Posts made by ItsAllGeekToMe
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RE: Mandatory Fun Day
Good or bad, I hope the irony doesn't escape everyone that you're supposed to just ignore the comic if you don't like it. However, it's much easier to ignore the comments to a post, yet that's what had to go.
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RE: Criticize my website
After messing with your site for a few minutes, I can honestly say I have absolutely no idea what your site does/is supposed to do. Help.
Also, styling your links to look like normal text is annoying.
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Job hunting
I'm currently looking for jobs and I've heard back from a hiring manager and have been asked to send examples of my web development work. Here's my dilemma: 99% of my web development is for internal use only. So I really don't have a stellar list of things to show off to the public. Should I just send a few pages of code from my internal web apps? Screen shots + code? Many of you perform hirings at your companies - so what is it that you guys expect/like to see?
I appreciate the help.
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RE: Meeeeeee toooooooo
@Vanders said:
Surely vandalising Wikipedia stopped being funny roughly five minutes after the first article was written?
So did saying "The Real WTF is..." but clearly that hasn't stopped anyone.
Admittedly, I knew posting a wikipedia page was lame, but eh - whatever - this is what happens when there's only 1 front page post for the day. I get bored. Consider this filler.
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RE: Google Referrals WTF
@TunnelRat said:
ple have been trying to explain to me in excruciating technical detail why I get ads for porn, as if I didn't understand Google. Thanks for the help folks, I was really confused about that.
If you understand it, how is it a WTF/why post it as such? I thought you only contributed compelling, interesting posts. If you knew the answer and we knew the answer, it's neither a WTF nor a compelling, interesting post.
FAIL.
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RE: Google Referrals WTF
@TunnelRat said:
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
Wow... Please tell me English is your second language?
...And that you are REALLY drunk.
Yes, English is my second language -- you can find out why here. Good catch on my typo! And no, I'm not drunk -- it's not even 8 AM yet.
And please tell me you're going to someday post a WTF (not just reply to one) that gets one, and I mean at least one, response. I mean Another three state boolean - MSDN was a howler, and Website of our 'trapper' friend , was, um, peculiar, but nobody cared. They got no responses. Zero, Nada.
So in the grand scheme of things, what's better for this site?
a. someone who posts WTFs that get a ton of replies and pages views, thereby driving up traffic and ad revenues, and that someone also links to this site from his blog, thereby driving more traffic to this site,
or
b. someone who posts boring WTFs that nobody cares about?
I'll let the readers decide. Now maybe you and my irony-challenged mother-in-law, who has created not one, but two online personalities to flame my WTFs, can get together and craft a WTF that people will actually read.
;-)
a. The reputation your blog holds on search engines is by no means a plus for TDWTF when you link here. Don't kid yourself - you contribute nothing to Alex's ad revenue or traffic. Quite the contrary - I'd pay to have your forum rights suspended.
b. Just because no one replies doesn't make it bad. For instance, people ONLY reply to you because you're ridiculous.
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Spam - not just for breakfast.
Before people slam me for not doing something obvious to them, I'll preface this story by saying I am in no way a network admin. I'm just the guy who knows the most about computers in a small company.
One morning I load up Thunderbird and start downloading my email. I see about 100 emails with the subject line "<font size="-1">YOU HAVE REACHED YOUR DAILY SMTP RELAY LIMIT". Oh. Shit. We've never reached our limit, or even come close before, this can't be right. I log into our server and bring up the list of emails queued to be sent. It's gigantic. Ohgod-ohgod-ohgod-ohgod. Someone hacked our server and is using it to spam. They've used up all of our relays and now none of our emails we send will go through! What the hell do I do?!
</font>
<font size="-1">I've been so careful to enforce strong passwords and to sanitize all webpage inputs. Ohgod-ohgod-I'm sweating, I'm gonna throw up. I'm going to have to format the server and spend countless hours getting everything back up while the entire company grinds to a halt. I'm so fired.</font>
<in walks one of the owners>
owner: Hey, so Bill sent out a few thousand (unsolicited, read: spammed) emails late last night, I think that'll help with some extra sales. He has the entire student directory for State University (40K+ people) and is emailing (read: spamming) all of them, too. Isn't that awesome?
me: ...........what.
