Posts by DavidB

I'd recommend sticking with something you know. That way, you don't have to learn a brand-new language from scratch; you can create graphs as quickly and easily as possible. Otherwise, you could probably create graphs with any language, for example, C++, but it would be a major new project.

If you already use Microsoft Excel, why not just import the data to Excel and use some of its graphing capabilities? Or, if you just want a plot of raw data (numbers), you could use a free online tool like Desmos. Otherwise, there are more sophisticated tools available aimed for scientific applications (e.g. Octave, SciLab, etc.)

It all depends what kind of data you are planning to plot, and the type of graph you would like to create.

Hi, Jem.

Welcome to the DaniWeb forums. We are glad you joined us.

These forums are an excellent resource: lots of good information and many knowledgeable members here.

It is a great place for the sharing of ideas. I am sure you will learn a lot here.

See you around the forums.

Hi, Gurjit.

Do you only want a number to appear like a floating point number, say, for console or file output? Or do you want to use an int like a float in computations?

If you only want it to look like a float, you can do it through formatting, like "ddanbe" suggested, or the option you used.

If you want to use the number in computations, you could use a typecast to make sure it is treated like a float. For example, the following code snippet takes an integer variable, iVar1, uses it in a computation as a double, and assigns the result to a variable, CircCircum of type double:

// Compute circumference of Circle, given integer radius iVar1

double CircCircum;
int iVar1;

. . .

CirCircum = 2.0 * 3.14159 * (double) iVar1;

. . .

Type casting the integer variable makes sure it is used properly in this calculation (i.e. - as a type double.)

Hello, Benny.

Welcome to the DaniWeb forums. We are glad you joined us.

These forums are an excellent resource: lots of good information and many knowledgeable members here.

It is a great place for the sharing of ideas. I am sure you will learn a lot here.

See you around the forums.

Hello, Steve.

Welcome to the DaniWeb forums. We are glad you joined us.

These forums are an excellent resource: lots of good information and many knowledgeable members here.

It is a great place for the sharing of ideas. I am sure you will learn a lot here.

See you around the forums.

Hi, Mike.

"I have no idea what you are talking about . . ."

I was exploring GitHub, to see what is up there and, as an example, did a search for "Discrete Fourier Transform". See the attached screenshot for a portion of the result page that was returned.

Beside all the results is an indication of what language the project is written in: Python, C#, M, C++, Clojure, Ruby, C, MATLAB, Lua, Rust, etc.

And along the left side of the page (but not included on the attached screen capture), users can filter the results by language (i.e. - clicking on the "JavaScript" link filters the list to show only the projects written in JavaScript).

I had assumed GitHub users specified what language their project was written in so that other users could apply the filters and find projects in a language they were seeking. I wanted to tag my project as a C++ project so that people looking for C++ source code could find it. Hence my question.

However, after further exploration, I have come to the realization that GitHub detects the language automatically, because I see my project listed among the C++ results even though I didn't tag it or explicitly name its language in any way.

Hmmnn ... learned something new today.

Hi, Mike.

The issue was that my connection log-in was being denied so I couldn't push my project up to GitHub.
But no worries; I got it figured out. I had set up my account for two-factor authentication, which couldn't work the way I was doing it. When two-factor authentication is used, users must create a token and can then set up caching to avoid repeatedly entering log-in info.

Or they can use SSH, as you suggested.

Another question:
In GitHub I see some users have marked their repositories with tags to identify the language the project is written in. For example, C++, PHP, JavaScript, etc. I haven't found a setting for doing that, but would like to identify my repositories as being in C++. How is this done?

Does it matter what you put in the array?

If not, why not just fill it with the same number (e.g. - 1, 5, 19, etc. - whatever you like.)

Or you could fill the array with some permutation of the indices of the array elements themselves. For example,

a[i][j] = i*j; OR
a[i][j] = i + j; OR
a[i][j] = 3*i + 7.9*j; OR
whatever permutation you'd like.

I can think of three examples:

1) nested for loops
2) nested while loops
3) nested do-while loops

And they can all be nested multiple times, so have fun with them.

Hi, guys.

I am back with some related questions.

I seem to be okay working with GIT locally. Now I'd like to also host projects on GitHub. Taking baby steps, I am experimenting with a small piece of code I posted earlier here on DaniWeb (a sub-routine for a quadratic equation solver.)

