Nata's Corner

I used to try to remind everyone to make sure your antivirus was up-to-date. Now, I guess I should start reminding you to check your Facebook privacy settings.

A few months back, we went to visit the grandkids, and my other half took along his iPad. After our son "borrowed" it for about two weeks, we took it back home with us, and when we went to visit them again a couple of weeks ago, the first thing his daughter asked us was "did you bring the iPad?". Now, she's a little bit too old for the newest tablet out there, but given the nature of Apple's target market, doesn't it make some sense for them to come up with something for the children of techy types instead of hiding a PC in iMac clothing?

I mentioned a few issues back that I got a Droid (from Mooglerola), and I have to admit that I like texting (I still have a bunch of things to look at and figure out though), but it bothers me a little that I can make all the phone calls I want -- we actually reduced our minutes because we never have used half of what we were paying for -- but now it looks like our unlimited texting may become a thing of the past. I have to admit that we aren't like those kids that send dozens of texts a day, but still. When did "unlimited" stop meaning "no limit"?

Since the number of grandkids just increased by one-third a few months ago, I'm glad to see a new mobile application released by the FBI that helps track and find missing children. We see a lot of stories about estranged parents in our part of the world, and almost none of them end happily, so props to the FBI for this. And until we know more, it isn't a bad idea to keep them off Facebook, too.

And speaking of good news, after over ten years of being chased around in civil courts, the Spam King, Sanford Wallace, has finally been arrested and charged as a criminal. Pardon me for saying so, but it's about damn time.

Kudos

RegulaOne on asking questions: Most of the time, the kudos we post here are for Experts who have been cited by someone for their work in solving problems, but our leadoff member this week is an Asker, RegulaOne, who was nominated by one of the Moderators, JustAMod, who said the following: "He is a great asker to work with, always very polite, and most importantly, provides more than enough information for the Experts to help him."

byundt on Excel: We could almost post one of these every issue. Nanco_NRC posted a question about taking thousands of records in Excel and then performing a complex calculation on them and spitting out three new columns of data -- the kind of question that almost guarantees the ongoing debate about whether Excel or Access could do the job better. In stepped byundt, who not only provided a solution, with sample data, but went on to post a description of how he did it. Nanco_NRC's evaluation: "Brad, that's brilliant, a very eloquent solution. I suspected there was an array formula method for doing this but I am never completely certain what's going to happen when I use them. Thanks a stack. Points awarded. Top shelf solution."

younghv on malware: One of the problems in the various antivirus and malware topic areas is that it's a daunting task to keep up on everything. lordzack faced that problem with a program he couldn't find any information on, when naomelixes, rpggamergirl and younghv came to his aid. Ultimately, it was younghv's article on best practices that resolved the issue: "Thank you for a well set out plan of identifying and removing malware. I am the type of geek who likes a plan ahead of me and then follow through it. These are good tips and a structured way of approaching the problem! I knew I could count on the Experts!"

In Brief

Too much time on their hands: and now they're sticky with ice cream.

Nothing like lion about patents: Apple is being sued over OS X.

Throw the book at him: A rapper thought he was being cool. Unfortunately, you can't fix stupid.

More ads coming your way: There's now an alternative to AdSense if you want to make a few bucks off your new mobile application.

T-W pays off its protection enforcers: Wouldn't it be funny if LimeWire's check was written on a Nigerian bank account?

No offense intended... but Arkansas?: Anonymous says it has taken 10 gb of police information because a few people were arrested. Broadband is cheaper than bail. They also got pissy with BART, which sought to keep San Francisco from becoming London.

Now, if they were really interested in causing some tightened sphincter muscles... the Anonymous folks would go after China. How do you say Remember Tiananmen Square in 140 Chinese characters?

Will you folks make up your minds, please? First, Anonymous is going to take down Facebook. Then maybe it isn't. Then they're thinking about it. At least we know who Anonymous is: either the Winklevoss twins or Paul Ceglia.

Maybe they should do a search: Twitter is "ramping up its [non-existent] business model. It's working for GroupOn.

It comes on four Kingston DataTravelers and updates every 17 hours: Adobe debuted a new software app that builds sites without coding. jason1178 and MHenry will answer all your questions.

Not a moment too soon: Web 2.0 is circling the drain.

Signs of the Apocalypse: A North Korean "army" of game hackers and an American army of PR people.

Milestones

New Geniuses: A trio of Experts have earned their second Genius certificates: Kdo earned his second in C Programming; kaufmed earned his second in Visual Basic.NET; and Lowfatspread picked his up in SQL Server 2005. Congratulations on your accomplishments!

My First Million: Reaching the 1,000,000 point level during July were shivaspk and our old friend hes, who joined EE back in December 1998. Our most sincere props for your achievement!

Milestones:

• TheLearnedOne has earned 3,000,000 points in four different topic areas. Only one other member of Experts Exchange -- angelIII -- has accomplished that feat.
• matthewspatrick has earned 2,000,000 points each of three topic areas at Experts Exchange: Excel, Access, and most recently SQL Query Syntax.
• CodeCruiser reached the 7,000,000 point level.
• Merete has earned 6,000,000 points since joining EE.
• mkline71 has earned 4,000,000 points in the Active Directory topic area.