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Mad Jack Fuller

John Fuller (20 February 1757 – 11 April 1834), better known as "Mad Jack" Fuller (although he himself preferred to be called "Honest John" Fuller), was Squire of the hamlet of Brightling, in Sussex, and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1780 and 1812. He was a builder of follies, philanthropist, patron of the arts and sciences, and slave owner and a supporter of slavery. He purchased and commissioned many paintings from J. M. W. Turner. He was sponsor and mentor to Michael Faraday.

Early life
Fuller was born on 20 February 1757 in North Stoneham, Hampshire. He was christened in the village of Waldron, near Heathfield in Sussex, in the south of England. His parents were the Reverend Henry Fuller (15 January 1713 – 23 July 1761) and his wife Frances, née Fuller (1725 – 14 February 1778).

He lost his father in 1761, when he was four. At the age of ten, in 1767, he began his education at Eton College, a famous public school in Berkshire.

On 7 May 1777, Jack Fuller's uncle Rose Fuller, MP died, leaving Jack his Sussex estates and Jamaican plantations. Jack Fuller thus took possession of the Rose Hill estate (now Brightling Park) at Brightling, Sussex at the age of 20.

Political career
In 1779, John "Mad Jack" Fuller, at the age of 22, was captain of a light infantry company in the Sussex Militia. In 1796, Fuller was appointed High Sheriff of Sussex, for a period of one year, and in 1798, he became a captain in the Sussex Gentlemen and Yeomanry Cavalry.

In 1780, at the age of 23, Jack Fuller was elected to Parliament. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Southampton from 1780 to 1784, and for Sussex from 1801 to 1812.

Fuller was a noted drunk. On 27 February 1810 he was involved in an incident with the Speaker in Parliament, which led to him being seized by the Serjeant-at-Arms and to public disgrace. At that time he was serving on a committee that was enquiring into the reasons behind the disastrous Walcheren Expedition the previous year.

Fuller was a slave owner and staunch supporter of slavery. He owned two Jamaican plantations, along with the slaves who worked it, which he had inherited from his uncle, Rose Fuller. In one debate he claimed that West Indian slaves lived in better conditions than many people in England.

On 17 July 1781, Fuller's sister Elizabeth married Sir John Palmer Acland, a grandson of Sir Hugh Acland MP, in St. Marylebone in London.

In 1790, at the age of 33, he proposed marriage to Susannah Arabella Thrale, daughter of Henry Thrale and Hester Thrale but was rebuffed. He never married, and is not known to have had any children.

In 1811, a pyramid-shaped building, often referred to as "The Pyramid", was erected in the churchyard of the Church of St. Thomas à Becket in Brightling as a future mausoleum for Jack Fuller.

Fuller retired from politics in 1812, not standing for re-election in the General Election of that year.

Later life
Fuller was a supporter and sponsor of the Royal Institution in London. He acted as mentor and supporter of the young Michael Faraday. In 1818 he loaned the Institution £1000 (about £100,000 in today's value) and later wrote off this debt.

In 1828 he established the Fuller medal of the Royal Institution and in early 1833 he founded the Fullerian Professorship of Chemistry to which Michael Faraday was appointed as the first professor. Later he also endowed the institution with the Fullerian Professorship of Physiology. In contemporary times, use of the Fullerian title has been discontinued, and the two chairs will no longer be filled.

In 1818, Fuller built the Observatory at Brightling which had been designed by Robert Smirke, and in 1822, he endowed Eastbourne in Sussex with its first lifeboat. Unsubstantiated sources claim that in 1828, he financed the building of the Belle Tout Lighthouse, on the cliff at Beachy Head, near Eastbourne. The first Belle Tout lighthouse was a temporary wooden structure that started service on 1 October 1828. The construction of the permanent granite lighthouse began in 1829 and it became operational on 11 October 1834. On Thursday, 18 September 1828, Jack Fuller bought Bodiam Castle for 3000 guineas at auction to save it from destruction.

On the afternoon of Friday 11 April 1834, Fuller died at his home, 36 Devonshire Place, London. He was buried under the Pyramid in Brightling churchyard. The main beneficiaries of his will were his nephew, Peregrine Palmer Fuller Palmer Acland (1789–1871) and General Sir Augustus Elliot Fuller (1777–1857) who was John Fuller's first cousin once removed.

title: Mad Jack Fuller


text:
PIM

PIM or Pim may refer to:

Computing

 * Parallel inference machine, an intended fifth generation computer
 * Personal information management
 * Personal information manager software
 * Personal Information Module for PalmDOS
 * Personal Iterations Multiplier for VeraCrypt
 * Platform-independent model in software engineering
 * Protocol Independent Multicast, Internet protocols
 * Processor-in-memory, CPU and memory on the same chip

Engineering, science, and mathematics

 * Passive intermodulation of signals
 * Phosphatidylmyo-inositol mannosides, a glycolipid component of the cell wall of Mycobacterium tuberculosis
 * Principal indecomposable module in mathematical module theory

Business

 * Product information management
 * Partnerized Inventory Management
 * Pim Brothers & Co., large Irish family business founded in the nineteenth century

Given name

 * Pim (name)

Surname

 * Bedford Clapperton Trevelyan Pim, (1826-1886), Royal Navy officer
 * Jonathan Pim (1806–1885), Irish politician
 * Jonathan Pim (1858–1949), Irish lawyer and politician
 * Joshua Pim (1869-1942), Irish doctor and tennis player
 * Raymond Pim (1897–1993), American politician

Fictional

 * Pim Diffy, a character in TV series Phil of the Future
 * Pim Pimling, a character in the TV series Smiling Friends

Places

 * Pimhill or Pim Hill, England
 * Pim Island, Canada
 * Pim (river), Russia
 * Pondok Indah Mall, Indonesia

Other uses

 * Pacific Islands Monthly, a news magazine, discontinued 2000
 * Penalty (ice hockey) (Penalties infraction minutes)
 * Pim Fortuyn List, Dutch political party
 * Pim weight in ancient Israel
 * Prague International Marathon
 * Providence Industrial Mission
 * Public Illumination Magazine

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

title: PIM


text:
Personal information manager

A personal information manager (often referred to as a PIM tool or, more simply, a PIM) is a type of application software that functions as a personal organizer. The acronym PIM is now, more commonly, used in reference to personal information management as a field of study. As an information management tool, a PIM tool's purpose is to facilitate the recording, tracking, and management of certain types of "personal information".

Scope
Personal information can include any of the following:
 * Address books
 * Alerts
 * A digital calendar with calendar dates, such as:
 * Anniversaries
 * Appointments
 * Birthdays
 * Events
 * Meetings
 * Education records
 * Email addresses
 * Fax communications
 * Itineraries
 * Instant message archives
 * Legal documents
 * Lists (such as reading lists, task lists)
 * Medical information, such as healthcare provider contact information, medical history, prescriptions
 * Passwords and login credentials
 * Personal file collections (digital and physical): documents, music, photos, videos and similar
 * Personal diary/journal/memos/notes
 * Project management features
 * Recipes
 * Reference materials (including scientific references, websites of interest)
 * RSS/Atom feeds
 * Reminders
 * Voicemail communications

Synchronization
Some PIM/PDM software products are capable of synchronizing data over a computer network, including mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). This feature typically stores the personal data on cloud drives allowing for continuous concurrent data updates/access, on the user's computers, including desktop computers, laptop computers, and mobile devices, such a personal digital assistants or smartphones.)

History
Prior to the introduction of the term "Personal digital assistant" ("PDA") by Apple in 1992, handheld personal organizers such as the Psion Organiser and the Sharp Wizard were also referred to as "PIMs".

The time management and communications functions of PIMs largely migrated from PDAs to smartphones, with Apple, RIM (Research In Motion, now BlackBerry), and others all manufacturing smartphones that offer most of the functions of earlier PDAs.

title: Personal information manager


text:
Solemn League and Covenant

The Solemn League and Covenant was an agreement between the Scottish Covenanters and the leaders of the English Parliamentarians in 1643 during the First English Civil War, a theatre of conflict in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. On 17 August 1643, the Church of Scotland (the Kirk) accepted it and on 25 September 1643 so did the English Parliament and the Westminster Assembly.

English Parliament (First Civil War)
At the time, the Protestant leaders of the English Parliament were in conflict with King Charles I. Fearing Irish Catholic troops could join the Royalist army, Parliament requested the aid of the Scots. The Presbyterian Covenanters promised their aid, on condition that the Scottish system of church government was adopted in England. This was acceptable to the majority of the English Long Parliament, as many MPs were Presbyterians, while others preferred allying with the Scots rather than losing the Civil War.

