text:
Swedish/Introduction

Welcome to the course
Welcome to a course in Swedish. When you have completed this course, you should have enough knowledge to speak, read and write the language rather well. In order to learn a language properly, you must take action, you must do something. So I suggest, after you've learnt the basics, that you look up some simple, easy Swedish literature, and start reading. Knowing what is easy is not easy if you don't know any Swedish at all though. If you know somebody who is Swedish, they might be able to help you to some nice reading. I will also try to put up some links to nice, easy articles here later.

General remarks about Swedish
While Swedish is, like most European languages, not very closely related in how it is written and how it is pronounced, it is more so than English or French. Swedish, like English, also counts a fair number of dialects, including the southern scanian (which resembles Danish), finlandssvenska (the Finnish-Swedish dialect of Swedish-speaking Finns, mostly spoken in northern Finland), and several dialects different enough to be considered separate languages, although not recognized as such legally or in administration.

There are nine vowels in Swedish:

and 19 consonants:

The consonants c, q, w, x and z appear mostly in words of foreign origin. à, é and ü are considered variants of a, e and y respectively. The combination kk is always written as ck in Swedish words.

Syllable division
Syllable division marks the natural break in a word. When you know where the syllables divide, you can divide a word into its natural sections. This makes speaking correctly easier. You also get a correct speech rhythm. The general rule for syllable division is that each syllable contains one vowel each.

Information about the language
First of all - Swedish is a North Germanic language, which is a subgroup of the Germanic Languages, containing languages as: Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic and Faroese, as well as Norn, which is extinct. Swedish is considered mutually intelligible to a great extent with Norwegian and to some extent with Danish - and native speakers of these languages often intercommunicate. Also since Swedish is a Germanic Language speakers of Western Germanic Languages - e.g. English and German - shouldn't find Swedish that hard to learn, since these languages share some common traits. Swedish is also one of the official languages of Finland.

Alphabet
The Swedish alphabet is almost the same as in English, except for three additional letters, å/Å, ä/Ä and ö/Ö. These have no special function in sentences/words, they are normal letters, and you will see them in use nearly as much as any other letters would be in use in English.

Here's how to say the alphabet letter by letter:

The pitfalls
A few general things to be aware of, as most beginners find them hard,

Sje- and tje-
Two quite similar consonant sounds frequently baffle beginners in Swedish. They are the sje- and tje- sounds. To someone who knows English, they are the sounds present in shear and chain, respectively. The hard part is their spelling, which varies a lot.

Speaking at the tip of your tongue
Swedish does very rarely involve making sounds at the back of your mouth. Vowels should be formed "near your front teeth". "L" and "T" are not thick as in English, and "R" always rolls.

Noun gender
Even native Swedes cannot explain noun gender - there isn't any. Yet, it must be followed. The simple answer is you have to learn it for each noun.

Getting Started
Okay, if you're ready, all you have to do is proceed to Lesson 1!

title: Swedish/Introduction


text:
Spanish/Personal pronouns

Spanish has six different type of pronouns, the 1./2./3. person singular and the 1./2./3. person plural:

 * It is normal in Spanish to omit the personal pronoun (i.e. you seldom say yo estoy bien but estoy bien, and you ask ¿Cómo se llama? instead of ¿Cómo se llama usted?) because the specific conjugation of a verb usually indicates which person is the subject. However, usted, él and ella all use the same verb form so if you choose to drop the pronoun in this case it must be clear in the situational context which pronoun is being referenced.
 * As indicated above, in most of Spain the vosotros form can be used to address a group of familiar people (e.g. friends), and ustedes is used with more formality (e.g. recent acquaintances). In all Latin American countries and parts of Spain ustedes is used also for a familiar group of people; in these countries the "vosotros" form is almost never used.

Exercise: Personal Pronouns Back to lesson 1

Los pronombres personales

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Spanish/Personal pronouns


text:
Spanish/Gender of nouns

In English, the verb in a sentence changes depending on whether a noun is singular or plural. For example, in Standard English, it would be grammatically wrong to write "We is here", since we is plural but is is the singular form of the verb. We need to keep track of which words are singular and which are plural, but since we learn a noun's number when we learn the word, it isn't too difficult.

In Spanish, we also need to keep track of another attribute, called the gender. Spanish has two grammatical genders, which are known as "masculine" and "feminine". Just as a word can be singular or plural, it can also be masculine or feminine. Sometimes it is obvious which gender a word is, such as the words for man and woman. Other times, it may seem arbitrary. Just learn the gender of each noun you learn, and you won't have too much trouble.

Gender of sexed nouns
Normally, for nouns that express gendered entities (people or animals), there is both a masculine-gender form and a feminine-gender form (example: el profesor (m), la profesora (f)). Normally, the feminine-gender words end with the letter 'a' and the masculine words end with the letter 'o'. If a masculine word ends with a consonant, the feminine adds 'a'. If word ends in 'a' it can be both masculine and feminine (el artista, la artista).

Examples:

Sex is not correctly expressed by the gender alone. If you want to say "I need a female student" you can say Necesito una estudiante. However, since gender is required but doesn't convey additional meaning, the sentence would be better understood if you say Necesito una estudiante mujer.

In the plural, the masculine-gender form indicates there is at least one male, or that sex is unknown. Los niños is the children. To indicate boys you must say los niños varones or los niños hombres (the male children).

See also Formation of the feminine

Gender of non-sexed nouns
Many words in Spanish have a fixed arbitrary gender, which is also called grammatical gender. This is true for all things: el pan (bread), la leche (milk). Most animals follow this rule: el camello (camel), la jirafa (giraffe). There are a few words applied to persons that have grammatical gender: el personaje (personage, character), la visita (visitor).

Normally, the feminine-gender words finalize with the letter 'a' and the masculine-gender words end with the letter 'o'.

Examples:

Masculine-gender words ending in o:

Feminine-gender words ending in a:

Here the endings that are typical for feminine nouns.

A mnemonic rule for most feminine-gender endings is the "word" D-ión-Z-A.

There is also a (much less strict) rule for typical masculine-gender endings. The endings can be summarized easily by the word L-O-N-E-R-S:

{| border="1" bgcolor="#9999FF"
 * ||  || Exceptions
 * -l || el árbol (tree) || la miel (honey)
 * -o || el pelo (hair) || la mano (hand)
 * -n (minus -ión) || el cinturón (belt)
 * la sartén (frying pan); however, many people say el sartén
 * -e || el volante (steering wheel) || la muerte (death), la base (basis)
 * -r || el olor (smell, odor) || la flor (flower)
 * -s (minus -is) || el virus (virus) ||
 * stressed vowel || el sofá (sofa) || la mamá (mother, mom)
 * -e || el volante (steering wheel) || la muerte (death), la base (basis)
 * -r || el olor (smell, odor) || la flor (flower)
 * -s (minus -is) || el virus (virus) ||
 * stressed vowel || el sofá (sofa) || la mamá (mother, mom)
 * -s (minus -is) || el virus (virus) ||
 * stressed vowel || el sofá (sofa) || la mamá (mother, mom)
 * stressed vowel || el sofá (sofa) || la mamá (mother, mom)
 * stressed vowel || el sofá (sofa) || la mamá (mother, mom)

Since there are many exceptions to some of the rules it is always good to learn the gender along with the noun. Definite articles normally help us to do this.

Some of these exceptions can be memorized in groups. For example, although most nouns that end in "-a" are feminine and therefore take the "la" article, many nouns that end in -ma are exceptions to the rule and are masculine. This is because these words have a Greek origin. For example, el tema, el programa, el fantasma, el clima and el diploma. However, many words ending in -ma have a feminine gender: la cama, la broma, la norma, la rama, la fama, la yema, la estima, la espuma. Back to lesson 2

Género de los sustantivos

title: Spanish/Gender of nouns


text:
Dutch/Lesson 1A

Gesprek 1A-1
Let's have a look at some more conversations with everyday phrases.

Some words will already look familiar. If not hover to see an instant translation. Try to memorize some phrases, particularly the greetings. Use the vocabulary box on the right to practice the individual words until you know them.

Fill in the blank- 1A-1-F
First say the word you think should be in the blank, then use the hover method to check whether you were right.

 * Dat is de baas van het hotel niet, dat is slechts een.
 * Met gaat het goed, en met jou?
 * Nee, verplichtingen zijn niet.
 * Ik moet nu gaan, tot !
 * Ben je hier elke week om deze ?
 * Ben je naar het concert geweest?
 * Heb ik dat verkeerd ?

Pronunciation drill 1A-1-P
Listen to the following audio files and repeat what the speaker says in the pauses.

 * 1) - Hoe gaat het met je?
 * Notice how "met" and "je" 'meld' together. This is very common in casual speech.
 * 1) - Met mij gaat het prima, dank je!
 * Notice the use of the full pronoun 'mij', because emphasis is put on it. That's why the sentence starts with it. This in turn switches the words "het" and "gaat" into inverse order, much like in the question above.
 * 1) Ik moet nu gaan, tot ziens!
 * Did you notice how the z of ziens assimilates from [z] to [s] once it is put behind the -t of tot?. This happens a lot to voiced consonants in initial position. All final obstruents are voiceless automatically and they even infect the next word!
 * If you are American pay attention to the [u] sound in moet, it is quite a bit more rounded than Americans pronounce a 'u' sound.

