[SGVLUG] Response to some posts...

[A. J. Stasney]

Here are a pair of probably useless suggestions relative to recent
postings - one for mrflash818 at geophile.net regarding a Windows AV
app, the other for the folks (including Tom) who were discussing
databases/spreadsheets.

I have had good luck with the free version of Avira's AntiVir
on a Win 2000 box (see  http://www.free-av.com/antivirclassic).
It seems to catch lots of Trojans among other things, but some
malware it removes leaves behind Registry traces.

On the database/spreadsheet issue, this will ONLY be of any use
to those who have some familiarity with the legacy array oriented
programming language APL2 (IBM is now apparently the only US seller
and promoter of this high-level interpreted language).  About ten
years ago I became interested in examining popular applications
like Access and Excel through the lens of a pure text-based
programming language, and wrote a paper for the local APL2 SIG
that discussed the intrinsic structure of data and how direct
use of simple APL2 functions could replicate most of the operations
(if not the undemanding user interfaces) of Access and Excel.
The paper was a bit off the wall, speculative and meant to stimulate
discussion (appropriate for SGVLUG) rather than to offer any grand
insights into commercial program architectures.  Anyone who is
interested should e-mail me including a 'phone number and I'll make
contact and if appropriate provide a copy.