Posts by Reverend Jim

Skype used to have a setting that would allow me to block all unsolicited contact requests. Shortly after Microsoft acquired Skype this feature was removed. I used to get 2-3 requests per week and it was easy enough to delete-and-report-abuse although I suspect nobody ever actually looked at these reports. However, I am now getting 5-10 requests per day from users with obviously bot-generated accounts. I've checked google and the Skype forums and it is apparent from the comments that many other people are having the same problem and are pissed off. Microsoft/Skype does not participate in any discussions about blocking so I can only assume that it is to Microsoft's benefit somehow to allow this spamming to continue.

Previous versions of Skype have spawned hacks to do things like remove ads. Is anyone aware of any hack out there that will re-enable the "block all but my contacts" feature?

You can do

Dim val As String = "10010"

For i As Integer = 0 To 4
    Dim cbx As CheckBox = Me.Controls("CheckBox" & i)
    cbx.Checked = val.Substring(i - 1, 1) = "1"
Next

Just replace the Dim statement with the statements to retrieve the data from the database. I don't know if your problem is with separating the values or with getting the info from the database. If the latter then please give a little more detail about the database (table name, etc). A generic query would be

SELECT myfield FROM tablename
 WHERE someOtherField = `some value`

I presume you have some way to limit the number of records returned to just one.

I was having trouble deciding whether to post this here (because it's about grammar) or in AD's thread (because it's a joke). I decided to post it here.

A "proper" Boston lady goes into a restaurant down south. When she places her order, the waitress notices her Bahston accent and asks, "Where y'all from?"

The woman answers, snottily, "I'm from where we don't end sentences with a preposition."

The waitress reflects for a moment, then says, "In that case, where y'all from, bitch?"

If you install SQL Management Studio (free from Microsoft) you can debug your queries in an interactive window and then code up the same query in your app.

I didn't want to start a new thread for this bu, Dani - you might not be surprised by this. Google is being sued for skewing search results.

The claim not only alleges that Google favors its own products over competitors' - even when the others are more popular - but also that the sponsored links shown on the search engine are heavily skewed by the amount of money paid to Google. For example, Moneycontrol.com is supposedly more popular in India than Google Finance and, yet, the latter is shown earlier on in the search results. Flipkart even went on to say that the position of its site in search results directly correlates with its advertisement spending.

Full article

Microsoft backdates privacy violating Windows 10 "features" to Windows 7 & 8.

Note that some of these invasions cannot be blocked via stubs in the hosts file because the connecting sites have their addresses hard coded in Windows.

Microsoft backdates privacy violating Windows 10 "features" to Windows 7 & 8.

Read my last post.

Set a breakpoint at

SqlDataAdapter1.Fill(DataSetViewEmp, "EmployeeRegistration")

then in the immediate window type

?cmd.CommandText
?cmd.Parameters(0).Value
?cmd.Parameters(1).Value

and post the output here.

At ConnectionStrings.com the string for Access 2013 (standard security) is

Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=C:\myFolder\myAccessFile.accdb;Persist Security Info=False;

Try specifying the fully qualified file name for the database. It also might help (more info) if you comment out the try/catch logic and get the actual error message instead of masking it with your own.

That's not a question.

What format is your email in? What program did you use on the old laptop? For Outlook you can just copy the PST. For Thunderbird, the entire profile folder.

I think its not rude, its truth being told in straightforward way.

So, hypothetically, if you make a statement that is contradicted by the facts and I respond with

You are an idiot if you believe that because...

instead of something like

that turns out not to be the case because...

in your opinion my first statement is not rude because I am being straightforward. I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one. Good luck trying to get people to see your side of anything with that attitude. When people hear themselves or their ideas called "stupid", "idiotic", etc. they immediately get defensive instead of being open to suggestions or constructive criticism.

How does this differ from LinkedIn?

For MS SQL an example is

SELECT * FROM Orders
 WHERE OrderDate BETWEEN '1996-07-01' AND '1996-07-23'

For AccessDB use

SELECT * FROM Orders
 WHERE OrderDate BETWEEN #1996-07-01# AND #1996-07-23#

How is EmpJoinDate defined in the database?

