversy. The evidence shows that what happens is the dismantling of this country (heard about NAFTA?). The United States that you know and love will not be any more in less than a decade if everything will work as planned. There will even not be a United States anymore.

Your constitutional rights and freedom are today already worthless in the case if you are suspected to be involved in terrorist activities (alleged, true or false, does not make a difference there). They can put you in jail, ship off to Cuba and torture you for months without you ever hearing neither a charge against you nor having the right to see an attorney.

All it takes is a suspicion by somebody that you do something fishy and that the officials believe the person who is suspecting it instead of you. If you love your country then you cannot turn away your eyes from what is happening. Nationalist in its true meaning means "for your people" and not "for your leaders".

There is a word for the latter though and that is called Fascism. Being a born German, you can believe me that I know a thing or two about that and its catastrophic consequences for your own people and other people as well. Fascists don't care about people, not even their own, they only care for themselves.

Think about that! Look inside you! I am not bs'ing you!”

The excuse "I was only following orders" was used extensively by Nazis after the end of World War 2 to justify their actions that were against international law and are generally considered unethical to say the least. Although in Germany is Nationalism considered to be the same as Fascism, is this not the correct meaning of Nationalism and most other countries also don't see it the same way as the Germans.

Nationalism as used here does more mean something like Patriotism or love for your country. Those are generally good things, but they do not imply blind obedience and also don't provide an excuse for allowing the government to do something that is unethical or worse, unlawful as it is already defined by international law.

I hope he will listen to what I said and rethink what is happening today and more importantly starts questioning the actions that the government is allegedly taking on his behalf and his interests.

Some updates regarding the positive things that are also happening in the world.
The homepage for the "Global Citizen Declaration" project moved from Idclr.org to Neo.org. I created a new version of the banner, which reflects the new domain name.


I also created a Facebook.com page for this project where I added a number of videos and other informational material. If you have a Facebook user, check it out and "become a fan", if you like what you see and hear.

I also came across a cool movie that I would consider "must see" for anybody. It deals with the subject of Mindset and what humans can do, instead of what humans are allegedly cannot do. It is very practical and not really political, although the principles discussed there are important for this political debate as well. Both require a mind shift by the people involved.

The movie is called "The Secret" and here is the trailer for it.
You can get it in full on DVD from Amazon.com ($20).



Backup link to video on YouTube.com.

More stuff to think about. It boils down the same basic things at the end of the day though. All it takes is a mind shift and stop listening to the lies you get told by others and also by yourself. You will feel great relieve and positive energy flowing through you when this mind shift is happening. Things will become clear and easier than they were before. Pessimism will give room for optimism, Hate for Love, Egoism for Egoism that makes sense and includes tolerance and understanding.

Nobody can take this step for you. You are the only one who can make the shift happen. Are you ready for it?

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

About (mis)Trust in Governments, the War in Iraq, New Global Communities and the Human Mindset

A social networking friend of mine from Germany with the name Tobias Roetsch aka Taenaron from deviantART.com started an interesting poll a few days ago.
He asked fellow deviants the question:

"Do you believe in your government and do you support their decisions?"

Within a few days 281 different people voted. Based on the numerous comments in the discussion threads to the poll is it obvious that the deviants who participated in the poll come from all over the planet, the USA, Canada, UK, Australia are only a few of those countries. People from virtually every continent participated. The results were alarming, but not surprising.

Only 10% of the people who responded believe in their own government and support what it is doing. Over 50% don't trust their government at all with more than half of that not trusting any government for that matter.

• 38% (106) deviants said just partly...
  
• 27% (76) deviants said everything is a big lie. They just want to get more power.
  
• 26% (72) deviants said No! (Tell me why)
  
• 10% (27) deviants said yes! (Tell me why)

Well, it wasn't for long that the discussion was shifting from the generic subject of trust to specific issues, such as the ominously war on terror and the much more real war that is waging in Iraq for more than six years now.

Here is are some snippets of the discussions followed by my own rather long responses, which also lead me to write this blog post. Here is the argument between the German "T" and the American pro-war "P".

T: al qaeda was paid by the us government...it's a US-war, not a world war. so they should stop asking other countries for help

P: Lol, where do u get ur facts from? The Onion?

