I have and Excel file that I converted to a CSV file. Apparently there are two kinds of spaces in this file, the regular space and a non-breaking space (my assumption).  When saving the data to the database the non-breaking space gets saved as a black diamond with a question mark (�).  I've been reading around as this probably has solutions already but when I try them, nothing is happening.  Using the mb_substr approach:  $name = !empty($data[0]) ? mb_substr($data[0], 0, mb_strlen($data[0]), "UTF-8") : null;   Using the str_replace approach:  $name = !empty($data[0]) ? str_replace("&amp;nbsp;", " ", $data[0]) : null;   I've been pulling my hair out with this one for a couple of hours now so if anyone could help me out, I highly appreciate it.  EDIT  I'm using Oracle for the database and here are the Character Sets defined:  NLS_CHARACTERSET       = AL32UTF8 NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET = AL16UTF16   Here's a sample data:  , W.R.,  The space before W is the character that gets transformed into the question mark.
I'm writing a php program that pulls from a database source. Some of the varchars have quotes that are displaying as black diamonds with a question mark in them (�, , I assume from Microsoft Word text).  How can I use php to strip these characters out?
I'm passing through Canada, on my way to somewhere else. I'm staying only a short time.   Is there a website, or some other way of find out out if I need a visa? Extruding surface while keeping the shape here is the picture of what I would like to get(example nr. 2). I need the edge frame to be same in width and length. Also the extrusion is on surface (without depth) I tried extruding region, but it did not give me the result I wanted.   I know I could just adjust the scale and do it manually, but that would be eyeballing without achievign accuracy. I would like to know if it is possible to extrude or inset while keeping the shape (even edge space) What are some practices for getting a name change so that people can find me more easily? For a similar thing, , where Jay Wacker managed to get people to call him by the name Jay even though he didn't need to get a legal name change. I'm not sure how to go about this though.  The main problem with me is that I have such a frustratingly common name that a lot of people cannot find me when they google me. So many of them simply don't notice the middle initial that I always use in between my first and last names, and this could actually become a major issue in academia, since people have little time and are prone to giving up quickly if they want to look for me (or for my papers) and can't find me at all (I know this having seen how several academics use the Internet and how they look for people's names). This, in turn, could easily ruin my citation count in the future (it's not just that - it's helpful to others when I have a less common name so that they can more easily locate my stuff). I already know at least several people who specifically told me that they tried to find my email but that they couldn't find it (and this isn't limited to just them - there are many, many more - including long-lost friends who have wanted to talk to me for a long time, but who couldn't find me due to said ultra-common name). Of course, people can go through the respective university directories, but how many people really do that? From my observations (when I've seen people look for someone else), very very few do it. Hell, there are even several people at my OWN university who share the same exact first+last name as me.  In Academia, this is even a bigger problem because the vast majority of your connections will be people who only vaguely recognize/know you, so they may know most of the search clues. Even a "full name" + university won't solve all the problems, because I may switch universities and people may only remember the old university that I was in. I'm also very very interdisciplinary, so I want to be searchable to people outside my field as well.  And even if I fix the issue for Google with a massive SEO operation or whatever (that may even be impossible for my ridiculously common name), it's still not going to fix the problem for all of the other ways that people use search.  I'm currently transitioning between undergrad and grad school, so now may be the perfect time for a name change? But I don't know what to do. Is it better for me to change my first name or my last name? The problem is that a citation like "Chen 2011" is going to produce so many entries that no one will ever find them, even though they frequently do google things like that (and I simply cannot prevent people from googling something like that). Chen is so frustratingly common that even a "Chen and Name2 2011" paper could come from some random medical paper rather than from something I wrote.  As an additional complication, the % of Chinese people using the English Internet is exponentially rising, and I can only expect the problem to get worse in the future because of that (and not just for my first name, but even variants of my first name too). Are background jobs and foreground jobs always in running state? A job can be running or stopped (suspended).  When we are talking about foreground jobs and background jobs, are we only talking about running jobs?  Are background jobs and foreground jobs always in running state?  Does it make sense to say whether a stopped job is foreground or background? "Will + be + verb -ing)" vs "Will + verb" ? Can someone explain me the constructions (or however they are called) with the "Will + be + verb -ing)" and the "Will + verb" ? If two people want to buy a car together, would they go half on the car or halves. Example: Let's go half on this car or Let's go halves on this car? I need to find the values of $a$ and $n$ in the following  $$ (1 + ax)^n  = \sum_{i=0}^\infty \binom{2i}{i}x^i$$  How can I compare things and show that $a=-4$ and $n = -{1 \over 2}$. It's easy to expand $1 \over \sqrt{1 -4x}$ see that it's valid but I'm looking other way around. A question was asked in one of my friend's interview. The question was to determine the right form from the below sentences.     