Gesprek 1A-2
Jan en Mieke have a bite to eat in a small restaurant

Saying thank you and please
We saw that Dutch makes a distinction between jij/je and u and that this has to do with formality and politeness. The same applies to the formulas used to say thank you and please.

Please is alsjeblieft or alstublieft. Both literally mean: "if it pleases you": als het je/u belieft. It is used in a somewhat different way than in English as it can be used both to say "May I please have...": mag ik alstublieft ... hebben, or for the answer "Here you are", "Here it is" as the waiter in the above dialogue. Alsjeblieft is commonly abbreviated to ajb, whereas alstublieft is abbreviated to a.u.b..

"Thank you" can either be dank je or dank u. It is sometimes augmented with -wel: dank je wel, dank u wel.

An even more informal way of thanking is to say bedankt "(you are) thanked". It is mostly used in the negative: "nee, bedankt" and can even sound a little abbrasive, as in thanks, but no thanks.

A formal alternative is hartelijk dank "Cordially (I say) thanks"

The equivalent of "you are welcome" is tot je dienst or tot uw dienst "at your service". An alternative is graag gedaan "done with pleasure" or niets te danken "(there is) nothing to thank for". Expression like these are not used nearly much as their English counterpart, although this strongly depends on the region. Particularly in the northernmost provinces of the Netherlands (Groningen, Friesland e.g.) people tend to economize on politeness expressions, even find them annoying. Being direct is considered polite enough.

Fill in the blank- 1A-2-F
First say the word you think should be in the blank, then use the hover method to check whether you were right.

 * Mieke wil graag een appelpannenkoek.
 * Jan wil een pannenkoek met
 * Het restaurant heeft een buiten.
 * Mieke wil groene thee, maar Jan drinkt een.
 * Jan wordt te !

Quiz
{ What is this? -visit +pronunciation -friends
 * type="" }

{Select the correct translation ---+hoe +---jou -+--straat --+-spreekt
 * type="" }
 * you (obj.)|street|speaks|how

{Select the correct translation ---+- y'all see them -+--- we see you + he sees me + you see him --+-- you see her
 * type="" }
 * hij ziet me|wij zien je|u ziet haar|jullie zien hen|jij ziet hem

Pronunciation drills 1A-2-P

 * 1) - Wilt u iets eten? - Would you like something to eat
 * Did you notice the /w/? It is produced not between the upper and lower lips as in English or French, but between the upper teeth and the lower lips. At least in the Netherlands it is. In Flanders and in Surinam a bilabial w is more common, so it is not a disaster if you do that one wrong.
 * 1) - Mag ik alstublieft een kopje koffie - May I have a cup of coffee, please.
 * Notice that the 'k' sound is without aspiration: not khopje khoffie; it also contains an u-sound and one gutteral spirant. Try to make those light. Often newbies try to show off their gutterals very emphatically. It makes them sound, well, ehm, gutteral? In the bad sense of the word. Dutch speakers only do that when they are mad at someone. Otherwise they are pretty light.
 * 1) - Ja graag! Ik wil graag een pannenkoek
 * Of course the latter will test your abilities to produce gutturals... They are quite numerous in Dutch, so that you do need to practise them. As the /r/ is concerned, this speaker still uses the oldfashioned rrolling one, but today (2009) there are many different varieties being used, producing interesting combinations if preceded or followed by a g or ch.

Video
Review the personal pronouns and some other useful expressions in this YouTube video

Quizlet
You can practice the vocabulary of this lesson at Quizlet (77 terms)

Progress made
If you have studied the above well you should:
 * 1) Have made progress in pronouncing and understanding simple Dutch sentences
 * 2) Learned how to thank in Dutch
 * 3) Expanded your vocabulary by 77 terms (quizlet) plus 12 phrases related to thanking: total 89 terms

Cumulative count: Les 1: 116 terms, Les 1A: 89 terms. Total 205 terms.

Further material

 * Visit Dutch/Example 1 for some nursery rhymes, a first introduction to Dutch culture and literature.

title: Dutch/Lesson 1A


text:
Canadian Constitutional Law

The following text is intended to provide an overview of the principles of Constitutional law of Canada and its related jurisprudence.

Table of Contents

 * /Sources of Constitutional law/
 * Unwritten Constitution

 * Constitution Act, 1867
 * Constitution Act, 1982
 * /Amending the Constitution/
 * Amending Formula
 * Courts of Canada
 * /Application of the Constitution/
 * Justicibility
 * Jurisdiction
 * Standing
 * Remedy
 * Methods of Judicial review
 * Purpose and Effect
 * Ancillary effects
 * Double Aspect
 * Concurrent jurisdiction
 * Paramouncy
 * Interdelegation
 * Territoriality
 * /Distribution of powers/
 * POGG
 * Trade and commerce
 * Criminal law
 * Federal works and undertakings
 * /Aboriginal peoples/
 * /Charter of Rights and Freedoms/
 * Application
 * Limits
 * Freedom of Expression
 * Freedom of Religion
 * Equality Rights

title: Canadian Constitutional Law


text:
Computer Hardware

''NOTE:- This book is currently in the process of being merged. Some data could be out of place or already merged.'' Personal Computers (PCs) can be obtained in desktop, laptop, notebook and other portable formats.

They are used in all areas of society.

This module describes the parts of typical desktop personal computers.

please add your contributions

Note: Should this stuff be moved to other pages?

Here is how : Help:Editing

=Computer hardware=

 * The Motherboard and things directly attached to it.
 * Computer chassis and screen, preferly with standard sizes (i.e. ISO A4 for notebook chassis).
 * Storage media
 * Other peripherals

---

=Class 1 Components= Class 1 components are integral to the function of the computer.

CPU
The CPU (Central Processing Unit) is the 'brain' of the computer.

It's typically a square ceramic package plugged into the motherboard, with a large heat sink on top (and often a fan on top of that heat sink).

All instructions to the computer are processed by the CPU. There are many "CPU architectures", each of which has its own characteristics and trade-offs. The dominant CPU architectures used in personal computing are x86 and ARM. x86 is easily the most popular processor for this class of machine (the dominant manufacturers of x86 CPUs are Intel and AMD). X64 is currently replacing X86 as it has superior performance. X86 is 32 bit, which means it has 6 0s and 1s to use at one instance while X64 can use 7 0s and 1s. Some programs are offered in 64-bit only.

The other architectures are used, for instance, in workstations, servers or embedded systems.

CPUs contain a small amount of static RAM (SRAM) called a cache. Some processors have two or three levels of cache, containing as much as several megabytes of memory.

Dual Core

Some of the new processors made by Intel and AMD are Dual core. The Intel designation for dual core are "Pentium D", "Core Duo" and "Core 2 Duo" while AMD has its "X2" series and "FX-6x".

The core is where the data is processed and turned into commands directed at the rest of the computer. Having two cores increases the data flow into the processor and the command flow out of the processor potentially doubling the processing power, but the increased performance is only visible with multithreaded applications and heavy multitasking.

Hyper Threading

Hyper Threading is a technology that uses one core but adds a virtual processor to an additional thread at the same time.

Normally the processor carries out one task and then proceeds onto the next task. But with Hyper Threading the processor continually switches in-between each task as if to do them at the same time.

For more information, consult the Wikipedia article on microprocessors.

Case
Most modern computers have an "ATX form factor" case in which ATX-compatible power supplies, Mainboards and Drives can be mounted.

.

During the 1980s and 1990s almost all cases were beige, even Apple's Macintosh line. A few rare exceptions to this were black. Only recently have computer case designers realized that there was a worthwhile market for other colors and designs. This has led to all sorts of modifications to the basic design of a computer case. Now it is easy to find cases with transparent windows and glowing lights illuminating their insides.

Power Supply
All computers have some sort of power supply. This converts the supply voltage (AC 110 or 220 V) to different voltages such as DC 5 V, 12 V and 3.3 V. These are needed inside the computer system by nearly every component inside the computer.

There will be a bunch of connectors coming off of the supply, called Molex connectors. They come in varying sizes, meant for different applications, such as the motherboard (usually the largest of the connectors), the hard and optical drives (a bunch of medium-sized connectors), as well as the floppy drive (a relatively small connector, also saw usage among videocards in 2004). As newer standards come out, the types of connectors have changed. Many power supplies now come with power connectors for Serial ATA hard drives. These are smaller and are "hot-swappable", meaning they can be removed and plugged in again without fear of data loss or electrical problems.

Motherboard
The Motherboard (also called Mainboard) is a large, thin, flat, rectangular fiberglass board (typically green in the past but are now typically black due to consumer demands) attached to the case. The Motherboard carries the CPU, the RAM, the chipset and the expansion slots (PCI, AGP - for graphics -, ISA, etc.).

The Motherboard also holds things like the BIOS (Basic Input Output System) and the CMOS Battery (a coin cell that keeps an embbeded RAM in the motherboard -often NVRAM- powered to keep various settings in effect).