After some haggling a document called "The Solemn League and Covenant" was drawn up. This was in effect a treaty between the English parliament and its Scottish counterpart for the preservation of the reformed religion in Scotland, the reformation of religion in England and Ireland "according to the word of God and the example of the best reformed churches", and the "extirpation of popery [and] prelacy". It did not explicitly mention Presbyterianism, and included some ambiguous formulations which left the door open to the English Independents, another strong faction on the English Parliamentary side, particularly in the parliamentary armies. It was subscribed to by many in England, Scotland, and Ireland, approved by the English Long Parliament, and, with some slight modifications, by the Westminster Assembly of Divines.

However, not all those on the English Parliamentarian side were happy with this arrangement and some, like John Lilburne, chose to leave the parliamentary armies rather than take the oath prescribed in the Act enforcing the Solemn League and Covenant.

The agreement meant that the Covenanters sent another army south to England to fight on the Parliamentarian side in the First English Civil War. When the Scots army entered England by invitation of the English Parliament in January 1644 the Parliamentary Committee of Safety was replaced by an ad hoc committee representative of both kingdoms which, by parliamentary ordinance of 16 February, was formally constituted the Committee of Both Kingdoms. Its object was the management of peace overtures to, or making war on, King Charles I. The Scots withdrew from the committee after the end of the First Civil War, although it continued to sit and from then on was known as the Derby House Committee (as it sat in Derby House in London).

Engagement and Charles I (Second Civil War)
After the Royalists had lost the First Civil War, Charles I was able to enter into an "Engagement" with the majority of the Covenanters in which they agreed to support him in the Second English Civil War against their mutual enemy the English Independents, in return for Charles imposing Presbyterianism for three years on England. In 1648 the Royalists and the Covenanters were defeated at the Battle of Preston, and Charles was executed in January 1649.

Charles II (Third Civil War)
After the Kirk Party seized power from the unsuccessful and therefore discredited Engagers, the new Scottish Covenanter government persuaded the exiled Charles II to agree to the terms of the Solemn League and Covenant in the Treaty of Breda (1650). However, the defeat of the Royalist and Scottish army at the Battle of Worcester in 1651 ended the relevance of the Solemn League and Covenant as the power of the Presbyterians was broken on both sides of the border.

Restoration and the Sedition Act
After the Restoration the English Parliament passed the Sedition Act 1661, which declared that the Solemn League and Covenant was unlawful, was to be abjured by all persons holding public offices, and was to be burnt by the common hangman.

title: Solemn League and Covenant


text:
White Mountains (New England)

The White Mountains are a mountain range covering about a quarter of the state of New Hampshire and a small portion of western Maine in the United States. They are a subrange of the northern Appalachian Mountains and the most rugged mountains in New England. Several of the higher peaks contain an Alpine tundra. The range is heavily visited due to its proximity to Boston, New York City, and Montreal.

Most of the area is public land, including the White Mountain National Forest and a number of state parks. Its most famous mountain is 6288 ft Mount Washington, which is the highest peak in the Northeastern U.S. and for 76 years held the record for fastest surface wind gust in the world (231 mph in 1934). Mount Washington is part of a line of summits, the Presidential Range, that are named after U.S. presidents and other prominent Americans.

The White Mountains also include the Franconia Range, Sandwich Range, Carter-Moriah Range and Kinsman Range in New Hampshire, and the Mahoosuc Range straddling the border between it and Maine. In all, there are 48 peaks within New Hampshire as well as one (Old Speck Mountain) in Maine over 4000 ft, known as the four-thousand footers.

The Whites are known for a system of alpine huts for hikers operated by the Appalachian Mountain Club. The Appalachian Trail crosses the area from southwest to northeast.

Etymology
It is not clear where the name "White Mountains" came from. There is no record of what Native Americans called the range, although pre-Colonial names for many individual peaks are known. The name and similar ones such as "White Hills" or "Wine Hills" are found in literature from Colonial times. According to tradition, the mountains were first sighted from shipboard off the coast near the Piscataqua estuary. The highest peaks would often be snow-capped, appearing white. An alternate theory is that the mica-laden granite of the summits looked white to observers.

Geology and physiography
The White Mountains are a physiographic section of the larger New England province, which in turn is part of the larger Appalachian Highlands physiographic division.

The magma intrusions forming the White Mountains today were created 124 to 100 million years ago as the North American Plate moved westward over the New England hotspot.

Widespread evidence of glaciation may be seen in the U-shaped form of various notches, or mountain passes. Glacial cirques form the heads of Tuckerman Ravine on Mt. Washington and King Ravine on Mt. Adams. Glacial striations are visible at numerous locations, including on the exposed rocks at the summit of Pine Mountain in Gorham.

The Red Hill Syenite, a rock unit of the White Mountains, found in central New Hampshire, is of interest to researchers due to the fact that it contains feldspathoids as well as quartz-bearing rocks.

Attractions
The White Mountain National Forest, formed in 1911 after passage of the Weeks Act, includes most of the mountain range and now covers 800000 acre in New Hampshire and western Maine. The Mount Washington Auto Road and Mount Washington Cog Railway ascend the range's highest peak, which hosts a visitor center and weather observatory. Heavily visited Arethusa Falls, the second tallest waterfall in New Hampshire, lies on a southwest flank of Crawford Notch. The Old Man of the Mountain, a rock formation on Cannon Mountain that resembled the craggy profile of a man's face, was a White Mountain landmark until it fell in May 2003. It remains the state symbol of New Hampshire. The range also includes a natural feature dubbed "The Basin", consisting of a granite bowl, 20 ft in diameter, fed by a waterfall, worn smooth by the Pemigewasset River. The areas around The Basin are popular spots for swimming in the cold water.

The range is crossed north–south by U.S. Route 3 and Interstate 93 through Franconia Notch and New Hampshire Route 16 through Pinkham Notch, and east–west by the Kancamagus Highway (part of New Hampshire Route 112) through Kancamagus Pass and U.S. Route 302 through Crawford Notch. Many of these highways are designated as scenic routes.

Several amusement parks lie in or near the White Mountains, including Story Land, Santa's Village, Whale's Tale Water Park and Clark's Trading Post. The White Mountains region is also home to numerous hiking attractions through the various river gorges, ravines, and caves in the area. The Flume Gorge, Lost River Reservation and Polar Caves Park all provide moderate hikes that one can complete in a few hours. Skiing is a popular attraction in the area. Cannon Mountain Ski Area, Loon Mountain Ski Resort, Attitash Mountain Resort, Wildcat Mountain Ski Area, Bretton Woods Mountain Resort, and Waterville Valley Resort are all popular winter ski resorts, and many of them provide year-round outdoor activities such as bridle paths, hiking trails, alpine slides, and the like. The Mount Washington Hotel located in Bretton Woods was the site of the Bretton Woods Conference following World War II, and today remains one of the few early twentieth century grand hotels still in use. An estimated six million visitors visit the region yearly.

Mapping
Some of the earliest maps of the White Mountains were produced as tourist maps and not topographical maps. One of the first two tourist maps of the mountains was that produced by Franklin Leavitt, a self-taught artist born near Lancaster, New Hampshire in 1824. Leavitt's hand-drawn map, today in the collection of Harvard University, is largely folk art, but does convey some of the region's features. Leavitt drew several versions of his map, beginning in 1852. The fourth version, printed in 1871, was printed at Boston and carried a retail price of one dollar. Other early maps of the region were drawn by H. Conant and by Harvard astronomer George Phillips Bond, who published the first topographical map of the region in 1853.

Art
The White Mountains drew hundreds of painters during the 19th century. This group of artists is sometimes referred to as belonging to the "White Mountain school" of art. Others dispute the notion that these painters were a "school", since they did not all paint in the same style as, for example, those artists of the Hudson River School.

In literature and drama
Nathaniel Hawthorne chose the White Mountains as the setting for his short story "The Great Carbuncle". Other White Mountain tales by Hawthorne include "The Ambitious Guest", "Sketches from Memory" and "The Great Stone Face". The White Mountain region also figures prominently in the writings of Louisa May Alcott, including the novel Eight Cousins and its sequel, Rose in Bloom.

title: White Mountains (New England)


text:
Zenobi

Zenobi was a video game company that was known for its interactive fiction. The company was started by John Wilson in 1986 and continued in various forms until 2013. The company produced and published adventure games for the ZX Spectrum (along with the Atari ST) range of home computers, operating as a commercial entity from 1986 to 1997, selling the titles by mail-order. Zenobi's titles included adaptations of Jack the Ripper, Bored of the Rings, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Emulator images were also available for PC and Amiga users. In its later years Zenobi concentrated on emulator users and produced numerous compilation CDs and DVDs.