Q. Correct form of English:          Samuel was with Susan and I   Samuel was with Susan and me   Samuel was with I and Susan   Samuel was with me and Susan   None of these      Now I vaguely remember a rule of thumb from my school days. That is "2-3-1" i.e. where all the persons are acting in a sentence, second person comes first, then third person and it is followed by first person.  So according to this theory, 1 seems to be correct to me. Is this theory correct? How to provide translations for a WordPress TinyMCE plugin? I know that I can get my translations into JavaScript doing:      $MyTranslations = array(         'translation1' =&gt; __("Some String 1", "MyTranslations"),         'translation2' =&gt; __("Some String 2", "MyTranslations")     );     wp_localize_script( 'jquery', 'my_translations', $MyTranslations );   But looking at some of WordPress TinyMCE plugins they use calls like this:  { title : ed.getLang('advlink.link_desc'), ... }   How is WordPress getting their translations into getLang()? Am I supposed to do it this way or do I just use my first bit of code and access the variables directly like:  { title : my_translations.translation1, ... } How to send AT commands to modem once the connection is established? I have a zte 3g modem. I use carrier provided dialer for connection establishment. Once the ppp connection is active, i would like to send some AT commands(for ex. Query signal strength, AT+CSQ). But the dialer i use locks the /dev/ttyUSB0 port, which is the command port to send AT commands for my modem. So is there any way, to send the commands, once the connection is active?    Edit: I also tried the additional port /dev/ttyUSB1. But the port is flowing with random data from the modem. A sample is given below.  T^PREFMODE??                                                                     ^PREFMODE:8                                                                       OK                                                                               TC                                                                               ^DSDORMANT:1                                                                      +CSQ:19, 99                                                                       OK                                                                               T^SYSINFO                                                                        ^SYSINFO:2,3,0,4,255                                                              OK                                                                               TT^SYSINFO?                                                                      ^SYSINFO:2,3,0,4,255     I tried adding my commands, i even got output. But the response is very poor. Most of the times, my AT commands went unnoticed. "He added" vs. "Did he add" (inversion after negative adverb) How to monitor disk activity? How do I view my Disk Activity on Ubuntu? For example, How can I monitor what is being written and read from disk as well as the percentage of disk usage?  I am looking for an application similar to the Resource Monitor in Windows. The  of March 01, 2013 put it's distance at 14 hrs 04 mins 23 secs of light-travel time from Earth. A  (earlier today) tweet says it is 14 hrs 04 mins 22 secs of light-travel time from Earth. An  tweet put it still further out at 14 hrs 04 mins 25 secs of light-travel time.  The Voyager 2 tweets on Voyager 1's proximity to Earth too has reduced similarly to  earlier today from  reported on Feb 28 2013  It could quite simply be a typo ... If not a typo then my curiosity is piqued; I was under the impression the Voyagers are outbound from the Solar System now without any major in-system activities now.   How is it the Voyagers are closer to Earth than before? Identify this YA book series about dragons, acid blood, and dangerously cold nights Proving the set of points at which a function diverges to $\infty$ is countable Let $f\colon\mathbb{R}\to\mathbb{R}$. Prove that the set    $$\{x \mid \mbox{if $y$ converges to $x$, then $f(y)$ converges to $\infty$}\}$$ is countable.   My book told me to consider  $g(x)=\arctan(f(x))$, then it said "it is easy to see the set is countable." But I still can't understand what it mean. In a complex vector space, $\langle Tx,x \rangle=0 \implies T = 0$ Effect of each parameter on a Monte Carlo Simulation I was wondering what is the best way to determine the effect of each random parameter on the result obtained from a Monte Carlo Simulation.  I realise I have asked a similar question , but this time I am making this question in a more general manner as I didn't get any answers previously.   Background: I'm essentially running a Monte Carlo Simulation where I sample randomly from 65 Normal Distributions and 2 Uniform Distributions. Then, i then input these values to a linear equation and run this for 500.000 iterations. I just wanted to determine the best way to establish the relative effect of each of these 67 (in total) random variables on the final outcome from my Monte Carlo Simulation. Finding basis of $\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{2},\sqrt{3},\sqrt{5})$ over $\mathbb{Q}$ Covariance of binary and continuous variable Suppose $y$ is a continuous random variable and $d$ is a binary random variable that takes the value $1$ with probability $p$ and $0$ with probability $1-p$.   How do I show that $\text{Cov}(y,d)=(E[y|d=1]-E[y|d=0])p(1-p)$? Several airline and trip planning sites will allow you to check "I am flexible with my dates" or a similar option.  Is there any way to also search more broadly for location?  For example, if you wanted to leave from YYZ or YKF and arrive at any airport in California, can a search for such flights be done somehow?  I ask because when I plan plane trips, I want the lowest price.  I'm OK with leaving a day or two later if I save $200 (same with the return trip).  There are 3 airports within 80 km of me, I'll leave from the one with the cheapest flight. And I'm also OK with changing the trip to spend time exploring San Francisco instead of lying on the beach near San Diego, and that sort of thing.  Normally this would take dozens of searches, but I'd like to see it all at once.