Most modern motherboards have onboard sound and LAN controller, some of them even have on-board graphics. These are adequate for standard office work and system sounds. But dedicated sound and graphics cards plugged into the expansion slots offer much better quality and performance A motherboard includes many components such as CPU, RAM, FIRMWARE, INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL BUSES.

RAM
Random Access Memory (RAM) is a memory that the microprocessor uses to store data during processing. This memory is volatile (loses its contents at power-down). When a software application is launched, the executable program is loaded from hard drive to the RAM. The microprocessor supplies address into the RAM to read instructions and data from it. RAM is needed because hard drives are too slow to operate with the speed of a microprocessor.

Some of the types of RAM are SDRAM, SRAM, DDR RAM, Rambus RAM, SIMM, DIMM.

PCI Express Cards/Slots
The PCI Express standard was created to replace both AGP and PCI slots, with PCI Express 16x and PCI 1x respectively for most implementations. The current implementation of PCI Express allows up to PCI Express 32x.

The reason for the change is that the older PCI cards don't transfer data quickly enough to keep up with modern day gaming, Autocad and video editing software.

Think of it this way, there is a tap that is two inches in diameter, but a drain that is only one inch in diameter. The water doesn't drain quickly enough and eventually the sink overflows. Just like a PCI video card.

AGP Cards
Most graphic cards produced from about 1998-2004 were AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) cards. They are placed in a certain slot on the mainboard with an extra high data transfer rate. The interface was invented to keep the graphics card away from the PCI bus, which was starting to become too constrained for modern graphics cards.

Every graphic card carries a graphic chip (GPU) and very fast DDR RAM for textures and 3D data. Their data buses have 1X, 2X, 4X, and 8X speeds. The bus is 32-bit, much like PCI.

AGP slots are slightly shorter than PCI slots and often brown in color. A similar type of slot called AGP Pro is longer and has extra power leads to accommodate modern video cards. It didn't really catch on in the mainstream market, and graphics card makers preferred to add an extra power connector to supply the power they needed.

PCI Cards
The PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) bus is the most popular internal interconnect for personal computers. They are usually white in color.

The specification features:

 * Plug and play configuration (through standardised means for interacting with configuration software)
 * Standardised electrical connections

Common PCI implementations in desktop PCs feature:

 * 32-bit addressing
 * 33-MHz bus clock

High-end implementations may also feature:

 * 64-bit addressing
 * "Hot plugging" (the ability to add / remove PCI devices from a running machine)
 * 66-MHz bus clock

(all of these are characteristic of PCI-X)

There have been many revisions and evolutions of the PCI specification over the years. Recently, PCI-X has sought to extend the aging architecture for the needs of modern server-class machines, avoiding some of the performance bottlenecks of previous revisions. The new PCI Express specification seems likely to succeed PCI in all classes of personal computer within the next few years.

ISA Cards
Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) cards were the original PC extension cards. Originally running on an 8-bit bus, they ran on a 16-bit bus as of 1984. Like PCI slots, they supported Plug-and-Play as of 1993 (prior to this, one had to set jumpers for IRQ interrupts and such). In comparison to PCI slots, they are rather long, and often black in color. They are not found on most computers built after 1999. <!-- PCMCIA should be mentioned possibly with laptops?

=Class 2 Components: Storage= Class 2 components are storage media for non-volatile data.

Do not put magnetic media (including floppy disks, hard drives, video cassette tape) through airport X-ray machines. The X-rays themselves are not the problem -- it's the magnetic fields from the conveyor-belt motors that all too often erase magnetic media.

Optical media -- Compact Disks (CDs) and the similar-looking DVDs -- are completely immune to magnetic fields. They can be run through airport X-ray machines without any problems.

Flash memory is also immune to magnetic fields.

Sometimes one can distinguish between "fixed media" (the hard drive) that is more or less permanently mounted inside the computer case, and "removable media" (just about every other kind of media) that is easy to pull from one computer and put into another computer.

Hard drive
A hard drive consists of one or more magnetic platters or disks and a read arm with two electromagnetic coils for each disk. Each hard disk is divided into many sectors, each containing a certain amount of data. As of now, it is the cheapest and most common way to store a lot of data in a small space.

CD-ROM drive
Compact Disc Read Only Memory (CD-ROM) is a standard format for storing a variety of data. A CD-ROM holds about 700 MB of data. The media resembles a small, somewhat flexible plastic disc. Any scratch or abrasion on the data side of the disc can lead to it being unreadable.

Cleaning CDs:

CD-RW drive
Compact disc Read/Write drives support the creation of CD-R and CD-RW discs, and also function as CD-ROM drives. These drives use low-powered lasers to 'burn' data into the active layer of the disc.

CD-R (Compact disc recordable) discs are 'write once' - once they have been written to, the data cannot be erased or changed. However, multisessions can be created and more data can be added.

CD-RW (Compact disc rewritable) discs can be rewritten or erased multiple times. This is a two-pass process so they typically take twice as long as CD-R discs to produce.

CD-RW drives will typically have three speed ratings - one for reading discs, one for writing CD-R discs and another for writing CD-RW discs. Speed ratings vary from 1x to 52x, where 1x means that a CD is written/read in 'real time' - a 52 minute audio CD would take about 52 minutes to create at 1x speed, and about 1 minute at 52x speed.

The data can be written to the disc in a variety of formats to create an audio CD, a data CD, a video CD or a photo CD. The audio CDs should play on most standard audio CD equipment and the video and photo CDs will play on many consumer DVD players.

Many CD writers (also known as 'burners') are now combination drives which also function as DVD-ROM drives.

Most DVD-RW drives also have CD-RW capabilities.

DVD-ROM drive
Digital Video/Versatile Disk Read Only Memory (DVD-ROM)

This optical drive works on a similar principle to the CD-ROM, with a laser being used to read data stored in pits on the surface of a reflective disk. DVDs are read using a shorter wavelength of light (a red laser, rather than an infra-red one). In addition to having a greater data-density, DVDs may be double sided and may be "dual layer".

DVD-RW drive
DVDs hold about 4.7 gigabytes and dual-layer disks hold 8.4 gigabytes (dual layer equipment and disks are now becoming more affordable)

Flash memory
Some common types of Flash memory cards are CompactFlash, Secure Digital (SD), and xD. There are other formats which are falling into disuse, such as Smartmedia (SM) and MultiMediaCard (MMC).

Flash memory is faster than magnetic media and much more rugged. The main reason Flash hasn't yet replaced hard drives is that Flash memory is much more expensive per gigabyte than hard drives.

USB Flash drive
Not everyone is familiar with exactly what a USB Flash Drive is, what it’s used for and why they are becoming increasing popular. So here’s a basic guide to what a USB Flash Drive is:

USB Flash drives (also known as USB memory sticks, USB pen drives or USB thumb drives) were first commercially available in the year 2000. IBM launched them under the brand name “DiskOnKey” and they were introduced as a replacement for the floppy disc. By today’s standard the first USB flash drives had a tiny 8MB of storage capacity but even this was 4 times the amount of data that could be stored on a floppy disk.

The portability of USB flash drives and the ability to carry your data around on a key ring or lanyard and simply plug it into a PC via a USB port meant they became very popular very quickly. Essentially a USB flash drive is a just a way of storing data and storing it on something that is lightweight, easy to carry, easy to use and works on all PC and Mac platforms.

Over time larger storage capacities became available and the data transfer speeds increased to support the movement of larger amounts of information. Today typical USB flash drives are 2GB to 4GB but drives up to a whopping 64GB are now making their way into the market. A 64GB flash drive holds 8,000 times more data than the 8MB version first introduced in 2000!!

Inside every USB flash drive is a small printed circuit board (controller chip) that is connected to a flash memory module (the piece on which the data is stored). These two elements are then encased in an outer shell that is typically made of plastic, metal or more recently wood/bamboo.

The USB connector that protrudes out of the end of a flash drive is simply inserted into any PC or Mac and then the storage space on the USB flash drive is accessible and data can to saved to/from the drive. USB flash drives don’t need batteries because they draw all the power they need to work from the USB port they are plugged into.

Today USB flash drives are very popular with companies because they can print their logo or brand onto the outside casing of the flash drive and give them away at trade shows, conferenceHealth Fitness Articles, exhibitions and so on. With the large amount of storage space now available on entry level versions of the flash drive companies are also pre-loading their sales brochures and other marketing material onto the memory of the flash drive – this not only saves them printing and transportation costs but it’s a really effective way of distributing large amounts of data and information about their company.

People that are given branded flash drives (flash drives printed with a company logo on) are typically delighted to receive them because they have a high perceived value and because they can use they to save and transport their own data around.

=Class 3 Components: Peripherals= Class 3 components are components which allow humans to interface with computers.

Display device
Includes computer monitors and other display devices. CRTs and LCDs are common. LCDs are a more recent development, and are gradually replacing CRTs as they become more affordable. LCDs in addition to being lighter also use less energy and generate less heat.

Sound Output
Includes internal or external speakers and headphones.