On September 1, 2018, after a thirty-year hiatus, a Zenobi adventure game written by John Wilson, Ramsbottom Smith and the Quest For the Yellow Spheroid, was released for the ZX Spectrum.

John Wilson produced games for various platforms under the moniker Pension Productions until his death in 2021.

title: Zenobi


text:
Talk:Visual Basic for Applications

Object-Oriented Programming
1. Discussion of how VBA, WSH, VB script all are similar and may share technology 2. Links to MS documentation on VBA (found on the MS Office developer page)

Indeed it would be good to list specific differences for example between VBA and VB. For example, "VBA doesn't support type casting. It isn't a fully object-oriented language. You can neither inherit classes in your own custom class definitions, nor can you get your objects to behave polymorphically (e.g., cast them as an instance of their base class). VB6 doesn't support inheritance/polymorphism either, but VB.NET and C# do." (http://p2p.wrox.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=26628) ~TP —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.84.98.138 (talk) 08:37, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It's more complicated than that. VBA is not considered a fully OO language, but it does support type casting and polymorphic functions can be written. Further, the language above, addressing the reader with "you", is unencyclopedic. That's why I reverted the edit which inserted the text above into the article. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:32, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

VBW (the original version of VBA, effectively its predecessor, only available on MS Word [hence VBW - Visual Basic for Winword]) ought to be mentioned on here. -- 134.225.165.163 (talk) 02:53, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Could you please insert a correct explanation of the relationship between VBA and object-oriented languages, then? It seems important. --Jules.LT (talk) 13:20, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * There's not all that much that I can add. There are quite a few characteristics of OO Programming in VBA, like classes and some kind of constructors (but not conversion constructors), destructors, and instance methods. OTOH, VBA doesn't support inheritance. All this is my WP:OR; if anything like this should make it into the article, it needs reliable sources better than a quote from a web forum. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:18, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Recent Update
VBA was recently updated to version 7.1 in Office 2013. wwwEagle (talk) 08:17, 21 January 2013 (UTC).
 * The VBA article should include that the JavaScript Office Add in provides a small subset of VBA capability and importantly requires the user's Office application to access a cloud hosted service to download the custom written add-in component. VBA is shipped inside of the Office document and does not have this external point of failure and does not require a cloud subscription service.
 * The marketing material from Microsoft does not mention that this Office AddIn is a downgrade in functionality and an increase in the support cost for Office applications. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2020 2600:1700:d591:5f10:780e:467e:6c55:e1bf (talk) 02:40, 12 November (UTC)

"Hundreds of applications"?
Office, Autocad, Intellicad... anything else? Mathcad and Visual Basic Script.
 * It looks like the reference to "Hundreds of applications" was removed some time ago. Btw - Visual Basic Script is an independent implementation of Visual Basic based syntax. It is not an application of VBA. Ralphy 09:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Examples
User:Snakeyes060280 - why have you added 'DAO' library qualifications to the object names? Ralphy 16:32, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Where is there a VBA language reference/specificaation?
I've been looking for an online reference to the VBA language, but have not been able to find anything about the language itself (as opposed to APIs for the various MS Office applications for instance).

Does anyone know where there is a VBA language specification? Erland Lewin 13:40, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Try Here: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/isv/aa905357.aspx Oorang (talk) 22:45, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Edit by 84.146.195.216
I started to remove errors in the edit by 84.146.195.216 on 22:09, 19 September 2006 however I find almost everything in that edit is incorrect or misleading. Furthermore there is a much better discussion of the strengths and weakness of the Visual Basic language in the visual basic article. This is why I am rolling back to the edit before 84.146.195.216. There some of the problems with the edit I am removing:

VBA's entities can be roughly divided in to classes: Firstly, there are the usual elements forming a programming language: data types, variables, control- and loop-struktures. This part of VBA is intended not to be application specific and is used to express the program logic. Secondly, there is an API which allows VBA to interact with it's host application. This API is specific to the relative application.

The APIs described in this section are not part of the VBA language or runtime environment. They are OLE Automation APIs which can be called from VBA and other languages with COM support. This also simplification of VBA also ignores that VBA is more than a language, it is also an integrated development environment. All these parts of VBA are discussed in the Description section of the article.

VBA itself is an [[Interpreter (computing)|interpreted] language. Precompilation is only used for syntax-check and to build tables for the variables used. Therefore VBA cannot be used to create standalone executables. Interpretation also causes the high memory requirement and low execution speed compaired with compiled programs. VBA is an interpreted language and it can't be used to create standalone executables, I am keeping this in the article. However, this section does not say what VBA is being compared to. I some cases VBA may be slower or require more memory than alternatives and in some cases the opposite is the case. Since VBA runs in process with the application it is automating VBA programs often run faster that out of process compiled programs. Many compiled programs also load large libraries used for COM support.

VBA is a descentant of Microsoft's Visual Basic and therefor has it's roots in the Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. Like BASIC, VBA also targets end users, being unexperienced programmers or complete beginners in the field of programming. It aims to support many of the simple language constructs, that were used in early BASIC Languages. Since BASIC since the early days lacked standardisation, there were lots of different dialects over the time, so VBA usually supports several syntactial constructs for the same programming goal. This can lead to a confusing variety of syntax and logical breaches: Examples:
 * ) The keyword "Let" might be neglected when asigning predefined types. But when asigning user defined types another keyword, "Set", is mandatory.
 * ) Variables are implicitely defined, except a directive, "Option Explicit", is used at the beginning of a script.
 * ) Subroutines are cathegorized in "functions" (returning a value) and sub (not returning a value). Functions must be called using brackets arount their arguments. Eigher their returnvalue as to be assigned to a variable, or the keyword "call" must be used, while subs must not be used in an assignment. When calling subs, the keyword "call" is optional but determines, whether brackets have to be used or not. All of the above syntax variants exist with named or unnamed arguments, additionally all arguments might be optional, taking on a default value proposed by the programmer when no value is assigned in the call.

I am keeping some of this section since it is correct that VBA is a decedent of BASIC and design decisions in the language favor inexperienced programmers. VBA's attempt to hide the difference between value and reference types does lead to confusion and the ability to omit variable deceleration can lead to errors however these are common in many languages. The description of how Let and Set are used is incorrect. Let is used with value types and set with object references, not with predefined types and user defined types. The use of a keyword to specify whether a subroutine returns a value or not may actually lead to less confusion than other approaches such as using a void return type. The discussion about the Call keyword and the use of practices is completely incorrect in VBA 6.

Despite of its close resemplance to many old BASIC dialects, VBA is not compatible to any of them, except Microsoft Visual Basic: Here the source-code of VBA Modules can be directly imported. Compatibility ends with Visual Basic Verison 6, VBA ist not compatible to VB.NET. Although being along with MS-Office a widespread product, VBA is proprietary to Microsoft and forms no Open standard. This I am keeping except for the removal of the reference to Microsoft Office as VBA's use within those products has no relationship to whether it is an open standard or not.

VBA still supports flow control using the keyword "goto" (often called Spaghetti code in the jargon) but is mostly designed for Procedural programming.

VBA supports procedural and object orientated programming, event driven programming and possible other paradigms. Goto can lead to Spaghetti code but they are not the same thing. I will link to article on VBA where there is a more in depth discussion of the strengths and weakness of the Visual Basic language

VBA can depict classes and thereby supports data encapsulation, but lacks support for the other [[Object-oriented programming|object-orientated] techniques, like class-attributes and inheritance. So most of the [[Design pattern (computer science)|design patterns] of object orientated programming cannot be realized and VBA cannot be called an object orientated language. VBA supports class-attributes and interface inheritance and can be used to implement many popular design patterns. I don't know if it can implement most design because there is no list of all design patterens.

Interaction with the host application is usually well documented. One of the most important elements is the "application" object, which integrates almost all automatizeable functions. The API is usually specific to an application and incompatible to all others. So VBA-code written for MS-Office API can not be used in OpenOffice]} using the [[StarBasic-API for example, although StarBasic and VBA are very resemblant considering the language. Most software products (Autodesk AutoCAD / Microsoft Office / Adobe Illustrator) provide an API in form of an 'Object Model' to the Visual Basic Environment allowing the user to create anything from small macros that perform repetitive tasks to extensive programs that add functionality to the host program.

The article on OLE Automation provides a good discussion on how VBA can interact with the host application's APIs. I wall callout more clearly at the start of the article.

Macros can be attached to a menu, button a keyboard shortcut or an event in the application like the opening of the document. Also user-defined functions for excel-worksheets can be provided.

