Can someone be a good automated tester and be terrible programmer?

Question: I'm currently working as an automated tester. Mostly I do GUI testing in SilkTest, which I like and think I'm fairly good at. Recently, I've been assigned a COM-testing project for our application's API. This involves coding in C++ with some more low-level concepts (pointers, manual memory management, complex data types, etc) than I've done previously in this role. Now, I have done some C/C++ programming in the past, and I'm getting through the project, but it does make me question how good of coder I am since I'm still making elementary mistakes. Is this acceptable? Does this in any way take away from my skills using higher-level languages and tools like Silk or Perl?
Comment: I'm pleasantly surprised by the warm encouraging and _professional_ responses to this question. Perhaps I was being a bit too tough on myself, but I also thought this is an interesting question. +10 to the SQA community here!
Answer: I think you're selling yourself short, here - you've said that in a language and skillset with which you're familiar and current you do well, but you're struggling with a language and skillset you have worked with in the past but where you've become rather rusty.
That's normal. Seriously. Automation and programming are complementary skills but they're also domain-bound. If you're not practicing in a particular domain (like interfacing with COM objects using C++), you lose the instant grasp of a lot of the basics and need references or assistance to get that back. You'll also be slower.
If you're not maintaining your Silk and Perl skills, you'll find when you return to them that they won't be as fluent as they were before you started this project. Again, this is normal.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking that because you're good at one specific area and you understand the principles means you'll automatically be good at other specific areas. There's always a learning curve to any specific application of testing principles and automation (and coding) principles.
Right now, I do most of my automation coding using TestComplete and DelphiScript. I have worked with the C family, Java, VB and the script versions of all of these, but I wouldn't expect to be able to pick up and code any of them immediately because I haven't used them in quite a few years. I would expect to get better at working with them, but not instantly or even (necessarily) quickly, depending on the situation I was in and whatever else was placing demands on my time and energy.
In short, your skillset would appear to be more than merely acceptable, and the fact that you're producing results indicates that you're learning enough to keep things moving in your position.
It's great that you're wanting to improve more and more quickly, but don't forget you're just as human as everyone else here (I think. As far as I know there aren't any robot contributors here... Sorry. Strange sense of humor).
Comment: +1 on the maintaining of skills, I can't keep track of the amount of coding I used to be able to do, that's gone on languages I no longer use....
Answer: "Good automated tester" and "terrible programmer" are judgments made in the context of a myriad of circumstances such as the subject's previous experiences, the task at hand, the simultaneous background work, the company environment, the team dynamics, and tools.
One may be a good automated tester in one context and a terrible automated tester in another.  Similarly, one may be a terrible programmer in one context and a stellar programmer in another.
You cannot learn without making mistakes.  I suggest you throw away the self-defeating labels and allow yourself to go through the learning process.  Each of us learns at a different pace and in a different way.  Pay attention to what you do, be honest about your mistakes, and give yourself time.
Answer: Elementary mistakes? You are too hard on yourself. I applaud you for stretching your skillset. Don't give up.
Comment: +1 C++ isn't exactly a graceful language. It has claimed the sanity of countless programmers.  I even watch the experts make mistakes when they post C/C++ code on blogs. . .
Answer: You sound like an unusually good programmer for an automated tester, and this is undoubtedly why you were trusted with such a difficult testing task.  Most dedicated programmers who use higher-level languages mostly would also stumble badly at first if they suddenly had to work with unmanaged code, even if they'd used unmanaged code at some point in the past.
While you are learning these new skills, you can take steps to control the quality of your automation so it's easier to maintain later.  I would recommend finding a developer who is willing to mentor you and provide code reviews.  If this is difficult on your own, you may need to ask your manager to help you locate someone who can code review your work frequently (and it may take managerial influence to convince developers that this is a good use of their time, depending on your team dynamics).  It is very reasonable to let your manager know that you have mostly developed automation in high-level languages, and want your COM API testing code to be of equal quality, even though your skill set with C / C++ is rusty.  You can also point out how having a dedicated code reviewer will also help you re-learn these lower-level language skills more quickly.
If someone at work is implying that your mistakes mean you are incompetent, you need to push back and market your willingness to learn on the job and expand your skill set.  Keep a confident smile on your face, thank them for sharing their concerns, and help your management remember why they chose you for this task.  You, specifically, were asked to do this for a reason.
Answer: To answer the question posed in the subject: yes. I say that because I know first hand that it's true in reverse: I'm a pretty good programmer and simply cannot do testing (automatically or otherwise) on anything I write in an effective manner.
But the question in the body isn't actually the same as the one in the title. C++ is not the simplest language out there, and neither is COM interaction with it. Programmers who haven't done it in a while or have never done it will screw it up, no matter how good they are. If pointers and manual memory management were easy, we wouldn't have so many common mistakes using them still and we wouldn't have managed languages that try to take over control of that stuff. Much like anything else it gets easier with practice.
As for it affecting your use of higher level languages... not really. It certainly doesn't hurt, but indepth C++ knowledge isn't necessary to use Perl.
Answer: OK so you're working with some low level C/C++ concepts, yes they are tricky and you do have to hit the books and study your way to understanding.
On the complex data structures; if they are proprietary to the problem domain in which you are working then the quickest way to gain mastery of these is to pair with a colleague.
Write small unit tests as you progress to test your work and simultaneously learn your craft. Automate the running of those tests.
And finally, keep the faith and stick at it, your bit of self doubt is an indicator of your conscientiousness which no doubt your employer values; in pseudo code
<code>while (!(succeed=try()));
</code>
(pseudo code borrowed from website that sells t-shirts and tech toys to ruminating geek masses)
Answer: Well C and C++ are hard. Many Software Engineers who have not written any C or C++ code in a few years would make elementary mistakes so don't be too hard on yourself. Even the fact you are on Stack Exchange asking these questions means something.
Answer: I think when it comes to judging about someone if he's a good programmer or a good automated tester, the important thing is how mature the process to tackle a new problem is. The average programmer will have a solid understanding of a specific domain, lets say persisting objects with hibernate in java, after having to deal with it in several projects.
But i don't think that there are many people that do only one specific thing in their career. It's how one learns to learn new things quickly (and safely = not causing production errors). Furthermore, how much of a broad overview of the concepts that are included in the problem domain.
I've been programming in java for quite a while now which does not mean that I can write code that never throws a NullPointerException, i just learned to write tests for that.
Answer: Making elementary mistakes is always acceptable when you notice those mistake.  Silk (4Test) and Perl (I have this skillset too!) is more high level languages. This languages are much easy then C++. When you do mistake in Silk code – it is not so important and you always can fix it, because it is not a production code. When you programming in Perl – you do not need to think about some additional array boundary checking or exception handling and so on.
But, even when you are programming in Perl, you have to think in Perl and follow the best practices for that particular language.
The same think is about C++. When you are programming in C++ you should not think in Perl, but learn how to think in C++.
You cannot open file in C++ and die if this operation fails. And you should not use hashes everywhere, because you have to use classes in C++.
Thinking in C++ requires a lot more time. And this situation is complicated with COM that is not so easy too.
In my past project, the new developers  have to write tests in C++ and COM for our application API for about a year. And only about a year of doing such testing, the senior Developers allows them to write some small production code.


Replacing a Force Chainring with a Red

Question: Is it possible to replace a compact 50T chainring from my Sram Force set-up with a 50T Red chainring, they both have the same 110 PCD so I don't see a problem, does anyone know if I'm wrong?
Thanks
Answer: It is possible, as long as you use the SRAM Red Black Edition 2011 or earlier.
The new 2012 Exogram SRAM Red requires a different front derailleur design, and while it will physically bolt up, it won't shift well at all.
Any other SRAM compact (110 BCD) chain ring will work fine.
Answer: If the BCD is the same size and the tooth count is the same there should be no problem at all.
Take care to not strip the chainring bolts when reassembling. I generally tighten these in a "skip one" pattern, like you might when changing a wheel on a car.
If you change tooth count you will have to retune the drive train, but usually this is pretty straight forward as long as the front derailleur can be adjusted correctly.

Replacing a Force Chainring with a Red


How can I control an external php (with external database) page with WordPress?

Question: I need to control an external page designed and developed in php that takes values from an external database. What I actually need is to edit and change some hardcoded content of the page with wordpress. How can this be done?? Any sugestions?
Answer: I do not think you can use the existing post and page editing code for external content. I will suggest you try to develop a plug-in instead that will query the custom page content and display it for editing. You should be able to reuse the TinyMCE editor as it is already included.
I would also recommend that you consider using the Pod CMS plugin instead; it is a generic CMS plugin system integrated with WordPress administration backend, and is powerful enough for complex data manipulation and may meet your needs.
Answer: Assuming both are parts of same site you can load WP engine in that page and use WordPress functionality in it, see Integrating WordPress with Your Website.
But it would probably make more sense to convert that page into WP page template or something. Hard to say without knowing specifics.
Answer: I'm not sure I totally understand your question - I think you're asking how to include the content of a WordPress "page" on a page displaying mainly externally-stored content. The way I've handled this in the past has been to set up additional template files in your theme, one per necessary page type, that just include the $content from the WP database in the right place among the externally-stored content.
Comment: no the page is not in wordpress, the text of the php page has to be linked with wordpress so that the admin can change and edit the text( which would be stored in wordpress table) is it clear now??


In the studio, should I have a sub or not?

Question: One of my early teachers in music production indicated that having a subwoofer in the recording studio will skew the true nature of the sound.  We can all agree that without proper room treatment, even the best monitors won't be worth their weight, however, in a well balanced room with a nice pair of nearfield monitors, is a sub beneficial, or does it reduce the producer's ability to properly analyze the mix?
Answer: I think it all depends on what type of mixing your doing. In my opinion if its just pop music then its not really necessary (unless its hip hop). But if you're doing video games, film, trailers, or even television and people are listening to their subs at home then you might want to check out how much low end you are putting into the mix. You don't want to put too much and then it end up being too muffled.
So in some cases I think its necessary. I hope this helped.
JM
Answer: You should definitely HAVE one, but have the option to turn it off...unless you're only planning on designing ring tones.
I do not use a sub when editing dialog, but I do for just about everything else.  You're ulitmately mixing for full range systems, and you cannot competently mix and edit frequencies you cannot hear.
Answer: Treat yourself to a monitor controller with a sub on/off switch, a mono switch is also useful.  Have the sub running, but check your work periodically without it.