My hyper-ventilating didn't stop immediately. I had to then explain how absolutely ridiculous, and illegal, that is. Then explain to them that everyone gets to use their personal email accounts or to make a hotmail account to send email from until the relays are back in order. This crowd probably won't be surprised that the conversation wasn't as simple as them just understanding and agreeing. The owner's solution was to increase our SMTP-relay limit.
In the end we all agreed to stop, and that I get to kick Bill in the face when I see him. But I'll never forget that terror - over nothing.
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RE: Legal/contracting question
Thanks for the help everyone.
I think I'll heed Alex's advise and just make them their software to their specifications and let them have the source, then worry about making a new version later that I can market to other companies. I do find it odd though, that the man I spoke with said he wanted the code to make the little changes down the road (claims he doesn't have the time to build the app from scratch), but he has no idea what I plan to develop his application in. For all he knows I'll be using Java, when in reality it'll be .NET - and I believe he thinks I'm doing it in VB. Oh well - guess I can expect a phone call "down the road" asking to make the changes he thought he could make in a VB app.
Anyways.....thanks for the advice everyone.
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Legal/contracting question
I am in talks with a company for my first contract job that I am trying to use as a launchpad into full time contracting / starting my own development business. They want the source code when I finish their application, and I want to market this software to future companies later on.
As far as I can tell, these two cases are mutually exclusive. Anyone else know for sure? Does some sort of agreement exist where I can let them have/edit the source code, but not let them distribute it to anyone - while I am able to maintain full ownership/rights to sell it to whomever I choose?
Any input is appreciated.
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RE: Poor Ed!
Tell me again how the sentence (if you allowed Word's edit) could ever mean that Ed downloaded malicious code? It seems that the new sentence would be "Instead, the bot download Ed other malicious code." - and that's just jibberish......./me scratches head
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PHP web app to Excel file
I can write to an excel file just fine - columns/rows, font sizes/colors, borders - that stuff is all easily done. What I am completely unable to figure out is how to set a column's width. Right now the column is just the width of the contents of the row with the widest(most) content. I would like it so that the column is always a set width, regardless if there is content or not.
If anyone can help me out I'd appreciate it. Given how easy the above things are, I'm guessing that this is trivial, too.
Thanks,
Shaun
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TDWTF WTF3,105,312
If I had 100 hands with eleventy fingers on each, I still couldn't count how many people post garbage like "The biggest WTF is the forum software!" over and over. While the irony may seem hysterical - it doesn't out-weight the annoyance of reading your pointless, un-constructive message.
I'd take those 100 hands with eleventy fingers and use them to slap each and every person that does this crap.
Yes, this post is also pointless and un-constructive. Oh the irony! Someone post about it!
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RE: PC/Mac Servers?
Thanks for the reply.
Basically, the bosses want a server where we can store our art files that both PC and Mac users need to get to throughout the day. It'd be used to both share with everyone in the company, and ultimately a place to archive old projects. PC users would be able to access the mapped network via Windows Explorer, and the artists would use their crazy Mac Navigator thingy.
The quick fix would be to just tell them to replace the Macs with PCs, but if it's doable with our current setup, then obviously money not spent on new computers would be a plus.
I have very limited knowledge when it comes to using a Mac. I can stumble through connecting all the PCs to a server, it's just the stumbling through the Mac setup that is daunting.
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PC/Mac Servers?
Hey all,
By no means am I a hardware or networking guy - so this may be a silly question, but I can't seem to find a quick answer or even any useful information anywhere else.
I'm supposed to find a server for our company. The only issue is that the team of graphic artists all use Macs while everyone else uses PCs. Is it possible to set up a network/server to integrate both types of machines? Is there special software that I'd have to get to allow this? Are there out-of-the-box solutions? How hard is this to do - or does it just automagically work with any server?
Any suggestions are helpful and appreciated.
Thanks.
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One of many signs you're in trouble
I've taken over a large web app/site. WTFs are Fin everywhere. I was scrolling through a file of about 12000 lines that consisted of one gigantic switch() statement. That's a WTF in itself. But seeing this in the code made me sigh....