Security Issues VBA is designed without any security features in the language, like for example the sandbox that java appletts run in. Any function of the application or even of the whole operating system, that is accessible to the user running an document containing VBA-macros can be (ab)used by a VBA-makro. Even persons of low programming skills can thus easily write a so called macro virus causing damage to almost unlimited extent. To ensure basic safety for the system and to protect data from espionage or destruction, several measures are necessary:
 * ) An external Virus-Scanner with macro-blocking function must be used, to close the security holes left open by VBA design.
 * ) Macro-capable Documents from unknown or unreliable sources must not be opened.
 * ) Macro-capable applications must not be run as system administrator.
 * ) The signature features provided with newer VBA-Versions should be used to verify the origin of a macro-containing document.

I am leaving this section in with a cleanup tag since it contains a number of errors and typos.

Patleahy 15:59, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Second Person Adress
In the section addressing security, this article uses second person address. I know generally, this type of address has no place in formal writing, but I'm unfamiliar with the etiquette of this type of article. Should someone reword the offending passage?--Amanaplanacanalpanama 23:06, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, you should reword it. --Patleahy 15:47, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Interpreted vs. Compiled
The article says VBA is a interpreted language. The compiled language article lists VBA and the interpreted language article does not. Which is it?Jcdietz03 15:14, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

It's definitely interpreted. If it's compiled then things like CurrentDB or Selection would never work. What happens when VBA codes are run is that the program will run the code from the top (which happens sometimes when badly written vba codes would work in some situations and not in others depends on what programs are open and which files are open). The biggest giveaway is that you don't need to compile first to run VBA macros. :) Leigao84 16:17, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

 * It is compiled to a p-code machine. It hasn't been interpreted since Access Basic/Word Basic. It takes a text version in BASIC, and compiles it to a seperate copy, which it runs in the VB Virtual Machine, MSVBVM60.DLL, and before that MSVBVM50.DLL. Corruption of the compiled copy is common problem: google the Access coding news groups. Depending on your environment, you may have Compile On Demand or Compile On Save. CurrentDB is a function that does a lookup, including refreshing a collection. I don't know what Selection does, but I do know that you can do File Open in compiled languages: basic input and output is not a mark of an interpreted language.
 * VBA, which is/was a microsoft product for compilation into a host product, includes an on-demand compiler option. That may look a lot like an interpreter when called from the VBA immediate window, but it's not the same thing.
 * Obviously, this article needs a lot of work, but it was a labour of love from some one: I'm not going to trash it today. 150.101.166.15 07:23, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * for what it's worth, the MS article about Access 97 currently used as a reference (December 2007), http://support.microsoft.com/kb/109382, is no longer completely accurate: text is not interpreted as you type. Instead, text is syntax checked by an independent syntax checker in the IDE as you type. The syntax checker shares code with the visual studio code completion feature, not the VBA compiler. 218.214.18.240 (talk) 06:05, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Advert?
This article was tagged advert today. I must say I don't really agree. Anyone in for some discussion? Classical geographer 22:03, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Concur. I've removed it until the editor can explain his concerns.  Kuru  talk  23:25, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

UserForms aren't "part of the language" are they?
Aren't UserForms an OLE/ActiveX object that can be used with VBA?150.101.166.15 (talk) 04:25, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:VBA logo.jpg
Image:VBA logo.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 06:56, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Pointers
There is a section here that says "VBA is functionally rich and extremely flexible but it does have some important limitations, including limited support for function pointers which are used as callback functions in the Windows API. It has the ability to use (but not create) (ActiveX/COM) DLLs, and later versions add support for class modules."

VBA has an AddressOf operator which returns a pointer to the function for use with API calls.Oorang (talk) 01:19, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Additional Note: You can get string, object, and variable pointers via the VarPtr, StrPtr, and ObjPtr functions built into the VBA library. Oorang (talk) 19:29, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Infobox
Add info box. A second pair of eyes would not be amiss Oorang (talk) 01:46, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

a virtual machine hosted inside the container application
Arguably false, but perhaps just a simplification. It uses the VB6 dll,s if they are in memory, or an equivilant set of runtime dlls if the vb6 dlls are not in memory. That is, the virtual machine is hosted by Windows, and the program always runs the same way a non-native mode vb6 program runs. Id change it if I could think of a way to write it that wasnt even more confusing and misleading, but I cant, because of course vba is hosted inside the container application. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.214.18.240 (talk) 07:59, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Vba office 2003.PNG
Image:Vba office 2003.PNG is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 02:33, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

VBA vs. VB Express 2008
VBA is based on the VB6 engine VB Express 2008 is based on VB.net. They are not synonymous. Undid edit by Benrmac129 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oorang (talk • contribs) 17:57, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

VBA links
VBA msdn home page: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/isv/bb190538.aspx embedded VBA replacement product: http://www.winwrap.com/web/basic/default.asp

Jargon-laden/buzzword-speak introduction
This article's introduction suffers from jargon-laden computer-ese vacuous buzzword-speak. Words like flexible, dynamic, are just gimmicks and explain nothing.Dogru144 (talk) 21:55, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Shekhar —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.247.241.138 (talk) 11:27, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

VSTA Section
VSTA is actually an expansion of Visual Studio available in the Visual Studio SDK. Not part of VBA. I suggest that it belongs in it's own article, then have a blurb in this article referring to it. Oorang (talk) 14:48, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Is it just me or is the only thing in that section that makes it hard to read all the "citation needed" markings. I understand it just fine. Yeah, maybe it doesn't have a whole lot to do with VBA, other than basically being a direct successor, but half of what is marked as "weasel words" aren't, and almost all calls for citations really don't need it. 198.103.195.30 (talk) 11:47, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree. The crazy over-annotation of the section reads more like the equivalent of scare quotes than like a serious attempt to improve the article. Is the meaning of "application customization toolkit" really that unclear in context? 173.14.246.81 (talk) 16:54, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I also wholeheartedly agree. This is a technical article that assumes a level of understanding of the concepts involved.  While it is not perfect, it makes sense to me, therefore I will remove some or all of the markings. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 15:02, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

WordBASIC Still Has Functions VBA Does Not?
Is it worth including the fact that WordBASIC has some features that were not carried forward in VBA?

For example, sorting the elements in an array. See Word VBA MVP Site for examples. VBA still includes the WordBASIC object so the functionality is still there, and the WordBASIC Help files can still be downloaded from Microsoft. AncientBrit (talk) 23:33, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

But wait a minute does not sound formal. Plus it looks like copied from somewhere else. Aphranius (talk) 08:45, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Examples
On 30 March 2012, part of removed the sections "Object models"  and "Named variables and user-defined functions" and its subsection "Subroutines", and the section "Examples"; the reason in my edit summary was "WP is not a how-to". On 4 July 2012, Brews ohare the section "Named variables and user-defined functions" and its subsection "Subroutines", and the section "Examples"; the reason given in the edit summary was this material had been deleted without discussion.

My reason for the removal is based on the policy What Wikipedia is not, specifically WP:NOTHOWTO and its points 1 and 6: Wikipedia is not an instruction manual, it should not read like a "how-to" style owners manual or a tutorial or walk-through; Wikipedia is not a textbook, its purpose is "not to teach subject matter. It is not appropriate to create or edit articles that read as textbooks, with leading questions and systematic problem solutions as examples."

I believe the parts of the article restored by Brews ohare contavene Wikipedia policy and ought to removed again. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 05:31, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

 * The boundary is not sharp between WP:NOTHOWTO and avoidance of too much explanation on one hand, and on the other providing enough information that a reader can understand the capability of the spreadsheet. I believe the deleted sections are in the latter category, helping the reader understand how VBA makes use of functions, subroutines and named variables, in my experience aspects of VBA essential to its utility. Below is the deleted material:

Named variables and user-defined functions

Using VBA, the user can add their own functions and subroutines that refer to these named ranges. In the figure at the right, the function sq is created in the Visual Basic editor supplied with Excel, and x & y are named variables in the spreadsheet.

A common use of VBA is to add functionality that may be missing from the standard user interface. Use of VBA is made much easier by using named variables on the spreadsheet, as shown at the left. The formula for y=x2 resembles Fortran or BASIC, and the Name Manager shows the definitions of column variables y and x. Subroutines

Functions themselves cannot write into the worksheet, but simply return their evaluation. However, in Microsoft Excel, subroutines can write values or text found within the subroutine directly to the spreadsheet. The figure shows the Visual Basic code for a subroutine that reads each member of the x-column (named column variable x), calculates its square, and writes this value into the corresponding y-column (also a named column variable). The y-column contains no formula because its values are calculated in the subroutine and simply written in.

