Messages

801

Living Room / Re: What should I do with my audio CDs?

« on: January 11, 2008, 10:25 AM »

I found it difficult enough abandoning the larger-format sleeve notes that came with vinyl LPs .

-cranioscopical (January 11, 2008, 10:17 AM)

Good point, there. Back in the old world there was a lot of cool stuff done with the media and the packaging, not just the music. I can't recall seeing anything like it recently. Some memories:

• Led Zeppelin In Through the Out Door had a b&w cel-like cover, wiping it with a damp cloth would "activate" the colors.
• Led Zeppelin III had a wheel inside the front cover, turning it altered the image in the front.
• The Beatles' White Album -- self descriptive
• Styx Paradise Theater had laser-etched artwork on the LP itself

802

Living Room / Re: What should I do with my audio CDs?

« on: January 11, 2008, 08:14 AM »

I understand that MP3 is less than ideal where quality is concerned, but it is just so damned convenient!

-Ampa (January 11, 2008, 07:56 AM)

In my ears, I can easily hear a degradation in quality at 128kbps. But when listening in the car, with wind and road noise, does it really matter? Double that, at 256kbps, with headphones, I'm hearing nuances out of my Zune that I'd never noticed through my decent mid-range stereo system.

Probably a portion of the difference is that the errors introduced by MP3 are different from those introduced by your speakers, amp, etc. So maybe a 256kbps MP3 through the Zune reveals things that I can't hear from my stereo, but conversely I would hear things through the stereo that I can't hear through the Zune. I dunno.

I would at least do the ripping part properly (EAC, LAME, with high quality VBR), which must count for something?

-Ampa (January 11, 2008, 07:56 AM)

Agreed here. You only rip something once, and then listen to the results of that countless times. May as well pay the price for that one rip. I use the same as Ampa -- EAC using the default hi-quality profile, which means hi-quality VBR (IIRC it's 192) using LAME.

Anyway, I can't see just getting rid of the old CDs. Throw them into a box in the basement as a backup, or proof against the RIAA for when they start searching houses for unlicensed music. 

803

Living Room / Re: Wanted: Electronic/Searchable Holy Books

« on: January 11, 2008, 06:54 AM »

There isn't anything anyone has that you don't tinjaw.

-cmpm (January 11, 2008, 05:46 AM)

Of course there is... an organic mandible!

804

Living Room / Re: What should I do with my audio CDs?

« on: January 10, 2008, 08:13 PM »

I don't think you can (legally) give or sell them away. Then the music would have two simultaneous owners.

That said, it seems like the music industry wants it both ways. They want to consider that you're only buying a license, which is transferred away from you if you don't have the media in your possession. So far, I think they're stupid, but within their rights.

But there are a number of albums that I've used so much that they've worn out and had to be replaced. If the media only represents a token for the actual license, then when this happens, I should be able to replace my worn media for free, or media cost at most.

I think if they'd offer a program like this, they might make some headway into convincing people of how the license works. But their refusal to acknowledge this instead undermines their cost.

805

Living Room / Re: Beware Domain Searching at Network Solutions!

« on: January 10, 2008, 03:20 PM »

I almost universally a pro-market laissez faire kinda guy. But it seem clear that NS is acting unethically.

The best non-cyber analogy I can think of is with dealing with a real estate agent. Can you imagine if you wanted to buy a house, and every time you asked the agent to show you one, he'd first buy it up so that you couldn't negotiate with the owner?

I think there's a conflict of interest inherent in the way the business works today. And NS has a responsibility when acting as the salesperson for domains to act in good faith for their customer. Letting their other businesses take precedence over this is definitely bad ethics.

And Network Solutions is the biggest issuer of SSL certs -- they are the ones certifying who else can be trusted 

806

Developer's Corner / Re: source control systems: what's the best?

« on: January 07, 2008, 01:03 PM »

It appears to me that the development community is developing a pretty strong following behind Subversion.

On the flip side, I can't recommend strongly enough against VSS. I've had my archive corrupted, and have heard countless similar stories. The same architecture (file-system-based rather than real client-server) that leads to this corruption also makes it very suboptimal over remote connections.

We currently use Microsoft's newer Team Foundation Server at work, which seems to do a fine job but is rather expensive. For my own adventures at home I'm using SourceGear Vault because a single-developer license is free.

807

Living Room / Re: Best Medical Diagnosing Links

« on: January 07, 2008, 12:27 PM »

+1 for the Merck Manual, but I go for the MD version plus a dictionary. I thing the home version is dumbed down.

