is happily being the wheel rather than a rusty old spoke
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test
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Matty, when will that SPELL CHECKER be put back up?
That's one of my current projects, with which my best friend is helping like crazy. We hit a snag, though. He's got the basic engine written and running well, but the ice storm knocked out his cable service so he's off-line until that's fixed.
I'm reluctant to ever put dates on anything, but I'm confident we'll have an in-house spell-checker before the end of the month.
I've added a Utils link to the top menu that'll take you to a screen where you can select "My Account". It displays some basic stats from your account, and most importantly to a lot of folks, what your "Top Members" score calculates out to in case your score isn't high enough for inclusion on the Top Members list.
Another neat thing is that in addition to showing you your total Peoplemarks, it also shows you how many of the people who have you Peoplemarked have visited within the last 30 days. So if you've got over 100 Peoplemarks but less than 10 Active Peoplemarks, now you know why your Top Members score isn't all that high.
The list also shows you how many posts you've made in the past 30 days, which is factored into the score.
It's a little of both, actually. I haven't looked at the profile-editing code because, frankly, I fear it. Even Brad Dryer (who is tons better than I am at SQL Server) was dealt fits by exactly the same thing.
The problem is almost guaranteed to be your use of characters that have special meaning to SQL (or most language) when dealing with strings. That would be commas, apostrophes, and quotation marks.
Until I fix that routine, what you should do when you encounter that problem is make sure a line doesn't have an odd number of quotation marks or apostrophes. Or try removing them altogether.
To edit my profile, I ended up doing the whole thing with no quotes or apostrophes, then adding them in one at a time until I ran into a problem, then I'd do the problem-causing entry a bit differently.
I won't give an estimated date that I'll get the profile editing thing fixed.
Geez, you found it before I could announce it! I implemented it less than 60 seconds before you posted about it. Talk about stealing my thunder. LOL
You were a jerk as admin,
Got news for you. I'm a jerk, through and through. Although "jerk" is a kinder word than what I had in mind. Might be why I tolerate you and don't accidentally erase your account, though. Kindred spirits and all that.
but your one heck of a ASP editer.
ARRGGGGHHH!!!!
I'm a *programmer*. An "ASP editor" to a programmer is as a "parts changer" is to a mechanic. In case you're not familiar with the terminology, a parts changer is a guy who you (or a shop manual or the car's computer) tell to replace a part and that's what he does. The only reason he can cite for doing so is that he was told to.
A mechanic, on the other hand, understands how the machine works at its fundamental level and can figure out which part should be changed or repaired. A parts-changer will replace the stator assembly on a generator. A mechanic will excite the field first to see if that was the problem. <g>
Still, glad you like the new feature. It's just a rough basic format for now, but it'll do for a bit and it'll give me a chance to get feedback on other things to throw in there.
I see also my idea of having our accounts tell us what our membermarks our.
Yes, your suggestion reminded me that a number of people have asked for that. And I kinda threw the gauntlet down over on SI.
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/stocktalk/msg.gsp?msgid=17001985
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/stocktalk/msg.gsp?msgid=17003348
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/stocktalk/msg.gsp?msgid=17003816
I didn't have the heart to tell him I'd already put in such a feature here and did it one better tonight.
BTW, what is this "Account Level" business?
Just what it says. It tells you what your account level is. Like whether you're a subscriber, a free member, grandfathered, or whatever.
So, guys. Any feedback on other things that belong under "Utils" or other things you'd like to see included on the Accounts screen? I already plan to make the email address editable later, and possibly the alias (no more than once every 3 months, with a running history of all previous aliases). Anything else?
For the same reason I don't spell it out in too much detail for the Top Members list. By keeping an aura of mystery around it, I give the inevitable list manipulators a bit less to work with. They don't know if it's posting activity, bookmarks, or what that'll make the numbers jump the most.
And to tell you the truth, neither do I. <g>
Now, c'mon guys. It's Sunday afternoon. I figure now's as good a time as any for me to seriously hammer on the server while developing a new feature.
Shall I just have everyone get together and figure out a time I can tie up about 90% of the CPU? <g>
Edit: Seriously, have at it. I'd put together a set of "Inner Joins from Hell" and found out pretty quickly that approach wasn't going to work, so I'm off on another tangent now and shouldn't be hitting the machines as hard.