<a bajillion lines of cases>
// WHAT HAPPENED HERE?!??! THIS USED TO WORK BUT NOW IT DOESN'T
<another bajillion lines of cases>
Happy Holidays all.
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RE: The end of Google
Funny/interesting ideas to try:
Attempt a Guided Search in the wee hours of the morning....say 1am - 4am. I doubt they have this thing staffed round the clock.
Attempt a Guided Search for porn. Stress you only want the best/most hardcore content.
Attempt a Guided Search for how to make a bomb.
Attempt a Guided Search for how to bury a dead body.
Attempt a Guided Search for "ChaCha.com Guided Searches". Repeat this step as many times as you feel fit.
Attempt a Guided Search for driving directions. Giggle when they link you to either Google Maps or Yahoo/Mapquest.
Attempt a Guided Search on a random STD of your choice. Mention you need links to sites that help "your friend" clear up the symptoms.
Could be funny to post the results to these as well.
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The end of Google
So I was digging and happened upon a story/link about ChaCha.com: the new search engine on the block. For those who didn't read the story or go to the site, basically there is a "feature" on the site that let's you search with a guide. When you do this, you type your query in, and an "expert internet searcher" does a web search for you and gives you a few hand-picked results they think are the best. This interaction takes place in a mini-chat room with just you and your guide.
I decided to give it a try and see how it works. Here's the chat log between my expert guide and I:(23 seconds goes by after I click "Search with Guide" until the following window shows up)
Status: Looking for a guide ...
(17 seconds)
Status: Connected to guide: chrisc
chrisc: Welcome to ChaCha!
You: thanks
chrisc: Hello
You: hi
(45 seconds)
You: .....
You: when do I get my search results
chrisc: I just sent one it did not show up for you under the search results?
You: no
chrisc: We must be having a problem with the system. Are you using firefox by any chance?
You: Using firefox
You: yes
(19 seconds)
chrisc: We must be having a problem with the people that are using firefox. I will transfer you just to make sure it is not on my end. I will send feedback asap about this problem. So sorry.
Transfer: You are being transfered to another guide who can help you search even better!
Looking for guide ...
(34 seconds)
Status: Guide not located.At this point I'm not satisfied with my non-results plus I don't believe there aren't more Guides just waiting to lend me a hand, so I try another guide search:
Status: Looking for a guide ...
(23 seconds)
Status: Connected to guide: JenniferH
JenniferH: Welcome to ChaCha!
You: thanks
JenniferH: hey there
JenniferH: :)
You: hi
JenniferH: just one moment
You: ok
(28 seconds)
You: did you find anything
JenniferH: just one momeent while i look
You: k
(40 seconds)
JenniferH: this ann arbor is in michigan correct
You: yes
(8 seconds)
JenniferH: Are these results sufficient?
You: I don't see anything
JenniferH: it shows they was sent through
You: I see "Guide Results" but there's nothing below that
JenniferH: exit this session and come back in ... it might be your internet explorer
You: I'm using Firefox
JenniferH: ohh thats way
You: firefox isn't supported?
JenniferH: just exit and come back in
JenniferH: i dont think firefox is ..
JenniferH: sorry
You: so what would exiting and coming back in do
JenniferH: so you can use ie when you com back...
You: but I use firefox
JenniferH: ok Im sorry I dont know what to say. thanks for searching chacha
JenniferH: :)
JenniferH: have a wonderful day
JenniferH: Please RATE ME. Thanks for using ChaCha.
Status: Session ended.Watch your back Google.
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RE: MANUAL_INCREMENT: a parable
And how did i get to such a strange value?