T: some videos, some texts, internet....911 was a project of the us-government

P: the fact that 9/11 was planned does not necessarily mean that it was the U.S. who planned it.
…
Ok, whatever you say. I'll give you merit if you can actually show me proof of this. I never bought into the whole government conspiracy stuff.

T: they just needed a reason for the new wars. since 2001 you're in war. I would think about that. where are the mass-destruction weapons of the iraq?

P: The reason for going into Iraq was never just for finding weapons of mass destruction. It was to stop terrorism and promote democracy. The weapons was just something that they thought might have been there. It wasn't the actual reason for going to war. I will give you one thing that I'm a little disappointed in the government for. They are spending 4x as much money on Iraq as they are on Afghanistan and Afghanistan was the reason we were in the middle east in the first place. I don't know why they think that Iraq is 4x more important than Afghanistan.

I heard the last arguments too often already and felt inclined to respond to it. Here is what I wrote.

Pearl Harbor to enter WW2 and the Sinking of the British luxury liner Lusitania by German U-Boats (with 123 American who got killed also) to enter WW1 or the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir of Austria-Hungary by Serbs , which was the reason for Austria-Hungary to declare War on Serbia and thus started WW1 and the staged (proven in this case) attack of the German radio station "Gleiwitz" on 8/31/1939, which was the reason for the Germans to declare war on Poland and thus trigger WW2. Or the Tonkin Gulf incident of 1964, which triggered the official involvement of the US in the Vietnam War (the incident was a lie by the way, that one happened to be proven too).

All very "fine" reasons, all worth the tens of thousands or even millions of people dead and land, houses, industry, infrastructure etc. devastated.

Right!

So this "reason" is just another bad example of "good reasons" to go to war. It would only be nice, if the administration would admit it and not pretend that they don't know what people are talking about.

P: You come off as a little anti-war to me, so trying to argue being in a war would probably be a waste of my time.

Then I replied:

Well, I think that being "anti-war" is something the vast majority of human beings have in common. People who are "pro-war" are in the minority and usually not fellows you want to hang out with. I only stated facts. Those incidents were actually the official "cause" for the various parties to enter or start a war. Looking back at those "causes" make them look almost ridicules and for almost certain unreasonable.

I am only one who thinks before and not afterwards already that the official "cause" is ridicules and unreasonable. I also believe that there are always non-public (in official) agendas that the involved parties follow, which include the real reasons for the war. I also believe that the reason for not making the hidden agendas a public one and the real reasons the official ones has to do with the fact that those hidden reasons are even more unreasonable and unethical (to say the least), maybe not in the eyes of the people who created the agenda, but most certainly in the eyes of the average people.

There are moments where it is right and just to fight and a good reason that does not make the loss of a brother, father or son less painful, but at least gives it some purpose and results that benefit many people in the years to come. This war in Iraq right now is not one of those moments though. I am all ears to hear reasons that will provide the purpose that is missing. So far I only did hear reasons that won't hold up to their promise to fulfill this task.

I also felt that I should respond to the request made by "P" when he stated the following:

P: "Ok, whatever you say. I'll give you merit if you can actually show me proof of this. I never bought into the whole government conspiracy stuff."

I wrote in January a blog post about some documentaries that ranked no.1 on Google Video on that day, which addressed those questions and related ones.

I then made following statements and recommendations:

I noticed that some of the links did not work anymore and replaced them with working ones. Check out "Zeitgeist". It has proof that even average folks who are smart enough to make it to/through high school can understand.

I rejected it also at first, but over the past months was a noticeable shadow of doubt cast over my old believes that it cannot be which may not be. I got suspicious for a number of reasons. It started with stuff that did not add up right from the start, such as the two airplanes that allegedly vaporized entirely, yet human remains were found that were supposedly from some of the hijackers. I saw pictures of many plane crashes, worse than the ones from 911 and never saw that an airplane virtually vanished as a result of the crash. Physicists actually back up this gut feeling and say, that no modern airplane on the planet of the types that supposedly hit the pentagon or crashed in Pennsylvania could possible disintegrate to the extent as they supposedly did on 9/11.