Quick minor change that occurred to me while I was working on something else.
Where your name shows near the top of the "Favorites" page is now a link that'll take you to your profile so it's a bit easier to get to your profile to edit it.
Yep, it'd make an excellent thread topic. I'd definitely participate. It's one of my many loves.
Juice went out again about 6 this morning after having come back on about 6 yesterday evening. So we're back to the generator.
I've gotta tell my generator story now. I've got time, coffee, and nothing else urgent to do yet.
I built a shed about 50 feet away from my house a couple of years ago for primarily one purpose: Being the center of our off-grid power. I sized it to hold 600 watts worth of solar panels on the roof (which I haven't bought yet -- the cheapest I can find them is still more than $4 per watt and I'm waiting for $2 per watt) and had the power company install a transfer switch below the meter so I could take the house off-grid any time I wanted and run it off the shed. I also buried the necessary wire between the transfer switch and the shed and put a 3-prong twist-lock connector on it that was compatible with my first generator.
I have a pair of large marine batteries in the shed (to store juice from the solar panels I don't have yet) and during warm weather I charge them as needed from a regular battery charger. Connected to the batteries is (was) a small inverter just large enough to provide juice for the pond in the front yard to run the lights and the pump and juice for power tools when needed.
I've always been tickled with the fact that the pond was running grid-free, though I was cheating and charging the batteries from the grid.
When I got the first generator, I started using it to charge the batteries when they needed it, though my cost per KwH was about 4 times higher than the 7.5 cents I pay for it from the grid. Didn't care. I'm way into alternative energy and just loved the fact that I was making and using my own electricity.
The first generator is(was) a Coleman 5KW with a Briggs 10-horse engine on it. Seemed to do well for what I needed it for. We lose power out here for short periods (less than an hour) all the time, so the machine's duty cycle was real low.
I also bought an ancient Kohler-powered 7.5KW generator from a neighbor. V-4 engine. Kinda cool. Figured it'd be an easy one to convert to run on natural gas (which we're going to be drilling for this year) and it'd make enough power on natural gas that we could actually run the house full-time on it during the 9 months of the year when our electrical demands are lowest.
The Kohler doesn't like to run long before it'll foul the plugs, though (needs a rebuild), so when I started putting up my workshop, I moved the Coleman down there and ran the tools off of it. But, being a Briggs engine, it couldn't handle any real duty cycles, like most Briggs engines I've encountered, so it croaked. A neighbor has the same generator and it croaked for the same reason. I've seen it. Connecting rod poking out of the crankcase. The difference between mine and his is that I was closer to mine when the knocking started so I got it shut off a few seconds before it would've ventilated the crankcase.
So, power goes out and I've got one generator that's not even close to running, and another that might run if I beg it really nicely. I apparently didn't beg well enough. It ran for about 15 minutes on two cylinders, then refused to run at all. And it was too far from the house anyway. Had it been a runner, I'd have had to figure out a way to move its 500 lbs to the shed. And the backhoe is "trapped" on the trailer. Ain't no way I'm driving it off an ice-covered trailer. People get killed doing that.
I called around town Thursday trying to find an engine for the Coleman, and wasn't having any luck because it's a tapered-shaft engine. Those aren't typically stocked anywhere, and they're very expensive. Found a place that had a few generators available, so I grabbed one.
Homelite LRXE5600. Darned nice machine. $889, but in looking around on the 'net, the price range seems to be $1399 to $2199 for the same machine.
Remember that I've got a 3-prong twist-lock connector (240 volts) to feed the house.
The new generator has a similar-looking one, but it's a different size and only 120 volts. The 240-volt outlet is 4-prong on this thing.
No problem. I go to Family Center because they've got lots of that kind of stuff there.
Well, this is something they don't have.
No problem. I'll remove my 3-prong connector and hardwire it to the generator.
We get the generator home and my daughter helps me move it into the shed. She spends the next hour holding a flashlight for me, handing me tools, fetching tools and wirenuts from the main garage, and learning all kinds of new words.