The C++ source code file has been commited locally:

git init
git add
git commit

A repository on GitHub has been created:

https://github.com/dcb2015/Quadratic-Equation-Solver.git

GIT confirms recognition of this repository when I run 'git remote -v'.

I then run the 'git push' command, and enter my username and password.
However, I keep getting the "Invalid username or password." message.
See the attached screenshot.

I have tried this several times. I am entering the username and password assigned to my GitHub account.

I don't know what else to try and am getting frustrated.

What am I missing?

If you want to create a blog, that means you probably already have some ideas. Generally, people create blogs because they have some passion they want to let out in a creative way.

Don't create a blog based on what you think are popular topics.
Create a blog about what you are passionate about.

"A while back I looked at SpiderOak which was promising just that in the near future. Perhaps it's time for another look."

I recall that discussion from about a year ago:

https://www.daniweb.com/community-center/geeks-lounge/threads/455113/new-kind-of-dropbox

I have been using SpiderOak and it seems to work fine. Automatically synchs my files whenever a change is made.

Box (box.com) is also nice. I got the free 50 GB for life and am very happy with it. It is very fast and easy to organize files.

You won't get good at Algebra just by reading a particular book; you only get good at it by doing it, and more, and more, and more. By reading several books, doing exercises, and coming at the info from different angles, the pieces will come into place and you will get good at it. But don't expect it to happen overnight.

I am just getting my feet wet with Git and am looking for tutorials for beginners.

I am reading through the book, "Version Control with Git" by Jon Loeliger and Matthew McCullough, but am not finding it suitable for a Git virgin. It is written as if the reader is already familiar with Git and wants more in-depth information. Not much out there (in terms of paper and ink books.)

I will be doing my own searches, but would still appreciate recommendations from Daniweb members.
Any online books or tutorials you have found particularly suitable for a complete Git newbie?

I don't know if there is a way to automatically pull just reviews from one site to another; as far as I know, you get everything or nothing. Or perhaps you have a section of your facebook page specifically for testimonials, in which case you could restrict the content of that feed to just that section. But even so, would you really want to?

It would be best to moderate the reviews before having them show up elsewhere; in most cases, two or three representative testimonials suffice, and are easy enough to copy and paste over manually. More than that and a site starts to lose its credibility.

Each mailbox is either closed or open, so you could represent the mailboxes by an array of ints, which are assigned the value 0 or 1, to represent closed or open. Or an array of booleans. Start by assigning all of them to one value (say, 1) to represent closed. Then go through the loops, and check if closed or open:

if (1) reset value to 0
else reset value to 1

Then just go through all the loops like that. Post your code as you go so we can offer suggestions.

Even if we wanted to work through this problem for the OP, I don't think there is enough information to answer the question.

We don't know how much the seller marked it up in the first place.

I am working with dynamic arrays which have been created using <vector>. For convenience, I have created a typedef :

typedef vector<double> C1DArray;

In the main program, several variables are created using this definition which, at the moment, means working with arrays of size 30.

main()
{
. . .
// Declare several dynamic arrays that will be re-sized appropriately later.
C1DArray WORK1_Array, WORK2_Array, WORK3_Array, WORK4_Array;
. . .
return 0;
}

Several sub-routines only need to work with a particular range of these arrays. For example, SUB-ROUTINE1 takes in WORK2_Array and only touches, say, elements 5 through 25: WORK2_Array[4] - WORK2_Array[24]. In other words, it doesn't need to access all 30 elements of the array. I would like to pass the address of WORK2_Array[4] into the sub-routine so that, within the sub-routine, a simple for-loop could be used that starts the indexing at 0. However, I can't get it working. Following is one of the attempts I have made so far.

Define SUB-ROUTINE1 such that it takes in a pointer to the address of a specific element within a dynamic array (WA1):

void SUBROUTINE1 (int N, int L1, C1DArray CC, C1DArray& CH, C1DArray* WA1, C1DArray* WA2){
double variable1;
for (int i = 0, i < 20; i++) variable1 = WA1[i] + WA2[i];
CH[15] = variable1;
return;
}

In the main program, I try to call SUB-ROUTINE1 as follows:

SUBROUTINE1(30, 5, Array1, Array2, &WORK2_Array[4], &WORK2_Array[17]);

However, the compiler does not like this …

I am trying to convert some old FORTRAN code to C++.
I am about three sub-routines deep into the code and one of the sub-routines includes the following line (twice):

CDIR$ IVDEP 

This is the first time I have come across this command, or directive, or whatever it is.
What does it do? It looks like an "IF" statement because the next instruction is a "RETURN."
But I don't know which option can be omitted.
Any suggestions?