Distinguishing whether "up" is a preposition or a part of a phrasal verb in this case

Question: In the sentences below, "bill" and "hill" are both nouns.

He ran up a big hill.
He ran up a big bill.

Can someone explain how one distinguishes whether "up" is a preposition or a part of a phrasal verb?
Comment: Thank you, @Paola; but the distinction between 'up' as a particle and 'up' as a preposition is one worth making.
Comment: I sometimes am under the impression that you want to complicate your existence (is it really important to distinguish what *up* is in the sentences above?), still +1 for your continuous effort to improve yourself.
Answer: In a word, context.
The simplest way would be to initially assume it's not a phrasal verb, then ask yourself, "Does the sentence make sense?"

Consider: He ran up a big bill -  this wouldn't make much sense, not unless there was some huge bill stretched across a hilly landscape, big enough to take literal strides on.

Another trick might be to replace the main part of the verb with a synonym, and see if there is any change or loss of meaning.  (If there is a shift in meaning, there's a good chance you're dealing with a phrasal verb.)

He sprinted up a big hill. (Essentially, means the same as, "He ran up a big hill.")
He sprinted up a big bill. (Does not mean the same as, "He ran up a big bill.")

As your examples show, however, unless you're already familiar with the phrasal verb, there's no way to automatically detect it just from glancing at the sentence.
Answer: Thanks to James McCawley's Syntactic Phenomena of English, Here's a reasonably simple way of distinguishing verb+preposition (run up the hill) from phrasal verb (run up a big bill).
You don't need to know all the technical terms to "transform" OP's two examples into answers to the question "What did he run up"...

It was up the hill that he ran.
*It was up a big bill that he ran. (doesn't work, because this run up is a phrasal verb)

Obviously this technique is only bulletproof for native speakers. I doubt there's anything that simple for non-native speakers - by their very nature, phrasal verbs are "idiomatic" usages that you just have to learn.
Answer: This whole area - verb + (word at least looking like a preposition or adverb) - is very tricky, and plagued by conflicting terminologies. I believe the two key issues are:
(1) the degree of 'cohesion' between the verb-word and the preposition / adverb / particle.
(2) whether the verb-word retains the meaning it has without the addition of the particle / whatever.
With the sentence He ran up a big hill, ran (run) retains its usual, core meaning. J.R.'s second (synonym) test above illustrates this nicely. However, I would suggest that in 'he ran up a big hill' there is more cohesion between ran and up than in 'he ran up in the Simien Mountains before coming to the UK'. Last week he ran - up a big hill!  just about works, but Way before he came to the UK he ran - up in the Simien Mountains!  sounds fine.
On the other hand, with He ran up a big bill  ran (run) does not retain its usual core meaning. This expression does not refer to quickish physical human movement. In fact, 'run up' rather than 'run' now has single-word near-synonyms: amass, accumulate; incur (Collins): it is perhaps best described as a multi-word verb. There is strong cohesion between 'run' and 'up'; if we really need terms to describe the orthographic words, the one obviously not the base verb is usually referred to as a 'particle' or 'adverbial particle'. This cohesion is illustrated by the fact that we can't treat the phrase including the particle as a parenthesis: *He ran - up a big bill.
This "Can we insert a dash?" test is quite powerful. However, here we have a near-prototypical preposition in one example (He ran up a big hill), and verb-preposition cohesion is far weaker than preposition-prepositional complement cohesion. One could also test by switching to an alternative (but appropriate) preposition: He ran down a big hill. Contrast *He ran down a big bill.
But with some metaphorical usages, there seems to be intermediate verb-whatsit cohesion:
He's gone after the man who scratched his car.
?He's gone - after the man who scratched his car.


Path integrals, localisation

Question: Physicists use the "Atiyah-Bott formula" for path "integrals" (for instance the supersymmetric proof of the Atiyah-Singer index theorem. Is there some way to make atleast some of these ideas rigorous? As in is there a rigorous localisation formula for infinite dimensional integration? (i.e. using the Weiner measure when applicable?)
Answer: There is the work of Johan Martens on equivariant localization of nonabelian group actions on non-compact spaces ( http://arxiv.org/abs/math/0609841 ), but I think that the general problem as you posed it is still open, seeing that there is an AIM workshop partly on this question next week: http://www.aimath.org/ARCC/workshops/localization.html
edit: Charlie Frohman is right, I didn't read the AIM workshop page carefully enough.
As for the original question, I have only encountered localization techniques in physics when calculating instanton contributions to the path integral, which gives equivariant localization on finite dimensional spaces (although badly behaved in other ways). The supersymmetric "proof" of the Atiyah-Singer index theorem can be made quite rigorous (see the 1983 paper by Getzler for example), without any recourse to infinite dimensional spaces. Most of the articles I read from the physics literature skipped over the infinite dimensional case, with some reference to a nonrenormalization theorem.
To my latest knowledge (around middle of 2008) there is no general method for equivariant localization in infinite dimensional spaces. Also for most high-energy physics purposes, Wiener measures are not the right approach for doing Feynman path integrals.
Comment: I think GKM localization is most certainly a descendent of the Atiyah-Bott formula, but it is used in Algebreo-Geometric settings as opposed to Gauge theoretic setting. It is however, a well developed and rigorous technique.

Path integrals, localisation


Why can't I bring my knees up fast enough to block low kicks in Muay Thai?

Question: When I spar, I see/notice/become aware of the kick slightly after the foot has left the floor on a path towards my shin or my thigh. According to what I know (which is may be limited, so please correct me if I am wrong) these kind of kicks should be blocked by raising a knee so that the shin encounters the kicking leg and safe guards your thigh and calf muscles. But knee doesn't get up fast enough. Is it that I need more foresight and to anticipate the kick further ahead, should I train the muscles of knee lift to be more responsive, or should I be positioning my body in a way to give more freedom of movement to my knee in moving up and down (eg. have my back slightly bent backwards)?
Answer: Time it better through endless repetitions. Be lighter on your feet.
Also, you could instead step in and deliver a straight right to the face. I prefer that to checking.
Train it more. You're aware of it now, you'll improve now.
Answer: Based on the information provided, it sounds like you might benefit from placing more weight on the back leg. When I practice blocking with my lead leg, I find that it works much quicker if the weight distribution is more towards the back leg. It's hard to say without actually watching what you're doing, but it might be helpful to also bend the back leg somewhat. I wouldn't recommend bending your back backwards, since that is only going to throw your balance off and possibly injure you. Also, if someone were to kick you hard and you're leaning back, you're more likely to fall in the same direction.
Repetition is always good because you want to get that body memory going. Try standing in front of a mirror and analyzing your technique. Once you're comfortable with that, try shadow boxing. I always found that visualizing my opponent helped and the techniques would manifest themselves naturally after enough practice.
If you can get a partner, work with him/her. Explain to him/her what you're trying to perfect and have the person work with you. Sometimes I would train after class with a fellow student and work on different techniques. It pays off and is usually the best time since the techniques are still fresh in your mind.
One question: where do you look when you spar? You want to get a full view of the person you are sparring. If you're, say, looking your opponent directly in the eyes, you might lose perception. Stay relaxed, breathe, and keep moving. I've always felt that it is better to avoid a hit rather than take it, but I understand that you probably just want to improve this technique if you just happen to be in the situation in which you are unable to avoid a hit.
Also, some may argue with me, but I always found meditative arts like Tai Chi Chuan to assist my training quite a bit. I found that I was far more sharper once I started doing it once a week. Anyone can do something fast, but doing it slowly is more challenging than you think. Also, practicing slowly is a good way to pinpoint mistakes of yours that get overlooked when you're going fast. It's far easier to catch things when you're analyzing yourself slowly.
Anyway, I hope that helped a bit. Don't be afraid to ask your instructor for feedback. He/she is there to help you.
Good luck!
Comment: Good answer, except in Muay Thai you want a 50/50 distribution of your weight. So I would rephrase your first sentence to say "remove weight from the front leg", just to emphasize that you're not placing lots of weight on the back foot.
Answer: I'd look at your stance. Are you too forward? Too low and heavy? Is your footwork plodding forward instead of light? Are you frequently raising your legs ("marching" in my old teacher's parlance) in anticipation of a possible need to check?
I'd bet also that your reaction time is not what it will be after more months sparring. Knowing how to read an opponent and when to expect a certain attack based on subconscious cues is a skill that accumulates slowly.
Comment: could you give some tips for each of these situations? And a general rule for the stance? And maybe describe the basic lifting motion? thanks
Comment: @Vass I'm really not qualified to describe the stance any more than pointing out potential problems that I've had. The lifting motion is just 1/10 of the checking motion: bringing the foot up an inch or two like the start of a check.
Answer: One thing that slows people down is putting tension on their blocking leg too early. The leg should stay very relaxed while moving up. Apply tension only in the moment before checking the incoming leg.
One drill you can do for that is to do a couple of minutes of quickly lifting your knees as if to block after a long training. Because you are already exhausted you will to this with few tension just to be able to finish the drill.
Answer: I was having the same issues with this previously.

Keep you front foot light, not letting the back part of the foot touch the floor.
Transfer more weight to the back leg.
Do drills / repetitions.

This basically help me improve alot. You also will need to anticipate the opponent's move, which will come with experience. :)
Cheers and train safe~
Answer: jump rope .
practice lunge steps with weight in hand.
jump on a tire layed down on the ground, like them thai`s do.
re-learn your foot work.
try boxing foot work.
move your feet to a beat or metronome and learn -practice to sync steps to the beat.
push a bag-punching and practice chasing and escaping via stepping front-back.
now give me 100 dollars for this consultation ,
every thing costs.


What's the easiest way to find a vacation rental?