I couldn't find a way to splice the wires inside the control panel, so I snipped the wires from the generator to the control panel (leaving plenty of wire left on the connector -- just in case) and used wirenuts to make the connection.
We start the generator, and....... nothing.
Even the 120-volt connectors won't work, although there's a pair of wires still going to the connector from the generator that I assumed were the 120-volt wires.
I drag out the manual and find they were kind enough to include a schematic.
Darn! Should've checked that first. The generator won't make any juice unless it's going through the control panel.
So I wrestle for a while getting the wires spliced back into the control panel connector (I should've left the wires a bit longer), get it all hooked up, fire up the generator and....... nothing.
#@*$(&@$&!!!
I start to wonder if I didn't somehow just ruin a brand new generator.
I take the control panel off again, and start scrutinizing it with the schematic in my lap.
Capacitor.... Hmmmm..... Why's this thing got a capacitor on it?
By this time my daughter has given up and is in bed with her mom and they're both very depressed. They had their hopes up for having juice.
I try the usual stuff like banging on different parts and restarting it, but still don't have any juice anywhere.
My mind keeps coming back to that capacitor. Why on earth does this thing have a capacitor on it?
Then a phrase jumps into my head, and I'm not sure why it did (perhaps because I was going through the exercise of just how a generator works). The phrase was "excite the field".
"excite the field". "excite the field". Hmmm.... "Capacitor". Okay, the generator is just a mass of spinning wires until a bit of juice is introduced to the wires to excite the field. That explains the capacitor. This things not so much a generator as it is an alternator, if you use the old-time parlance.
Now why isn't the capacitor exciting the field?
Hmmm.... I wonder if I can excite the field manually. Kind of a scary thought. Feed 12 volts DC into a wire that, if it works, will feed 120 volts AC back at me.
What the hell. I'm willing to try anything.
So I start the generator, have my drop light plugged into a 120-volt outlet, put one end of a wire on the positive cable of the battery, and very nervously, gingerly, carefully and briefly tap one of the hot leads of the 240-volt outlet with the other end, and.....
Light! Lots of light!!!
3 hours of freezing my butt off and I finally have light from this thing again.
I turn it off, and restart it. Light again! Cool!
Now comes the problem of getting this thing connected to the house. I've got no plug.
I decide to just shape the wires kind like a plug-in and put them into the plug. I turn the generator off and spend about 15 minutes getting thick, cold, uncooperative wires into the dimensions I need and plug them into the 240-volt outlet.
I make sure I'm not only barely reaching the key as I turn on the generator, but positioned so that if I get a shock and fall, I'll fall *away* from the machine. I start it up and I've got light again. I look at the 240-volt breaker and it hasn't tripped. Cool. I gingerly touch the generator frame and don't get zapped.
I go outside and throw the transfer switch. You know what it's like when you see a house that's really decked out in Christmas lighting? Well, this feels about the same. I see lights and TVs come on. I hear my wife and daughter cheering.
On my way to the fuel tanks, I poke my head in the house and say "Babe, I've got just one question for you. Who's yer Daddy?"
Felt like I was getting us by the old-fashioned way, and was getting a better handle on it, and it was the first time that anything I learned in the Army was paying off (in spades!) in real life, but I'm old and soft these days and really do like not having to use a blowtorch to make coffee, and keep busy all day trying to heat the house with two fireplaces when all I've got is wood that's either wet, green, or low-BTU, so I'm really happy to have juice again.
And I think I've got my wife sold finally on the whole alternative energy thing I've been wanting to do. Wind generator, solar panels, lots of big batteries, a pair of big inverters. The whole 9 yards.
Oh, and I think I may find new life for the old generator. I've got plumbing in the big lake specifically for running a hydroelectric generator and should be able to make 1200 watts out of it 24/7 during most of the year. We're going to see if we can't somehow use the old Coleman (sans engine, of course) to make juice to send up to the batteries.
My views on "professionalism".
First, specific to that 404 error screen, any error screen is going to carry "unprofessional" overtones. Errors shouldn't happen. So I don't really see a humorous error screen as any less "professional" than the standard one provided by MSFT.
