geekybroad: Remember to get your Network+, Security+, and A+ certs before January (they are not lifetime certs after this year, they will have to be renewed every three years).

It sounds like it's retroactive actuallyLink (new window)...I may just not get the cert at all. A+ is increasingly less and less related to what I look to do anyway.

Oh, I guess they backed down on that, thought it was pretty stupid. I'm still much less convinced of it's worth.

The problem with certs is you don't get them for relevance to what you're doing. You get them because some HR person or manager who is clueless about tech will want to hire you, and the language they speak is buzzwords. Buzzwords for tech are A+, CCNA, CCNP, MCSE, etc.

Sad, I know, but the decision to take certs usually isn't for yourself.

I saw a job ad by Auto Trader this winter that was sent to me because of the keyword CCNA. The funny thing is if you read the job requirements, you soon realize they wanted a graphic artist who could also do some web work (Flash, etc.). Aparently, HR had figured they need a "computer person". Hey, CCNA! That's computers, right?

Saw the same job posting a couple months later. And a couple months after that. I wonder why they were having a hard time finding someone?

geekybroad: The problem with certs is you don't get them for relevance to what you're doing. You get them because some HR person or manager who is clueless about tech will want to hire you...

While what you say is definitely true - do you REALLY want to work for a company that is so stupid they let some minimum wage HR drone decide if you should even be interviewed based on whatever the current buzzwords are and if they appear in your cover letter/resume/CV?

Benny_Hill: geekybroad: The problem with certs is you don't get them for relevance to what you're doing. You get them because some HR person or manager who is clueless about tech will want to hire you...

While what you say is definitely true - do you REALLY want to work for a company that is so stupid they let some minimum wage HR drone decide if you should even be interviewed based on whatever the current buzzwords are and if they appear in your cover letter/resume/CV?

It's probably the people who need the position filled, i.e. the ones you'll be working for, telling the HR drone what keywords to use... so, yeah. You'd be screwed, but probably not by HR's fault.

Good news for me is I work with software, electrical and mechanical engineers (even we software guys have EE or EET backgrounds) and we tell HR what the ad should say and we select and interview the candidates.

geekybroad: I'll be taking my A+ in the next month. My buddies who just took it say there was some weird/outdated stuff on the actual exam.

One of my buddies strongly recommended the Sybex books.

Last time I looked at the CompTIA web site, they had a few practice questions on there.

Remember to get your Network+, Security+, and A+ certs before January (they are not lifetime certs after this year, they will have to be renewed every three years).

I was just about to say this, and makes me realize I need to hop on the cert train and get something beyond A+

/supposed to be headed down the HP path, but is now stuck in perpetual IT whoring
//nice people at work but completely disorganized
///dispatcher is also leaving in ~3 weeks, we are so screwed
////slashie rant off

There's GOT to be some way to set the default view type for all folders in win 7, right? I want everything in the "tiles" layout, since the "list" layout is frustrating to use with multitouch.

/And what you guys are talking about is why I would rather do research. I'm in informatics not business IT anyway, I'm not sure why I was considering it

Sucks that the Network+ cert is gonna stop being a lifetime cert next year. I'm gonna have to take it soon. Hopefully I can get my college to pay for it like they paid for the A+ exam, but it's not looking like that's gonna happen so far.

Barakku: Any folder. Organize -> Folder and search options -> View -> button at the top that says Apply to Folders. Do that after you've set the view. The only problem is it'll only do it for "all folders of that type." You'll have to repeat the process for the different types of folders, like picture and music folders and such.

Okay farkers, I have a C++ programming question. I'm new to this stuff and so far I've been able to figure everything out with minimal difficulty, but this has me totally freaking stumped. Here's the problem:

Write a function, reverseDigit, that takes an integer as a parameter and returns the number with its digits reversed. For example, the value of reverseDigit(12345) is 54321; the value of reverseDigit(5600) is 65; the value of reverseDigit(7008) is 8007; and the value of reverseDigit(-532) is -235.

I don't know where to begin. People online with similar problems have used logarithms to count how many digits there were (wtf?) and arrays to rearrange everything. Difficulty is, I know what arrays are but I haven't learned how to use them yet so that can't be what the teacher is expecting. Someone said "treat the input as a string and just reverse it." Not only do I have no idea how to reverse a string, if I DID treat a negative number as a string (like -532 in the problem) and reverse it, I get the feeling it'd come out as 235-, which is not quite right.

So any ideas anyone? I'm pulling my hair out trying to figure this problem out.