Question: I've rented a few vacation homes and really liked it but it always takes hours and hours to find a good one. It seems like there are 100+ different sites that all list different homes (some with a lot and some with fewer nicer ones) and I keep thinking I'll find the perfect spot on the next site.
Is there a Kayak or Expedia for vacation rentals (I did try Vamoose, but that was terrible)?
Answer: There are many thousands of vacation rental websites.  HomeAway is the largest player in the industry and owns 31 of these sites, but there are thousands of more sites, making it really hard to see all the rental choices for a town in one place.
The solution to that is a search engine that searches the vacation rental sites for you (like Kayak for flights).  There are a number of these search engines out there, each offering a different user experience:
Otalo
WeGoRound
Oodle
Vamoose
Full disclosure: I built Otalo to solve just this problem of searching through different vacation rentals sites with a single search (like Kayak for flights).
Comment: otalo seems to be a dead dropbox link
Answer: Almost all of the vacation rental sites are owned by the same company (HomeAway, which just went public, by the way) and many of them are literally using the same software and searching the same database. It's a hard problem in general because there are so many vacation rentals on the market and they're all different, unique, individual flowers.
Answer: I would recommend:

AirBNB
VacationRentals.com
VRBO.com
HomeAway
Comment: You should add short characteristic to each site - not just a link
Answer: I have good experiences with AirBnb and Only appartments. Having said that, I also have the impression that the more standard the search engine get, the more standard the offers get as well.
In my opinion the easiest way to find a vacation rental is by exactly doing, what you are doing. It is my impression that the beauty of a vacation rental lies mostly in the obscurity in which it is hidden. Whenever you get a Kayak-like service for vacation rentals, you will get standardized results, whereas when an owner takes the effort to create its own website (how quirky the html layout may look), the same effort is then put in offering you a good and well taken care of vacation rental.
So my generalized opinion is that the more old fashioned contacting the owners get, the better the location. Furthermore, you will be supporting local economy in contrast to multi national search engine.
Personal I see the hours of searching for a vacation rental as being part of the fun.


Glossary in SharePoint 2010

Question: I am a Business Analyst working on a SharePoint Team site for our IT group. For a project I'm working on for our group, I'm trying to setup a "glossary of terms" in a SharePoint. I started this general glossary in a word doc, but would like to move it to SharePoint. The word doc supports cross reference hyperlinking, and section hyperlinks A, B, C...
What are my best options for a non-code option not using a paid solution?
Thanks.
Answer: Something as simple as a wiki page would allow you to author content like this. That said, the better (perhaps more useful) approach might be to create each entry of the glossary as a list entry. You could then give people filterable, categorized, or different sorted views of the same information. There's no code ways to do that (create lists, perhaps have a calculated column that gets the first letter of the entry so you can filter by A, B, C, etc. You could also do additional customization (light code) to further enhance how that's rendered and used, but you wouldn't have to do that.
Answer: You could use a wiki or use HTML pages. The list approach that Mike mentions is another good alternative.
You could also look into using it as a term set as part of managed metadata depending on what you need to do with the glossary.

Glossary in SharePoint 2010


Fresh vs Frozen Broccoli for soup?

Question: Is there a substantial difference in using fresh vs frozen broccoli when making Broccoli Cheese Soup? And if I do make the substitution, should I thaw it first or put it in frozen?
Comment: Please read the tag wiki for [ingredient-selection] before using that tag again.
Answer: I can't imagine there would be a great difference as it's a soup and if you're worried about them becoming mushy then in broccoli cheese soup it should not make much of a difference as they're going to be blitzed anyway. If you were using them though you can keep them from going mushy and keep them green by adding them frozen to a hot pan with just a little water in, stirring often, more here.
Hope this helps!
Comment: Just because it's a soup doesn't mean you won't notice a difference with superior produce.
Comment: @mfg The produce will be of equal quality just it may be mushy from being frozen.
Comment: I would disagree for the same reason that it is better to use fresh, rather than almost rotten ingredients; [" This is a very bad idea, unless you like to start your soups and sauces with a watery, bitter, insipid, poorly balanced liquid"](http://herbivoracious.com/2011/09/umami-packed-vegetarian-broth-recipe-also-vegan.html)
Answer: If you use frozen you will not have the option of having a thick cheese soup with more crisp broccoli; i.e. if you were considering adding the broccoli toward the end after blanching it for a more toothsome floret, this would only be fruitful with fresh.
I am unsure about the blogspot link in Sebiddy's post, but my experience with frozen broccoli is that it gets the job done but not very well. As a point of logistics, using frozen without first thawing will net you a hearty release of water from the broccoli if you don't thaw first and may cause your mornay some heart-ache if timed poorly.

Fresh vs Frozen Broccoli for soup?


MacBook Pro 17" (A1297) - Keyboard backlight dimmer than when first purchased

Question: My keyboard backlight is fairly dim. You can definitely see a bit of light through the keys, so it's functional, but it's uniformly more dim than it was when I first bought it and definitely more dim than my 13" 2011 MBP keyboard backlight. Any ideas?
Comment: Is it at maximum brightness? And not auto dimming due to the envrionment.
Comment: Yes, maximum brightness was used.
Answer: White LEDs, as used in the keyboard backlights in apple laptops, do dim over time.
White LEDs use a blue LED, and an phosphor which is excited by the blue light, and re-radiates the energy in the orange-yellow spectrum. Unfortunately the phosphor does decay over time, reducing the efficiency of the LEDs.
However, the lifetime of modern LEDs is typically something in the range of ~50,000-100,000 hours to 50% brightness, so it's likely that there is some other mechanism in play for your situation. There are a number of external factors that can effect LED brightness, from poor-quality phosphors to overdriving of the LED die.
Can you estimate the brightness difference? If it's only a few percent different, it may just be normal aging, or lot-to-lot LED variance.
Anyways, if it bothers you, it may be covered under the apple-care warranty. It might be useful to take it to an apple-store and have them look it over.

Here is an interesting white-paper on LED life expectancy and ageing effects.


Will roasting ginger root give it a milder flavor?

Question: I just had a thought - garlic is very strongly flavoured, but turns nice and mild when roasted.
Can the same be done with ginger root? I can't find any recipes with a cursory search of google.
Is roasted ginger root a good idea?
Comment: This is a really interesting idea.  I might try it this evening and get back to you.
Comment: I think we need a new "is this a thing?" tag.
Comment: I actually have to pick up ginger for something else tonight, I will also give it a shot.  Great idea!
Answer: The reason that roasted garlic tastes so much milder than raw garlic is that it contains a sulfur compound called allicin, which roasting breaks down.  Allicin is primarily what gives garlic its pungency.  Technically, raw garlic mostly contains a compound called allin, which reacts with the allinase enzyme to produce the allicin, and this reaction is greatly accelerated when garlic is "distressed", i.e. crushed or cut.
Ginger contains no allicin, so you're certainly not going to get an identical reaction.  What ginger does contain are two types of oil called gingerols and shogaols, which are primarily what gives ginger its pungency.  Cooking converts these into another compound called zingerone, which is far less pungent (it's described as "spicy-sweet").  It's actually slightly more complicated; the gingerols also convert into shogaols through cooking, and the shogaols are actually more pungent (160,000 SHU vs. 60,000), but on the whole, the ginger does become milder.
It will not become perfectly sweet as garlic does, just less pungent and more aromatic.  In fact, cooked (roasted) ginger tastes much like dried ginger; many of the same reactions happen during drying as during cooking.
So yes, you can try roasting ginger if you want it to be milder, but don't expect to be able to eat the whole root by itself if you don't already love the taste of ginger.  It doesn't do exactly the same thing that garlic does, it's just a little similar.
It's hard to find good references online, although you can find a lot of this in McGee.  For more information you can try:

Wikipedia: Ginger
Chemicalland21: Gingerol
Wikipedia: Shogaol
The All I Need: Raw Garlic
Answer: Slicing peeled ginger thin on the bias (with the grain) and roasting it until the slices are gently browned (I do this under a broiler) will result in a pleasant caramelization that is not present in raw ginger. Don't let it go too long, experiment a bit to see how you like it.
Answer: Ginger is traditionally roasted for pho, the Vietnamese noodle soup. It does in fact give the ginger a milder flavor and deeper aroma.


No boot manager after new Ubuntu installation

Question: I just installed Ubuntu 12.04 on my C drive using the windows installer LTS. Windows 7 also resides on my C drive. The installation appears to have completed but I never did get the boot manager (GRUB) window at start-up. So my computer only boots to Windows 7. Also I no longer see my F8 or F12 boot options - not good! Thanks for any help in this!
Answer: In Windows 7 open an admin prompt and type:
<code>bcdedit /enum all /v >bcd.txt
</code>
attach bcd.txt when posting back.
This will show all entries you have in Windows BCD (boot config data).
Wubi method of installation is using chainloading of Grub over Windows boot manager.
Ubuntu itself is placed in a virtual disk (a special file on disk).
You should have a

boot sector loader

entry in BCD to chainload Grub.
Answer: Hold down SHIFT and power on the machine - let go when you see the boot window. Does that work? If not, boot from the LiveCD and post results of the Boot Info Script:http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/.
Comment: Please note that if you do this - replace boot_info_script.sh in the command with bootinfoscript there have been changes.
Answer: First of all there would be no GRUB for UBUNTU install using WUBI i.e Window Ubuntu Installer.
At booting process of win7 you will see option as other os beneath of Win7. Press down arrow key to select that beneath option and u will boot to UBUNTU.
Hope this is what you are looking for