Now to the point of how I feel about professionalism as a concept, I think that it (or a lot of aspects of it) is just an artifice imposed by society. More specifically, by certain elements of society.
It includes trappings, especially visual ones, that are either unimportant to me or that I feel are just plain wrong.
Take the suit for example. I used to enjoy "looking sharp" so I liked wearing suits, but when I figured out I was being judged often not on the quality of my work but on the quality of my suits, I started rebelling against them. To the point that I ended up refusing to contract to any company that would require me to wear one.
Actually, the dot-bomb boom helped a bit in that regard. When I went to Seattle to meet with some folks at GNET, I was very surprised. I knew the company had a laid-back attitude about attire (one of the things I most admire about Russ Horowitz was his appearing on CNBC in jeans and no tie), but I still figured there'd be "suits" there somewhere.
Quite the contrary. If I remember correctly, ties were actually forbidden at GNET, and I don't recall anyone wearing suits. What I do recall is the piercings. I felt a little out of place because my only piercing is an ear-ring hole that filled back in years ago (I thought a small ear-ring looked good with a suit).
Most of the folks I met had so many piercings they looked like they'd fallen down the stairs carrying an open tackle box in one arm and a decorated Christmas tree in the other.
They also didn't take themselves seriously but took their jobs extremely seriously. And a huge undercurrent was their pride in how the company did every quarter. We didn't celebrate stock price like I saw at other companies. We celebrated profit. Yes, we were all painfully aware that our profit was still pro-forma, but everyone was looking forward to the day we could make a profit without that crutch we despised so much.
As a side note, that was the biggest problem with integrating the GNET culture into the INSP culture. We were all very smug about looking down on companies that couldn't even post pro-forma profits. We'd been building profits and likely would've reported about 25 cents on our own in the first quarter that our numbers were combined with INSP's to produce something like 2 cents.
Anyway, all of these tatooed, pierced, weirdly-dressed folks epitomized "professionalism" to me. They took their jobs seriously and just plain took care of business, always with an eye on the company's bottom line.
As far as message-boards go, I think the site that has the most up-time, runs the most efficiently, is run by a couple of very accessible weirdos, and does its "job" best is far more "professional" than the flashy-looking one that crashes more often, runs at about 1/10th the speed, and has only one accessible person who isn't really empowered to do much.
But, having said that, I also have to acknowledge that I'm a businessman again for the first time in about 5 years, and concede that it's not so much about what I think as it is what my customers think.
And if my disdain for conventional notions of "professionalism" is wrong to most of my customers, then it's just wrong, period.
Though we don't have a formal mission statement yet (I have a LOT of disrespect for the way that concept has been abused), if we do ever establish one, I'll borrow from Scott Adams and use "Make money, please the customers, and have fun." So if it turns out that my view of professionalism is endangering the "make money" part, then it'll change in a New York minute.
Until then, I'm just gonna remain the happy-go-lucky guy who doesn't take himself seriously but takes the site's performance as a message board site and as a business very seriously. To the extent that though I'll have "unprofessional" error screens, I'll also pull all-nighters when necessary to either fix a problem or add a feature I really want to see implemented.
I love Intel and I love the p4 (it rocks)
I'm definitely in agreement on that part. Just love the P4.
I've gotten a couple of lists from Matt and have knocked out the items that're easy enough that they can be done on the side while I wrestly with the subscription automation.
But this gives me an idea. Maybe more later. South Park's on in 20 minutes, and we'll see how awake I feel when it's over. Likely not very, since I stayed up really late last night, only to have to go fix the generator when I'd finally decided to turn in for the night.
Mine's got a Robin (by Subaru) engine and seems so far to be nearly on a par with the Honda engines. I've got a few Honda engines around here, two of which are utility engines (13.5-horse go-kart and 5-horse waterpump) and they're consistently reliable, quiet, fuel-efficient, torquey, and easy to start.
I've found Briggs engines of the past few years to be consistent crap. Got the seized one in the old generator (after about 20 hours of use), one from an old waterpump that burned a hole through the head (sideways, and after about 20 hours of use) and another that cranks but has little compression (probably broken rings). In fact, the only *running* Briggs engine I own that I can think of doesn't run right now because I broke the starter rope on it the other day when I was testing it as a generator-engine replacement candidate. Actually, that one's been a good motor. But only that one.