 * IMO these three figures and accompanying text assist the reader to understand the utility of these features and will assist them in deciding whether VBA is suitable for their purpose. They should be restored. Brews ohare (talk) 05:46, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The material I deleted with the reason "WP is not a how-to" (and which Brews ohare then added again) was much more than shown above; it included large chunks of VBA code in the section "Examples" – see the diffs above.
 * As to the material presented above: a discussion of Excel's named ranges and user-defined functions is not appropriate for an article on on VBA. It may be suitable for the article Microsoft Excel where it is barely mentioned and the illustrations seem out-of-context as they don't illustrate anything. But that's besides the point of this article where the discussion of Excel-specific features is out-of-scope. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 09:34, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

This sentence seems backwards
This sentence in the article seems backwards:
 * The official reason given was that VBA relied heavily on machine code written for the PowerPC architecture, and that rewriting this code for dual PowerPC/Intel architectures would have added another 2 years to the development of the suite.

I would have guessed that VBA relied on the Intel architecture and that it had not been ported to the PowerPC. Perhaps theMicrosoft P-Code engine is implementing a PowerPC? Unfortunately, the "official reason" did not have a citation and so I can't tell if it's wrong or I don't understand something. --Marc Kupper|talk 22:56, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Version history?
Looking for release dates / office containers for VBA5, VB6. (PS: History should be at the end of the article, not at the top, where it has unfortunately wound up in many wikipedia software articles) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.162.148 (talk) 22:50, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 19:55, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications logo.svg

title: Talk:Visual Basic for Applications


text:
NTL Incorporated

NTL Incorporated, branded as ntl:, was a United States-listed British company founded in 1992, which provided cable television, cable internet and fixed-line cable telephone services. While NTL had its headquarters in New York City, the company's activities focused heavily on the United Kingdom, with operational headquarters in Hook, Hampshire.

NTL became the dominant cable operator in the United Kingdom, controlling more than 90% of the market. In 2005 residential services generated 78% of NTL's revenue, and business services 22%.

In March 2006, NTL merged with fellow cable telecom company Telewest, and created 'NTL:Telewest', which then also merged with Virgin Mobile UK and Virgin.net in June 2006, creating the UK's first "quadruple play" telecom provider, offering television, internet, landline phone and mobile phone services. In February 2007, NTL:Telewest was rebranded as Virgin Media.

1992–2006
Barclay Knapp and George Blumenthal, the founders of American cellular network company Cellular Communications, Inc. (sold to Airtouch in 1996), established International CableTel in 1993 to take advantage of the deregulation of the UK cable market. Initially, Cabletel acquired local cable franchises covering Guildford and parts of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. In 1996 CableTel acquired National Transcommunications Limited (NTL), the privatised UK Independent Broadcasting Authority transmission-network. In May 1998 CableTel adopted "NTL" as its new name.

The company spent heavily: both on expanding its network and on acquiring rivals (in 1999, it acquired Cambridge Cable, one of the earliest digital networks, that had been installed across the university city ten years earlier). In July 1999, NTL purchased the consumer assets of Cable & Wireless plc for nearly £8.2 billion, integrating the telephone, internet and television operations of Cable & Wireless into its own ever-expanding operation.

Devalued and struggling with debts of around $18bn, NTL had to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy-protection in May 2002 in order to organise a refinancing deal. The company did not emerge from protection until January 2003, having converted around $11bn of debt into shares – technically, this amounted to the largest debt default in US corporate history. The company reduced its debt to $6.4bn. A re-organisation split NTL itself into NTL Inc. (covering the UK and Irish markets) and NTL Europe Inc. (for the French, Swiss and German parts of the corporation). New executives replaced the NTL president, CEO and co-founder Barclay Knapp, as well as Stephen Carter, the MD and COO.

After exiting from Chapter 11 protection NTL produced an operating profit. In 2004, it announced plans to split the broadcasting division off from the main company. In December 2004, NTL sold its broadcast-unit to a consortium led by Macquarie Communications Infrastructure Group (MCG) for £1.27 billion. Macquarie renamed the division Arqiva in May 2005. This sale allowed NTL to focus on its "core businesses" of providing communications packages and cable services.

In late 2004, NTL purchased the remaining shares of the Internet service provider (ISP) virgin.net, originally a joint venture between NTL and Richard Branson's Virgin Group.

By 2005, its UK network consisted of a 7,800 km fibre backbone with the potential to reach 8.4 million residential homes and around 610,000 businesses. In January of that year, NTL started rolling out video on demand. With content selected by NTL, this service covered genres including music videos, children's programming and adult entertainment, as an extension to the basic 'pay per view' services the company offered for film and sport content. The new service allowed customers to rewind, fast forward and pause content.

Despite NTL Ireland turning a profit, in May 2005, NTL sold their Dublin, Galway, and Waterford cable business (which they had acquired in 1999 for €825 million from the Irish government) to UGC Europe for €325 million – this after having spent in excess of €100 million on network infrastructure, resulting in a loss of €500 million, more than 50% of the purchase price. Liberty Global continued to use the NTL brand in Ireland, but was eventually merged with Chorus Communications and rebranded as UPC Ireland in May 2010.

By July 2005, NTL had cut its debt to £1.445 billion with an operating cashflow of £178 million. The company had 3.2 million customers buying at least one service from them, with the 1.4 million subscribers to broadband services making NTL the market leader in this field.

NTL/Telewest merger
From late 2003 discussions commenced on a merger between Telewest and NTL. Thanks to their geographically different areas, NTL and Telewest had co-operated previously, as in re-directing potential customers living outside their respective areas. On 3 October 2005, NTL announced a USD$6 billion purchase of Telewest, forming one of the largest media companies in the UK. The merger agreement as structured would have left NTL having to negotiate with BBC Worldwide, the BBC's commercial arm, due to a change-of-ownership clause written into the agreement for UKTV, a joint venture with Telewest's Flextech content division. To prevent this, Telewest instead acquired NTL.

The parties completed the merger on 3 March 2006, making the merged company the UK's largest cable-provider, with more than 90% of the market. Once merged, the combined company renamed itself to ntl:Telewest, with ex-NTL shareholders controlling 75% of the stock and ex-Telewest shareholders 25%. Nine of the eleven directors of the new board came from NTL and two from Telewest.

Virgin Mobile merger
In December 2005 NTL and Virgin Mobile announced that talks had taken place regarding a merger.

Virgin Mobile's independent directors rejected the original bid of £817 million ($1.4 billion), taking the view that NTL's bid "undervalued the business". Sir Richard Branson reportedly expressed confidence that a re-structured deal could go ahead, and in January 2006 NTL increased its offer to £961m (372p per share). On 4 April 2006, NTL Incorporated announced a £962.4m recommended offer for Virgin Mobile. According to reports, Branson accepted a mix of shares and cash, making him a 10.7% shareholder of the combined company.

The takeover, which was completed on 4 July 2006, created the UK's first 'quadruple play' media company, bringing together television, Internet broadband, mobile-phone and fixed-line phone services. The deal included a 30-year exclusive branding agreement that saw NTL adopt the Virgin name across its consumer operations as it merged operations with its current Telewest brand. As a result, on 8 November 2006, NTL announced it would change its name to Virgin Media plc.

Proposed ITV merger
In November 2006, NTL announced that it had approached commercial television broadcaster ITV about a proposed merger. BSkyB effectively blocked the merger on 12 November 2006, when it controversially bought a 17.9% stake in ITV plc, a move that attracted anger from NTL shareholder Richard Branson and an investigation from media and telecoms regulator Ofcom. On 6 December 2006, NTL announced that it had complained to the Office of Fair Trading about BSkyB's move, and that it would withdraw its attempt to buy ITV plc, stating that it did not believe that it could currently make a deal on favourable terms.

Internet
NTL offered broadband Internet access connections through cable. The service operates through SACMs (Stand-alone cable modems) and set-top boxes (STBs).

In NTL areas customers could also access a 512 kbit/s download-speed; and both NTL and Telewest offer dial-up Internet services on a pay-as-you-go basis, or at a fixed monthly fee of £14.99 for unlimited usage.

The broadband services did not have a bandwidth-cap or a fair-usage policy; this means that customers have unlimited usage and need pay no extra charges related to the amount of data downloaded. However NTL has admitted introducing traffic shaping.

NTL started trialling 20 Mbit/s, and temporarily upgraded some 10 Mbit/s subscribers to this speed in October 2006. Furthermore, NTL started conducting trials of a 100 Mbit broadband service on its cable network.

After trials in the Guildford area from mid-1999, NTL launched its original broadband services at the same time that NTL acquired the Cable business of Cable and Wireless (early 2000). In the "original NTL" (also known as "Langley") areas, NTL has always supplied broadband services via DOCSIS cable-modems. In these areas the digital television set-top boxes used an incompatible standard, DAVIC.