I also have to chime in on the concern over "too many people coming in waving printouts of their Internet 'diagnosis'". It's too easy to get attached to a diagnosis yourself, and convince yourself of symptoms that, viewed objectively by an MD who (presumably) is familiar with a much broader set of possible diagnoses, would differ. As a result you can fool yourseld and your doctor into the wrong diagnosis.

That said, I think that once you and your doctor have settled on a diagnosis, it's your responsibility to learn everything you can about it. Understand what the malady is, and how it works. Read about the proposed treatment and any alternative, including how any side effects and other risks have affected people in the same situation you find yourself.

Once you settle on a treatment, understand the mechanics of any surgery, or chemical action of any medication. That way you'll know better what to expect, and more importantly, how to ensure that you don't accidentally cause other damage to yourself.

808

Living Room / Re: What is appropriate content for DonationCoder?

« on: January 06, 2008, 02:16 PM »

I wish to make a point that you are contradicting yourself and you have done so more than this particular example. 

-CodeTRUCKER (January 06, 2008, 01:30 PM)

I dispute that. Reread what I said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can only read this and your constant return to such statements as a belief that
...
I'm convinced that you really do believe ...

-CWuestefeld (January 05, 2008, 09:40 PM)

In one place I specifically ask for clarification, which you declined to do. In the second case I did not attempt to assert my opinion as fact, but explicitly framed it as my own belief, creating an opening for any refutation from you.

Added later: I should soften my refutation. I'm sure that I have been guilty of this at certain points. What I said earlier is, I think, an ideal to strive for.

809

Living Room / Re: Wanted: Electronic/Searchable Holy Books

« on: January 06, 2008, 12:31 PM »

I've used this online reference many times: http://blueletterbible.org/study/ (and elsewhere on the site). It's probably not the tool you want, but an excellent reference nonetheless.

(betcha didn't expect to see a heathen like me here  )

810

Living Room / Re: What is appropriate content for DonationCoder?

« on: January 06, 2008, 12:10 PM »

Actually no one answered (or even commented) on the question I posed earlier "where do the limits lie?"

-Carol Haynes (January 06, 2008, 06:11 AM)

I've been asking the same thing. I had the idea at first that he was primarily concerned with scatological conversation, and I can imagine plenty of topical and relevant conversations that might include such discussions.

I'm pretty convinced that it hasn't been answered because everyone realizes that there is no answer that always satisfies the delicate sensibilities without throttling legitimate discussion.

I was somewhat surprised by some of the self righteous pontificating going on here (and I am not necessarily talking about codeTRUCKER's posts). Stating that codeTRUCKER has no right to state or argue his position or that by stating it he is trying to force his morals and beliefs on others is just as intolerant (if not more so because you are TRYING to supress his freedom).

-Carol Haynes (January 06, 2008, 06:11 AM)

I don't recall anyone saying that -- at least not that I interpreted in that way. Indeed, if you look back to the first page or two, you'll see that I said that my only argument was with his refusal to recognize his requests as censorship. I stated strongly that, because our Constitution (assuming you're American) forbids the gov't from interfering in the interchange of ideas, it is our responsibility to have civil conversations like what CodeTRUCKER initiated. So you certainly can't accuse me of trying to suppress him from airing his thoughts.

My complaints came up later on. I objected to two things:

• A "poor sport" attitude by continuing to harp on the subject even after arriving at a solution that most people (including CodeTRUCKER) stated they could live with.
• In that ongoing conversation, repeatedly framing his comments in terms that depict those of who don't share his values as not simply different, but as morally inferior.

• everyone has (and are entitled) to their own viewpoint
• some people see anything opposed to full on 'anything goes' as evil
• some people like picking fights for the sake of it
• some people are too selfish to consider other peoples feelings

-Carol Haynes (January 06, 2008, 06:11 AM)

While I'm ranting, I may as well point the flame at you as well  . Your list above isn't fair. You seem to believe that you can see into the hears of other people to divine what they're thinking, what their motivations are. This is never a safe assumption. You have no way of knowing why each of us chooses to voice the views that they do. I suggest that the only civil way of handling such a discussion is to make every effort to avoid assuming the thoughts of another; if something seems to flow from illegitimate sources as you list above, ask the person for clarification.

811

Living Room / Re: What is appropriate content for DonationCoder?

