What's New -  October, 2006

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October 31, 2006:  A  "CopyFolderTest" program was posted today which copies files in one specified folder to another with a fair number of options:

  • Filter the file names to be copied with a user supplied  file name mask.

  • Copy or ignore files in folders within the specified input folder. 

  • Choose one of several actions if the file already exists in the output file,

  • Reset the "readonly" attribute for files copied to the  target folder

October 22, 2006:  Last month the question was  concerned the  the probability of one or more occurrences of  two given card values being adjacent or with only one intervening card in a  shuffled standard card deck?   The follow-up question is

Is it possible to make a deck where every card value is adjacent to or within one intervening card of every other value?

The answer is "Yes".  Program "Perfect deck" addendum posted today will find thousands of them.  Here is one:

With rows laid end to end , every card value is within two cards of every other value

 

October 13, 2006:   Since publishing the Wind Triangle program in February, 2005,  I have had several pilots inquire about implementing an Excel spreadsheet version.   The triangle describes the correction necessary to offset  the effect of the wind on an airplane's desired  track and and to calculate groundspeed based on indicated airspeed.   

The typical problem they had was not realizing that the trig functions require  angles to be specified in radians instead of degrees.   Patrick C. recently sent his "Flight Planning Worksheet"  Excel file and I  fixed his calculation for True Heading and Ground Speed..  With his kind permission, I posted the spreadsheet file today as a prototype for the  next pilot  working on the problem.      

October 9, 2006:  Spam at DFF is up to about 100 per day recently,  so I finally decided it was time to address the problem.   Spam-bots read website source html and harvest email addresses they find.   The two big offenders at DFF were the Newsletters and Feedback pages, both of which generate emails and previously contained email addresses in plain text.   They now use Delphi "server-side" programs to   build and submit the email.   The Feedback page  program also addresses one of my pet peeves - form email that does not send the submitter a copy.  Now, if you provide an email address when you submit feedback, you will be "cc'd" with what you sent me.   Subscribe/Unsubscribe options on the Newsletters page will also send you a confirmation when the "Submit" button is pressed after entering a valid email address.   During this month, you can  email me at the temporary email address  octoberfeedback@delphiforfun.org if you have any problems.     

October 4, 2006:  

A revision to our Cutlist program  (Version 3.3.1) was posted today to improve the handling of the popup menu used to maintain project data.  Cutlist calculates (or allows you to decide) how to fit a set of required rectangular parts for a project from an available list of supply pieces.