Interestingly, after years of practice where I couldn't understand how that can happen to a native speaker, I am starting to make the same mistake - writing the wrong words that sound the same. We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP blog: TDD - the Aha! | Linkify!| FoldWithUs! | sighist

I'm in the Northwest Corner of Connecticut. It has been raining here since Thursday, with another 1-2 inches expected today. Tomorrow will be our first day of sun in over a week. The Farmington and Connecticut rivers are flooded, and there are many roads closed that follow along the rivers as well. Brigg Thorp Senior Software Engineer Timex Corporation

Perhaps you are referring to the question I posted on this topic. I am very relieved to find that others are having the same concerns. I got tons of support and encouragement and some very good advice. I only got one piece of, well, cautionary advice, in that the concern was not to post something with outright "wrong" information. That's why I jumped at the chance when I was advised that if I wanted to, I could post the article to my own web site (I happen to have a site on Brinkster) and others offered to pre-critique it. If you have not yet seen it, check out A Guide to Writing Articles for Code Project[^] by Marc Clifton. I personally have gotten so busy that I haven't finished mine; I have an outline ready and that's it. I do, however, plan on writing "my first article" and before I post it I will "ask" if others want to take a cursory look at it. Then if it's "acceptable", I will post it and hopefully get blasted with all kinds of criticism which I will use to learn. Good luck, and please feel free to use me as a sounding board. I'm a beginner myself, so would be a good guinney(sp?)-pig for critiquing a novice article.

Yeah, I know. That's not exactly the one I saw either. :) "If only one person knows the truth, it is still the truth." - Mahatma Gandhi Web - Blog - RSS

A world standard for measurement would be nice, but metric is the wrong one. It works fine for science, but for most real world applications it is a bad standard. Metric was designed to look pretty, not be useful. The various (and conflicting) imperial standards were built over years of experience based on what works. The first thing that metirc should do is switch to a base-12 system so they can do the common fractions you encounter in the real world (1/2, 1/3, 1/4). Base-60 would perhaps be better. Even then it wouldn't solve all problems. Take bolts. There are fine and coarse thread standards for a reason: different materials work best with different standards. Metric threads look nice on paper, but to get that they compromise holding ability! The main stated advantage of metric is ability to covert units. I'll grant that it is easier. However I won't grant the point. In the real world humans make mistakes often enough that even in metric you are best off not converting units if you have a choice. Most people in the US can understand either system. It isn't difficult. Most people in europe look down on us in the US because we don't speak two languages, while limiting themsleves to just one measurement system.

Thanks both of you for your responses. I completely overlooked the obvious. BTW, the installer suggestion is a great one, but my company often refuses to use anyone else's software but their own (the wheel has been reinvented more times than I can count ;) Thank you both so much for your responses! :rose:blueSprite:-D