darasen

Sounds like a portion of the US's population concerning American football or basketball. The beautiful game is certainly the most popular sport in the world. Much of that may well be it's ease of play, all you need is a ball and nothing else. I can not see how anyone finds Football/Soccer boring, baseball yeah football, no way. The exciting thing in football is that you never know when some one is going to break away for a shot or a midfielder will execute a perfect tackle or any number of other things may occur. In American football all the action is broken up. In truth part of the strategy in American football often includes spending as much time as possible between plays to run the clock down. So the strategy is to not play the game while the clock is running, not exactly awe inspiring. There are many times in American football as well when what happens next is a given. If its fourth down and ten yards to go it will be a punt or a field goal attempt. Football is less popular in the US (my location actually) for a few reasons I think. One of those is that I think we Americans are less patient over all. We understand scoring and like that. Even non Football/soccer fans can appreciate a nice highlight reel. (Being a Manchester United fan I get plenty of highlights as well with Renaldo and Rooney ) Aslo I think Most Americans Do not understand football enough to appreciate it. This is mostly due to the sorry state of child leagues in the U.S. Far too many 'coaches' in child leagues have never really played seriously themselves and have little to no grasp of the games stratagies. Lastly you have to caqll international football the king of sports simply becasue it is the most profitable sport. The English Premiereship makes more money than the NFL. I do not know the numbers but I am fairly certain that the Glazers whio own both the NFL's TampaBay Buccaneers and Manchester United make more money from the United.

Not too hard really. How I would do it actually would be to have all the questions in simple text delimited file. Bear in mind I have no idea if this was allowed for the problem indicated by the OP but it is inconsequential. I would not use a commas for separators as they may be needed to make the questions grammatically correct. The separate file would make modifying adding or subtracting questions far easier in the future as well. Next use ADO to connect to the text file. In ADO you can write an SQL query that selects a certain amount of rows at random. This example Comes from a HeroScape random army creator that I programmed in Access. The query will randomly select 10 unique records. SELECT TOP 10 *FROM tbl_listORDER BY RND(ID); This exact query may not work through the ADO connection and the MS text driver but, I feel fairly certain that the correct syntax shouldn't be too hard to work out. That is just how I would it with out putting too much thought (or code) into it.

Try to come up with a perpetual machine. Of course there is no such thing but, taking a look at doing so reveals several fun science facts. Even something as simple as a spinning wheel is a study in friction as the wheel stop, of course. This also demonstrates the law of conservation of energy. *Disclaimer: I do not recommend Wikipedia as a reliable source for completely accurate information, ever.

This is so simple I almost have to wonder if it's not a home work question of some sort. Simply put all the questions (enumerated) into a data store of some sort be it a database an xml file or even a text file. Connect to the data and use VB to randomly select a question then repeat nine times.

This theory is also 100% false. It has been proven time and again that lower taxes increase government revenue.

If you are using professional level software this is simple. By using Photoshop's color select you should be able to remove the background with ease. You could, dependent on budget, consider hiring a professional to accomplish the task for you.

Having grown up before the internet there would really be no issue as far as I am concerned. I sometimes go days with out touching my computer or the television anyway. Wasn;t there a South Park episode about there internet going away.

I would start by giving 10%, yes a million, to the church in the form of half a million to the Salvation Army and then to other organizations including my home church.After that I would travel to Germany. Certainly there are the things everyone else would do such as buying a nice car (Something 4WD and an Mach 1 Mustang precisely) and a new computer (Mac). Also, taking of care of family would be a priority.Beyond that there are other, odder things I would set out to accomplish that are probably not on the usual list. One of those would be to make a movie. I would also spend a good amount of time learning those things I want to learn. I would learn a variety of martial arts from where I could with the resources. As well I would endeavor to attend a traditional art school some where or seek tutors where ever. When in others countries I would do my best to learn languages as well.

Yes once we discover the babel fish the world will be a better place.

I do not think English is going to go away anytime even remotely soon. The main reason for that being that English is a very inclusive language and very dynamic. If you read some thing modern then go and read some thing written about 100 years ago and you will see a difference in the language. A hundred years is not a very long time in terms of linguistic evolution. Consider English like that used in the plays of Shakespeare is incomprehensible to some people, yet his English is considered to be early Modern English. Middle English is nearly another language altogether while Old English is utterly incomprehensible with out the study of it. English is very inclusive as well. English has words with both Latin and Germanic etymology. New words are being added regularly as well. Consider how many words from Asian languages have made it into the English lexicon via martial arts. We have words like dojo and kata that are new to the language. (I have no idea why they are not in Firefox's dictionary though) New words are being added in English as well from the ever expanding technology field, but old ones from other languages keep coming in as well. With the versatility of English I really do not see it going anywhere in the next century or more. In my study of German I do not see such a large shift in the language as I do in English. Of course English Dialects are not nearly as diverse as some other languages. Take Hoch Deutsch and Schweiz Deutsch for example. There may well be more Spanish speakers in the world than English speakers but consider how many of those speakers live in poverty stricken countries and have little to no access to the world beyond where they live, same for the Chinese language. By and large the English speakers of the world have greater influence world wide than Chinese speakers. China has a growing economy but that economy is not spread among it's residents like the U.S. economy is. I would bet that there are more Americans engaging in international business than there are Chinese. Thus English still dominates. Of course if you watch Firefly you know that only English and Chinese will exist in the future.