Airplane Travel with Washburn travel guitar

Question: I'm going to be flying half-way across the US soon, and would like to have a guitar with me.  I'm looking at the Washburn travel guitar.  Its shipping dimensions are 37 x 11 x 6, and weighs 8 pounds.  Is the airline likely to let me carry this on?  I'd prefer not to check it.  Has anyone flown with one of these?
Comment: Thanks, all, for your answers.  My own answer was to forgo the guitar, and, as it turns out, just as well; I had no time or energy for it.
Answer: Depending on the airline you are flying, you can always look up the baggage allowances online.
For instance Continental Airlines in the United States lists that they allow passengers to carry on a guitar.
I highly recommend never checking a musical instrument. You never know how it could be handled when not in your care. I'm glad to see you're not considering that option.
Comment: It's Delta, and from what I read they _might_ let me store something that size in an overhead, _if_ there's room.  And _if_ I'm nice to everyone...
Comment: @PSU oh awesome, that sounds like a *wonderful* situation. Have you tried calling them? I bet you'd be able to carry it on if you're sure to be on a larger plane. Might also help just asking their advice too. Let me know how it goes for you!
Answer: For a few dollars more, you could consider the Martin Backpacker.  Here is a video comparison of the Washburn Travel guitar and the Martin Backpacker.
Answer: I agree with @Reina that you shouldn't check a musical instrument.  In fact, for entertainment purposes please read the story behind Dave Caroll's United Breaks Guitars.
Comment: Much much agreed! I love that song, though the story makes me cringe in fear.
Comment: Someone sent me that video some time ago, and I played it over and over.  It's why I want a cheap (expendable) travel companion.  There are a couple of updates, too.
Comment: I've seen enough online (knowing that the plural of "anecdote" isn't "data") to suspect that it isn't so much the case of "United Breaks Guitars" as "O'Hare Breaks Guitars", but yeah, I don't fly with instruments.
Comment: @VarLogRant: Heh.  As it happens, I was flying into and out of O'Hare.  Just as well I wound up without a guitar...
Answer: I've been heavily researching the category of travel guitars which has included looking into the policies of all the major airlines (which has involved interviews of gate personnel and flight attendants) as well as the dimensions of some of the more popular choices. I travel 2 out of every 5 weeks.
First of all, in its semi hard-shell case, the Washburn Rover Ro10 (if that's the one you're looking at) measures out to be 32" x 10"  x 4.5" or 49.5" total linear inches.
In terms of the airlines, each airline has (a) it's officially stated policy and (b) what the gate personnel and flight attendants generally allow.  The two are usually not the same. With the exception of Virgin America, Delta, and American, most major airlines officially say that any carry-on luggage (instrument or not) cannot exceed 45 linear inches. American basically states that they'll allow any instrument so long as its in a hardshell case. Virgin goes up to 50 inches. Delta has no official limitation on instruments and doesn't require a hardshell. At the gate, they're generally more accommodating. When I asked the folks at Virgin, they said "Instruments? We LOVE instruments" (as though music is in their DNA... oh, wait, it is!).
But the gate personnel and flight attendants also say if they can't find space for it, it doesn't matter. It has to be checked. In other words, you should always be prepared for the worst case scenario where policy doesn't matter. It's just a question of remaining space.  Which is why (1) you should focus your search on travel guitars that are available in a hard shell or equivalent (the Washburn Rover qualifies) and (2) you should think about traveling with a guitar that you won't lose sleep over if it happens to get damaged. Again, at about $75 to $125 for a good used one, the Rover qualifies.. I just bought one for $75. The Martin Backpacker is a neat guitar, but are more money and it doesn't come in a hard shell. It doesn't sit in your lap very easily...there are "lap adapters" on the market just for the Martin Backpacker. There are a bunch of knock-offs of the Martin Backpacker too. Personally, I think the Rover's 49.5 linear inches is so little over the common 45" policy that it'll be fine on all airlines, so long as they're not completely out of space by the time you get on AND it's not a tiny commuter jet (the bins are too small to begin with).
I've gone relatively crazy on the subject of travel guitars. It's not like you can walk into a Guitar Center and compare all the options. So, I have been buying and selling "qualified" guitars to figure it out. I have leaned in the direction of electric guitars because if I'm playing in my hotel room late a night, I won't be disturbing my neighbors. I purchased two Epiphone "Wee's" (as in Pee Wees); the Wee V (a kids Flying V) and the Pee Wee Les Paul. They come in gig bags and usually come with a battery operated amp. I decided I didn't like adjusting to guitars that are tuned "up" (like there's a capo on the 5th fret) which is what you have to do with these short-necked guitars. So, I sold the V for what I paid for it and am currently selling the Pee Wee Les Paul (which sounds good.. even on the tiny amp... it has the same humbuckers that the regular Les Paul has).
As far as I know, there's only one electric that's available in a hardshell that falls below ALL airlines official policies and that's the Chiquita designed by Mark Erlewine and ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons. In it's hardshell, the Chiquita comes in at 44 linear inches. It's a more expensive option though and if you're forced to check it, who knows? YOU might be uploading the next  Breaks Guitars video to YouTube. I just found a good used Chiquita on CraigsList and its on its way to me now. If you go for a Chiquita, look for one that's hand-built by Mark Erlewine himself and not one of the older IMC/Hondo models that were made by the 1000's in Korea.  Or, go ahead and get an older one... if it gets damaged.. then it's not as much of a biggie.
On the acoustic guitars, I've heard amazing things about the Voyage Air. They're expensive though. That said, this video shows how the backpack it goes into fits perfectly into an overhead bin:

.
Good luck!
Answer: I disagree with the notion that guitars generally should not be sent as checked baggage.  Instead I agree that a guitar should not be sent as checked baggage unless it is appropriately packed, which means you need a flight case for it (the already mentioned Dave Caroll video shows the potential result if you don't).  That might be costly and might also infer extra charges for overweight luggage, which for most people is not an option.
It appears that both Delta and American Airlines have similar rules on bringing guitars (/musical instruments) as carry-on luggage (here's AA's baggage allowance for musical instruments), which often means it's up to whomever you interact with to approve/deny your request to bring it on the plane.  I did fairly easily find tips on travelling with instruments from a musicians union, see Tips for Traveling Safely with Musical Instruments, and there's also a bit of information from the TSA on transporting musical instruments for their take on a bit of this.
Updated Feb 12, 2012: Got notice of a HuffPost item about the FAA bill, which amongst other things says "Airlines can no longer impose extra charge for carry-on musical instruments that can be safely stowed, and must carry larger instruments as checked baggage."  See FAA Bill Codifies Airline Passenger Bill Of Rights for description of all the other things the bill included.


Possible Graphics Driver Problem

Question: I considered asking this question over at Super User, since it may be a hardware problem, but since it's specific to one game I came here.
I have the game Kerbal Space Program. It's fairly graphics-intensive, so I want to use my better graphics processor to play it. My laptop has two graphics cards inside, and when I right-click an icon on my desktop I get a context menu

Run with graphics processor -> High Performance NVIDIA processor

or

Integrated graphics

When I run Kerbal Space Program with "Integrated graphics", everything works alright. When I actually launch a rocket lag is a big problem; but that's to be expected. It's not the better processor.
My question is about what happens when I try to run the game with me "High Performance NVIDIA processor". When I click that from the context menu, the game loads up a white screen in the window and stays like that. It simply hangs there with a white screen indefinitely.
Now, I've tried updating my Graphics Drivers and re-installing the game, both to little effect. I was sure that it was a hardware issue until I loaded up Minecraft with both drivers, just to see a difference. With my "Integrated graphics" I was at a steady 3 frames per second, and with my "High Performance NVIDIA processor" I had a solid 30-40 frames per second.
Some details: My "High Performance NVIDIA processor" is really a GEFORCE 310M, I'm not sure what the "Integrated Graphics" is (in Device Manager -> Display adapters I have a listing for Intel(R) HD Graphics, so that might be it), and I also have a NVIDIA Cuda card. My processor is a dual-core i5 2.67 GHz (3.2ish with turbodrive), and I'm running 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium.
This problem arose when Kerbal Space Program updated to version 0.16. Again, my apologies if this really belongs in a different place.
EDIT: Just checked with a much previous version of the game (the demo version: 0.13) and this problem is still there. I went through logs and found that I updated to Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1 right around the time that 0.16 came out, so take that as you will.
Comment: Have you tried this with a version other than 0.16?
Comment: Sorry, forgot to add the version of the game. It is currently version 17.1, and this problem has been persistent with every version since 16.0. I asked in their IRC and they hadn't heard of anyone else having this problem.
Answer: you should choose High Performance NVIDIA processor, this is suitable with graphics device of your laptop VGA card. About integrated graphics, this software installed automatically by OS ( WIndows ) and not match driver for VGA graphics device. Don't forget to check on Device manager to ensure that graphics device driver installed correctly.

Possible Graphics Driver Problem


HP 431 is overheating, how can I fix it?

Question: I'm using ubuntu 11.10 (ubuntu's recommended Radeon VGA driver is error) on my HP 431 (CPU Intel core i5 2410M - 2G Ram - 320 HDD - Radeon HD6470 VGA). Everything is OK, except heat problems (it's not happen on Win7). Is my HP 431 (Win7 pre-setup) can't use ubuntu?
Sorry my bad english.
Answer: I was facing a similar problem on my Hp 431-452TX (i5, 4gb, 6470m-1gb, win7 x64U, Ubuntu 11.10), but there was a variation, i am running Ubuntu 11.10 (upgraded from 10.4) x64 and Win 7 Ultimate x64 on seperate partitions, ubuntu was running cool, but Win7 was heating the CPU badly, I had core temp installed in windows which hibernated the system when the CPU was over th 85 degree Celisius mark. and the system was regularly shutting down even after using a Cooler Master cooling pad.
First I learnt that the machine was susceptible to dust, and litreally i blew out tons of dirt from the blocked vents, it worked right till a week and started again, blewing out was not an option, then,
I just learnt that the BIOS was updated to a newer version F.24 on Oct 7, 2011 (check here http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=th&prodNameId=5086746&prodTypeId=321957&prodSeriesId=5086745&swLang=13&taskId=135&swEnvOID=4061#93211), just updated it 20 minutes ago, and I think this has done the trick
I hope it works for you!... All the Best!
Answer: Problem can be caused by many factors. At first I suggest to check currently running processes and check if any of them is not consuming your whole CPU resources:

Open terminal window (press 'Super' key and type 'Terminal' in opened Unity dashboard.
Type command: top - this will display top processes which currently runs on your system.
Check the list. Look if any of processes is not consuming much more cpu resources than others. What is 'much more'? Check if there are any of them which uses more than 50% CPU while system is idle.

If you'll find some suspicious process, you can try kill it by typing kill -s KILL process_id in terminal window (process_id is listed in the 1st column at previous used 'top' command).