The entire routine follows below, if relevant. It is part of a bigger program that computes a Discrete Fourier (Forward) Transform:

      SUBROUTINE RADF5(IDO,L1,CC,CH,WA1,WA2,WA3,WA4)   
C***BEGIN PROLOGUE  RADF5
C***REFER TO  RFFTF 
C***ROUTINES CALLED  (NONE)   
C***END PROLOGUE  RADF5  
      DIMENSION       CC(IDO,L1,5)           ,CH(IDO,5,L1)           ,
     1                WA1(*)     ,WA2(*)     ,WA3(*)     ,WA4(*) 
C***FIRST EXECUTABLE STATEMENT  RADF5   
      PI = 4.*ATAN(1.)   
      TR11 = SIN(.1*PI)  
      TI11 = SIN(.4*PI)  
      TR12 = -SIN(.3*PI) 
      TI12 = SIN(.2*PI)  
      DO 101 K=1,L1 
         CR2 = CC(1,K,5)+CC(1,K,2) 
         CI5 = CC(1,K,5)-CC(1,K,2) 
         CR3 = CC(1,K,4)+CC(1,K,3) 
         CI4 = CC(1,K,4)-CC(1,K,3) 
         CH(1,1,K) = CC(1,K,1)+CR2+CR3  
         CH(IDO,2,K) = CC(1,K,1)+TR11*CR2+TR12*CR3
         CH(1,3,K) = TI11*CI5+TI12*CI4  
         CH(IDO,4,K) = CC(1,K,1)+TR12*CR2+TR11*CR3
         CH(1,5,K) = TI12*CI5-TI11*CI4  
  101 CONTINUE 
      IF (IDO .EQ. 1) RETURN  
      IDP2 = IDO+2  
      IF((IDO-1)/2.LT.L1) GO TO 104
      DO 103 K=1,L1 
CDIR$ IVDEP    
         DO 102 I=3,IDO,2
            IC = IDP2-I  
            DR2 = WA1(I-2)*CC(I-1,K,2)+WA1(I-1)*CC(I,K,2)   
            DI2 = WA1(I-2)*CC(I,K,2)-WA1(I-1)*CC(I-1,K,2)   
            DR3 = WA2(I-2)*CC(I-1,K,3)+WA2(I-1)*CC(I,K,3)   
            DI3 = WA2(I-2)*CC(I,K,3)-WA2(I-1)*CC(I-1,K,3)   
            DR4 = WA3(I-2)*CC(I-1,K,4)+WA3(I-1)*CC(I,K,4)   
            DI4 = WA3(I-2)*CC(I,K,4)-WA3(I-1)*CC(I-1,K,4)   
            DR5 = WA4(I-2)*CC(I-1,K,5)+WA4(I-1)*CC(I,K,5)   
            DI5 = WA4(I-2)*CC(I,K,5)-WA4(I-1)*CC(I-1,K,5)   
            CR2 = DR2+DR5
            CI5 = DR5-DR2
            CR5 = DI2-DI5
            CI2 = DI2+DI5
            CR3 = DR3+DR4
            CI4 = DR4-DR3
            CR4 = DI3-DI4
            CI3 = DI3+DI4
            CH(I-1,1,K) …

I am trying to understand some old FORTRAN code and have reached a point that puzzles me.
In the main program, a 1-D work array has been defined.
i.e. -

REAL WORKA(30)

Later on, portions of this work array are passed into a few sub-routines:
e.g. -

CALL SNAME1 (10, WORKA(1), WORKA(11), WORKA(21))

Subroutine SNAME1, itself, might be defined as follows:

SUBROUTINE SNAME1 (N, VEC1, VEC2, VEC3)

DIMENSION VEC1(10), VEC2(10), VEC3(10)

So far, so good. I think I know what is going on.
Instead of creating three arrays, a single large array has been created, and portions passed in to act like separate arrays.
By carefully managing the array index, VEC1 is WORKA elements 1 through 10, VEC2 is WORKA elements 11 through 20, and VEC3 is WORKA elements 21 through 30.
All are 1-D arrays.

However, I am now looking at a few sub-routines where the work array is being passed in like a 1-D array, but inside the sub-routine, it looks like a 3-D array.
e.g. -

MDIM = 10
. . .
CALL SNAME5 (MDIM, WORKA(1), WORKA(11), WORKA)
 . . .