Mouse
A user interface device that can enable different kinds of control than a keyboard, particularly in GUIs. It was developed at the Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) and adopted and made popular with the Apple Mac. Today, nearly all modern operating systems can use a mouse. Most mice (sometimes the plural is 'mouses' to prevent confusion with the rodent) are made from plastic, and may use a ball to track movement, an LED light, or a laser. Today you can get a wireless mouse that allows you to easily give a presentation without being tied to a desk. These mouses are usually LED or Laser based tracking.

History
In 1964, the first prototype computer mouse was made to use with a graphical user interface (GUI), windows. Douglas Engelbart received a patent for the wooden shell with two metal wheels (computer mouse U.S. Patent # 3,541,541) in 1970, describing it in the patent application as an "X-Y position indicator for a display system.". It was nicknamed the mouse because the tail came out the end, Engelbart revealed about his invention. His version of windows was not considered patentable (no software patents were issued at that time), but Douglas Engelbart has over 45 other patents to his name. There was also a DB-9 connector that was used to be an old serial mouse connector.

Keyboard
A keyboard is an input device which is connected to a computer and used to type instructions or information into the computer. Typically, a keyboard has about 100 or so keys.

 * Keyboards differ between languages. Most English-speaking people use what is called a QWERTY layout. This refers to the order of the top row of keys. Some foreign languages (i. e. German) use QWERTZ, where the Z and Y are switched.
 * Many laptop computers do not include a number pad. (There is sometimes a function on the keyboard to enable a numpad-like mode.)
 * Modern keyboards sometimes have extra controls such as volume, and keys that can be programmed to bring up programs of the user's choice.

Printer
A printer makes marks on paper. It can print images and text.

The most common types of printers today are

 * Laser printer: Prints very crisp text, but cheaper models can only print in black and white. Good for places like offices where high printing speed is needed.
 * Color inkjet printer: Prints photos and other images in color (using 4 colors of ink—cyan, magenta, yellow, and black), but the text they print is often not as crisp as a laser printer.

The average printer of the early 1990s would connect to a computer through its parallel port. To connect it to the computer via parallel port, one would have to screw it into the port. Today many printers are connected through USB. This is because it is easier to connect and remove through a simple plug and play system. It also allows for faster transfer speeds than parallel.

Scanner
A scanner is a device for digitizing paper documents into images that may be manipulated by a computer. The two main classes of scanner are

 * hand-held scanners (in which the user manually drags a small scanning head over the document), and
 * flat-bed scanners (which are designed to accommodate a whole sheet of paper, which is then examined by a motorised scanning head).

If the original document contained text, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software may be used to reconstruct the text of the document from the scanned images.

Modem
A contraction of "Modulator - demodulator", a modem allows a computer to communicate over an analogue medium (most commonly a telephone line). The modem encodes digital signals from the computer as analogue signals suitable for transmission (modulation) and decodes digital data from a modulated analogue signal (demodulation). Using modems two computers may communicate over a telephone line, with the data passed between them being represented as sound.

Modems are usually involved with dial-up internet services. As broadband catches on, they are falling into disuse. However, the devices used to connect to broadband connections are also called modems, specifically DSL Modems or Cable Modems.

CD-Roms
A CDROM (compact disk read-only memory), also written as CD-ROM, is a type of optical storage media that allows data to be written to it only once. This contrasts with memory, whose contents can be accessed (i.e., read and written to) at extremely high speeds but which are retained only temporarily (i.e., while in use or only as long as the power supply remains on). Although the disc media and the drives of the CD and CD-ROM are, in principle, the same, there is a difference in the way data storage is organized. Two new sectors were defined, Mode 1 for storing computer data and Mode 2 for compressed audio or video/graphic data.

CD-ROM Mode 1
It is the mode used for CD-ROMs that carry data and applications only. In order to access the thousands of data files that may be present on this type of CD, precise addressing is necessary

CD-ROM Mode 2
CD-ROM Mode 2 is used for compressed audio/video information and uses only two layers of error detection and correction, the same as the CD-DA. Therefore, all 2,336 bytes of data behind the sync and header bytes are for user data

=Appendix A: Connectors and Cables= There are many different types of connectors and cables in personal computers, and this section will address as many as the various editors deem relevant.

Internal Connectors
Several types of cables are used to connect components together inside the case, providing power and a path for data. These include:

 * Motherboard Power Connector: This connector is designed especially to move electricity from the power supply to the motherboard. Older computers use the AT power connections, with two six-pin connectors lined up side by side.  ATX motherboards used a single connector with 20 pins arranged in two rows of 10.
 * Many motherboards now also use supplementary power connectors, such as a 4 pin plug specifically for the CPU supply.
 * Some others have more than 20 pins for the main connector. The extra pins are in the form of a 'separate' connector, that fits onto the end of the standard 20 pin connector. This may be used or not as required by the particular motherboard.
 * The PCI-e interface may also require the use of further power cables from the power supply.
 * Power Connectors for Drives: Hard drives, optical drives, and, increasingly, high-end video cards use a 4-wire power connection, of which several are available from a power supply. Floppy drives use a smaller connector.
 * With the introduction of the SATA interface for data another type of power connector for drives was also introduced. This is thinner than the previous power connector.
 * 40 and 80-pin IDE Cables: These cables are used by hard drives and optical drives to transfer data to and from the motherboard. These are now sometimes called PATA (Parallel ATA) cables to differentiate from the more recent SATA.
 * SATA (Serial ATA) Cables: These cables are now used by most hard drives and even optical drives to carry data to and from the motherboard. They are much thinner than PATA ribbon cables, and the connectors are much smaller. Generally red coloured.
 * SATA drives generally also require a new type of power connector, though some can also use the older white 'Molex' plug. Adaptors are available if the power supply doesn't have the correct connector.
 * 34-pin Floppy Cables: These are used to connect floppy drives to floppy disk connectors on the mainboard/motherboard.

External Connectors
Without connections to the rest of the world, a computer would just be a fancy paperweight. Numerous connectors are used to make a computer useful.

 * AT Keyboard Connector: Found on older computers, this connector is large and round with five pins.
 * PS/2 Connector: This connector is currently the most popular for connecting both the keyboard and mouse. Note that older mice once used serial ports (defined below), and newer mice frequently use the Universal Serial Bus (USB).
 * VGA Connector: This connector has 3 rows of 5 pins each, and is used to connect the computer to the display screen.
 * Parallel Port (DB-25): This connector is commonly used to interface with printers, and can also transfer between computers. It has been mostly replaced by USB.
 * Serial Port (DB-9): This 9-pin connector is used to connect all sorts of devices, but is being replaced by USB. It has been used in the past to connect mice and transfer data between computers.
 * Universal Serial Bus (USB): This relatively recent connector can connect the computer to almost anything.  It has been used for storage devices, printers, sound, mice, keyboards, cameras, and even networking. USB 2.0 allows transfer speeds of up to 480 Mbit/s.
 * FireWire (IEEE 1394) port: This high-speed connection runs at 400 Mbit/s (1394a) or 800 Mbit/s (1394b), and can connect up to 63 external devices to a single port. Most digital camcorders have a firewire port to connect to a computer.
 * RJ-11 (phone) Connectors: This is the type of connector you will see on phones and modems. It is not used for much else.
 * RJ-45 Connectors: These are used to connect computers to an Ethernet network. Maximum speed of such a connection is now 1000 Mbit/s (= 1 Gbit/s).
 * Audio Connectors: Three of these connectors can be found on an average sound card, and are used to connect to microphones (usually pink), speakers (usually green), and other audio devices (usually blue). The external device connector is usually a silver-colored or gold-plated plug that fits into a round hole.

= Units of Information =

In the world of computers, a unit of information is how much a certain data storing system can hold and is used to measure how much other systems can hold as well. There are two types of units that are the most typical which are bits, which exist is two states, or bytes, the equivalent of eight bits. Bits make up the foundation of unit information. Without bits there would be no bytes, nibbles, nor words.

 * Bytes or octets are the equivalent to eight bits.
 * Nibbles are four bits or sometimes called half a byte.
 * Words are most commonly known for having 16 bits but others in the past have used words with many different bits.

Hardware

title: Computer Hardware


text:
User:Noah~enwikibooks

Noah Silas
Location of Residence: Venice, CA, USA

Enrolled at: University of California, Riverside - Bourns College of Engineering

Major: Computer-Science

Interests
Mathematics is a game with Rules and no Objectives. Philosophy is a game with Objectives and no Rules.
 * Computer Programming
 * Politics (Green Party Member)
 * Philosophy
 * Human Relations

title: User:Noah~enwikibooks


text:
Talk:PHP Programming

Front Page Cleanup
I think the front page needs to be cleaned up a little. The top sections are good along with the contents of 'The Basics' section but further down it gets a little disorganised. It needs to be cleaned up and filled in to make the front page more presentable. Also, do we really need a 'Contributors' section? I thought the point of Wikis was that everyone contributed, it seems against the ethos to attribute certain pages to certain people. Fyorl (talk) 11:37, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Working with Files
I plan on adding a section related to working with files. I will discuss mainly the use of the f(open|write|close) in conjunction with file and file_get_contents as well as devoting a small section to file_put_contents and how to emulate it with PHP 4.