Several parts of the Boeing (and Airbus) airplanes are made of special heat resistant aluminum/titanium alloys that are used in the space programs as well. No kerosene, TNT or any other flammable or explosive in or outside the airplane produces enough heat to have this effect. Look at airplane crashes from the past, including full explosions of airplanes and high altitude/high velocity crashes and you will notice that certain parts always seem to remain somewhat intact. That's the stuff that is made of aluminum/titanium alloys.

The area around the Pentagon is full of cameras that record everything that happens around it 24/7. Why all camera tapes around the pentagon were systematically confiscated and not a single snippet of film that shows at least an airliner approaching the Pentagon building (to show undoubtedly that it would hit the building in the area that we saw later on television?) was ever released to the public.

There is no moral, security or other reason why none of those recordings should see the light of the day, if they confirm the official story. If there would be another reason for holding it back, the question would remain, why they don’t say so.

The events that followed in the years after 9/11 in the name of it went far beyond anything that is realistic, practical and reasonable in relationship to effectiveness in the War against Terrorism that make even conservatives speak up loud and strong against those actions.

People who were pro war and who lost 1st degree relatives in the attacks started to turn away from the people who supposedly were responsible for the death of their loved ones and strongly disapprove of the current administration’s policies and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those people do not change their attitude because of some fluffy air and made up stories of sensation hungry conspiracy theorists who suspect "illuminati's" or the "devil" behind every act of violence that happens on this world.

Look again and tell me honestly if you don't have at least a serious shadow of doubt that the official story might not be the story that reflects the actual events on that day. You do not have to believe that some of the claims made in those publications for example are actually true, but some the things mentioned are beyond claims and hard facts that you can verify yourself with outside and non-related sources that have nothing to do with the events of November 2001.

But, there is Hope!

All not so nice stuff, right, but there are remarkable things happening on the Internet as well that somewhat counter those bad stuff that just seems to want to make you puke.

I will keep my writing to a minimum and let pictures, music and other people speak for me.

Global Mindshift
at Global-Mindshift.org


Pangea Day
at PangeaDay.org

Videos from people for people worldwide see for example this video called "Stop the Clash of Civilizations" (at YouTube), which was directed by Avaaz & Agit-Pop, new global web movements that are made up of people from all over the world who connect, share and collaborate to make this world a better place.

Global Citizenship Declaration
now at NEO.org (moved from idclr.org)

I created a full size animated banner for it.

The domain moved from idclr.org to neo.org so I think I have to update my banner now hehe. To declare your Global Citizenship, visit NEO.org to learn more or Send;

• Your Full Name
  
• Your birth city or town
  
• Your photo or a link to a picture of you
  
• A Personal Declaration for Action you wish others to join you in for the common good

and optionally;

• A link to your online profile or website (Xing, Facebook, Orkut, LinkedIn, Flickr etc.) and/or any position/title you have.

To: n(at)neo.org also CC a friend so they support you and also become a founding parent of Earth.

TEDTalk
Videos at TED.com in general.

I would like to highlight the following presentations:

• Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight
  
• Ben Dunlap: The story of a passionate life
  
• Hans Rosling: New insights on poverty and life around the world
  
• Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen
  
• Howard Rheingold: Way-new collaboration

Get involved, raise your voice, because you have a voice. You are stronger than you might think and unstoppable if unified with like minded around the world aiming for the same goals. It's only a slight mind-shift that is needed to get you to fully grasp and understand this. This little shift will remove so many of your "IFs" and "BUTs' that you won't believe it.

Join US today!

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

ANSI Art Tutorials for my ASCII Art Academy

Good news!

I extended the ASCII Art Academy with several new tutorials.

Only one of the new tutorials is for 7-bit ASCII, but hey, there I had already seven to begin with. The additional tutorial was created by "Cain" and it demonstrates how to draw a cool 7-bit newskool ASCII Logo.

The most important additions are the SIX ANSI art tutorials, because I didn't had any ANSI tutorials before and was constantly looking for some.

I found the tutorials in an unexpected place. They were originally published at the Acheron ANSI, ASCII and RIP art forums and portal at Acheron.org. Archeron was discontinued in 2004 and is now part of the Sixteencolors.net site, specificallly the Sixteencolors.net Wiki.