That does not surprise me too much they tend to change what evr they declare to be the latest and greatest on a fairly regular basis. One of the reasons I think so many companies keep running MS Access as a front end for important data is that it is well seasoned. With the exception of the change to ADO from DAO (DAO is still supported last I checked) it has remained largely unchanged. Sure features have changed and the UI recently and the like but the underlaying product remains stable. That and you write T-SQL or PLSQL queries directly in it. I do not think that any technology that is useful solely for MS SQL Server is going to really take off. Try as they might MS has to know that Oracle still rules the high end database market.

Thanks, now I'm hungry. Really though this does sound very tasty I may have to give this recipe a try.

There are, of course, several ways of accomplishing your goal. Clipping paths work well or you can also use the quick mask mode. The biggest issue is going to be getting a good selection and having the clipped the clipped image look good (a harsh clipping looks Bad). You will need to start your background removal by having good contrast between the object in question and the background being removed. Your image may not come with this luxury but, that is fixable. I suggest first creating a copy of the image to a new layer and then leaving that layer alone for now. To get the best contrast between your object and back ground you may find that a particular channel of the image has better contrast than the composited image. Since a copy of the image has been saved to a new layer you can make any adjustments you need to the image to achieve the best contrast for selecting. Avoiding anything "auto" I suggest looking to your curves tool to make adjustments and remember that adjusting a single channel may yield more effective results than all channels. Also look to other modes for contrast. I have a picture of a martial arts instructor and his wife wearing black gis standing in front of shelves lined with black belts. I needed to separate them from the background for an image I needed to use on their web page. In RGB there was not a channel, or all, that provided the contrast I needed but, I found that in the LAB color model I was easily able to find a channel that made them pop out. So use all your tools.The next step is to make your selection as needed using any of the aforementioned methods. One you have a selection that works well for you save the selection, move to the layer with the image to actually be edited and fire away. You may actually wish to have more than one layer of the image in case you get too far along and goof up. But, with the selection saved and vast amount of undos in Photoshop that should not be a problem. My final suggestion is to use the unsharp mask filter over the image. This done well, play with the settings until you are happy with them, should give all the edges of your inamge including the outer ones a consistency not typically accomplished by hand. That is how I worked when I worked as a graphics designer. Of course the best idea is to have some kind of idea how you are going to manipulate an image when taking the photograph in the first place. (Raraely an option but so cool when it is) Also, the the better the resolution the better the image is for manipulating. Hope that helps. * Assumes using Photoshop.

Sounds interesting to me. I may have to link into this and see what it is all about. I have to wonder if it is as functional as ADO.Knowing Microsoft I am going to bet that it only works with MS SQL Server. For me that would really limit it's usefulness. Additionally I have to wonder how complex of a query can be executed by this means.

Part of the marketing at Microsoft is geared at convincing companies that Office is the only real option they have. Even in the latest version of Office the file format is alleged to be more open though it isn't as compatible as it should be. The Microsoft business model is to basically maintain their monopoly. Office will run smoother on Windows because the office program has hooks into the OS. Other companies to not have the ability to do this as the code is completely unavailable to them. Thusly any MS product will run better under windows than a non MS product because Ms alone has the information to make a program run best on the OS. ne of the reasons the latest version of Office switched to the new UI (less intuitive and more annoying) was that the oe in previous versions is too familiar to users. So they patend or copyright or what ever the new layout and every keeps uding Office until a normal UI lay out seems to be the awkward one to make any competing product unfamilair or uncomfortable to users. (read less desirable)

If using a sub domain can one change whatever sub is currently being used? ie I am currently ciab.astahost.com but I would like to be something else. Do need to register under the Xisto system as the same URL then see about changing the subdomain or can I just rewgister as a different one and the ciab will go away ?

Haven't found anything yet that will not run well on a Mac Book Pro. So no worries there. There is really no need for an external what ever to increase the graphics performance on a laptop computer. When doing something intense enough that it requires more than the laptop use a desktop. Overall laptop users are not fretting about high end gaming. If they do then there laptop models designed to be desktop replacements.

