User:Jayant412/Archive1

Welcome One
Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~&#126;); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 10:24, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * How to edit a page
 * Help pages
 * Tutorial
 * How to write a great article
 * Manual of Style

Welcome More
Here's another place with useful tips I also welcome you to Wikipedia, even though I am still ery much a newbie. User:AlMac|(talk) 03:21, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Simplified Ruleset

Signature
If you click on the "my preferences" link at the top of the page and on the user profile tab enter  Jayant, 17 Years, India (Talk)  in the nickname box and check the raw signature box, then when you sign your name using four ~ it will come out Jayant, 17 Years, India (Talk). The talk on here has no link because this is your talk page. The one I have show is just the same as mine but you can easily change it. Cheers. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 10:24, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I second this. Please do follow CambridgeBayWeather's advice - it took me a while to find your username so I could leave this comment to say that I appreciate your questions at the Reference Desk. &mdash; flamingspinach | (talk) 23:15, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi, I'm not certain that it was me you wanted to write to (it looks like Flamingspinach, above, was the one who had trouble finding your username), but welcome! To create your userpage, just edit it like any other page. You can get to your user page by clicking on your name at the top right corner of the screen, or by clicking on your signature link. What to put at your user page? Well, anything! Just say "Hi!". You can find out more about user pages at User page. Yours, &mdash; Asbestos | Talk   (RFC)  15:47, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi!
Hi, Jayant. I hope you don't mind, I fixed some typos and stuff on your user page, and added you to Category:Indian Wikipedians. Do you speak a language other than English? We have Wikipedias in almost every language, and if you can translate between English and another language that would be very helpful. See Babel. Happy editing! —Keenan Pepper 17:24, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi, Keenan. I really appreciate it that you could clean up my user page. Thanks a lot.
 * And i can speak my local language,Telugu pretty well. But i dont think that it would help on a global scale. And by the way thanks for adding me to the Indian Wikipedians category.
 * And can you tell me how to make the user boxes on my user page?. Thanks a lot. Hope to hear from you soon. See ya...
 * Jayant, 17 Years,India. 16:48, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * If you want to add a Babel box to show what languages you speak, just follow the instructions at Babel. For example, I grew up speaking English, and I know a little Spanish and Latin (but not enough to actually write anything good), so I put on my user page. You would probably put something like  (which would mean you grew up speaking Telegu and can't speak Hindi that well) or  (which would mean you grew up speaking English and can speak Hindi a little better).


 * Some users just cover their user pages with boxes, and say they grew up speaking Latin or Sanskrit, which I think is pretty silly. —Keenan Pepper 19:12, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I see that those other user(s) collectively removed perhaps by accident, which You might want to reinstate. User:AlMac|(talk) 09:39, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

If you guys have no objections, I might copy some of this Babel stuff into User talk:Jayant412/Userbox design kit User:AlMac|(talk) 23:31, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Greetings from AlMac
I have seen you at the Reference desk where I answer some cool questions. Thanks for asking.

I found out about this neat Userbox stuff by interacting at the Question & Answer Wiki places. I am over 60 years old, but still can get excited by the wonderful stuff that can be done on the Internet. User:AlMac|(talk) 02:27, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

How to create secondary pages
Hopefully this will become obvious, by example, without me needing to spell it out in detail.
 * User talk:Jayant412/Userbox design kit

The concept has many values.
 * 1) Main pages easier to scroll vs. other topics, as our interests and learning curve shifts, the amount of stuff we might want will vary by topic.
 * 2) We can have one convenient place for all the info relevant to one topic.
 * 3) Learning techniques, where perhaps they not that important on our user pages, will help us do a much nicer job on the critical encyclopedia fact articles.

How to make userboxes
See main article User talk:Jayant412/Userbox design kit ... you might want to go to it, then click on "watch" (upper right corner) so you can quickly see via "my watch list" when it has been updated, assuming you check "my watch list" regularly.

If you no longer want this, please let User:AlMac|(talk) know so I can move it to become a sub-section of my stuff instead.

Keep in mind that I figured out how to do this only a couple days ago, and I had some hassles trying to modify them to my tastes, such as changing color combinations and using different pictures, so you may wish to ask other people who have them for additional guidance.

My how to is aimed at getting something that works in minimum effort, then after you have something you like, you can further explore what is involved in designing your own, if that interests you.

I figure that once you get good at creating and refining your userboxes, you might not need my detail how-to check list any more, cluttering up your talk pages, but then someone else, who joins Wiki after you, might ask HOW to do this, like you asked me, and I asked User:Ali K, then you can point them to the one page that has just my instructions, which I still hope to clean up a bit more, and you could also clean up. As we learn more about this, we see that the past instructions could stand further improvement.

