Please excuse my ignorant and intolerant attitude... But doesn't VB stink? As a primarily C++ programmer, which is obviously a superior language, it is occasionally necessary to examine VB code. Recently this became a disturbing issue because, it seems, VB is stupid. I never bothered to learn it, so am I biased or is VB stupid? :) Adam

Have you ever had one of those really annoying clients? Geesh! Several months ago I sold a simple webpage to these real estate agents. It was entirely original HTML I wrote - but for $300.00 I'm not exactly going to busy my ass for several days. I get this voicemail. "We want to sit down with you and have a meeting to discuss our website." It had the tone like they were going to threaten lawsuits. Three months later! I was very clear in what the $300.00 would buy them... Plus, I haven't even charged them for website hosting, whereabouts I was hosting it on my own servers! Then again, it's not like the total 1532 kilobytes of data transfer from all those hits they get is really taxing to the server...but still! Oh, the woes of being an independent computer consultant. Just ranting. Thanks for listening. I've got worse horrow stories. Anybody here got client/boss horror stories to share?

AOL apparently lossed 54 BILLION dollars. I'm confused. What exactly did they loose? I seriously don't see how a company which is loosing so much money can continue in existence. But I'm a programmer, not an accountant. Can someone please explain this? Or, can we look forward toa bright future where AOL is no longer a 500 pound chiwawa?

Wouldn't happen to be the MSN Shortcut, would it? I have tried extensively to remove this from many computers. It seems Microsoft has other plans in mind.

Recently, I had to write a function which analyzed a byte, bit by bit. Having never done this before, it was interesting. Then a though occured to me. If I were using VB, C# or Java -- which of these languages would support this? I honestly don't know because I've never bothered with any of them, seeing as how I could always to what I needed in c or c++. Then an interesting question occured to me. Does that make us superior? If you wanted to, could you make a c++ compiler in VB? And if you can't, wouldn't that make VB "programmers" in actuality VB "scripters"? Just a thought. BTW: I'm back after three months of lonely depression and hermit like coding.

This was, of coarse, bound to happen. I have an update for you, but it's not a good one for me. It's 12:17 AM where I am right now, somewhere just outside of Los Angeles. Crystal calls me a little while ago. The only problem being is that she's moving back to San Francisco effective Thursday because of a dying family member she is close to. So I guess my problem is solved. I'm definitely going to tell her how I feel about her before she leaves. But, it seems, my fortay with love had a few bugs and a couple of syntax errors. My love life IQ is one semicolin short of a complete program, and no matter how hard I try it won't compile unless I add that one simple symbol, but the key's stuck and I'm not smart enough to cut and paste it from a notepad document. And it seems when it comes to love for me I've got a frozen program, and no matter how many times I press "Control Alt Delete" Windows 98 won't work and what I really need to do is minimize everything and open pview95.exe. I've decided I should stick with that I know - programming - and forget this futile flirtation with romantic intrigue. If it counts for anything I am going to try and kiss her before she leaves. I really liked Crystal, a lot more than I liked any other girl, ever. Running your own business can be a lonely enterprise. Working alone, in a damp office with only the radiation eminating from the computer monitor to keep you comfort, can get lonely. Well, at least I have you guys. You seem to care. And that honestly counts for something.

I have finally completed the CEasyIE class, which includes a function: BlockPopupWindows(); Which turns off popup windows! It'll be submitted sometime this week. My first article!

Hey, I'll try and upload a picture of me and Crystal, if I can. :)

Well, she went to her aunt's this weekend. I am going to invite her to go hiking in the Santa Monica mountains. We both enjoy this type of activity, so I think its a good oppertunity to break the ice. Thanks everyone for your advice, I really appreiciate it! And, I'll be sure to update you. Thanks, once again!

Hi, remember my post a while ago? Well, Wednesday she calls at 10:00, and we talk on the phone for two hours. THursday, she calls at 12:02, and we talk for four hours. Then she invites me to go grocery shopping with her at Costco. I'm still confused.

I don't drink alcohol. Coffee to program, coffee to sleep, coffee to wake, and coffee to eat. Coffee is very important to many Americans.

This discovery is truly disheartening. After many hours of usage, my computer began to dry up of resources. Typical Win98. So, considering my program uses loads of bitmaps, allocates memory and the whole bit, I assumed that there was a terrible memory leak in my program. For 3 days straight I've been tirelessly tracking every single "new" and "delete" operator, studying every GDI call, the whole works... Turns out, my program's perfect. There is a memory leak in Corel Wordperfect, which I start occasionally. Go figure.