Initially, NTL decided to terminate service to approximately 90,000 ex-Cable and Wireless subscribers on short notice. This threatened to leave customers stranded and without access to their email or websites and was due to NTL's lack of infrastructure capability in some areas. Before termination of services, Boltblue struck a deal with NTL and Cable and Wireless Communications to save 90,000 and later an additional 210,000 customers. The roll-out of broadband services in the ex-Cable and Wireless franchises started in mid 2001.

NTL provided ex-Cable and Wireless subscribers with broadband through the set-top box (STB) also used for digital television services, adopting the rationale that subscribers could self-install. Initially, NTL supplied a "Self Install Kit" consisting of connecting cable, adapters and an install CD. Following demonstrated problems, NTL gradually introduced cable modems and phased out the self-install approach. The Pace STBs proved highly problematic, exhibiting two major flaws.

Firstly, large numbers of connections (for example, those with peer-to-peer (P2P) software) would cause the connection to slow down and eventually freeze the modem part of the STB (also required for interactive TV services, which suffered a similar effect when downloading). Customers in these circumstances had to re-boot the STB.

Secondly, the single processor and sharing the internal modem between television and broadband services made the television part of the box slow and unresponsive, for example making it extremely difficult to change channel using the remote. This became particularly evident when using the lower "Tiers of Service" such the 128 kbit/s downstream 64 kbit/s upstream, as the digital television set-top box without broadband service actually enjoyed a 256 kbit/s upstream.

Although capable of higher speeds (up to 4 Mbit/s), NTL did not make speeds higher than 1 Mbit/s available due to degradation of the DTV service.

NTL eventually replaced the Pace set-top boxes with Samsung models that used a dual-processor architecture, overcoming the shortcomings of the Pace, and capable of much better downstream performance. However, with the advent of higher "Tiers of Service" of 10 Mbit/s downstream and higher, plus the reducing cost of NTL's cable modems (supplied by Ambit Broadband) NTL now supplies all subscribers with cable modems.

The NTL network runs through transparent proxy servers. Up to 15 server addresses host each area. These transparent proxy servers also override the user's hosts file and prevent manual DNS updates. This makes it easier for NTL to provide a more reliable connection as well as being able to monitor traffic requirements in each area. This also causes many problems for websites which record IP addresses to ban and/or track users. This means that if a website bans one offender, it bans everyone in the same area. Also, many on-line games automatically ban IP addresses with multiple usernames associated with them. Small-scale games do not cause too many problems, but when friends attempt to spread the game around, the system prevents everyone (including the original player) from using the game. On the other hand, advanced users can easily create a large number of illegitimate accounts on the aforementioned websites, allowing one user both to prevent all other users on the NTL network using the game, as well as to become untraceable.

NTL has used MAC addresses to track and register customers to the NTL internet service. As NTL had not supported the use of routers, or Xbox on the minority Set Top Box based Broadband Internet service, users had to use a clone MAC address feature to connect to the Internet when using an STB. This has become a common problem for people wishing to connect their Xbox to the existing internet connection through a router or PC connected to their STB, if they fail to use the official registration process. (These comments do not apply to the majority (>90%) use of cable modems).

Television
The digital television service, which launched in 2000, offered a number of products including true video on demand, a PVR, and HDTV. On 1 September 2006, NTL introduced the FreeTV digital package to its telephone subscribers free of charge. However, value-pack customers lost their value-pack discounts if they integrated the FreeTV deal into their existing packages.

PVR and high definition services
NTL launched TV Drive, its high-definition television (HDTV) and personal video recorder (PVR) service in Glasgow and Teesside on 16 November 2006. The service relied on the service of the same name offered in NTL's Telewest areas, and used a new PVR set-top-box, with three tuners and a 160GB hard disk for up to 80 hours' recording. The presence of three tuners meant that the TV Drive could record two channels at the same time while the user was watching a third.

Video on demand
NTL started to roll out its Video on Demand (VoD) service branded "NTL On Demand", using the Teleport system on Telewest's network. In contrast to Sky which, due to technical limitations, could only provide near-VOD services, NTL On Demand provided a true VoD system. The service allowed customers of NTL digital television to download programmes as and when they wanted to watch them from servers at the customer's local head-end. As the broadcaster automatically stored content on NTL's servers, it removed the need to pre-record many programmes. Users could search through a large library of programmes and watch them when they wanted to as part of their subscription. This library included a free 7-day watch-again feature for TV programmes produced by the BBC, Channel 4 and Flextech. NTL also offered other television shows, films (service branded FilmFlex), and music videos, mostly for an additional fee. The VoD service also provided HD content that would work in conjunction with the TV Drive PVR.

Fixed-line telephone
NTL also provided telephone services to its customers, as the second-largest fixed-line telephony provider in the UK, behind BT, who until 1984 held the monopoly on fixed-line telephony services in the UK. In 2003, revenue from mobile lines became greater than the fixed-line telephone revenue.

Premium TV
Premium TV was a subsidiary of NTL. It purchased stakes in Rangers F.C., Celtic F.C., Aston Villa F.C., Middlesbrough F.C., Newcastle United F.C. and Leicester City F.C. The investments included interest free loans to the clubs to act as their exclusive agent for the sale of media sponsorship, advertising and publishing rights across all media platforms, including ownership of the clubs live television and radio rights.

Premium TV operated and fully funded Boro TV for Middlesbrough F.C. from February 1998. Boro TV Extra was added in August 2001, taking advantage of the relaxation in the TV rights regulations. Both channels were closed in July 2005 after NTL withdrew funding.

In March 2000, news broke that NTL would spend more than £200 million ($316 million at the time) for a decade-long deal to own exclusive worldwide television and internet streaming rights to the events at the "Super 12" group of horseracing courses. This involved deals with BBC, Channel 4, and NTL's own Premium TV networks.

On 14 June 2000, NTL won the rights to show 40 live Premier League matches on a pay-per-view basis for three years, beginning at the start of the 2001–02 season. NTL would pay approximately £109 million per annum for the rights. NTL pulled out of the deal on 18 October 2000, claiming that it was "unable to agree final terms". The failure to complete the deal, led to a lack of confidence in their proposed 2005 joint bid with ITV plc.

On 19 June 2000, NTL entered into a joint venture with The Football League to set up an internet portal for all 72 clubs. Under the terms of the deal, NTL would pay rights fees of up to £65 million over five years, with all participating clubs sharing in the profits of the joint venture, with a variable term in the region of 20 years. Premium TV was eventually able to set up 78 football club websites after adding its partially owned clubs. The deal had with The Football League had to be renegotiated in September 2002 after NTL could no longer afford to pay its instalments. The League clubs would now receive £5m and an 80-per-cent share of all future revenue earned by the venture until the total amount reaches the original figure of £35m.

NTL, through Premium TV, launched the ITN News Channel, a joint venture with ITN, on 1 August 2000. In June 2002, Carlton Television and Granada Television – the predecessors of ITV plc – bought out ITN's 65-per-cent stake. This led to a rebrand as the ITV News Channel in September 2002. In April 2004 the newly created ITV plc bought NTL's remaining 35-per-cent stake to assume full control of the channel.

Premium TV also oversaw NTL's 49-per-cent share in pay-per-view movie service Front Row, in joint venture with Telewest and NTL's 48.1-per-cent stake in interactive television technology and games firm, Two Way TV.

Premium TV also operated Lions TV between June and August 2001, covering 2001 British Lions tour to Australia. The channel showcased eight, one hour 'behind the scenes' programmes to be made by Premium TV.

Premium TV also provided the funds to create programming specifically for the UK feed (British Eurosport) of the pan-European channel Eurosport. It did not have a stake in the sports channel, but got a share of revenue.

Premium TV planned to launch a live sports channel in September 2001 called British Sport, which would have combined archive footage from the BBC with live coverage of rugby union, basketball and ice hockey. Premium TV dropped its plans after realising it could not compete with other sports broadcasters, such as ITV and BSkyB. Instead Premium TV chose to launch a channel with the working title of Classic Sport, offering classic BBC sports footage from the Grandstand archives, the channel never materialised. The Ice Hockey Superleague issued a high court writ claiming damages of up to £10m from the company, after its £1m-a-year TV deal was cancelled at short notice. The Superleague settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

Premium TV was spun-out of NTL's UK cable operations and into NTL Europe Inc. in 2002, as part of a rescue plan devised by Barclay Knapp. Premium TV was placed under the control of the crisis and turnaround advisory group, Quest Turnaround Advisors. Quest negotiated commercial contracts with joint venture partners to eliminate £43 million of parent company guarantees and generated $10 million cash through restructuring. At the same time, Quest doubled paid subscribers to 75,000, cut staff by 50-per-cent, and broke even within 15 months of taking control. The business was then sold for $54 million to Access Industries, who merged it with Inform Group in 2007 to create Perform.