User talk:Jayant412/Userbox design kit

User:AlMac|(talk) 23:26, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Nice..i didnt think it would be so easy...Thanks a lot..i'll put up more user boxes later.. Jayant, 17 Years, India (Talk) 11:38, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

"old fogie" makes poor student
At your convenience you might like to view my 2 pictures effort where I have been unsuccessfully trying to reverse engineer what should not be rocket science. Hopefully within a short time, one of the userbox gurus will enhance my know how on thsi stuff. User:AlMac|(talk) 03:01, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Well that has been fixed thanks tu User:Cernen help. I can't say I learned what I was doing wrong. However, on another front, I think I have made major progress in making my overall User Page look more readable and interesting. User:AlMac|(talk) 11:29, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Al Postponed
My work day / nite just ended again but I need to get some sleep pretty soon, so I will pick this up even later.

You asked about the programming languages I work with.

I generally operate on LAST IN FIRST OUT which means I am busy with a bunch of stuff and I get a request from my co-workers for some new software, or modify what we got ... If I think I can get that done in a few days, I just get it done, then return to what I was working on before.

Today I got a request for a new report, based on an old report. It runs using 5 software objects written in programming languages: I saw someone here on WIKI a couple of days ago claiming that SQL is not a REAL programming language. Well the version that I use can do a heck of a lot of stuff. For the software I was working on today, I mix and match different programming languages to utilize their strengths, and I was using SQL to get at stuff where SQL can do the job faster and more elegantly than any other language I know.
 * CL/400
 * DDS/400
 * RPG/400
 * SQL/400
 * Create new relational data bases
 * Manage their contents
 * Provide Computer Security
 * Setup and enforce business rules
 * Do higher mathematics

There is stuff it is not good at, such as data mining out of data bases that are not relational. Also on the AS/400 we can define a file lay-out then have bunches of different physical data sharing the identical layout ... each bunch called a "member" of the layout. We can also have more than one layout in the same file, called a "format" of the file. Well this kind of gives SQL indigestion. A different programming language needs to be used to access that reality.

Of the above 4 listed languages I consider DDS is not a REAL language ... it is just a template builder. You can create new relational data bases with it, but not manage their contents, just create templates that other programming languages will use to interface with the results.

With tonite's work, I figure I am about 1/3 of the way done with the new project I got today, assuming the ambiguities are rapidly resolved. and for the moment I am carefully not mentioning the prospect of misspellings
 * For example, I am SCANNING various STRINGS in the data base looking for text matching certain words which is case sensitive, so I have a question how many combinations I need to look for, like
 * SAMPLE
 * sample
 * Sample

I also worked on some software for an earlier project I was in the midst of before I started on the latest one. I guess I updated half a dozen different programs today, and I created 95% of a new one (there are some ambiguities I came across while writing it, that I will need to check with my users on before I complete it).

I also had to double check some rules on SCANNING because it has been six months since the last time I wrote that technique, and in the interim I have worked in perhaps 100 other programs ... yes, I modify and/or create an average of over 1 program a day. Most of the RPG/SQL programs are 100 pages of code, give or take. There is one I working on (interrupted by interrupted by interrupted by etc. other projects faster to complete) that is several thousand pages of code ... I do not write stuff that big, but sometimes I have to modify other stuff that big.

User:AlMac|(talk) 09:22, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Al's games
Al's game designs are pen & paper, board games, miniatures, not computerized at present time. Currently out of print, I can dig up an old copy of the rules, and snail mail you a copy if any of this interests you ... I can't send you the France hijinks one because the base game is copyright someone other than me ... I came up with a variant. The space travel game also impractical to send since it requires use of a special game board.

I think this topic has potential interest to more than just you and me, so when I get time, I plan to move it to its own Talk/Page with a link here, but first I want to show you how to do that kind of thing, because I tend to be excessive wordy, not elegant, and may have messed up your Talk page a bit. As you meet other Wikipedians, you might want to use that technique to reorganize your stuff.