I'm just checking that nobody is already working on a similar section. If I hear no response in a couple of days I will start work on the article on my Talk page and then tranfer it over upon completion.

The article will also make a reference to serialization. Since this could appear in both the Database section and the Session section, I was wondering if it was best to create a separate page and link to it from within all the other pages? Fyorl (talk) 16:52, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Naming policy?
I am not new to Wikipedia, but this is the first time I have looked at a Wikibook. I have some confusion about the template that says the book's title does not adhere to the "naming policy." What is wrong with the title, and how does it not adhere? Here I have seen discussions about the book's content, cover, PHP version, and so forth, but nothing regarding the name or that template. To anyone that may advise--thanks. 67.42.14.57 18:19, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

 * If you click on the link in the naming policy notice, you'll see the preferred naming convention. This wikibook used to use a colon  separator for sub pages, which resulted in the need to manually link to the index (example: hello world).  Currently, the barely-existing PEAR page seems to be the only page still using the depricated naming convention.  --banzaimonkey (talk) 20:28, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

 * As it seems that all of the pages are in order (excepting PEAR), I removed the template. --banzaimonkey (talk) 20:33, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

 * But now it is back; anyone care to explain? — Sam Wilson (Australia) 21:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Version
Are we talking PHP version 4 or 5 here?

PHP5 was recently released, and features the ZEND II engine, which includes enhanced OOP(Object Oriented Programming) features, better XML support, and built in SQLite support.

PHP4, on the other hand, is still the prevalant web technology, and I suspect that most servers will not be offering PHP5 support for some time.

Either way, I suggest that OOP be included in the 'advanced php' section. I just don't know how to write it because of the discrepancies between php4 and php5. --Noah 20:19, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Ok, since I recieved no response, I will assume that this page is geared towards PHP5. I am going to start writing the OOP features accordingly. I will also edit the intro to make this obvious. --Noah 18:46, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think for anything specific to one version, we should show the equivalent in the older / newer version if possible. --Spoom 01:47, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * I'd like to second this notion, and extend it. Whenever possible I think functions that are aviable in both versions should be used. For most of the introductory material it doesn't matter.  OOP can be part of a later discussion, along with other major version 5 improvements.  Since these books are perminant static things we can always drop discussion of version 5 when it becomes the standard (in other words we can stop singling out the difference at that point).  I would expect most people learn PHP at the moment are still working in 4. --Ahc 06:28, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

External links?
There are many "dead" links here to pages that don't exist on wikibooks, and will most likely never exist. For example: GUI or Rasmus Lardorf will most likely not get their own books. It's much more likely that they'll get a Wikipedia page(GUI already has one), and I think that's where those links should take you...

I'd say change them to link to Wikipedia if you find them then, just use common sense. --Spoom 06:15, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Learn PHP

Smarty Templates
There is no reason to discuss Smarty Templates as part of the language. You can either hit them in a round about PEAR and Templating or put the package in a list of "useful" PHP projects.
 * While Smarty is not part of the core language, it is mentioned in many other PHP books, and it is a very useful to have knowledge of its features. However, I think merging Templates and Smarty would be useful.

Include/Require functions
There seem to be at least 3 sections which talk about require(_once) and include(_once) (Headers and footers, Template and Including Files. Since these deal with basically the same subject, couldn't they be merged into a single page about the use of require and include, and a list/example of the uses of these functions? -- DorianGray

If I don't see any reasons why in the next few days I'll delete Templates and Headers and Footers and move all relevant content to Including Files. --DorianGray 06:58, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Internal Functions?
I know that the PHP website has a lot of information about PHP's internal functions, but do we want to start highlighting the ones most used? I'm particularly interested in the mail function myself.

 I would say that's unnecessary, unless it comes up in the course of a lesson. I feel that a structured, lesson based approached would be better. Example: a lesson on "Sending E-Mail with PHP" rather than "mail", and "Working with Arrays" as opposed to "Array functions" or "array_sort"

MySQL in PHP5
Should it be mentioned that PHP5 on Windows no longer has MySQL support built in, but has it shipped as a separate DLL that needs to be referenced in php.ini?

Hi, i think that this should be mentioned in the php:mysql page, not the main page. I wrote that it should be downloaded separately -- User:Wykis

Sub-pages
 Shouldn't the pages for setting up your environment be on subpages? It makes this main page seem awfully noisy to have them right there.

 *  I agree, I think there seems to be alot of emphasis on lesser PHP topics such as setup, templating etc. and there should be more PHP code and the setup stuff should be in a sub-topic

Accessing files
I'd like to see a section on reading and writing from/to files. Anyone? Thanks!
 * I'm writing it now if no-one has any objections. I plan to put it in the basic section as a starter's guide to file manipulation.--Davidd 23:09, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

echo/print functions/constructs
On the Hello World page, and maybe in other places that I haven't noticed yet, echo and print are referred to as functions. Since they are actually language constructs in their own right, should they be more accurately referred to simply as statements?

The newline "operator"
 In PHP Basics Example #1: Basic Arithmetic Operators, a reference is made to a newline "operator". The example in question is actually referring to the process of adding a newline by using the \n escape sequence in a double quoted string. I recommend that firstly this reference is clarified, explaining escape characters, and that secondly, since PHP is most often used with HTML, that this example be rewritten to use the <br /> tag- it being the case that in a browser, the \n character does not cause a newline.

I've got to agree on this too. This is so annoying when user changes the page to rendered html page. for example, text to text and to new line... We are not evaluating html here. HTML is just an example. Please don't edit any pages just to do that. Thank You Wykis 07:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

where are the Snafus?
The part that always seem to be left out from programming tutorials, or, if present, truncated to incomprehensibility (part of the ph.D curriculum I guess.. ;) is a bunch of common errors in writing the code.

Anyone who has done any programming have made mistakes that take forever to track down. Please add a section with the most obvious ones, and put it in the 'beginner' section. (a personal favourite is 'if ($X == $y;) {...}' which took a few re-readings to catch..)

How about some exercises per lesson?
Not just simple questions. I mean something along the lines of "Make a script that prints 'foo' if 'x' is true" or something like that. Doing this helps keep the concepts stuck in your head, and would be tragic if this textbook didn't have it.

First person writing?
Should addendums be added in first person, such as "I recommend ..."? How should this be handled? 209.149.56.162 00:35, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey, i just noticed this too, I will correct the mistakes as the book is written by a lot of people,not one person ;p Wykis, 14:42 14 January 2006

There are many thing we can add on this section.

New presentation
I propose to change the look of the PHP book : we can use this look Programmation PHP (sorry in french). Do you like this ? Merrheim 10:07, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

wow, wish i knew about this b4. i think this page is going to change my life --Nerd42 16:58, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree on this. I like the idea though. The design of that French page looks good but I prefer this book to be just like a normal book. Just a book :) Wykis 18:20, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Wikibooks are viewed on a computer. Since there isn't a tangible book with pages to turn, an outline view would be really nice.  Getting between lessons in the current layout is rather tedious, and a TOC / Index / Outline view would probably work better than putting "Next Page" links on each lesson because the ordering of the lesson can change, and the navigation would break.  Changing the formatting would be a lot of work, but we should look into it (it doesn't have to be a carbon copy of the French layout).  It doesn't do anyone much good if the information herein is inaccessible.  --banzaimonkey

 * I'm working on some indexes at the moment, so don't go running off and do something I've already done. ;)  --Banzaimonkey 19:01, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

 * Make sure to let us know if your done or a estimate of when you're done would be nice as I believe this book is very incomplete and needs a lot added to it.AlReece45 02:39, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

For MediaWiki
it would be cool if there was a section on advice for would-be developers about writing bug fixes for MediaWiki. 128.250.37.103 07:41, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Already exists? Did you try googlling about this? http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ helps quiet a lot. This is a Programming book for PHP, NOT for MediaWiki. Instead, try looking in IRC and . Wykis 18:18, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Flag Frog = Ripped from Smarty?
Flag Frog templating system looks like a rip from Smarty template engine. Should this be removed from the page? Wykis 18:16, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
 * It looks like a fork of Smarty-Light. It's under the GPL, so I see no issue with it in and of itself, but I don't think it's something that needs to be posted on the PHP wikibook considering that as of now, there are 164 downloads in total of all version of the FlatFrog package.  Has anyone here heard of it before? Spoom 17:57, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Major Changes to this Wikibook
I'm planning a significant overhaul for this wikibook. It currently has a decent amount of information but suffers from irregular organization, lack of verbocity, and has room for substantial additions of content. I've been writing a small todo list for myself, which you can view on my userpage. If you're an active reader / contributor and would like to take part in a discussion about changes to this wikibook, please reply in this page or contact me on my talk page. Otherwise I'll just assume that I'm the only person here who is active and will carry on with the changes as time permits. --Banzaimonkey 09:04, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