« on: January 05, 2008, 09:40 PM »

I'm sorry. I know (as a recent thread revealed) that flames are pretty rare here, but I'm getting sick and tired of this self righteousness  . Other participants pointed out how your logic was faulty, and that despite paying lip services to the opinions of others, this is really condescension, and you firmly believe that your view is really the standard against which others must be judged. I didn't pursue it, but since Mouser has pretty much committed to a solutions to your problem, would you please cut it out now?

Carol has expressed my revulsion of a horrible epedemic quite succinctly and has also debunked the "it drives technology" sham as well, so I won't belabor those points. 

-CodeTRUCKER (January 05, 2008, 01:48 PM)

No she didn't, she only stated her personal feelings, but I shan't pursue that because it's tangential to the topic. But your reference to a "horrible epedemic [sic]" again refers to your prejudices. Please, out of respect for those having different philosophies than your own, keep these offensive ideas to yourself.

1 - I didn't have a choice, the  article landed in my RSS otherwise I would have never have seen it. 

-CodeTRUCKER (January 05, 2008, 01:48 PM)

You still seem to be seeking to utterly wipe out the options of anyone disagreeing with you. Based on the possibility that you might be offended, your message implies, we must curtail anything that is offensive to your values.

This sounds very innocuous on the surface, but it only serves those that participate in them.  It is like someone lighting up a very pungent incense.  Only one did it because he had a right to, but everyone there will be forced to "relish the bouquet" or split. 

-CodeTRUCKER (January 05, 2008, 01:48 PM)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can only read this and your constant return to such statements as a belief that the entire DC forum is corrupted by the presence of anything beneath your morality, and thus, even if you don't participate or even view it, it must be excised lest the pestilential attitudes that it breeds spread like a cancer through the entire community.

If this is view that drives any changes to the community then you can accept my resignation.

What if I was to do reviews on all the software and technology associated with Jesus Christ (and there is a plethora)?  Would my posts find open arms as just another "technology" or would it be deemed heresy because it involves religion and the Judeo-Christian religion in particular?  I think the answer is obvious and is so much so that I have refrained from presenting it in order to prevent creating a firestorm ... While I have every right to present all of these reviews, bible software tech blogs, etc. here at DC as technology and software, I have chosen to not do so as it would upset the sweetness that is the heart of DC. 

-CodeTRUCKER (January 05, 2008, 01:48 PM)

Poppycock. Start a series of threads discussing religious-themed software. I'll likely ignore most of it, but it may lead to a more vibrant community as a whole... unless it brings in more intolerant self-righteous folks.

Just cause we are better than some doesn't mean we can't be better than we are, does it?  Let me hasten to add that I am not the one to determine what is better as this is a community and  the community will ultimately define what would be better and tremendous thanks goes to Mouser for allowing that to happen.  My point is let's stop patting ourselves on the back.  There is always room for improvement.

-CodeTRUCKER (January 05, 2008, 01:48 PM)

Again, you pay lip service to tolerance. But this whole paragraph would be redundant if you actually believed it. I'm convinced that you really do believe that your personal values are the correct ones, and that you're only condescending, indulging us until we see the light.

812

Living Room / Re: What do you think about "What I like to do" medallions

« on: January 04, 2008, 04:25 PM »

This might be worth discussing, but I think you have to look at this through a DonationCoder lens. The site's raison d'etre is technology and computer software specifically, so an indication of your love of music is only appropriate insofar as it relates to computer software. So I wouldn't want to see this devolve into an "Metallica kicks butt!" badge (or in my case, "anarcho-capitalism rules!"  ) marker.

But for me, since I've helped develop music composition software, the music thing might be appropriate. Or because I'm currently working with b2b ecommerce software, I might want to indicate to other users that this is an area of interest to me.

813

Living Room / Re: What is appropriate content for DonationCoder?

« on: January 04, 2008, 07:26 AM »

Setting aside all questions of morality, we can learn something from the field of signal processing. If you want to be 100% certain of identifying a signal in a noisy environment, you're also guaranteed to get false alarms. Conversely, if you want to completely avoid false alarms, then you're guaranteed to miss some legitimate signals. For example, a missile defense system, because it's critical not to overlook an attack, must expect false alarms.

Applying this rule here, that means that some content must necessarily be tagged NSFW when it didn't really need to be; alternately some things that should have been tagged were not.

I submit that the situation we're in right now demonstrates that we're in that latter state: some small number of things that might be offensive are not tagged.

Further, I submit that the status quo is precisely the correct balance. We are not dealing with a missile defense system here, the consequences of missing a genuine signal is, in the big picture, trivial. AFAIK, we've only got one complainant here.