Sharepoint 2010 wiki include content

Question: We have some knowledge that we have organized in a confluence wiki. The content is the form of knowledge reports,that we have matched to wiki pages. But this content has a particularity. Some parts of the report is for internal use, and some other are for public use.
For example, we have a report in which chapters 1 to 5 are public 6 to 8 are private
9 is public and 10 to 20 are private.
We don't know a priori which parts of the report are going to be public or private.
From time to time we receive requests to produce public views of the reports.
To only possible way we found to solve this issue in Confluence is the following (maybe we were taking the wrong path):

We have created a "mother" private page containing all the private content and afterwards
created childs with the public content.
Afterwards in the "mother" private page we have used the "include" confluence macro
for importing the private child, having a consolidated view of the report.
When we receive a request for disclosing the public parts of a document we use
the export capabilities of Confluence and we export only the public pages of
a given report.

This approach is cumbersome because if we need to export several reports
we have to do the export one by one, selecting the public pages of each report
and doing the export.
Is out there any way to implement this requirements and solve the problems we have with the wikis of SharePoint 2010?
EDIT (based on answer):
What I would need is an easy "include" directive in the syntax of the wiki,
as Confluence has.
You need to clarify your description. What do you mean when you say "Export"?
To Export is to generate a Word or PDF file from a page or a set of wiki pages.
What do you mean when you say you have a Knowledge Report matched to Wiki Pages?
Ideally, 1 knowledge report = 1 wiki page, but this wiki page is having public and private parts. Private and public versions of the Knowledge report should be produced.
Are you actually taking the content stored in a Wiki page and then producing some sort of document that you send somewhere?
Yes.  We have to produce  the public and private versions of the same knowledge report.
If you just want a way to identify public vs. private pages then add a field to the SitePages library to identify a Wiki page as "public" or "private" and then use that field when you export your report.
In the same wiki page, i want to identify private parts and public parts.
The only way I see to do it  is having something like that.
Creating the public and private chapter pages

        Private Chapter 1 Page
        Private Chapter 2 Page
        Private Chapter 3 page
        Public  Chapter 4 page
        Private Chapter 5 page.

and after , creating to index pages, that should be maintained.

        Public Index Page
              Includes Public Chapter 4 page
        Private Index Pages
              Includes Chapter 1 Page
              Includes Chapter 2 Page
              Includes Chapter 3 Page
              Includes Chapter 5 Page

The wiki should render and display the included pages in the Index Pages (Confluence does it).
Public index Page and Private Index Page, should be able to be exported to word or PDF.
Comment: sharepoint wikis are very simple but it sounds like you should create 2 separate wikis, one for public and one for private
Answer: You need to clarify your description. What do you mean when you say "Export"? What do you mean when you say you have a Knowledge Report matched to Wiki Pages? Are you actually taking the content stored in a Wiki page and then producing some sort of document that you send somewhere?
If you just want a way to identify public vs. private pages then add a field to the SitePages library to identify a Wiki page as "public" or "private" and then use that field when you export your report.
If live users are browsing the Wiki and seeing public vs private parts of the report as Wiki Pages, then you need to should consider item-level security to secure the private pages.

Sharepoint 2010 wiki include content


Does MAC provide origin authentication? Why not just use symmetric encryption?

Question: Let's assume Bob and Alice has a secret key for MAC. If MAC is constructed by the key and the message, that means that both Alice and Bob can construct the exact same message and MAC. So, Bob can claim Alice created certain message, not him. What's the point to use MAC then? Why not just use symmetric encryption?
Answer: Non-authenticated symmetric encryption schemes are generally malleable, meaning that an attacker who intercepts a message may be able to modify it even without knowing the key, e.g. by flipping arbitrary bits in it.  A MAC prevents such attacks by detecting any modifications made to the ciphertext.
Also, there are various chosen-ciphertext attacks that work by having the attacker feed bogus ciphertexts to a recipient with the key and observing the responses (such as whether the ciphertext decoded to a valid message or not).  A properly used MAC also prevents such attacks, since the attacker will not be able to generate messages that would pass the MAC check.
Finally, a MAC is also useful for detecting modifications to message metadata, which might otherwise allow replay attacks to be carried out.
Instead of combining a traditional symmetric encryption scheme with a MAC, it's also possible to use a purpose-built authenticated encryption scheme to achieve the same goals, sometimes more efficiently.  That said, many authenticated encryption schemes actually consist of a traditional scheme combined with a MAC, although the combination may be done in specific ways that offer some speed, convenience or misuse-resistance advantages over the generic encrypt-then-MAC construction.
Ps. If you want to be able to prove that a given message was sent by Alice to Bob and not, say, forged by Bob himself, you need a digital signature instead of a MAC.
However, note that, for some applications, the inability to verify a MAC without knowing the shared key can actually be considered a feature, since it provides a measure of deniability — if you're Alice, and your supposedly private conversation with Bob is somehow leaked, a MAC cannot be used to prove that you actually wrote the leaked messages, since anyone who can verify the MAC could also forge it.  In particular, the OTR messaging protocol uses MACs instead of signatures precisely for this reason.
Answer: Symmetric encryption alone doesn't provide a guarantee of integrity. A MAC guarantees that only someone who holds the secret key could have created the message.
If you're looking for non-repudiation (not being able to claim that anyone else created a particular message), then digital signatures are the cryptographic tool of choice.
Answer: You are asking a MAC to do something it was not intended to do.  With a MAC, someone who knows the secret key can be assured that only someone who also knew the secret key sent the message.  Thus, if Alice and Bob are the only people who know the key, and if Alice receives a MAC'ed message, she can be assured that only Bob could have sent it (because she knows it wasn't her).
A MAC is useless for proving anything to anyone who doesn't know the secret key.  For that task, you need a digital signature.  Also, as to why a MAC can't just be replaced by a symmetric encryption scheme -- for every ciphtertext there is a plaintext (unless we are talking about an authenticated encryption scheme).  So creating a 'fake' plaintext is trivial -- you just create a random string and send that as the ciphertext.  Of course, it's just going to decrypt to garbage (with overwhelming probability), but Alice won't be able to tell whether the garbage message is a fake or if Bob sent it, if they are just using symmetric encryption.


How was the Tabernacle built?

Question: Starting about three months ago (I don't remember exactly) I have tried to understand how the Tabernacle was built as described in Exodus 26. No matter how I try to fit the curtains more or less according to their coupling, I can't figure out how to get the tabernacle done in a way that works. Can anyone give me some hints which will help me to understand how the Tabernacle was put together? I would like some reliable information, with clear explanations.

To be clear: I started trying to create a graphical image of the tabernacle. I'm talking strictly about the tabernacle. In Exodus you get a very vague idea about its scheme. I'll try to present in a few words my understanding. I'll talk related to exodus 26 (taking in account that the information presented in chapter 36 is very similar to that from chapter 26):

1 Moreover thou shalt make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet: with cherubims of cunning work shalt thou make them.
2 The length of one curtain shall be eight and twenty cubits, and the breadth of one curtain four cubits: and every one of the curtains shall have one measure.
3 The five curtains shall be coupled together one to another; and other five curtains shall be coupled one to another.
4 And thou shalt make loops of blue upon the edge of the one curtain from the selvedge in the coupling; and likewise shalt thou make in the uttermost edge of another curtain, in the coupling of the second.
5 Fifty loops shalt thou make in the one curtain, and fifty loops shalt thou make in the edge of the curtain that is in the coupling of the second; that the loops may take hold one of another.
6 And thou shalt make fifty taches of gold, and couple the curtains together with the taches: and it shall be one tabernacle.

Now until here you have two choices:

The curtains will be tied together on their width and they will be together 280 cubits long (28 x 10) and 4 cubits height. - that's not possible because the courtyard was 100 cubits long - see 27:9 "And thou shalt make the court of the tabernacle: for the south side southward there shall be hangings for the court of fine twined linen of an hundred cubits long for one side: "
The curtains will be tied togheter on their length, thus they will be of 40 cubits long (4 x 10) and 28 cubits width. (that taking in account that verse 5 says: "Fifty loops shalt thou make in the one curtain, and fifty loops shalt thou make in the edge of the curtain that is in the coupling of the second;")

There would be a third choice but I won't talk about it taking in account that from my point of view it does not fit with the verse 5.
Let's continue:

7 And thou shalt make curtains of goats' hair to be a covering upon the tabernacle: eleven curtains shalt thou make.
8 The length of one curtain shall be thirty cubits, and the breadth of one curtain four cubits: and the eleven curtains shall be all of one measure.
9 And thou shalt couple five curtains by themselves, and six curtains by themselves, and shalt double the sixth curtain in the forefront of the tabernacle.
10 And thou shalt make fifty loops on the edge of the one curtain that is outmost in the coupling, and fifty loops in the edge of the curtain which coupleth the second.
11 And thou shalt make fifty taches of brass, and put the taches into the loops, and couple the tent together, that it may be one.
12 And the remnant that remaineth of the curtains of the tent, the half curtain that remaineth, shall hang over the backside of the tabernacle.
13 And a cubit on the one side, and a cubit on the other side of that which remaineth in the length of the curtains of the tent, it shall hang over the sides of the tabernacle on this side and on that side, to cover it.

From that verses I understand that the tabernacle length was of 38 cubits long and had a 28 cubits width if you create a rectangular parallelepiped image for it.

15 And thou shalt make boards for the tabernacle of shittim wood standing up.
16 Ten cubits shall be the length of a board, and a cubit and a half shall be the breadth of one board.
[...]
18 And thou shalt make the boards for the tabernacle, twenty boards on the south side southward.
[...]
20 And for the second side of the tabernacle on the north side there shall be twenty boards:
[...]

From that part I understand that tabernacle was 10 cubits in height.
With that approach in mind, you can see that the 10 curtains of tabernacle used for its "walls" does not fit in measure (are too long or too short.) Anyway, I don't mean that the tabernacle had a rectangular parallelepiped form, but I can't figure it out how that was built. I just gave you where I'm stuck now.
Any points on that would be appreciated.
Comment: Do curtains have to be stretched taut?
Comment: @fumanchu I don't know. That's among others, what I'm looking for. :)
Answer: See the Wikipedia page for Tabernacle for the jumping-off point to a large literature on this subject, including a modern model. Naḥmanides (Ramban) famously expounded on the subject, see 'Perush 'al ha-Torah' (Commentary on the Torah), Exodus 25:1 and also see the Midrash Exodus Rabbah 35a (for discussion of the planks of acacia wood).
Someone may convert this to a comment as it is a pointer to the answer, not the answer.

