Dating a mouse-click away

2000-08-04 14:44

So you're wondering: should you date the blonde with a passion for fashion or the brunette with a passion for poetry? Or maybe you should dye your hair. And maybe it's time for a career change. But these ain't easy choices. Don't despair! Help is at hand - just keep surfing. There's even a site with help for the romantically challenged.

Cool sites

Life's not easy. We're confronted with choices daily. And some of those choices are more tough than others. Need some help deciding? Then try Selectsmart. It won't decide for you, and definitely can't/won't accept responsibility for your decisions, but it can help with anything from choosing a partner or philosophy to choosing a drill-bit sharpener or a birthing method.

So you've decided (with a little help from the above website) on a partner. Now it's time to get romantic, but you need some more help ... OK, you've got it. Point your browser here for some dating ideas.

If you like cartoons, you like animations, therefore you'll love Hotwired's Animation Express.

There are 173 (at last count) animations to marvel at. Visit the animation archive, browse through all the animations, or select some by media type (Flash, Quicktime, Shockwave), animation type (3D, interactive, music video, stop motion), bandwidth, recommended animations (staff and viewer picks) or special features. You might get so inspired that you would like to try the animation tutorials.

Just want to sit back and relax and sing "I'm forever popping bubbles"? Yep, "popping", and no, the relaxing bit is somewhat misleading. But Bolongas is fun, though. It's a simple, bubble-popping game that sits on a web-site and doesn't require any downloads. All you have to do is play. Try it.

Hot software

Now that Napster was saved by the sound of music ... I mean the bell, nine hours before a forced shut down (it won a temporary reprieve), it's not such a bad idea to start looking around for alternatives. No, you don't have to fire up the search engines, the work has already been done for you. Just click here.

You install all those nice looking programmes on your computer, but never use half of them or decide they are not for you after running it once or twice. So you want to get rid of them, but even those with uninstall options often leave in their wake a plethora of orphan files. Now you can Trash it! This shareware programme (1,89 MB) creates a "snapshot" of your hard drive, including the registry and other system files. It keeps a record of what's added, so that when you uninstall, it can get rid of files that are no longer required. Start downloading.

Need a utility to capture part or all of your screen? Try Screen Capture (487 KB). It "lets you select a region to capture, or lets you capture entire windows, or your desktop -- all with the click of the mouse or the use of a user-selected hot-key".

Now that our cool site Selectsmart has helped you make up your mind to quit your job and get another one, maybe it's time to get down to some serious resume writing. To make things easier, why not try Web Resume Writer for free?

Bugs and virus watch

Microsoft have released the first service pack for Windows 2000. It fixes bugs in and adds enhanced features to the initial Windows 2000 release. The 83 MB service pack file is actually intended for use by network administrators and a smaller service pack for individual users is expected. The service pack can be downloaded here or here.

Latest updates

Here are the latest updates for some popular programmes:

Paint Shop Pro 7.0 Beta 2 for Win95/98/NT

QuickTime 4.1.2 for Win95/98/NT

EasyCleaner 1.7f for Win95/98/NT

Webshots Desktop 1.3.0.2867 for Win95/98/NT

Geek Speak of the Week

FAT - File Allocation Table. A way of formatting a hard drive, enabling the operating system to keep track of what files are located where on the disk.

Tip of the Week

Want to quickly make a short note? Right-click on the desktop, select New and then Text document. A Notepad document named New Text Document will be placed on the desktop. Just open it and start writing. You could, of course, also place a shortcut to Notepad on your desktop. But if it's not there, you seldom use it and don't want to clutter your desktop, the tip will come in handy.

Have a good one ;-)

Louis

For more great sites to surf, read my weekly Internet column in Rapport's business section every Sunday.

* Louis is the author of Pretgids tot Rekenaars en die Internet - Afrikaanse vertalings en verklarings. It can be ordered directly from the publisher for R49,95 (P&P included) by e-mail ([e-mail]) or phone [phone]).

- News24