Well Mr. Byrd, this link and article is for you!!!
Take a look at this site: www.valentintechnologies.com
It’s Mr. Byrd’s car!! Almost…

Now Mr. Byrd was a very smart guy, (If I remember right, he worked at Boeing for several years as an Engineer before passing on his knowledge to us dweebs) but he was also the down to earth type. Built his own butter bean shelling machine. But this was in 1985-87. So now, 20+ years later someone’s finally trying to get around to this idea? What’s so new? Why haven’t prototypes already been made? I see guys making cars in their garage all the time (go to H.A.M.B) or maybe put this drivetrain in the Avion (it’s ALSO a home-built.. hint hint..)?

Avion 100+ mpg home built

I say the time has come and past for this guys.. I don’t care if you get 5000 international patents, they don’t mean anything to me when I’m paying almost $3.00 a gallon, getting 21 mpg, and NO my T/A doesn’t do 0-60 in 5 seconds either.. theory and school time is over.. BUILD IT ALREADY!! If I was in your class I know I wouldn’t mind a few weekends welding and sanding. I’m sure that’d be more fun than learning.. Oh wait, maybe I WOULD learn something?

OK, OK.. I don’t have anything accomplished on my home built Indy Car either so I’ll cut you some slack, but only if you’ll give me 4 of the wheelmotors you’ve developed. I’m sure a turbo V6 or V-Twin could drive a hydraulic pump too. Oh, and maybe just a slice of the $240,000 you’ve got from my tax money might motivate me a little too.

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I knew this was the stuff databases were made for, but I also felt sure I could pull it off in excel as well. (No Visual Basic required, as I don’t do any programming!)

After a couple of days on the web with my friend google, I finally found a solution, what I was trying to do was called ‘The Cartesian Product’. The solution I found is posted below:

I want to produce a list from two arrays.

A    1
B    2
C    3

I want the result to be
A1
A2
A3
B1
B2
B3
C1
C2
C3

This is referred to as obtaining the Cartesian product. Here's
the way I know how to do it. This uses MSQUERY, which doesn't
get a lot of press but is very useful for manipulation of data
(Excel and otherwise) using SQL. You don't actually need to know
SQL to do this though.

Set up a little worksheet like this cornered at A1:

First_Value Second_Value
A  1
B  2
C  3

Create two named ranges like
First  : refers to =Sheet1!$A$1:$A$4
Second : refers to =Sheet1!$B$1:$B$4

Save the workbook.

Data | Import External Data | New Database Query

In the "Choose Data Source" dialog, select "Excel Files*" | OK

Navigate to the file you saved. If everything is correct so far,
you will see "First" and "Second" in "Available tables and columns".
Use the chevron > to add each to the "Columns in your query". Next.
The query wizard complains that it can not join the tables, etc. OK.
The query editor will open and should display the kind of results
you are looking for. So, click File | Return Data to Microsoft Excel.

Now choose (click) a place to drop the query results, such as D1.

The results should look like

First_Value Second_Value
A  1
B  1
C  1
A  2
B  2
C  2
A  3
B  3
C  3

The results can then be concatenated with the usual methods, e.g.,
=CONCATENATE(D7;E7)  C2

Hats off to ‘hande’, whoever they may be! This worked exactly like I wanted. The problem I quicky ran in to however was that my options exceeded the 65,000 row limit in the version of excel I was using. (2007, I think, now allows something like a million from what I’ve heard) To find out if you’re going to break the limit in excel just multiply the number of each option times each other. In the example above its simply 3X3=9 unique numbers.

In my case Option 1 (the model lines) had 78 items, Option 2 had 3, Option 3 had 2, and on and on. (101,090 total unique products in my case!) I got around my limitation by leaving out one of the two(2) item options thus cutting my results in half. To solve that, I simply copied the resulting part numbers over and had one column of Option X and one column where I set it to Option Y.

After a couple of off/on days work, I now have an excel file that I can use pull downs to select options and create valid part numbers/optioned products. Each number or group represents a logical option. This number is compared to an edited list (from the 101,000+) that now only contains valid numbers.

A hint here, if you use a mix of alpha and numeric values for your option codes, it will help break a part a model number. All numbers are bad because someone can leave one out and change the whole model. If you mix in a letter here or there it’ll help. Also, with only numbers you have 0-9, text has 23-24 (leave out the ‘O’, ‘I’, and ‘L’ as they may get confusing: i1l or 0oO), plus text can actually equal options R=Red, B=Blue and make even more sense.

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http://builtwith.com

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So WHY do I keep coming back to Wordpress and suggest you try it too?