User:AlMac|(talk) 23:00, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I have several Time Travel games where people write down on paper their movements in time and space, then have conversation with each other in which the give and take is very simple and we have to be totally honest.
 * Example question "How many Zombies are you?" and the answer is a number anywhere from one to five. We get to be more than one person by the expedient of going back in time to a younger version of ourself and saying what would not be a smart action to do in hindsight.  In my game that results in a time clone.  The older self still exists.  There is a loop in time where the older self came from.  The younger self now goes off some place else for different adventure(s), and both selves are in mental telepathic communication with each other, a team.  They have to share the bank accounts, but both can be working.  The reason no more than five, has to do with book keeping keeping the game manageable.  If you go over five, the mental telepathy becomes more than you can handle, and you all go insane.  In fact there is a game strategy where an enemy can cause you to have more time clones than you intended on having.
 * The purpose of the game is to navigate time and space, to track down and eliminate opponents, so that you are the only survivor, and in the process not have any paradoxes.
 * You know in Chess a game can end in a stalemate, where neither side can win. Well in my time travel games, they can end in a Paradox, where everyone loses.
 * The game is designed so that once people know how to play, a match can be concluded in 20-30 minutes.
 * the reason for this is sometimes there are unpleasant feelings if you play many hours with one winner. By being able to play several times in a few hours, a group of people typically have different players winning serveral different game sessions, with occasional ones where no one wins due to paradox or other human messups.
 * I have a similar game design in which we start with newspapers and TV news, then each person proposes a small handful of things "What's going to happen next in the news" with some reasons why that makes sense, then everyone can add reasons why this or that notion is not likely, or they agree that is likely. People can say things that sound totally absurd like "A UFO lands at Wal Mart and little Green Men ask to be taken to our leader."  Anyone can say "That's stupid" and VETO it, but if any third person gives a reason why they think that is a possibility, then the prediction goes into the news dice, in which the probability of the event happening is dependent on the number of reasons why various people think it might happen vs. number of reasons why some think it might not.  Then we have our own newspaper of events we predicted, and go to another round "What do we think will happen next?"
 * I have a game in which the map board was sketched out using Polar Graph paper, which I thought was real cool to use. Basically I have orbits of planets of our solar system going out to Jupiter, not exactly to scale.  Each turn of the game the planets are moved one position along their orbits, in which there are less "squares" (actually chunks of a circle) for the inner planets, so over the game, the distance to space travel between the planets is constantly changing in a predictable manner.  The players space ships have limited fuel to get between the planets, and they have objectives that can distract them from piloting safely.
 * I have a variant of another person game that involves figurines, but instead of the military men used in typical wargames, a lot of them are like farmers with pitch forks and other implements ... it is a game that is probably unsuitable for your age, since it simulates hijinks in France before their Revolution.

User Page
There are a couple of IP numbers making changes to your user page. Is it you doing it without logging in? CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 10:19, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I think its me. But i have a DSL connection. So, I dont think my IP number should change. But i really dont have a good idea about it. Thank a lot for telling me anyways.


 * Jayant, 17 Years, India (Talk) 16:54, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

History
If you click on the History tab at the top of your page, you can see what precisely the changes were that were made by people. You can also identify two points in time and compare the net changes involved. That way you can see if the changes are approved by you, and if not, you can cut paste from an earlier version to expedite repairs. User:AlMac|(talk) 22:51, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Logging in
For reasons I have not figured out, WIKI sometimes forgets we exist, and we have to log in again.
 * Well one reason is I run anti-spyware and anti-this and anti-that on my PC and some of that kills cookies I had wanted to keep. No cookies, no logged in, so I get into WIKI and start editing and do my 4 tildes and WHOAH it did not do me, it did my IP.  Time to log in again.

This might happen with you ... you notice you not logged in, you log in again, and not realize you just did some stuff where the history not recognizing that it was you. User:AlMac|(talk) 22:54, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Cool WIKI places to visit
User:AlMac|(talk) 10:58, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I do not know if this is still done, because I graduated from school over 40 years ago ... our parents got a report card on how well we were doing in school, with gold stars stuck on where we had done especially well. In Wikipedia, if we think someone done an especially good job with something, we can award them a Barnstars on Wikipedia and you may have noticed that I recently gave one to User:Ali K for what I thought was a good job promoting Userboxes.  While researching list of enthusiasts for User talk:Jayant412/Userbox design kit, I see more people I want to award some to, but it might also be useful to see if we can use the "what links" features of Wikipedia to get at people who have been awarded this kind of stuff, then link to their contributions.
 * 1) Get some relevant text like "Barnstar" then go into the Wiki Search box (not Go but Search) and change the boxes where we will search to User and User Talk.
 * 2) We now see list of people who are talking about this or who actually were awarded one.  Assuming the people who did the awarding, following the instructions WHY, we can adjust our search to look for combination of the fact they got one, and reasons we are interested in, such as people doing a good job related to a topic like Science Fiction which also gets hits on people who mention the topic, and get a Barnstar, for unrelated work.
 * 3) We need to visit some of the links to see if the relevant text on why they got a barnstar meshes with the subject matter we combined in the search, but nevertheless, this way we find interesting people, who share our interests, and someone thinks they are doing a good job.
 * 4) Here's a relevant Sense of Humor where Finley had already won one Barnstar and posted stuff intended to be straight reporting, but User:Raul654 thought it was in jest, and was so great that Finley deserved a second award.  So Eaul got an image of a medal from some nation, and awarded that.  I think that is so funny.
 * You can meet a lot of interesting people on the Reference and Help Desks, but you already know that. You also know where to go to ask factual questions (the reference desks) and questions how to do stuff on Wiki (help desk)
 * There are people making suggestions how Wiki can be improved, such as at
 * Village pump (policy)
 * General complaints
 * Visit New user log and say a few words about your interests, then check out other new users to see which of them might have similar interests to yours.
 * Visit Article Improvement Drive and see which articles have a bunch of people team effort trying to improve.
 * Visit Peer review to find list of articles that the people who worked on them think are about the best that they can do and want some experts to scrutinize them for perfection.
 * Visit Featured articles to see what the standards are for doing a great job here, and list of examples of articles that have achieved this high level of excellence.
 * Also past winners of the weekly improvement drive
 * From your user page and its discussion, talk, explore the links down the left side such as from the Toolbox.
 * What Links here = other pages that point at you ... you can also use this from the pages of interesting users you meet at Wikipedia.
 * Related changes = those pages that are linked to your pages ... which of them have recently been changed? So, for example, we have a Userbox saying that we are a person from the Planet Earth, linking to the article about our home world, and hey, someone has recently been editing that article.
 * User contributions = those articles you have edited ... which can help us various ways, and also see what some e-pal on Wiki has been up to. Sometimes I edit some place and not put it on my watchlist.
 * Well those are the ones I have messed with & found useful.
 * At very top of page are links.
 * User contributions explained earlier.
 * Watch List = I try to make improvements to articles, and then like to see what other people are doing to them.


