http://siderite.blogspot.com/2007/01/super-fast-string-distance-algorithm.html[^] I hope I am not reinventing an old and rusty wheel, even if I am sure someone somewhere had the same idea as I did, however, I didn't find it on Google, so I am presenting this algorithm I've created to compare two strings, as a fast replacement for Levenstein. I think it's pretty accurate for its speed. I have tested it on 60000 company detail records and the average dispersion from levenshtein is 3%, with 15% max, and the greatest errors when strings were fairly different in length. (when strings are equal in length, the average error is 1%) So, I submit this is a good algorithm to see if strings are similar or fairly different, leaving it to levenshtein to compute exact distance values when sift2 values go above a certain threshold. The complexity is almost linear O(n*constant). What do you guys think? -- modified at 9:46 Wednesday 10th January, 2007 -- modified at 5:05 Tuesday 16th January, 2007 Made it slightly faster and a lot more precise.

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That's the reason! Use a piece of code that runs a stored procedure and worry about the syntax in the database. The only reason I've found not to use stored procedures (in real life) is that the debugging is too hard. There is no reason to use ten layers and 100 stored automatically generated stored procedures when all you want is to write a single value in a simple table or something.

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I agree it's not the smartest policy ever, but it could be based on management data. For example, let's suppose that you write a nice piece of code that uses a stored procedure, then the DBA writes the stored procedure. You don't have access to the database, the DBA is hard to reach or is the "I am God" type, so the manager observes how productivity or at least bug identification and repairing is slowed down by bad communication between departments. There are other weird scenarios that I can think of, like programming for 2 weeks for a full working software, then another 2 weeks for the utility that makes sure the database is updated to the latest version and no data is lost during the upgrade or installation of the first. Also, stored procedures that use string building to execute SQL, like some I've seen, are more damaging than writing all SQL inside the code. In other words, stored procedures are cool, but they're no golden hammer.

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And you would have to provide them to the company in question in order for them to search and clean you up, would you? And then they know who you are, where you are and that you're trying to hide something ;)

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A greasy spider? :D As far as I see it, the web is nothing more than a wrapper on the various operating systems in existence. And a bad one, at best. The agreement that HTTP will be used for most of the web and that browsers will be used to access the HTTP services of different is nothing but a convention. But to create a completely different system and hope people will adhere to it is a big risk. Maybe Microsoft might take the chance, but not many others. Even if the open source community redesigns the net, it will be probably so user unfriendly that most people will never even try it and companies like Microsoft will actively discourage people from joining. The future? I think that the Live concept might work, where everything is on the web and not on your computer, but I really want to see more than just Shockwave or Java applets on text web pages to be convinced. And a far off guess might be that the Asians might get bored of listening to the West on how to surf the net and create a completely new breed of *TP and way of browsing that we would feel left out of.

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I don't want to brag or anything, but I've never worn glasses and my male lineage (two levels at least) started wearing glasses only after 50. But my mother was very worried about me staying in front of the computer all day long so she took me to the head optologist in Bucharest. She said that computer monitors don't cause eye problems and that settled it. There have been ... at least 10 years that I've spent watching computer screens for at least 8 hours a day and I still don't need glasses. Was that lady wrong? Are there any reliable statistics that show computer monitors cause anything but agravations of previous conditions? And more to the point, what are these computer glasses that I keep hearing about? What do they actually do?

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If you can afford to make this choice, then go to the small company. You can always leave and choose something else. You are one of the fortunate few who can even ask themselves a question like that and don't have the choice made for them by the financial or home situation.

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That's the spirit, mate! Keep trying, don't give up!;)

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Code is alive and I give it life. I am completely emotionally involved into coding. I sleep with code in my bed, kiss it good night and, of course, it kisses me back, since I programmed it to. Every time a bug slips in, nothing else matters except getting my baby healthy again. Then we ship it.

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Anything from theSTARt, Guano Apes or Tsunami Bomb, Noir Desir, System of a Down, Linkin Park, Fort Minor, Ex-Girl, Annalisa, Jin Susuki, Negramaro or Coma (Romania). And, even if I don't really like this kind of music, anything trance or tehno with fast rithms and as little voice as possible. My favourites, though are "Inner Universe", from the Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex soundtrack and "Path Vol2" by Apocaliptica with Sandra Nasic.