I found a backup of the whole site on the "Dark Domain DVD" by RaD Man/ACiD, which is actually an archive for ANSI/ASCII art packs and not a web archive per se. Well, thanks to Chris (RaD Man) and his collectors instinct, was I able to republish the ANSI art tutorials on the Internet again.

The Dark Domain DVD is available in my little "online shop" by the way and a must buy for all ANSI and ASCII art fans out there. Buy the DVD and stop collecting anything that was released before 2005, because the DVD has all of them in one small and handy package for an affordable price.

Now I need to find tutorials for 8-Bit block ASCII. I don't have anything for that style available at my academy yet.

I will continue looking for any tutorials, but play also with the idea of creating a tutorial myself, which covers some basics. I will have to see, if I find the time to do this or not. If you know about any 8-Bit ASCII tutorials, please let me know, I'd appreciate that.

Until then, check out the vast content that is already there, 7-Bit ASCII tutorials, now also ANSI tutorials, articles, background information, history and much more.
Visit the ASCII Art Academy now!

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Special Cirque du Soleil Zumanity Videos and more

I mentioned in a post of mine from January, where I posted special Cirque du Soleil videos for the shows "O", "Mystere" and "Kooza" that I am going to create some special videos for "KA" and "Zumanity" as well.

I have not been able to get around yet to work on the video for "KA", but finished the two (yep, not one) videos for Zumanity based on the DVD documentary "Love Sick". I decided to make two videos out of it, because I though that it would not make sense to mix the two togther. It would have been hard and probably not create a video that would have been better than the individual two.

The first preview required the most editing work on my part and uses for some sections music from the official Zumanity soundtrack in order to be able to connect several video snippets together and still make them seem like a whole. It's still almost 8 1/2 minutes long and is the video that contains the most live action from the show itself.



Direct Link to Video on YouTube

The second video is almost 8 minutes long and consists of a long trailer by the Cirque itself and a nice slideshow, that was part of the bounus features of the "Love Sick" DVD.



Direct Link to Video on YouTube

I have seen the show twice already. The second time was slightly different than the first time, because many of the performers were replaced. I guess the main crew had vacation or something like that hehe. Although any Cirque du Soleil show has repeat view qualities, were those changes to my first experience very exciting for me, because I was not able to predict what will happen next in the show.

To watch the show yourself, life at the New York, New York hotel and casino, get tickets online here. The documentary DVD "Love Sick" is very good as well and interesting not only because of its snapshots of the actual show. You can get the DVD from Amazon here.

For more stuff Cirque du Soleil, make sure to check out my Cirque du Soleil primer and my old post that describes in greater detail most of the available DVDs that are available for purchase at large retailers.

The Cirque Goes Rock'n Roll
Another quick note on the side. I just stumbled a few days ago over a performance of the Cirque that I have not even heard of before. It was not publicized very much. It was also not posted at the Cirque's website (including the Cirque Club Member section or Press Section (where I do have access to as well) for that matter). They had a short performance together with the rock band Apocaliptica last November in Buenos Aires, Argentina for Eurovision. It's odd that they never mentioned it, but then, the performance might not be perfect for everybody. If you don't like Metal and Hard Rock at all, you will NOT like this video.

Here is the full video of that 8 1/2 minutes performance.



Direct Link to Video on YouTube

I hope you enjoy it.

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Registry Cleaner and General System Maintenance Issues with Windows XP

I hear over and over again that geeks and experts strongly recommend NOT using any registry cleaner software to clean up and fix your Windows XP registry database.

Chris Pirillo from Live.Pirillo.com posted a video and blog entry about it a few days ago where he explains why he thinks that most cleaner software potentially causes more harm than good to the system if used by an inexperienced user.

What is the Issue?
I see the point that determining if an entry is really not needed and obsolete or vital to a programs or even operating system operation is in many cases nothing more than an educated guess.

However, I also know that programs are also often doing a bad job with cleaning or removing registry entries they created, extended or removed, if you decide to uninstall the software via the control panel or uninstall link (if one was created by the software application when you installed it originally).

If you would install 50 programs and afterwards uninstall them again without even launching any of it once, your windows registry files would still become multiple times larger than they were before the installs.

A large registry database means slower access by programs and Windows itself to the entries they need or create during normal operations. With growing size also increases the risk of corruption or fragmentation that could make entire sections of the registry unreadable.