I currently use AVG free and start up monitor that covers everything I need. I use Firefox for everything but keep IE handy for checking the appearance of pages I create. Most "optimizers" I have found over the years are completely useless. I am of the opinion that registry cleaners and the like are basically a scam. Of course I am also of the opinion that the entire registry is a heaping pile of poo but, that is another topic altogether. I have found that knowledge is the best way to keep the OS running well. You can run an installation monitor on your PC and keep track of everything an install touches or changes even things not set to be unchanged by uninstall programs. If you really want to have fun you can always create your own install packages for Apps you want. Something else I have found I have zero use for. For someone who went to art school I am a very much of a function first mindset. I do not even bother using a desktop wallpaper. I do freelance programming proffesionally and am oft times called to do applications for MS Access so I keep Office handy. Photoshop CS3 for graphics because there is no comparison. For media I use Media player classic and a really old version of Winamp for music. I use these because they do exactly what I want and nothing else. On trouble shooting I have found the old versions of SysInternals software (pre Microsoft buy out) to be completely indispensable. They would catch everything going on in windows including, for example, the things that Windows keeps hidden from the task manager.

The Information schema is indeed a database. However, it is not one that counts as such as for as hosting is concerned. It is a system database used by MySQL Server. Everything you will need to know about it is in chapter 19 of the MySQL documentation.

No one here, that I am aware of, is striving to be a punctuation nazi. That said the idea that punctuation does not matter is simply ludicrous. For example I recently read something that described a weapon as having a "sharp curved blade" this would not be the same as a "sharp, curved blade" so was the blade sharp with a curve to it or did the blade curve sharply? It is hard to tell the authors intention with the comma. The sentence was a pain given that it was, intentionally, a complete run on as well. The biggest thing, however, is simple syntax. There have been many post I have read, or tried to read, that contained no punctuation or paragraph breaks. the worst is simply lazy typing. When someone uses "ur" or "u" or the like for real words that person can not expect to be taken seriously. Noy being a native speaker of a language is not an excuse for not typing out words. Interestingly, those who are not native speakers of a language tend to use more formal grammar.

Bear in mind that enabling or disabling a service will change the order in which it boots. I am unaware of any tool that allows for the re-arranging of service load order. I feel it is safe to say that the developers at Microsoft have a good reason for loading them in the order they do. If it is any consolation, I am fairly certain that System32 loads before explorer.exe already.

I have a confession to make, sometimes I program just for the fun of it. Sure it sounds like an odd hobby, but it does have it's uses. My friend and I play a game called HeroScape. If you are not familiar with it is great and I am not even into war games that much. When playing you have a variety of characters to choose from each worth a set amount of points. You determine how many points teams will be worth and then take turns drafting characters into your army for the battle. Some times choosing a team in the game can be rather time consuming and when you play one on one most times we found we tended to choose many of the same characters, or close to it, each time unless we made a conscious effort not to. Last night we were playing around with using teams chosen at random. Fast Forward to today and I decide that, being a programmer, making a program to choose our teams for us would be reasonable. Thus I fired up MS Access and threw together a program to randomly select our teams for us based on how many points we wanted the teams to be. It took me about an hour or so to finish. The program is ugly, it is basic, and I did not even bother with record sets or the like. It does not even follow some of the basic naming conventions I typically use resulting in controls with descriptive names like "command3" and "texbox12". Eve the methodology behind the application would be a bad idea in a production environment. Despite the flaws that I am fully aware of, and would never do with a client's application, it was fun to put together. Perhaps I am odd but, putting the thing together was some of the most fun I can have at a PC. Along the way I got to pick up a neat trick to select random rows that I have never really had the need for before. So do you program for the the training/practice and money or sometimes for the sheer logical exercise? PS: Access remain, in my humble opinion, MS's best product. It is a wonderful tool for rapid application development. PSS: I would not consider myself quite as odd had I not spent the previous day wandering through a forest with a sketch book and water colors.

Yet another piece of advice; I run a small application in the background called StartupMonitor. It uses around 150k and lets you know when anything tries to add a registry entry allowing something to start automatically. I find it to be very useful.

Thanks for that. I did not look over at Xisto and I certainly did not want to lose my sub. Perhaps that would be a good question for the FAQ, or perhaps I was just being dense.

Just wanted to congratulate the team on this change. I think it looks great thus far. I do have a couple small questions. When setting up the logic plan I see that it asking for a domain. Will there be a problem if I enter my current Domain here? (ciab.astahost.com) Being a sub-domain it does not have the "www" prefix. Thus, to set up the logic plan there does not seem to be an option to continue with the Xisto sub-domain that I currently use. I am fairly certqin I am missing something or perhaps the control is missing something. I am also assuming that the system is aware of me as I have registered and show a positive balance. The other question: Does posting at Xisto (where I do not currently have a hosting account) earn myCents to the same Xisto billing account? Thanks for your time.