Inside SNAME5, the last three parameters are defined like the following:

SUBROUTINE SNAME5 (MDIM, VEC1, VEC2, VEC3)

DIMENSION VEC1(MDIM, 2, N), VEC2(2, MDIM, N), VEC3(MDIM, N, 2)

Now it looks like portions of the work array are being accessed like a 3-D array. (Or am I mistaken?)

I am trying to unravel this code. …

Thanks for all the feedback.

I will edit my program to implement some of these suggestions. The other option I was thinking about was push_back(), to append values to the end of the array. But I guess that won't be necessary after all. Hopefully this all works out; I'd like to have a very robust code block for this task, and plan to use it for future programs. That way, I know it works and don't have to second-guess myself later.

For the past while, I have gotten comfortable doing things a particular way when it comes to inputting data:
i) create text file whose first entry is N, an integer indicating the number of data entries following, and the actual data entries. For example, for 101 data values, the text file might look as follows:

101
0.276706347633276
0.486631466856855
0.63439588641705
0.740012950708629
. . .

ii) In C++, open the file, read the first entry, and use this number to create a dynamic array of this size, and fill the array:
e.g. -

. . .
vector<double> raw_Array;
ifstream in("Fourier_Forward_Data.txt", ios::in);
in >> N; //Input the vector dimension from the file
  // Beginning of try block, for dynamic vector and array allocation
 try {
     // Resize raw_Array to accommodate the N data values
     raw_Array.resize(N); 
 } // End of try block

 catch (bad_alloc& xa) { // Catch block, for exceptions
     in.close();
     out.close();
     cerr << "In catch block, so an exception occurred: " << xa.what() << "\n";
     cout << "\nEnter any key to continue. \n";
     cin >> rflag;
     return 0;
 } // End of catch block

for (int i = 0; i < N; i++){ //Input the raw_Array elements from the text file
     in >> raw_Array[i];
 }//End for i

. . .

However, I am starting a brand-new program and would like to try something a little different: I would like to avoid the need for the first entry in the input text …

Update:

I finally put together something that looks half-decent. It took about twenty attempts--trial and error--but got the background to look like the lab books used in university. The tiling is a little off in some places, but I do not know how to fix that; it may be caused by the way Twitter wraps it around certain sections. And the header is just a photo I took myself of one of my graphs, the mechanical pencil that saw me through four years of Engineering Science at U. of T., and my calculator. It looks like a pretty cosy place now; I am surrounded by familiar objects.

Thanks for everyone's input.

Hi, Dani.

I have no clue what you're talking about . . .

As far as I know, Twitter limits profiles to 160 characters. So if you want to include your LinkedIn URL, Google Plus URL, or any additional info, etc., you are out of luck.

One way around this restriction is to add extra information into the image in your header or background. For example, see some of the Twitter profiles mentioned in this blog post:
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/new-twitter-profile/

Instead of just a raw photo in, say, their header image, users have added text to the image, which includes their website, hashtags they follow, contact email addresses, URL, marketing pitch, etc.

Same for background images. Some users add additional info to their (untiled) background image as a way to get around the 160 character limit on their profile.

In fact, user are advised to, "Include your URL in your Twitter bio, not just the URL field, to optimize for mobile users."

I am terrible at graphics, and do not have a copy of PhotoShop anyhow. I came across mention of free online services that can put it all together for users: i.e. - input your image, URLs, text, etc, arrange things, and presto!-- you have a customized Twitter header and background. However, the services mentioned are no longer available. Hence my original question.

In any case, I think I am going to have to bumble through this on my own, so will mark this thread "Solved" …

No beard (see photo from a couple years ago on my Twitter or LinkedIn page if curious).

I sometimes let it grow for a few days, but it gets too itchy and starts to irritate the heck out of me--so I shave.

Plus, I think it starts to show too much grey. I am getting grey around the edges so keep my head pretty trim too (almost like a new army recruit.)

Especially considering that I am sending out resumes and going to job interviews, I do not want to give the appearance of being any older than absolutely necessary. Maybe I am being paranoid, but I am pretty sure most employers want to hire young people.

Hello, Bartlomiej.

Welcome to the DaniWeb forums. We are glad you joined us.

These forums are an excellent resource: lots of good information and many knowledgeable members here.