Thanks for all the great advice! I'll be sure to let you know what happens, because I'm definitely going to do something soon... And I am a self-described nerd/geek, in my world its a compliment. Thanks. :) I suspect you are right when you say she doesn't express her emotions well. Here's what I'm going to do. I'll express it in pseduo-code for fun. BOOL GetALifeOOP(struct personality) // OOP stands for Outside Of Programming { BOOL isKissed = FALSE; BOOL isLiked = FALSE; BOOL bMet = MeetInPersion(); // Function returns TRUE if an in person meeting is made if(!bMet) return isLiked; isKissed = ExpressEmotions(personality); // Function analyzes emotion variables and returns TRUE upon a successfull // kiss. if(isKissed) isLiked = TRUE; return isLiked; } Thanks again for all the advice! We nerds sometimes need it.

Perhaps you, as my computer programming friends, can offer some advice. Her name's Crystal. I first encountered her in an anthropology class at the local community college in 2000. I never talked to her though, but considering she was easily the most beautiful girl in the class - I certainly noticed her. Throughout the first half of 2001 we ran into each other completely randomly about 4 times. She gave me her phone number, but she had a boyfriend so I never called her. Then, my mother switches jobs and starts managing a local restaurant. On her birthday, I come to her work to deliver flowers and guess who's working there with my mother? So we talked for a while and it coincidentally turned out we had both signed up for Calculus II during the summer session, as we both needed to take Calculus III in the fall. So we saw each other nearly every day in the summer and during the fall. One Saturday, I was driving to a restaurant which happened to be by the college. As I was stopped at a red light, she came and knocked on my window. She told me she was dropping all of her classes and moving back so San Francisco because she broke up with her boyfriend. I offered to talk to her about it. It was a hot day, and I knew where some air vents were so I suggested we go there and chat. We did, and it lasted for nearly 4 hours. After that, she would call me quite frequently and we would talk for long periods of time. I even was instrumental in helping her get a new apartment. Then, shortly after she moves into her new apartment, she abruptly stops calling and I am completely unable to get ahold of her. So, after an entire month of anguish (because I really, really like this girl) I thought to myself, “I am going to completely forget about Crystal.” Not five minutes later she calls me. Confused? Just a little. So I start talking to her again. She calls me once or twice a week. I even drove her to the airport and picked her up just recently. I've never made physical contact with her, literally. I'm really confused about what to do. I even wrote a chatter bot program which spits out crude advice. So how about it? What should I do? Do you think this girl likes me for more than just a friend?

Hey, if you need some assistance with the SMTP, I could probably help... I do a lot of winsock programming and have constructed a full featured e-mail client before.

Am I one of the few who has no desire to learn C sharp or Java? I doubt it would take long to pick either of these languages up, but I have absolutely no urge whatsoever to learn the differences. Seriously, why switch when C++ offers near complete control and is relatively easy once learned?

Here's a hypothetical. 5 years ago, before I was a programmer, I purchased a super specialized word processor from a small company. I paid $500.00 for the product, which is now discontinued. The original floppy disks are corrupt. For me, I still enjoy this program and want to move it onto other my new computer. Now, the program has a somewhat complex copy protection scheme built in. And I feel confident I could break it. So here's the moral question. Is it OK to break the copy protection since I did pay for it? If I were to, I wouldn't post the crack on the Internet or distribute it in anyway.

Now this can somtimes be a touchy subject, so lets remain civil shall we? I respect other people's beliefs but have no doubt that gods do not exist and humanity is the product of a godless evolution. And, I can say with certainity I know what its like to be dead. Just think about where "you" were the last time you were knocked unconscious for a surgery, or where "you" were before your birth. This is no different than death. And I admit, it is sometimes a scary thought believing this to be the truth. But, we cannot -- or should not -- deny the validity of truth merely because that truth makes us uncomfortable. If we do, then we are only degressing back into a more primitive state. Something I think we all can agree might be bad.

Hey, that's great! I ought to write complaint letters to all the major manufactuers. See, I do computer consulting on the side and honestly the only time I have frustrating problem is when I use a premanufactured PC. Although I'm a devout atheist, I honestly believe that pre-manufactuered PC's are incarnations of Lucifer and were predicted thousands of years ago in the Bible. And I think Nostradamus predicted that "a great evil" would "envelope the United States of America".

Well, I will admit I have to reboot more than I would like. But, this boils down to a theory of mine. See, 99% of the time if I have to reboot its cause I wrote some bad code. Now, I obviously dislike rebooting so it works as a big incentive to write better code. Plus, since most of my users run either Win95 or 98, its important to be sure it doesn't crash on these systems.