 * Thanks a lot..

Science fiction Categories
There are links here that I think are of potential interest both to see all the cool stuff on WP, and also SF stuff that might fit into your particular interests. User:AlMac|(talk) 04:04, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) Before stuff changes again, you might want to visit Talk:Paradox and note the boxes on top.
 * 2) Paradox is a Featured Article so you might like to go to that link and see what other articles have been deemed to be among the best that WP has to offer.
 * 3) While you there, click on the Watch (upper right) so you can see on your Watch List when there are alterations to the list.
 * 4) There is a LOT there, but scroll down to find Featured Articles on topics where you know something about the subject, or are very interested in it, and might want to go to those articles, and put some of them on your watch list.
 * 5) Paradox is also on the Featured article removal candidates list
 * 6) use the table of contents to see the discussion why some people think Paradox article not that great, and where it could stand improvement.
 * 7) Note this is just a vote for removal from featured status, not removal of the whole article.
 * 8) Paradox is related to Time Travel which is a genre' of Science Fiction.
 * 9) Follow the links at bottom of pages likeCategory:Paradoxes, and also from Time travel in fiction to try to find categories Time travel in fiction relevant to Category:Science fiction or Category:Science fiction themes or Category:Science fiction genres.
 * 10) note that I had to put : in front of the word Category, to get these links to work.
 * 11) You might want to add some of these to your watch list to make it easier to navigate back to them again later.
 * 12) Next there is the question of what Genres of Science fiction you are into.  You can use the category linking I just walked you through, to get what [[WP}} has to offer in the areas of particular interest to you, to see if there are articles there that you want to add to.
 * 13) Unless you been on WP long enough to have navigated Categories already, I just showed you a technique you can use to explore your other interests such as India, Sports, Music, etc.

Sports / Cricket
While exploring the Featured Articles (see above), I saw Cricket on the list. See Talk:Cricket for details both on this, and what the prior people working on the article feel that is needed to further improve it.
 * There's also a link here to the simple sister project.
 * You might also be interested in the sister project to write stuff for the very young.

User:AlMac|(talk) 04:31, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Music / Guitar
If you visit Talk:Guitar you will see that what this article needs is to do a better job of citing. references or sources.
 * Ooh, this article is in Category:Wikipedia featured article candidates (contested)

User:AlMac|(talk) 04:43, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Userboxes
Hi, the other day i was at the reference desk and i noticed you. Since then i have been interested in your questions as well as your progress into Wikipedia. It is great to see that you have made an account as well as adjusting your signature. I just noticed that you were getting information about userboxes from AlMac, i have helped AlMac with his userboxes, so i thought that if you needed anymore help or ideas for them, you could just contact me. Have a look at my userpage ( i have 22 userboxes at present) and leave me a message. Great to have you aboard.--Ali K 08:42, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah go for it, thats what they are for :)--Ali K 11:41, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Image copyrights
If you took the picture yourself, you can put it under any license you want. The simplest is probably public domain, which means you release all rights to it. Just put on the description page, which looks like this: |date=December 2005}} —Keenan Pepper 21:38, 23 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Yeah, thats exactly right, so just make sure you release the picture into the public domain.--Ali K 04:20, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

WIKI Acronyms
You might want to visit my new page User talk:AlMac/Wiki Acronyms which I created because I working on moving some of my past User talk:AlMac into archives. When I first joined Wiki about 6 months ago, there were lots of abbreviations that were strange to me, so I put on my talk page what's what as I figured them out. Well now I got most of that down pat, and need to move some stuff off of my talk page which is getting pretty big. So I making archive topics that are focused, that I can add to later, like I did on your talk page with the voluminous how to on userboxes. Since you are more recently new user then me, you might have similar struggle with what all those abbreviations mean. User:AlMac|(talk) 14:56, 24 December 2005 (UTC),