It is a great place for the sharing of ideas. I am sure you will learn a lot here.

See you around the forums.

I (finally) signed up for a Twitter account and am spending some time to customize my Profile.

A few free services have been mentioned that provide this functionality: add URLs, change pattern, add LinkedIn URL, etc. -- basically, a template that prompts users to input their info and then outputs a fancier Twitter Profile than the basic one. Some people's profiles are very nice.

However, the ones I have checked out are either gone or not very good.

Can anybody recommend services and/or tools for customizing a Twitter Profile?

If you have a Twitter account, what tools did you use to customize your profile?

I finally registered for a Twitter account and just added it to my Daniweb Profile.

At first, I tried to add the full URL, but an error message popped up stating only letters, numbers, and underscores were allowed. So I changed the field entry to my username only (not even the @ sign.) It was then accepted.

In the Google Plus field, the complete URL is entered, and is behaving as expected.

In the LinkedIn field, the complete URL is entered, and I believe it is behaving as it should.

It seems inconsistent that some fields accept the complete URL but another refuses to.

Is that how it is supposed to work?

The Wikipedia page for social networks is pretty extensive, but I can't think of any that I really recommend.

But then, I am waaaaaaayyy behind the times anyhow. I haven't even joined Twitter yet. However, I am planning to change that and sign up within the week, to see what all the buzz is about.

I have been spending a lot of time in LinkedIn lately, but that is not an "off the radar" site.

Otherwise, I spend time in several forums, usually relevant to mathematics and numerical programming. Or some student sites, because I think they are the audience most likely to be interested in some of my programming activities.

It can also be done by postal code.
For example, in the US, the ZIP code is used for accurately locating a region. I believe it is established by the USPS, but other shipping companies use it too (e.g. UPS, FedEx, etc.)

It started out as a 5-digit code but has since expanded to a 5 + 4 system: e.g. - 80302-8761

Once you are in a particular zip code, you can refine a location to the street number, and unit number:

123 Main Street
Unit #403
etc.

Other countries use postal codes, but organize them slightly differently. For example, I believe Germany's system is based on proximity to a large urban center. So Munich city center might be 80000 and outlying areas would be defined in relation to 80000: 800023, 80875, etc. It is pretty logical once you understand it. Makes more sense to me than the English and Canadian system, which uses postal codes like M5B 4W6, etc.

Hello, "l3the".

Welcome to the DaniWeb forums. We are glad you joined us.

These forums are an excellent resource: lots of good information and many knowledgeable members here.

It is a great place for the sharing of ideas. I am sure you will learn a lot here.

See you around the forums.

Wolfram Rösler created a similar collection on his web site:

The Hello World Collection

It includes credits, and a link to similar collections (including Wikipedia.)

Does your project require you to write the program to solve the polynomial, or does it just require the roots (regardless of how you got them)?

What have you done so far?

Here in Manitoba we have had grievances such as when contracts were awarded to Quebec companies when Manitoba companies had a lower bid and were equally qualified.

True. That was for the CF-18 maintenance contract, wasn't it?
But no other province constantly threatens the rest of the country with separation.

My mother's side of the family is French-Canadian; they moved from Quebec to BC three generations ago. I am probably related to half the people in my Vancouver suburb. In fact, my community recently had its annual "Festival du Bois": http://www.festivaldubois.ca/

Yet whenever people around here (family, friends, etc.) get talking about what goes on in Quebec, they can't figure out what is going on in the heads of Quebec politicians. Apparently it is not a racial or cultural attribute; it is a purely political ploy that makes everybody scratch their heads.

I have stopped paying attention. Everybody else should too. They are like whiny babies: as long as they are getting attention, they keep whining. As soon as they are ignored, they shut up.

It is the same rhetoric as always. And Quebec's reasons for grievances are getting lamer all the time. The fact is, Quebec already has many powers of a sovereign country. They manage their own immigration policy, QPP, schools, roads, etc. If things are going wrong, they have only themselve to blame.

I think the only benefit separation would serve--for the provincial government, not the people--would be that they would no longer have another level of government to run interference for the people. Based on what I have seen so far, the direction the provincial government wants to take is toward more taxes, more bureaucracy, more Big Brother, etc. Without somebody else around to tell them "No", I think the provincial government would be free to run right over people and crush them under a slew of legislative administrivia.

