I hold an errors and omissions / professional liability policy with Hiscox insurance, and it's quite reasonable (I'm in the USA). I purchased it so that I could handle systems maintenance for a company which is subject to HIPAA, due to the rather extreme penalties and processes involved in a HIPAA violation, as have been alluded to. If the price is right, consider it a protection to have just in case. All it takes is one nut to sue you and now you've been dragged into the legal system and your fate (and assets) rests in another's hands. So, if it's cheap and there's any question, I'd get it. Hiscox allows you to pay monthly, it's effective immediately, and you can get it all set up online. That's my $0.02.

I second VirtualBox. I use it at work (on a Windows host) and home (on a Linux host) and it does everything I need.

Hmm...I guess it's high time for a reinstall of VB under Windows 7, since I seem to be the only one having issues. :sigh: My VB6 installation did work in the beginning, but something (before SP1) broke it, and I have no idea what it was. So, even though it's not *as* convenient, keeping my dev environment in a vm still appeals to me for the benefit of insulation from changes to the host o/s. Thanks, everyone, for letting me know that it's at least worth my time to try a reinstall. :)

This[^] article?

Mine is also set for compatibility with XP SP3. I ran it just now as administrator and it bombed on

Debug.Print DateDiff("d", #10/26/2011#, #11/30/2011#)

with "invalid procedure call or argument". Same code works fine in VB6 under XP Mode. I get the same when I right-click the shortcut and select Run As Administrator as well as turning on the option in the shortcut's properties. I guess I've hit an edge case somewhere along the lines. :/

May I ask, what version of 7 and VB are you using? Service pack 1? (FWIW, I'm on 7 Pro 64-bit w/ SP1, and using VB6 SP6)

The IDE definitely *runs* on Windows 7. As was mentioned before, MS broke ADO (with some workarounds available). In addition, any statement using DateDiff shows a phantom syntax error when I run via the IDE in Windows 7, and the Package Wizard hangs endlessly. So, I do the bulk of my compiling and testing in XP Mode[^] on my system. So, even though the IDE *runs* on 7, I don't really recommend it for those reasons.

Time, money, and existing investment are the three basic reasons I make a living supporting VB6 still. Mission critical software for production lines and PLC communication were already in place from nearly a decade ago. Over the years, modifications were needed, but the deadlines set made it unrealistic to consider replacing those programs with anything different. In addition, no one here wants to pay for another person to handle the non-VB6 workload so I can have time to convert these programs one by one either (and there are scores of them!). I did try to work through a couple of conversions to VB .net, but my deadlines always got too tight with far too little progress. I'm convinced that some of the things these programs are doing are not going to be easy to replicate in VB .net... So, here I sit maintaining them. I don't mind. After all, VB6 is the new COBOL, right? So...that makes me even more valuable! ;) ----- (FYI, I will code VB6 for food. If you have any projects you need help with, avoid the embarrassment and just hit me up via the contact form on my blog: http://www.lukegerhardt.com/ .)

First experience was on a room full of Apple ][ GS' at middle school (6th grade). I used a program called PaintShop Pro (I think, maybe some variant of that name) to create pixel-perfect copies of some video game characters I was into then, like Mario, Kirby, Mega Man, Yoshi, Samus, a few Mario enemies, and even a pixel-perfect copy of Bowser's clown-ship from SMW! Anyway, I digress...I used the graphics to make an animation that took 5 semesters and upwards of 25 floppy disks. To this day, some 15 years later, the teacher of that class still uses my animation as an example of what kids can do if they really try. (Naturally the teacher let me record it to VHS by swapping every...single...floppy...disk...and...waiting...for...them...to...load...and...play...all during one lunch time. It took the whole lunch time for me, but that way he was able to use it at a parent-teacher exhibit as well back then. Of course, he let me copy the VHS for me to be able to keep a copy too! ^_^ After that, I convinced my parents to get me a computer at home...it was an IBM PS/1. Actually we got two, because I blew away the system.ini file on the first one and couldn't yet fix it...so...no more Windows 3.1! Thankfully Wal-Mart took it back and we got a slightly newer one with 4MB(!) of RAM! I started programming with batch files. My autoexec.bat and config.sys were both > 20K (IIRC), because I had extensive, colored menus whereby I could start DOS games with specific settings directly from that boot menu. I toyed with the sample QuickBasic programs, but they seemed so arcane to me. I spent hours going through the help file and printing relevant parts. I got into ANSI coding to make my command prompts cool looking too (I miss that ANSI support Microsoft!! Why did you scrap it!?). I wanted to know how everything worked and how I could make programs too. I became intimately familiar with all of the system settings, even the infantile registry from 3.1. Then, I found VB4 at a nearby college book store (uh-oh...VB...let the flame war begin). I begged and begged and my folks bought it for me! I haven't looked back since. As a matter of fact, it's the VB that got me my current job. Anyway, that's my crash-course down memory lane. Thanks for listening!