That takes me to the picosong home page which apparently has nothing to do with grammar.

A few things to note here. Do not create the control in the BG thread. Make it part of your GUI. Create a Sub to update the existing label with the new value. The Update Sub will handle whether or not to do the update normally (foreground) or through the delegate (background). You might also only do the update if the new value differs from the current value.

You're right. But "nasty" doesn't begin to describe it and calling it "a stat" just masks the horror. That's a big part of the problem. In the days after each shooting when we should be discusing it and talking about what to do the Right cries "While we are mouring and burying the dead is not the time to politicize this". And then after the outrage has died down it is yesterday's news and therefore just another "stat". UUntil the next mass shooting. Lather, rinse, repeat.

OK. Then the obvious next question is - what is the type of the database field named playerid. I had assumed it was numeric based on the single example. Please note that I have asked you three times to post the actual query (the value of cmd.CommandText) and you still haven't done that.

In 2015, the US has averaged more than one mass shooting per day (defined as any single incident in which at least four people are shot, including the gunman). Source and Source

And what are you having a problem with? You haven't said what kind of database you are using or what language you are programming in. Is your problem with the database design or the queries? Is your problem with the connection string? Show us what you have so far. If it's a database question then this is the place for it. If it's a programming problem then post it in the appropriate language forum.

In this case it doesn't matter what your code is. The error is in the query and showing us

cmd.CommandText = cmd.CommandText = "SELECT health,strength FROM playerstats WHERE playerid= " & playeridlbl.Text

doesn't tell us what the query is because we don't know the value of playeridlbl.Text. If you won't post the actual query (ie the value of cmd.CommandText) then we can't help you.

My company was regularly listed as one of the best companies to work for, and rightly so. I just had a bad boss. It can happen anywhere.

We really need an emoticon for sarcasm.

Like I said, this entire project is only a few weeks old. I came up with the idea 3 weeks ago, started developing it 2 weeks ago, and launched it over this past weekend.

Every other piece of software I have ever bought/downloaded has been 100% bug free and exactly what I wanted with every feature exactly how I would have designed it myself. Shame on you for not releasing a perfect and highly polished product that measures up to everyone's standards.

I don't see any output from Debug.Writeline. Comment out the Try/Catch/End Try.

It is one thing to point out perceived shortcomings of someone else's work. It's another entrely to get personal. I'm always in favour of rational and constructive criticism. However, referring to a feature, or lack of one as "stupid" is not rational or constructive. It is just rude. I can only assume you have never read the Daniweb rules, particularly the one stating keep it pleasant. Criticize the product, not the person.

“I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”

Oliver Cromwell

Suggested reading - Andrew Tanenbaum's Operating Systems: Design and Implementation.

Lots of good stuff there. I wasn't aware I could do that. Unfortunately, the only exe associated with that handle was the RealTekAudio exe. I wouldn't mind if Skype grabbed the mic because that's the one app I want to use it with.

I suggest you get a book on operating system design and read it instead of asking us to help when you have shown no proof of effort on your part. I also suggest that vb.net (or vb of any flavour) is probably not your best choice of language for this type of project.

Try

cmd.CommandText = "SELECT health,strength FROM playerstats " &
                  " WHERE playerid=" & playeridlbl.Text
Debug.WriteLine cmd.CommandText

and post the output here.

Getting back to the original topic, let me cite an example of "bad boss behaviour". I retired in August of 2008. In the three months or so before I retired my entire group was moved out of our current area to workspaces about thirty feet down so that our area could be rearranged with slightly smaller (but still spacious) cubicles to accomodate another person. The work was scheduled to be completed two weeks before my retirement so I requested that I just be allowed to stay where I was rather than pack/unpack for the two weeks. My old space was a prime window cubicle so a junior person asked our boss if she could have my window spot on the return move. A "good boss" response would have been "No. I've already allocated the spot to someone else." The "bad boss" response was to

1. tell her "no"
2. not give her a reason
3. make her feel like a time-wasting moron for even asking
4. taking the next 20 minutes to make her feel like an idiot

Note the irony in berating her for wasting his time but taking 20 minutes to do it. You can imagine that she left the group for another position as soon as she was able resulting not only in lost productivity while she learned her new job, but lost productivity for the person they had to bring in to replace her. Unfortunately, at this corporation Engineers are considered gods who can do no wrong, and my …

That looks right, however because your playerid is numeric you should leave out the single quotes and use

cmd.CommandText = "SELECT health,strength FROM playerstats " &
                  " WHERE playerid=" & playeridlbl.Text

You were comparing a numeric field 1 with the string '1'. At least I am assuming playeridlbl.Text had the value "1".