 * Update: I have been working on thing for a few weeks and am ready to proceed with a few things on my list.  Code examples will be wrapped in a color-coded box designating the type of code example (see Code Template for details).  I've also created a cover for the book which you can view here.  I've tagged the book as having a deprecated naming convention, and I will begin the process of migrating them to the new namespace once I decide what that namespace will be (probably PHP_Programming.  This will enable root auto-links on each page (returning the user to the main page), as well as conforming to the new naming convention (as of March 1rst, 2006).  Next on my list is an overhaul of the table of contents, but I'm still unsure how this will be reorganized.  If I have free time after all that, I'll go through this talk page and clean it up a bit.  --banzaimonkey 02:17, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Update: The overhaul on the table of contents will probably take place before the migration.  This will allow me to figure out how things need to be organized when they're moved.  --banzaimonkey 06:39, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Color Code Boxes
I have wrapped the first two Basic programming lessons. All code is contained in a colored template. You can view them here and here. Please leave your feedback in response to this post. My own thoughts are positive, but I'm not entirely satisfied with the functionality. I may rewrite the template with a more modular, extensible approach. --banzaimonkey 06:36, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I think that it is a good idea. Makes for easier reading and quicker reference.Bounton 08:26, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

What do you think about adding syntax highlighting? In my opinion, it makes the code much easier to read. --King elessar 00:35, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I like this idea if it's at all possible to do automatic syntax highlighting of PHP code within MediaWiki somehow. Also, have you taken a look at Template:Code:PHPHTML?  I don't know if you're already using it but it's a perfect fit.  Keep up the good work. --Spoom 18:03, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Very interesting. I like it. Helps to highlight what we are trying to do with the code.

Its a good idea!

Love it. Reading is much easier on the eyes

good idea

Excellent idea. Much easier to read. Go on u's.

Book Cover
I've added the book cover to the main page to garner attention and feedback. Please leave your feedback here. When the book is reorganized and migrated, the book cover will appear on the main page and will link to the table of contents. --banzaimonkey 06:40, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I personally like the design. It seems friendly, colourful and has PHP code and the elephant in it. It also seems like a cover you might see on a book. Good work.213.168.233.251

The licensing sounds incompatible (combination of GNU GPL and GFDL) - maybe elroubio would agree to license the elephant under the GFDL?

 * This licensing crap and legal encumbrance is the primary reason I haven't done any work on wikibooks lately. It's too tedious trying to figure out how to get everything done legally, much less organized, formatted, proofread, etc.  I don't do legal work unless I'm paid for it.  If someone else wants to contact him (he speaks French, btw), go ahead, otherwise... *shrugs*  --banzaimonkey 03:41, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

 * The GFDL is for documentation. Why do you want to use it for a image? —Andrew Hampe Talk 01:38, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

 * I had been under the impression that contributions to wikibooks were limited to GFDL (since the text is licensed as GFDL). It seems that is not the case, so I have changed the license to GPL to avoid any particular incompatibilities with the source images. --banzaimonkey (talk) 19:55, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Ehh. I like it, brings good attention to the page

I like it. It makes more sense than Programming Python, the O'Reilly book. It has a mouse on it. SNAKES EAT MICE. (I'm curious, what does that code do?) --74.101.118.195 04:28, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Reorg
I am going to reorganize the information contained in the "Hello World!", Nuts and Bolts, and commenting and Style modules to a more K&R approach:  "Hello World!" Variables Operators

Expressions

I think giving each topic its own module will make a better layout for reference use and break up complex topics so that they will be easier to learn. It will also be easier for us to maintain since it is clear where topics will go (trying to avoid duplicate data), so added bonus. Any issues? --Karl McClendon (talk) 12:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

 * As long as navigation is clear I have no problem... Fyorl (talk) 15:28, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

 * Yes, a good idea I think. The front page needs a bit of work.  — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 23:33, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Experienced PHP developer
The Wikimedia Foundation office in San Francisco does have an opportunity for an experienced PHP developer. Dedalus (talk) 20:17, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned page
PHP Programming/curl is not linked to from this book. Please merge it and mark it with, mark it with if no longer desired, or link to it from the proper page. -- Adrignola talk contribs 19:50, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Research/peer review of PHP website architectures?
Just wondering if anyone here is interested in wikiversity:Topic talk:PHP — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 10:08, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

PHP is not fast
From the lead: Its popularity derives from its C-like syntax, its speed and its simplicity.

PHP is not exactly known for speed, see for example, PHP speed vs other languages.

Shouldn't this statement simply be left out?

--Mortense (talk) 11:47, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I've removed the statement from the lead. - EdoDodo talk 10:31, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Style?
We need to define a way to write the code in examples here.

I propose:

 * 'else if', not 'elseif'
 * space after 'if', 'else if', and 'else'
 * four space indentation
 * <?php and ?> are on their own lines
 * Class names are LikeThis
 * function and variable names are likeThis
 * space after commas

Any thoughts or ideas?

Enter a username here (discuss • contribs) 23:40, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

 * I think it's a great idea to have a style guide for code examples here! There are already a dozen different coding standards out there; perhaps one of those could be adopted. For instance, PSR-0, PSR-1, and PSR-2 together form a pretty comprehensive guide. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 11:47, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

title: Talk:PHP Programming


text:
How To Search/MOBIUS Consortium

MOBIUS
 * Purpose: MOBIUS makes available "a virtual collection of the approximately 14 million items in the libraries of Missouri's colleges and universities and creates a single user interface that allows faculty and students to request library materials using any personal computer in any location with access to the Internet."
 * Audience: Students and employees of institutions which are part of the MOBIUS consortium.
 * Scope: All cataloged material from MOBIUS member institutions.
 * Refresh Rate: Item records are made available as they are purchased and catalogued by librarians.
 * Further Information: MOBIUS uses the Millennium library system. Further searching information can be found at ../Millennium-III/. Most of the items found in the MOBIUS catalog are available via Inter Library Loan from your local library if you live in the United States.

Boolean Operators
See ../Millennium-III/

Other Operators
See ../Millennium-III/

Search Fields
See ../Millennium-III/

title: How To Search/MOBIUS Consortium


text:
How To Search/Millennium-III

Millennium is an integrated library system written and maintained by the company Innovative Interfaces, Inc. It is the software that libraries buy and it is where they place their catalog records for library items. The operators and fields are similar across most Millenium installations.

title: How To Search/Millennium-III


text:
Bicycles/Maintenance and Repair/Shifters/Rapidfire Shifter Lubrication

This is for the Shimano A20 "rapidfire" shifter switch (on the handlebars) but a similar situation may exist for other brands/models. The shifter consists of two levers and an enclosed ratchet mechanism with pawls. If pushing on the lever fails to move the idler wheels of the derailleur (on the chain), then a likely cause is lack of lubrication. If the old lubricant gets hard, the pawls will stick.

So remove the switch and then remove a cover. Push-pull the pawl that's giving trouble with a small screwdriver and watch what happens. The pawls have tiny springs that push them into contact with a lugged wheel. If a pawl fails to maintain contact with the lugged (or notched) wheel, then, if the spring isn't broken, it can be fixed by lubing the pivot point of the pawl. Work the pawl back and forth with a small screwdriver, etc. right after applying a drop or two of lube oil. When the spring freely moves the pawl into contact with the lugged wheel, it's fixed.


text:
Talk:Introduction to Philosophy/What is Metaphysics

Hey! Thanks for adding on!

Michael J. Burns

"Meta" in Metaphysics
Michael, I believe this passage has to be corrected:

"Early use of the term simply referred to the topics covered by the work placed before (hence meta) the Physics in the traditional ordering of Aristotle's works."

"meta" in this sense means the opposite, that is, it means: "after". Please read this:

"The philosopher and editor Andronicus of Rhodes gave this title to Aristotle's writings that came after the Physics in his collected works."

http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20000321

Thank you.

That's an interesting definition of metaphysics and definitely one I'll consider. I am not sure if I would go with it however. Perhaps you could add some reference to the concept of "reality" which is the way I have most often seen metaphysics defined.

I've always thought that the difference between science (physics) and metaphysics was that with science only phenomena are explained - and, to the extent that this is possible, phenomena are explained always in terms of simpler phenomena, with the minimal use of concepts that to not correspond to some simpler form of sense-data (science still has problems with some concepts that are are not quite sensible e.g. time)

Metaphysics on the other hand deals with reality - the reality that underlies the phenomena, the reality that is not knowable directly. Metaphysical theories then are necessarily speculative and are, for the agnostic, impossible to verify or judge (this does not imply they are of no value - they can be explored as interesting fictions for example)

My explanation is not better than your own, but perhaps you could incorporate a little of the above into your explanation.

The problem is that there is no one definition of the term that is universally acceptable, I think.

Best of luck,

Paul Barry

Metaphysics/Physics Distinction
I am not an editor of Wikipedia but I was reading the article and the line

The statement that "Evil does not exist" is metaphysical because it is a statement that deals with the object 'evil' as opposed to 'good' which is a metaphysical subject, whereas the statement that "all things are composed of smaller things, which are in turn composed of still smaller things, and so on down to infinity" is definitely not metaphysics, utmost a concern of physical sciences.

caused me some concern. Though mathematical infinity exists, there is 'no way to prove that infinity exists physically'. That means that if you look deeper into a cell and find atoms, and then collide small electrons with atoms to find quarks and smaller particles, you will be able to detect these subatomic particles in a magnetic field in a particle accelerator. Though physical science has accepted that idea that even these particles can be theoretically broken down into even smaller particles, this hypothesis cannot be tested and thus cannot be considered "physics". Therefore I would argue that your statement is in the realm of metaphysics and not physics.