Broadcasting
In February 2001, NTL and Vivendi Universal launched The Studio, a 50:50 joint venture film channel which was carried by cable networks in the UK and Ireland. It closed in January 2003.

title: NTL Incorporated


text:
Talk:Process (disambiguation)

Process deserves page
Process is a concept used ubiquitously in science and deserves a page, whether it is to have my particular conceptual organization should be left up to the normal editing process. Please edit to page in a constructive way, explaining in some way how processes are defined and used in scientific theory. Fred Bauder 15:45 Jan 29, 2003 (UTC)

Computer multitasking and threads
Actually, a computer switches between threads when multitasking. A process can spawn many threads. Threads within a process share the same memory space. --82.77.40.8 10:41, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Process is not a Procedure
According to the Process Theory (see Wikipedia) 'sequence' is not typical for a Process. However, in Wikipedia the term 'sequence' is added to the definition of Process. Many others make the same mistake which results in a lot of misconfusion and misunderstanding. To avoid confusion with the term 'Procedure', the adition 'sequence' should be left out of the definition of 'Process'. That will make the definition suitable for all processes (how does for example a process 'Getting older' fit in the current definition in terms of a sequence ?; how a process 'Managing change' ?). For a similar reason the defintion of Procedure (see Wikipedia) should not claim that a Procedure may consist of Processes (though decomposition may be used both for Process and Procedure).

Process and Procedure are different ways to look at things that occur in our world: - with 'Process' one does that from a transformation point of view: which ((un)desired) outputs occur from which ((un)expected) inputs. In modelling organisations it is done with a perspective of 'are we doing the right things' (effectivity) - with 'Procedure' it is done from a more logistical point of view. In modelling organisations: 'are we doing the things right' (efficiency).

october 13, 2005

Louis van Diejen Louis@SpeqS.nl

Processes can be natural
It was an advance when we, as a civilization, realized that not all things have to come about by procedure, but rather can occur naturally, without the behest of a volitional agent, or by an act of will. Thus the natural in the first sentence of the article. A process can be natural. A procedure occurs by intention. --Ancheta Wis 15:01, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Page split
re: The page split template, this needs to be done. A lot of this stuff should be moved to Process (computer science). I'll do some of it if I can find time.

Split done
hello guys. i have completed with the diambigution page. please check it out, and see whats missing. Cyborg 16:09 april 14 2006 (UTC)

title: Talk:Process (disambiguation)


text:
Mayflower Compact

The Mayflower Compact, originally titled Agreement Between the Settlers of New Plymouth, was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the men aboard the Mayflower, consisting of Separatist Puritans, adventurers, and tradesmen. Although the agreement contained a pledge of loyalty to the King, the Puritans and other Protestant Separatists were dissatisfied with the state of the Church of England, the limited extent of the English Reformation and reluctance of King James I of England to enforce further reform.

The Mayflower Compact was signed aboard ship on, 1620. Signing the covenant were 41 of the ship's 101 passengers; the Mayflower was anchored in Provincetown Harbor within the hook at the northern tip of Cape Cod.

History
The Pilgrims had originally hoped to reach America in early October using two ships, but delays and complications meant they could use only one, the Mayflower. Their intended destination had been the Colony of Virginia, with the journey financed by the Company of Merchant Adventurers of London. Storms forced them to anchor at the hook of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, however, as it was unwise to continue with provisions running short. This inspired some of the non-Puritan passengers (whom the Puritans referred to as "Strangers") to proclaim that they "would use their own liberty; for none had power to command them" since they would not be settling in the agreed-upon Virginia territory. To prevent this, the Pilgrims determined to establish their own government, while still affirming their allegiance to the Crown of England. Thus, the Mayflower Compact was based simultaneously upon a majoritarian model and the settlers' allegiance to the king. It was in essence a social contract in which the settlers consented to follow the community's rules and regulations for the sake of order and survival.

Similar arguments had been unsuccessfully made by the shipwrecked passengers of the Sea Venture, a similar, earlier group bound for the Colony of Virginia, and specifically by one Stephen Hopkins, who had, as a result, been convicted of mutiny and sentenced to death, but pardoned, and is thought to be the Stephen Hopkins aboard the Mayflower and among the Compact signatories.

The Pilgrims had lived for some years in Leiden, a city in the Dutch Republic. Historian Nathaniel Philbrick states, "Just as a spiritual covenant had marked the beginning of their congregation in Leiden, a civil covenant would provide the basis for a secular government in America."

Text

The original document has been lost, but three versions exist from the 17th century: printed in Mourt's Relation (1622), which was reprinted in Purchas his Pilgrimes (1625); hand-written by William Bradford in his journal Of Plimoth Plantation (1646); and printed by Bradford's nephew Nathaniel Morton in New-Englands Memorial (1669). The three versions differ slightly in wording and significantly in spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. William Bradford wrote the first part of Mourt's Relation, including its version of the compact, so he wrote two of the three versions. The wording of those two versions is quite similar, unlike that of Morton. Bradford's handwritten manuscript is kept in a vault at the State Library of Massachusetts.

Modern version

"IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience. IN WITNESS whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini; 1620."

The document was signed on.

Signers

A list of 41 male passengers who signed the document was supplied by Bradford's nephew Nathaniel Morton in his 1669 New England's Memorial. Thomas Prince first numbered the names in his 1736 A Chronological History of New-England in the form of Annals. The original document has been lost, so Morton is the sole source for the signers. He probably had access to the original document, but he could not have known the actual order in which it was signed simply by inspecting it. Morton's arrangement of names might not have been the arrangement on the original document, and the names on the original may not have been arranged in any orderly fashion. Prince's numbers are based solely on Morton, as he himself stated.

Morton's list of names was unnumbered and untitled in all six editions (1669–1855), although their order changed with successive editions. In his original 1669 edition, the names were placed on two successive pages forming six short columns, three per page. In subsequent editions, these six short columns were combined into three long columns on a single page in two different ways, producing two different orders in unnumbered lists of signers. The second (1721) and third (1772) editions changed the order of the first edition by combining the first and fourth columns into the first long column, and similarly for the other columns. The fifth (1826) and sixth (1855) editions returned the names to their original first edition order by combining the first and second short columns into the first long column, and similarly for the other columns. Prince numbered the names in their original 1669 Morton order. He added titles (Mr. or Capt.) to 11 names that were given those titles by William Bradford in the list of passengers at the end of his manuscript.

The following list of signers is organized into the six short columns of Morton (1669) with the numbers and titles of Prince. The names are given their modern spelling according to Morison. Use the numbers for the order used by genealogists and half of unnumbered lists (Samuel Fuller will be the eighth name), but merge the half columns vertically into full columns for the order used by the other half of unnumbered lists (John Turner will be the eighth name).

1. Mr. John Carver

2. William Bradford

3. Mr. Edward Winslow

4. Mr. William Brewster

5. Mr. Isaac Allerton

6. Capt. Myles Standish

7. John Alden

1. Mr. Samuel Fuller

2. Mr. Christopher Martin

3. Mr. William Mullins

4. Mr. William White

5. Mr. Richard Warren

6. John Howland

7. Mr. Stephen Hopkins

1. Edward Tilley

2. John Tilley

3. Francis Cooke

4. Thomas Rogers

5. Thomas Tinker

6. John Rigsdale

7. Edward Fuller

1. John Turner

2. Francis Eaton

3. James Chilton

4. John Crackstone

5. John Billington

6. Moses Fletcher

7. John Goodman

1. Degory Priest

2. Thomas Williams

3. Gilbert Winslow

4. Edmund Margeson

5. Peter Browne

6. Richard Britteridge

7. George Soule

1. Richard Clarke

2. Richard Gardiner

3. John Allerton

4. Thomas English

5. Edward Doty

6. Edward Leister

Legacy
On November 23, 1920, at a commemoration ceremony for the 300th anniversary of the Mayflower landing, then Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge, who became the 30th U.S. President a few years later, said the following about the Mayflower Compact:

The compact which they signed was an event of the greatest importance. It was the foundation of liberty based on law and order, and that tradition has been steadily upheld. They drew up a form of government which has been designated as the first real constitution of modern times. It was democratic, an acknowledgment of liberty under law and order and the giving to each person the right to participate in the government, while they promised to be obedient to the laws.