First run:
for i = 0 to 11000
we use it, bugs need fixing, he fixes them and catches up the DB to coincide with what our order ID is in house.
this time he makes a small edit:
for i = 11001 to 12500
That is 12,500 inserts. I don't know much about SQL, so I only assumed that a DELETE on N records counts as N number of queries (making it 25000 total). Either way, I know enough to realize there's an AUTO_INCREMENT value. -
MANUAL_INCREMENT: a parable
I've inherited a pretty big project (50k+ lines of code)......from an otherwise intelligent developer(I think), I noticed this gem:
for($i=11001; $i<12500; $i++){
$sql="INSERT INTO tbl_orders (total) VALUES ('50000000')";
mysql_query($sql) or die(mysql_error());
}Any guesses on what that's supposed to do? Knowing that tbl_orders has an auto_increment field "id" helps.
Using this web app, we can enter in our customer's orders. The problem, though, was that our current order ID (outside the system) at the time this function was used was 12500. That's right, this is the equivalent of:
ALTER TABLE tbl_orders AUTO_INCREMENT = 12500;
Take note that this function has been used more than once - it had to AT LEAST be used to "auto increment" up to 11000. And I know for a fact we had the developer start us off at a number less than 12500 just recently, then we added some orders, found bugs, he worked on the code while we were manually taking our orders (so the DB order ID was being left behind). Then once the developer was done fixing the bugs - he would run this function to catch the DB order id back up to where we said we were, so we could start putting orders in again.More things to note: The table has 63 fields but that's beside the point.
Let's not overlook the fact that the table does not have any "total" fields with "50000000" in them, which means the developer then went into the database and ran a local query to:
DELETE FROM tbl_orders WHERE total=50000000;
That makes a grand total of 12500 + 12500 = 25,000 queries instead of 1.
p.s. I was hired to maintain this monstrosity many months after this developer from a consulting company started work on it. You'll be hearing more from me.
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RE: Campaign Web Site
Anyone try to join the mailing list (upper right)?
Several things amiss:
1) You click in the textbox and the "enter email address" message doesn't clear - you're left to remove it. Not huge - but definitely annoying.
2) After typing your email address - there's no submit button. You have to hit enter. Again - not huge - just never seen it in practice.
3) After hitting enter is your email address processed by some server side language and inserted into a database table? Nope. Upon hitting enter - it fires up a mailto: routine.
Not only that - but it is kind enough to automatically type your email address(whatever you typed into the textbox) into the email contents. Definitely couldn't use the FROM: address to do that.
Nice.
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I think Borat is a spammer.
Got a piece of spam just now.....the usual of course. But the diction is great. With all that I've learned about the Kazahkstani people from Borat and his documentaries, I'm guessing one of his country's people wrote this:
Good Day to you!
Would you like to please your lovely partner completely?
Show your girl a huge explosion as I used to doRomantic, isn't it.....
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Linux admin help
I realize this isn't coding related, but.....
My company recently upgraded our hosting to a virtual dedicated server. I'm using the Plesk control panel, along with SSHing into the server. I used the Plesk control panel to add a new web user for each one of our clients so they can FTP files over to us. This works great as they can only ftp into their folder and they're none the wiser.
I can go in with my admin account via ftp and see everyone's folders along with every single file and folder that has to do with our server. This is fine for me as the admin.
I need an account that is for our graphic designers to use to ftp into to ONLY see the folder that contains the client's folders. So, the way it's currently set up, all of our client's folders reside in a folder called "web_users". I need to create a user that only has access to this "web_users" folder (and sub-folders), and can't go up any higher.
Any help with this would be fantastic, since I've been thrown into a position I'm definitely not prepared for, and I need this to work immediately.
Help! Thanks in advance.
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RE: Googling for WTFs
[quote user="MET"]OT: is your avatar Gob from 'Arrested Development' ?
[/quote]Yes it is.
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RE: Googling for WTFs
3rd time's a charm.
http://thedailywtf.com/forums/thread/96186.aspx
http://thedailywtf.com/forums/thread/94832.aspx
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Remote printing question
My company sells things on one of our websites and I was wondering if it is possible to have a sale automatically print to our warehouse printer. So, if someone in Florida makes a purchase, rather than us having to check our own webapp that shows us the day's transactions, can I set it up so that each transaction prints to a printer in my office?
If there is a coding solution, that'd be fantastic, but I'm assuming it will take additional hardware and money to do this.
Any help is appreciated.