- Evan (emg39@cornell.edu) 5/23/2006

Huh?
This module uses a very strange (and confusing) use of "metaphysics". It's not "beyond physics", it's "about physics". For example, a discussion of how the 7 (I think it's 7 now) forces of physics work is a discussion of physics, while the statement "all physical objects obey a finite number of physical laws" is a metaphysical statement. IOW, physics is about the what and how, metaphysics is about the why (or perhaps the who, when mixed with theology). -- SB_Johnny | talk 03:22, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

 * You're correct. But the original use of "meta" didn't have a philosophical meaning.  It simply pointed to the bibliographic sequence Andronicus of Rhodes established, that is, the metaphysical books were put AFTER the physical-nature books. Centuries passed and the European philosophers took the word in a post-Neo-Platonic way. Speaking circularly, they metaphysically interpreted the word "metaphysical" and Andronicus intentions. 201.19.217.19 14:48, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


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User:Daniel Mendoza~enwikibooks

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title: User:Daniel Mendoza~enwikibooks


text:
Canadian Tort Law

This text is intended to provide an overview of the current law of torts, and its relevant jurisprudence and history.

Contents

 * /Introduction/
 * /Trespass to person/
 * /Trespass to property/
 * /Negligence/
 * /Strict liability/
 * /Defamation/
 * /Nuisance/
 * Extra-contractual obligation (Quebec)
 * Appendix I - case summaries

title: Canadian Tort Law


text:
Canadian Contract Law

The following text is intended to provide a survey of the law of contracts in Canada.

Contents

 * /Introduction/
 * /Formation of the Bargain/
 * Offer and Invitation to Treat
 * Invitation for Tenders
 * Acceptance
 * Consideration
 * Past consideration
 * intention

 * /Interpretation of a Contract/
 * Statute of Frauds
 * Implied Terms

 * /Unenforceable Contracts/
 * Uncertainty and incompleteness
 * Vagueness
 * Agreements to agree
 * Capacity
 * Duress
 * Undue Influence
 * Statute of Frauds
 * Non Est Factum

 * /Alternatives to Contract Formation/
 * Quantum Meruit
 * Estoppel

 * /Excuses for non-performance/
 * Mistake
 * Misrepresentation
 * Frustration
 * Illegality
 * Unconscionability
 * Accord and Satisfaction

 * /Rights of Third Parties/
 * Assignment
 * Delegation
 * Novation
 * Third party privity

 * /Breach of Contract/
 * Anticipatory repudiation
 * Exclusion Clauses
 * Fundamental breach

 * /Remedies for Breach/
 * Damages
 * Specific Performance
 * Rescission

title: Canadian Contract Law


text:
Canadian Constitutional Law/Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Introduction
Up until 1982, the previous section covered just about all of Canadian constitutional law. In just over two decades, the Constitution Act, 1982 has had a predictably enormous impact on constitutional law. The most important section of the Constitution Act, 1982, both for the legal community and for the general population, has been the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ("Charter"). The Supreme Court of Canada has spent most of the past twenty years interpreting the Charter, and in so doing, has caused governments and lawyers to rewrite the basic rules of almost every area of public law.

Before the Charter came into effect, Canadian law had a melange of legal human rights protections. For the average person, they worked very well, although what most people now consider enormous injustices were legally inflicted on some. The Supreme Court of Canada held that the Unwritten Constitution protected some human rights. In Roncarelli v. Duplessis, [1959 121.], the Court ruled that the Constitution protected the people from arbitrary action by government officials. The federal government enacted the Canadian Bill of Rights in 1960, although it is now remembered mainly for the occasions that courts refused to apply it. In addition, some provinces had human rights legislation which forbade people from exercising their civil rights in discriminatory ways. However, as a general rule, no instrument permitted courts to strike down laws which violated human rights. This changed in 1982 by virtue of s. 52 of the Constitution Act, 1982, which stated that any law that violated the Constitution, including the new part of the Constitution containing the Charter, was of no force or effect.

In order to give full effect to the Charter, the Supreme Court of Canada decided to give the Charter a "broad and liberal interpretation." (R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd., [1985 1 S.C.R. 295]). The Court adopted a "purposive" approach, asking what the purpose of protecting the rights in question are, and giving effect to those purposes through the Court's interpretations of their meanings. This contrasts with the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Canadian Bill of Rights, in which the meaning of the words of the Bill were interpreted so narrowly that the Bill protected virtually no rights in practice.

Applicability of the Charter
According to s.32, the Charter applies to "the Parliament and government of Canada" and the "legislature and government of each province". It does not apply to private individuals or corporations. If Mr. Smith discriminates against Mr. Jones, Mr. Jones cannot go to court and sue Mr. Smith for violating his Charter rights (although Mr. Jones would probably be protected against discrimination by other legislation). Of course, the "legislature and government" is a broad term. How far does it apply? To organizations that receive government grants? To people who bring a private dispute to a court created by the government?

In RWDSU v. Dolphin Delivery, [1986 2 S.C.R. 573], the Supreme Court of Canada decided that the Charter did not apply to a dispute between two private parties before the courts. More controversially, it also decided that the Charter did not apply to the common law, unless the common law was the basis for government action. So, even if the common law restrictions against picketing violated the picketer's freedom of expression, the Charter would not protect him from being sued by the target of the picketing.

The "effective control test" determines whether an organization is part of the government or not for the purposes of Charter s.32. In Mckinney v. University of Guelph, [1990 3 S.C.R. 229], the Court decided that Universities are not part of the Government, even though they receive most of their money from the government. The main question to ask is how much control the government has over the institution: Is there a law that directs how the institution will operate? Does the government appoint the majority of the institution's board of directors? Does the institution have any history or guarantees of independent action from government? The greater the government control over the operation of the institution, the more likely it is to be a part of the government, although different Supreme Court decisions have required different amounts of control.

Limits on Rights
The first section of the Charter, somewhat surprisingly, is the main section placing limits on the rights and freedoms contained in the Charter. Section 1 states: "The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society."

For Charter rights to be limited, the limits must meet three requirements:
 * 1) They must be reasonable in a free and democratic society
 * 2) They must be prescribed by law
 * 3) They must be demonstrably justified

The second and third requirements are relatively clear. "Prescribed by law" means that the limits must be written either in legislation or regulation. A governmental limit on Charter rights cannot be arbitrarily decided by an official. Nor can it be contained in rules which do not amount to "law", such as administrative manuals. "Demonstrably justified" means that the burden of proof is on the government to prove that the limits it has imposed are reasonable. In court, this means that once the plaintiff proves on a balance of probabilities that his or her rights have been violated, the government must prove on a balance of probabilities that it is reasonable.

On the other hand, the question of what constitutes a "reasonable limit" in a "free and democratic society" is perhaps the most important question of modern constitutional law. Most major Charter cases in Canada do not turn on the question of whether a right has been violated (the courts often find that it has been), but whether the law constituted a reasonable limit on that right.

The test for deciding whether the violation of a Charter right is a reasonable limit on a right or freedom was created by the Supreme Court in R. v. Oakes, [1986 1 S.C.R. 103]. Known simply as the Oakes test, it asks the following questions:

 * Is the purpose of the legislation to limit the charter right or freedom? If so, it is not a reasonable limit.
 * Is the limit proportional to the objective? It is if it meets all of the three following criteria:
 * The limit has a "pressing and substantial objective"
 * The limit infringes on the Charter right as little as possible to meet its objective (aka the "minimal impairment test")
 * The benefit of the limit is greater than the harm caused by limiting the right or freedom

The Oakes test is still used by the Supreme Court, although it has nuanced the second part of the proportionality test. The Supreme Court found that a limit on a right should infringe at right "as little as possible" when the objective of the law is to set relations between the government and the individual (for instance, in criminal law, where it is the government against the individual). However, the government should have more flexibility when trying to strike a balance between different groups of people. This latter case would come up most often in areas of social welfare. Where the government cannot afford to give everyone equal benefits, it will almost always have to create a somewhat arbitrary dividing line, such that some people have their right to be treated equally violated. The Court must give some flexibility to the government in deciding whom to give benefits and whom to deny. In such a case, the Supreme Court reasoned in McKinney, the "minimal impairment test" is whether the government had a reasonable basis for believing that the right to equality has been violated as little as possible to achieve the government objective.

Freedom of Expression
Perhaps other than the Equality provisions, freedom of expression (Charter s. 2(b)) has created the most important litigation and had the biggest impact on Canadian society.

One of the most important questions to be litigated was what was protected as "expression". In Irwin Toy ltd. v. Quebec (Attorney general), [1989 1 S.C.R. 927], the Supreme Court ruled that anything that "conveyed meaning" was expression. This meant virtually any way that someone chose to express themselves, whether through words, acts, or depictions. Anything that conveyed meaning and was not in "an unacceptable form" (i.e., violence or threats of violence), was protected by the Charter.