If you can subscribe to any kind of utilitarian approach to philosophy, then surely the occasional indignation of one single person[1] is less of an evil than the combination of (a) every single user having to be constantly self-conscious about every possible sensibility; (b) potential good ideas left unaired; and (c) the community becoming (slightly) sanitized and displaying less character and personality.

I hate moral calculus, but in any culture of more than one person, it becomes inescapable at some point. I'm sorry to have to say that, CodeTRUCKER; you seem like a nice guy. And if the consequences were more serious than your sensibilities, the bottom line would certainly come out differently.

[1] Confession to an oversimplification: even if there's only CodeTRUCKER complaining, there may well be others silently agreeing. But I don't think that everyone deserves equal status; if they're not contributing to the community discussion, then it's not worth worrying about.

Call me "Mr. Callous"

814

Developer's Corner / Re: Best way to start learning C++?

« on: January 04, 2008, 06:33 AM »

Oh, I just remembered...

Read the book "Effective C++" by Scott Meyers. Then read it again. It's easily one of the 10 best computer books I've ever read, completely changing my world view. It won't teach you c++, but if you know the language already it will help you understand the language.

815

Living Room / Re: What is appropriate content for DonationCoder?

« on: January 03, 2008, 08:57 PM »

(more on the philosophy of morals, feel free to tell me to shut up about non-practical stuff)

CodeTRUCKER, your arguments are both flawed. Perhaps I don't thoroughly get your response to "censorship", because it seems like you're saying that it shouldn't concern us until it reaches the level of despotism. It's quite clear that you are asking for censorship, whether directly via rules, or indirectly via an implied threat of repurcussions (just like the regime under which movies are "regulated"). Saying "if you link to porn sites we'll deactivate your account" is most certainly censorship. But it's Mouser's board, he's free to make such a restriction if he so decides.

Since you seem to be well educated, let me point out that the silencing of people like Dalton Trumbo (http://en.wikipedia....g/wiki/Dalton_Trumbo) was done under the aegis of the "House Un-American Activities Committee" in the name of preserving American morals. And of course it wasn't censorship (I say with sarcasm), they were just protecting America from this dangerous man who wouldn't provide Congress with information about Communists.

Your "morals policing" analogy is also flawed. The teacher is correct to stop the student, but not for the reasons of morality that you suggest. It's because the students are there each to obtain the education that they're paying for, and the unruly students are violating the property rights of the others by interfering with the teaching of the class, denying them the educational service that they've paid for. The situation would be quite the same if rather than being raunchy, they were singing "Michael Row the Boat Ashore".

No one in our society is guaranteed the right to freedom from offense. At least in principle we value the opportunity for a voice in the marketplace of ideas more highly than we do delicate sensibilities. First Amendment jurisprudence recognizes this through the doctrine of Prior Restraint (http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Prior_restraint). In America you can't be prevented by the gov't from saying something. (Although you can be held responsible later if it damages others) -- but as I said previously, this ties the hands of government, but doesn't prevent the speaker's colleagues from telling him he's a jerk: we all enjoy the same freedom.

Also, you never addressed my practical concerns about, e.g., the appropriateness of ...ummm... inappropriate language ... in a relevant topic like spam filtering. Should I be allowed to freely (that is, without requiring an NSFW tag) identify the names of anatomical parts and intimate acts when we are discussing them in terms of a symptom of a legitimate computer-related problem?

816

Developer's Corner / Re: Best way to start learning C++?

« on: January 03, 2008, 07:54 PM »

Unless you're going to deal with very very limited embedded devices or kernel programming, don't get into malloc/free and the muck of pointers in general. Today's compilers are good and std::vector has very very little overhead.

-f0dder (January 03, 2008, 07:02 PM)

That last sentence is true, but I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.

You're right that in C++ you won't use malloc/free, but the discipline of managing your own memory is (in my way of thinking, anyway) just the same as dealing with new/delete. And in C++ you most certainly will be mucking in pointers, although many of them will be references.

C teaches you bad habits, gets you in the habit of not supporting unicode, and using the horrendously unsafe str* libc functions.

-f0dder (January 03, 2008, 07:02 PM)

True, which is why I suggested starting with java or C#: get into the correct habits through those simpler languages first, and then apply their principles.

Oh, and multiple inheritance is not "unnecessary complexity"; sure, many people have used it wrongly and designed some horribly nasty class diagrams, but it's very useful for adding "decoration" to classes.