Re-Install Windows Again and Again? What?
So what are you going to do? One suggestion that I hear all the time is to "simply" reinstall everything once every 3, 6 or 12 months or so. Great idea!

I use my computer daily and even if I have a detailed plan or script to install and update all the software that I use and need, does a reinstall take me several days without the ability to do anything productive with it during that time. Some software requires several hours to install itself (MS Visual Studio is probably the software that holds the world record for the time it takes to install it), then you still have to reboot the computer several times before you can continue to install software. Then you have to get updates and service packs again and install those, to make sure that you have all the latest patches and security updates applied to your system and closed known security holes.

I tweak or customize the settings of many programs to streamline the processes where I use the software for. In most cases is it not possible to backup the settings and restore them on another system. In some cases exists a feature, but it is hidden somewhere in the application and has to be done manually. Let's face it, chances are that you either don’t do it or wanted to do it, but forgot it or cannot remember who to do it properly. The result is the same in any case, the reinstalled software has to be configured by hand again to make it work the same way it used to before you started the re-install of your system.

Nope...That does Not Work Either
Making a backup of the program folder and doing a restore on your fresh installed Windows XP will not work in 90% of the cases, because most software copies some of the files needed to run it properly to directories outside its own program directory. The most common place where software copies files to is the Windows System32 directory. Add to that the fact that most programs write critical configuration settings to the Windows Registry database and are have problems if those entries are missing or are unable to start entirely.

No matter what you do, you end up being screwed.

Even if you don't uninstall any of the software, Windows is able to manage to pollute itself more and more just during normal operation. Also most software developers are not doing a good job and contribute significantly to the pollution of your system. Non-essential stuff is being written to the registry, just in case, files copied to the system directories, also just in case, existing versions of the file with the same file name are simply overwritten, regardless if it is the same version or not, or worse, an entirely different file from another software application that happens to use the same file name for a file it copies to the Windows system folders. Why are they doing it? … Because they can.

Faceing the Truth!
System failure or a system that is messed up beyond hope of ever being able to clean up again is inevitable. It is not a question of IF but WHEN the only option you have left to solve your problems with your PC, is biting the bullet and waste your time again on a complete re-installation of everything. I always dread this day and often delay it as much as I can, even if that means that I have to tolerate flaws and problems with the computer that compromise my daily work, slow me down or in the worst case cause the loss of data or something you worked on for an hour or more without saving it to have a system crash take everything you did with it to its blue screen grave.

Tools that I use, anyway
I use tools like the freeware utility CClean and also commercial tools from Uniblue, such as their Registry Booster and SpeedUpMyPC, once in a while to clean up some of the mess that is created by normal system usage to regain some performance back. I never had the case yet that using a registry cleaner was killing my system, but I am aware of the risk. Each of the tools I use show you first what they want to do and let you decide on a per item level, if you want it or not. They also provide a backup option that is enabled by default in the case that a vital entry was removed from the registry by accident.

Solutions to the Dilemma, Anybody?
I have not found a solution that is practical and working to solve this dilemma. I am still searching for options and solutions that either help me to keep the system clean or as an alternative help me to reduce the time it takes to re-install and reconfigure my entire system to make a frequent re-install of Windows a viable option for me.

1. Changing How Software is Installed
Forcing software to install all files only to its own program directory and not to use the windows registry to store vital settings, but save them also somewhere in its own program directory (e.g. in an .INI file or something like that), sounds good and like a plan, but how can you do this in reality. Software that offers you a choice is the exception. Not using software that does not offer this feature is also out of the question. I wish I could make this choice. So how can we do it? I am unaware of any tool that will do the trick for you. Is there anything? Is it even possible to create something like that?

2. Speed up the Windows XP Re-Installation
The alternative is to speed up the process of re-installing your entire system. Windows XP comes with a tool that you can find under Start / All Programs / Accessories / System Tools. It is called "Files and Settings Transfer Wizard" and lets you backup several of your Windows desktop and other settings. This tool was designed specifically for the case of a reinstall of Windows to make it easy for users to re-apply their customization settings to a fresh installed Windows XP system. Unfortunately, this does only work for some of the configuration settings that I do worry about. It does not support third party software, not even for other products from Microsoft itself, such as Microsoft Office.

