blog of the year

Remote Control Using Telephone

2007-06-17T11:16:00.000-07:00

Circuit Description:

Here is a tele-remote circuit which enables switching ‘on’ and ‘off’ of appliances through telephone lines. It can be used to switch appliances from any distance, overcoming the limited range of infrared and radio remote controls.The circuit described here can be used to switch up to nine appliances (corresponding to the digits 1 through 9 of the telephone key-pad). The DTMF signals on telephone instrument are used as control signals. The digit ‘0’ in DTMF mode is used to toggle between the appliance mode and normal telephone operation mode. Thus the telephone can be used to switch on or switch off the appliances also while being used for normal conversation.The circuit uses IC KT3170 (DTMF-to-BCD converter), 74154 (4-to-16-line demultiplexer), and five CD4013 (D flip-flop) ICs. The working of the circuit is as follows.Once a call is established (after hearing ring-back tone), dial ‘0’ in DTMF mode. IC1 decodes this as ‘1010,’ which is further demultiplexed by IC2 as output O10 (at pin 11) of IC2 (74154). The active low output of IC2, after inversion by an inverter gate of IC3 (CD4049), becomes logic 1. This is used to toggle flip-flop-1 (F/F-1) and relay RL1 is energised. Relay RL1 has two changeover contacts, RL1 (a) and RL1 (b). The energised RL1(a) contacts provide a 220-ohm loop across the telephone line while RL1(b) contacts inject a 10kHz tone on the line, which indicates to the caller that appliance mode has been selected. The 220-ohm loop on telephone line disconnects the ringer from the telephone line in the exchange. The line is now connected for appliance mode of operation.If digit ‘0’ is not dialed (in DTMF) after establishing the call, the ring continues and the telephone can be used for normal conversation. After selection of the appliance mode of operation, if digit ‘1’ is dialed, it is decoded by IC1 and its output is ‘0001’. This BCD code is then demultiplexed by 4-to-16-line demultiplexer IC2 whose corresponding output, after inversion by a CD4049 inverter gate, goes to logic 1 state. This pulse toggles the corresponding flip-flop to alternate state. The flip-flop output is used to drive a relay (RL2) which can switch on or switch off the appliance connected through its contacts. By dialing other digits in a similar way, other appliances can also be switched ‘on’ or ‘off.’Once the switching operation is over, the 220-ohm loop resistance and 10 kHz tone needs to be removed from the telephone line. To achieve this, digit ‘0’ (in DTMF mode) is dialed again to toggle flip-flop-1 to deenergise relay RL1, which terminates the loop on line and the 10kHz tone is also disconnected. The telephone line is thus again set free to receive normal calls. This circuit is to be connected in parallel to the telephone instrument.

List of Components:

INTEGRATED CIRCUITS
IC1-KT310
IC2-74154
IC3-CD4049
IC4-CD4049
IC5, IC6, IC7, IC8, IC9-CD4013
IC 10(4)-MCT2E
IC11, IC12 –NE555

TRANSISTORS
T1-T10 - 2N2222

RESISTORS
R1- 10k ohm
R2- 220 ohm
R3, R4- 22K ohm
R5 -10K ohm
R6 -1M ohm
R7, R8, R9, R10, R11, R12, R13, R14, R15 -100 ohm
R16 330 ohm
R17 1K ohm
R18 12K ohm
R19 330K ohm
R20 1K ohm
R21 220 ohm
R22 10K ohm

CAPACITORS
C1, C2, C3 -0.1 MFD / 50V-3
C4 .047 MFD / 50V-3
C5 100MFD / 50V-3
C6 200MFD / 50V-3
C7 .01MFD / 50V-3
C8 .1MFD / 50V-3
C9 .01 MFD / 50V-3

DIODES
D1, D10

XTAL
3.5 MHz

RELAY
Rl4 RL2 RL5 RL2 RL3 (6V, 100 ohm)

Change over
RL9-2
P.C.B.

Other Equipment
A working Telephone

Transcript of the interview with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Apple CEO Steve Jobs

2007-06-09T22:36:00.000-07:00

Walt: Before we get started, there were some pioneers–of course, we have the pioneers here on the stage, but there were some other really important pioneers in the video we just saw and a couple of them are here in the audience. Mitch Kapor, who is a regular, could you just stand up, wherever you are? There he is.

[Applause]

Walt: And Fred Gibbons, who has not come to D before, but is here tonight. Fred. There’s Fred right there.

[Applause]

Walt: And I don’t know if he’s in the room, but I do want to recognize our fellow journalist, Brent Schlender from Fortune, who, to my knowledge, did the last joint interview these guys did. It was not onstage, but it was Fortune magazine. Brent, I don’t know if you’re in the room. If you are, can you stand? Maybe he’s way over there.

[Applause]

Kara: So let’s get started. I wanted to ask, there’s been a lot of mano-a-mano/catfight kind of thing in a lot of the blogs and the press and stuff like that, and we wanted to–the first question I was interested in asking is what you think each has contributed to the computer and technology industry, starting with you, Steve, for Bill, and vice versa.

Steve: Well, you know, Bill built the first software company in the industry and I think he built the first software company before anybody really in our industry knew what a software company was, except for these guys. And that was huge. That was really huge. And the business model that they ended up pursuing turned out to be the one that worked really well, you know, for the industry. I think the biggest thing was, Bill was really focused on software before almost anybody else had a clue that it was really the software.

Kara: Was important?

Steve: That’s what I see. I mean, a lot of other things you could say, but that’s the high order bit. And I think building a company’s really hard, and it requires your greatest persuasive abilities to hire the best people you can and keep them at your company and keep them working, doing the best work of their lives, hopefully. And Bill’s been able to stay with it for all these years.

Walt: Bill, how about the contribution of Steve and Apple?

Bill: Well, first, I want to clarify: I’m not Fake Steve Jobs.

What Steve’s done is quite phenomenal, and if you look back to 1977, that Apple II computer, the idea that it would be a mass-market machine, you know, the bet that was made there by Apple uniquely–there were other people with products, but the idea that this could be an incredible empowering phenomenon, Apple pursued that dream.

Then one of the most fun things we did was the Macintosh and that was so risky. People may not remember that Apple really bet the company. Lisa hadn’t done that well, and some people were saying that general approach wasn’t good, but the team that Steve built even within the company to pursue that, even some days it felt a little ahead of its time–I don’t know if you remember that Twiggy disk drive and…

Steve: One hundred twenty-eight K.

Kara: Oh, the Twiggy disk drive, yes.

Bill: Steve gave a speech once, which is one of my favorites, where he talked about, in a certain sense, we build the products that we want to use ourselves. And so he’s really pursued that with incredible taste and elegance that has had a huge impact on the industry. And his ability to always come around and figure out where that next bet should be has been phenomenal. Apple literally was failing when Steve went back and re-infused the innovation and risk-taking that have been phenomenal. So the industry’s benefited immensely from his work. We’ve both been lucky to be part of it, but I’d say he’s contributed as much as anyone.

Steve: We’ve also both been incredibly lucky to have had great partners that we started the companies with and we’ve attracted great people. I mean, so everything that’s been done at Microsoft and at Apple has been done by just remarkable people, none of which are sitting up here today.

Kara: Well, not us.

Walt: Not us. So in a way, you’re the stand-ins for all those other people.

Steve: Yeah, in a way, we are. In a very tangible way.

Walt: So Bill mentioned the Apple II and 1977 and 30 years ago. And there were a couple of other computers which were aimed at the idea that average people might be able to use them, and looking back on it, a really average-average person might not have been able to use them by today’s standards, but it certainly broadened the base of who could use computers.

I actually looked at an Apple ad from 1978. It was a print ad. That shows you how ancient it was. And it said, thousands of people have discovered the Apple computer. Thousands of people. And it also said, you don’t want to buy one of these computers where you put a cartridge in. I think that was a reference to one of the Atari or something.

Steve: Oh, no.

Walt: You want a computer you can write your own programs on. And obviously, people still do.

Steve: We had some very strange ads back then. We had one where it was in a kitchen and there was a woman that looked like the wife and she was typing in recipes on the computer with the husband looking on approvingly in the back. Stuff like that.

Walt: How did that work for you?

Steve: I don’t think well.

Walt: I know you started Microsoft prior to 1977. I think Apple started the year before, in ‘76.

Steve: ‘76.

Walt: Microsoft in …

Bill: ‘74 was when we started writing BASIC. Then we shipped the BASIC in ‘75.

Walt: Some people here, but I don’t think most people, know that there was actually some Microsoft software in that Apple II computer. You want to talk about what happened there, how that occurred?

Bill: Yeah. There had been the Altair and a few other companies–actually, about 24–that had done various machines, but the ‘77 group included the PET, TRS-80 …

Walt: Commodore?

Bill: Yeah, the Commodore PET, TRS-80 and the Apple II. The original Apple II BASIC, the Integer BASIC, we had nothing to do with. But then there was a floating-point one where–and I mostly worked with Woz on that.

Steve: Let me tell the story. My partner we started out with, this guy named Steve Wozniak. Brilliant, brilliant guy. He writes this BASIC that is, like, the best BASIC on the planet. It does stuff that no other BASIC’s ever done. You don’t have to run it to find your error messages. It finds them when you type it in and stuff. It’s perfect in every way, except for one thing, which is it’s just fixed-point, right? It’s not floating-point.

So we’re getting a lot of input that people want this BASIC to be floating-point. And, like, we’re begging Woz, please, please make this floating point.

Walt: Who’s we? How many people are in Apple?

Steve: Well, me. We’re begging Woz to make this floating-point and he just never does it. You know, and he wrote it by hand on paper. I mean, you know, he didn’t have an assembler or anything to write it with. It was all just written on paper and he’d type it in. He just never got around to making it floating-point.

Kara: Why?

Steve: This is one of the mysteries of life. I don’t know, but he never did. So, you know, Microsoft had this very popular, really good floating-point BASIC that we ended up going to them and saying “help.”

Walt: And how much was the–I think you were telling us earlier …

Bill: Oh, it was $31,000.

Walt: That Apple paid you for the …

Bill: For the floating-point BASIC. And I flew out to Apple, I spent two days there getting the cassette. The cassette tapes were the main ways that people stored things at the time, right? And, you know, that was fun.

I think the most fun is later when we worked together.

Walt: What was the most fun? Tell the story about the most fun that was later.

Kara: Or maybe later, not the most fun.

Walt: Let them talk.

Kara: Teasing.

Bill: Well, you know, Steve can probably start it better. The team that was assembled there to do the Macintosh was a very committed team. And there was an equivalent team on our side that just got totally focused on this activity. Jeff Harbers, a lot of incredible people. And we had really bet our future on the Macintosh being successful, and then, hopefully, graphics interfaces in general being successful, but first and foremost, the thing that would popularize that being the Macintosh.

So we were working together. The schedules were uncertain. The quality was uncertain. The price. When Steve first came up, it was going to be a lot cheaper computer than it ended up being, but that was fine.

Kara: So you worked in both places?

Bill: Well, we were in Seattle and we’d fly down there.

Walt: But Microsoft, if I remember correctly from what I’ve read, wasn’t Microsoft one of the few companies that were allowed to even have a prototype of the Mac at the time?

Steve: Yeah. What’s interesting, what’s hard to remember now is that Microsoft wasn’t in the applications business then. They took a big bet on the Mac because this is how they got into the apps business. Lotus dominated the apps business on the PC back then.

Bill: Right. We’d done just MultiPlan, which was a hit on the Apple II, and then Mitch did an incredible job betting on the IBM PC and 1-2-3 came in and, you know, ruled that part of the business. So the question was, what was the next paradigm shift that would allow for an entry? We had Word, but WordPerfect was by far the strongest in word processing dBase database.

Walt: And Word was kind of a DOS text …

Bill: All of these products I’m saying were DOS-based products.

Walt: Right.

Bill: Because Windows wasn’t in the picture at the time.

Walt: Right.

Bill: That’s more early ’90s that we get to that. So we made this bet that the paradigm shift would be graphics interface and, in particular, that the Macintosh would make that happen with 128K of memory, 22K of which was for the screen buffer, 14K was for the operating system. So it was …

Walt: 14K?

Bill: Yeah.

Walt: The original Mac operating system was 14K?

Bill: 14K that we had to have loaded when our software ran. So when the shell would come up, it had all the 128K.

Steve: The OS was bigger than 14K. It was in the 20s somewhere.

Walt: I see.

Steve: We ship these computers now with, you know, a gigabyte, 2 gigabytes of memory, and nobody remembers 128K.

Walt: I remember that. I remember paying a lot of money for computers with 128K in those days. So the two companies worked closely on the Mac project because you were maybe not the only, but the principal or one of the principal software creators for it, is that right?

Steve: Well, Apple did the Mac itself, but we got Bill and his team involved to write these applications. We were doing a few apps ourselves. We did MacPaint, MacDraw and stuff like that, but Bill and his team did some great work.

Kara: Now, in terms of moving forward after you left and your company grew more and more strong, what did you think was going to happen to Apple after sort of the disasters that occurred after Steve left?

Bill: Well, Apple, they hung in the balance. We continued to do Macintosh software. Excel, which Steve and I introduced together in New York City, that was kind of a fun event, that went on and did very well. But then, you know, Apple just wasn’t differentiating itself well enough from the higher-volume platform.

Walt: Meaning Windows, right?

Bill: DOS and Windows.

Walt: Okay. But especially Windows in the ’90s began to take off.

Bill: By 1995, Windows became popular. The big debate wasn’t sort of Mac versus Windows. The big debate was character mode interface versus graphics mode interface. And when the 386 came and we got more memory and the speed was adequate and some development tools came along, that paradigm bet on GUI paid off for everybody who’d gotten in early and said, you know, this is the way that’s going to go.

Walt: But Apple wasn’t able to leverage its products?

Bill: After the 512K Mac was done, the product line just didn’t evolve as fast–Steve wasn’t there–as it needed to. And we were actually negotiating a deal to invest and make some commitments and things with Gil Amelio. No, seriously.

Kara: Don’t be mean to him.

Bill: I’m sorry?

Kara: Just saying the word Gil Amelio, you can see his…

Bill: So I was calling him up on the weekend and all this stuff and next thing I knew, Steve called me up and said, don’t worry about that negotiation with Gil Amelio. You can just talk to me now. And I said, “Wow.”

Steve: Gil was a nice guy, but he had a saying. He said, “Apple is like a ship with a hole in the bottom leaking water and my job is to get the ship pointed in the right direction.”

Walt: Meanwhile, through all this–I want to get back to the thing we saw in 1997 at Macworld there–but Windows was just going great guns. I mean, Windows 95, to whatever extent earlier versions of Windows had not had all the features, all the GUI stuff that the Mac had, and Windows 95 really was an enormous, enormous leap.

Bill: Yeah. Windows 95 is when graphics interface became mainstream and when the software industry realized, wow, this is the way applications are going to be done. And it was amazing that it was ridiculed sort of in ‘93, ‘94, was not mainstream, and then in ‘95, the debate was over. It was kind of just a commonsense thing. And it was a combination of hardware and software maturity getting to a point that people could see it.

Walt: So I don’t want to go through every detail, the whole history of how you came back, but…

Steve: Thank you.

Walt: But you in that video we all saw, you said you had decided that it was destructive to have this competition with Microsoft. Now, obviously, Apple was in a lot of trouble and I presume that there was some tactical or strategic reason for that, as well as just wanting to be a nice guy, right?

Steve: You know, Apple was in very serious trouble. And what was really clear was that if the game was a zero-sum game where for Apple to win, Microsoft had to lose, then Apple was going to lose. But a lot of people’s heads were still in that place.

Kara: Why was that, from your perspective?

Steve: Well, a lot of people’s heads were in that place at Apple and even in the customer base because, you know, Apple had invented a lot of this stuff and Microsoft was being successful and Apple wasn’t and there was jealousy and this and that. There was just a lot of reasons for it that don’t matter.

But the net result of it was, was there were too many people at Apple and in the Apple ecosystem playing the game of, for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. And it was clear that you didn’t have to play that game because Apple wasn’t going to beat Microsoft. Apple didn’t have to beat Microsoft. Apple had to remember who Apple was because they’d forgotten who Apple was.

So to me, it was pretty essential to break that paradigm. And it was also important that, you know, Microsoft was the biggest software developer outside of Apple developing for the Mac. So it was just crazy what was happening at that time. And Apple was very weak and so I called Bill up and we tried to patch things up.

Bill: And since that time, we’ve had a team that’s fairly dedicated to doing the Mac applications and they’ve always been treated kind of in a unique way so that they can have a pretty special relationship with Apple. And that’s worked out very well. In fact, every couple years or so, there’s been something new that we’ve been able to do on the Mac and it’s been a great business for us.

Steve: And it’s actually–the relationship between the Mac development team at Microsoft and Apple is a great relationship. It’s one of our best developer relationships.

Kara: And do you look at yourselves as rivals now? Today as the landscape has evolved–and we’ll talk about the Internet landscape and everything else and other companies that have [gone] forward, but how do you look at yourselves in this landscape today?

Walt:Because, I mean, you are competitors in certain ways, which is the American way, right?

Kara: We watch the commercials, right?

Walt: And you get annoyed at each other from time to time.

Kara: Although you know what? I have to confess, I like PC guy.

Walt: Yeah, he’s great.

Kara: Yeah, I like him. The young guy, I want to pop him.

Steve: The art of those commercials is not to be mean, but it’s actually for the guys to like each other. Thanks. PC guy is great. Got a big heart.

Bill: His mother loves him.

Steve: His mother loves him.

Kara: I’m telling you, I like PC guy totally much better.

Steve: Wow.

Kara: I do. I don’t know why. He’s endearing. The other guy’s a jackass.

Steve: PC guy’s what makes it all work, actually.

Walt: All right.

Steve: It’s worth thinking about.

Kara: So how do you look at yourselves?

Walt: I mean, let me just ask you, Bill. Obviously, Microsoft is a much larger company, you’re in many more markets, many more types of products than Apple is. You know, when you were running the company or when Steve Ballmer is running the company, you think obviously about Google, you think about, I don’t know, Linux in the enterprise, you think about Sony in the game area. How often is Apple on your radar screen at Microsoft in a business sense?

Bill: Well, they’re on the radar screen as an opportunity. In a few cases like the Zune, if you go over to that group, they think of Apple as a competitor. They love the fact that Apple’s created a gigantic market and they’re going to try and come in and contribute something to that.

Steve: And we love them because they’re all customers.

Walt: I have to tell you, I was actually told by J Allard, I’m serious, that because of the nature of the processor, the development platform they used to develop a lot of the software for the Xbox 360 was Macs. And he claimed that at one point, they had, like, placed the biggest order for whatever the Mac tower was at the time of anybody, and it was Microsoft.

Bill: I don’t know if it was the biggest, but, yeah, we had the same processor essentially that the Mac had. This is one of those great ironies is they were switching away from that processor while the Xbox 360 was adopting it. But for good reasons, actually, in both cases. Because we’re not in a portable application and that was one of the things that that processor road map didn’t have. But yes, it shows pragmatism, but we try and do things that way. So that was the development system for the early people getting their software ready for the introduction of Xbox 360.

Steve: And we never ran an ad on that.

Walt: I see. Admirable restraint. That’s wonderful restraint.

Steve: There were hundreds of them.

Bill: Steve is so known for his restraint.

Kara: How do you look at Microsoft from an Apple perspective? I mean, you compete in computers and…

Walt: I mean, you can say you don’t compete, you know, the era of destructive whatever, whatever you said in 1997, but you think–you’re consciously aware of what they’re doing with Windows, you followed Vista closely, I think.

Steve: You know, what’s really interesting is–and we talked about this earlier today–if you look at the reason that the iPod exists and the Apple’s in that marketplace, it’s because these really great Japanese consumer electronics companies who kind of own the portable music market, invented it and owned it, couldn’t do the appropriate software, couldn’t conceive of and implement the appropriate software. Because an iPod’s really just software. It’s software in the iPod itself, it’s software on the PC or the Mac, and it’s software in the cloud for the store. And it’s in a beautiful box, but it’s software. If you look at what a Mac is, it’s OS X, right? It’s in a beautiful box, but it’s OS X. And if you look at what an iPhone will hopefully be, it’s software.

And so the big secret about Apple, of course–not-so-big secret maybe–is that Apple views itself as a software company and there aren’t very many software companies left, and Microsoft is a software company. And so, you know, we look at what they do and we think some of it’s really great, and we think a little bit of it’s competitive and most of it’s not. You know, we don’t have a belief that the Mac is going to take over 80% of the PC market. You know, we’re really happy when our market share goes up a point and we love that and we work real hard at it, but Apple’s fundamentally a software company and there’s not a lot of us left and Microsoft’s one of them.

Walt: But you may be fundamentally a software company, but you’ve been known, at least to your customers and to most journalists as the company that kind of pays a lot of attention to integrating software and hardware. Microsoft has made some recent moves to be a little more like that, obviously not in your core biggest businesses, but with Xbox and Zune and, you know, the Surface computing device we saw today is another example. These aren’t markets that hold up in size to Windows or Office, but they’re some of your more recent initiatives. Are the companies’ approaches to this merging a little or …

Steve: Alan Kay had a great quote back in the ’70s, I think. He said, “People that love software want to build their own hardware.”

Walt: Well, Bill loves software.

Steve: Oh, I can resist that.

Bill: The question is, are there markets where the innovation and variety you get is a net positive? The negative is that in the early stage, you really want to do the two together so you want to do prototyping and things like that, you know, really as one thing.

And then take the phone market. We think we’re on 140 different kinds of hardware. We think it’s beneficial to us that even if we did a few ourselves, it wouldn’t give us what we have through those partnerships.

Likewise, if you take the robotics market, very undeveloped. We have over 140 tiny-volume robots using Microsoft software. And the creativity, building toys, security things, medical things, we love the innovation and the ecosystem that’s going to grow up–who knows when, but we’re patient–around that and we’ll have a great asset with this robotic software platform.

So there are things like PC, phone, and robot where the Microsoft choice is to go for the variety.
Apple, it’s great. For them, they do what works super well for them. And there’s a few markets like Xbox 360, Zune, and this year we have two new ones, the Surface thing and this RoundTable, which is the meeting-room thing, where we’ll actually, through subcontractors, but the P&L on the risk and all that for the hardware, the design is completely a Microsoft thing.

Walt: The RoundTable: Is that something you’ve announced or were you just announcing it here?

Bill: We’ve shown prototypes of it. That’s the thing where it’s got the 360-degree …

Walt: Oh, right. It’s like Cisco has something in that market and HP too, right?

Bill: Oh, HP has a very high-end thing that’s a tiny bit like it, but anyway.

Walt: All right. Do you ever regret–was there something you might have wanted to do differently? And maybe you feel like this happened after you left Apple, something you might have done differently where you could have had a much bigger market share for the Mac?

Steve: Well, before I answer that, let me make a comment on Bill’s answer there, which is, it’s very interesting, in the consumer market and the enterprise market, they’re very different spaces. And in the consumer market, at least, I think one can make a pretty strong case that outside of Windows on PCs, it’s hard to see other examples of the software and hardware being decoupled working super well yet. It might in the phone space over time. It might. But it’s not clear. It’s not clear. You can see a lot more examples of the hardware/software coupling working well.
So I think this is one of the reasons we all, you know, come to work every day is because nobody knows the answers to some of these questions. And we’ll find out over the coming years and maybe both will work fine and maybe they won’t.

Walt: Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. It’s good to try both approaches. In some product categories–take music players–the solo design worked better. In the PC market, the variety of designs at this stage has a higher share.

Walt: It has a higher share? It has a lot higher share.

Steve: It’s not that much different than music players the other way around.

Walt: Is there some moment you feel like I should have done this or Apple should have done that, and we could have had …

Kara: You stuck to this idea of the hardware/software integration and it’s working very well right now.

Steve: There’s a lot of things that happened that I’m sure I could have done better when I was at a Apple the first time and a lot of things that happened after I left that I thought were wrong turns, but it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter and you kind of got to let go of that stuff and we are where we are. So we tend to look forward.

And, you know, one of the things I did when I got back to Apple 10 years ago was I gave the museum to Stanford and all the papers and all the old machines and kind of cleared out the cobwebs and said, let’s stop looking backwards here. It’s all about what happens tomorrow. Because you can’t look back and say, well, gosh, you know, I wish I hadn’t have gotten fired, I wish I was there, I wish this, I wish that. It doesn’t matter. And so let’s go invent tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday.

Kara: We’re going to talk a little bit tomorrow, but let’s talk about today, the landscape of how you see the different players in the market and how you look at what’s developing now. What has surprised both of you since having been around for so long, and still very active and everything, and your companies are still critically key companies? There are many, many companies that are becoming quite powerful. How do you look at the landscape at this moment and what’s happening especially in the Internet space?

Steve: I think it’s super healthy right now. I think there’s a lot of young people out there building some great companies who want to build companies, who aren’t just interested in starting something and selling it to one of the big guys, but who want to build companies. And I think there’s some real exciting companies getting built out there. Some next-generation stuff that, you know, some of us play catch-up with and, you know, some of us find ways to partner with and things like that, but there’s a lot of activity out there now, wouldn’t you say?

Bill: Yeah, I’d say it’s a healthy period. The notion of what the new form factors look like, what natural interface can do, the ability to use the cloud, the Internet, to do part of the task in a complementary way to the local experience, there’s a lot of invention that the whole approach of start-ups, the existing companies who do research, we’ll look back at this as one of the great periods of invention.

Steve: I think so, too. There’s a lot of things that are risky right now, which is always a good sign, you know, and you can see through them, you can see to the other side and go, yes, this could be huge, but there’s a period of risk that, you know, nobody’s ever done it before.

Kara: Do you have an example?

Steve: I do, but I can’t say.

Kara: Okay.

Steve: But I can say, when you feel like that, that’s a great thing.

Kara: Right.

Steve: That’s what keeps you coming to work in the morning and it tells you there’s something exciting around the next corner.

Walt: Okay. So the two of you have certainly–you’re involved every day with the Internet, you have Internet products, you have a whole slew of stuff on the Internet, you have iTunes and “.Mac” and all of that, but on another level, you’re the guys who represent the rich client, the personal computer, the, you know, big operating system and all that. And there is a certain school of thought–and I’m sure it’s shared by some people in the room–that this is all migrating to the cloud and you’ll need a fairly light piece of hardware that won’t have to have all that investment, all the kind of stuff you guys have done throughout your careers. So as much as people might think of you as rivals, one way to think of you is the two guys …

Steve: We’re both dinosaurs?

Walt: Huh?

Steve: That we’re both dinosaurs?

Walt: Dinosaurs? Yeah, whatever. I can talk about that. No, seriously …

Kara: You’re betting on a system that is changing.

Walt: In five years, is the personal computer still going to be the linchpin of all this stuff?

Bill: Well, you can say that it will be predicted that it won’t be. You know, the network computer took this over about, whatever, five years ago we disappeared. Remember the single-function computer? There was somebody who said that these general purpose things are kind of a dumb idea.

Kara: Larry Ellison.

Bill: The mainstream is always under attack. The thing that people don’t realize is that you’re going to have rich local functionality, I mean, at least our bet, whereas you get things like speech and vision, as you get more natural form factors, it’s a question of using that local richness together with the richness that’s elsewhere.

And as you look at the device, say, that’s connecting to the TV set or connecting in the car, there are lighter-weight hardware Internet connections, but when you come to the full screen rich, you know, edit the document, create things, you know, I think we’re nowhere near where we could be on making that stronger.

Steve: I’ll give you a concrete example. I love Google Maps, use it on my computer, you know, in a browser. But when we were doing the iPhone, we thought, wouldn’t it be great to have maps on the iPhone? And so we called up Google and they’d done a few client apps in Java on some phones and they had an API that we worked with them a little on. And we ended up writing a client app for those APIs. They would provide the backend service. And the app we were able to write, since we’re pretty reasonable at writing apps, blows away any Google Maps client. Just blows it away. Same set of data coming off the server, but the experience you have using it is unbelievable. It’s way better than the computer. And just in a completely different league than what they’d put on phones before.

And, you know, that client is the result of a lot of technology on the client, that client application. So when we show it to them, they’re just blown away by how good it is. And you can’t do that stuff in a browser.

So people are figuring out how to do more in a browser, how to get a persistent state of things when you’re disconnected from a browser, how do you actually run apps locally using, you know, apps written in those technologies so they can be pretty transparent, whether you’re connected or not.

But it’s happening fairly slowly and there’s still a lot you can do with a rich client environment. At the same time, the hardware is progressing to where you can run a rich client environment on lower and lower cost devices, on lower and lower power devices. And so there’s some pretty cool things you can do with clients.

Walt: Okay. So you’re saying rich clients still matter, but–maybe I misunderstood you, but your example was about a rich client that is not a personal computer as we have thought of a personal computer.

Steve: What I’m saying is, I think the marriage of some really great client apps with some really great cloud services is incredibly powerful and right now, can be way more powerful than just having a browser on the client.

Kara: You’re talking about a software company being a software and services company rather than a …

Steve: I’m saying the marriage of these services plus a more sophisticated client is a very powerful marriage.

Walt: Bill?

Bill: Yeah. Architecturally, the question is, do you run just in the cloud and all you have downloaded locally is the browser? And that is the same question for the phone as it is for the full-screen device. There will always be different screen sizes because these are, you know, the 5-inch screen does not really compete with the 20-inch screen, does not compete with the big living room screen. Those are things that there will be some type of computing behind all of those things, all connected to the Internet, but the idea that locally you have the responsiveness of immediate interaction without the latency or bandwidth limitations that you get if you try and do it all behind, that’s what leads to the right balance.

Kara: What does that device look like in five years? What would be your principal device? Is there one or…

Walt: I could be wrong, I think you carry a tablet with you, right?

Bill: Right.

Walt: Which has not necessarily stormed the world yet.

Bill: Yeah. This is like Windows 1992, I think. That is, I’m unrepentant on my belief.

Walt: Okay. But to go back to Kara’s point, what would you each imagine that you would carry as your principal, let’s say, thing to do the Web and…

Kara: I mean, Jeff Hawkins showed a very lightweight device.

Walt: Yeah. I don’t know if you guys saw, but Jeff Hawkins showed a Linux-based, very small–I think he called it a companion to a smart phone today.

Kara: A phone companion, which sounded a little naughty.

Walt: It doesn’t matter, you weren’t there, but what would you think you each would be–I assume you carry a tablet PC. I don’t know what brand it is. Maybe you change them up, I don’t know. You obviously carry a MacBook Pro, I would guess, or a MacBook.

Steve: Yeah. Well, and an iPhone.

Walt: And an iPhone?

Kara: You have one?

Steve: I do.

Kara: Right here?

Steve: Yes.

Walt: Well, he has one. He took it out before. Really.

Kara: Sorry.

Walt: He flashed his iPhone earlier today.

Kara: Anyway, go ahead. So what is your device? What’s the device that we should be carrying?

Walt: What’s your device in five years that you rely on the most?

Bill: I don’t think you’ll have one device. I think you’ll have a full-screen device that you can carry around and you’ll do dramatically more reading off of that.

Kara: Light.

Bill: Yeah. I mean, I believe in the tablet form factor. I think you’ll have voice. I think you’ll have ink. You’ll have some way of having a hardware keyboard and some settings for that. And then you’ll have the device that fits in your pocket, which the whole notion of how much function should you combine in there, you know, there’s navigation computers, there’s media, there’s phone. Technology is letting us put more things in there, but then again, you really want to tune it so people know what they expect. So there’s quite a bit of experimentation in that pocket-size device. But I think those are natural form factors and that we’ll have the evolution of the portable machine. And the evolution of the phone will both be extremely high volume, complementary–that is, if you own one, you’re more likely to own the other.

Kara: And then at home, you’d have a setup that they all plug into?

Bill: Well, home, you’ll have your living room, which is your 10-foot experience, and that’s connected up to the Internet and there you’ll have gaming and entertainment and there’s a lot of experimentation in terms of what content looks like in that world. And then in your den, you’ll have something a lot like you have at your desk at work. You know, the view is that every horizontal and vertical surface will have a projector so you can put information, you know, your desk can be a surface that you can sit and manipulate things.

Walt: Can I please have a room in my house that doesn’t have a screen and a projector in it?

Bill: You bet.

Walt: Thanks.

Bill: The bathroom.

Walt: Well…

Kara: That’s the perfect place for it, actually.

Walt: So what’s your five-year outlook at the devices you’ll carry?

Steve: You know, it’s interesting. The PC has proved to be very resilient because, as Bill said earlier, I mean, the death of the PC has been predicted every few years.

Walt: And here when you’re saying PC, you mean personal computer in general, not just Windows PCs?

Steve: I mean, personal computer in general.

Walt: Yeah, okay.

Steve: And, you know, there was the age of productivity, if you will, you know, the spreadsheets and word processors and that kind of got the whole industry moving. And it kind of plateaued for a while and was getting a little stale and then the Internet came along and everybody needed more powerful computers to get on the Internet, browsers came along, and it was this whole Internet age that came along, access to the Internet. And then some number of years ago, you could start to see that the PC that was taken for granted, things had kind of plateaued a little bit, innovation-wise, at least. And then I think this whole notion of the PC–we called it the digital hub, but you can call it anything you want, sort of the multimedia center of the house, started to take off with digital cameras and digital camcorders and sharing things over the Internet and kind of needing a repository for all that stuff and it was reborn again as sort of the hub of your digital life.

And you can sort of see that there’s something starting again. It’s not clear exactly what it is, but it will be the PC maybe used a little more tightly coupled with some backend Internet services and some things like that. And, of course, PCs are going mobile in an ever greater degree.

So I think the PC is going to continue. This general purpose device is going to continue to be with us and morph with us, whether it’s a tablet or a notebook or, you know, a big curved desktop that you have at your house or whatever it might be. So I think that’ll be something that most people have, at least in this society. In others, maybe not, but certainly in this one.

But then there’s an explosion that’s starting to happen in what you call post-PC devices, right? You can call the iPod one of them. There’s a lot of things that are not…

Walt: You can get into trouble for using that term. I want you to know that.

Steve: What?

Walt: I’m kidding. Post-PC devices.

Steve: Why?

Walt: People write letters to the editor, they complain about it. Anyway, go ahead.

Steve: Okay. Well, anyway, I think there’s just a category of devices that aren’t as general purpose, that are really more focused on specific functions, whether they’re phones or iPods or Zunes or what have you. And I think that category of devices is going to continue to be very innovative and we’re going to see lots of them.

Kara: Give me an example of what that would be.

Steve: Well, an iPod as a post-PC…

Kara: Well, yeah.

Steve: A phone as a post-PC device.

Walt: Is the iPhone and some of these other smart phones–and I know you believe that the iPhone is much better than these other smart phones at the moment, but are these things–aren’t they really just computers in a different form factor? I mean, when we use the word phone, it sounds like…

Steve: We’re getting to the point where everything’s a computer in a different form factor. So what, right? So what if it’s built with a computer inside it? It doesn’t matter. It’s, what is it? How do you use it? You know, how does the consumer approach it? And so who cares what’s inside it anymore?

Walt: So what are the core functions of the device formerly known as the cellphone, whatever we want to call it? The pocket device. What would you say the core functions, like, five years out, what are the core functions of that pocket device?

Bill: How quickly all these things that have been somewhat specialized, the navigation device, the digital wallet, the phone, the camera, the video camera, how quickly those all come together, it’s hard to chart out. But eventually, you’ll be able to pick something that has the capability to do every one of those things.

And yet, given the small size, you still won’t want to edit your homework or edit a movie on the screen of that size. And so you’ll have something else that lets you do the reading and editing and those things. Now, if we could ever get a screen that would just roll out like a scroll, you know, then you might be able to have the device that did everything.

Walt: You know, in the very first D conference, we had these guys from E Ink here.

Kara: Yeah.

Walt: I’m sure you’ve both talked to them. They were talking about that. That was five years ago. It’s always five years out. So do you…

Bill: Yeah. There’s some advances in projection technology that are more likely to be delivered, I think, than the flexible material guys, but it’s not even on the horizon, no matter which of the two approaches are pursued.

Kara: And any kind of quality.

Bill: We have some Microsoft research people who work on [that] and there’s a lot of investment, but it’s at least in the five-year time frame.

Walt: You, five years from now, what’s going to be on that pocket device?

Steve: I don’t know. And the reason I don’t know is because I wouldn’t have thought that there would have been maps on it five years ago, but something comes along, gets really popular, people love it, get used to it, you want it on there.

So people are inventing things constantly and I think the art of it is balancing what’s on there and what’s not on there, is the editing function. And clearly, most things you carry with you are communications devices. You want to do some entertainment with them as well, but they’re primarily communications devices and that’s what they’re going to be.

Kara: Outside the computing area, what are the exciting areas in the Internet space at all that you’re looking at that’s interesting to each of your companies and in general for you? Any social networking, any kind of the Wikis, those kind of things, things we’ve talked about in the past couple–today, essentially?

Steve: You know, we’re working on some things that I can’t talk about, but…

Kara: Again.

Steve: Again, yeah.

Kara: It’s very beautiful, I think.

Steve: There used to be a saying, isn’t it at Apple …

Walt: Going to blow us away, though, when you can talk about it.

Kara: Blow us away, wow, it’s great.

Steve: There used to be a saying at Apple, isn’t it funny, a ship that leaks from the top. So the…

Kara: That’s kind of like a sweater without sleeves is a vest. I don’t get that.

Steve: That was what they used to say about me when I was in my 20s.

Walt: Okay.

Steve: There’s a zillion interesting things going on on the Internet. The most interesting things to me are these incredible new services that people are bringing up and…

Kara: Surrounding entertainment or…

Steve: There’s a lot of them surrounding entertainment, but there’s a lot of them that have to do with just sort of figuring how to navigate through life a little more efficiently. And I think, you know, it’s really great when you show somebody something and you don’t have to convince them they have a problem this solves. They know they have a problem, you can show them something, they go, oh, my God, I need this. And I think you’re going to see a lot of things like that happen over the next year or two.

Walt: You obviously have a very large Internet business with iTunes and you sell a lot of stuff in the Apple Store, but, you know, you were early with this idea that when you bought a computer from Apple, you had this kind of Internet service back end, and it was called “.Mac”. And I think a lot of people feel you haven’t developed it very much.

Steve: I couldn’t agree with you more, and we’ll make up for lost time in the near future.

Walt: And in your case, you obviously have huge things like Hotmail, for instance, which is, I guess–and Windows Messenger, which are both widely used and I don’t even know how many users.

Kara: A gazillion.

Walt: Huge numbers. But on the other hand, as Steve Ballmer was talking about today, you know, other people have much stronger positions in things like search and other parts of the Internet. So are you guys, because you are the personal computer companies that are, you know, best associated with that, not as nimble as some of these competitors at this point? Do you worry about not being as nimble, both of you? I mean, obviously, Microsoft’s a much bigger company, but you’re a big company, Steve, Apple is. Do you worry about not being as nimble as somebody sitting out there with, you know, the kind of ten employees that you guys had in 1977?

Bill: Well, there’s always going to be great new things that come out of other companies, and you want to be in a position to benefit from those, to have those inventions drive demand for Windows and personal computers and then some of those upstream things you want to participate in. I hope Steve mentioned we are going to participate in search, hopefully to a higher degree in the future than at present.

Walt: He did mention that, yeah.

Bill: So we’ll see what we can do there. A lot of the applications are more specialized so they’re not areas we’ll go into. You know, take what can happen with education now that video is mainstream and all these tools that let you do rich interactions are very mainstream. I’m very excited about that. You know, the idea of empowerment goes back to the very beginning of our industry and some of those dreams that this would be used by students or that teachers could get better and learn from each other in these new ways, we’re just at the threshold where some of those things can happen. And, yes, our companies can contribute to that, but as a whole, it’s the ecosystem jumping on and building on each other where you can finally say finally technology did something for education.

Steve: See, I look at this a little bit differently, which is, we’re not trying to do a lot of this stuff because it’s not what we do. We don’t think one company can do everything. So you’ve got to partner with people that are really good at stuff. Like, we’re not, I mean, maybe Microsoft is great at search. We’re not. We’re not trying to be great at search so we partner with people that are great at search. And we don’t know how to do maps on the back end. We know how to do the best maps client in the world, but we don’t know how to do the back end so we partner with people that know how to do the back end. And what we want to do is be that consumer’s device and that consumer’s experience wrapped around all this information and things we can deliver to them in a wonderful user interface, in a coherent product.

And so in some cases, you know, we have to do more work than others. You know, in the case of iTunes, there wasn’t a music delivery service that was any good and we had to do one, so we’ll do one. But in other cases, there’s companies doing a way better job because we’re not as good at this stuff as other people are and we’d love to partner with them and so, you know, we selectively do that. And I think it’s really hard for one company to do everything. Life’s complex.

Kara: Let’s talk about entertainment. Entertainment’s important to both your companies. For yours with music right now and as you get into Apple TV. Microsoft has been within the Hollywood era. Where do you see that going in the era of YouTube? We’ve had a couple of network people here talking about changes that are happening in Hollywood and everything else. What is happening now to entertainment delivery and where do you all play? Because you’ll be the delivery mechanism in one way or the other for most people.

Bill: Well, the big milestone is where the delivery platform is the Internet and so you bring the richness and the interactivity. I think you can get a little bit of a glimpse of the future of TV more from looking at community-type things like Xbox Live, where people are talking to each other, finding friends, you know, watching things together, talking about those things.

As you map that onto genres like educational shows or sports shows or watching the Olympics, the elections, that ability to navigate becomes very, very powerful. And we’re not in entertainment. Yes, we do Halo, which is this big video game, but by and large, we’re a platform and so it’s the tough software things, whether it’s the speech or the ink or the deep graphics, that’s where things that take 10 years to get done, the IPTV stuff, the foundation there, you know, took ten years to get it done. Now it’s finally coming to fruition and we have people like AT&T betting their company on putting that together.

So we’re just at the start of having a scale-entertainment delivery vehicle, both through PCs, unfortunately not connected up to the TV set in most cases, but that’s a point of innovation, and now things like IPTV and Xbox that are connected up in the living room.

Walt: Bill, you weren’t here, but Steve showed a new function of Apple TV that brings YouTube directly to the TV. Is there going to be more of that from you? Do you see yourself the way Bill says, as an enabler of entertainment or, I mean, putting aside your Disney role, but your Apple role?

Steve: I mean, I think people want to enjoy their entertainment when they want it and how they want it, on the device that they want it on. So ultimately, that’s going to drive the entertainment companies into all sorts of different business models. And that’s a good thing. I mean, if you’re a content company, that’s a great thing. More people wanting to, you know, enjoy your content more often in more different ways, that’s why you’re in business, but the transitions are hard sometimes.

And, you know, the music industry, it turned out that the Internet got fast enough to download songs pretty easily. There was no legal alternative and maybe they made some bad choices in how they reacted to that, but, you know, they’re still trying to make the transition to a very different way of doing business, or ways of doing business while they’re under attack from piracy. And we can all highlight some of the mistakes that have been made, but, you know, still, it’s a tough job.

And Hollywood, I think, you know, has watched what’s happened in music, learned some things to do, some things not to do, but, you know, they’re still trying to map this out. How do they make some of these transitions, some new business models, different platforms, allowing their customers way more freedom on when they want to watch stuff and how they want to watch it. And I think there’s a tremendous amount of experimentation and thought going on that’s going to be good. It’s going to be really good if you’re a content owner.

Walt: Can I ask about the user interface of the personal computer for a minute? Vista has just come out, which is your best version of Windows you’ve done, has some UI improvements in it. You’re about to do yet another version of the Mac OS called Leopard in the fall, which, from what you’ve shown publicly at least so far, has some improvements. But fundamentally, these are still the kind of file icon, folder icon, dropdown menu. I know I’m minimizing. There’s a lot of other things. There’s gadgets and widgets and all kinds of other cool things in there now, but, you know, you can see that it’s still all built on what you started with, with what Xerox did research on.

In the offing in the next four or five years, is it possible there’s a new paradigm for organizing the user interface of the personal computer? Let’s leave cellphones and things out for a minute, but just the personal computer. Bill?

Bill: One of the things that’s been anticipated for a long time is when 3D comes into that interface. And there was a lot of experimentation, sites on the Internet where you’d kind of walk around and meet people, but in fact, the richness, the speed, it just didn’t sustain itself. Now we’re starting to see with some of the mapping stuff, a few of the sites, that the quality of that graphics, the tools and things, are getting to the point where 3D can really come in. So I’d definitely say that when you go to a store, bookstore, you’ll be able to see the books lined up, you know, the way you might be interested in or lined up the way they are in the real store.

So 3D is a way of organizing things, particularly as we’re getting much more media information on the computer, a lot more choices, a lot more navigation than we’ve ever had before. And we can take that into this communications world where the PC is playing a much more central role, kind of taking over what was the PBX, sort of one of the last mainframes in the business environment. That will be a big change that will come to it. And as we get natural input, that will cause a change.

Walt: And what about this multi-touch stuff? It’s really interesting. Obviously, Steve showed some of it on the iPhone when he introduced the iPhone. Steve Ballmer today showed a bunch of it with the Surface computing device. It happens, although it’s not part of our program, that HP, which is a sponsor of this conference, has a multi-touch sort of display over here out in the foyer. Will this make its way into…

Kara: Sort of the Minority Report, this kind of thing.

Walt: Yeah. Will this make its way into–maybe you call it direct manipulation of objects with your hands and your fingers. Will this make its way into mainstream, let’s say, laptop computers as a new UI or an additional part of the UI or is that just a thing for specialized devices?

Bill: Well, go beyond the laptop. Vision. Software is doing vision and so, you know, imagine a game machine where you’re just going to pick up the bat and swing it or the tennis racket and swing it.

Walt: We have one of those.

Kara: Yeah. Wii.

Walt: Well, the Wii.

Bill: No, that’s not it. You can’t pick up your tennis racket…

Kara: Oh, your tennis racket.

Walt: Oh, I see what you mean, yeah.

Bill: And swing it.

Kara: Right.

Bill: You can’t sit there with your friends and do those natural things. That’s a 3D positional device. This is video recognition. This is a camera seeing what’s going on. And, you know, in the meetings, like you’re on a video conference, you don’t know who’s speaking, you know, they’re audio only, things like that. The camera will be ubiquitous. Now, of course, we have to design it in a way that people’s expectations about privacy are handled appropriately, but software can do vision and it can do it very, very inexpensively. And that means this stuff becomes pervasive. You don’t just talk about it being in a laptop device. You talk about it being part of the meeting room or the living room or…

Walt: But on the laptop, the way that–and, you know, maybe what we have is great and we don’t need any new big radical change, but when I turn on my laptop, whether it’s my Vista laptop or my Mac laptop, you know, there have been improvements, but it’s a lot like it was 10 years ago. It’s much better, the graphics are better and all that.

Kara: We talked about that radical change to happen for both your companies.

Walt: But, you know, you have the mouse, you have the icons, you move around, you have the–I mean, and you talked about what a big gamble it was in ‘84 to do that and then the follow on with Windows. We still essentially have that approach and I’m just wondering is that going to change.

Bill: Touch, ink, speech, vision, those things come in, but they don’t come in as a radical substitute. I think you’re also underestimating the degree of evolution. Because you’ve lived with it year by year, you know, say we’d sent you away for 10 years and you came back and you said, wow, there’s a search paradigm and that’s more at the center of how you’d find these things. There’s tagging. That’s more at the center of how you’d find these things. You know, the evolution is a very good thing. In fact, even in that evolution, the stuff we did with Office, there’s this balance you strike where, when you make a change–in that case, the ribbon–you’re going to have some users who feel like, oh, jeez, I have to spend a little bit of time to be brought along to that. You know, but there has been good evolution, but these natural interface things are the revolutionary change and they will be very revolutionary. That, together with the 3D that I talked about.

Kara: Steve? I know you’re working on something, it’s going to be beautiful, we’ll see it soon.

Walt: And you can’t talk about it.

Steve: Yeah.

Walt: Bill discusses all his secret plans. You don’t discuss any.

Steve: I know, it’s not fair. But I think the question is a very simple one, which is how much of the really revolutionary things people are going to do in the next five years are done on the PCs or how much of it is really focused on the post-PC devices. And there’s a real temptation to focus it on the post-PC devices because it’s a clean slate and because they’re more focused devices and because, you know, they don’t have the legacy of these zillions of apps that have to run in zillions of markets.

And so I think there’s going to be tremendous revolution, you know, in the experiences of the post-PC devices. Now, the question is how much to do in the PCs. And I think I’m sure Microsoft is–we’re working on some really cool stuff, but some of it has to be tempered a little bit because you do have, you know, these tens of millions, in our case, or hundreds of millions in Bill’s case, users that are familiar with something that, you know, they don’t want a car with six wheels. They like the car with four wheels. They don’t want to drive with a joystick. They like the steering wheel.
And so, you know, you have to, as Bill was saying, in some cases, you have to augment what exists there and in some cases, you can replace things. But I think the radical rethinking of things is going to happen in a lot of these post-PC devices.

Kara: I’m going to ask a more personal question. We have just a minute before we’re going to open up for questions. What’s the greatest–I’m not going to call this a Barbara Walters moment and ask you what tree you’d like to be, but…

Walt: She would love to be Barbara Walters, let me just tell you.

Kara: No, I would not. What’s the greatest misunderstanding…

Steve: Ding.

Kara: Ding, right. Thank you, Steve. About your relationship. I mean, you’re obviously going to go down in history–history books already say it kind of thing. But what’s the greatest misunderstanding in your relationship and about each other? What would you say would be–this idea of cat fight? Which one of the many?

Steve: We’ve kept our marriage secret for over a decade now.

Kara: Canada. That trip to Canada.

[Laughter and applause]

Bill: I don’t think either of us have anything to complain about, in general. And I know that the projects, like the Mac project, was just an incredible thing, a fun thing where we were taking a risk. We did look a lot younger in that video.

Steve: We did.

Kara: You looked 12 in the first one.

Bill: That’s how I try and look.

Steve: He was 12.

Bill: But, no, it’s been fun to work together. I actually kind of miss some of the people who aren’t around anymore. You know, people come and go in this industry. It’s nice when somebody sticks around and they have some context of all the things that have worked and not worked. The industry gets all crazy about some new thing, you know, like, there’s always this paradigm of the company that’s successful is going to go away and stuff like that. It’s nice to have people seeing the waves and waves of that and yet, when it counted, to take the risk to bring in something new.

Walt: One last question and then we’ll go to the audience.

Kara: Oh, no, he didn’t answer us.

Walt: Sorry, what?

Steve: I haven’t answered.

Walt: Oh, I’m sorry.

Kara: He only talked about his secret gay marriage so…

Walt: Oh, I thought that was your answer.

Steve: No, that wasn’t my answer. You know, when Bill and I first met each other and worked together in the early days, generally, we were both the youngest guys in the room, right? Individually or together. I’m about six months older than he is, but roughly the same age. And now when we’re working at our respective companies, I don’t know about you, but I’m the oldest guy in the room most of the time. And that’s why I love being here.

Walt: Happy to oblige. Happy to oblige.

Steve: And, you know, I think of most things in life as either a Bob Dylan or a Beatles song, but there’s that one line in that one Beatles song, “you and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.” And that’s clearly true here.

Kara: Oh, sweet.

Walt: Oh, you know what? I think we should end it there. Let’s just end it there.

Kara: I have a little tear right here.

Walt: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Kara: Thank you so much.

[Applause]

Kara: Wow. Okay. So some audience questions, please.

Walt: Questions. Can we have some lights? Roger.

Roger: Roger McNamee from Elevation Partners. Hey, guys, that was incredible. Thank you very much. We’ve got a big election coming up next year and I’m curious if there are any issues that you see in Silicon Valley that we all ought to be focused on communicating effectively to the next potential president of the United States. That is, any common ground that we share. Because it’s weird, you don’t actually hear any issues that people are talking about right now and I’m curious if you guys have any in mind.

Walt: Bill?

Bill: Well, certainly, education is one that I’d put at the top of the list.

Roger: Are there technological solutions right now that they could do something about or is that just sort of, like…

Bill: No. Technology is going to be helpful and more and more, but the way that teachers are measured and made excellent, the way that the high schools are designed, the expectations they have, it’s not just a pure technology thing. It’s more an institutional practice where the opportunity is. You know, there should be a lot of debate about the different ways of doing that.

Walt: Steve?

Steve: Boy, we’ve got some pretty big problems and I think most of them are much bigger than anything Silicon Valley can contribute right now to solve. So hopefully some of those will get solved. I also think we underestimate how much all of our industry depends on stability. We’ve enjoyed, you know, a long period of stability and we’ve been able to focus on technology and growing our businesses and stuff and I think we take that for granted sometimes.

One of the more interesting areas that we all suffer from, of course, is in the area of energy dependency. And there’s a lot of work going on, I know a lot of investing going on, anyway, I don’t know if the results are there, but a lot of investing going on in alternative energy and maybe Silicon Valley can play a small role in some of that stuff, too.

Kara: Are you guys investing in that area personally or…

Bill: Some.

Kara: Which might be a lot from you.

Bill: A billion here or there.

Walt: Steve, are you investing in that area?

Steve: No.

Kara: Just a Prius?

Steve: Yeah, just appreciating.

Walt: Over there.

Don: Hi. Don Eklund, Sony Pictures. My question is really, at what point is there too much diversity? It was talked about a few times in the discussion, the fact that now microprocessors are very low cost, memory’s low cost, software is ubiquitous, but, my life has been made better by standards, like coding standards, network standards. And it seems like we’re reaching a point where diversity is starting to take hold to a point where we’re not going to be able to have the kinds of convergence devices that I think everyone would really be able to appreciate. And I’m wondering, you know, is this going to be, like, health care or mass transit where you just can never put it back in the bottle again? And I’d like to get your perspective on that, if there’s still an opportunity to have some grand convergence devices that can really simplify people’s lives and enrich their lives.

Walt: Steve?

Steve: Well, I think Bill and I would agree that we can get it down to two. No, I think it’s hard to limit imagination and innovation. I think there’s always going to be a bunch of new, great things. And I think that’s part of what we put up with to get the innovation. We put up with a little bit of aggravation to get the innovation.

Bill: And I think the marketplace is awfully good at allowing diversity when it should and then getting rid of it when it shouldn’t.

Steve: And then letting it come back sometimes.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in terms of standards and things. I mean, the Internet standards have been incredibly powerful, you know, video formats, things like this. And so I don’t see things that are going to really hold back a convergence device. You know, sure, there’s a lot of wireless approaches, but that’s pretty healthy right now. They each have various merits. A few of them will end up overlapping the other ones and kill the other ones out, but I think the industry’s done very well at latching onto standards for the things that there were no longer any innovation in and then focusing on the places where it wasn’t clear which approach was best.

Walt: Jesse?

Jesse: Hi. I’m Jesse Kornbluth, HeadButler.com. But you’re not the youngest guys in the room anymore, it’s perhaps appropriate to ask you a question about legacy, each of you. Bill, even your harshest critic would have to admit that your philanthropy work is, you know, planet-shaking, incredible, and could be, if you make it, a second act so amazing that it would dwarf what you’ve actually done at Microsoft.

[Applause]

If you had to choose a legacy, what would it be? And Steve, do you look at Bill and you think, gee, that guy is so lucky he had a company so rich with talent that he didn’t have to personally come in every day and save it and, you know, I wish I had the opportunity?

Kara: Okay. He’s not going to answer that one.

Walt: Bill?

Bill: Well, the most important work I got a chance to be involved in, no matter what I do, is the personal computer. You know, that’s what I grew up, in my teens, my 20s, my 30s, you know, I even knew not to get married until later because I was so obsessed with it. That’s my life’s work. And it’s lucky for me that some of the skills and resources–but I put skills first–that I was able to develop through those experiences can be applied to the benefit of the people who haven’t had technology, including medicine, working for them. So it’s an incredible blessing to have two things like that. But the thing that I’ll, you know, if you look inside my brain, it’s filled with software and, you know, the magic of software and the belief in software and, you know, that’s not going to change.

Steve: So your question was about whether I wish I didn’t have to go into Apple every day?

Jesse: No, if you envied Bill a bit, this second act that he has.

Steve: Oh, no. I think the world’s…

Kara: You want to do anything else.

Steve: I think the world’s a better place because Bill realized that his goal isn’t to be the richest guy in the cemetery, right? That’s a good thing and so he’s doing a lot of good with the money that he made.
You know, I’m sure Bill was like me in this way. I mean, I grew up fairly middle-class, lower middle-class, and I never really cared much about money. And Apple was so successful early on in life that I was very lucky that I didn’t have to care about money then. And so I’ve been able to focus on work and then later on, my family.

And I sort of look at us as two of the luckiest guys on the planet because we found what we loved to do and we were at the right place at the right time and we’ve gotten to go to work every day with super bright people for 30 years and do what we love doing.

And so it’s hard to be happier than that. You know, your family and that. What more can you ask for? And so I don’t think about legacy much. I just think about being able to get up every day and go in and hang around these great people and hopefully create something that other people will love as much as we do. And if we can do that, that’s great.

Walt: Yeah.

Rob: Thanks, Steve and Bill. Rob Killion, here with my business partner. We’ve got a 100-person Internet media business. I’m wondering what would be the single most valuable piece of advice you’d give us to even attempt to create some of the value that you guys have done in both your very impressive companies.

Bill: Well, I think actually–it may be in both cases–correct me if I’m wrong–the excitement wasn’t really seeing the economic value. You know, even when we wrote down at Microsoft in 1975, “a computer on every desk and in every home,” we didn’t realize, oh, we’ll have to be a big company. Every time, I thought, “Oh, God, can we double in size?” Jeez, can we manage that many people? Will that feel fun still? You know, and so every doubling was, like, okay, this is the last one. And so the economic thing wasn’t at the forefront. The idea of being at the forefront and seeing new things and things we wanted to do and being able to bring in different people who were fun to work with eventually with a pretty broad set of skills and figuring out how to get those people those broad skills to work well together has been one of the greatest challenges. You know, I made more of my mistakes in that area maybe than anywhere, but, you know, eventually getting some of those teams to work very well together. So, you know, I think it’s a lot about the people and the passion. And it’s amazing that the business worked out the way that it did.

Steve: Yeah. People say you have to have a lot of passion for what you’re doing and it’s totally true. And the reason is because it’s so hard that if you don’t, any rational person would give up. It’s really hard. And you have to do it over a sustained period of time. So if you don’t love it, if you’re not having fun doing it, you don’t really love it, you’re going to give up. And that’s what happens to most people, actually. If you really look at the ones that ended up, you know, being “successful” in the eyes of society and the ones that didn’t, oftentimes, it’s the ones [who] were successful loved what they did so they could persevere, you know, when it got really tough. And the ones that didn’t love it quit because they’re sane, right? Who would want to put up with this stuff if you don’t love it?

So it’s a lot of hard work and it’s a lot of worrying constantly and if you don’t love it, you’re going to fail. So you’ve got to love it and you’ve got to have passion and I think that’s the high-order bit.

The second thing is, you’ve got to be a really good talent scout because no matter how smart you are, you need a team of great people and you’ve got to figure out how to size people up fairly quickly, make decisions without knowing people too well and hire them and, you know, see how you do and refine your intuition and be able to help, you know, build an organization that can eventually just, you know, build itself because you need great people around you.

Walt: Lise.

Lise: Lise Buyer. Question, I guess it’s historical curiosity. You approached the same opportunity so very differently. What did you learn about running your own business that you wished you had thought of sooner or thought of first by watching the other guy?

Bill: Well, I’d give a lot to have Steve’s taste. [laughter] He has natural–it’s not a joke at all. I think in terms of intuitive taste, both for people and products, you know, we sat in Mac product reviews where there were questions about software choices, how things would be done that I viewed as an engineering question, you know, and that’s just how my mind works. And I’d see Steve make the decision based on a sense of people and product that, you know, is even hard for me to explain. The way he does things is just different and, you know, I think it’s magical. And in that case, wow.

Steve: You know, because Woz and I started the company based on doing the whole banana, we weren’t so good at partnering with people. And, you know, actually, the funny thing is, Microsoft’s one of the few companies we were able to partner with that actually worked for both companies. And we weren’t so good at that, where Bill and Microsoft were really good at it because they didn’t make the whole thing in the early days and they learned how to partner with people really well.

And I think if Apple could have had a little more of that in its DNA, it would have served it extremely well. And I don’t think Apple learned that until, you know, a few decades later.

Walt: Over here.

Charlie: Yeah, hi. Charlie Brenner from Fidelity Investments. In our financial services industry, we are focusing very strongly on aging and retiring baby-boomers, a huge demographic.

Steve: We’re not that old yet.

Charlie: No, I wasn’t– The question is different from what it sounds like it’s going to be here. But most of the innovation that we see coming from computer and Internet companies is kind of youth-oriented. And I’m just wondering if there are activities going on in your companies acknowledging what’s going to be happening generationally.

Steve: Oh, not true. I’ll give you one example. So we started building in video cameras into almost all our computers a few years ago. And the response by people of all ages, but in particular seniors, has been off the charts because they’re buying these things now and they’re buying them for their grandkids, their sons and daughters with their grandkids so they can stay in touch with their grandkids. And they’re videoconferencing more than younger people are. And it’s incredible what this has done. So that’s just one simple example, but there’s, like, dozens of them that have clicked with, you know, seniors that are living independently that want to stay in touch with extended families and do other things like that.

Bill: Yeah, I think it’s a very good point, when you look at the size of the market. And that’s partly why it’s great that there are all these companies out there who can see, okay, what would you do for seniors? I think natural user interface is particularly applicable here because the keyboard, you know, we’re sort of warped in that we grew up using the keyboard and so it’s extremely natural to us, but things like–and that’s partly why when we showed the Surface computer, I showed it privately to a bunch of CEOs a couple weeks ago, I was kind of stunned by how blown away they were. But their ease of navigation is just not the same. And when they saw that, the idea that they could organize their photo album, it meant more to them than it did to me.

Steve: I’ll give you another example. We’ve got a little shy of 200 retail stores now. And one of the things that stores are doing is personal training now. It’s called one-to-one. And we are up to now a run rate of a million personal training sessions–they last an hour–per year. A million per year.

Walt: You only started a little while ago, right?

Steve: Yeah, we started about a year ago and we’re up to a million training sessions per year run rate now. And a lot of those folks–some of them, anyway, many of them–are seniors. And they’re coming in and they’re spending an hour learning how to use Office and they’re spending an hour learning how to video-conference. They can basically come in as much as they want and they can schedule these things throughout a year and they pay $99, I think, a year for it. And it’s been great.

Kara: Last question.

Walt: Now the last question over there.

Unidentified male:We all share our common science-fiction experience of, you know, the metaverse or the matrix where we all could communicate without being in the same place. And by the way, thank you both for providing us the best platforms so far to go to chat rooms or to all go to a MySpace. It’s a far cry from these things that we see on Star Trek at the holodeck. What kinds of things can you imagine that are partway there that could be much better than the three-window iChat that we might see in the next five or 10 years?

Bill: Well, I think Steve’s going to announce his transporter.

Steve: I want Star Trek. Just give me Star Trek.

Bill: No, I think short of the transporter, most things you see in science fiction are, in the next decade, the kinds of things you’ll see. The virtual presence, the virtual worlds that both represent what’s going on in the real world and represent whatever people are interested in. This movement in space as a way of interacting with the machine. I think the deep investments that have been made at the research level will pay off with these things in the next 10 years.

Walt: Steve?

Steve: I don’t know. And that’s what makes it exciting to go into work every day, because there’s–as we talked about earlier, this is an extraordinarily exciting time in the industry, and lots of new stuff happening. So, you know, I can’t even begin to think what it’s going to be like 10 years from now.

Walt: Thank you so much.

Kara: Thank you so much.

[Applause]

Kara: Thank you so much. That was great.

Walt: That’s great. Thank you for being here.

Various types of knives and daggers

2007-06-09T22:14:00.001-07:00

The various kinds of knives are illustrated below.Click on the image for viewing a higher resolution of the image.

Different kinds of KNOTS

2007-06-08T02:27:00.001-07:00

The various kinds of knots that are used for different purposes are illustrated below.Click on the image for viewing a higher resolution of the image.

SEAMAN'S knots

225 Ways To Annoy Your Roommate

2007-05-27T11:42:00.000-07:00

Ways To Annoy Your Roommate
or just about anybody!

1. Repeat thoughtfully the last word of everything your victim says (e.g. Your roommate:
"How are you doing today?"
You: "Today.... Today......")
2. Continuously refer to your roommate using terms of endearment (sweetcheeks, honeybuns). Slap him/her in the face if s/he ever does the same.
3. Kill several people. Store the corpses underneath your friend's bed. Call the police.
4. Become Forrest Gump.
5. Incessantly rant about the government's attempts to control our minds by poisoning us with Dihydrous Monoxide. If your roommate tries to explain that Dihydrous Monoxide = H2O = Water, exclaim "HA!! THAT'S WHAT THEY /WANT/ YOU TO THINK!!!!"
6. Intensely study the complete list of ways to annoy your roommate. Form a discussion group with your roommate. Give tests.
7. Start a food drive around campus to feed your roommate. Comment often on how fat s/he's getting.
8. Read nothing but "Human Calculator" books. Consistently make mistake's on simple math (e.g. "2 + 2 = ..3? No, 5! No.......")
9. Switch the sheets on your beds while s/he is at class.
10. Twitch a lot.
11. Pretend to talk while pretending to be asleep.
12. Steal a fish tank. Fill it with beer and dump sardines in it. Talk to them.
13. Become a subgenius.
14. Inject his/her Twinkies with a mixture of Dexatrim and MSG.
15. Learn to levitate. While your roommate is looking away, float up out of your seat. When s/he turns to look, fall back down and grin.
16. Speak in tongues.
17. Move you roommate's personal effects around. Start subtilely. Gradually work up to big things, and eventually glue everything s/he owns to the ceiling.
18. Walk and talk backwards.
19. Spend all your money on Jolt Cola. Drink it all. Stack the cans in the middle of your room. Number them.
20. Spend all your money on transformers. Play with them at night. If your roommate says anything, tell him/her with a straight face, They're more than meets the eye."
21. Recite entire movie scripts (e.g. "The Road Warrior," "Repo Man, "Casablanca,") almost inaudibly.
22. Kill roaches with a monkey wrench while playing Wagnerian arias on a kazoo. If your roommate complains, explain that it is for your performance art class (or hit him/her with the wrench).
23. Chain yourself to your roommate's bed. Get him/her to bring you food.
24. Get a computer. Leave it on when you are not using it. Turn it off when you are.
25. Ask your roommate if your family can move in "just for a couple of weeks."
26. Fake a heart attack. When your roommate gets the paramedics to come, pretend nothing happened.
27. Eat glass.
28. Smoke ball-point pens.
29. Smile. All the time.
30. Burn all your waste paper while eyeing your roommate suspiciously.
31. Hide a bunch of potato chips and Ho Hos in the bottom of a trash can. When you get hungry, root around in the trash. Find the food, and eat it. If your roommate empties the trash before you get hungry, demand that s/he reimburse you.
32. Leave a declaration of war on your roommate's desk. Include a list of grievances.
33. Shoot rubber bands at your roommate while his/her back is turned, and then look away quickly.
34. Dye all your underwear lime green.
35. Buy three loaves of stale bread. Grow mold in the closet.
36. Hide your underwear and socks in your roommate's closet. Accuse him/her of stealing it.
37. Remove your door. Ship it to your roommate's parents (postage due).
38. Whenever your roommate walks in, wait one minute and then stand up. Announce that you are going to take a shower. Do so. Keep this up for three weeks.
39. Array thirteen toothbrushes of different colors on your dresser. Refuse to discuss them.
40. Paint your half of the room black. Or paisley.
41. Whenever he/she is about to fall asleep, ask questions that start with "Didja ever wonder why....?" Be creative.
42. Shave one eyebrow.
43. Put your mattress underneath your bed. Sleep down under there and pile your dirty clothes on the empty bed frame. If your roommate comments, mutter "Gotta save space," twenty times while twitching violently.
44. Put horseradish in your shoes.
45. Shelve all your books with the spines facing the wall. Complain loudly that you can never find the book that you want.
46. Always flush the toilet three times.
47. Subsist entirely on pickles for a week. Vomit often.
48. Buy a copy of Frankie Yankovic's "Pennsylvania Polka," and play it at least 6 hours a day. If your roommate complains, explain that it's an assignment for your primitive cultures class.
49. Give him/her an allowance.
50. Listen to radio static.
51. Open your window shades before you go to sleep each night. Close them as soon as you wake up.
52. Cry a lot.
53. Send secret admirer notes on your roommate's Email.
54. Clip your fingernails and toenails and keep them in a baggie. Leave the baggie near your computer and snack from it while studying. If he/she walks by, grab the bag close and eye him/her suspiciously.
55. Paste used kleenexes to his/her walls.
56. Whenever your roommate comes in from the shower, lower your eyes and giggle to yourself.
57. If you get in before your roommate, go to sleep in his/her bed.
58. Whenever you go to bed, start jumping up and down on it. Do so for a while, then jump really high and act like you hit your head on the ceiling. Crumple onto your bed and fake like you were knocked out. Use this method to fall asleep every night for a month.
59. If your roommate goes away for a weekend, change the locks.
60. Whenever his/her parents call and ask for your roommate, breathe into the phone for 5 seconds then hang up.
61. Whenever he/she goes to shower, drop whatever you're doing, grab a towel, and go shower too.
62. Find out your roommate's post office box code. Open it and take his/her mail. Do this for one month. After that, send the mail to him/her by UPS.
63. Collect all of your pencil shavings and sprinkle them on the floor.
64. Create an imaginary cat for a pet. Talk to it every night, act like you're holding it, keep a litter box under your desk. After two weeks, say that your cat is missing. Put up signs in your dorm, blame your roommate.
65. Call safety & security whenever your roommate turns up his/her music.
66. Follow him/her around on weekends.
67. Sit on the floor and talk to the wall.
68. Whenever the phone rings, get up and answer the door.
69. Whenever someone knocks, answer the phone.
70. Whenever your roommate is walking through the room, bump into him/her.
71. Stare at your roommate for five minutes out of every hour. Don't say anything, just stare.
72. Tell your roommate that someone called and said that it was really important but you can't remember who it was.
73. Let mice loose in his/her room.
74. Give each of your walls a different name. Whenever you can't answer a problem, ask each of your walls. Write down their responses, then ask your ceiling for the final answer. Complain to your roommate that you don't trust your ceiling.
75. Take your roommate's papers and hand them in as your own.
76. Skip to the bathroom.
77. Take all of your roommate's furniture and build a fort. Guard the fort for an entire weekend.
78. Gather up a garbage bag full of leaves and throw them in a pile in his/her room. Jump in them. Comment about the beautiful foliage.
79. When you walk into your room, turn off your lights. Turn them on when you leave.
80. Whenever you're on the phone and he/she walks in, hang up immediately without saying anything and crawl under your desk. Sit there for two minutes than call whoever it was back.
81. Insist on writing the entire lyrics to American Pie on your ceiling above your bed. Sing them every night before you go to bed.
82. Burn incense.
83. Eat moths.
84. Buy Sea Monkeys and grow them. Name one after your roommate. Announce the next day that that one died. Name another one after your roommate. The next day say that it died. Keep this up until they all die.
85. Collect Chia-Pets.
86. Refuse to communicate in anything but sign language.
87. Eat a bag of marshmallows before you go to bed. The next day, spray three bottles of whip cream all over your floor. Say you got sick.
88. Wipe deodorant all over your roommate's walls.
89. If you know that he/she is in the room, come barging in out of breath. Ask if they saw a fat bald naked Tibetan man run through carrying a hundred dollar bill. Run back out swearing.
90. Leave apple cores on his/her bed.
91. Don't ever flush.
92. Hang stuffed animals with nooses from your ceiling. Whenever you walk by them mutter, "You shouldn't have done that to me."
93. Lick him/her while they are asleep.
94. Dress in drag.
95. Insist that you are a vegetarian and protest anytime your roommate eats meat. Then leave "Slim Jim" wrappers on the floor and lie on the bed holding your stomach every time your roommate walks in. If he/she asks about the wrappers, say you know nothing about them.
96. Get some hair. Disperse it around your roommate's head while he/she is asleep. Keep a pair of scissors by your bed. Snicker at your roommate every morning.
97. Every time your roommate walks in yell, "Hooray! You're back!" as loud as you can and dance around the room for five minutes. Afterwards, keep looking at your watch and saying, "Shouldn't you be going somewhere?"
98. Trash the room when your roommate's not around. Then leave and wait for your roommate to come back. When he/she does, walk in and act surprised. Say, "Uh-oh, it looks like, THEY, were here again."
99. Every time you see your roommate yell, "You son of a..." and kick him/her in the stomach. Then buy him/her some ice cream.
100. Set your roommate's bed on fire. Apologize and explain that you've been watching too much "Beavis & Butthead." Do it again. Tell him/her that you're not sorry because this time, they deserved it.
101. Put your glasses on before you go to bed. Take them off as soon as you wake up. If your roommate asks, explain that they are Magic Dream Glasses. Complain that you've been having terrible nightmares.
102. Eat lots of "Lucky Charms." Pick out all the yellow moons and stockpile them in the closet. If your roommate inquires, explain that visitors are coming, but you can't say anything more, or you'll have to face the consequences.
103. Set up meetings with your roommate's faculty advisor. Inquire about his/her academic potential. Take lots of notes, and then give your roommate a full report. Insist that he/she do the same.
104. "Drink" a raw egg for breakfast every morning. Explain that you are in training. Eat a dozen donuts every night.
105. Every Thursday, pack up everything you own and tell your roommate you're going home. Come back in an hour and explain that no one was home. Unpack everything and go to sleep.
106. Every time you wake up, start yelling, "Oh, no! Where am I?!" and run around the room for a few minutes. Then go back to bed. If your roommate asks, say you don't know what he/she is talking about.
107. Draw a tiny, black spot on your arm. Make it bigger every day. Look at it and say, "It's spreading, it's spreading."
108. Buy a McDonald's "Happy Meal" for lunch every day. Eat the straw and the napkin. Throw everything else away.
109. Buy a plant. Sleep with it at night. Talk to it. After a few weeks, start to argue with it loudly. Then yell, "I can't live in the same room with you," storm out of the room and slam the door. Get rid of the plant, but keep the pot. Refuse to discuss the plant ever again.
110. Buy a Jack-In-The-Box. Every day, turn the handle until the clown pops out. Scream continuously for twenty minutes.
111. Hang up pictures of chickens all over the room. If your roommate eats eggs, yell at him/her and call him/her a cannibal.
112. Buy some knives. Sharpen them every night. While you're doing so, look at your roommate and mutter, "Soon, soon...."
113. Lock the door while your roommate is out. When he/she comes back and tries to unlock it, yell, "Don't come in, I'm naked!" Keep this up for several hours. When you finally let your roommate in, immediately take off all of your clothes, and ignore your roommate.
114. Bring in potential "new" roommates from around campus. Give them tours of the room and the building. Have them ask about your roommate in front of him/her, and reply, "Oh, him/her? He/she won't be here much longer."
115. If your roommate comes home after midnight, hit him/her on the head with a rolling pin. Immediately go to bed, muttering, "Ungrateful little..."
116. Pile dirty dishes in your roommate's bed. Insist that you don't know how they got there.
117. Collect hundreds of pens and pile them on one side of the room. Keep one pencil on the other side of the room. Laugh at the pencil.
118. Feign a serious illness for two weeks. Have a priest come to your room and visit you. Write out a will, leaving everything to your roommate. One day, miraculously "recover." Insist that your roommate write out a will, leaving everything to you. Every time he/she coughs, excitedly say, "Oooh, are you dying?"
119. Keep a tarantula in a jar for three days. Then get rid of the tarantula. If your roommate asks about it, say, "Oh, he's around here, somewhere."
120. Tell your roommate, "I've got an important message for you." Then pretend to faint. When you recover, say you can't remember what the message was. Later on, say, "Oh, yeah, I remember!" Pretend to faint again. Keep this up for several weeks.
121. Bowl inside the room. Set up tournaments with other people in the building. Award someone a trophy. If your roommate wants to bowl too, explain that he/she needs bowling shoes.
122. Walk backwards all the time. Then pretend to trip and hurt yourself. Fake an injury and go through a long, painful recovery. Start walking backwards again.
123. While your roommate is out, glue your shoes to the ceiling. When your roommate walks in, sit on the floor, hold your head, and moan.
124. Explain to your roommate that you're going to be housing a prospective student in the near future. One day, bring in a pig. If your roommate protests, hug the pig and tell your roommate that he/she hurt its feelings. Watch T.V with the pig, eating lots of bacon.
125. Make a sandwich. Don't eat it, leave it on the floor. Ignore the sandwich.Wait until your roommate gets rid of it, and then say, "Hey, where is my sandwich!?" Complain loudly that you are hungry.
126. Punch a hole in the T.V. Sit and watch it anyway, complaining about the poor picture quality.
127. Wear a cape. Stand in front of an open window for about an hour every day. Then, one day, when your roommate is gone, go outside and lie down underneath the window, pretending to be hurt, and wait for your roommate to return. The next day, start standing in front of the window again.
128. Collect potatoes. Paint faces on them and give them names. Name one after your roommate. Separate your roommate's potato from the others. Wait a few days, and then bake your roommate's potato and eat it. Explain to your roommate, "He just didn't belong."
129. Fill an empty shaving cream can with whipped cream. Use it to shave, and then spray some into your mouth. Later on, complain that you feel sick. Continue this process for several weeks.
130. Cover your bed with a tent. Live inside it for a week. If your roommate asks, explain that "It's a jungle out there." Get your roommate to bring you food and water.
131. Keep a vacuum cleaner in the middle of the room. Look at it with fear for a few days. Then stay out of the room entirely, opening the door only a crack and whispering to your roommate, "Psst! Is it gone?"
132. Break the window with a rock. If your roommate protests, explain that you were hot. Open and close the broken window as you normally would.
133. Throw darts at a bare wall. All of a sudden, act excited, telling your roommate that you hit the bulls eye.
134. Send flowers to your roommate, with a card that says, "I'm sorry. It won't happen again." When you see them, start ripping up the flowers. Repeat the process for a few weeks.
135. Call your roommate "Clyde" by accident. Start doing so every so often. Increase the frequency over the next few weeks, until you are calling him "Clyde" all the time. If your roommate protests, say, "I'm sorry. I won't do that anymore, Murray."
136. Hire a night watchman to guard the room while you are sleeping.
137. Move everything to one side of the room. Ask your roommate if he knows how much an elephant weighs, and look at the floor on the empty side of the room with concern.
138. Practice needlepoint every night. At one point, grab your thumb and scream, "Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!" Cry hysterically for a few minutes, and then go to bed. Sob and sniff all night.
139. When your roommate comes in, pretend that you are on the phone, screaming angrily and shouting obscenities. After you hang up, say, "That was your mom. She said she'd call back."
140. Every time your roommate comes in, immediately turn off the lights and go to bed. When he/she leaves, get up and loudly yell, "Okay, guys, you can come out now."
141. Start wearing a crown, all the time. If your roommate tells you to take it off, say, "What do you think you are? A king?"
142. Sit in front of a chess board for hours, saying nothing, doing nothing. Then, look up and say, "I think this game goes a lot faster with two players."
143. Talk back to your "Rice Krispies." All of a sudden, act offended, throw the bowl on the floor and kick it. Refuse to clean it up, explaining, "No, I want to watch them suffer."
144. Change the locks on the door. Don't let your roommate in unless he/she says the secret word. Change the secret word often. If your roommate can't guess the secret word, make him/her pay a tithe.
145. Scatter stuffed animals around the room. Put party hats on them. Play loud music. When your roommate walks in, turn off the music, take off the party hats, put away the stuffed animals, and say, "Well, it was fun while it lasted."
146. Hang a tire swing from the ceiling. Act like a monkey. If someone besides your roommate comes in, cease acting like a monkey and claim that the tire swing was your roommate's idea. When you and your roommate are alone again, continue acting like a monkey.
147. Unplug everything in the room except for one toaster. Pray to the toaster. Bring it gifts. Throw some of your roommate's possessions out the window. Say that the toaster made you do it.
148. Challenge your roommate to a duel. If he/she refuses, claim that you have won by forfeit and therefore conquered his/her side of the room. Insist that he/she remove all of his/her possessions immediately.
149. Sign your roommate up for various activities (Campus tour guide, blood donor, organ donor).
150. Start dressing like an Indian. If your roommate inquires, claim that you are getting in touch with your Native-American roots. If your roommate accuses you of not having any Native-American roots, claim that he/she has offended your people and put a curse on your roommate.
151. Wear your shoes on the wrong feet, all the time. Constantly complain that your feet hurt.
152. Hit your roommate on the head with a brick. Claim that you were trying to kill a mosquito.
153. Steal something valuable of your roommate's. If he/she asks about it, tell him/her that you traded it for some magic beans. Give some beans to your roommate.
154. Instead of turning off the light switch, smash the lightbulb with a hammer. Put a new bulb in the next day. Complain often about the cost of lightbulbs.
155. Videotape yourself hammering a nail into a wall for a while, and then stopping. Play the tape in your room. Right before the hammering stops on the videotape, look at the screen and say, "Don't do that."
156. Buy a lamp. Tell your roommate it's a magic lamp, with a genie inside it. Spend a week thinking about what to wish for. At the end of the week, report that someone has released the genie from the lamp. Blame your roommate.
157. Whenever your roommate brushes his/her teeth, watch him/her do so. Take notes. Write a paper on it, and circulate it around campus. If your roommate protests, say, "The people have a right to know!"
158. Collect potato chips that you think look like famous people. Find one that looks like your roommate. Burn it, and explain, "It had to be done."
159. Read the phone book out loud and excitedly ("Frank Johnson! Oh, wow! 837-9494! Holy cow!")
160. Shadow box several times a day. One day, walk in looking depressed. If your roommate asks what's wrong, explain that your shadow can't box with you anymore due to an injury. Ask your roommate if you can box with his/her shadow.
161. When you walk into the room, look at your roommate in disgust and yell, "Oh, you're here!" Walk away yelling and cursing.
162. Put up flyers around the building, reporting that your roommate is missing. Offer a reward for his/her safe return.
163. Buy a watermelon. Draw a face on it and give it a name. Ask your roommate if the watermelon can sleep in his/her bed. If your roommate says no, drop the watermelon out the window. Make it look like a suicide. Say nasty things about your roommate at the funeral.
164. Draw a chalk outline on the floor. When your roommate comes in, say, "Don't worry. It's not what you think." If he/she asks about it again, immediately change the subject.
165. Drink a cup of coffee every morning. When you finish it, gnaw on the mug for about ten minutes. Then, look at your roommate, immediately put the mug away, and quickly leave the room.
166. Paint a tunnel on the wall like they do in cartoons. Every day, hit your head as you attempt to crawl through it. Hold your head and grumble, "Stupid road runner...."
167. Leave memos on your roommate's bed that say things like, "I know what you did," and "Don't think you can fool me." Sign them in blood.
168. Hold a raffle, offering your roommate as first prize. If he/she protests, tell him/her that it's all for charity.
169. Make cue cards for your roommate. Get them out whenever you'd like to have a conversation.
170. Talk like a pirate, all the time. Threaten to make your roommate walk the plank if he/she doesn't swab the deck. Arrrrrrrrr!
171. Set up about twenty plants in an organized formation. When your roommate walks in, pretend to be in the middle of delivering a speech to the plants. Whisper to them, "We'll continue this later," while eyeing your roommate suspiciously.
172. Buy a telescope. Sit on your bed and look across the room at your roommate through the telescope. When you're not using the telescope, act like your roommate is too far away for you to see.
173. Keep some worms in a shoe box. When doing homework, go and consult with the worms every so often. Then become angry, shouting at the worms that they're stupid and they don't know what they're talking about.
174. Watch "Psycho" every day for a month. Then act excited every time your roommate goes to take a shower.
175. Wear a paper hat. Every time your roommate walks in, say, "Welcome to McDonalds, can I take your...Oh, it's just you." Take off the hat, sit, and pout.
176. Go through your roommate's textbooks with a red pen, changing things and making random corrections. If your roommate protests, tell him/her that you just couldn't take it anymore.
177. Leave the room at random, knock on the door, and wait for your roommate to let you back in. If he/she asks about it, go off on a tangent about the importance of good manners. 179.Hang a horseshoe above the door. Make up stories about having had good luck. Then, take the horseshoe down and wrap your head in bandages. When you see your roommate, look above the door where the horseshoe used to be, hold your head, and mutter, "Stupid horseshoe...."
178. Carve a jack-o-lantern. Complain to your roommate that the jack-o-lantern has been staring at you. The next day, tell your roommate that the jack-o-lantern thinks he/she has been staring at it. Confide in your roommate that you really don't like the jack-o-lantern, but you can't convince it to move out.
179. As soon as your roommate turns the light off at night, begin singing famous operas as loud as you can. When your roommate turns on the light, look around and pretend to be confused.
180. Hang a basketball net on the wall. Challenge your refrigerator to basketball games, and play them in front of your roommate. Do so for about a month. Confide in your roommate that you think the refrigerator has been taking steroids.
181. Drink lots of lemonade. Talk obnoxiously for hours about how much you love lemonade. Then, one day, paint your face yellow. From then on, complain about how much you hate lemonade.
182. Late at night, start conversations that begin with, "Remember the good old days, when we used to..." and make up stories involving you and your roommate.
183. Whenever your roommate sneezes, go and hide in the closet for about an hour. Look around nervously for the rest of the day.
184. Sit and stare at your roommate for hours. Bring others in to join you. Eat peanuts, throwing a few at your roommate. Then say, "Boy, these zoos just aren't what they used to be."
185. Tell your roommate that your toe hurts, and that means there's going to be an earthquake soon. While your roommate is out, trash everything on his/her side of the room. When he/she returns, explain that the earthquake hit, but only on one side of the room.
186. Buy a gun. Clean it every day. One day, put a band-aid on your forehead, and refuse to discuss the gun ever again.
187. Buy a lobster. Pretend to play cards with it. Complain to your roommate that the lobster is making up his own rules.
188. Make pancakes every morning, but don't eat them. Draw faces on them, and toss them in the closet. Watch them for several hours each day. Complain to your roommate that your "pancake farm" isn't evolving into a self-sufficient community. Confide in your roommate that you think the king of the pancakes has been taking bribes.
189. While you are ironing, pretend to burn yourself. Start a garbage can fire in the middle of the room. Toss the iron inside. If your roommate objects, explain that you are just trying to get even.
190. Buy some turtles. Paint numbers on their backs. Race them down the hall.
191. Create an army of animal crackers. Put them through basic training. Set up little checkpoints around the room. Tell your roommate that the camel spotted him/her in a restricted area and said not to do it again. Ask your roommate to apologize to the camel.
192. Put out a plate of cookies at night. Tell your roommate that they're for the Sandman. Take a bite out of one of the cookies while your roommate is asleep. The next morning, accuse your roommate of having bitten one of the cookies. If he/she tries to tell you the Sandman did it, insist that you know what the Sandman's teeth marks look like and that those are, in fact, not the Sandman's teeth marks. Grumble angrily and storm out of the room.
193. Steal a tire from a fraternity lawn. Bring it to your room. Bathe it. Name it. Sleep in it.
194. Leave your room and lock the door. Proceed to bang on the door, screaming, "Let me in." Get mad at your roommate for locking you out.
195. Talk on the phone a lot. Don't pick up the receiver.
196. Talk to your roommate but don't let any sound come out. Get mad at him/her for not listening to you.
197. Ask your roommate, if Bob, your invisible friend, can stay the night.
198. Ask your roommate if s/he can turn down the music. Explain that Bob has a headache.
199. Start a brothel.
200. Constantly slip and fall -- on your carpet.
201. Invite the Dean to sleep over.
202. Invite the school President to sleep over.
203. Invite your roommate to sleep over.
204. Let your alarm clock go off and refuse to turn it off. If your roommate comments, pretend not to hear anything.
205. Walk into walls.
206. Leave little notes in the shower for him/her.
207. Every time you take a shower, yell audibly, "I'm melting, I'm melting!"
208. When your roommate has friends over, get under your covers and stare at them through a little hole in the covers. Use a telescope.
209. When you leave the room, put on a screen saver that says, "I'm watching you."
210. Make a care package for your roommate. Leave the room and ride back and forth outside your window saying, "Speedy Delivery!" until s/he comes out.
211. Move very stiffly and grin. Tell your roommate that you've turned into Gumby.
212. Study computer science and listen to techno while talking about robots taking over the world.
213. Sleep with a banana (or lemon) and refuse to throw it out even after it is rotten.
214. Wear a silly hat.
215. Tell him/her that you're committing suicide, and let him/her find some dynamite under your bed.
216. Leave lots of pills in your drawer, and walk around like a zombie.
217. Move your bed around the room once a day, and leave it in a new position every night.
218. Lock your door every time you go through it. Tell him/her that you're afraid of aliens.
219. Eat raw pasta for dinner.
220. Put bricks in the middle of the room, and explain to him/her that you intend to make a fireplace to save electricity.
221. Write letters to yourself from famous people. Mail them to yourself.
222. Spread Vaseline all over your room and then tell your roommate you're trying to loosen up the place!

223. Sing Michael Jackson songs while putting make up on.

224. Make a stack of bricks in the middle of the room. Throw all the bricks on the floor. Wrap bandages around your legs and move around in a wheel chair for several weeks.
Protest loudly and often to your roomate that he did not have to throw bricks on you. Start leaving revenge notes for him in the shower.

225. Keep poking your roommate in the shoulder while repeatedly saying, "Does thin bug you?"

ebook download links

2007-05-27T06:30:00.001-07:00

E-BooK lInKs

http://ebooksportal.org/
http://www.linksgarden.com/
http://viewzoft.com/
http://www.yui.ru/books/
http://www.flazx.com/
http://www.freetechbooks.com/
http://www.aonearticles.com./
http://www.free-books.net/
http://www.e-dsp.com/
http://www.bestebooksworld.com/
http://ebooks.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/
http://www.ebooks.com

http://ebooksclub.org/
http://projectw.org/
http://www.gzthai.com/
http://allfree.fermanaziz.com/(free economics books)
http://www.ebooksmine.com/
http://www.asiaing.com/
http://freebooksforyou.co.nr/
http://www.artikel-software.com/blog
http://www.sallys-ebooks.co.uk/
http://william06370.tripod.com/index.html
http://www.softparadigm.com/eLibrary
http://www.ebookimpressions.com/forum
ftp://pcdr.myftp.org/

http://www.softpanorama.org/Scripting/Shellorama/papers_ebooks_and_tutorials.shtml
http://www.freeos.com/guides/lsst/

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music download links

2007-05-27T06:13:00.000-07:00

FoR mu$Ic DoWnlOaDs

http://hindiranks.blogspot.com/
http://muziqindia.blogspot.com/
http://www.mp3rocket.com
Get a 14 days FREE trial at http://free-mp3-muzic.notlong.com
http://www.mpeg-search.com

BitTorrent and File Sharing Programs. To use bit torrent you need to download a client like azureus or bitcomet
http://azureus.sourceforge.net
http://www.bittorrent.com/
http://www.bitcomet.com/
http://www.utorrent.com/

Bit Torrent in Order of Popularity:
http://www.thepiratebay.org/
http://www.torrentspy.com/
http://www.mininova.org/
http://www.suprnova.org/
http://isohunt.com/
http://www.torrentbox.com/
http://www.torrentreactor.net/
http://www.torrentreactor.to/

Others that have been recommended
http://www.allofmp3.com
http://www.garageband.com
http://www.soundclick.com
http://www.mp3shits.com
http://www.manolito.com/
http://www.emp3finder.com/
http://www.purevolume.com/
http://www.mp3search.ru/
http://search.singingfish.com/sfw
http://www.btjunkie.org/
http://www.emp3world.com
http://music.msn.com/
http://www.slsknet.org
http://www.isound.com/
http://music.download.com/
http://www.mp3dimension.com
http://www.yourmp3.net
http://www.mp3shits.com/
http://www.maxalbums.com/
http://www.emusic.com/rca
http://www.seekasong.com/
http://www.mp3-center.org
http://www.insound.com/mp3/mp3s.php
http://cooltoad.com
http://somafm.com/
http://www.emusic.com
http://www.coolrip.com http://www.mp3rocket.com/
http://www.musiconline.com (india)
http://www.papuyaar.com (india)
http://www.epitonic.com (india)
http://www.smashits.com/ (india)
http://www.mohankumars.com/ (india)
http://www.funmaza.com/ (india)
http://dishant.com/ (india)
http://www.m4mp3s.com (india)
http://www.megablast.us (india)
http://www.kazaa.com/
http://videopimp.org/
http://www.phazemp3.com/
http://firstlisten.ifihadadime.com/
http://www.kohit.net/

hindi
http://www.downloadhindimp3s.com
http://www.coolgoose.com
http://downloadhindisongs.blogspot.com
http://www.indiamp3.com
http://www.songs.pk
http://www.cooltoad.com
become member in www.cooltoad.com and download unlimited free music.
http://www.mp3realm.com
become member in mp3realm and enjoy free music.
http://www.india4ever.com http://www.musicmantra.net

http://hindiranks.blogspot.com/
http://muziqindia.blogspot.com/
http://www.downloadhindimp3s.com
http://www.coolgoose.com
http://downloadhindisongs.blogspot.com
http://www.indiamp3.com
http://www.songs.pk
http://www.cooltoad.com
http://www.mp3realm.com
become member in mp3realm and enjoy free music.
http://www.india4ever.com
http://www.musicmantra.net
http://hindiranks.blogspot.com/
http://muziqindia.blogspot.com/

add a graphic to your email signature in Yahoo! Mail

2007-05-25T06:37:00.000-07:00

To add a graphic to your email signature in Yahoo! Mail:

1. Access Yahoo! Mail wit Windows Internet Explorer.
2. Select Mail Options from the navigation bar.
3. Follow the Signature link.
4. If the HTML toolbar is not yet visible, click Color and Graphics.
5. Make sure View HTML Source is checked.
6. Insert the image using the HTML tag.
To place an image at the left of your signature, insert
'

7. Make sure the image is accessible on a web server and reasonably small in proportions (not higher than about 75 pixels).
8. Uncheck View HTML Source to test your signature.
9.Click Save.

Untold Windows Tips and Secrets

2007-05-25T06:33:00.000-07:00

_______________________________________________________________________

Welcome to another Hacking Truths Manual. This time I have a collection of Tips and Tricks which no body normally knows, the secrets which Microsoft is afraid to tell the people, the information which you will seldom find all gathered up and arranged in a single file. To fully reap this Manual you need to have a basic understanding of the Windows Registry, as almost all the Tricks and Tips involve this file.

****************

Important Note: Before you read on, you need to keep one thing in mind. Whenever you make changes to the Windows Registry you need to Refresh it before the changes take place. Simply press F5 to refresh the registry and enable the changes. If this does not work Restart your system

****************

Exiting Windows the Cool and Quick Way

Normally it takes a hell lot of time just Shutting down Windows, you have to move your mouse to the Start Button, click on it, move it again over Shut Down, click, then move it over the necessary option and click, then move the cursor over the OK button and once again (you guessed it) click.This whole process can be shortened by creating shortcuts on the Desktop which will shut down Windows at the click of a button. Start by creating a new shortcut( right click and select New> Shortcut). Then in the command line box, type (without the quotes.)

'C:\windows\rundll.exe user.exe,exitwindowsexec'

This Shortcut on clicking will restart Windows immediately without any Warning. To create a Shortcut to Restarting Windows, type the following in the Command Line box:

'c:\windows\rundll.exe user.exe,exitwindows'

This Shortcut on clicking will shut down Windows immediately without any Warning.

Ban Shutdowns : A trick to Play on Lamers

This is a neat trick you can play on that lamer that has a huge ego, in this section I teach you, how to disable the Shut Down option in the Shut Down Dialog Box. This trick involves editing the registry, so please make backups. Launch regedit.exe and go to :

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

In the right pane look for the NoClose Key. If it is not already there then create it by right clicking in the right pane and selecting New > String Value.(Name it NoCloseKey ) Now once you see the NoCloseKey in the right pane, right click on it and select Modify. Then Type 1 in the Value Data Box.

Doing the above on a Win98 system disables the Shut Down option in the Shut Down Dialog Box. But on a Win95 machine if the value of NoCloseKey is set to 1 then click on the Start > Shut Down button displays the following error message:

This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator.

You can enable the shut down option by changing the value of NoCloseKey to 0 or simply deleting the particular entry i.e. deleting NoCloseKey.

Instead of performing the above difficult to remember process, simply save the following with an extension of .reg and add it's contents to the registry by double clicking on it.

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

"NoClose"="1"

Disabling Display of Drives in My Computer

This is yet another trick you can play on your geek friend. To disable the display of local or networked drives when you click My Computer go to :

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Now in the right pane create a new DWORD item and name it NoDrives. Now modify it's value and set it to 3FFFFFF (Hexadecimal) Now press F5 to refresh. When you click on My Computer, no drives will be shown. To enable display of drives in My Computer, simply delete this DWORD item. It's .reg file is as follows:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

"NoDrives"=dword:03ffffff

Take Over the Screen Saver

To activate and deactivate the screen saver whenever you want, goto the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ScreenSavers

Now add a new string value and name it Mouse Corners. Edit this new value to -Y-N. Press F5 to refresh the registry. Voila! Now you can activate your screensaver by simply placing the mouse cursor at the top right corner of the screen and if you take the mouse to the bottom left corner of the screen, the screensaver will deactivate.

Pop a banner each time Windows Boots

To pop a banner which can contain any message you want to display just before a user is going to log on, go to the key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WinLogon

Now create a new string Value in the right pane named LegalNoticeCaption and enter the value that you want to see in the Menu Bar. Now create yet another new string value and name it: LegalNoticeText. Modify it and insert the message you want to display each time Windows boots. This can be effectively used to display the company's private policy each time the user logs on to his NT box. It's .reg file would be:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]

"LegalNoticeCaption"="Caption here."

Delete the Tips of the Day to save 5KB

Windows 95 had these tips of the day which appeared on a system running a newly installed Windows OS. These tips of the day are stored in the Windows Registry and consume 5K of space. For those of you who are really concerned about how much free space your hard disk has, I have the perfect trick.

To save 5K go to the following key in Regedit:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Tips

Now simply delete these tricks by selecting and pressing the DEL key.

Change the Default Locations

To change the default drive or path where Windows will look for it's installation files, go to the key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\SourcePath

Now you can edit as you wish.

Secure your Desktop Icons and Settings

You can save your desktop settings and secure it from your nerdy friend by playing with the registry. Simply launch the Registry Editor go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

In the right pane create a new DWORD Value named NoSaveSettings and modify it's value to 1. Refresh and restart for the settings to get saved.

CLSID Folders Explained

Don't you just hate those stubborn stupid icons that refuse to leave the desktop, like the Network Neighborhood icon. I am sure you want to know how you can delete them. You may say, that is really simple, simply right click on the concerned icon and select Delete. Well not exactly, you see when you right click on these special folders( see entire list below)neither the rename nor the delete option does not appear. To delete these folders, there are two methods, the first one is using the System Policy Editor(Poledit in the Windows installation CD)and the second is using the Registry.

Before we go on, you need to understand what CLSID values are. These folders, like the Control Panel, Inbox, The Microsoft Network, Dial Up Networking etc are system folders. Each system folder has a unique CLSID key or the Class ID which is a 16-byte value which identifies an individual object that points to a corresponding key in the registry.

To delete these system Folders from the desktop simply go to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\Namespace{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}

To delete an icon simply delete the 16 byte CLSID value within "NameSpace". The following are the CLSID values of the most commonly used icons:

My Briefcase:{85BBD920-42AO-1069-A2E4-08002B30309D}

Desktop: {00021400-0000-0000-C000-0000000000046}

Control Panel:{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}

Dial-Up-Networking:{992CFFA0-F557-101A-88EC-00DD01CCC48}

Fonts: {BD84B380-8CA2-1069-AB1D-08000948534}

Inbox :{00020D76-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}

My Computer :{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}

Network Neighborhood:{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-O8002B30309D}

Printers :{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-O8002B30309D}

Recycle Bin :{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}

The Microsoft Network:{00028B00-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}

History: {FF393560-C2A7-11CF-BFF4-444553540000}

Winzip :{E0D79300-84BE-11CE-9641-444553540000}

For example, to delete the Recycle Bin, first note down it's CLSID value, which is: 645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E. Now go to the Namespace key in the registry and delete the corresponding key.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}

Similarly to delete the History folder, delete the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{FBF23B42-E3F0-101B-8488-00AA003E56F8}

Sometimes, you may need to play a trick on your brother or friend, well this one teaches you how to hide all icons from the Desktop. Go to the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

In the right pane create a new DWORD value by the name: NoDesktop and set its value to: 1. Reboot and you will find no icons on the desktop.

Till now you simply learnt how to delete the special system folders by deleting a registry key, but the hack would have been better if there was a way of adding the DELETE and RENAME option to the right click context menus of these special folders. You can actually change the right click context menu of any system folder and add any of the following options: RENAME, DELETE, CUT, COPY, PASTE and lots more.

This hack too requires you to know the CLSID value of the system folder whose menu you want to customize. In this section, I have taken up Recycle Bin as the folder whose context menu I am going to edit.

Firstly launch the registry editor and open the following registry key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}\ShellFolder.

In Case you want to edit some other folder like say the FONTS folder, then you will open the following key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{CLSID VALUE HERE}\ShellFolder.

In the right pane there will be a DWORD value names attributes. Now consider the following options:

To add the Rename option to the menu, change the value of Attributes to
50 01 00 20

To add the Delete option to the menu, change the value of Attributes to
60 01 00 20

3. To add both the Rename & Delete options to the menu, change the value of Attributes to 70,01,00,20

4. Add Copy to the menu, change Attributes to 41 01 00 20

5. Add Cut to the menu, change Attributes to 42 01 00 20

6. Add Copy & Cut to the menu, change Attributes to 43 01 00 20

7. Add Paste to the menu, change Attributes to 44 01 00 20

8. Add Copy & Paste to the menu, change Attributes to 45 01 00 20

9. Add Cut & Paste to the menu, change Attributes to 46 01 00 20

10.Add all Cut, Copy & Paste to the menu, change Attributes to 47 01 00 20

We want to add only the Rename option to the right click context menu of the Recycle Bin, so change the value of attributes to: 50 01 00 20. Press F5 to refresh and then after rebooting you will find that when you right click on the Recycle Bin a RENAME option pops up too.

To reset the default Windows options change the value of Attributes back to

40 01 00 20

The Registry File which one can create for the above process would be something like the below:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}\Shell-Folder]

"Attributes"=hex:50,01,00,20

To access say the Modem Properties in the Control Panel Folder, the normal procedure is: Click on Start, Click on Settings> Control Panel and then wait for the Control Panel window to pop up and then ultimately click on the Modems icon.

Wouldn't it be lovely if you could shorten the process to: Click on Start> Control Panel>Modems. Yes you can add the Control Panel and also all other Special System Folders directly to the first level Start Menu. Firstly collect the CLSID value of the folder you want to add to the start menu. I want to add Control Panel hence the CLSID value is: 21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D

Now right click on the Start Button and select Open. Now create a new folder and name it: Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}

NOTE: Do not forget the period after the 'l' in Panel. Similarly all system folders can be added to the Start Menu.(accept My Briefcase, I think)

Deleting System Options from the Start menu

You can actually remove the Find and Run options from the start menu by performing a simple registry hack. Again like always Launch the registry editor and scroll down to the below key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Right-click on the right pane and select New, DWORD Value. Name it NoFind.(To remove the RUN option name it NoRun). Double-click the newly create DWORD to edit it's value and enter 1 as its value. This will disable the FIND option of the Start Menu and will also disable the default Shortcut key(F3 for Find.)

To restore the Run or find command modify the value of the DWORD to 0 or simply Delete the DWORD value.

Fed Up of the boring Old Yellow Folder Icons?[Drive Icons Included]

NOTE: This trick hasn't been tried on Win98.

You can easily change the boring yellow folder icons to your own personalized icons. Simply create a text file and copy the following lines into it:

[.ShellClassInfo]

ICONFILE=Drive:\Path\Icon_name.extension

Save this text file by the name, desktop.ini in the folder, whose icon you want to change. Now to prevent this file from getting deleted change it's attributes to Hidden and Read Only by using the ATTRIB command.

To change the icon of a drive, create a text file containing the following lines:

[Autorun]

ICON=Drive:\Path\Icon_name.extension

Save this file in the root of the drive whose icon you want to change and name it autorun.inf For Example, if you want to change the icon of a floppy, SAVE THE icon in a:\icon_name.ico One can also create a kewl icon for the Hard Disk and create a text file [autorun.inf] and store it in "c:\".

Securing NT

By default, NT 4.0 displays the last person who logged onto the system. This can be considered to be a security threat, especially in the case of those who choose their password to be same as their Username. To disable this bug which actually is a feature, go to the following key in the registry editor:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

Click and select the ReportBookOK item and create a new string value called DontDisplayLastUserName. Modify it and set it's value to 1.

As a system administrator, you can ensure that the passwords chosen by the users are not too lame or too easy to guess. NT has this lovely utility called the User Manager which allows the administrator to set the age limit of the password which forces the users to change the password after a certain number of days. You can also set the minimum length of passwords and prevent users to use passwords which already have been used earlier and also enable account lockouts which will deactivate an account after a specified number of failed login attempts.

When you log on to Win NT, you should disable Password Caching, this ensures Single NT Domain login and also prevents secondary Windows Logon screen.

Simply copy the following lines to a plain text ASCII editor like: Notepad and save it with an extension, .reg

----------------DISABLE.reg-----------------

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Network]

"DisablePwdCaching"=dword:00000001

----------------DISABLE.reg-----------------

To Enable Password Caching use the following .reg file:

--------------Enable.reg-----------------

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Network]

"DisablePwdCaching"=dword:00000000

--------------Enable.reg-----------------

Cleaning Recent Docs Menu and the RUN MRU

The Recent Docs menu can be easily disabled by editing the Registry. To do this go to the following Key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Now in the right pane, create a new DWORD value by the name: NoRecentDocsMenu and set it's value to 1. Restart Explorer to save the changes.

You can also clear the RUN MRU history. All the listings are stored in the key:

HKEY_USERS\.Default\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RunMRU

You can delete individual listings or the entire listing. To delete History of Find listings go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Doc Find Spec MRU

and delete.

Customizing the Right Click Context Menu of the Start Menu

When you right click on the start menu, only 3 options pop up: Open, Explore, and Find. You can add your own programs to this pop up menu( which comes up when we right click on it.) Open Regedit and go to the following registry key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Shell

Right click on the shell and create a new Sub Key (You can create a new SubKey by right clicking on the Shell Key and selecting New > Key.). Type in the name of the application you want to add to the start menu. I want to add Notepad to the Start Menu and hence I name this new sub key, Notepad. Now right click on the new registry key that you just created and create yet another new key named Command. Enter the full path of the application, in this case Notepad in the default value of Command in the right

pane. So I Modify the value of the default string value and enter the full pathname of Notepad:

c:\wndows\notepad.exe.

Now press F5 to refresh. Now if you right click on the Start Button you will find a new addition to the Pop Up Menu called Notepad. Clicking on it will launch Notepad.

We can not only add but also remove the existing options in this pop up box.

To delete the Find option, go to the following registry key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Shell\Find

Delete Find. DO NOT delete Open else you will not be able to open any folders in the Start Menu like Programs, Accessories etc.

BMP Thumbnail As Icon

You can actually change the default BMP icon to a thumbnail version of the actual BMP file. To do this simply go to HKCU\Paint.Picture\Default. In the right pane change the value of default to %1. Please note however that this will slow down the display rate in explorer if there are too many BMP thumbnails to display. You can use other icons too, simply enter the pathname.To restore back to the normal change the vale of default back to: C:\Progra~1\Access~1\MSPAINT.EXE,1.

Customizing The Shortcut Arrow

All shortcuts have a tiny black arrow attached to it's icon to distinguish from normal files. This arrow can sometimes be pretty annoying and as a Hacker should know how to change each and everything, here goes another trick. Launch the Registry Editor and go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Shell Icons.

Now, on the right pane is a list of icons ( we found out that on some systems, Windows 98 especially, the right pane is blank. Don't worry, just add the value as required ). Find the value 29. If it isn't there, just add it. The value of this string should be C:\Windows\system\shell32.dll, 29 ( which means the 30th icon in shell32.dll - the first one begins with 0 ). Now, we need blank icon to do this. Just create one with white as the whole icon. Go here to learn how to create an icon. Once done just change the value to C:\xxx.ico, 0 where "xxx" is the full path of the icon file and "0" is the icon in it.

Now for some fun. If the blank icon is a bit boring, change it again. You will find that under shell32.dll there is a gear icon, a shared folder ( the hand ) and much more. Experiment for yourself!

Use Perl to Get List or Services Running on your NT box

Use the following Perl Script to get a list of Services running on your NT system

--------------script.pl-----------------

#!c:\per\bin\perl.exe

use Win32::Service;

my ($key, %service, %status, $part);

Win32::Service::GetServices(' ',\%services);

foreach $key (sort keys %services) {

print "Print Name\t: $key, $services{$key}\n";

Win32::Service::GetStatus( ' ',$services{$key};

\%status);

foreach $part (keys %status) {

print "\t$part : $status{$part}\n" if($part eq "CurrentState");

}

}

-------------script.pl-------------------

Internet Explorer Tricks and Tips

Resizable Full Screen Toolbar

The Full Screen option increases the viewable area and makes surfing more enjoyable but sometimes we need the Toolbar but also need to have extra viewing area. Now this hack teaches you how to change the size of the Internet Explorer toolbar. This registry hack is a bit complicated as it involves Binary values, so to make it simple, I have included the following registry file which will enable the resizable option of the Internet Explorer toolbar which was present in the beta version of IE.

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar]

"Theater"=hex:0c,00,00,00,4c,00,00,00,74,00,00,00,18,00,00,00,1b,00,00,00,5c,\

00,00,00,01,00,00,00,e0,00,00,00,a0,0f,00,00,05,00,00,00,22,00,00,00,26,00,\

00,00,02,00,00,00,21,00,00,00,a0,0f,00,00,04,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,a0,0f,00,\

00,03,00,00,00,08,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

*******************

HACKING TRUTH: Internet Explorer 5 displays the friendly version of HTTP errors like NOT FOUND etc . They are aimed at making things easier for newbies. If you would rather prefer to see the proper error pages for the web server you're using, go to Tools, Internet Options and select the Advanced tab. Then scroll down and uncheck the Show friendly http errors box.

*******************

Making the Internet Explorer & the Explorer Toolbars Fancy

The Internet Explorer toolbar looks pretty simple. Want to make it fancy and kewl? Why not add a background image to it. To do this kewl hack launch the Windows Registry Editor and go to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ Internet Explorer\Toolbar\.

Now in the right pane create a new String Value and name it BackBitmap and modify it's value to the path of the Bitmap you want to dress it up with by rightclicking on it and choosing Modify. When you reboot the Internet Explorer and the Windows Explorer toolbars will have a new look.

Change Internet Explorer's Caption

Don't like the caption of Internet Explorer caption? Want to change it? Open the registry editor and go to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main.

In the right pane create a new String Value names Window Title (Note the space between Window and Title). Right click on this newly created String Value and select Modify. Type in the new caption you want to be displayed. Restart for the settings to take place.

Now let's move on to some Outlook Express Tricks.

Colorful Background

Don't like the boring background colors of Outlook Express? To change it launch the Windows Registry Editor and scroll down to the

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Mail And News key.

On the left pane, click on ColorCycle or select Edit and Modify in the menu. Now change the value to 1. Close and restart. Now, launch Outlook Express and whenever you open up a New Message, hold down ctrl-shift and tap the z key to scroll to change the background color. Repeat the keystroke to cycle through the colors.

Internet Explorer 5 Hidden Features

Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 has several hidden features which can be controlled using the Windows Registry. Open your registry and scroll down to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Restrictions

Create a new DWORD value named x(See complete list of values of x below) and modify it's value to 1 to enable it and to 0 to disable it.

NoBrowserClose : Disable the option of closing Internet Explorer.

NoBrowserContextMenu : Disable right-click context menu.

NoBrowserOptions : Disable the Tools / Internet Options menu.

NoBrowserSaveAs : Disable the ability to Save As.

NoFavorites : Disable the Favorites.

NoFileNew : Disable the File / New command.

NoFileOpen : Disable the File / Open command.

NoFindFiles : Disable the Find Files command.

NoSelectDownloadDir : Disable the option of selecting a download directory.

NoTheaterMode : Disable the Full Screen view option.

Hacking Secrets

Almost all system administrators make certain changes and make the system restricted. System Administrators can hide the RUN option, the FIND command, the entire Control Panel, drives in My Computer like D: A: etc. They can even restrict activities of a hacker my disabling or hiding, even the tiniest options or tools.

Most commonly these restrictions are imposed locally and are controlled by the Windows Registry. But sometimes the smart system administrators control the activities of the hacker by imposing restrictions remotely through the main server.

Poledit or Policy Editor is a small kewl tool which is being commonly used by system administrators to alter the settings of a system. This utility is not installed by default by Windows. You need to install in manually from the Windows 98 Installation Kit from the Resource Kit folder. user.dat file that we saw earlier.

The Policy Editor tool imposes restrictions on the user's system by editing the user.dat file which in turn means that it edits the Windows Registry to change the settings. It can be used to control or restrict access to each and every folder and option you could ever think of. It has the power to even restrict access to individual folders, files, the Control Panel, MS DOS, the drives available etc. Sometimes this software does make life really hard for a Hacker. So how can we remove the restrictions imposed by the Policy Editor? Well read ahead to learn more.

You see the Policy Editor is not the only way to restrict a user's activities. As we already know that the Policy Editor edits the Windows Registry(user.dat) file to impose such restrictions. So this in turn would mean that we can directly make changes to the Windows Registry using a .reg file or directly to remove or add restrictions.

Launch Regedit and go to the following Registry Key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/CurrentVersion/Policies

Under this key, there will definitely be a key named explorer. Now under this explorer key we can create new DWORD values and modify it's value to 1 in order to impose the restriction. If you want to remove the Restriction, then you can simply delete the respective DWORD values or instead change their values to 0. The following is a list of DWORD values that can be created under the Explorer Key-:

NoDeletePrinter: Disables Deletion of already installed Printers

NoAddPrinter: Disables Addition of new Printers

NoRun : Disables or hides the Run Command

NoSetFolders: Removes Folders from the Settings option on Start Menu (Control Panel, Printers, Taskbar)

NoSetTaskbar: Removes Taskbar system folder from the Settings option on Start Menu

NoFind: Removes the Find Tool (Start >Find)

NoDrives: Hides and does not display any Drives in My Computer

NoNetHood: Hides or removes the Network Neighborhood icon from the desktop

NoDesktop: Hides all items including, file, folders and system folders from the Desktop

NoClose: Disables Shutdown and prevents the user from normally shutting down Windows.

NoSaveSettings: Means to say, 'Don't save settings on exit'

DisableRegistryTools: Disable Registry Editing Tools (If you disable this option, the Windows Registry Editor(regedit.exe) too

will not work.)

NoRecentDocsHistory: Removes Recent Document system folder from the Start Menu (IE 4 and above)

ClearRecentDocsOnExit: Clears the Recent Documents system folder on Exit.

Nolnternetlcon: Removes the Internet (system folder) icon from the Desktop

Under the same key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/CurrentVersion/Policies you can create new subkeys other than the already existing Explorer key. Now create a new key and name it System. Under this new key, system we can create the following new DWORD values(1 for enabling the particular option and 0 for disabling the particular option):

NODispCPL: Hides Control Panel

NoDispBackgroundPage: Hides Background page.

NoDispScrsavPage: Hides Screen Saver Page

NoDispAppearancePage: Hides Appearance Page

NoDispSettingsPage: Hides Settings Page

NoSecCPL: Disables Password Control Panel

NoPwdPage: Hides Password Change Page

NoAdminPaqe: Hides Remote Administration Page

NoProfilePage: Hides User Profiles Page

NoDevMgrPage: Hides Device Manager Page

NoConfigPage: Hides Hardware Profiles Page

NoFileSysPage: Hides File System Button

NoVirtMemPage: Hides Virtual Memory Button

Similarly, if we create a new subkey named Network, we can add the following DWORD values under it(1 for enabling the particular option and 0 for disabling the particular option):

NoNetSetupSecurityPage: Hides Network Security Page

NoNelSetup: Hides or disables the Network option in the Control Panel

NoNetSetupIDPage: Hides the Identification Page

NoNetSetupSecurityPage: Hides the Access Control Page

NoFileSharingControl: Disables File Sharing Controls

NoPrintSharing: Disables Print Sharing Controls

Similarly, if we create a new subkey named WinOldApp, we can add the following DWORD values under it(1 for enabling the particular option and 0 for disabling the particular option):

Disabled: Disable MS-DOS Prompt

NoRealMode: Disable Single-Mode MS-DOS.

So you see if you have access to the Windows Registry, then you can easily create new DWORD values and set heir value to 1 for enabling the particular option and 0 for disabling the particular option. But Sometimes, access to the Windows Registry is blocked. So what do you do? Go to the Windows Directory and delete either user.dat or system.dat (These 2 files constitute the Windows Registry.) and reboot. As soon as Windows logs in, it will display a Warning Message informing you about an error in the Windows Registry. Simply ignore this Warning Message and Press CTRL+DEL+ALT to get out of this warning message.(Do not press OK) You will find that all restrictions have been removed.

The most kind of restriction found quite commonly is the Specific Folder Restriction, in which users are not allowed access to specific folders, the most common being the Windows folder, or sometimes even access to My Computer is blocked. In effect, you simply cannot seem to access the important kewl files which are needed by you to do remove restrictions. What do you? Well use the RUN command. (START >RUN). But unfortunately a system administrator who is intelligent enough to block access to specific folder, would definitely have blocked access to the RUN command. Again we are stuck.

Windows is supposed to be the most User Friendly Operating System on earth. (At least Microsoft Says so.)

It gives the User an option to do the same thing in various ways. You see the RUN command is only the most convenient option of launching applications, but not the only way. In Windows you can create shortcuts to almost anything from a file, folder to a Web URL. So say your system administrator has blocked access to the c:\windows\system folder and you need to access it. What do you do? Simply create a Shortcut to it. To do this right click anywhere on the desktop and select New > Shortcut. A new window titled Create Shortcut pops up. Type in the path of the restricted folder you wish to access, in this case c:\windows\system. Click Next, Enter the friendly name of the Shortcut and then click Finish. Now you can access the restricted folder by simply double clicking on the shortcut icon. Well that shows how protected and secure *ahem Windows *ahem is.

****************

HACKING TRUTH: Sometimes when you try to delete a file or a folder, Windows displays an error message saying that the file is protected. This simply means that the file is write protected, or in other words the R option is +. Get it? Anyway, you can stop Windows from displaying this error message and straightaway delete this file by changing its attributes to Non Read Only. This can be done by Right Clicking on the file, selecting Properties and then

unselecting the Read Only Option.

***************

There is yet another way of accessing restricted folders. Use see, DOS has a lovely command known as START. Its general syntax is:

START application_path

It does do what it seems to do, start applications. So in you have access to DOS then you can type in the START command to get access to the restricted folder. Now mostly access to DOS too would be blocked. So again you can use the shortcut trick to launch, c:\command.com or c:\windows\command.com. (Command.com is the file which launches MS DOS).

Accessing Restricted Drives.

The problem with most system administrators is that they think that the users or Hackers too are stupid. Almost all system administrators use the Registry Trick (Explained Earlier) to hide all drives in My Computer. So in order to unhide or display all drives, simply delete that particular key.(Refer to beginning of Untold Secrets Section.)

Some systems have the floppy disk disabled through the BIOS. On those systems if the BIOS is protected, you may need to crack the BIOS password. (For that Refer to the Windows Hacking Chapter). Sometimes making drives readable (Removing R +) and then creating Shortcuts to them also helps us to get access to them.

Further Changing your Operating System's Looks by editing .htt files

If you have installed Windows Desktop Update and have the view as Web Page option enabled, you can customise the way the folder looks by selecting View > Customise this folder. Here you can change the background and other things about that particular folder. Well that is pretty lame, right? We hackers already know things as lame as that. Read on for some kewl stuff.

Well, you could also change the default that is stored in a Hidden HTML Template file (I think so..) which is nothing but a HTML document with a .htt extension. This .htt file is found at: %systemroot%\web\folder.htt.

The %systemroot% stands for the drive in which Windows is Installed, which is normally C:

You can edit these .htt files almost just like you edit normal .HTM or .HTML files. Simply open them in an ASCII editor like Notepad. The following is a list of .htt files on your system which control various folders and which can be edited to customise the way various folders look.

controlp.htt Control Panel

printers.htt Printers

mycomp.htt My Computer

safemode.htt Safe Mode

All these files are found in the web folder in %systemfolder%. The folder.htt file has a line:

'Here's a good place to add a few lines of your own"

which is the place where you can add your own A HREF links. These links would then appear in the folder whose folder.htt file you edited. All this might sound really easy and simple, but you see these .htt files do not contain normal HTML code, instead they contain a mixture of HTML and web bots. Hence they can be difficult for newbies to understand.

20 things you didn't know about Windows XP

2007-05-25T06:32:00.000-07:00

1. It boasts how long it can stay up. Whereas previous versions of Windows were coy about how long they went between boots, XP is positively proud of its stamina. Go to the Command Prompt in the Accessories menu from the All Programs start button option, and then type 'systeminfo'. The computer will produce a lot of useful info, including the uptime. If you want to keep these, type 'systeminfo > info.txt'. This creates a file called info.txt you can look at later with Notepad. (Professional Edition only).

2. You can delete files immediately, without having them move to the Recycle Bin first. Go to the Start menu, select Run... and type 'gpedit.msc'; then select User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Explorer and find the Do not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin setting. Set it. Poking around in gpedit will reveal a great many interface and system options, but take care -- some may stop your computer behaving as you wish. (Professional Edition only).

3. You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse. Create a new shortcut on your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter 'rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation' in the location field. Give the shortcut a name you like. That's it -- just double click on it and your computer will be locked. And if that's not easy enough, Windows key + L will do the same.

4. XP hides some system software you might want to remove, such as Windows Messenger, but you can tickle it and make it disgorge everything. Using Notepad or Edit, edit the text file /windows/inf/sysoc.inf, search for the word 'hide' and remove it. You can then go to the Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Windows Components and there will be your prey, exposed and vulnerable.

5. For those skilled in the art of DOS batch files, XP has a number of interesting new commands. These include 'eventcreate' and 'eventtriggers' for creating and watching system events, 'typeperf' for monitoring performance of various subsystems, and 'schtasks' for handling scheduled tasks. As usual, typing the command name followed by /? will give a list of options -- they're all far too baroque to go into here.

6. XP has IP version 6 support -- the next generation of IP. Unfortunately this is more than your ISP has, so you can only experiment with this on your LAN. Type 'ipv6 install' into Run... (it's OK, it won't ruin your existing network setup) and then 'ipv6 /?' at the command line to find out more. If you don't know what IPv6 is, don't worry and don't bother.

7. You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer from the command line by using 'taskkill /pid' and the task number, or just 'tskill' and the process number. Find that out by typing 'tasklist', which will also tell you a lot about what's going on in your system.

8. XP will treat Zip files like folders, which is nice if you've got a fast machine. On slower machines, you can make XP leave zip files well alone by typing 'regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll' at the command line. If you change your mind later, you can put things back as they were by typing 'regsvr32 zipfldr.dll'.

9. XP has ClearType -- Microsoft's anti-aliasing font display technology -- but doesn't have it enabled by default. It's well worth trying, especially if you were there for DOS and all those years of staring at a screen have given you the eyes of an astigmatic bat. To enable ClearType, right click on the desktop, select Properties, Appearance, Effects, select ClearType from the second drop-down menu and enable the selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If you want to use ClearType on the Welcome login screen as well, set the registry entry HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/FontSmoothingType to 2.

10. You can use Remote Assistance to help a friend who's using network address translation (NAT) on a home network, but not automatically. Get your pal to email you a Remote Assistance invitation and edit the file. Under the RCTICKET attribute will be a NAT IP address, like 192.168.1.10. Replace this with your chum's real IP address -- they can find this out by going to www.whatismyip.com -- and get them to make sure that they've got port 3389 open on their firewall and forwarded to the errant computer.

11. You can run a program as a different user without logging out and back in again. Right click the icon, select Run As... and enter the user name and password you want to use. This only applies for that run. The trick is particularly useful if you need to have administrative permissions to install a program, which many require. Note that you can have some fun by running programs multiple times on the same system as different users, but this can have unforeseen effects.

12. Windows XP can be very insistent about you checking for auto updates, registering a Passport, using Windows Messenger and so on. After a while, the nagging goes away, but if you feel you might slip the bonds of sanity before that point, run Regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/Advanced and create a DWORD value called EnableBalloonTips with a value of 0.
13. You can start up without needing to enter a user name or password. Select Run... from the start menu and type 'control userpasswords2', which will open the user accounts application. On the Users tab, clear the box for Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This Computer, and click on OK. An Automatically Log On dialog box will appear; enter the user name and password for the account you want to use.

14. Internet Explorer 6 will automatically delete temporary files, but only if you tell it to. Start the browser, select Tools / Internet Options... and Advanced, go down to the Security area and check the box to Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed.

15. XP comes with a free Network Activity Light, just in case you can't see the LEDs twinkle on your network card. Right click on My Network Places on the desktop, then select Properties. Right click on the description for your LAN or dial-up connection, select Properties, then check the Show icon in notification area when connected box. You'll now see a tiny network icon on the right of your task bar that glimmers nicely during network traffic.

16. The Start Menu can be leisurely when it decides to appear, but you can speed things along by changing the registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop/MenuShowDelay from the default 400 to something a little snappier. Like 0.

17. You can rename loads of files at once in Windows Explorer. Highlight a set of files in a window, then right click on one and rename it. All the other files will be renamed to that name, with individual numbers in brackets to distinguish them. Also, in a folder you can arrange icons in alphabetised groups by View, Arrange Icon By... Show In Groups.

18. Windows Media Player will display the cover art for albums as it plays the tracks -- if it found the picture on the Internet when you copied the tracks from the CD. If it didn't, or if you have lots of pre-WMP music files, you can put your own copy of the cover art in the same directory as the tracks. Just call it folder.jpg and Windows Media Player will pick it up and display it.

19. Windows key + Break brings up the System Properties dialogue box; Windows key + D brings up the desktop; Windows key + Tab moves through the taskbar buttons.

20. Hide 'User Accounts' from users
Go to Start/Run, and type:
GPEDIT.MSC
Open the path
User Config > Admin Templates > Control Panel
doubleclick "Hide specified Control Panel applets"
put a dot in 'enabled', then click 'Show"
click Add button,
type"nusrmgt.cpl" into the add box.

windows vista tweaks tips n tricks

2007-05-22T05:13:00.000-07:00

How to remove Shortcut Arrow in VistaRemove the arrow (Shortcut Overlay) without side effects

Most Tweak programs remove the arrows by renaming or removing the IsShortCut String Values from the registry. Windows uses this value to track links, if you remove or rename the IsShortCut value lots of programs and features that use links won't work correctly -> in Vista the shortcuts in Favorite Links, Media Center and in the Games Explorer won't work anymore.

The files in this zip file remove the arrows the same way as TweakUI does in previous Windows versions; it refers the icon to another icon.

If you refer it to a completely blank icon, the overlays turn black when you restart Explorer or Log Off and Log On again.

Solution: A blank icon with some transparent pixels and with the same sizes as the default arrow (imageres.dll,162) -> no more arrows & no black overlays.

Install: If you used a program or a reg file that removed the IsShortCut values; merge RestoreArrow.reg to restore them.
Copy Blank.ico to your Windows directory and merge RemoveArrow.reg.
Log Off and Log On or Restart your computer.

Uninstall: Merge RestoreArrow.reg and remove Blank.ico from your Windows directory.
Log Off and Log On or Restart your computer.

Sometimes it's not enough to Log Off and Log On or Restart your computer to rebuild the icon cache.
If the overlays display a wrong icon or if they don't change then turn off your computer and turn it on again.
From : herby.virtualplastic.net
http://rapidshare.com/files/32563127/RemoveArrow.zip.html

TWEAKS
1. start > msconfig > tools > DisableUAC >launch
((disables the nagging User Control over doing any activity in vista))

2. Disable Sytem Protection (system protection = system Restore as in xp)) slows down system.

Best Anti-Virus for Vista
I prefer NOD32 as the best reasons....

1. very light on the system
2. low resourse usage
3. most regular online updates
4. good monitoring engines

25 Rules For Women (By Men)

2007-05-18T11:03:00.000-07:00

"25 RULES FOR WOMEN (BY MEN)"
1. SportsDesk starts at 11:00 PM and runs an hour. This is a
great time to pay bills, put laundry in the dryer or talk to
your sister.

2. Two hot dogs and a beer at a hockey game do, in fact,
constitute going out to dinner.

3. Unlike you, we essentially want to dress just exactly like all
our friends. Thus, you need not go much further than the Gap,
Zellers or the local Walmart store.

4. If we see you in the morning and at night, why call us at work?
5. Butthead is the smart one.

6. Is it too much to ask to have the bra match the underwear?

7. You probably don't want to know what we're thinking about.

8. Silence does not need to be filled with discussions about "us"
and "the relationship".
9. Things you can help with: the Sunday crossword, yard work, the
dishes, cleaning, and grocery shopping.

10. Things you should let us do alone: figuring out where we are,
watching anything on TBS, playing cards, smoking cigars and
picking out the beer.

11. Socks never constitute a gift.

12. Department stores and malls were designed so that when you want
to look at bed linen, shower curtains or handbags, there are
always some speakers, tires or sporting equipment nearby.

13. We don't know anything about handbags. Don't even ask.

14. We did water the plants. They died anyway. Nobody knows why
this happens.

15. Even if you think he's cute, George Clooney can't act.

16. Of course, neither can Pamela Anderson, but she had the good
sense to do "Baywatch" rather than "ER."

17. Curley is the bald one.

18. Compromise does not mean that we abandon our position in favor
of yours.

19. Sports Illustrated is a better magazine than Cosmopolitan.
Just accept that.

20. It's in neither your interest nor ours to take the Quiz together.

21. Unless you are willing to follow the careers of Mo Vaughn, Cal
Ripken, David Robinson,Mats Sundin, Michael Jordan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and
Chris Farley, don't expect us to know what Helen Gurley Brown,
Hilary Clinton, Naomi Wolf or your mother are up to.

22. Sex on a weeknight is generally welcome. Three hours of
post-coital conversation is not.

23. Dinner out is a pretty good birthday present. Two tickets to a
hockey game are even better.

24. No, you can't have the remote control.

25. If you must take us with you into Victoria's Secret, never,
ever leave us alone. All the old fat ladies make mean faces
at us and only add to our discomfort.

Bodybuilding n fitness

2007-05-18T10:43:00.000-07:00

BODYBUILDING MYTHS
-----------------------
extract from: "GOLDS GYM book of bodybuilding"

At some point someone probably told you that working out with
weights would make you muscle-bound or cause a woman to look like
a man. Certainly, most good bodybuilders have been told that their
muscles will turn to fat if they stop training.

There are six main "muscle myths" that must be exposed. In each
case we will discuss the myth and then reveal the truth underying
it. This process should dispel any remaining doubts you might
have about becoming a body-buiding.

1. BODYBUILDNG TRAINING WILL MAKE YOU MUSCLE-BOUND. This is
probably the most persistent muscle myth, and it suggests that
working out with weights will make your body so tight and
inflexible that you won't be able to scratch your own back or
participate effectively in athletics.

Actually, scientists began investigating weight training and
bodybuilding more than 30 years ago. They quickly discovered that
weight workouts actually improve body flexibility. Indeed, almost
all bodybuilders are far more flexible than the average person.
Those who aren't have invariably been injured while
participating in some other sport. As an example, a shoulder
separation incurred while playing football can easily limit
shoulder flexibility and function.

Speaking of football, superstar Walter Payton of the Chicago Bears
has used progressive resistance weight training to build massive
arms and shoulders. He can walk 50 yards on his hands, punishes
anyone who tries to tackle him, and has never been seriously
injured despite being near to the top of the NFL's "hit list" for
several years. He's flexible and then some!

2. ALL OF YOUR MUSCLES WILL TURN TO FAT ONCE YOU STOP WORKING
OUT. It is physiologically impossible for muscle tissue to be
converted to fat. What actually happens when you suspend your
weight workouts is that your muscles gradually atrophy, or shrink
in size and strength. This process takes about a year to run its
course.

Then why are some former bodybuilders fat today? The answer to
this question is true for ALL of the numerous athletes in any
sport who have become fat after retiring from competition. When
you train virtually every day for several hours you regularly burn
up relatively large quantities of calories. As a result, you can
consume more food than you can if you are physically inactive.
But when you suspend training you no longer burn up so many
calories. So, if you continue to eat the same amount as when you
were working out every day, you will accumulate a caloric excess
and gradually gain body fat. The obvious solution to this problem
is to decrease your caloric consumption to compensate for the
calories you are no longer burning off in your workouts. If you
follow this advice, you will never grow fat after you cease heavy
training with weights.

In actual practice, few bodybuilders ever stop training for very
long. As they grow older they don't train as intensely as when
they were competing, but they still hit the gym almost every day.
Once you have iron fever, you're usually hooked for life.

3. BODYBUILDING WILL MAKE A WOMAN LOOK LIKE A MAN. As noted in
the foregoing section on men versus women, women don't secrete the
same amounts of testosterone as do men. Therefore, they simply
can't develop a man's muscle mass and quality. Additionally, a
woman secretes large quantities of estrogen, which guarantees the
integrity of her femininity. Unless she makes the disastrous
mistake of taking male hormones, no woman will look masculine as a
result of her bodybuilding training.

4. BODYBILDING TRAINING CAN STUNT YOUR GROWTH. There are a
somewhat disproportionate number of male and female competitive
bodybuilders who are below the national average in height, leading
some individuals to conclude that bodybuilding workouts can stunt
one's growth. Taler athletes are usually naturally selected for
other sports in what could be called a sort of "sports Darwinism."
Having a more compact torso and short limbs allows the bodybuilder
to attain the proper proportions needed to win a contest. As a
result, bodybulding tends to naturally select short or medium-
statured men and women.

There are numerous tall bodybuilders, such as Lou Ferrigno
(6'5") and Dr. Lynne Pirie (5'9"). Scientists have determined
that any type of physical activity will tend to stimulate height
increases rather than inhibit them. Proper diet can also result
in height increase, and bodybuilders consistently follow health-
promoting diets. Certainly, parents needn't worry that their sons
and daughters will end up being short in stature simply because
they decide to become bodybuilders.

5. BODYBULDING TRAINING WILL WRECK YOUR BACK, KNEES, ELBOWS, AND
OTHER JOINTS. Such spinal or joint injuries are much more common
in other sports than in bodybuilding. As long as you follow the
warm-up procedures we will outline, and maintain the correct
biomechanical (body) positions for each exercise, you needn't fear
damaging your joints through bodybuilding training.

6. BODYBUILDING TRAINING CAN SLOW YOU DOWN. As with the myth
about becoming muscle-bound, scientists proved more than 30 years
ago that heavy weight training improves speed rather than
detracting from it. Reaction time can't be improved through
weight workouts, but a stronger muscle can contract faster and
more strongly, thereby moving a limb more quickly. S print speed,
for example, is a direct function of thigh and calf strength. In
modern athletics, virtually all athletes include weight training
in their overall conditioning regimes. They certainly wouldn't do
this if heavy weight workouts inhibited their speed, because it
could reduce their athletic ability.

Basic Workout Tips

10 things you need to know to get lean and gain muscle quickly during your "2001: A Body Odyssey"

Don't be surprised if you feel more like Mr. Magoo than Mr. Universe the first time you pick up a dumbbell. Learning proper technique can be somewhat involved, considering that each exercise movement has its own set of quirks.

Men who work out -- like blondes -- do have more fun.

Having said that, don't mistake "somewhat involved" for rocket science. Just as you can trade stocks profitably without a broker if you're willing to educate yourself beforehand (a lengthy education, mind you), you can learn how to correctly perform exercises from any number of sources, including a knowledgeable training partner, a group seminar or a reputable media source-like, ahem, Men's Fitness. (Hell, even most machines in the gym come with written instructions that Magoo himself couldn't bungle.)

Well-designed training programs that arrange those exercises into a coherent, comprehensive system are equally accessible. But whether you decide to do it yourself or to enlist the services of a certified personal trainer, the following tips apply to virtually everyone, neophytes and grizzled veterans alike.

Tip-Off Time
1. Don't be a workoutaholic. Many beginners train feverishly under the assumption that more is better, especially when results first appear. However, you're much better off easing into the process. "At first, your muscles aren't ready to do a lot more than they were doing before--they're ready to do a little more," says Richard Cotton, M.A., chief exercise physiologist with First Fitness Inc. in Salt Lake City and a spokesperson for the American Council on Exercise. "You increase your chances of success by moderating your activity a little bit. The morning after a workout, you want to feel like you trained, but you don't want to have to crawl to the bathroom."

2. The best rep range for gaining size is eight to 20. "The optimum results for muscle growth come from lifting a weight that's between 60 percent and 80 percent of what you could lift for one, and only one, rep," says Tudor Bompa, Ph.D., professor of theories of training at York University in Toronto. "At 80 percent, the average person can do eight to 10 reps; at 60 percent, he can do 15 to 20. Most people say anywhere from six to 12 reps is best for muscle growth, but six would be more than 80 percent."

3. The two most important times to eat are when you wake up and after you train. You need fuel in your tank to train hard, and if you don't fill 'er up at breakfast, you'll be running on fumes later. "Make sure the majority of your breakfast consists of carbs, with some protein, maybe in the form of egg whites, thrown in for good measure," says Jacqueline R. Berning, Ph.D., R.D., an assistant professor at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs. "Low-fat yogurt, or milk and cereal, would also fit the bill." It's equally critical to refuel immediately after you train, when your body's cells are most receptive to replenishing the energy they just spent. A premade drink containing both carbs and protein will satisfy immediate postworkout needs in the short run. A more substantial meal, however, consisting of complex carbs and complete protein (chicken breast contains a better amino-acid profile than egg whites, for example) should be consumed within 90 minutes of a workout.

4. Difficult exercises are good for you, so resist the temptation to avoid them. Most exercises can be classified as either single-joint or multijoint movements. The former includes the barbell curl, in which only your elbow joints move. Along with the deadlift and the bench press, the latter includes the squat, during which your ankles, knees and hips are all being extended and flexed, while your upper body works hard to keep the load stable. Multijoint movements are the more difficult of the two types to master, but it's well worth the effort to learn their proper execution, since they result in maximum muscle growth of more complex muscle groups like the chest or the legs. "People often get too specific in their exercise selection," says Thomas M. McLaughlin, Ph.D., ceo of Biomechanics Inc. in Marietta, Ga. "At some point, you really need to do big multijoint exercises that involve large amounts of muscle mass."

5. Unless it is the primary focus of your training, do cardio after, not before, you lift weights. Or do it during another part of the day, or better still, on a separate day. "If you perform aerobic-type exercise first, you'll be fatigued for your weight training," says Cotton. "As a general rule, strength training has less of an impact on cardio than cardio has on strength training."

6. Stretch before you train, and warm up before you stretch. Don't jump right into your weight-training session. First, do about 10 minutes of low-intensity exercise on a stationary bike or a treadmill. "To decrease the chance of injury, you need to elevate your body temperature before you do anything more intense," says Michael J. Alter, M.S., author of Sports Stretch. Once your tissues are warm, stretch them for another five to 10 minutes, focusing your effort on those body parts you plan to train. Alter also recommends stretching the body part, or parts, being worked for 15 to 20 seconds after every set. And don't jump right out of your training mode. Follow with a brief cool-down in which you basically just keep moving for five minutes or so, with another five to 10 minutes of stretching.

Eating right is half the equation.

7. Recovery is just as important as training. When you lift weights, you're actually tearing down muscle fibers. It's only after you've completed your workout that your muscle tissues begin the rebuilding process. To allow that process to unfold properly, give your body adequate downtime in between workouts. As a beginner, don't lift more than three or four times a week, never work the same muscle group on consecutive days, and never train a muscle group that's still sore from a prior workout. For optimal results, you also need to maintain a proper nutrition program, which calls for five or six nutrient-packed small meals a day (four, at minimum). Finally, you need to get enough shut-eye--at least eight hours of it. Adequate sleep keeps you mentally and physically sharp for your workouts, and the act of slumber itself accommodates the release of growth-inducing hormones.

8. Don't do the same workout over and over. Your body only changes when you force it to, and it's remarkably quick to adapt to new stimuli. If you repeat the same workout every training session even for a month, your body can probably handle it without producing an adaptive response. If you feel like your progress has reached a plateau, that's probably what's happening. The best way to avoid plateaus is by periodizing your training, which simply means arranging it according to discrete phases designed to achieve different, albeit related, goals, including muscle growth, strength and definition. That's also the best way to avoid overtraining.

9. Most guys need to consume an additional 2,500 to 3,500 calories a week to gain one pound of muscle each week. You can pump iron until you're blue in the face, but if you don't augment your training efforts with enough food and fluid, the laws of human biology and simple mathematics dictate that you won't get any bigger. "When it comes to gaining muscle, the most important thing is eating enough calories to fuel both your exercise and the metabolic processes needed to build muscle," says Susan M. Kleiner, Ph.D., R.D., author of Power Eating. "Most guys who have trouble gaining weight and strength simply aren't eating enough."

10. Women seem to dig men who work out. Sports psychologists could speak on this topic at length, and relevant studies doubtless have been performed, but we know this statement is true because Karen McDougal tells us it is. "Being in shape definitely gives men that extra sex appeal," says Playboy's 1998 Playmate of the Year. "It's the confidence you show that actually leads to the sex appeal, I think. If you're not confident and you don't feel good about yourself, why would someone else be attracted to you? So, yeah, I would say working out leads to self-confidence, which leads to sex appeal."

"the straight skinny on diet and nutrition for the body building athlete"

by christian griffith

Nutrition: Nutrition is the most important part of athletic/fitness achievement. A proper nutrition program is eighty percent of an effective fitness program! Proper eating habits must be consistent, efficient and persistent. Adhering to proper and consistent nutrition will ensure maximum performance for your workouts and maximize results achieved from your exercise program. If you choose not to follow a good nutrition program, you can plan on seeing about twenty percent of the results that would be possible.

Water: Water is the most important nutrient in your body, and is essential to a good, healthy diet. You must drink at least 80-100 oz. (10-12 glasses) every day. No exceptions!

Foods: Your daily food intake should consist of 30% protein, 50% carbohydrates and 20% fats. Eat good, lean sources of protein such as fish, chicken breast, turkey breast, egg whites, or any of numerous protein powders/shakes that are on the market. Its best to consume complex carbohydrates such as white and brown rice, sweet and white potatoes, fresh fruit and vegetables, Low-fat whole wheat bread or wheat/oat bagels. You do need to allow for some fat in your diet, but try to avoid saturated fat from animal protein. Try to get you fat from monounsaturated sources like, olive oil, walnuts, peanuts, almonds and various others. Allow yourself one small dessert daily (don't go overboard). A little treat can take the edge off, but that's it, only one time daily! Oh, if your not already a label reader you are going to need to become one. Unless you're a dietitian or nutritionist you're probably not going to always know what you're eating, so always read the nutrition label.

Avoid : High calorie foods and dishes containing fatty dairy products, and high saturated fat. If you must eat something really fattening, eat only small, cautious and infrequent portions. Whenever possible avoid rich dressings and dips altogether. Don't eat desserts before bed and avoid anything two hours before bedtime if possible. You do not burn a lot of calories while sleeping. Calories in your stomach during sleep risk being stored as fat.

Try to get in the habit of eating for what you are going to do, instead of what you have done. If you are going to be burning a lot of calories, eat more complex-carbohydrates. If you are going to be lying around, eat less.

Multivitamin/mineral and Protein supplements: As your diet may be lacking in the essential vitamins and minerals, it is a good idea to get a time-released multivitamin. Get something a little better than Centrum. Most gym and health food stores offer a variety of good and effective vitamin formulas. A power/shake mix is another useful aid in your quest for a faster, more efficient metabolism. It is an easy way to get in a quick meal replacement, but don't make these the bulk of your diet. Try to limit yourself to around two liquid meals daily with the other 2-4 meals being solid meals. The shakes contain high quality protein; some even contain carbohydrates, so pick one you like and use it in conjunction with your food. Supplement shakes are a quick alternative to eating a meal. A shake can be blended up on the run, quickly and efficiently.

Meal Frequency: Meals need to be eaten more frequently and in smaller portions, three to four hours apart. Frequent meals are important in helping to speed up your metabolism. Speeding up your metabolism is the only way to permanently lose body fat and obtain lean muscle mass. When you begin eating your meals more frequently your body will begin to burn energy at a faster rate. A faster metabolism will result in more calories being burned during the day, as well as giving you higher levels of energy. Eat 4-6 small meals each day!

The Cooler Plan: Avoid eating out at all cost! This may be extremely hard for some and easier for others. Restaurant food simply is not going to be low in fat. If a restaurant does serve some lean dishes, you are probably not going to be lucky enough to have ordered it. The bottom line is you don't always know what you are getting. It is amazing how it always taste better at the restaurant. Have you every wondered why? Fat and sodium that's why! Good old grocery store food will be leaner every time (nobody said it would taste better!). You are going to need to get in the habit of precooking/preparing your meals! Here is where Mr. Coleman and his products come in handy. A hand held carry cooler will save you every time, provided it is packed with your low fat, home cooked meals. You are going to need to plan ahead of time (always) in order to have meals prepared to eat. Find low-fat foods that you can tolerate, and stick to them. You need to allow time to ease into your new way of eating. Some may need only a couple of weeks others may need a few months, but your efforts must be consistent. Consistency in your meals and efforts are required for successful transition to living a low fat, high protein, frequent meal, and lifestyle. A drastic change in your eating habits is not something that you can just jump into.

Challenge: Getting and maintaining a consistently low body fat is something that requires a certain amount of personal challenge and sacrifice. For many, this will require a lifestyle change. Let's face it! There are not a lot of really lean folks out there, and with today's fast pace society it can be difficult to eat frequently. Eating a small meal every three to four hours can be done. It may require a bit more time, but if you learn to think and plan your grocery store visit and your meals, well ahead of time, you are certain to be successful. I recommend making a priority list. Make a List your priorities and remember that a serious diet needs to be way up there on your list! Your quest for a faster and more energy efficient metabolism needs to be your focus, as you make changes in your eating habits.

Effective Time Management: Many people fail in their quest to get lean because they do not utilize time better, and more efficiently. Allocating time to eat in frequent intervals and to religiously perform cardiovascular work combined with weight training is the core to lowering your body fat. It is simply a matter of giving up leisure time to prepare meals and workout! Certainly, a learner healthier body is worth a few hour of your leisure time. If you are going to get lean, you must plan your day thoroughly. Spontaneity will kill your lean and frequent eating habits every time. Plan out your day, everyday, and work your plan!

Eliminate Negative Influences: Getting away for those negative influences in your life is a huge part of getting lean. This bad influence could be anyone, brother, husband, wife, best friends, etc. I am not saying that you should completely block them out of your life, but resist the negative statements, comments or actions that they may have towards your fitness goals. If your particular negative influence is not a loved one, try to eliminate hanging around them all together, at least for the first few months of starting this program. Remember, a person that does not care about getting lean and physically fit, is prone to drag others down with them. Do not let anyone, or anything sideline you. Stay focused on your goals!

Cardiovascular Exercise: (Running, Walking, Stepper, Treadmill, Bike, etc.) Consistently performing cardiovascular exercises is essential to speeding up your metabolism and effective in burning away fat, as well as strengthening the heart. Your card exercise is best done when blood sugar is low. First thing in the morning or after you workouts, are the best and most effective times to do your cardio. You need to do at least 20 min. and no more than an hour per session. In order for cardio to be effective, it must be done no less than three times weekly. It needs to be somewhat difficult, really working hard but not to the point to where you can't talk or hold a conversation (don't go so fast that you are gasping for your breath) but get moving! Keep your pulse rate at your target heart range (Take 220 minus your age), then work at 60-75% of that for the endurance of your session. For Example: If you are 40 years old (220-40=180) to get your maximum working heart rate. Then 180 multiplied by .75=135 Beats per min. 135 beats per minute being your target heart rate, and needs to be maintained during you cardio session. Oh yeah, vary your cardio exercises, maybe do the stepper for 15min. and then the treadmill for 15. Variation may prevent burnout, and shock your muscles, but remember to sustain 60-75% of your maximum heart rate. Maintaining a certain amount of intensity during your cardiovascular exercise will help ensure that your metabolism speeds up.

Recovery: Your body will need rest to achieve your fitness goals. Never workout more than 4 days a week and be sure to get 6-8 hours of sleep nightly. One of the most common mistakes among gym patrons is over training! Don't fall victim to over training. Too much of a good thing can be bad.

Consistency: is the most important thing of all, in both your eating habits as well as your weight training and cardiovascular exercise. You must perform at least three days of each in order to see results! Less than three days a week just doesn't cut it for most. Remember that in order to keep fat off permanently, you must speed up your metabolism. A faster metabolism will result in more calories being burned during the day. Your metabolic rate will not speed up unless you are consistent in your cardio and weight training efforts.

House hold weapons

2007-05-18T10:41:00.001-07:00

DISCLAIMER- These plans are only for education to show how easy it is for children and people to get ahold of these weapons. Do not make them yourself and if you do I am NOT responsible for the consiquences. So enjoy the document I hope you learn something from it!

Modify a shotgun to an machine shotgun

If your shotgun takes clips just file down the stopping bit. You will need like a thirty round clip or else they run out FAST

Napalm Jelly

There are two ways

1. This way is easiest but not as effective. Take a coffy can and fill it with gas and than put styrophome in it until it is a thick goo. Ad a table sppon of modeling flock to sir in so colour is distinct and wont acidently be consumed as icing.

2. This way takes a week, but a small puddle burns forever! Get a pack of regular geletin. Instead of water put in turpentine, gas, mineral spirits (paint thinner) and any other chemicals you can finde.

Deadly gas bomb

get tow bear bottles fill one with bleach and one with nemonia and tape em together by the openings. (I like to use the little tiny apple juice bottles.

Explosive arrow

\
-===============o=> <-- Arrow head
/ ^ ^
Shaft ShotGun Primer

Super glue the primer to the arrow and than the arow head to that. If it hits the target hard enough it should make a small exlosion

Nail Bombs

There are many ways to make a nail bomb here are afew.

1. Take a soda bottle and attach nails to it with cly or plumbers puddy. Than fill the bottle with dry ice. Tan put water in the bottle trow and run! Doing it without the nails is non deadly noise making fun.

2. Buy some black powder from your local sporting goods store. take some hemp and soak it in WD40 and dip it in powder (makes the best whick) put a half a bottle of black powder in a beat bottle and fill the rest up with metal shards. (first stick in whick) make sure the whick is long enough. Light and run like youre bein chased by the cops (and u probably will be after this!)

Consealed knife.

1. Take four key rings and a nail or a utility knife blade. Weld Rings together and than weld on the blade. There ya go looks like a key chain
oooo|====>

2. Take a piec of metal and fasion it into a V or -- and than put a poin on it (welding best) and than attack it to chain or leather as a necklace.
\_/
|

Missile and launcher

Take some washing machine outlet pipe and cut it in half so it look likke a U and than take a closed off piece opf pipe and attach it (gklue tape whatever) a little stopper in about 3 inches after the pipe. (make it stong enough to hold a hair-spray can. Fill the pipe with gas carasine u know n e thing flamable (you can use gas soaked rag in there as an easy snuff wic instead) light it and put the can in. Get back and take a BB/Pelet gun and shoot the bottom of the can and watch it fly!

_______
__||_|_______D___ NOTE THIS ILL AINT HOW IT SHOULD BE POSITIONED SHOULD BE SLIGHTLY UP FROM TARGET
/ \

Rocket launcher for hoby rockets

The Psychology Experiment

2007-05-18T10:15:00.000-07:00

The Psychology Experiment
Author's note: Reading through the Literotica collection I noticed that there was an inordinate number of stories by different authors starring a lead character named Jenny. So this got me wondering: were these all about the same Jenny? And was she inviting different authors to write about her? So this inspired me to add my own contribution to the Jenny archive, a rather silly and adolescent caper and something of a departure from my usual style. I hope it turns out all right.

* * * * *

Part 1: The first day.

Jenny knocked on the door of the room marked "Psychology Lab 1", clutching the poster in her hand. Already late for her 3:30 appointment. Great. Nice impression she'd make, she thought, taking a moment to finger-comb her blonde hair in place before going inside.

Jenny still couldn't believe she had come to this. After all, she was barely midway through her freshman year, and she'd saved a lot of money from the jobs she'd had during high school. Then she left for college in a different city while her boyfriend Brad decided to go to a local school. Now, between the long-distance phone calls to Brad and her own weakness for shopping, her money was quickly running out. So when she saw the posters advertising for volunteers to participate in various psychological studies, her eye was immediately drawn to one that promised $300 for about 90 minutes' participation. She couldn't believe her luck.

The thin bearded man she knew as Dr. Parks was already waiting for her, along with a woman. "Good afternoon," he said, his voice heavily accented. As she knew, Dr. Parks wasn't his real name but an abbreviation from the original Russian. An emigre from the former Soviet Union, he was reputed to be one of the leading researchers in the field of subliminal messaging.

"Thank you for responding to our advertisement," he continued. "As the poster explained, we are conducting research on the effectiveness of subliminal messaging. Of course, due to the nature of the experiment, we are unable to tell you any more about it at the present time. All I can assure you is that there are no medical risks associated with the process.

"My name is Dr. Parks, and this is my assistant, Jada Spencer. I'll be controlling the research, but Jada will be the one running the experiment. Any questions you have during the course of the experiment, she will be able to answer. Everything sound all right to you so far, Jenny?" She nodded her head eagerly, thinking only of the $300 awaiting her. "Good then, Jada will have a consent form for you to sign, and after that we can proceed."

The professor's assistant was a tall young woman, a few years older than Jenny, with long black hair in a ponytail and glittering green eyes. She handed Jenny a five-page form. Jenny flipped through it impatiently, checking only to verify that indeed she would be paid $300 for participating. She scribbled her name on the last page and handed it back to Jada.

"Are you ready to start now?" Jada asked.

Jenny looked at her watch and nodded. God, could she use $300.

Jada reached down into a drawer and pulled out a blood pressure cuff and a stethoscope. "I'm going to take your pulse rate and blood pressure now," she explained, "then I'll have you look at two videos, each about 30 minutes. At the end of each video I'll be back to take them again. Sound simple enough?"

Jenny nodded obligingly and allowed the older girl to record her pulse and blood pressure. Then Jada straightened up. "Have a seat," she motioned to the leather chair. "I'll be right outside in the back room, running the videos," she added as she and Dr. Parks left the room.

Jenny sat down where she was directed. The chair was soft and comfortable, and it faced a large video screen, like that of a TV. No knobs though, and no buttons. Jada would be controlling things from behind the scenes.

The lights dimmed,and the first video started up. There was no introduction, and background music, only a close-up shot of man and a woman kissing passionately. The whole scene was suffused with eroticism, not your typical porn-movie stuff, but a genuine sexual energy that emanated from the screen and drew Jenny in. Her breathing grew shallow; she opened her mouth and gulped more air. Even though the room was cool, she was starting to feel quite warm.

Onscreen, the man had unzipped the woman's dress and pushed it gently off her shoulders. In the quiet of the room Jenny could hear the whisper of the fabric as it slid to the floor, the breathing of the couple, and was barely aware that she was matching their breathy sighs with her own. When the man opened the woman's bra and slid his hand inside, Jenny felt an answering tingle in her own breasts. With her free hand she ran her fingers lightly over her nipple, and even through her bra and t-shirt she could tell it was quite hard.

She watched the man move his mouth down the woman's throat, saw his tongue trace the delicate curve of her collarbone, then continue to her breast. The woman's body arched upwards as he kissed the tip of one nipple, then the other, before lowering his head to nuzzle in the valley between. Unconsciously, Jenny had started fondling her own breasts, her eyes glued to the screen.

The man's hand moved down the length of the woman's body and started rubbing the front of her panties. Jenny's own body shuddered as if feeling his hand on her own mound. A gush of warmth suffused her entire lower belly, and her jeans felt increasingly tight and constricting. She shifted in her seat, trying not to dislodge the blood pressure cuff on her left arm. She was grateful that the room was dark, and that she was alone.

Jenny shuddered again when the man removed the woman's panties and revealed her smooth, hairless mound. She reached down between her own legs in a futile attempt to pull her jeans away from her swollen crotch. She rubbed herself through her jeans, and it felt pleasant. Her jeans felt warm and moist. Jenny squirmed again and bit her lip in frustration as she watched the woman onscreen. Her crotch burned, aching for the man's lips, tongue, and fingers to touch her the way he pleasured his onscreen partner.

Their fingers twined. The woman's head thrashed from side to side. The man's thrusts grew more and more urgent. She could see the tension rise in their faces as their arousal built up , higher and higher, until the man suddenly shuddered and went rigid, jerking against his partner. The woman's answering spasms indicated her own orgasm.

Then the video ended, and the room lights came back on. Jenny sat there, flushed and blinking, trying to regain her composure even though her pussy was still buzzing. Jada came back in and inflated the blood pressure cuff on Jenny's arm. "How are you feeling?" she asked brightly.

"O - okay, I guess," Jenny stammered, blushing. She wondered if the older girl could sense her state of arousal. She crossed her arms across her chest to conceal her swollen nipples.

"If you're up for it, we can start the next film right away."

Jenny nodded eagerly, still embarrassed. She hoped the next film would be of a different sort entirely.

The room darkened again as the screen flickered to life. To Jenny's relief, this one looked to be a nature film, a rather sedate documentary about wildflowers in the Pacific Northwest. Jenny settled back in her seat, expecting her body to calm down shortly, but as the film progressed she realized that she was not cooling down. In fact, she was - if anything - getting more and more aroused as the film progressed. She couldn't understand it. There was absolutely nothing erotic about the content, yet her body was reacting just as it had to the film before. By the end of the wildflower feature, her chest was heaving again, her body tingling.

Jada turned the lights back on as soon as the second film ended. "How're you feeling now?" she asked.

Jenny put a hand up to her hair and brushed a floppy tendril off her flushed and sweaty face. "I - ur - guess I'm doing all right." She straightened out her t-shirt and allowed Jada to take her blood pressure again. "Not entirely, well, normal - but not bad."

Finished now, Jada slipped the cuff off of Jenny's arm. "Well now, I guess we're done now."

"That's it?"

"That's it." Jada gave her another brilliant green-eyed smile. "We're all done. You may observe some lingering reactions, so pay attention to them and be prepared to let me know what you're feeling. I'll be following up with you for the next couple of days as well. Thank you very much, Jenny."

Jenny picked up her purse and exited the lab, thoughts of $300 still dancing through her mind even as she tried to control the swirling urges within her body.

Jenny passed the rest of the day wrapped in a vague sense of disorientation. She must have been frustrated by the first film, she decided. Her body still felt prickly, and a lingering tickle between her legs refused to go away. She wondered if she should stop off someplace and finger herself, then laughed at herself. Masturbation had never been comfortable for her; she'd always believed nice girls didn't go for that.

It was with a sense of relief that Jenny finally came back from dinner and settled into her dorm room for the night. She stripped down to her panties and pulled a cotton nightshirt over her head. It was such a relief to get out of her tight jeans.

She flopped down on the bed and opened her psych book, intending to prepare for tomorrow's class. She had to give an oral presentation on Sigmund Freud's theory of unconscious drives. Trouble was, she couldn't get her mind off her own unconscious drives. When the phone rang it was a welcome excuse to close her book.

It was Brad, her long-distance boyfriend. "Hey Jenny."

"Hey." Just the sound of his voice made her feel warm all over. "What are you doing right now?"

"Oh, just missing you. How about you?"

"Got a report to do for tomorrow, but I can't concentrate. Listen, I have got to tell you about today." She began to recount the details of her experience in Dr. Parks's lab that afternoon. Remembering the first video made her flush with excitement again, and her skin tingled where her nightshirt brushed against it.

"That's cool, Jenny. Wish I'd been there."

Another rush of warmth surged over her, and she bit back a gasp. "Brad?"

"Jenny?"

She ran her hand down the front of her body. Under her nightshirt her skin felt charged, alive.

"Say my name again?" Jenny leaned back onto the bed. The events of the day must have left her in a state of hyper-arousal. Everything seemed to set her off. Still holding the phone to her ear, she stretched out, catlike. The thin cotton nightshirt brushed against her stiffening nipples as she moved, and she idly stroked one of the sensitive buds with her free hand. "Mmmmmmm...".

"What *are* you doing, Jenny?" Brad asked over the phone.

"Oh God, Brad, if you only knew what your voice was doing to me right now," she purred, twisting her nipple around in her fingers.

Brad nearly lost It on the other end. "Are you -?"

"Oh, yessssss...." Jenny murmured, continuing to play with her breast. Her hips twisted back and forth as she rubbed her thighs together.

"Oh wow!" Brad breathed. "Oh wow, Jenny, that's so cool."

Jenny raised her knees, and the nightshirt fell away from her thighs and pooled around her hips. She slid her free hand experimentally down between her legs. Her panties were damp.

She could hear the distant sound of rustling on the other end of the line and knew that Brad was slipping out of his own pants, probably already hard. The image of his stiffening cock brought a fresh jolt of electricity spiraling down her spine, where it flicked against her clitoris like the snap of a finger. She couldn't believe she was doing this, masturbating with Brad listening on the line.

"Jenny...." Brad's voice, husky now, sounded ghostly in her ear as she lifted up her nightshirt and slipped her hand inside her panties. Her fingers stroked her neatly trimmed pubic hair for a second, then probed further. They found her waiting crevice, and dipped inside. She was running wet, her juices flowing freely. She scooped out some of her wetness and spread it all around her outer lips and clitoris. She teased her clitoris, tickling it, rolling her fingertip over it like a hard little marble, and gasped at her own touch.

"Say my name again," she murmured. "I love the way you say my name."

"Jenny....." he whispered, "Jennyjennyjennyjennyjennyjenny..."

"Mmmmmmm," she purred. "Mmmmmm - mmmm - ah!" Her pitch rose as her hips lifted off the bed, thrusting herself up hard against her hand. Her probing fingers pushed further in, curled, stroked her sensitive inner walls while the heel of her hand rubbed hard against her mound. Her thighs tensed and her toes curled as she braced for her climax. And then her pussy clenched, and the explosion wracked her body as she gasped out unintelligible sounds and heard his answering exclamation.

"Wow," Brad whispered again after a few moments of silence, "that was amazing. Where did that come from?"

Jenny giggled, feeling deliciously naughty as the last shudders dissipated from her body. "I really have no idea. Are you complaining?"

"Hell, no. Hey, we gotta do this again sometime. Listen, get some sleep, OK?"

"Mmmmmm, right. Good night, Brad."

"Good night, Jenny."

Jenny hung up the phone and rolled over onto her side, still feeling the lingering tingle between her legs. Within minutes she was fast asleep.

Part 2: The second day.

Jenny awoke bright and chipper, still smiling. The previous night's conversation with Brad still resonating in her head. A lazy, delicious warmth enveloped her body. She felt - sexy. She wished she could stay in bed, luxuriating in her languor, but no - she remembered, this afternoon she was scheduled to give an oral presentation to her Theories of Psychology class. Not a problem, though; she knew her material inside and out, and she'd always been a natural at public speaking. She was confident that the report would be breeze. She took her time in the shower, caressing herself as the water ran over her naked body, before slipping into a tight t-shirt and a short denim skirt that she knew would show off her long, tanned legs.

The trouble must have begun around lunchtime, had she not been too preoccupied to notice. All through early afternoon she'd been noticing a vague uneasiness in her groin, almost as if she had to go to the bathroom, but even frequent trips to the ladies' room failed to ease it; in fact, as the afternoon progressed it got steadily worse. By the time she made it to her 3:00 psych class, she was definitely feeling something amiss.

"Hi, Jenny!" A couple of classmates greeted her as she slid into her seat. She gave them a brief nod back, too distracted by the sudden twinge between her legs when her bottom made contact with the chair.

Wriggling uncomfortably in her seat, Jenny could barely follow her professor, Dr. Wright, in her opening lecture, nor was she able to concentrate on the presentations of her classmates before her. Finally, she heard her name being called for her turn. As she got up from her desk, the crotch of her panties rubbed against her sex, and she realized with a shock that this friction felt good, like the caress of a hand.

Where did that thought come from? The more she tried to put it out of her mind the stronger it became. She felt she might be starting to get wet, and fought the urge to put her hand down there to check.

Clutching her notebook, she made her way unsteadily to the front of the room, wobbling on her 3-inch heels. Confused thoughts swirled around in her head. Was she coming down with something? The room seemed unbearably warm. She couldn't stop licking her lips. She was also becoming acutely aware of the sensation of her bra rubbing against her breasts. Her nipples were starting to feel swollen, more sensitive.

She cleared her throat, surveying the room. "Um, my report was on Freud's theory of unconscious drives," she began rather thickly in her feverish haze. "What Freud wanted to show -" Her breath hitched in her throat. Her mouth felt dry again and she swallowed. "What Freud did...."

"Is everything all right, Jenny?" Dr. Wright's voice registered impatience. "If you're not prepared, please let someone else have a turn."

Jenny's head was swimming. Her groin throbbed. "Oh no, Dr. Wright, I think - I just need a second. To get my notes together."

"Well, please do try and move it along, Jenny. We have a lot of other reports to go through today."

Jenny stood there facing her puzzled classmates, trying desperately to compose herself. She couldn't understand what was going on with her body. Her skin felt prickly and hypersensitive, and her clothes chafed uncomfortably. She shifted from one foot to another, regretting her choice of shoes.

She tried to look down at her notes, to organize her thoughts, but the words kept running together. To her dismay she noticed that the friction of her bra against her breasts had caused her nipples to harden, and they stood out prominently against her clothes, two jutting points clearly visible to everyone. In shock she clasped her arms around her chest, shielding her breasts behind her notebook. A couple of her classmates tittered.

Dr. Wright was looking at her with growing annoyance. "Jenny, we can't wait forever for you to start. Please either begin your report or take your seat. Am I making myself clear? Jenny?"

Shaking uncontrollably, Jenny staggered against the wall. Her knees felt rubbery. She sank down on her haunches, only vaguely aware that this caused her short skirt to ride up her hips, exposing the damp crotch of her panties between her open knees.

"Jenny? Are you all right?" Dr. Wright's tone shifted from annoyance to concern. Do you need any help?"

"No, I - oh!" Her body was tingling uncontrollably, her pussy throbbing. She had the overpowering desire to reach down between her legs and touch herself.

"Jenny, what's wrong?" Dr. Wright was clearly worried now. Her classmates had started to look concerned too, and were joining in the questioning. Her head spun as their voices swirled all around her.

"Jenny?"

"Jenny?"

"Jenny?"

Her chest was heaving. She couldn't speak. Each utterance of her name brought a fresh gush of moisture to her already soaking pussy. With a monumental effort she pushed herself up off the floor. "I - I think I really have to go!" she cried as she made her way out the door and into the hallway.

Bathroom. She needed to get to a bathroom. The urge to finger herself, to bring herself off, was overwhelming. Supporting herself against the wall, she tottered out into the hallway on shaky legs.

Someone placed a hand on her shoulder. "Hi," said a voice. "You don't look so good." With effort Jenny raised her head up and tried to focus her eyes. It was Jada, the tall, green-eyed graduate student who had played the movies for her yesterday. "Do you need some help?"

"I don't - I mean - I need to find a bathroom!" Jenny blurted. With a deep flush of humiliation she realized how she must look to the older girl, clinging awkwardly to the wall, trying to hide the swollen nipples pushing out against her tight t-shirt, painfully conscious of the way her swollen clitoris was rubbing against her sodden panties.

"Come on," Jada coaxed. "There's a bathroom this way."

Jada led her down the hall to the ladies' room and into the double-sized handicapped stall at the end. Grateful for the privacy, Jenny sagged down onto the edge of the toilet, grabbing the rails by the wall to steady herself. Jada knelt in front of her, a look of concern in her eyes.

The presence of a sympathetic face was too much for Jenny, and the whole story of the events of the day came pouring out of her mouth in painful, excruciating detail. "I - I just don't know what's going on with me," Jenny sobbed.

Jada brushed her fingertips softly across one of Jenny's protruding nipples, and Jenny gasped at the touch. "Yes, I can certainly see that something's going on with your body.," she agreed. "Let's have a look, shall we?" She started pushing Jenny's tight skirt up over her legs.

Jenny started to protest, but there was no way she could push her skirt back down without letting go of the rail and risking a fall into the toilet. Jada kept sliding the skirt up, her fingers burning trails on Jenny's quivering thighs, until it was up past her hips, revealing her lacy high-cut panties. The pink lace was soaked with Jenny's juices and plastered against her pussy, hiding nothing. The musky smell of arousal filled up the enclosed space of the stall.

Jada snaked a finger inside the wet lace and traced a line up the length of Jenny's slit. The fingertip came away glistening wet. "Interesting," she commented. "Would you mind if I took a closer look?"

Without waiting for an answer she started pulling Jenny's panties downward off her pelvis, past the damp triangle of dark-blonde curls leading down to her burning, throbbing core. The thin fabric stuck to her wetness before peeling gradually away with a soft sucking noise. Jenny whimpered and twisted her hips as Jada lifted first one foot, then the other, out of the panties and dropped them on the floor.

Naked from the waist down except for her shoes, Jenny could only push her hips forward as Jada bent down between her legs to inspect her. Then the older girl's fingers were opening the lips of her pussy and pushing inside. Jenny arched back her head and moaned as Jada slid in two fingers, then three, anchoring her the palm of her hand firmly on Jenny's clitoris.

"I can't feel anything out of the ordinary," Jada commented, continuing to stroke Jenny from inside. Jenny was beyond coherent speech now, making only guttural moans while her head whipped from side to side. "Maybe I'd better stop and -"

"NO!" Jenny yelled, louder than she meant to. "I mean - ah -oh - d-don't - you can't stop now!" Jada shrugged but did not remove her fingers. Jenny was rocking hard against Jada's hand now, grinding her mound against Jada's palm. Then all at once she erupted in a blinding orgasm, her hips bucking and her feet kicking out underneath her as she slid against the porcelain toilet seat and nearly landed in the toilet.