Punarbhava
So any ideas anyone? I'm pulling my hair out trying to figure this problem out.
If you want a "pure math" solution:
Do you know the modulo operation (remainder of an integer divisison)?
The operator should be '%', e.g. 12 % 10 = 2.

Basic idea with that

12345 % 10 = 5
(12345-5) % 100 = 40
(12345-5-40) % 1000 = 300
(12345-5-40-300) % 10000 = 2000
(12345-5-40-300-2000) % 100000 = 10000

=> If you divide those results by 10, 100, 1000, .. and so on, you get the digits:

(12345 % 10) / 1 = 5
((12345-5) % 100) / 10 = 4
((12345-5-40) % 1000) / 100 = 3
((12345-5-40-300) % 10000) / 1000 = 2
((12345-5-40-300-2000) % 100000 ) / 10000= 1

To get the reversed number, you have to multiply the digits with the numbers you divided in reverse, i.e.:

5*10000 + 4*1000 * + 3*100 + 2*10 + 1*1


To get that all into one program, you might first have to count the number of digits and, if you don't have a power function, might want to calculate (and keep) the biggest power of ten you need for the division/multiplication above.

A Java program (shouldn't be difficult to translate into C++) solving everything would look like the one below.
Oh, and one thing that might make sense once you have looked at the program:

((12345-5-40) % 1000) / 100 = 3
equals
(((12345-5-40) % 1000)*10) / 1000 = 3
which equals in variables from the program below
((tmpNumber % power2)*10) / power2 = digit


public class Homework {

public static void main (String [] args) throws Exception {
__int input = Integer.parseInt (args[0]);
__int output = reverseDigits (input);
__System.out.println(output);
}



public static int reverseDigits (int input) {
__boolean negativeInput = input
____if (negativeInput) { // fark those negative numbers
______input = 0 - input;
__}

__int reversedNumber=input;;

__if (input >= 10) { // for single digits we're about done

____// count digits:
____int digitCounter=0;
____int power = 1;
____while (input>=power) {
______power=power*10;
______digitCounter++;
____}

____reversedNumber = 0;
____int tmpNumber = input; // tmpNumber will be the (12345-5-40-300-...)
____int power2 = 10;
____power = power/10; // the digit calculation went one power further than we need now
____for (int i=0;i<digitCounter;i++) {
______int remainder = tmpNumber%power2;
______int digit = (10*remainder)/power2; // the same as remainder/(power2/10)
______reversedNumber = reversedNumber + digit*power;
______tmpNumber = tmpNumber-remainder;
______power = power/10;
______power2 = power2*10;
____}
__}

__if (negativeInput) { // unfark those negative numbers
____reversedNumber = 0 - reversedNumber;
__}
__return reversedNumber;
}

}


Of, fark the farking Fark filter that doesn't respect the code tag (really, allowing the "code"-tag is rather useless when you proceed to strip all the whitespace and allow (interpret) HTML- or bbCode-tags within)

"__boolean negativeInput = input"

was obviously meant to be:

"__boolean negativeInput = input <0;"

I hope that was the only < I didn't catch.

Sim Tree
The code tag is just there to interpret BBcode,

No, it isn't; <code> is for program code which is why it gets displayed in a different font.
And Fark changes BBcode to HTML tags with or without <code>.

That Fark interprets BBcode within a code-tag is something I actually Farkbacked about a week or so ago because I think it's kind of a bug (maybe I should have Farkbacked it as a "bug" instead of "feature suggestion").
At least it was farking annoying until I had figured out what was screwing up the program code I tried to post back then (until then I didn't even know about Fark interpreting BBcode at all):
Fark's stupid filter thingee had been changing all array accesses ("array[index]=foo;") in a for-loop to italics because I used the loop counter "i" as the array index which let to the filter complaining about "too many nested italics tags".
Since I actually did have some italics tags in my post, figuring that one out was fun. :-/

And then I didn't happen to know the character code for '[' so I couldn't replace/escape all occurrences of '['s as easy as the ones of AND replacing '[' didn't work anyway IIRC, i.e. once I had looked up the code for '[', Fark changed the code back to '[' (during preview?) and thus back to italics during posting.
I think Fark used to have the same issue with <; I remember it took some time until that finally worked with preview of posts and all.

I think it would be a nice feature/bugfix if Fark
a) didn't interpret BBcode within a code-tag and
b) were to allow up to maybe 10-20 leading whitespaces per line within a code tag to allow proper indentation.

I hope Mike is listening. And bored. And agrees. :-P

Oh, FFS!

The Voice of Doom
..occurrences of '['s as easy as the ones of AND replacing..

