User Profile

I'm a professional programmer, and one that is known as a "generalist." I am frequently called upon to learn new things, and so I spend a lot of time poring through documentation and poking around the web. I don't like buying programming books, because they're too expensive, and as I sometimes have discovered the hard way, books quickly go out of date. Because I so often gain a fairly shallow knowledge of something before I have to move on to the next task, I tend to make lots of notes. I've decided that these notes can be of use to many people.

So many times I've seen an error message that was either unintelligible or indicated a completely different problem than what was actually going on. So many times when I've looked online to find out what that was, either I could find absolutely nothing, or more recently, I couldn't post my own solution because the website was an archive of a mailing list that no longer existed or I didn't have permission to post there. I'm posting things here which I either have never found in documentation, which were not adequately explained, or which were very difficult to find. My hope is that anyone searching for these same solutions will be able to find them here.

My comment policy: This is not exactly a bully pulpit, but it is definitely not a "free speech area." All comments are screened. Comments must be from registered users. Your information will be checked, should you provide suggestions or answers. My philosophy is that people should be able to get help without paying with their personal dignity, therefore, I require all comments to be written in a tone you would use with someone you like and respect. Since I can't edit your comments, I reserve the right to delete or rewrite them and post them myself (you will be credited), if your comment:

1) is unclear or confusing,
2) has mistakes in information or English usage,
3) does not meet my personal standards of politeness,
4) links back to a blog post which meets the above criteria.

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