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RE: I made a WTF
You definitely don't have any problems picking up on sarcasm. And you definitely have a great sense of humor. And your friends probably have the best time talking with you. And you have the perfect sense of humor and nothing gets by you at all. You sound like a lot of fun, just a rockin' good time had by all when you're around.
Get it? By reinforcing how cool it must be to be around you, it makes it more funny because it probably isn't true. Just like the original poster did.
Lighten up.
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RE: UPC Barcode software
Ok, maybe this is a little more clear......We need software that allows us to:
1) Create barcodes for our inventory.
2) Be able to scan these barcodes when inventory is received and/or shipped (instead of manually typing this information into a database)
3) Be able to do above scanning with wireless upc scanners.
4) Have the software update our inventory table in a MySQL database.
Thanks.
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RE: UPC Barcode software
Didn't mention that our database is a MySQL database. From what I can see, most software packages seem to support Excel, Access, text files, and ODBC databases. We need something that can plug into a MySQL db.
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UPC Barcode software
Anyone have any experience with UPC barcode software? I am the lone technology guy of a small business and we really want/need to look into barcoding everything. We're a screenprinting company and we have a huge need to be able to scan boxes in and enter amounts of shirts we receive, and how many we're shipping, etc. We have an internal database right now where we have to manually enter said amounts, but if there is a software package out there that we would be able to wirelessly carry a scanner around and scan items in/out and it would update our database, I would be a hero.
If anyone has an experience with this kind of software, or even has a clue as to what might be a good place to look for this kind of information, I would appreciate it.
Thanks!
-Shaun
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RE: Website Log-in* WTF
I've never seen so much punctuation in a page of text in my life.
And, uh...........I didn't understand any part of that. -
RE: Faster: session variables or sql tables ?
I'm not entirely sure you've answered my question........but you sure did type a lot. That's all that matters I guess.
Whether or not I implement any sort of change, I was simply curious as to WHAT, if any, performance issues come along with using session variables over sql tables, and vice-versa. -
Faster: session variables or sql tables ?
Anyone have any insight as to what might run faster on a webpage? I'm currently using MySQL tables to store shipping, billing, and order information. Depending on what stage of the transaction process you are in, there are any number of lookups or inserts/updates (typically no more than 2 per stage). I'm curious if just storing everything in a php object and storing it in a session variable would be faster/more efficient. This way, I figure, the queries are minimized (1 or 2 TOTAL), but does the php object add too much weight to the webpage for it to make a noticeable difference?
Anyways.....any thoughts would be great.
Thanks. -
Pandora
A buddy of mine turned me on to this site, www.pandora.com. If you like music you should check it out.
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RE: Care to explain your avatar?
@Stan Rogers said:
@ItsAllGeekToMe said:
@sinistral said:
Mine's really easy, and not nearly as creative as dhromed's. My user name is sinistral, which means 'from the left' or 'left handed.' Ever since I've discovered the word, I've liked it, because I myself am left handed. The avatar is simply a human left hand I found using Google Images and edited to make the message board software happy as to size and format.
Looks like a right hand to me. Why would you pick a left-hand-if-you-are-looking-OUT-of-the-computer icon? Silly.
Gee, when I look at the palm of my left hand, the thumb is on the left-hand side. Does yours work differently?Your sarcasm is biting.
Looks like the imprint of a right hand to me as you look into the screen. Which is of course the correct way to do it. Unless you always talk about rights and lefts as one would look out of a monitor. That must get confusing.
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RE: Care to explain your avatar?
@sinistral said:
Mine's really easy, and not nearly as creative as dhromed's. My user name is sinistral, which means 'from the left' or 'left handed.' Ever since I've discovered the word, I've liked it, because I myself am left handed. The avatar is simply a human left hand I found using Google Images and edited to make the message board software happy as to size and format.
Looks like a right hand to me. Why would you pick a left-hand-if-you-are-looking-OUT-of-the-computer icon? Silly.
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RE: C# and SQL problem
ok, after a bunch of reading it appears that you can't do this very easily. a friend said something about configuring the SQL Servers to link to eachother, but since the servers are hosted somewhere else it doesn't look like that's gonna happen.
if someone can give me a confirmation that interfacing between 2 tables on 2 separate dbs on 2 separate servers isn't practical (or possible?) then I'd appreciate it.