It would have been great, if Microsoft would have made it an open solution, or better, a mandatory solution, that software developers could use to allow the export (and import) of their software’s configuration settings.

So what settings does the tool support?

• Accessibility
  
• Command Prompt Settings
  
• Display Properties
  
• Internet Explorer Security Settings
  
• Internet Explorer Settings
  
• Mouse and Keyboard
  
• Network Printer and Drives
  
• Outlook Express
  
• Regional Settings
  
• Sounds and Multimedia
  
• Taskbar Options
  
• WinAmp Media Player (how got that in there?)
  
• Windows Media Player

Also some folders are backed up

• Quick Launch folder (for the current user)
  
• Desktop
  
• Fonts
  
• My Documents
  
• My Pictures
  
• Shared Desktop
  
• Shared Documents

Also the settings for the registered file extensions can be saved. This are basically the file associations for "open", "view" and "edit" that you can use to tell Windows, which application to use for known file types, depending on the desired action taken for a selected file (in Windows Explorer etc.)

The advanced mode allows experienced users to add files, directories and file types (extensions) to the list, if they were not selected by Microsoft automatically already. Folders like your Internet Explorer favorites (C:\Documents and Settings\ (Username)\Favorites) or the "Sent to" folder (C:\Documents and Settings\ (Username)\SendTo) are probably folders that you want to transfer over to your new installed system, just to mention a few.

The appearance of WinAmp in the list made me think. Maybe there is the option for programs to tap into this backup wizard, but nobody knows about it, thus don’t use it. The wizard even told me in the process that I have to make sure that WinAmp has to be installed on the new computer first, before I restore the settings for it to avoid problems.

You cannot add custom settings via the wizard, not even in advanced mode. You also cannot add specific blocks from the system registry to be included in the backup (and restore).

Ideas? Anybody?
Does anybody know about a tool that scans the computer for any installed software, its registry entries and file locations (including the files that were installed outside the program directory) and then adds all the needed settings, files, folders and file extensions to the settings of the backup wizard?

What else can I do to speed up the re-install of the system? Being able to create a setup CD or DVD for Windows XP itself and for the larger applications like MS Office etc. which already contain the latest Service Pack and any additional update and security patch would be helpful. I read somewhere that there are ways to do that somehow, but it looked very complicated and not as if a regular Windows user would be able to do it himself.

I am open to any suggestion at this point. If you have any ideas, comments, additional questions, recommendations or opinions to this general problem, feel free to comment in the comments section at the end of this post.

Thank you
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Googlefight - Karsten vs Carsten

I stumbled across a funny gimmick tool via the John Andrew's "SEO Secrets" page (which is also funny). It is called Googlefight.com.

John used it to demonstrate that Black Hat SEO is winning the Google game over White Hat SEO. Well according to Google fight it does hehe.

How does the tool work? Simple, you enter any two phrases into the specifically designed form at Googlefight.com and the tool will check the Google search results for each of the two phrases to see which one has a higher figure for estimated number pages found in the Google index. The phrase where Google returns a higher estimate wins. That's it, no more and no less.

Just for the fun of it did I initiate a Googlefight between "Carsten" and "Karsten", which are both comon spellings of my first name. I always thought that Karsten is the more widely used spelling than how my first name is spelled, "Carsten", with "C" and not a "K" at the beginning. So I was a bit surprised about the Googlefight results, which shows "Carsten" as the winner with 11,7000,000 results versus 8,080,000 for "Karsten". This is a clear victory by over 3,000,000 pages.



I don't think that my internet activities, which contribute a large number alltogether might caused this unexpected result, but hey, even I did not produce 3,000,000+ pages with my name written on it hehe.

Or how about a battle between "ansi art" and "ascii art"? Well, said and done. I knew already who would win this one, ASCII art of course with 2,030,000 versus just a meager 419,000 for ANSI art.



or how about AMIGA demos versus PC demos? A classic :).



Oh, I thought PC demos would win by a much higher margin than that. Maybe I underestimated the power of the Commodore AMIGA hehe.

Okay, enough of this! Well, it has been fun. Try it out yourself and fight out some "battles" of your own. :)

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC