Everyone with a store bought computer should create a set of recovery disks Not only as Grandms so wisely points out, because of hard drive failure, but also in case you get Trojans. Right now I have a wicked case of Trojans on a computer brought to me and I am afraid to use the recovery console in case that too is corrupt. And I have no reason to suppose it is not corrupt since so much of this computer is inoperable. Luckily the owner has created a set of disks so I can do a recovery if all else fails.

Usually the host server has a CGI bin where all CGI scripts are kept. This is a server side program usually made with the PERL language. All you really have to do is to make the CGI script that the host company will add to their scripts they already have. Be aware that some hosts will not let you run your own scripts, only the ones they provide. Most hosts will make you a particular script for a price. JamesS

The article kathy-ny linked above was interesting...but I found this tidbit incredible: The luxury home furnishings retailer is also upping its game on the merchandising front by expanding assortments in categories such as leather, raising the page count of the Source Book catalogs that it mails and adding catalogs in new categories such as rugs. What? In this day and age of paperless electronics, if you can't get your point across in 3,300 pages, 17 lbs. of catalogs, do you really think adding more pages is going to be helpful?!?! Even War and Peace is only 1,400 pages. And the size of the stores they're building is unbelievable. 70,000 sq ft? That's over 1 1/2 acres! Just imagine what they're going to have to do to prices to support that footprint! Yikes!

I felt just like you do when I got my 20D in May 2005. I thought it would take me a year to learn how to use it. I started with the kit lens and P mode. In no time I was shooting aperture priority AV, and when the 4th of July came, that did it, I had to try some fireworks. I read and read what people had posted on another forum, can't mention that here, and did my homework before I got there. And I had some duds, but some keepers, too. It's by far the best to go full manual. It takes some experimentation. If you want twinkle lights, set the aperture to f8 to f14 and adjust the shutter speed accordingly. I usually start with 2 seconds. Usually in most situations 4 seconds to 1 second and sometimes 1/2 sec if really bright, so experiment in that range. And, of course, a tripod. A remote release helps with camera shake. You can get a cheap knockoff on ebay that works well. I haven't tried mirror lockup yet, but that helps with camera shake, too. I look at the lcd and try to tell if it is going to be a good one, but that is hard at night and the lcd is so small. Does the XT have a histogram feature? That helps but usually night photos bunch to the left so it won't be much help at night except to tell you you when you are totally out of the ballpark. The best thing to do is just set your camera on a tripod and practice, practice, practice on something that doesn't matter. It is not as hard as it sounds. Look at the exif after you have downloaded your photos (you should have gotten some software with your camera, DPP that came with mine or I downloaded it from Canon, can't remember, works well) and decide which ones turned out best and note the aperture and shutter speed. If you don't have a tripod, you can improvise with a bag of beans on something stable and use the timer feature, but it's best in the long run to get a good tripod. Focus can sometimes be an issue, so you may have to switch to manual focus, too, but this class of Canon cameras does a good job with focus in low light. On the 4th photos, I took a test shot in auto focus before it got too dark, it looked good, then switched the button on the lens to manual focus for the rest, but sometimes it will drift off if you point your camera somewhere else. Set your white balance to AWB. I do use custom white balance in the daytime, but haven't tried it at night yet. They say you can take a purposely blurry photo and set your custom white balance to that. I shoot exclusively in RAW now (was sure afraid to break that barrier), but it gives you so many more options, like setting your white balance after the photo has been taken, adjusting the exposure, brightness, etc., then converting to jpg. You have made a big jump. I would not use the icon modes or auto mode ever. The only icon mode I use is the sports one maybe in a pinch go to P if I don't have time to think. Sports mode works very well for moving subjects, wouldn't use it at night. It is going to take some investment in time and energy, but it will pay off in the end if you are serious about getting good photos and don't give up. This one I took when some little kid supposedly saw the Virgin Mary, I went over to see the crowds and reactions. I had the 50mm 1.8 on my 20D. Full manual mode, f10, 4 seconds, exposure bias 0, ISO 800 (don't know why I had it set so high, 400 should be fine), evaluative (pattern) metering (looks like a human eye icon on my cam), auto white balance.