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Yes! Just look for the 5 kilobytes Wolfenstein clone made in javascript and you will see relics still live in remote regions of the wild Earth.

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The guy that made Ruby said that if the computers evolve by the law of Moore, then they become 10 times as powerful in 6.6 years. So, any programming language will be 10 times as fast in 7 years without any improvement. I don't agree with the guy, I am used to old school programming and trying to make everything optimal and fast, but then again, back then I was making graphical engines in Turbo Pascal 3.0. My personal favourite is C#, after liking PHP a lot before it, but any language will do. And I do suggest a C syntaxed language. These include C#, C++ , C , Java, Javascript, PHP. It will become easier for you to jump to other languages.

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http://siderite.blogspot.com/2006/09/how-to-format-your-gridview.html[^] I've been trying to do this for half a day. After I found the solution I've stumbled upon the formatting issue, so I've updated the article. Does anyone have a more elegante solution?

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A day in which time is moved forward or backward with one hour. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving[^]

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You didn't quite get it. The month is 0 based, I know that, but the date was offset by one day. And the reason that is working on your end is because you're not in Romania, where 27.03.2005 is a daylight saving day. I assure you that on my computer this is exactly what happens. Imagine trying to understand what was wrong in the code: C# ,SQL and Javascript and the problem to be something like this. To make it more clear: new Date(27,2,2005) returns 26 March 2005 23:00:00... But thanks, I didn't realize that this might never happen on computers set in other countries. We have a non standard daylight saving. I will update my blog.

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This is my blog entry about it: Weirdest Javascript bug ever[^] Essentially, if you do a 'var d=new Date(2005,2,27);' in javascript you will get the date 26/03/2005 in both IE and FireFox for Windows XP. I believe this to be an error in the way Windows handles dates, but Javascript should have taken this into account. Beat that!:cool:

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9 to 10 hours a day, 20 days a month. So, up to 200 hours. But since i spend a lot of those hours writing messages on Code Project... :) Then I go home to my computer.

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I like the Borg...:cool:

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Well, first of all, working at home means you are relaxed (see underpants :omg:) you don't waste time doing the unnecessary work like getting dressed, ready for work, move to the work place, come from the work place, eat only once or twice a day. If you are also a bachelor, you don't need to clean yourself in any way until you finish your software and then a bath is like a reward (see training dogs :laugh:). The problems with working at home are all linked to distractions. You feel like watching a movie, read a favourite web site, sleep a little, play a game. But that's your problem. Even in video camera cubicle style you can find distractions and still pretend to work. Or (if you are not a bachelor or you live with your mother) you have to fight for your quiet time (which makes it un-quiet in the first place). Second of all, I live in Romania. Here having a home when you are young means that someone in your family died or you are renting. You don't have a back room, you have a two room apartment and one of them is a bedroom. You don't work on the computer, you use the only one you have and thus deprive any other person of it. You don't tell the wife to wait until 6 pm like she normally would, because normally she would play on the computer all day long or sit and relax without you. And while you are at the office, her emotional need to interact with you is only appeased by the cell phone, which normally annoys the hell out of you. Having you at home is like having a child next to the candy and slapping it on the hand when he tries to eat it. Luckily, I don't have children and if I am lucky enough I will never have. If I would believe in God I would pray for sterility. But I have a cat. Try explaining to the cat that the keyboard should stay on your knees. So there. If you want to have a virtual company, you should keep your company virtual. :->

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The most important tip I can give you (and I strongly believe to be right about it) is to tune in to your audience. Don't do a general presentation, do a specific one for a specific audience. For example use slides and charts and as little numbers as possible for a managerial crowd, use code for tech people like myself, use emotional significance for women, make jokes for young people (really think of some good ones, because it's pathetic when some guy makes a joke and makes a pause like he is waiting for laughter and nobody is laughing), etc. And I disagree with the guy that said like saying "like" is so not cool :) Because if you want to tune in to a teenager audience for whatever reason, talking like them sometimes does help tremendously. But do avoid using "hip" words only to sound "cool", or you will end up pitiful, like some of the guys at Microsoft :) And to sum it up, I think tuning to your audience creates a subconcious relationship between you and the people around you, therefore you relax automatically and you appear more confident and you relax the audience and they can laugh more readily or forgive some (unavoidable) mistakes from your part. Good luck!

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