What you have to say has merit. However, I can understand some of the attitude of those who genuinely want to help and find themselves bombarded with requests that paraphrase to the following: 1. Please do my homework for me so that I don't have to lift a finger. 2. I'm too lazy to read and I haven't even tried any coding to solve my problem. 3. Please send codez. IOW, spend an hour of time dealing with my problem for free. After a while you tend to get cynical. As for myself, I'm always willing to help someone who is obviously trying to understand and who appears to have just missed a subtle point. I used to offer help a lot, but I eventually got tired of the repetition. I've been at this since 1968. As an aside, the most common legitimate help request I ever had to answer is: "My program got a segment violation for no obvious reason. I've looked and looked and I can't find the problem." The answer was almost invariably: "Check your memory management and buffer usage. If you have stepped past the end of an allocated buffer, or if you have used a 'freed' pointer you have probably trashed the heap. Cause and effect can be widely separated in time." Some things never change when it comes to helping beginning programmers. :)

Fletcher Glenn

There's this wonderful book called Roget's Thesaurus. Have you recommended that to her? :)

Fletcher Glenn

Conversation with my 92 year old mother: Mom: An icon on my desktop has a big red X on it. Me: Yes mom, it is telling you that the folder on another computer is not available. Mom: Can you fix it? Me: Try turning on the other computer. Mom: It still doesn't work. Me: Try remapping the remote folder. Mom: I have no idea how. This was done by my paid technician several months ago. Me: (Grumble, grumble) Ok Mom, give me a few minutes and I will remap it myself. Mom: Thanks son, I knew you could fix it.

Fletcher Glenn

"C allows you to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but if you succeed, it will take off your whole leg!" - Unknown

Fletcher Glenn

I'm so old that I remember when there was no mouse, only a CLI. Having said that, I can still have locating the cursor when the focus is on a VM window displaying the console of the VM. The cursor is not to be found by any method until you switch the focus away from the VM window.

Fletcher Glenn

kdmote wrote:

Have any of you ever intentionally used this little plastic cretin? (I mean -- since the dark ages)

Yes, I frequently use it. The code from that key activates the port switch that allows me to use one screen, keyboard and mouse to operate several different PCs. My port switch has four ports, so the following sequence switches to a specific port: (scroll-lock)(scroll-lock)(port number)(enter)

Fletcher Glenn

Manfred Rudolf Bihy wrote:

And this has to do exactly what with my response to OP's post?

You made a comment indicating that a narrow viewing angle may be a "bad thing"tm. I was commenting that sometimes a narrow viewing angle is a desired characteristic.

Fletcher Glenn

There are places (like banks) where they put hardware filters over the screens to deliberately narrow the viewing angle. Obviously they don't want to deal with snoopers.

Fletcher Glenn

(Shaky grandfatherly voice) You young whipper-snappers know nothing of age. My wife and I were married in 1969. We're still together.

Fletcher Glenn

Johnny J. wrote:

I really don't understand why hiding extensions is the default..

It is the default because average Joe User doesn't know what the extensions mean. And face it, there are more Joe Users than developers by at least three orders of magnitude (if not more).

Fletcher Glenn

I feel for you. Probably the worst code I ever worked on was a real-time program where the apparently nonsensical sequence of events had a real-world impact that was not immediately obvious. :)

Fletcher Glenn

jschell wrote:

That is in fact a specifically a selling point of xfinity.

Yes, but the real question is whether or not the xfinitywifi traffic adds to his total usage.

Fletcher Glenn

My wife had stopped in a fast food restaurant. Some woman approached her asking for money for food. My wife said no money, but she would buy food. The woman then tried to order something expensive. My wife said no way, the item in question was more money than she was spending on herself. I guess that the woman forgot the adage: Beggars cannot be choosers.

Fletcher Glenn

It has been my experience that the default settings for a Comcast modem is to have an unsecured WiFi presence called xfinitywifi. If that hole isn't plugged, then you may have traffic that bypasses your router.

Fletcher Glenn

Perform the following steps: 1. Understand what a computer can and cannot do. 2. Define the goal of the program. 3. Define the method to accomplish the goal in terms of things that a computer can do. 4. Enter the computer instructions determined in step 3. 5. Test the resulting program to see if it is working correctly. 6. If testing fails, troubleshoot and go to step 3. 7. Done. Of course, the above list skips over a lot of detail, but the detail is neither understood nor wanted by the layman asking about how to program a computer. ;P

Fletcher Glenn

Yet another sad example of our current school curriculum. I've also had store clerks refuse to take payment with a dollar coin. The prevailing opinion was that it could not be money. Come to think of it, the dollar coin does look like a video arcade token. Where to get a dollar coin? Buy stamps from a post office vending machine. The machine gives them for change.

Fletcher Glenn

You shouldn't have hand cramps unless you have a death grip on the pencil/pen. You can also get cramps from writing too fast. That's been my experience. And yes, I'm a lot older than most of you. ;P

Fletcher Glenn

"Pointers and memory addresses are a future topic Laugh | :laugh:" There are those that never ever get the concept of pointers. These people usually switch majors from programming to marketing. :-O

Fletcher Glenn

Would that stop the graft and misappropriation? More likely, it would in increase it. :( Sorry for being so cynical, but I have been around for a long time.

Fletcher Glenn

What bothers me is not the morons, but the active criminals which public service seems to attract. The best person for any elected post is someone who is competent who really does not want the job. If you really want the job, you are either looking for a free financial ride (read graft/misappropriation of funds), or you are unsuitable because of your lust for power. ;P It's a really rare person who is both competent and altruistic and wants the job to do active good. Even when such a person is elected, they find that everyone around will actively work against them for wanting to change the status quo. Machiavelli probably said it best: (paraphrasing, this is not an exact quote) "Beware my prince, for if you wish to enact change, you will get indifferent support from those with something to gain, and active resistance from those with something to lose."

Fletcher Glenn