But the really wonderful thing was that they had the power and strength of character to abide by it and live by it from that day to this. Some governments are better than others. But any form of government is better than anarchy, and any attempt to tear down government is an attempt to wreck civilization.

title: Mayflower Compact


text:
Enantiomer

In chemistry, an enantiomer (/ɪˈnænti.əmər, ɛ-, -oʊ-/ ih-NAN-tee-ə-mər; from Ancient Greek ἐναντίος (enantíos) 'opposite', and μέρος (méros) 'part') – also called optical isomer, antipode, or optical antipode – is one of two stereoisomers that are nonsuperposable onto their own mirror image. Enantiomers of each other are much like one's right and left hands; without mirroring one of them, hands cannot be superposed onto each other. It is solely a relationship of chirality and the permanent three-dimensional relationships among molecules or other chemical structures: no amount of re-orientiation of a molecule as a whole or conformational change converts one chemical into its enantiomer. Chemical structures with chirality rotate plane-polarized light. A mixture of equal amounts of each enantiomer, a racemic mixture or a racemate, does not rotate light.

Stereoisomers include both enantiomers and diastereomers. Diastereomers, like enantiomers, share the same molecular formula and are also nonsuperposable onto each other; however, they are not mirror images of each other.

Naming conventions
There are three common naming conventions for specifying one of the two enantiomers (the absolute configuration) of a given chiral molecule: the R/S system is based on the geometry of the molecule; the (+)- and (−)- system (also written using the obsolete equivalents d- and l-) is based on its optical rotation properties; and the D / L system is based on the molecule's relationship to enantiomers of glyceraldehyde.

The R/S system is based on the molecule's geometry with respect to a chiral center. The R/S system is assigned to a molecule based on the priority rules assigned by Cahn–Ingold–Prelog priority rules, in which the group or atom with the largest atomic number is assigned the highest priority and the group or atom with the smallest atomic number is assigned the lowest priority.

The (+) or (−) symbol is used to specify a molecule's optical rotation — the direction in which the polarization of light rotates as it passes through a solution containing the molecule. When a molecule is denoted dextrorotatory, it rotates the plane of polarized light clockwise and can also be denoted as (+). When it is denoted as levorotatory, it rotates the plane of polarized light counterclockwise and can also be denoted as (−).

The Latin words for left are laevus and sinister, and the word for right is dexter (or rectus in the sense of correct or virtuous). The English word right is a cognate of rectus. This is the origin of the D/L and R/S notations, and the employment of prefixes levo- and dextro- in common names.

The prefix ar-, from the Latin recto (right), is applied to the right-handed version; es-, from the Latin sinister (left), to the left-handed molecule. Example: ketamine, arketamine, esketamine.

Chirality centers
The asymmetric atom is called a chirality center, a type of stereocenter. A chirality center is also called a chiral center  or an asymmetric center. Some sources use the terms stereocenter, stereogenic center, stereogenic atom or stereogen to refer exclusively to a chirality center, while others use the terms more broadly to refer also to centers that result in diastereomers (stereoisomers that are not enantiomers).

Compounds that contain exactly one (or any odd number) of asymmetric atoms are always chiral. However, compounds that contain an even number of asymmetric atoms sometimes lack chirality because they are arranged in mirror-symmetric pairs, and are known as meso compounds. For instance, meso tartaric acid (shown on the right) has two asymmetric carbon atoms, but it does not exhibit enantiomerism because there is a mirror symmetry plane. Conversely, there exist forms of chirality that do not require asymmetric atoms, such as axial, planar, and helical chirality.

Even though a chiral molecule lacks reflection (Cs) and rotoreflection symmetries (S2n), it can have other molecular symmetries, and its symmetry is described by one of the chiral point groups: Cn, Dn, T, O, or I. For example, hydrogen peroxide is chiral and has C2 (two-fold rotational) symmetry. A common chiral case is the point group C1, meaning no symmetries, which is the case for lactic acid.

Examples
An example of such an enantiomer is the sedative thalidomide, which was sold in a number of countries around the world from 1957 until 1961. It was withdrawn from the market when it was found to cause birth defects. One enantiomer caused the desirable sedative effects, while the other, unavoidably present in equal quantities, caused birth defects.

The herbicide mecoprop is a racemic mixture, with the (R)-(+)-enantiomer ("Mecoprop-P", "Duplosan KV") possessing the herbicidal activity.

Another example is the antidepressant drugs escitalopram and citalopram. Citalopram is a racemate [1:1 mixture of (S)-citalopram and (R)-citalopram]; escitalopram [(S)-citalopram] is a pure enantiomer. The dosages for escitalopram are typically 1/2 of those for citalopram. Here, (S)-citalopram is called a chiral switch of Citalopram.

Chiral drugs
Enantiopure compounds consist of only one of the two enantiomers. Enantiopurity is of practical importance since such compositions have improved therapeutic efficacy. The switch from a racemic drug to an enantiopure drug is called a chiral switch. In many cases, the enantiomers have distinct effects. One case is that of Propoxyphene. The enantiomeric pair of propoxyphene is separately sold by Eli Lilly and company. One of the partners is dextropropoxyphene, an analgesic agent (Darvon) and the other is called levopropoxyphene, an effective antitussive (Novrad). It is interesting to note that the trade names of the drugs, DARVON and NOVRAD, also reflect the chemical mirror-image relationship. In other cases, there may be no clinical benefit to the patient. In some jurisdictions, single-enantiomer drugs are separately patentable from the racemic mixture. It is possible that only one of the enantiomers is active. Or, it may be that both are active, in which case separating the mixture has no objective benefits, but extends the drug's patentability.

Enantioselective preparations
In the absence of an effective enantiomeric environment (precursor, chiral catalyst, or kinetic resolution), separation of a racemic mixture into its enantiomeric components is impossible, although certain racemic mixtures spontaneously crystallize in the form of a racemic conglomerate, in which crystals of the enantiomers are physically segregated and may be separated mechanically. However, most racemates form crystals containing both enantiomers in a 1:1 ratio.

In his pioneering work, Louis Pasteur was able to isolate the isomers of sodium ammonium tartrate because the individual enantiomers crystallize separately from solution. To be sure, equal amounts of the enantiomorphic crystals are produced, but the two kinds of crystals can be separated with tweezers. This behavior is unusual. A less common method is by enantiomer self-disproportionation.

The second strategy is asymmetric synthesis: the use of various techniques to prepare the desired compound in high enantiomeric excess. Techniques encompassed include the use of chiral starting materials (chiral pool synthesis), the use of chiral auxiliaries and chiral catalysts, and the application of asymmetric induction. The use of enzymes (biocatalysis) may also produce the desired compound.

A third strategy is Enantioconvergent synthesis, the synthesis of one enantiomer from a racemic precursor, utilizing both enantiomers. By making use of a chiral catalyist, both enantiomers of the reactant result in a single enantiomer of product.

Enantiomers may not be isolable if there is an accessible pathway for racemization (interconversion between enantiomorphs to yield a racemic mixture) at a given temperature and timescale. For example, amines with three distinct substituents are chiral, but with few exceptions (e.g. substituted N-chloroaziridines), they rapidly undergo "umbrella inversion" at room temperature, leading to racemization. If the racemization is fast enough, the molecule can often be treated as an achiral, averaged structure.

Parity violation
For all intents and purposes, each enantiomer in a pair has the same energy. However, theoretical physics predicts that due to parity violation of the weak nuclear force (the only force in nature that can "tell left from right"), there is actually a minute difference in energy between enantiomers (on the order of 10−12 eV or 10−10 kJ/mol or less) due to the weak neutral current mechanism. This difference in energy is far smaller than energy changes caused by even small changes in molecular conformation, and far too small to measure by current technology, and is therefore chemically inconsequential. In the sense used by particle physicists, the "true" enantiomer of a molecule, which has exactly the same mass-energy content as the original molecule, is a mirror-image that is also built from antimatter (antiprotons, antineutrons, and positrons). Throughout this article, "enantiomer" is used only in the chemical sense of compounds of ordinary matter that are not superposable on their mirror image.

Quasi-enantiomers
Quasi-enantiomers are molecular species that are not strictly enantiomers, but behave as if they are. In quasi-enantiomers majority of the molecule is reflected; however, an atom or group within the molecule is changed to a similar atom or group. Quasi-enantiomers can also be defined as molecules that have the potential to become enantiomers if an atom or group in the molecule is replaced. An example of quasi-enantiomers would (S)-bromobutane and (R)-iodobutane. Under normal conditions the enantiomers for (S)-bromobutane and (R)-iodobutane would (R)-bromobutane and (S)-iodobutane respectively. Quasi-enantiomers would also produce quasi-racemates, which are similar to normal racemates (see Racemic mixture) in that they form an equal mixture of quasi-enantiomers.

Though not considered actual enantiomers, the naming convention for quasi-enantiomers also follows the same trend as enantiomers when looking at (R) and (S) configurations - which are considered from a geometrical basis (see Cahn–Ingold–Prelog priority rules).

Quasi-enantiomers have applications in parallel kinetic resolution.

title: Enantiomer