Kudos

ssmith94015 had what seems to be a pretty simple problem: formatting a duration of time jimpen's first post came three minutes after the question was asked, with a correction a couple of minutes later: Jim, I want to extend my sincere appreciation for your help. I have been out of work for a bit and have a chance for an SQL position doing a lot of querying against the servers, something I have not done for years as I have been mostly doing ACCESS development. Am trying to cram a lot of information in my head this weekend, so keep on the look out for more questions! I try to figure them out myself first, but rely on EE when I am stumped. Again, thank you.

It's not always the Asker who says "thanks". In lgojer123's question about postcard marketing, relative newcommer aadih posted a blind link and had it deleted, with an explanation, by padas, one of the Topic Advisors, who explained why: "aadih, not serious. Just more effort to create a better thread of answers. You can use links to help support what you are saying. Just avoid simply posting a blind link. Thank you for your contribution." aadih replied: [Understood.] Thank you for the opportunity to learn about the policy about blind links. A teacher needs no explanation for his teaching. Thank you, padas.

Collaboration is at the core of what the Experts do at EE; that was on display in dthansen's first foray into a REST API in .NET. AlexCode initially posted a link to another Q&A website that got deleted, and after reading why, posted a much more complete answer that was accepted as the answer. He wrote: Thanks for pulling it out of me padas! :) Cheers!

dtleahy freely admitted that he is a beginner in PHP in his question looking for a "modern tutorial". GaryC123 wasted no time in pointing to Ray_Paseur's highly ranked article on PHP 5.5 (to which dtleahy replied, "Ray Pasaur is brilliant, and has helped me out in the past on several other issues. He must need a wheelbarrow to carry his brain." But then the Master himself posted a link to his article titled And by the way, I am New to PHP:

IverErling was trying to come up with a spreadsheet that would look for a substring in a range of strings. Both fanpages and Faustulus came up with solutions and sample workbooks that accomplished the same task in different ways, and even gave IverErling an introduction to VBA programming: First, thank you very much for GREAT help! Both your solutions work great and illustrate in a good way that this can be done. Second, this was just a sample to illustrate my "problem". Therefore, Faustulus is correct in assuming that AA and AB meant "somewhere else". I never thought of making a program for it. I have actually programmed quite a lot in VB before, so looking into VBA is definitely an option, and I will study your code and use it as my introduction to VBA. Again, thanks a lot for thorough and quick replies!

Nata's Corner

I want one. Preferably where it's warm. But I don't want something I'm supposed to want if I can't figure out why.

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, which must be why Facebook is trying to become what ValleyWag calls "Google for people" by removing a key privacy setting. Within the next few weeks, Facebook is going to remove a search setting (to be fair, they announced it last year) that let you control who could look you up by name. I guess they haven't figured out that a lot of people don't really want to be connected to everyone else just yet. Along the same lines, Yahoo's changes to its email are being called an "alpha version of Gmail".

I mentioned a few weeks back that Facebook was going to start using people's pictures in ads -- if you "Like" a product or company, you could wind up becoming an unpaid endorser. Now, Google is going to do the same thing, but they're not going to bother with anything so crude as a Like button. They're mining reviews on YouTube, posts on Google Plus and probably even your Gmail -- you know, because they can. But unlike Facebook, there's a way to get out of the Google ads. I just love the dialogue box, though: "Are you sure? When you disable this setting, your friends will be less likely to benefit from your recommendations." Is is just me? Or does Google really think my "friends" are going to pay attention to some automated ad? I love even more the novel payback that some people have used.

The other half's family gets together every summer in Oakland, CA, to watch an A's game, but they may rethink that, now that the city is acting a lot like the NSA, installing cameras and sensors all over the city and building a surveillance center to get all the data into one place. It's too bad the city can't use the money to fix a few other problems.

Finally, one of the things I probably don't write enough about is the security of your home wireless network, probably because like most people who live in a rural area away from neighbors, I don't think about it. Sophos recently reported on a backdoor to D-Link routers, which is enough for me to be thankful we don't have one. Sophos also reported on some really nasty ransomware that actually does what it says it will do: destroy all your files. So make sure your antivirus software is up-to-date, and it might even be worth investing in an external hard drive so you can back up your system.

In Brief

First world problems: Instead of spending their 20 per cent time watching bears playing tetherball (thanks, Jason!), Google engineers built a tip calculator, and they're promising to keep supporting Windows XP for their Chrome browser into 2015. They might be better served by paying attention to their Play Store.

Firm grasp of the obvious: Why not just read the darn things? Now if someone can just convince the movie industry that increased sales means more money, not less -- which would happen if those same movie companies would just make the films available. And everyone wants his 15 minutes of [YouTube] fame.

All about the benjamins: Not that I have any of them anyway. It's not likely that Noah Glass will, though.

Appropriate for this particular ship: HP says it needs "all hands on deck". Speaking of ships, Apple's spaceship campus (and Forbidden Castle) was approved last week; not everyone is happy.

In requiem: Mercury 7 astronaut Scott Carpenter. Google TV, which is now merged with Android. Dell stock. Endeavor redux.

Ooops. Microsoft pulled an update to Windows RT 8.1 two days after its release after it started bricking devices. Redmond will try again, but didn't say when.

Maybe people just don't have much to say: Tweets are getting shorter. Other Twitter numbers have been getting smaller too.

It's amazing what a recession will do for your business: For one thing, you'll begin to actually look at which ad medium actually generates sales.

We're going short on A-Rod: Fantex will let you buy stock in a pro athlete's future earnings. In case you missed it, Arian Foster got hurt Sunday.

Mariano Rivera he's not: But Steve Ballmer is still doing his own farewell tour, just as Microsoft relaunches the Start button. It's the little things, Steve.

Now where did I put my keys? It's hard to forget a fingerprint.

Not So Adept: The NSA is having all kinds of problems: underpowered data centers, Yahoo encrypting contact lists and all that spam. The federal health care exchange needs some help too, along with any number of other federal agencies.

Signs of the Apocalypse: Pinterest is finally trying to earn some revenue. iPhone 5 users are reporting BSODs. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg likes his privacy (thanks, Bev!). Jerry Bruckheimer has already signed Willis, Affleck and Liv Tyler.

Milestones

New Geniuses: Two Experts Exchange members have earned their first Genius certificates. breadtan has picked up his in Miscellaneous Security, while MartinLiss, who joined in November 1999, has received his in Microsoft Excel. Congratulations!

Milestones:

• TheLearnedOne, who celebrated his 14th anniversary at Experts Exchange in August, has earned 17,000,000 points.
• hanccocka is the 15th member of EE to earn 14,000,000 points.
• mplungjan, a member of Experts Exchange since April 1998, has earned 11,000,000 points.
• boag2000 brings the number of Experts who have earned 10,000,000 points to 37.