Userboxes
Hello. As you can most probably tell i have sorted your userboxes. The only problem i had was with the guitar one as it is too big. I have made it smaller, but t--Ali K 04:02, 27 December 2005 (UTC)his may not appeal to you. As you can see the way to sort userboxes out is fairly simple, just put {| to start the table, and from then on put | before each userbox. The |- indicate next line. Finish with |}. I hope you find this useful in adding many more userboxes. From time to time i will check by your page to see if everything is ok. Hope i could be useful, --Ali K 07:47, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Y, Hello Thar
I noticed you around the reference desk and you appear to have created an account. Hello! (I myself am 14 years old) &mdash; Il&gamma;&alpha;&eta;&epsilon;&rho;   (T&alpha;l&kappa;)  18:56, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Not much, I've just sort of been browsing the last few days. I plan to rewrite Call of Duty 2 today. &mdash; Il&gamma;&alpha;&eta;&epsilon;&rho;   (T&alpha;l&kappa;)  16:47, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Suggestions
Hi, sorry i dont have any suggestions at the moment, but if i do in the near future i will tell you. Also, do you understand how to arrange the userboxes now? --Ali K 04:02, 27 December 2005 (UTC) P.S i just found this userbox and thought you might like it :)

Images that may interest you
I was noodling around Wiki's collections of images we are allowed to copy (you will see that there has been a growth of that kind of thing on my user page) and I cam across something that might interest you.
 * 1) Go here
 * 2) Click on an image you might like to use on your page to show your interest in Cricket
 * 3) Copy the Image name
 * 4) Paste on your page with  around

After I posted this, I felt a little guilty because the India image was so large & I not yet skilled at making images reasonably sized, but when it comes to images that may be too big, check out User:AlMac/Wiki Start Map which I put on a separate page precisely because of its size ... it needs to be big to digest the info that is on it. Here's where I got the diagram from. Your pal User:AlMac|(talk) 04:40, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Diagrams like that
Incidentally I have seen that kind of diagram before, and can link you to more info about them if you interested. I think they are a cool way to illustrate the interconnectedness of articles, people, interests. User:AlMac|(talk) 09:43, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Plagarized You
I liked what you done with the Q+A user box so I copied your technique on mine. User:AlMac|(talk) 04:05, 27 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks..And feel free to copy anything you want from my page...(Provided that you dont edit anything...)
 * D..Jusk kidding..see ya around..

What I was talking about
You are on my watch list. I have kind of promised to finish some stuff but not got a round TUIT. I saw that you now have a user box saying you ASK and ANSWER questions on the WP:RD and I changed mine like that and also included the HELP DESK. Actually I answer questions at a few other places, but not as frequently. I may add them later as self-credits. User:AlMac|(talk) 09:22, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Happy New Year
Yeah, Happy New Year to you too Jayant! I will keep an eye on your page for you while you are busy :)--Ali K 12:58, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Best wishes to you in the new year also. My life is my work, with Wiki being one of the leisure pursuits to help me relax, and lower stress. If you think an Edit War is stressful, wait until the Knowledge Management Strife is something where your job is on the line if you not get it right. People ask me for stuff ... I get EXACTLY what they asked for, then they say "I forgot to tell you that I needed ...." which puts a whole different spin on things. User:AlMac|(talk) 09:28, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Timing = End Fiscal work
I am the computer professional at my place of work. BUt I also have other duties. At most enterprises, End Month, End Year, is a big deal for the accountants.

Used to be, where I work, me computer expert "on call" during this high priority work load, for rapid deployment if anything goes wrong, and on-site while they doing the most high risk stuff (my definition ... most likely to screw it up, highest past frequency of bombing something ... for example, there is an end month step that updates buckets of files, and while it is running, everyone has to stay off the data base, and I showed the accountants how to use a back door to check on if it is done yet, without disrupting the process ... well about once every 3-4 months they get impatient and go in the front door to check how it doing, and bomb the process.) So one day, says I "I could do that stuff, if you gave me REALLY GOOD instructions how, and gave me a phone # to call YOU (the chief accountant) if there is a crisis from an accounting perspective (like really weird totals), and of course if there is a bomb, I am already here to deal with it. Oh, they LOVED my suggestion. Very next month it is ME doing the end fiscal stuff, and pretty soon I do not have a life line if something goes wrong with their data.

So this weekend is end week, end month, end quarter, end year. It is a good job they taking a day off for the holiday weekend, because I need the extra time to get done before they can have the computer again ... actually I am done with the updates for end day, end week, end month, end quarter, end year, and now analysing some of the reports I ran, to extract key totals.

We are a manufacturing concern. I see that last month, of what we manufactured, 1.4% of the products made had to be rejected as not meeting our quality standards ... that's a pretty good picture, some months it is as high as 4%. A measure of good reporting and inspection is what volume of stuff we made that SHOULD have been rejected, was not discovered to be in that condition until after it was shipped to the customers. Well I see that 17 different products fell into that category last month, half of them manufactured by an outside contractor.