Again, you will find working with databases (and composing queries) much easier if you install SQL Management Studio.

We will not do you work for you. We will help with specific problems if you

1. provide specific information
2. show us that you have put in some effort to solve it yourself

Keep in mind that while it may be urgent to you, it is not urgent to anyone else.

We won't do the work for you. We certainly can't help based on a complete lack of information. Also, I would expect that since you are posting from California that you could put a little more effort into posting a question in something resembling English.

Do you have SQL Management Studio (SQLMS) installed? It's free from Microsoft and is really useful for developing data base based apps. If not then I suggest a breakpoint at the first line of

reader = cmd.ExecuteReader()
While reader.Read = True
    healthlbl.Text = reader.Item(1).ToString()
    strengthlbl.Text = reader.Item(2).ToString()
End While

Check the exact query text and make sure your query is actually returning a record with values. With SQLMS you could execute the query in an ad hoc window and check the results. I strongly suggest you install it.

OleDbCommand does not support named parameters. You should use

sql = "INSERT into inventory (pcode, psup, pcat, pdescript, pstock, piprice, ptprice, pdate) values (?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?)"

Just make sure you add the values in the same order as you specified the field names. See MSDN article. If your database is MS SQL then you can use SqlClient with named parameters instead of OleDb

Fields are zero-relative. You could index them by (using the correct syntax)

healthlbl.Text = reader(0)
strengthlbl.Text = reader(1)

but this is bad practice because if you change the query you might brreak the code. You should, instead, index using the field name as in

healthlbl.Text = reader("health")
strengthlbl.Text = reader("strength")

Note that the second form works whether the query does any of the following:

SELECT health, strength
SELECT strength, health
SELECT *

Because the fields health and strength are already strings you do not need to do ToString.

don't know about where you are, but here unions are utterly useless

I've never had to approach my union to resolve a problem but I do know that the one time I attended a union meeting (to try to defeat a proposed motion) I realized how corrupt it was. The motion had an amendment that we spent two hours discussing until we (the group I came with) decided to just get on with it, pass the amendment then vote against the motion. Here's what happened in the space of 15 seconds

1. "All in favour say aye"
2. "By approving the amendment you have approved the motion"
3. "Move to adjourn"
4. "Approved"
5. "Meeting is adjourned"

We couldn't appeal the vote, call for a show of hands on the motion to adjourn, or even lodge a protest because the meeting was over.

My wife, however, had a discrimination matter resolved by her union in her favour. Same union (CUPE) but differrent branch and different employer.

Still, if I hadn't belonged to a union I could probably have been fired just because my boss didn't like me, and my only recourse would have been to self-finance a wrongful dismissal lawsuit. When that happens only the lawyers win.

Many studies suggest the decision on the candidate can often takes less than 30 seconds into the interview and that interviews are prone to tons of subconscious biases

Reinforcing my point about first impressions. And our first impression is formed by (drum roll please) what that person looks like. Would you rather spend the rest of the interview trying to confirm a good first impression or disprove a bad one?

Let's take, for example, olympic swimmers. Races can be won or lost by hundredths of a second. The reason you shave your body or wear the latest low-drag, high-tech swim suit is to possibly gain that extra advantage. That's the same reason you try to make the best first impression at that job interview. It might come down to a decision between two equally, or near-equally qualified people. That decision is going to be based on more than just qualifications. If your skills are in high demand or you can point to an impressive resume then you can possibly afford to take a few liberties. But if you are a recent graduate with little or no experience but still feel entitled to a job because you are God's (sorry, dog's) gift to the workforce and you can "dress however I please and if they don't like it then that's their problem" then good luck in that interview. And good luck in life.