How was the Tabernacle built?


Link two list into separate list

Question: I need to link two list and display them in a separate list. I refer many sites, all that they did is displaying in a data view. How can i do this?
Answer: Using custom code
http://sujeewaediriweera.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/list-join-in-sharepoint-2010-using-caml/
Using SharePoint designer
https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/sites/eusp/Pages/4-minute-screencast-join-view-of-sharepoint-lists.aspx
I'm not sure, you can add both list in to a Single List Other than having a joined data view.Joininglists should happen only for the view operations.
Comment: +1 nice information! I would recommend including more information than just the links but good stuff overall.
Answer: I'm new to this so still trying to figure out the best way to do this. My approach was to create two list. Second list includes look up column to the first list. Then I created a view for the second list that just displays 1 item at the time.
On new page I inserted the first list web part and modified the view however I need it.
Once I was done with that I clicked on the list and choose Insert Related List from Web Part Tools Option ribbon. After that I just adjusted my views and now I have two linked list. Second one displays additional info of selected item from my list.
Was able to do the whole thing in browser with no custom code or modifying anything in designer.

Link two list into separate list


python crashes creating many Feature Classes in multiple Feature Datasets

Question: I'm trying to populate a Geodatabase with roundabout 60 Datasets with a new Featureclass for each Dataset. To do this, i wrote a python-standalone-script that loops through these datasets and creates a new Featureclass with the "CreateFeatureclass_management"-Tool and do some stuff with this Featureclass afterwards.
This works for the first Dataset, but when my script reaches this command for the next Dataset, the processing of my script is interrupted. I don't get a Traceback, instead an  Windows-Error-message pops up, saying smth. like "pythonw.exe registered an error and has to be cancelled" (Maybe the wording is a bit different, since i translated it from german).
So, this Problem always occures for the second Featureclass that should be generated. If i extract the first Dataset with the correct generated Featureclass from my Geodatabase and start the script again, again the Featureclass will be added to the first Dataset (the former second), but not to the following. So it's not a question of my Data. I also doubt if it's something in my scriptcode itself, since i wrote a very simple Testscript afterwards, that is able to create 4 Featureclasses in ONE Dataset, but isn't able to create Featureclasses in more than one Dataset.
I really dont see any reason for my script to not create these Featureclasses. If you demand it, i can definitely post some scriptcode. Anyway, i fear that it has smth to do  with my cache or so.
Here is the code of my testsript: ( It actually breaks at the first AddField_management instead of my CreateFeatureclass_management, after I changed it a bit)
import arcpy, os

Geodatabase = r"D:\GIS\STK\124_NDS\STK_124_NDS.gdb"
arcpy.env.overwriteOutput = True

def CreateFeatureclasses(workspace):
    arcpy.env.workspace = Geodatabase
    listDatasets = arcpy.ListDatasets("", "Feature")
    for dataset in listDatasets:
        datasetPath = workspace + os.sep + dataset
        arcpy.env.workspace = datasetPath

        print "Dataset: " + dataset
        out_name = "BF_Stao_Bodenprofil_P_" + dataset[9:]
        Bohrpunkt_fc = arcpy.CreateFeatureclass_management (datasetPath, out_name, "POINT")
        fcList = arcpy.ListFeatureClasses()
        for fc in fcList:
            if fc[:10] == "Bohrpunkte":
                Punkteliste = []
                zeilen = arcpy.SearchCursor(fc)
                for zeile in zeilen:
                    Bohrkreisgeometrie = zeile.getValue("Shape")
                    Bohrpunkt = Bohrkreisgeometrie.trueCentroid
                    Punkteliste.append(Bohrpunkt)
                del zeilen
                rows = arcpy.InsertCursor(Bohrpunkt_fc)
                for Punkt in Punkteliste:
                    feature = rows.newRow()
                    feature.shape = Punkt
                    rows.insertRow(feature)
                del rows, Punkteliste
                print "Die Punkt-Geometrien fuer die Featureclass 'BF_Stao_Bodenprofil_P'      wurden erstellt."
                Liegenschaftsnummer = dataset[1:8]
                arcpy.AddField_management (Bohrpunkt_fc, "Lgs_Nummer", "TEXT", "", "", 7)
                arcpy.AddField_management (Bohrpunkt_fc, "Profil_ID", "TEXT", "", "", 12)
                arcpy.AddField_management (Bohrpunkt_fc, "Profil_Nr_alt", "TEXT", "", "", 4)
                arcpy.AddField_management (Bohrpunkt_fc, "Profiltyp", "SHORT", 1)
                arcpy.AddField_management (Bohrpunkt_fc, "Standortseinheit", "TEXT")
        del Bohrpunkt_fc
    del listDatasets

CreateFeatureclasses(Geodatabase)

EDIT
I had some tries to solve my Problem:
First, I made a Batch-Script-tool out of my standalone Script. As before, the script is processed for my first Dataset, but not for the following. Now I get a "serious application error" and the script is interrupted.
So, my second try was to discard the idea of processing my Data in all Dataset by looping through them/ using a Batch and instead using a simple script-tool, where i have to set the workspace individually for every dataset.
After using the script for the first dataset, I open it again, set the workspace to the second an start it again, and -what a surprise - the same error occurs again. I first have to close ArcCatalog before i can start the script again....
Can this indicate, that there is some lock remaining, after the script is terminated? I delete every single reference before the script ends and delete temporary featureclasses.
Any advice? Or has someone else experienced this before?
Comment: Could you post your script please?
Comment: change line 6 to "arcpy.env.workspace = workspace" and line 13 to "out_name = "BF_Stao_Bodenprofil_P_" + dataset". Hope that will work for you.
Answer: I was able to replicate a problem with your script, though without the Windows "this program must be terminated" dialogs. It took a bit of sleuthing to get to the bottom of it, but in a nutshell out_name = "BF_Stao_Bodenprofil_P_" + dataset[9:] is creating duplicate feature class names.
FC's must be unique in a geodatabase, even when in different feature datasets. Once I changed that line, the script would finish successfully. My working script is here.
The changes of note are:
Using try: ... except: to report the Arcgis generated errors. Without that Arcgis will often just quit with no visible error at all. For a full description see Error handling with Python. Don't let the length of that page scare you! This is often good enough:
try:
    print 'About to run CreateFeatureClasses...'
    CreateFeatureclasses(Geodatabase)
except:
    print 'Exception Messages:\n', arcpy.GetMessages()

This change yield the slightly more informative error below, so at least I could determine where it stopped, even if not exactly why:
Exception Messages:
Executing: CreateFeatureclass c:\temp\test.gdb\two BF_Stao_Bodenprofil_P_ POINT # DISABLED DISABLED # # 0 0 0
Start Time: Mon Sep 17 15:34:56 2012
ERROR 999999: Error executing function.
Failed to execute (CreateFeatureclass).
Failed at Mon Sep 17 15:34:57 2012 (Elapsed Time: 1.00 seconds)`

After that it was a matter of sprinkling statements like print 'Outname:', out_name to get to the bottom.
Comment: I thank you very much for your effort! I really have to apply this error-handling stuff to my scripts from now on. Anyway, I don't think, thats it's a point of creating FCs with identical names, because the statement " + dataset[9:]" generates unique featureclassnames. I'd really like to know what the problem was, but i already solved my work with a more "manual approach". Anyway, thank you all :)


What does Jesus mean by saying, "Why do you call me good?"

Question:
Luke 18:19 (NKJV)
  So Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.

My question is: is this contradictory? What does Jesus mean by this statement?
Comment: It is just a rhetorical question followed by a given true statement.  He is trying to make us think it through.   Why is Jesus Christ good?  Only God is good, and No one else is good.  Therefore, it implies that Jesus Christ is God
Answer: This passage is often used to bolster the claim that Jesus is not God.  The usual misinterpretation is that Jesus is saying that He isn't good, because He isn't God.
The opposite is true.  In this passage, Jesus is establishing His deity.  The Answering Islam site offers a fairly good explanation.
Excerpt:

In the central passage of chapter 10, Jesus makes the statement:
I am the good shepherd. (John 10:14)  This establishes his claim to
  deity in a double way. First, because of the criterion above, since he
  calls himself good, and this not only in a general way as "a good
  shepherd" (one of many) but as "the good shepherd".
It is a simple syllogism:

No-one except God is good  and      Jesus is good  therefore      Jesus is God

Somebody might want to argue that here "good" is only qualifying
  something else (i.e. "shepherd"), but we simply observe that in the
  original passage (Luke 18:18 above), it was qualifying "teacher". So,
  the situation is indeed parallel, and the argument applies.
Second, Jesus calls himself not only "good", but he claims the title
  "shepherd". This is a clear reference back to Psalm 23 and, even more
  important, Ezekiel 34, where God himself is the shepherd of Israel
  (see this discussion). Thus, with this statement Jesus takes upon
  himself yet another title of God.
Why do we call him good? Because he is - AND he is the Lord God.

A more succinct answer (with the same outcome) can be found on this article about WJD at Heartlight.