-f0dder (January 03, 2008, 07:02 PM)

OK, I admit to a bit of exaggeration, but it's mostly true. I have on many occasions wanted multiple inheritance again for use as mixins (which I think is what you're getting at). But it's generally not needed: most of the time you can accomplish what you want with interfaces and aggregation.

While we're at it, what other C++ constructs do you think he should stay away from? Another that comes to my mind is implicit type conversions.

BTW, one of the concepts from C++ that I really wish I had in C# is const parameters and mutable.

817

Living Room / Re: What is appropriate content for DonationCoder?

« on: January 03, 2008, 07:36 PM »

Trying to walk delicately around the margins of politics...

The line

it is too narrow and robotic to make this a "Censorship -vs- Freedom of Speech" issue.  It isn't.  It is an issue of courtesy and consideration.

is the universal rationalization of all censors.

There is absolutely no one who believes that they are actually censoring. They're always doing it for the larger good. Consider that television and movies practice "self-regulation", the result of which is the absence of even artistic nudity yet a glut of violence.

That said, while it is a censorship question this is emphatically not a free speech issue (not that anyone has asserted so yet). The right to free speech is only a limitation on the government. The Founding Fathers believed in the ability of civil society to police itself, community members directly and immediately providing responses to proper and improper speech.

So this sort of discussion is exactly what James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and the others would have expected of us.

818

Living Room / Re: What is appropriate content for DonationCoder?

« on: January 03, 2008, 06:26 PM »

I would hope that DC doesn't become a place where prurient or vulgar discussions are a focus of discussion.

However, I don't think that it's something that should be suppressed, either. These things are part of life, and if a legitimate discussion relates to this, then that conversation should not be hobbled out of puritanism.

As an extreme example, a discussion of the working of a spam filter ought not to exclude cursing or other types of verbiage frequently found in spam; that would make it impossible to actually discuss the topic.

A grayer example (but one that's still OK with me) is when someone curses in order to provide an extreme negative emphasis to a statement. If this is the best way to convey the thought, then do so. On the other hand, I too am put off by people that just use "the F word" the way some people pepper their speech with "ummm" or "like".

I happen to enjoy (softer) porn myself, but I don't think I'd want DC to become an outlet for such content.

The [NSFW] tag is good for cases where the thread itself might be borderline. But when it's an individual posting in an otherwise innocent thread, it's harder to make this work.

I guess the bottom line for me is that when it's part of legitimate (or even just collegial) discussion, I'm comfortable. But if we started down that road for its own sake, that would be bad for DC.

That said, it's Mouser's site, and its his prerogative to set any restrictions on his property that he likes.

819

Developer's Corner / Re: Best way to start learning C++?

« on: January 03, 2008, 04:54 PM »

I can't believe that no one is asking what foundational knowledge we're trying to layer C/C++ on top of. (actually, I can't believe that no one is asking why the heck you feel you need C++ in the first place).

There are a few hurdles in C++ development: embracing real object orientation, dealing with pointers, and memory management.

If you've got an OO background from a language like java, or C#, then you might have this covered already. If not, I would suggest first learning one of these, because you'll get an understanding of OO without having to deal with that other hard stuff. Also, their syntax is an evolution of C++ (which is, of course, and evolution of C) so much of what you learn will be directly applicable. These languages also don't offer honeypots of unnecessary complexity like multiple inheritance or (as much) operator overloading, so you'll stay out of bad habits.

Once you've got the OO thing, I would suggest first wading into plain old C to get an understanding of pointers and basic memory management. I started learning C with the classic K&R - the nice, thin, well-written "The C Programming Language" by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie.

Then layer the C++ on top of that, getting the patterns of C++ memory management (with destructors, structured exception handling, etc.). I'm not sure where to tell you to go for a reference on this. I can tell you that what I did was wrong: if you just pick up Stroustrup's "C++ Annotated Reference Manual" (aka "The ARM") like I did (because that's the kind of reference I was used to for C), you'll immediately get lost.

820

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your favorite computer game from when you were young?

« on: January 03, 2008, 04:04 PM »

My earliest favorite game was on the TRS80 Model 1, I can't remember its name. It was a space battle thing, rendered in characters. Remember back in that era when you stored things on cassette tape, and it was such a hassle finding each thing you'd saved on a big, long 60-minute tape?