I am a firm believer that people (i.e. - individuals) are better off when there is a little bit of conflict between governments, when power is distributed instead of being concentrated, and no level of government has much of it in the first place. When people end up under one, big government, and all the powers that be speak with one voice, that is when they are screwed. Who can you turn to then? But that is exactly what …

Hello, Razaleigh.

Welcome to the DaniWeb forums. We are glad you joined us.

These forums are an excellent resource: lots of good information and many knowledgeable members here.

It is a great place for the sharing of ideas. I am sure you will learn a lot here.

All the best to you in your studies, and see you around the forums.

I haven't used Twitter but keep seeing it mentioned in the social media community.

And a couple weeks ago, I attended a short course in which Twitter was mentioned as a tool for job hunting (in addition to LinkedIn).

So now I am considering creating an account and trying it out.

But first I have several questions:

How is Twitter any different from simply emailing a person, or getting their Facebook updates (you still have to connect with those contacts beforehand)?

Even if I was the first person to discover something interesting (e.g. - Russian tanks in my backyard coming to liberate Quebec from Canadian oppression), and wanted to let the world know about it by tweeting, if I don't have any followers, would anybody hear me?

For the purposes of job hunting, how is it used? Do I have to individually follow each company I want to work for? (Seems like more work than just going to a big job board like monster where jobs from many companies are listed.)

Are there any SEO benefits to using Twitter? Assuming you have a link to your web site in your Profile, most of your contacts probably already know about it, so where would the SEO benefits come from? Assuming you are not sending out a link to your website with every tweet, how can it be used to increase traffic to your site?

Have you posted this to either the Adobe user forums or asked Adobe support about this? Those would be my first two steps to resolve this, or at least figure out what is going on.

No, I haven't considered other forums yet; I'd rather not join yet one more forum just for a particular question.

No errors appear, so the software thinks everything is fine.

I will keep poking at and see what happens.

Attached are two images that I took on a Windows 7 machine.
They are portions of a document that was just opened in Adobe Reader X (Version 10.1.9).

One image is of a yellow ribbon across the top of the document, warning about certain data security risks.
The other image shows the options available when the "Options" box is selected.
If I select "Trust this document one time only", several fields of the PDF are auto-populated.

However, when I open the same document on a MacBook Pro (Mac OS X Version 10.6.8, Adobe Reader XI Version 11.0.6), the yellow band across the top of the document does not appear. I do not have the opportunity to select an option and having fields of the document auto-populated.

What is puzzling me is that this could be done previously on the MacBook no problem.
Either a software update removed this capability, or changed one of the settings.
Or one of the settings got changed some other way.
I have gone through every menu and every setting I could think of in the Reader but haven't been able to get that functionality back on the Mac.

Any idea what happened, and how I can get that functionality back?

I haven't been bothered by spam for a long time; most services have become pretty good at blocking it.

Are you using a POP3 client or a webmail service?

Besides adding filtering as suggested by "stultuske", you could also try to eliminate its generation in the first place.

Do you have some idea where spammers are getting your address?

Is your email address posted anywhere on the Internet? Do a Google search for your email address and see where it turns up. Then contact the admin of all those pages and ask to have it removed or obfuscated.

Is your email address posted on one of your own sites using the HTML "mailto:" tag? Perhaps you are listed as a contact person, etc.? Spambots look for this tag and spam the associated address. Do not post your email address like this. Use a PHP contact form that never displays the target address, use a graphic for the address, use Javascript to obfuscate it, write it out so human readers can understand it but not spambots, etc.

There are many ways to reduce spam generated by spambots. Pick one that works for you and use it.

"Is the TAB going to replace the laptop?"

No, I don't think so.
I couldn't program on a tablet. Even a laptop is a bit awkward. I don't like being hunched over for hours when I am trying to write code. My preferred machine for serious code-banging is a still a desktop; with that, I can sit up straight, be comfortable, think clearly, and get better work done.

The only time I would consider getting a tablet or something similar, is if I were shopping for my children (8 - 12 years old). In that case, I'd go for a Chromebook (about $300): no operating system, no viruses, etc. everything is in the cloud. Most of the time they are just watching videos or playing games, so they don't need all the professional software packages anyhow.

Hello, Siphokazi.

Welcome to the DaniWeb forums. We are glad you joined us.

These forums are an excellent resource: lots of good information and many knowledgeable members here.

It is a great place for the sharing of ideas. I am sure you will learn a lot here.

See you around the forums.