Jesus is challenging the religious leader to wake up and understand
  the truth that stands right in front of him. If he is calling Jesus
  "good," then he must come to understand that Jesus is God and not play
  religious games, but come to truly believe. Jesus isn't denying that
  he is God; Jesus is affirming that he is God and that man truly needs
  to acknowledge that he is. Eternal questions are not simply religious
  speculation, but the core questions of the human soul. Only God can
  answer those questions. So if he is going to ask Jesus this question,
  he needs to pay attention and place his faith in Jesus' answer. So do
  we!
Comment: Yes, Jesus was saying, "Why are you calling me good when you don't believe it yourself."
Comment: @Hammer Read the text again. Nowhere Jesus says he isn't good.
Comment: The Greek word for 'good' in 'good shepherd' isn't the Greek word for 'good' at Luke 18:19. One is talking about ~virtue ('virtuous shepherd'), the other is talking about intrinsic goodness (only God is intrinsically good). Jesus is talking about 2 different concepts.
Comment: This answer in no way addresses the question.  So what if elsewhere in the Bible it says He is good.  The question remains as to why Jesus said He was not good.
Comment: That is true.  He only questions why the man calls Him good.
Answer: I'm not a scholar but I suspect that Jesus responded as a rabbi might. The custom was for potential disciples to approach a rabbi whom they wanted to follow. If the rabbi was interested he'd ask them questions to determine if they were suitable cantidates.  If not be would send them away and they would go home and take the trade of their father. If he accepted them, he would say, 'come, follow me' and they became the rabbi's disciple.
One teaching technique that rabbis used was posing questions. He would ask a questions his disciples, and the disciples  would debate amongst themselves and the rabbi would listen. When he had decided the correct answer, the discussion was over and the disciples accepted the rabbis judgement.
To us it seems a counter intuitive that asking a question is how others (not the asker) learns. But this idea was understood by those living at Jesus time. That's why when jesus was 12 he was found at the temple asking questions of the teachers and they were amazed at his knowledge. He wasn't learning from them, he was teaching them. Likewise, when his disciples finally realise he came from God, they said, 'now we know that you know everything and don't even need anyone to ask you questions.'
So I really don't think that the question was a rhetorical question for emphasis, meaning, 'Of course I'm not God! I'm not that good!'
Instead it was probably a combination of a job interview and a teachable moment. I'm not sure if the rich young man intended to offer himself as a disciple of Jesus (it seems pretty clear that he was genuine in wanting to know how to secure eternal life.)
Either way Jesus answers by inviting him to be his disciple, beginning by testing his theological knowledge and teaching about himself, 'If you want to be my disciple, the most important requirement is that you know who I am. Here is a riddle to get you thinking: if I am good, and you said I am, and God is one, and only God is good, then who am I?'
He then concludes by testing the young man's ability to forsake everything for him, and invites him to be a disciple, 'Come, follow me.' Thus he answers the question in two ways, firstly, 'Believe that I am God,' and secondly, 'Be my disciple.' (Both of these are the same thing-- following the commandments wasn't enough, following Jesus is the greater thing, therefore Jesus is greater than the commands of God, therefore he is God.)
I disagree that this is an example of Jesus perceiving a difference between himself and God the Father. Whenever Jesus is talking about what is required of people to inherit eternal life, he always refers to believing in him. For Jesus to say anything different on this occasion is contradictory.
Comment: Hi Steven, a really lovely answer.  Please answer some more!
Comment: "if I am good, and you said I am, and God is one, and only God is good, then who am I?'" "God" right? Can this analogy be used when describing "bad" or "evil"? Like "so so person is evil (and evidently is)... only Satan is evil(the originator that is), then who is so so person?
Answer: By asking, "Why do you call me good?" our Lord Jesus is saying either I am God and good or I am neither God nor good, as others have fully explained above.  But what has so far been missed is that He is also pointing the finger at the young man, who thinks he is himself a pretty good guy.  Jesus is saying "You are not good."  This is the root problem for the young man... he thinks he, and lots of other people are good people.  He hasn't understood the depths of God's requirements, he hasn't understood that the 10 commandments go much deeper than a mere observance of their outward requirements, that they demand obedience from the heart.
Answer: Jesus saw His earthly human body as inherently "limited".  The man was referencing Jesus as a man.  I think Jesus was simply saying "who is this 'good' teacher you are speaking of? There is no such thing as good men, only God is good.
Jesus being God (as God) is therefore good.
Or put another way, Jesus was saying if you address me as a "good teacher" I can not help you, for no man is good.  Only as God can I do anything to help you.
Comment: WOW! Thank You @Hammer, I wish I can give +10
Comment: An unregistered user attempted to reply via an edit: `Another way of looking at this could be - Jesus first got the rich man to focus on the deep meaning of the word "good" and that merely keeping the commandments does not make one "good". In addition, the person has to give up wealth and follow Him, and so Jesus indicated that He is the Truth, and the Way to Eternal life.`
Answer: At the (quite minor) risk of being controversial, I'm going a different route. Let me state upfront that I am wholeheartedly Christian and have been for years.
I've been reading the Bible carefully, trying to understand the text beyond what I've been raised and taught to see in it. In addition, I've been culling other sources to compare and contrast their views to better refine my own.
Through-and-through, the conclusion I've reached is that the way Jesus conceived of his role was as God's perfect revelation here on the earth. That is, he was so much in God's image, reflecting God's being and character to the people around him, that he effectively stood in the role of God. Thus he could say, "I and the Father are one."
But, at the same time, being human, he perceived a difference between himself and God, which is why, in the same book as the previous quote, he could say, "The Father is greater than I."
As such, I see no contradiction between distinguishing between himself and God and his other claims and statements, nor with my belief in him as God.
It's confusing, sure, but isn't that a given when dealing with Christology?
Comment: Welcome to C.SE!  When you get the chance, please check out our [about] and specifically [How we are different than other sites](http://tinyurl.com/csedifferent). As it is, this is an on-target answer, but would be better if you could find additional support for your thesis.  (Not voting either way until I see that).
Answer: The writers of the four book of the Gospel portrayed Jesus in four distinct yet conforming ways; a thing that makes the person of Jesus interesting for those led by the Holy Spirit. At the same time, it's a source of confusion to the unbelievers.
Mathew gave account of Jesus as a King, the coming Messiah, Mark portrayed Jesus as the servant, Luke gave account of Jesus as a proper man while John portrayed Him as God.
All these revelations are perfectly correct. He is a King yet a servant, He is a man yet God. Alleluia!
Since it is in the book of Luke (18:19) that Christ clarified the Jew He wasn't good as he (the Jew) thought, I will look closely at Luke's account.  This account is simply emphasising on the human part of Jesus starting from His genealogy, biological birth, childhood, etc. It also seeks to present Him as a humble man who didn't equal Himself to God ( Philippians 2). His human nature shows that He is a man cloned in human flesh with water and blood circulating in Him. He had human desires, thoughts, struggles with sin, trials and temptations but disciplined Himself to do His Father's will. As such He was a man and therefore not perfect or good. Note that it's only on the human side. But there is the other side of Him - the God side (John 1:1). There are amazing thing to know about Christ on the God side which I reserve for another piece. Hence, that He wasn't good or perfect on the human side doesn't change His divinity as God. God bless you.
Answer: The Greek words used at John 10:11 ("I am the good shepherd") and Luke 18:19 ("No one is good but God") are different. John 10:11 uses 'kalos', meaning ~virtuous. Luke 18:19 uses 'agathos', meaning 'intrinsically good'.
The answer is no, these are not contradictory. The senses of the two terms are different, which is why they are different words in the Greek.
Answer: If Jesus would come to me today and ask me 'Why do you call Me good?' 'No one is good – except God alone".
My answer would be: "I call You good, because You ARE God. Jesus wanted the young man to acknowlege HIM as GOD - to ask GOD HIMSELF (and not a mere teacher) what he must do to be saved. (note that the young man never answered Jesus on that question)The young man did all the "right" stuff, BUT he loved Mammon more than God. Money and worldly possessions was his security and his god - and Jesus was testing the young man - if he truly believed Jesus to be God, he would have followed Him to secure his eternal inherritance
Comment: Welcome to the site. We are glad you decided to participate. This answer needs more support. It needs sources and citations, if necessary, to support what you are saying. Otherwise, it just looks like your opinion. Please [edit] more to it to make a truly academic answer. Thank you. References: [Guidelines for writing effective answers](http://meta.christianity.stackexchange.com/q/1920) and [What is a well-sourced, dispassionate answer?](http://meta.christianity.stackexchange.com/q/886)
Answer: We routinely apply humanistic responses to Jesus, who is human only in the sense that He is the human manifestation of the Almighty God.  Applying rabbinical tradition to Him, Who is eternal, is somewhat mystifying to me.  David Straton gave a very eloquent answer.  Jesus applies questions which are designed to get at the center of the young man's heart - this is alway's Jesus' target.  He wants to be the ruler of our hearts.
He asks (Matt 19:17) "Why callest thou Me Good? There is none good but one, that is God:"  Here, the question is applied by Jesus in order to have the man confronted with the fact that he is rightly applying the term good to Jesus.  He is, in fact, claiming His divinity.  The statement doesn't end there though.  Notice the colon.  Jesus continues and states, "but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments."  This is truth that is often ignored.  Jesus also said, "if you love me, keep my commandments. (Jn 14:15).
He is God.  The commandments are His.  Jesus then goes on to punctuate this lesson by naming six of them.  The rational mind should ask why not all ten.  Is it because they don't apply?  Of course not!  Keep reading.  The six that Jesus lists, are the six that have to do with love horizontally, to our fellow man.  The young man apparently had no issue with these. He replied (vs20) "All these things have I kept from my youth up:"  Then, the young man asks the question that would prompt Jesus to get to the real issue at the center of the young man's heart.  He asks (vs 20) "what lack I?" What a great question!  We should all ask ourselves this, everyday as we seek to become more like Jesus.
In response, Jesus says to him, "If thou wilt be PERFECT, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and though shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.(Mt 19:21)  The question from Jesus amounts to: "Do you love Me more than your wealth?"  Sadly, the Bible says that the young man went away sorrowful.
You see...the young man had no problem with the six commandments that concerned man but, it appears, had a serious problem with the first four, which are concerning how we love God.  His wealth and earthly possessions were more important to him than following God. And, while in the presence of God himself, he chose his wealth and went away sorrowful.
You see, in his heart, he did not love the Lord his God with all his heart, soul, and might (Dt 6:5).  This means that he was breaking the first commandment - Thou shalt have no other gods before me.(Ex 20:3).  Our treasure must be laid up in heaven, where rust nor moth can corrupt.  Jesus, who is God, must be the most important thing in our lives, not wealth, not house, not car, not sports.  Let us not repeat the same mistake.  Place Him first today, friends.  God Bless
Answer: 'Why do you call me good?' Jesus answered. 'No one is good – except God alone... it is simple, Jesus is saying He is not God.  to allow a different interpretation of this, is allow a different interpretation of everything.
Comment: What evidence do you have to support this interpretation? How do you know he wasn't saying "look at my goodness... it shows that I am God"?


How do i increase bone density or size through physical exercise?