..occurrences of '['s as easy as the ones of <.
AND replacing..

I changed the loop index from i to j since there's no [j]-tag...

Benny_Hill:
While what you say is definitely true - do you REALLY want to work for a company that is so stupid they let some minimum wage HR drone decide if you should even be interviewed based on whatever the current buzzwords are and if they appear in your cover letter/resume/CV?

Not really. But for a first major job in the field, yes. Gotta keep all doors open.

Punarbhava: Barakku: Any folder. Organize -> Folder and search options -> View -> button at the top that says Apply to Folders. Do that after you've set the view. The only problem is it'll only do it for "all folders of that type." You'll have to repeat the process for the different types of folders, like picture and music folders and such.


Thanks! I knew there was some sort of "set all folders like this" option somewhere. Sorry I don't know anything about sorting numbers that way, sort of an odd application.

Linux BSOD

I use OpenDNS now. Works pretty well.

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

I guess Google already knows what sites we go to, anyway.

You can, but you need to have an upstream DNS provider so it doesn't solve the issue.

If I ever have DNS problems here (amazingly rare) or want to test something out I usually use 4.2.2.1 and/or 4.2.2.2, which I think are Verizon ones.

libranoelrose: OK.

I've managed to get all my computer parts black.

I put flame decals on my processor so it would go faster. Unfortunately they melted.

libranoelrose: OK.

I've managed to get all my computer parts black.

Case/black

Monitors(both)/black

Keyboard/mouse/black

Touch pad(black)

(Unfortunately some of my inside wiring is white, red, green)...

What am I doing wrong?

You need a power supply with sleeved cables.

I'd sleeve that cable...
/wait

Hand Banana: I'm not sure if it's been posted yet but Popcap is giving away Bejeweled 2 for free, today only. Link

Just thought I'd share for the 2 people who don't have it yet.

Whoa, cool. How much do I get paid for being the one of those last two that gives up and downloads it!@?

Is the geek tab busted for anyone else? I'm just getting the main page again.

Yeah, seemed it like it was fixed within 20-30 minutes of posting. Thanks!

Hey Mike, are IDBlog and IDParty new or have I only just noticed them?

Doesn't surprise me. Only noticed this week after Drew posted his blog and the headline processing on farky failed on that line. Kept meaning to go look why some party pages weren't coloring comments too, so did them both at the same time.

I'm thinking of picking up an unlocked Android phone (and not putting it on a carrier), anyone know of any pitfalls? Will I still be able to update Android (the one I'm looking at doesn't have 2.2 for some reason) and access the app store? I was also thinking if nothing else there's got to be plans where you can get 3g/ect, but for now I'm totally fine just using wi-fi for everything, and gmail for texts and google voice or skype for voip. Is everything going to work like I expect it? Do smart phones connect to wifi as fast as a computer (eg 1s) or will I have to log in each time?

I farking hate phone carriers, and I found doing this I could pay for even the most expensive adroid phones just by not having my phone contract for 10 months or less.

link (new window)

Barakku: I'm thinking of picking up an unlocked Android phone (and not putting it on a carrier), anyone know of any pitfalls? Will I still be able to update Android (the one I'm looking at doesn't have 2.2 for some reason) and access the app store? I was also thinking if nothing else there's got to be plans where you can get 3g/ect, but for now I'm totally fine just using wi-fi for everything, and gmail for texts and google voice or skype for voip. Is everything going to work like I expect it? Do smart phones connect to wifi as fast as a computer (eg 1s) or will I have to log in each time?

I farking hate phone carriers, and I found doing this I could pay for even the most expensive adroid phones just by not having my phone contract for 10 months or less.

link (new window)


While not in the same exact vein, I picked up one of those chinese slate PC's running android (2.1) (ie: ipad knockoff) and I haven't had any issues connecting to wifi with it. Picks up my home wifi pretty quickly (router's running DD-WRT microkernel). Haven't had a chance to test it much elsewhere with different wifi setups though.

Hell, it took an Exchange email setup (over http) without missing a beat. I was in shock.

/If only all things like this worked this well.
//I'd be out of a job
///IT guy

Webcam software- I'm having some difficulty getting the webcam to display. If I enter windows live messenger and set up a video call I can use it, but I'd rather have something more streamlined. There are some trialware programs on CNet and the like, but naturally I would like something free that doesn't come from a warez site.

I went to Creative (I have a LiveCam V050 or some stupid thing) and downloaded the Live!Cam Center but from what I can tell, all that does is allow me to adjust settings, but there isn't any kind of preview pane at all to allow me to see the settings as I adjust them. Am I missing something there?