The first computer I owned was an Atari 800. At first I played Star Raiders a lot:

http://www3.sympatic...ce/star_raiders.html

Later I got attached to M.U.L.E., a sci-fi game that might have been a precursor to Civilization in a way.

http://www.codinghor...archives/000306.html

and BallBlazer, a sort of futuristic 3D soccergame

http://www.electrice....com/ballblazer.html

and Boulderdash

http://en.wikipedia....rg/wiki/Boulder_Dash

...and later there was Tetris, and Commander Keen I really enjoyed. And on into the modern era...

821

Living Room / Re: The Best Games You've Never Played

« on: January 01, 2008, 11:44 AM »

+1 for Falcon's Eye. 

For me, Nethack is an incredibly complete game, but essentially unusable without a huge investment in learning all the hotkeys. Falcon's Eye gives it a friendly UI -- the graphics are just icing on the cake.

822

General Software Discussion / Re: Getting started with Access?

« on: January 01, 2008, 11:12 AM »

One big advantage of using the Access UI is that it gives the car keys to users. They are free to create queries, new/modify forms, create reports.

-PPLandry (January 01, 2008, 09:32 AM)

That may also be an important disadvantage. If I had a dollar for every time I had to unravel the bad data resulting from someone who didn't have the knowledge to properly model the data relationships then, well, I'd have a lot of dollars.

But always, always use 2 databases, one uniquely for data and one for UI (and temporary data)

-PPLandry (January 01, 2008, 09:32 AM)

Yes!

Next to proper E-R modeling, this may be the most important of all Best Practices for Access development; I can't believe that books (not to mention Access itself) don't make more of a big deal of it.

Doing this is absolutely essential to ongoing maintenance of your application. It allows you to let your users keep on using while you work on bug fixes and enhancements; when you've got your code layer complete you can simply swap it in. If you've got one monolithic .MDB, you have to dance around people using it; they've got to be locked out while you work on it.

If you're going to have multiple users, consider using replication rather than giving all access to a single physical file. Access's replication features are really remarkable, in some ways even more advanced than SQL Server.

823

General Software Discussion / Re: Office suite for my mom?

« on: December 31, 2007, 05:22 PM »

Why not go with something like Zoho:

-Veign (December 31, 2007, 03:16 PM)

Ahh, it's an online app. Unfortunately that won't cut it. She'll need to use it in places that she can't be connected.

Maybe the one from Ashampoo,  rebadged from softmaker

-Grorgy (December 31, 2007, 04:35 PM)

That's one to look at. I've used their spreadsheet on my PocketPC, and was impressed with that. I'll go back and add this to the list at the top. Do you have any experience with it, like can you contrast it with OpenOffice?

824

General Software Discussion / Re: Getting started with Access?

« on: December 31, 2007, 04:06 PM »

For applications of, say, 1-5 users, Access is a great DB platform. As a RAD platform, if you can do the job within its confines, without writing code, it's great. But if you do need to write code, the restrictions of Access's forms model become frustrating very quickly.

If you expect the amount of custom coding that will need to be written is non-trivial, and if you have any programming experience, I would consider a different route. Continue to use Access as the database engine, but forget about its RAD development capabilities. Instead, download one of the free Express editions of Microsoft's Visual Studio, and you'll have a free development environment for VB.Net or C#. They can interact with an Access database just as well as code you write in Access.

These are much more sophisticated (which is the flip side of more complicated ) but in my opinion they offer a much more coherent experience -- things will make more sense, as opposed to Access's platform, which has evolved into a Frankenstein monster without any real unifying philosophy (making it impossible for me, at least, to intuit how any operation ought to be accomplished).

I have the book that Perry suggested above, and I thought that it's pretty good, at least using it to quickly look up how to do a particular operation.

825

Living Room / Re: This coming year, I am SOO looking forward to __________ .

« on: December 31, 2007, 03:58 PM »

that's why I'm so hung up on getting my bonus and income tax

-jammo (December 31, 2007, 03:25 PM)

Sorry, I'm trying real hard to stifle a rant, but the way you twice referred to "getting my income tax" as if it's a good thing has me wanting to explode.

You don't get income tax  . You pay it (and pay it some more). Indeed, you're not getting anything. What they'll be sending to you, commonly called an "income tax return" is a reimbursement of excess withholding taxes, based on the current tax regulations.

To be clear: when you get your income tax return, no one is giving you anything. It's money that was already yours, because they took too much out of your pay. You're not getting anything free. Far from it, you've just been nice enough to give your Uncle Sam an interest-free loan in that amount for the past year. Pretty generous of you, wasn't it 

Back on topic:

I'm looking forward to a new PC this year myself. My current one is over 3 years old. 1GB of RAM seemed like a lot back then...