1.21 Gigawatts wrote:

* Try printing with more than one page per sheet

We have the exact opposite posted! Turns out that our management saves every piece of paper and tries to get us to put it in our laser printers and copiers to reuse the other side. This is a big no-no since the first laser/copy pass curls the paper slightly, and that's not to mention the staples (!) and mutilated holes where they once lived that also decimate our equipment. All because they asked a copier tech once if we are allowed to use 'recycled' paper in our machines... :wtf: X|

My current clipboard contents... エクスプローラーが使えるととても便利です。助かりました。私は辞書を読むことが好きです。 Ha, top THAT! :P

Oh! Thanks for the reminder! *evil grin* Now I have one "insert coin" and one "too much paper". I tried "too much toner" before, but I'm afraid they pitched at least one cartridge because of that and don't want to have that occur again... >_<

Awesome! I can dump my 'ls.bat' and use the real deal in a Windows command prompt now, thanks to CoreUtils from the GNUWin32 package! Check it out, yo: http://www.askstudent.com/tips/how-to-use-unixlinux-commands-at-the-windows-command-prompt/[^] It comes with a lot of useful utilities for *nix-heads...but ls particularly will be getting much use on my machine...

Wow! Me too!! I finally had to make an 'ls.bat' file on my Windows system at work so I could still do my 'ls' and get a 'dir'! Well, I should probably add some routines to parse the '-l', '-a', etc into the dir equivalents...but I haven't had time yet.

Self-taught. No other *formal* education. 1) started with batch files in dos 6.0 2) then VB4 in Win 3.1 (it came with 16 and 32 bit compilers! Wow!) 3) HTML / ASP -- all of that before I graduated HS -- 4) RPG IV / SQL 5) C#...etc... All picked up as they came to me at work. I think a person has to have a certain aptitude in order to handle programming well. And, I think that aptitude may extend into other areas as well, for instance I seem to be able to pick up languages well also. My pig latin is blisteringly fast and speaking it in that manner annoys everyone because heytay an'tcay eepkay upway! ^_^ Oh, and that's not to mention the Japanese and French I am currently working on... Like my retired boss told me: 'There are lots of programmers...but there are few good ones.'

I'm glad you decided to revert to childhood for a moment! :) That page was one of my first programs like that, and it holds a special place in my virtual heart. BTW, for those fortunate enough to have a coffee machine that this works with, I included an option to quickly print the page to take with you! ;) Man, that was fun...

The automatic machines we have had at my office through the years have had questionable quality issues as well. I fondly remember being one of the first ones into the office in the morning and having to wait for a few others to get coffee before I could. The reason? The first few cups would have ground up ant bodies in them. After the first few, the little legs and body parts would be of a sufficiently low PPM to drink. X| My favorite one of these machines, however, had a numeric keypad on it in addition to the drink-selection buttons, and when serving displayed a four digit number on an LCD. I eventually realized that this number was a code for the beverage selected with its modifiers (sugar, cream, strength). So, my IT boss and I (mainly I) reverse engineered the code process by getting a lot of different beverages and jotting down the codes. I eventually figured it out exactly and could simply key in my desired beverage by code on the keypad. You still had to select your size preference as it was not in the code, but it was flawless aside from that! I even put a hidden code generator on our company website! Sadly the machine is gone now, and I don't even know the make or manufacturer. But, my codegen page is still alive! If you have such a machine as I have described, try it out! I think my fav was #3235. But, I don't even drink coffee anymore now... FWIW, my codegen is at http://www.hauto.net/[^] . Click on the 'Contact' button, then when you see the name of the webmaster (me!), click the comma after my name three times...bwahaha...

modified on Wednesday, November 26, 2008 7:41 AM

I actually consider it to be even more intuitive to think of it as "Windows+Break", since so often I have to go to the System Properties screen to find out why my Windows broke! ;)

We even have a PCMCIA -> IDE converter. It's kinda neat-looking, as it occupies a 3-1/2" bay in one of our PCs. Not too helpful for laptops tho...

...what? No RPG programmers? CLP? ...CLLE? ...REXX/400?? Are we a dying breed...? :(( RPG(IV or ILE, not III or prior): Demeanor: Suave, yet a little strange. Very odd sense of humor--primarily consisting of bad puns. Appears excited when a fellow punster challenges wit. Appearance: Not balding, but not far from it. Appears stressed constantly. Coffee is present, possibly with coffee maker on desk. Cup is cleaned every other Friday...maybe. Cheezit consumption from 10:00-10:15 am. Often forages for chocolates or other goodies. :cool: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Information Systems - Programmer / Network Administrator IBM AS/400: ILE RPG IV, CL, SQL/400, REXX/400 PC: Visual Basic, T-SQL, Microsoft Access Internet: HTML, ASP, ADO, JavaScript, VBScript, CSS, AJAX)