Thanks again for the help Alex.
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RE: C# and SQL problem
Thanks for the help Alex. Most of it makes sense, but I'm having a big problem with the cross-db part. One table is in a database on an entirely different server than the other table.
So how do I say "select name from table_1 located at 12.345.67.890 and select departments from table_2 located at 09.876.54.321" and then do operations on them??
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RE: C# and SQL problem
<FONT color=#ff0000>Dept. 1</FONT> <FONT color=#ff0000>Dept. 2</FONT> <FONT color=#ff0000>Dept. 3</FONT> <FONT color=#ff0000>Dept. 4</FONT> New Employees This Month 7 1 19 6 Total Employees 35 22 61 10 The red text is found in database_new. The employee names that will be COUNTed are in database_old. The problem is making this all one fluid table, like I could do in ASP with the spaghetti code html/asp thrown together and looping. With ASP.NET the solution doesn't follow as easily for me.
Thanks
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RE: C# and SQL problem
In case any of you were wondering - and I know all of you are, I haven't solved this yet. Don't be shy.
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C# and SQL problem
ok, I'm absolutely lost when it comes to .NET. I used to do everything in ASP and now I'm trying to make the painful switch over.
I'm making a site that has a table on it that essentially will show 2 "things". "New things" and "total things". New being a count of "things" since a given date. My problem is that there will be N columns where N is the unique name of individual departments that are located in a table in a different database from the COUNT I need to do on the "things" ( that make up the departments).
To summarize: the top row will have column names from table_old in database_old, and the row below it will have the COUNT of people in those departments that will take place on table_new in database_new. My problem arises when I have to do operations comparing values from each database. In ASP I know how to do this, in ASP.NET I haven't a clue.
The only way I know how to do this is to bind the department names to 1 datalist, then immediately place the datalist of the counts right below it - basically faking 1 datalist with 2. This can't be the way to do it(I hope) and some pointers would be greatly appreciated. BTW, it's C#.
Thanks
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RE: The biggest WTF is the WTF software!!!
While I can submit to the fact that I may have yet needed to do certain things that will always misbehave in a very constant manner, I still stand by my comment that everyone needs to stop giggling about the WTF software being a WTF. The whole ironic play-on-words is mind-numbing at this point.
I think I'll go google Google, then mail a letter to the post office, then drive to driver's education, then kill myself until I die from it.
p.s. bonus points to anyone who knows what movie "kill you until you die from it" comes from.
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RE: The biggest WTF is the WTF software!!!
@Mikademus said:
I've lurked here for over a year, and I've even posted once in a while. Now, posting of other boards is a straight-forward, painless procedure. Not so at TDWTF. It is so ironic that a board only dealing with the worst fuck-ups in software development has the most fucked up software of all time that it must be bloody intentional. So I thought we could band together and enumerate our peeves, grieviences and hates. I expect it to be quite some list...
I'll start:
* It can't evaluate quote blocks correctly! I press the quote button on a post, append my additions and click post, and what happens? "Something didn't quite match up", "Invalid quote blocks in post". WFT!
* Moving the cursor with the arrows is a random affair. You never know where it will go or what parts lines the cursor refuse to go through. WFT!
* The "Post"-button in fact STARTS A NEW THREAD. Unlike every other board software in existance. WTF!1. You joined 10 days ago.
2. Maybe you've lurked for a year and posted 1 or 2 times. Clearly that's enough times to draw a conclusion as to what the problem is: the software or you.
3. This has to be the most tired topic ever. Starting a thread just to hear the same shit everyone says everytime they fuck up USING the software is idiotic. Now if you type "cow" and what appears on the screen is "dog" then you have something. But so far the only thing that happens when I use the software is what's to be expected.
4. If you want to reply to a thread. Then click on REPLY. How do people struggle with this?!?!
5. I know how everyone loves how cute the irony is that this is a WTF forum and people think there's a WTF built in the site, but seriously, get over it.
6. Merry Christmas