The time I have put into this over the weekend is now at 30 hours and counting. I am going to need a holiday to recover from this holiday. User:AlMac|(talk) 09:28, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Your Old Friend
You may notice that I now have the Wikipedia Signpost to the right of the Table of Contents on my User Page, in which the first section, in the TOC, is above the TOC. This is deliberate. Figuring out placement of some stuff is yet another thing I figured out how to do, and quite happy with this. I expect that the Signpost headlines will fluctuate periodically. I also came across some more cool userboxes to incorporate on my User page ... look in my sections on Book-a-holic and gamer, for example User:AlMac|(talk) 16:13, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

My Diet Pill
Hey there! Yeah the stub looks ok, now just write the article! You may want to include how they met and any other relevant information. You could look at other band articles and see their format. I'd love to help you, but i haven't even heard of this band! --Ali K 08:37, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I am impressed with your beginnings.
 * The image has got appropriate tags.
 * You have category and stub templates in place

You may wish to follow the category and look what has been stated in articles on other music groups. I know next to nothing about the subject. Is it deliberate that their names are same as the band members of the Beatles, or is this a common practice nowadays?

So I took a look at what Google has to say about them. User:AlMac|(talk) 10:18, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Their music can be downloaded here.
 * What does the label "indie band"? Here, for example.
 * I glanced at the article again. I fixed a trivial typo, added a handful of links, and one category. User:AlMac|(talk) 20:56, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Check this out Do they really use a screwdriver and 303 as two of the instruments? I never heard of a 303 instrument before. User:AlMac|(talk) 03:39, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Student userbox
Hi, just a message to let you know that i have now changed the look of the student userbox and placed it in a template. The template is. Cheers! Oh, and i just changed one of your band links as it went to the disambig page.--Ali K 11:16, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure
Sure, no problem, thanx for the grace note. Herostratus 14:27, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Exams
I am long since free of student life, living in a real business world in which the equivalent is anything the boss asks for, and we had better not flunk that. I think the value of exams for students is to test whether you have aquired whatever it is "they" think you have learned, and if the grades on the exams are factored into the final grade for each chunk of school time, along with other meaningful measures of academic performance. Depending on how the exams are structured, it might be easier for the faculty to grade the results, or have a teaching assistant or computer do all the work evaluating what's on the exams. User:AlMac|(talk) 21:00, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:My_diet_pill.jpg
Thanks for uploading Image:My_diet_pill.jpg. However, the image may soon be deleted unless we can determine the copyright holder and copyright status. The Wikimedia Foundation is very careful about the images included in Wikipedia because of copyright law (see Wikipedia's Copyright policy).

The copyright holder is usually the creator, the creator's employer, or the last person who was transferred ownership rights. Copyright information on images on Wikipedia is signified using copyright templates. The three basic license types on Wikipedia are open content, public domain, and fair use. Find the appropriate template in Image copyright tags and place it on the image page like this:.

Please signify the copyright information on any other images you have uploaded or will upload. Remember that images without this important information can be deleted by an administrator. You can get help on image copyright tagging from Wikipedia talk:Image copyright tags. -- Carnildo 19:25, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Here's something that SOUNDS interesting
Sound/list User:AlMac|(talk) 04:46, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Your first single
Hey, Wow, that is pretty good! Yeah, i wouldn't mind a copy of the lyrics. I think the song is catchy and the beat is good. I don't know about a name though, im not the best at suggesting them :) Congratulaions on your hard efforts, --Ali K 01:25, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Woo-hoo! Heard your bass in there. Nice song. I like the way it kicks into higher gear in the middle. You go boy! As for names... there are some web sites that have name suggestions, one is wordlab to which I contribute (not so much anymore). In fact there was is wiki just for band names, but it doesn't seem to be up. But frankly, you can't go wrong with either Strange-Dreaming Charlie (that's a line from some old song) or The Rebels, or if you don't like that go with just Thor, or Rilke's Hammer (you're Indian so you might want to go with Tagore's Hammer instead). Of course that's if you can't get your mates to just take Jayant and the Jaynettes. =) Herostratus 05:29, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, sure, Cosa Nostra sounds great. It means "Our Thing" in Italian, I think. Herostratus 06:27, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Right, "Cosa Nostra" refers to the Mafia. But they don't call themselves the Mafia; that's what other people call them. "Cosa Nostra" is how they refer to the organization among themselves -- and it means literally "Our Thing" (Nostra=our Cosa=thing, more or less). I mean yes, Cosa Nostra = the Mafia, I'm just talking about the literal meaning of the word. Not important, just a factoid I thought you might want to know since you're gonna have that handle. Herostratus 07:20, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah i think it is a cool name. Nice song BTW.--Ali K 12:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I just listened to it and overall it sounds great, but I suggest you turn up the volume on the vocals. And I think some vocal harmony would really add a lot; do you have another member who sings? I look forward to hearing the next one! —Keenan Pepper 05:39, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I can get enough of it! This was really good! Keep up the good work! Evan Robidoux 18:21, 23 February 2006 (UTC)


 * You mean, you can't get enough of it? =P —Keenan Pepper 23:34, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

La Cosa Nostra = name of Mafia
In my part of the world, Cosa Nostra is the name the Mafia calls itself. Have you heard of the Mafia? They are the "original" organied crime in the West, hailing from Sicily (which is a two bit island off the coast of Italy). However, in your part of the world, I suspect the Japanese Yakuza have been a nuisance for much longer.