As a person with (fortunately mild) Tourette's I am exceedingly conscious of what kind of first impression I make.

And I did notice that part about "I'm not disagreeing". I'm just in a very talkative (typeative?) mood this morning.

Device manager shows the device as working properly. All the control panel settings are unchanged from when the microphone is working.

Union busting hasn't been the problem up here in Canada like it has been in the US. Also, while unions can protect you against certain things like unfair dismissal and outright harrassment, it cannot do much about systematic abuse of the type I got from boss 3/5. A boss can make your job miserable without actually doing anything actionable. Going over his head to complain would have made a bad situation worse. Fortunately, the closer I got to retirement the more I could get away with effectively saying "fuck you". Not literally, but in my attitude and my actions. He got the message. As long as I was doing my job and keeping the users happy I was basically untouchable. Since I wasn't interested in career advancement at that point he really had nothing on me.

I'm really not the person to ask about how to size up a potential boss. I am really bad at reading people. The only thing I might suggest is to talk to people who have worked for him and moved on. If the boss is an a$$hole, thos employees still under his/her thumb might not want to be candid.

I remember the best teachers in my school were the ones that looked like tramps

I'd be willing to bet they didn't look like that when they were being interviewed. I was fortunate in that my job did not require a suit and tie. I did not have to deal with the public and the only users (for at least the first 20 years anyway) were the system control staff, and their dress code was extreme casual. As a result my "uniform" was about 99.9% blue jeans.

I wore a suit and tie to my interview.

I use Skype frequently for voip. After I reboot, and for an indefinite time after, everything works fine. But eventually my microphone (Dell built-in) stops working. The party at the other end no longer hears me. It's not just Skype. Windows Sound Recorder doesn't pick up anything. Neither does Audacity. My thinking is that some app is grabbing the device and not releasing it. Is there any way of determining if this is the case? If so, is there a way to determine what app is responsible?

What would you consider an "American" accent? Is it the Southern drawl? Is it the Joisey thing? Is it the whatever-the-heck-they-call-it accent everyone in the series, Fargo, seeemed to speak? Is it the Bahstahn upper-class accent? Or is it the (what I consider) unaccented speech of, for example, Ed Asner or John Larroquette? If you listen to English pop/rock bands (take the Beatles or Queen as examples) and compare their speaking accent with their singing accent you may notice a marked difference. Their singing pronunciation is more like the "unaccented" American accent.

A few years ago I was talking to a company rep who was based in California (I am born and raised in southern Manitoba). He commented on my lack of an accent.

Yes but it isn't necessarily "better" to dress in a suit than to wear a T-shirt and board shorts.

Dressing better doesn't necessarily mean better clothes. it could just mean wearing what you wear better. It doesn't take a lot to pull up your pants so that your underwear isn't hanging half out.

Likewise interviews are not one-sided affairs. The applicant is evaluating whether they like the culture & atmosphere of the potential employer as much as the employer is evaluating whether they like the personality & skills of the applicant.

If I am hiring and I have a choice between two equally, or almost equally qualified applicants, and only one of them cares about how they appear to other people then …

A news article I read earlier today had the passage:

After he turned to walk away, the officer, who has yet to be named by the department, grabbed Osche and violently through this 61-year-old man to the ground, causing him to scream in agony.

One thing I like to do is to read aloud what I plan to post. That forces me to read every word carefully. It also makes certain errors glaringly obvious. Posting in a forum is one thing but this was a published news article. I expect more attention to detail than what I am seeing.

I should also point out that I do allow for people to whom English is a second language. But for people who know only English I expect better. I suppose it affects me in a similar way as when I see some moron who walks around with his pants halfway down his a$$. You can dress better. You choose not to. I've seen people with multiple facial piercings show up for a job interview. Their attitude seems to be "If you can't accept me for who I am then that's your problem". I disagree. If I make assumptions about you based on your appearance (or how you speak) and that costs you your chance at a job then that's your problem.

@ddanbe - I have a great deal of respect for people who have taken the time to learn a second language. I have tried to learn French but, lacking the opportunity to practice (or perhaps my poor brain is just too old) I was never able to develop any proficiency.