Question: I am 26 yrs old. Even though my BMI is 20, I look lean. I just want to increase bone density or size by doing physical exercise to prevent loss of bone density when I reach old age.
Comment: Side note: [there are better options than BMI](http://fitness.stackexchange.com/a/3364/1771).
Answer: Load-bearing and high-impact exercise increase bone density. So squatting, deadlifting, and pressing heavy weights overhead would help. (As they say, barbell training is big medicine.) So would running, jumping, and all the variants thereof. Field sports are another fine way to make sure you give the body some impact.
Comment: Go heavy or go home XD Its worth to mention the olympic lift. You might want to look up for some power lifting routines.
Comment: Add calcium and vitamin D (with upper exercises) and you should be fine
Answer: Good question.  You are right to be addressing bone density now. @Dave has a good answer so I will just add that a weight vest is a good way to improve bone density especially of the spine.
Assumming that you are healthy and have a healthy calcium and vitamin D intake, your bone's density and strength responds to applied stress.  So as Dave says, resistance exercises (bodyweight, weight lifting or resistance bands) and weight bearing with impact (running, jumping, plyometrics etc) stress the bone and cause it to lay down new bone in the area stressed.
The National Osteoporosis Foundation has a nice pdf about preventing osteoporosis (thinning of the bones) that includes the daily amount of calcium/vitamin D you need and foods rich in calcium such as low fat yogurt and sardines.  It also addresses risks for getting osteoporosis such as family history, hormones, smoking, alcohol intake, diseases and medicines that may contribute to loss of bone density.


Formation of the overlap in metal electron bands

Question: I understand that metals have overlapping of valence and conduction bands. But is this because there exists a partial conduction band within the top part of a metal valence band, or because the conduction band exists, but periodically in the valence region? Is this enabled by the formation of 'covalent' molecules in the metal structure matrix?
Answer: I'm not sure that "overlapping of valence and conduction bands" is a particularly helpful way to think about metals. Band structure doesn't come with a set of labels saying "this is the valence band, this is the conduction band". As a first approximation we can think of the band structure as determined by the potential landscape of the atomic nuclei, and then fill it up with the appropriate number of electrons. If the Fermi level ends up in the middle of a band -- so that you have a Fermi surface in reciprocal space -- then you can expect metallic behaviour.
(This is essentially the nearly free electron gas model, incidentally, which is certainly an oversimplification of reality -- I can go into details about how if you like -- but is the simplest model capable of reproducing the qualitative features of band structures.)
As for the formation of "covalent molecules": this is not usually the way we would describe metallic bonding. When people talk about covalent bonds they are usually referring to models where electrons are relatively localised. Of course there are some advanced cases (I am thinking of things like graphene) where the boundaries are blurred somewhat, and indeed you can derive metallic band structure from the tight binding model which essentially starts from forming covalent bonds between adjacent pairs of atoms. But my point stands that most physicists would not describe the bonding in, e.g., Na as in any way covalent.
Comment: So what's the difference between graphene and Na while they can both be metallic while graphene is well described by covalent bonding, and, Na not?
Comment: @Laurent in graphene there are electronic states that are localised between two nuclei, which is what we normally think of as a covalent bond, as well as states that are delocalised across the plane and those that are localised close to atomic nuclei. In sodium and other "typical" metals, ideally there are only delocalised states and states localised close to the nuclei, which is why we wouldn't normally describe this bonding as covalent. But at least in theory you don't have to decide beforehand what sort of bonding you have, just see what electronic states the Schrodinger equation gives you.


How can I copy the design of one Blogger blog to another?

Question: I have a Blogger blog whose layout and theme I've tweaked using the Blogger-provided tools. I'd like to copy this design to another Blogger blog and then tweak it further, again using the provided tools (i.e., without having to edit the CSS or HTML manually). Is this possible, and if so, how would I go about it?
Answer: Under "template" there is a button called "Backup & Restore". You can also load a backup from one blog into another, and it seems to work. The target blog's widgets will become the same as the source blog, but the old widget settings on the target will persist.
Answer: There are two Blogger template styles - old (original) & new (makes it easier to add widgets). Assuming both the blogs use the same layout style, you can copy the template from the first blog to the second.
From the Blogger Dashboard, you can click on the Template or Design tab & copy the HTML of the first blog over the second through the Edit HTML tab.  As you can preview the changes before you save the Template, you can confirm if the tweaked changes (which may have dependencies) work fine in the second without losing anything. You can also backup the template on the second blog prior to changing it.
Blogger itself provides templates that lets you change the style while keeping the content intact.
Comment: So this is close - copying and pasting previews OK but gives an error message; however, the backup and restore function seems to work.
Answer: There is no way to do this, without using the Edit Template function.
Even if you copy the template code from one blog to another, it only works properly if the widgets are added in exactly the same order (so that HTML2 on one blog is the same as HTML2 on the other) - and even then, the widget settings need to be manually re-created.
Answer: Click on view page source and then in some where center you'll find the template name. Every detail of blog template is written there. Just note the name and search on Google and you will find it.


Can a Mac with Thunderbolt effectively use a PCI Graphics Card using an external cage?

Question: I was wondering how good thunderbolt is for adding a beefier PCI graphics card to my MacBook Air.
If I use a PCI enclosure like this, will the card integrate with the Mac to enhance the performance of the computer or a display?
Comment: There are a lot of questions being asked here, you'll find that you get the best results if you stick to one. It is also fairly broad. You're asking "how Thunderbolt graphics cards work", "what benefit they provide", and implying if it'll fix your current issue with Photoshop and other large, intensive apps. If you clean up this question to be a bit more focused with a single question, flag it and request it to be reopened.
Answer: Unfortunately, there isn't currently a graphics card on the market that has a Thunderbolt-aware driver.  Without that, the solution isn't going to work.  All of the manufacturers of such enclosures have stated that there is significant demand for exactly what you're inquiring about here, and you might be best served to join some of their mailing lists to keep up with changes, i.e. cards that become compatible.  Magma for instance, has a list of "coming soon" cards on their site for their particular enclosure, but not a single graphics card.  Yet.
Don't also forget - Thunderbolt in its current state has a theoretical maximum bandwidth of 10Gbps (that's gigabits), or 1.25 gigabytes, per second and is made up of a DisplayPort signal coupled with PCIe 2.0 x4.
As you may be aware, most high end graphics cards on the market are PCI 2.0 (or even 3.0 now) and run best with an x8 slot or ideally, x16.  That kind of bandwidth — from 4GB/s on PCIe 2.0 x8 to 16GB/s on PCIe 3.0 x16 — is way over the ability of Thunderbolt.
So, even if there is eventually a card that would work, with a Thunderbolt-enabled driver that was available for your Mac - you won't likely get much more performance out of it that you couldn't get out of, say, the GeForce 650M chip in the current 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro (mid-2012).
For practicality's sake, I'd suggest thinking about how if your current laptop's graphics capabilities don't suit your needs, perhaps you might consider upgrading.  It will be likely be a long time before there's a card that will run in the configuration you are contemplating.
Answer: I have read nothing but high marks for this sort of PCI expansion when you want to get any PCI card to work with a Mac.
As long as the card itself would work when it's in a Mac Pro, there's no reason to think an Air wouldn't recognize it. Any program that can offload calculations to the GPU would see a speed boost, but unless you ran an external monitor - the built in display of your Air would still be driven by the on-board GPU and not the external GPU.
Answer: The idea is a solid one on the way. First off you DON'T NEED an external monitor unless it is on the Mac operating system. This isn't much a problem as macs can EASILY do boot camp.  You can use Nvidia Optimus software or LucidLogix GPU virtuMVP software to just offload the rendering of the integrated GPU onto any other discrete GPU ergo the external card. The problem isn't the external enclosure or the virtuMVP software. I talked to lucidlogix and they stated it WILL work provided the driver installs correctly and they wont because PCI Express dont play nice with thunderbolt sadly. So screw the bandwidth because many others have tried it with PCIE x1 via expresscard or the x1 slot beneath the laptop (windows long time ago) & anyway thunderbolt 2 is comin out so that there is double but regardless, you WILL see performance in general. Now there are hacks to getting cards to work externally however, they were based off of the old methods. http://www.journaldulapin.com/2013/08/24/a-thunderbolt-gpu-on-a-mac-how-to/
Try if you want but those methods require expresscard. It's on its way, I can't try this out myself because I can't afford those external thunderbolt chassys at the moment & they dont sell em in circuits like the old methods :(
Answer: They do have them, for PCIe cards.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/PCIe_Chassis/Mercury_Helios/
Comment: Sadly, no GPU support. Intel has been blocking any TB-GPU solutions from being TB certified over unspecified "incompatibility problems".


CR123A rechargeable batteries and charger recommendations?

Question: I'm looking to buy Nikon SU-800 flash and I noticed that it uses CR123A batteries. I found a lot of options on eBay and Amazon but most of them have low or mixed reviews. Does anyone use these type of rechargeable batteries and chargers and have recommendations?
Answer: The problem with rechargeable batteries is they are always lower capacity and usually have different voltage ranges. Capacity matters a great deal for high draw items like a flash. Voltage range tolerance depends on the specific equipment (manufacturers never specify). 900mAh seems to be the highest a rechargeable can get compared to the standard 1500mAh. That right there is worth a comparison during a long photo shoot.
Many rechargeable CR123As peak off the charger at over 4V. That could be a problem. While other batteries may not specify their peak voltage range, certainly a 3.6V battery will peak higher when fully charged. With some looking I've found 2 notable contenders, both of them boldly stating their safe voltage:

a 3.0V with 3.2V peak at 900mAh (Tenergy) *winner
a 3.15V - 3.25V ?mAh (Delkin)

I can't find capacity mentioned for the Delkin and it's more expensive so Tenergy is the winner. Note: there are two different Tenergy CR123A rechargeable batteries. One is lower capacity at 750mAh with a 3.2V nominal peaking at 3.9V. Avoid that one.
Last note: the linked site sells single batteries but also has a 4 pack, with charger and free shipping for $19 right now. Best choice and best deal.
Comment: @Daveorama linked to the correct, voltage-regulated battery in his answer as well.
Answer: I have used Tenergy Li-ion CR123A batteries in the past but that was a few years ago. Link here They worked well and I never had any issues with them, but not having tried any other ones I cannot compare them to the competition for you.