The Mafia rose to prominence in the USA thanks to prohibition (a name given to a failed US experiment in banning alcoholic beverages), but the Mafia existed in Europe long before that. It was WW II that really helped organized crime take root in the West, because they helped the Allies against the Nazis, and in return, they got "protection" which has been a scandalous racket.

Here are some links to more articles on this outfit.
 * How the Mafia Started
 * Yakuza history
 * Gangsters

I don't suppose the Mafia will care much about your band using "their name" but this might attract some unwanted attention against you by brain dead people who think you really are some branch of organized crime, and seek to do you harm because they hate the Mafia. So basically, using that name for your band, is living dangerously, or living a short life. I suggest you consult with some adult advisors in India, parents, teachers, religious connections, to find out to what extent this terminology has connotations in your part of the world that might free you from the risks I warning you about.

In addition to brain dead people, who have nothing better to do with their time, than go around attacking (usually) the wrong people, to get even for various evils, there are also law enforcement efforts using brain dead software that cannot handle context. You see this in false positives with anti-spam anti-virus, and inability to intercept all the bad stuff. Well the security forces of various nations are monitoring Internet traffic, and other communications, looking for the use of certain terminology, marking people who use that terminology for various kinds of surveillance, and "watch lists."

A few years from now, when your band tries to go on a tour, you might be refused transportation, and harrassed by the police, because of some list that thinks you are the real Mafia. People not always know they are on brain dead lists. You could be refused employment, admission to college, bank loans, a bunch of other things, and not know that the reason is you are on a brain dead list, where people judge you not by context, but because you are on some list. User:AlMac|(talk) 01:14, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Esperanza
To join Esperanza, just go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Esperanza and add your name to the members list and then you are a member. :) You need to meet the requirements for membership (have at least 150 edits and been here at least two weeks), but that's about it. I will be 15 on 23 March. Let me know if you have any more questions that I can help you with. A rundhati Bakshi 12:28, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

whoa im indian and a sagittarious too. (>.<) Moshpitttt 02:52, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

well im from vizag and i moved to the u.s when i was 2. we moved a bunch of times but now i live in michigan. im 14 years old and... thats about it :) Moshpitttt 00:02, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Your band article
Hey, i wasnt too sure of your question so i asked around and it seems that if it isnt popular or have other references on the web to it then it will be put on the AfD or speedy deleted. --Ali K 09:58, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Seeing as i am not too sure and dont want to say the wrong thing, try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:MUSIC --Ali K 12:52, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Perfect highway
I loved the song!!! ( A rundhati Bakshi (talk • contribs)) 14:04, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Hey there
Hi...I chanced upon your page in Arundhati's talk page, and I'm really glad to meet someone who's into Coldplay and Franz Ferdinand. All the best and Cheers to your band!--Victoria Eleanor 16:20, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

oh wow, your band's song is awesome! im in a band too but we're not that serious. we just goof off. i play the drums. I've been playing for a little while, only 2 years. one part i really liked in your song was that bass guitar solo. :D you should really stream more of your songs,i really like perfect highway. rock on! Moshpitttt 17:32, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Reversion
Hey, I reverted the vandalism on the page you asked about. You know anyone can do a revert, its easy. . . click on the "history" link atop the page, then click on the date and time of the last "good" version. Click on the "Edit" link. You will be given a message that you are editing an outdated version of the page. Ignore that. Click "Save" at the bottom and voila! You have reverted the article!

Look at the history and see who vandalized the site. You can leave a message on their talk page like this: ~ -- this will let them know they have been caught vbandalizing. test2, and test3 warnings are next. After the fourth warning, report them to an admin on the "Administrator intervention against vandalism" page. If they continue, they will be blocked.

Note: Do not personally attack the vandals as this is often the type of attention they desire -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Be_nice_to_vandals for more info on this. Simply inform them of the rules and if they continue, report them to an admin. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrator_intervention_against_vandalism for how to do this -- an admin will usually respond very quickly to anything left on that page.

Best wishes!