The use of a URL Shortener, by itself, is not spam. It is used for many legitimate purposes (e.g. - in Twitter, to keep tweets within the 140 character limit).

And they are offered by many different sources; in fact, even Google provides one (goo.gl). I don't think Google would offer a product that is considered solely a spam tool.

HOWEVER, if you submit a URL--shortened or not--to a multitude of sites, or post it all over the blogosphere, or post it in many forums and it is not relevant to the conversation taking place, then it will be considered spam.

As always, use good judgement and make sure the link you are submitting fits into the page to which you are submitting it.

Have you successfully submitted the feed to other outlets? If so, then I think the feed is fine. In this case, you should contact Alltop and ask if they are having problems on their end.

If the feed did not work with other sites, then there may be a problem with it.

By default, the feed for a Blogger blog should look like the following:

http://BLOGNAME.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

(Replace "BLOGNAME" with the name of your blog.)

However, some sites don't require the full URL; some only require http://BLOGNAME.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Is your feed going through FeedBurner?
In this case, the output of FeedBurner should look like the following:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/FEED_NAME/RAN_LET

where "FEED_NAME" is the name you've assigned to this feed, and "RAN_LET" are random letters FeedBurner has assigned to this feed (but it's part of the feed, so you'll need them when submitting the feed to blog directories.)

Hello, Zubaer.

You found one of them here.
Welcome to Daniweb.

Besides Daniweb, there are many others, but it would help to have more specific information. For example, exactly what kind of technology are you interested in? There are forums for Apple users, Android users, Nikon users, programming in Python, etc.--just about anything.

You could do a generic search on Google for large forums, but you'd be better off being more specific. For example, use Google's Advanced Search capabilities to find a forums specifically about the topic of interest. Most forums have the word "forum" in their URL, so when I am looking for a forum, I usually ask for that term to be in the URL:

i.e. -

inurl:forum android forum

Try to narrow it down as much as possible or you'll spend a lot of time going through lists of irrelevant forums.

Hi, Anderson.

For video tutorials, I recommend you do some searches on YouTube; you can find video tutorials for just about anything there.

Once you have some code started, you can share code snippets here and ask for help resolving problems and getting feedback (remember to post in the most topic-specific forum.)

Hmmnn... usually somebody planning to start a blog already has ideas. They are passionate about something and can't wait to start writing.

Search for your favorite topics to get ideas.
Do blog searches for those topics. There is lots out there.

Once you have some ideas, write several blog posts in a word processor. Write them well, edit them a few times, get them ready for prime time. If you can't write several posts in a word processor, there is no point going through the trouble of setting up a blog.

If you are confident you will be able to blog regularly without running out of ideas, try a free blog on Blogger. WordPress is also popular, but it seems to be a popular target for hackers, and you may not want the hassle of administering a site and all the behind-the-scenes work. There are many other options too.

Good luck.

A follow-up to this question and then I will mark it "Solved."

Apparently, there is no quick and easy way to get to the bottom of a LinkedIn page that has MANY pages worth of data (I think the same applies to pages on any other site with infinite scroll, for example, Facebook, blogs, etc.). After looking around, I noticed a similar question had been asked in the LinkedIn "Help" section but no solution has been provided.

A couple options that may help getting to the bottom of a page quicker:
Use Control-End, or Shift-End, to scroll through more pages at a time (may save a few clicks).
Right-click on the scroll bar and then select "Top" or "Bottom" to quickly get through pages.

In either case, you get to a point where you are prompted to "Show More Updates", so you are still not really at the bottom of the page. I tried these techniques out on Lockheed Martin's LinkedIn page and never did go all the way to the very bottom.

So, at this point, there is no hot-key or function to quickly get to the very bottom of a LinkedIn page that has MANY entries.

Hmmn... I am not clear what is happening.

I have a blog on Blogger (see my Profile) and it displays the Description as expected. Under the name of my blog, it correctly displays the description, "Living a quiet life in Coquitlam, B.C."

Is yours not displaying at all?
If you delete the Meta tag description, does it then display properly?
If you re-add the Meta tag description, does it overwrite the main description?

Lots of good information being exchanged in this thread.

I hadn't looked too deeply into version control before; the closest I have come to it was using Tortoise SVN on a small office LAN to maintain all the procedural documents. With all the updates and changes being made within the company, people were always wondering what version of, say, a Word document was the most up-to-date. Beyond that, we never needed something much more sophisticated. But it is good to know what is out there and what it can do.