1. Anyone can publish content to the site with almost no experience. This includes uploading photos and now, even creating photo albums. You can even publish via email and phone. I tell people, ‘If you can use basic Microsoft Word, you can use Wordpress.”
2. It’s the #1 blog/CMS software on the internet and is free and open source. (This means it’s probably more secure, standards compliant, and better tested) This also means support is readily available at any time from any number of places.
3. Can you say ‘PUSH BUTTON UPGRADES!!’   The newest versions can update the blog software on your server, the plug-ins, and even themes via a few clicks.
4. It supports themes and plug-ins that can be installed with just a few clicks. (Your existing work will still be there!)
5. It’s Search Engine Optimized. Did you know Google is ‘Wordpress aware’?
6. It can automatically archive your post if used as a blog. (only displays the most current content)
7. Wordpress has the flexibility to be used as a static site, an E-Commerce site, a photo journal, almost any thing you can throw at it.

So far I’ve done a photo blog layout, a simple e-commerce site (with secure checkout via Pay-Pal), a ‘clone’ of another existing site (in function and very close to appearance as well – This was surprisingly easier than I first thought), and tinkered with more plug-ins than I can count. Tag clouds, local weather, e-commerce, news readers.. they are all available.
The other thing for me is speed. I can purchase a hosting package with a domain name in the morning, install Wordpress, add a nice flexible theme, add about 3-4 plug-ins and within 24 hours I can have a site that’s being indexed and linked via Google, Yahoo, and found by users on the net. I know, because I’ve personally done it. I don’t know of any other package out there that can give you this flexibly, so unless something drastic happens in the CMS world. I’ve got the feeling that this time I’m staying with Wordpress!

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Well tonight I’ve hooked up the blog here to a Facebook application called RSS Graffiti. It allows post from my blog to automatically appear in my wall post. I’ve already got David Goldstein’s Add to Facebook plug-in running on the blog so anyone can click one button and the blog entry will appear in FB, but I’m SO LAZY I was looking for something even easier. So far this application is very close to my ideal. There are several apps already on FB that do the same thing but a couple of things about this one caught my eye:

• It can work on Groups as well as individual pages. So far no other RSS feed reader advertises they can do this. Only catch I’ve seen is you do need to be a group Admin to do this.
• You can set the start time for the feeds. Not only that, but to choose the date it actually pulls the post so you can set it to start on one particular article and upload all the post from that date on. Too cool!
• Since you CAN filter your feeds in Wordpress [example: http://www.mind-threads.com/category/<category name>/feed] you can have multiple feeds for multiple pages/groups.
• Support: The developers seem to be on the ball and active. The ’start time’ above was actually a suggestion from users they implemented. Looks good!

So far the only down side for me is it doesn’t do the cool little boxes for you page you see on other applications. I’m not worried however, the developers are aware people are asking for this and I expect to see it soon. Well, if all goes as planned this post will appear in my Facebook feed some time within the next 15 minutes. (Yes, that’s a configuration option as well!) Thanks RSS Graffiti!

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You’ll probably need to change the feed type to Top News. This is required to turn an application back on.

Scroll down to the bottom of the newsfeed column and select Edit Options from the right hand side.

Simply select the feed you want to turn back on!

Again, simple.. but why they chose to have it in a different screen than the other I have no clue..

If you have other questions on FB how to, please ask I’m no expert but I’ll try to help if I can.

Thanks, Gene

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http://www.facebook.com/home.php?filter=app_10979261223

The part before the numbers tells Facebook to ONLY show the application identified by the number and of course the number is the application ID assigned by Facebook to a program or game.
Once you click on the link you can then bookmark it in your web browser. Then when you need to see just Mafia Wars or just Farmville, you can simply click on the pre-saved bookmark.

Simple and easy right! Here’s some links and numbers to help get you started on your on filtered bookmarks:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?filter=app_10979261223 – Mafia Wars

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?filter=app_102452128776 – Farmville

More application ID numbers:
Vampire Wars: 25287267406
Vampires Revenge: 159801140644
Vampires the Darkside: 133554205878
Castle Age: 46755028429
Cafeworld: 101539264719
Fishville: 151044809337
Island Paradise: 94483022361
Petville: 163576248142
Superpoke Pets: 29591742977
Yakuza Lords: 119201657847
Sorority Life: 8630423715
YoVille: 21526880407
Fish World: 100354007223
Restaurant City: 43016202276
Cafe World: 101539264719

If you don’t know your applications ID, look in your newsfeed.
When you hover the mouse over the applications name, you should see the ID number in the bottom status bar of your web browser.. Just jot it down and use it as shown above.

If you’ve enjoyed these tips, I’d be glad to hear it and do more!

Gene

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Step 1 – Make sure your feed is set to Most Recent and that the application you want to block or filter is somewhere in the list.

Step 2 – Hover the mouse over the corner of the feed you want to filter out and you’ll see the ‘Hide’ box appear. Click on it.

Step 3 – After you select ‘Hide’, Facebook will prompt you to hide the the application.

Step 4 – Just refresh the screen and you should now notice no more ?insert application name?!!! I’ve done this and it works quite well. I still get the invites (not as annoying) and all the other post by the user.. Thanks Facebook!

Look for my next post, I’ll show you what you need to do if you want to restore the feed you just hid!
Gene

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