( A rundhati Bakshi (talk • contribs)) 19:46, 26 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I have come across many vandalized pages. They occur very frequently on controversial topics or people, and the "editors" forget this is an encyclopedia, not a soapbox. Just yetserday, I had my user page vandalized, I assume by someone who did not like my vote for deletion of a nonsense "article" (you will see many of these under the "Recent Changes" and "Newbie" links, but its always easy to undo. But don't take it personally, as there are a lot of immature people -- just realize that its easier to revert than to vandalize! ( A rundhati Bakshi (talk • contribs)) 06:32, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

NICE!!
Great Song....Great Feel.... Really Enjoyed Listening to it!!! And Nice name for the band!! Cosa Nostra--Victoria Eleanor 15:07, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Perfect Highway

 * Pretty cool, I must admit. The intro is a nice acoustical, kinda reminds me of Led Zeppelin and System of a Down; but it isn't too familiar, which is good (that means it's original). I just think the vocalist seems a tiny bit out of place, as his voice isn't "metally" enough. But awesome job on the guitars. And I'm always ready for more! :) --Mas  T er of Puppets Peek! 17:35, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

sorry i forgot to mention, you can email me at klutz1218@yahoo.com. good luck with your exam! Moshpitttt 23:58, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Perfect Highway
Nice song. However, IMO, some percussions would sound good, for example on the second part of the intro (from time 00:24 onwards). Have you tried that? --Army1987 20:48, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Great song!
Hey, just wanted to let you know, I enjoyed listening to "Perfect Highway". My only suggestion would be to add some drumbeats to the song, preferably to the chorus, but other than that, it sounded great! Nice job!  Rob ert  01:57, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Late reply
Hi, Jayant. Thanks for the kind message. Sorry I couldn't respond sooner, but I finally got around to listening to "Perfect Highway" and really liked it! Great work! :) Mind if I echo Robert's comments as well? Regards,  Sango 123   (e)  22:07, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi again!!
I found this userbox and thought it might interest you. Cheers!--Victoria Eleanor 15:38, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
 * User:Holek/Userboxes/Anti HipHop||

Dinosaur Project
Hi,

Of course you can join!! We need all the avid members we can get, even if they can only do limited stuff. We also need writers, researchers, design people. Basically, if you contribute to Wikipedia, we need you! Thanks for writing, but all you need to do is place your name on the participants list & off we go. All we're really doing right now is getting the project back up & running & creating the odd dinosaur article. So feel free to contribute any way you wish. Glad to have you on the team... Spawn Man 21:44, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Great work!
Great work on the dinosaur articles! The formatting is good, & when we eventually get to it on the list of dinosaurs list, we'll make it even better! Don't worry about the missing dinosaurs list though, because Agent Soo (who's on the participants list too) maintains the list. If you have any queries about the list, contact him & he'll get back to you. Thanks for joining the project & contact me or another person on the list if you need help with anything, even if it's not dinosaur related! Spawn Man 22:46, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Esperanza
To become a member of Esperanza, just list your name on the "Active members" roster on the Project Page. You need to have at least 150 posts and to agree with the charter. . . bascialy, to be especially nice to new users, try to smooth over difficulties, training for adminship, helping out people whenever you can, etc. the sig used looks like this usually:

( A rundhati Bakshi (talk • contribs))

Yours would look like this:

( J ayant412 (talk • contribs))

Place this wikicode in your "Nickname" box under "Preferences" at the top of each page, anc click the "Raw" radio button. Then when you use the four tildes to sign your name, it will come out looking like mine does (only with your name). . . the green letter will send you to the Esperanza home page, the rest of the sig will take you to your talk page.

If you need any more info, please let me know. ( A rundhati Bakshi (talk • contribs)) 14:21, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Welcome to Esperanza!
Welcome,, to Esperanza, the Wikipedia member association! As you might know, all the Esperanzians share one important goal: the success of this encyclopedia. Within that, we then attempt to strengthen the community bonds, and be the "approachable" side of the project. All of our ideals are held in the Charter, the governing document of the association.

Now that you are a member, you might be interested in some of our programs. A quite important program is the StressUnit, which seeks to support editors who have encountered any stress from their Wikipedia events, and are seeking to leave the project. So far, Esperanza can be credited with the support and retention of several users. A spam list is maintained by Redwolf24 to keep members up to date; you might want to consider adding your name to the list. Also, we have a calendar of special events, member birthdays, and other holidays that you can add to and follow.

In addition to these projects, several more missions of Esperanza are in development, and are currently being created at Esperanza/Possibles.

I encourage you to take an active voice in the running of Esperanza. We have a small government system, headed by our Administrator general, Essjay, and guided by the Advisory Committee comprised of myself, Flcelloguy. Ryan Norton, and Acetic Acid. The next set of elections will be at the end of the year, and I would be glad to see you vote, or even consider running for a position.

If you have any other questions, concerns, comments, or general ideas, Esperanzian or otherwise, know that you can always contact me via email or talk page. Alternatively, you could communicate with fellow users via our IRC channel, #wikipedia-esperanza (which is also good for a fun chat or two :). I thank you for joining Esperanza, and look forward to working with you in making Wikipedia a better place to be!

( A rundhati Bakshi (talk • contribs)) 16:07, 8 March 2006 (UTC)