Jada continue to finger Jenny until the shuddering stopped. "We'd better let Dr. Parks know about this," she said worriedly, wiping her fingers delicately on a piece of toilet paper. "Come on, we'll see if he's in his office right now." She picked up the discarded panties. "I wouldn't put these on again if I were you," she added, wrapping them up in toilet paper and tucking them inside Jenny's purse.

Jada left the stall, banging the door wide open on her way out. Jenny made a hurried grab for it, pulling it back shut before anyone could come by and see her with her skirt up to her waist and her legs still spread out. She wiped herself off as best as she could and smoothed her skirt down. Her legs were wobbly, but she did feel much better.

Jada was washing her hands briskly at the sink when Jenny joined her. Jenny took a quick look at herself in the mirror. Oh God, she looked like a slut. Her hair was a mess and her face was still flushed from her earlier arousal. Everything about her aspect seem to scream out sex. She splashed some water on her face and started to brush her hair back in place.

"I think Dr. Parks has office hours right now," said Jada, grabbing Jenny's hand and pulling her out the door even before she was finished brushing her hair. She tottered down the hallway after Jada, acutely conscious of the absence of her panties. The air of the hallway swirled up her skirt and tickled her exposed lips, and she kept checking her short skirt to make sure it was all the way down.

Dr. Parks was, in fact, in his office at that moment, busily grading undergraduate exams when Jada knocked on the door. "Dr. Parks, is this a good time?"

"Well, look who it is," he got up from around his desk and held out his hand in greeting. "How is everything going - Jenny, isn't it?"

"I'm all - oh!" To her amazement she felt a fresh jolt of electricity spiral down her body, and she clenched her fist against her groin in response.

"Why, what is it? Is something the matter, Jenny?"

"I - oh!" she exclaimed as her pussy twitched.

"See?" Jada said, "It's like that. She was in this state when I found her wandering around the hallway, only much worse. Look at this." She grabbed the front of Jenny's t-shirt and lifted it up to her armpits, then pulled up her bra so that her breasts popped free. Already half-erect, Jenny's nipples hardened instantly in the open air of the office.

Dr. Parks inspected the nipple mildly. "Interesting," he said in his thickly accented voice. "How long have you been feeling this way, Jenny?"

"Ever since - oh God!" Her legs felt shaky again and she fell back into a chair. "I don't know when, maybe after lunch -"

"Go on, Jenny."

She passed a hand across her head and pushed her hair off the sweat on her forehead. She felt the moistening between her thighs start again and swallowed hard. "I was giving my psychology report and - oh! I don't know what's happening to me!"

"That's not all," Jada added. "Look." Kneeling down, she pushed Jenny's skirt back up past her hips to expose her wet and swollen pussy, which was already leaking a spot onto the seat of Dr. Parks' leather chair. "Jenny seems to be having some sort of spontaneous reaction."

"Yes, that would certainly seem to be the case," The professor agreed. "Ah, Jenny, Jenny, Jenny...."

The professor kept murmuring her name as Jada continued to manipulate her labia. Jenny's control was slipping rapidly, her rational mind becoming eclipsed by lust. In her frenzy she grabbed the back of Jada's silky dark head and pulled the older girl's face hard against her pussy.

"Mmmmgggghhhh!" The vibration of Jada's lips against Jenny's engorged labia set off a shudder of pleasure before the older girl pushed herself away in indignation. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Jada's open mouth was slick with Jenny's juices. Two bright spots of color blossomed on her cheeks.

"Oh god, I'm sorry!" Jenny sobbed in utter mortification. She couldn't believe she'd just done that, forced another woman to put her mouth Down There. Yet her body was on fire, her need to cum as raw and aching as an open wound.

Jada wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, still looking shaken. Dr. Parks turned to Jenny sternly. "Jenny, I'm warning you, I will not allow you to abuse my grad students like that. If you must orgasm, you might as well do it yourself."

"H-here?" Jenny stammered.

Dr. Parks shrugged. "You can do it here or you can wait until you walk back to your dorm, Jenny." Jenny moaned as her body responded again to the sound of her name. "Go on, Jenny, what feels good? Do your breasts want to be touched?"

"Y-yes," Jenny moaned.

"Touch them, Jenny," Dr. Parks coaxed softly. With a small whimper Jenny reached up and started fondling her breasts, fingertips stroking her swollen, sensitive nipples. "Doesn't that feel good, Jenny?"

Jenny nodded miserably, unable to stop what she was doing in spite of her shame.

"What else would you like to touch, Jenny?" His voice continued, smooth, almost a caress. "Show us."

As if on its own, Jenny's right hand started creeping down her bare stomach, over the bunched-up skirt around her waist, down to find her dripping sex. With two fingers she teased her outer lips apart, opening herself wide. She lay back on the desk, one hand squeezing her breasts, one by one, while the other continued to finger herself. She rolled her clitoris between her second and third finger, flinching even as her fingertip flicked over the sensitive bud.

Oblivious now to the other people in the room, she pushed her fingers deep inside her slippery folds. Her feet lifted off the floor as she arched her hips up to meet her hand, thigh muscles clenching in rhythm with her thrusts. The impact, when it hit her, was sudden and explosive, even stronger than her earlier climax in the bathroom stall. Her eyes rolled back in her head as her body continued to spasm, over and over until finally collapsing back on the seat.

Nobody spoke. Jenny sat up, blinking. Jada and Dr. Parks were looking at her, their faces unreadable.

A fresh wave of horror suffused her as she looked down and took stock of her indecent position. "Oh my God," she sputtered as she jumped off the chair, hastily pulling her skirt down and straightening out her t-shirt. "I - I'm so sorry! I don't know what to say!"

Dr. Parks waved a hand dismissively. "Think nothing of it, my dear. Perhaps It is just a temporary after-effect of the experiment. Tell you what, Jada's presenting the results of the study tomorrow at 2:00. Why don't you come and sit in. It will give you some insight into the nature of the experiment."

Jenny nodded miserably, grateful he hadn't made an issue of her behavior. "I'll, uh, be there, I guess."

"Very good," he smiled as she gathered up her things and scuttled out the door. "See you tomorrow, Jenny!" he added, noting the brief stumble in her step as she ran down the hall.

He turned to Jada, who was busily making notes on a clipboard. "Well, I think that went quite well, don't you?"

"Oh yes," Jada smiled, "and hopefully it should make a very interesting presentation."

Part 3: The third day.

Jenny spent a miserable morning huddled under the bedclothes, unwilling to leave the room or talk to anybody for fear that the uncontrolled urges would start raging through her body again. She'd cut her two morning classes, not wanting a repeat performance of the previous day, and she knew that was going to cost her academically.

She debated on whether or not to go to lunch, then decided against that too. Great, so now she was going to be hungry on top of everything else. She scrabbled around in her desk drawer and came up with an apple and a couple of crackers.

Munching on the apple, she cracked open her textbook and tried to concentrate on reading her next chapter, but her mind kept returning to the bizarre and humiliating experiences she'd been having lately. What had she gotten herself into? She glanced at the clock. 1:15. Jada had told her that she'd be presenting the results of the experiment at two, and that everything would be explained.

Resignedly, Jenny got out of bed and headed off to the shower. She debated on what to wear to Jada's presentation and decided on a simple white blouse paired with a long straight khaki skirt. With a heavy heart she headed over to the psychology building and found the small auditorium where the presentation would be held. It looked as if the entire department was already there, a mixture of professors and graduate students. Jenny took a seat in the back row, grateful for the anonymity offered by the group of people.

Jada was standing in the front of the room, professional in a crisp black suit that set off her white skin and bright green eyes. In one hand she held a clicker, which she was using to advance through a sophisticated PowerPoint presentation.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. As you've been told, the focus of our project was on testing the effectiveness of subliminal manipulation. As you know, subliminal messaging involves the technique of embedding images and sounds within the context of a movie or larger picture for the purpose of implanting a message in the audience's subconscious. This message is usually intended to trigger an emotional or somatic response.

"We decided on a response that was relatively easy to identify, such as sexual arousal, which also worked well because it was not likely to arise spontaneously otherwise. The trigger stimulus had to be a cue that the subject was already familiar with. Since we did not have time to introduce a new stimulus to the subject, we had to use one already familiar to her, in this case the sound of her own name.

"We then did some research to find out what sort of images would trigger the strongest sexual response for the subject. These images we spliced out and paired with a low-level audio track of her name being spoken.

"The subliminal messages were embedded in a 30-minute film which we showed to the subject on Wednesday. Afterwards the subject reported feeling uneasy but not unpleasant. We believe this was the period in which the messages was integrating itself into her subconscious. I will now show a bit of the film, slowed down so that you can see the implanted messages."

Jenny stared openmouthed in horror as Jada ran the videotape for the assembled panel. Played at one-eighth speed, the implanted images of couples deep in the heat of erotic passion were clearly discernible, as well as the low voice in the background whispering "Jenny.... Jenny..."

"I observed the subject all throughput the next day," Jada continued. "The effects of the subliminal manipulation were clearly starting to show. I watched her grow sexually aroused during the course of a normal classroom interaction. Dr. Parks and I examined the subject in his office and verified that indeed the subject was experiencing a sexual arousal triggered by the sound of her own name. I have a recording of the session in the office, of which I'll just play a little right now."

Jenny sank down in her seat, wishing she could disappear. She squeezed her hands over her ears as the sound of Jada's and Dr. Park's prompting, along with her own answering moans filled the room.

"Of course, the area of subliminal,messaging still leaves a lot to be explored, " Jada continued. "For one thing, we don't know whether the responses will extinguish on their own without further reinforcement, or whether she will have to be deprogrammed. You can be sure that we will be continuing to monitor her progress for quite some time. Thank you very much for coming, and I'll be glad to answer any questions or comments."

A bearded man in the front row raised his hand and regarded Jada sternly. "Ms. Spencer, I'm afraid your data are not sufficient to convince the panel as to the outcome of the experience. Do you have any other evidence to back up your hypothesis?"

Jada's flawless composure tensed slightly. Almost imperceptibly, Jada's smile tightened, her voice became strained. "Dr. Maxwell, I can assure you the data are genuine and obtained through rigorous scientific procedure."

The man remained implacable. "As you may be aware, we did have an incident last semester where a student was brought up on charges for falsifying data. We would simply like to see some more direct evidence that links the subject's responses to your interventions."

Dr. Parks, who'd up until now been sitting quietly on the sidelines, spoke up. "Might I make a suggestion, Jada? As it turns out, our subject Jenny is right here with us in this room with us. Perhaps she would be so kind as to give us a demonstration?"

Jada's glittering green eyes surveyed the room. "Well, I really wasn't planning to do this, but I see you leave me no option. Jenny, will you please stand up?"

Al eyes turned to Jenny, who had no choice but to stand up even as the familiar tingling began afresh in her lower belly.

"If I'm right, the verbal stimulus of her name should just be starting the process of arousal in her body right now. Can you tell me if that's the case, Jenny?"

Blushing furiously, Jenny swallowed hard and nodded.

"Would you please come down here, Jenny? I'm going to need your help with my presentation after all."

Cringing under the collective stares of the panel, Jenny slowly made her way to the front of the room, her clothes rubbing up against her body with every movement. By the time she reached Jada's side her panties were already starting to dampen.

Jada turned her around to face the room. "As you can see, the subject's face is already starting to show the characteristic signs of arousal. Notice the redness over the cheeks and lips, the increase in salivation. Jenny, can you please tell the audience what you are feeling right now?"

Jenny could feel the hot flush of embarrassment creep down her face and mix with the spreading warmth in her breasts and groin. "I couldn't - not in front of all those people!"

Jada ignored her. "Are you feeling hot, Jenny? Are you feeling aroused?"

"Yes," she mumbled, barely audible.

"Speak up please, Jenny. And do try to remember this is a presentation."

"I - I'm feeling, well, horny..."

"Could you please describe the feeling to us in greater detail, Jenny."

"I'm, ur, aroused. Every time I - oh - hear my name it gets me more and more - that way. Oh."

"I think the panelists need a more specific description of what's going on in your body, Jenny. And please try and look at the audience when you speak; it gets very difficult to hear when you're looking at the floor."

Jenny slowly raised her eyes to her audience, her face a study in utter mortification. "I'm feeling very - warm - right now," she stammered. "My breasts, oh god, my breasts - are tender. My nipples are - swollen and so - sensitive - right now I feel - I feel like they'll push our right through my bra. Oh, god!" The last exclamation came out in a whimper.

"Go on, Jenny." Jada's voice was impassive, offering no reprieve.

"And - oh, god - and I'm - wet, too. Down there. And my - what's the word - clitoris - is so - swollen. Rubbing up against my underwear. Hard to walk. Hard to - stand still too. Oh.... Oh...."

"What would you want most right now, Jenny?" Jada asked softly.

Jenny's vision blurred as hot tears of humiliation sprang to her eyes. "I want to - touch myself. To - masturbate." Her eyes sprang open and she looked straight at Jada. "Please, if I don't have an orgasm soon I'm sure I'll explode!"

A hand came up from the panel. "How do we know she's not being stimulated from any devices inside her clothes?"

Jada's smile was brittle. "No, Dr. Poe, our subject Jenny is not wearing any hidden wires or electrodes which might stimulate a physical reaction. Jenny, could you please remove your clothes so that the audience can see that you are not wearing any wires."

"What?" Jenny's eyes widened in shock even as a fresh wave of arousal coursed through her body.

"Just do it, OK?" Jada hissed through gritted teeth. "My entire semester's work is riding on this."

Stunned by the harsh words from the woman she'd considered a friend, Jenny fought off a fresh round of tears. This wasn't part of the agreement. Yet even as Jada spoke, her body was already aching to be free from the tight confines of her clothing. As if of their own accord, her fingers began clawing at the buttons of her blouse.

"Let's move it along, could we Jenny?" Jada whispered in her ear. Jenny felt the skirt loosen around her hips as Jada's impatient fingers undid the zipper, and then the skirt was sliding down her legs, exposing the bottom edge of her white panties beneath the hem of her blouse. The wet spot was already visible between her legs.

Jada helped Jenny undo the rest of the buttons on the blouse and pulled it of her shoulders. Jenny stood there, shivering in her bra and panties, erect nipples clearly visible under her white bra.

When Jada reached around to unhook Jenny's bra, however, she twisted away, protesting. "Jada, you can clearly see that I'm not concealing anything in my bra. There isn't room in here for anything but me."

"That's not true, Jenny. If you don't they'll accuse me of sewing electrodes to the inside of your bra and they'll still think I'm faking it."

Unable to come up with a convincing retort, Jenny fell silent as Jada undid the clasp holding her bra closed in front and pulled it away, revealing Jenny's rosy pink nipples to the scrutiny of the assembled professors. Jenny noticed a couple of them were adjusting their glasses in order to get a better look, and she flinched under their gaze, wondering how far things would go.

But Jada was addressing the panel again. "As you can see, the subject's nipples are also showing signs of arousal." As if to illustrate her point, Jada took one of Jenny's ripe pink buds between her thumb and forefinger and lifted it up to the audience, pinching it lightly. "And notice the all over flush on the body. Isn't that so, Jenny?" she asked, and Jenny felt a fresh tingle between her legs at the sound of her name. She ground her thighs together, trying to rub herself inconspicuously against the crotch of hr panties. "Could you remove your underwear now please?"

"Whatever for?" Jenny wailed, desperately trying to salvage the last of her self-control. "You can see I'm not concealing anything. My god, I'm so wet now you can see right through them. Why do I have to take them off?"

"Just do it, please," Jada snarled in her ear. "Do you *want* me to get kicked out for falsifying data?"

Jenny could only stand there in abject defeat and humiliation as Jada drew the panties down off her legs, and she stood there, trying to cover herself with her arms. She could feel the moisture between her legs already starting to ooze down her thighs.

Jada held the panties up to the panel. "The subject is also experiencing vaginal lubrication. I can pass these around to you so you can determine that these indeed are genuine bodily fluids." Jenny stood with downcast eyes as her panties were passed around from one professor to another, some merely glancing cursorily at them, others pausing to sniff them as if to verify their authenticity.

"If you could please sit down now on this chair Jenny," Jada continued, motioning to one of the metal folding chairs. "I'm sorry the seat won't be the most comfortable. I really wasn't prepared to give a demonstration." Jenny did as she was told, wincing as the hot skin of her buttocks came in contact with the cold metal seat. Face burning, she hunched over in her seat, keeping her legs wedged tightly together. "Now lean back and open your legs if you please, Jenny."

Whimpering softly, although whether from arousal or humiliation she didn't know, Jenny carefully eased her back against the chair and slid her ass forward. The metal seat was already wet with her juices. The cool air of the room hit her exposed sex like a slap.

Jada put one hand on Jenny's knee and pulled her leg further out to the side. "Now you can also see," she said to the panel, "that our subject is lubricating copiously. Notice how red and swollen the lips are, and the size of the clitoris." A couple of the panelists craned their necks forward. "Would you like a closer look? You can come see for yourself." As the assembled professors filed down to the front of the room, Jada pulled out a box of latex gloves. "Feel free to take these gloves if you need a more thorough examination. And please, remember to thank her by name, since she is a volunteer."

Jenny squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to witness this latest round of humiliation. Her hips squirmed uncomfortably under the scrutiny of the prying eyes and fingers. The latex-coated fingertips were cool to the touch. They spread open her labia, tracing up and down the sides of her hungry slit. A couple of them eased her throbbing clit from its fold of skin and rolled it around, massaging it gently and sending more sparks spiraling down her pussy. She gasped as a pair of fingers not sheathed in gloves entered her dripping crevice and started exploring her inner recesses. Her hands gripped the sides of her seat, white-knuckled. In spite of herself she started to moan and gyrate her hips in response to the probing fingers, rapidly building toward a massive orgasm.

"Very nice everybody, I think you've all got the idea," Jada said smoothly, and one by one the panelists removed their hands, leaving Jenny crashing back down in frustration onto the metal chair. "Thank you, Jenny," she added, putting extra emphasis on the name to inflame the hapless subject even further.

Pointedly ignoring Jenny's distress, Jada turned back to the professors, who were now filing back to their seats. "The clinical implications of this treatment are obvious. It can be a useful tool to help couples deal with sexual dysfunction, as well as inhibition caused by anxiety - will you please keep it *down*, Jenny?" This last was directed at the tortured moans of the writhing girl. "All right Jenny, what *do* you want?"

"Please," Jenny sobbed, all attempts at control abandoned, "I really need to cum!"

A hand went up in the audience. "How long do you think the subject can go in this state of arousal without some kind of release?"

Jada smiled, back at ease now that she had passed the scrutiny of the panel. "I'm afraid that question is really beyond the scope of my project. However, it *would* make a fascinating topic for further research. Thank you very much for coming, everybody." She turned to Jenny, who was still squirming pitifully on the chair, trying to hold her position. "All right Jenny, you can play with yourself while I take some questions."

No longer conscious of anything but her overwhelming need for release, Jenny reached gratefully down to her aching pussy. Stroking herself furiously, she paid no attention to what the professors were saying, although a few times Jada had to tell her to keep her voice down so she could hear the questions. Finally, the sensations crested to a peak, and her back arched off the chair as she climaxed in a fit of screaming, shuddering ecstasy, and then passed out.

When she opened her eyes again the room was silent, the seats deserted, the only reminder a lingering smell of sex. She had no idea how long she had been out, but it felt like her orgasm had lasted for hours. Exhausted, she peeled herself off the chair and started picking up her discarded clothes.

Tucked inside her panties was a check for $500, $200 more than what she'd been expecting. Perhaps the experiment might have been worth it after all. Slowly, already planning her next shopping spree, she began to dress.

Strain Theory vs. Control Theory

2007-05-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

Sociologists have often wondered why people commit crime. The Strain and Control theories have both linked crime with conformism, however, in opposite ways. Strain theorists believe that crime occurs because of the American need to conform. Robert K.Merton, a member of the Chicago School, did not buy into the theory that crime only occurred in slums. He “outlined a very different social process- one that involved conformity to conventional cultural values- that he felt produced high rates of crime and deviance” (Lilly et. al 53). The Control theory contrasted Strain by saying that people committed crimes when they strayed from conformism. Albert J. Reiss, also of the Chicago school, said that “delinquency results when there is a relative absence of internalized norms and rules governing behavior in conformity with the norms of the social system to which legal penalties are attached, a breakdown in previously established controls, and/or a relative absence of or conflict in social rules or techniques for enforcing such behavior in the social groups or institutions of which the person is a member” (81). These theories both took into account the society within which the deviant/criminal lives, but Strain theory focused on the negative aspects of this influence.
Strain theory said that “all Americans have the same cultural goals linked to both material achievement and social status, but not all Americans have the equal means to achieve these goals” (notes). According to this theory, there are “institutional arrangements that provide for success”, and they include family, religion, economy, education and politics (notes). This theory viewed America as a highly competitive

society in which the less fortunate are left behind. Strain is felt because they lack equal opportunity and so they adapt to this reality in illegal ways, such as drug dealing, stealing and gangs. These individuals felt pressure from their society to conform to certain ideals and that is what drove them to become criminals. A big pressure discussed by the Strain theorists is the “American Dream”, and it is the cause of much stress in most people’s lives.
The “American Dream” is the universal goal of achievement and success among Americans. For the poor, it is rather like a nightmare, according to the Strain theory. “Poor people are not taught to be satisfied with their lot but rather are instructed to pursue the American dream; through hard work, it is said, even the lowliest among us can rise from rags to riches”. These ambitions have consequences for the poor because “the social structure limits access to the goal of success through legitimate means (e.g., college education, corporate employment, family connections)” (53). Therefore, crime is a way of life for many Americans because it helps them reach the American dream. They chase after a dream that seems impossible to attain. According to Merton, strained people adapt to their reality in 4 different ways: innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion.
Innovationists usually use legitimate ways to achieve success but resort to illegitimate means when they find their window of opportunity temporarily blocked for whatever reason. Ritualists follow the norms of society, but they scale down their
aspirations lower than the norms and avoid taking risks. Retreatists escape the norms of

society through such means as drinking and drugs. Rebels reject the norms and set up their own rules of how to live (54-55).
Control theory believed that all of this deviation can be solved with a proper upbringing (notes). This theory was started in the 1950’s when the trend was a focus on the family and parenting. Reiss’ “push and pull” theory attempted to explain why people commit crime: “a variety of factors – including biophysical forces, psychological pressures, and social conditions such as poverty – might ‘push’ a person toward crime or delinquency, and other factors – such as illegitimate opportunities – may ‘pull’ one toward misbehavior” (85). Reiss also believed that a child’s family heavily determined whether or not the child would become a delinquent. He said, “there is social control over the child’s behavior when the family milieu is structured so that the child identifies with family members...and accepts the norms”(82). If the child does accept the norms of his family, it is feared that he might become a part of a delinquent group. “The delinquent peer group is here viewed as a functional consequence of the failure of personal and social controls” (82). A sub-theory of Control theory is the Self-Control theory, which focuses on restraint.
Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi developed Self-Control theory which said that in order to avoid criminality, an individual must maintain continuous bonds with “family, school, work, everyday activities, and beliefs” (102). Neglect in parenting will lead to the criminality of a child later in life because the child will turn to less conventional places to learn their values (103). Internal sanctionings including morals, values, conscience and respect must also be present within an individual in order to
maintain the norms of society (notes). A lack of this regulation forces an individual to look to other means for gratification. “Crime provides short-term gratification, such as excitement, small amounts of money, and relief from situational aggravations” (102). In other words, people desire ways to pleasure themselves, and if they have not been taught how to find pleasure in conventional ways, they will find it through illegitimate means.
Intervention for this delinquency must be done on a community level through education and reintegration. Throwing minor offenders in jail does not solve anything. In fact, “labeling and treating lawbreakers as criminals have the unanticipated consequence of creating the very behavior they were meant to prevent”. A criminal must be forgiven and given a second chance or else they will feel trapped in a criminal way of life forever. “The degrading influences of prison life and contact with vulgar criminals…cause criminaloids who have committed their initial offenses with repugnances and hesitation, to develop later into habitual criminals” (115). A delinquent who is repeatedly told that he is worthless will start to believe it and then live up to that label. This is called the self-fulfilling prophecy, and it can be prevented if society develops programs to reintegrate former criminals into society (117).
The Strain and Control theories both developed ideas springing from conformism, but at either ends of the spectrum. Strain believes that conformism prevents people from having equal chances of success in life, while Control believes that conformism contains values that form a net that will save individuals from turning to illegitimate activities. People must walk a fine line when it comes to conformism because too much will result
in a mass of robot-like people with no individualism, but too little will prevent communities from forming between people. It is important to learn from parents and teachers but it is also important to think for yourself, which means that people must be free to choose and be wrong sometimes. After all, mistakes are how people learn to be successful!