Generally, I buy Honda engines now. If I have to pay a bunch more to get the same item with a Honda engine, I just pay it. Figure I'll have to do so eventually anyway.
Should be giving the water pump a test tomorrow, come to think of it. Lake's up enough that I can pump water up to the duck pond again. And it needs it.
I'm heading out the door right now, but I'd like to revisit this topic sometime. Perhaps in another thread. I've got specific notions about "professionalism" that run counter to the norm.
You do raise a perfectly valid point, though. The real issue, though, is probably how I feel about the idea of "professionalism" and how my feelings about it impact the site.
Later,
Bob
PS. Glad to see you out of jail. Wish I would've seen the requisite pictures that resulted in your release.
<blush>
Thanks, Fred. Or may I call you "Koi", as I'm an avid water-gardener...
Actually, I very much love to write. I'd rather do it than read. I used to write the occasional articles for a computer rag and have written countless ones for local car-club newsletters. I also did a stint as a Technical Writer (contracted to the USPS and a local medical testing company), but I don't consider that "writing". Well, actually, I did do a bit of real writing on that job, but only because I knew full well nobody would ever read my manuals. I took great pleasure in inserting really wild nonsense deep inside some of the manuals.
Somewhere deep in the Inventory Management System manuals for our esteemed Postal Service are screen shots of their software ordering huge quantities of sexually-oriented merchandise. Stuff like that.
When I was laid off from SI, I was approached by a few folks who wanted me to write about my experiences there. I thought I was really going to do it, but it never got off the ground. I'd write a chapter, then set it aside for a week, then read it, and find I wasn't really enjoying myself reading it. Did about 5 chapters this way until I finally decided to stick with my "normal" style (educational and humorous at the same time) for writing I've done for the aforementioned car clubs and computer rag.
Finally ended up with a chapter I liked. A lot! But then I got too busy with other things to spend enough quality time working on it.
I doubt I'll ever write a novel, although it sounds fun whether I would ever try to get it published or not. I get my writing fix here quite well, as well as chatting with friends elsewhere.
And though this missive doesn't show it, there are elements of style I sometimes include if I'm trying to be funny that should be easily identifiable with one specific author. Of all the authors I've read, he's the one that's most influenced my style.
And he posts right here on iHub.
Can you guess who he is? Funniest stuff I've ever read, and I'm taken not only with the humor, but the excellent wordsmithery (an etymological first?) of his writing.
Oh, and getting back to ice storms and all that, it appears our grid power just came back on about an hour ago. We're heading out to eat right now and switching back to grid before we go so that generator can take a break finally and save some fuel in case we need it tonight.
I love that generator, although I did have major problems with it (will spell that out later) when I first got it, and even though I could hear it slowly failing last night until it finally died at 3 in the morning (fouled plug). I'm not usually happy with machines that have me up at that hour repairing them, but I'll make an exception this time.
I'm sure when I shut it down in a few minutes, I'll do what I always do in the Mustang after a particularly good track session: Pat it lovingly and say "That'll do pig. That'll do."
And getting back to your misguided praise, got a feature request you're particularly fond of? <g>
Personally, I use LviewPro for any image manipulation I need to do. I'm sure there are many other programs that'd work just as well and you might have one or two of them already.
In Lview, I just tell it what dimensions I want to change the picture to, and it's done.
Then you'd have to find a way to make your sized-down picture available on the 'net. Should be easy enough. Can put it in a Yahoo Briefcase or some such thing.
There are HTML ways to force a large picture to display in a small space, but you don't really want to do that because the whole picture still gets sent over the wires, no matter what size box you're squeezing it into in the browser, and getting that sample via my dialup connection was painful.
This contest has made my trading this week a lot more fun.
It's definitely made things more fun for me, too, though my WAG's really are WAG's, unlike some of you people who are using voodoo to try to figure out exactly where it should end up.
Transient error. I was working on some new code and was doing it in a test environment on the servers rather than spending forever downloading the necessary data to my system. I *think* the new code I was trying out (a management report unrelated to any of the code you guys are running) caused a problem, as my first sign of trouble was this thing not responding.