The second question the Supreme Court answered in Irwin Toy was what constituted a violation of the right to free expression. If the purpose of the government restriction on expression was to restrict certain content, then that restriction violates the Charter. This includes restricting certain methods of conveying meaning that are tied to the content itself (e.g., instead of banning rock music, the content, banning FM radio, the method of conveying the music).

If the purpose of the limit is not to restrict content but to prevent certain harmful effects from the way the content is physically expressed, then the court must examine the effects of the restriction. If the restriction has the effect of frustrating "the pursuit of truth, participation in the community, or individual self-fulfillment and human flourishing", then the restriction violates the Charter. The burden of proof is then on the government to show that the restriction is reasonable under the Oakes test. If it is not reasonable, then the restriction on expression is unconstitutional.

In cases after Irwin Toy, the Supreme Court has found that political expression promotes "the pursuit of truth, participation in the community, or individual self-fulfillment and human flourishing" more than other types of expression, such as commercial advertising or pornography. Therefore, almost all restrictions on political expression have been found to be violations of the right to free expression.

Another important finding in Irwin Toy was that corporation has the right to free expression (although much of its expression will be commercial advertising, the restriction of which is not always a violation of free expression).

Search and Seizure
Section Eight of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides everyone in Canada with protection against unreasonable search and seizure. This Charter right provides Canadians with their primary source of constitutionally enforced privacy rights. Typically, this protects personal information that can be obtained through searching someone in pat-down, entering someone's property or surveillance.

Under the heading of legal rights, section 8 states:
 * 8. Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.

Reasonable expectation of privacy
Generally speaking, this right does not protect against normal searches or seizures. Rather, the right focuses on the action being unreasonable on the basis that it violates an indivdual's reasonable expectation of privacy.

Equality
According to s. 15 of the Charter, everyone is equal before and under the law and has equal protection and equal benefit of the law, without discrimination. Section 15 further lists some prohibited grounds of discrimination: race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age, mental ability, and physical disability.

Andrews v. Law Society of British Columbia, [1989 1 S.C.R. 143]defined discrimination. Discrimination is a distinction which imposes disadvantages or withholds advantages based on the characteristics of an individual or group. A mere distinction is not enough. It must be a distinction based on characteristics that a person has because he or she belongs to a certain group.

That group must either be distinguished by one of the prohibited grounds above, or "analogous" grounds. A ground is analogous if it has some of the following similarities to the grounds listed, such as:
 * having that characteristic is not in the control of the individual
 * that characteristic cannot be altered or can only be altered at unacceptable cost
 * the groups defined by that characteristic have relatively little power in society

Andrews decided that being a non-citizen was an analogous ground of discrimination. The Supreme Court has also ruled in Vriend v. Alberta, [1998 1 S.C.R. 493] that sexual orientation is an analogous ground. Vriend is also important as being the first case in which the Supreme Court required the provinces to add a new prohibited ground of discrimination in their human rights legislation. Provincial human rights legislation, unlike the Charter, apply to private disputes.

Exclusion of Evidence
Practices regarding what evidence may be brought against an individual in trials are addressed by section 24(2). This subsection is said to make Canadian practices regarding this matter more like those in the United States; however, the Canadian standards are still not as strict as the US standards. Whereas in the US, any evidence will not be used against the individual if it was acquired in an illegal way, for evidence to be excluded in Canadian trials, it must not only have been acquired illegally but must also threaten to bring the Canadian court system into "disrepute."[4] The 1987 case R. v. Collins attempted to define this. It was ruled that evidence should be excluded if it would render the trial unfair, and furthermore, the more Charter rights are violated, the more courts should have an obligation to exclude the evidence that violated the rights. Often, it is the right to have counsel and the security from unreasonable search and seizure that, when infringed, lead to evidence being excluded.

"Notwithstanding" Clause
The addition of the Charter to the Constitution was a radical change in Canadian constitutional law. To assuage concerns that the courts were being given too much power to rewrite and reinterpret legislation, s.33 was included in the Charter. Under this provision, legislation can be made immune from being challenged as a violation of certain Charter rights. These include freedom of expression, religion, assembly, association, and freedom from discrimination, as well as criminal rights. Legislation can operate "notwithstanding" these rights for renewable terms of five years. This clause has rarely been used in practice.


text: The World of Peer-to-Peer (P2P)/All Chapters


text: Template:Music Theory/Sharp

title: Template:Music Theory/Sharp


text: Template:Music Theory/Flat

title: Template:Music Theory/Flat


text: Template:Music Theory/Dblsharp

title: Template:Music Theory/Dblsharp


text: Template:Music Theory/Dblflat

title: Template:Music Theory/Dblflat


text:
Cookbook:Savory Pumpkin Scones

| Pastry

Ingredients

 * 2 cups self-raising flour, sifted
 * ¼ cup skim milk powder
 * 2 spring onions, chopped
 * ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
 * ¾ cup cold cooked pumpkin
 * ½ cup buttermilk
 * ½ cup natural mineral water
 * Cottage cheese or butter, for serving (optional)

Procedure

 * 1) Preheat oven to 220°C (430°F).
 * 2) Combine the flour, milk powder, onion and nutmeg.
 * 3) Fold in the pumpkin, buttermilk and mineral water to make the dough.
 * 4) Pat out the mixture onto a lightly floured board and roll out to a thickness of about ⅝ inch.
 * 5) Using a 2-inch scone cutter, press out 12 rounds.
 * 6) Place these on a lightly floured baking tray and bake at 220°C for 12–15 minutes or until golden.
 * 7) Serve with dollops of cottage cheese or butter.

title: Cookbook:Savory Pumpkin Scones


text:
PHP Programming/The do while Loop

The do while loop
The do while loop is similar in syntax and purpose to the while loop. The do/while loop construct moves the test that continues the loop to the end of the code block. The code is executed at least once, and then the condition is tested. For example:

Even though $c is greater than 5, the script will echo "Hi" to the page one time.

PHP's do/while loop is not commonly used.

Example
This example will output the factorial of (product of all the numbers from 1 to it).

The continue statement
The continue statement causes the current iteration of the loop to end, and continues execution where the condition is checked - if this condition is true, it starts the loop again. For example, in the loop statement:

the statement is not executed when the condition i = 0 is true.

For More Information

 * PHP Manual: Control Structures: do-while

title: PHP Programming/The do while Loop


text:
Cookbook talk:Ricotta Lasagne

Eww. Cottage cheese is NOT an adequate substitution for riccota. Nor is a prepared sauce an evenly remotely appropriate replacement for a real lasagne suace. It shouldn't even be legal. I'll add my recipe as soon as I can find the card its on. Grimm

I moved this to "Ricotta Lasagne" to create a general lasagne page under Cookbook:Lasagne. I'm not sure if Ricotta is really the defining ingredient here, maybe it should be "Beef Lasagne" or "Beef and Ricotta Lasagne". Feel free to move it again it another name seems more suitable. risk

this recipe is also called pastitsio or pasticcio. i dont know which section to include this info under, if someone else could, that'd be great.

also, isnt the variant that uses eggplant instead of pasta, the definition of moussaka? (that might be wrong) - nick

and...the discussion page for lasagna is redirecting to ricotta lasagna. someone should fix that.
 * Fixed. (I guess I missed that one). risk

 * You were right about the Moussaka, I put that under the tips and variations. A Pastitsio is slightly different from a lasagna, so it should get it's own page. I put a refrence under tips and variations. (If anyone's confused, this is all about the lasagne page, not the Ricotta Lzsagne). risk

title: Cookbook talk:Ricotta Lasagne


text:
User talk:The Grimm Ripper

For contents of this page prior to Nov 18, 2007 see my talk archive.

Hello, World! I haven't been active here in a long time now but I've just gotten an internet connection back and hope to continue contributing. To anyone who tried getting in touch while I was away I apologize and I should now be able to reply in a semi-prompt manner to any new queries. Cheerio, Grimm

title: User talk:The Grimm Ripper


text:
How To Search/Directory of Open Access Journals

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) - Journal Search
 * Purpose: "Increase the visibility and ease of use of open access scientific and scholarly journals thereby promoting their increased usage and impact."
 * Audience: Researchers.
 * Scope: "The Directory aims to be comprehensive and cover all open access scientific and scholarly journals that use a quality control system to guarantee the content."
 * Refresh Rate:
 * Further Information: While DOAJ started as a journal directory, it has expanded to catalog at the article level also. This page is for the journal level searching although, they seem to use the same operators at the moment. There are no written instructions for searching so the below information was found by trial and error.

Other Features
The DOAJ searches, both journal and article level, seem to have primitive searching mechanisms at the moment. Using this site as a directory for finding open access journals seems to be its forte at this time. 07/29/04


text:
How To Search/Library catalog

Library catalog searches are listed below.

 * ../MOBIUS Consortium/
 * ../OhioLINK/

title: How To Search/Library catalog


text:
User:Billk

For more about me see my page on the Wikipedia.

title: User:Billk