After about 10 minutes of it not responding, and nothing else on the site responding, I went ahead and rebooted both machines.
I won't dink with that script again until later tonight.
I'm gonna let Matt field this one as he's more likely to know of either a program we've got for that, or knows how to do it directly in the database quickly and easily. I could write code to do it, but before I do, there's a structure change related to groups and categories I want to make, and I'm not ready to rock that particular boat yet.
I'm sure Matt can manually add them, and probably do it faster than I can.
Fix it up how you want, then I'll go through it and make it more correct from a programming and bandwidth perspective. I don't like that it's transmitting about 10k on that one. I think that's the page I messed with on my side last year and found I could get it down to about 6 or 7k while still looking identical.
Anyone have any wish list items for the site they think might be pretty quick for me to knock out? If so, PM some of them to me. Looks like I'm going to have some time available this weekend for lower-priority stuff finally.
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Don't mind me. I'm just getting a big kick out of the site finally supporting *real* html tags. <g>
You probably thought it was a bug, but really it was just a way to show off my funny "404 error" page. <g>
You believe that, don't you?
Thanks for telling me.
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Added support for < > and </ > tags. They're synonomous with the existing [ ] and [/ ] tags.
Put another way, any of the following are valid:
< i > or [ i ] to start italics
< /i > or [ /i ] to end italics
< b > or [ b ] to start bold
< /b > or [ /b ] to end bold
< u > or [ u ] to start underscore
< /u > or [ /u ] to end underscore
< pre > or [ pre ] to start fixed font
< /pre > or [ /pre ] to end fixed font
Note that you don't use the spaces I'm showing above.
Also, can someone PM me a link to a PnF chart? I want to try something.
PS: I can't imagine why anyone would want to, but don't mix tags. For example, don't use <> format for a start tag and [/] format for an endtag. Causes no harm where I sit, but it's your post that'll look funky. <g>
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While working on something new, I encountered a bug that apparently wasn't hitting people very often. But it was possible to write a public or private message in such a way that the routine for posting it would return an error message saying "string would be truncated".
Fixed.
If the fix causes its own problems, it'll show up in the handling of "Subjects" for messages. They should be the first 8 words or 100 characters of a message, whichever comes first.
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Any other week, that would've been a close enough guess to be a blowout!
I take it that makes timhyma the winner, since he appears to have gotten within 0.05 of the close on Monday?
As promised, it's featured on the homepage now.
Methinks timhyma is getting too much air time on our home page. Somebody needs to topple him next week. <g>
SI has a spell checker.
We're working on one. My best friend John has written one but we can't really check it out and work on implementation yet because, though he has electricity (people on the other side of his street don't), his cable went out.
PS: Did you notice that you can bring up 10 posts at a time? That means only one D/L for your dial-up service for ten posts!
Shhh.... That's a Premium Subscription Only feature. It's nice, though, on busy boards, and along with the removal of ads, makes for a really fast interface.
Making quite a few changes today in the use of indexes. Should see moderate increase in system response time, if it's noticeable at all.
Very few queries currently take more than 500ms to complete and those that do are getting the tweaking treatment today which should benefit mostly those specific queries to a slightly noticeable extent. The servers are so under-worked that it's doubtful any difference will be seen in any other queries.
I'm doing these index changes because it turns out I'm going to be cooling my heels for a while (7-10 days) waiting on merchant account approval so we can start taking credit cards directly without having to go through PayPal.
I'll also see if I can find Matt's wish list and implement a few things on it.
Don't you just love how sometimes people will say "Okay, I'll do what you ask IF...". Conditional good behavior. And all depending on their personal perception of whether or not their conditions are being met.
Whatever happened to just "I'll behave"?
Minor tweak on the routine that lets you punch in a message number within a board to jump to that particular message. Apparently that's getting used quite a bit today and it was being pretty expensive. After the tweak, it's not expensive enough to even show up on the trace. Not that it was noticeably slow. But every little bit helps.
LOL!
It'd crossed my mind to put an exclusive lock on this board while I got those 3 posts in, but looks like I didn't need to. <g>
One more. 'drome.