I don't think so.

We've always had many elements to teach when we teach programming - data structures, algorithms, databases, parsing, scheduling, etc. Parallelism is yet-another item to throw on the list of things to teach as part of programming.

With the introduction of multicore processors, it was obvious to me that parallelism would soon be a part of every system. We're pretty much there now.

However - parallel programming remains an advanced topic in graduate studies and notably absent from too many undergraduate courses.  Yes - we are making progress, and Intel's academic program is a major contributor to helping professors with material, ideas and sharing with like-minded professors.  But, it seems all too slow for me.

Actions speak louder than words.

Next week, I'll be at Brooklyn Technical High School helping teach parallelism to top notch high school strudents and some of their high school teachers. The learning will be both directions.

If parallel programming is fundamental to programming, then we need to figure out what aspects of it belong in high school. I'm confident we will figure it out, and this is an important step.

I plan to write some follow-ups based on the experiences as they happen. For now, I want to thank Randy Asher + Brooklyn Technical High School, Jeff Birnbaum + Bank of America, IBM (a 48-core system!!!), Blade Network Technologies and Intel for underwriting this effort and having the faith that 'parallel programming is fundamental.'

I'll also do an interview and discuss the experience afterwards with the Intel program 'Teach Parallel'  - although probably not on July 28 as currently scheduled. Before then, you can catch Jeff and Randy on July 21 talking about our plans.

Wish us luck, and stay tuned for our notes on what works and what does not.

• General tab manufacturer logo customization:
  The logo displayed in the general tab is Intel's logo by default. However, it can be substituted in order to match the visual identity of the computer supplier. For example, a particular manufacturer or ISV may prefer to display the company’s logo.
   
  To change the logo, add a bitmap file called "oemlogo.bmp" to the Intel® Management and Security Status folder (located at "Program Files\Common Files\Intel\Privacy Icon"). The default (Intel's) logo will appear if the bitmap file is absent or invalid.
  Note: The bitmap dimensions must be 62 (width) by 48 (height), as the logo is not resized to match the logo size in the general tab.
• Application loading on Start Up:
  By default, Intel® Management and Security Status loads on windows startup. There are some ways to change this:
  1. 1. A user can then uncheck the "Intel Management and Security Status will be available next time I log on to Windows" check box to prevent it from happening:
     
  2. The system administrator can change a global system setting to override the user selection and never load the application on startup.
     To disable application load on startup for all users, add a value named "DisableOnStartUp" with data 1 to the "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Intel\PIcon\Setting key" in the registry:
     Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Intel\PIcon\Setting]
     Value: "DisableOnStartUp"=dword:00000001
     To return to the default behavior, change the data of the same value to 0, or delete the value.
     Note: The application will still be available from the Start Menu, regardless of the value in this registry key.
     Note: This setting in the registry overrides the user selection in the main tab check box.
  3. Another (more drastic) method is removing the IMSS app from the startup configuration Microsoft's System Configuration Utility:
     Run 'msconfig' from the 'Run…' dialog, go to the 'Startup' tabs and unselect the PrivacyIconClient. Do not uncheck other Intel services and applications, as they may be of importance to your system's function and performance:
     
• "Click here" URL Customization:
  By default, clicking the ‘Click here for more details’ inside the Learn More dialog will direct the user to the official Intel Corporation website:
  
  The link pointed to by this link inside the Learn more dialog can be modified, to point to a page of the manufacturer's choice:
  To perform this change, add a value named "HelpURL" with the URL of your choice (e.g. http://www.intel.com/) to the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Intel\PIcon\Setting key in the registry.
  Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Intel\PIcon\Setting]
  Value: "HelpURL"="http://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/"
  To return to the default behavior, simply delete the value.

That's it for basic configuration of this application; I hope it helps ISVs, OEMs and IT managers making the user experience better.
 
So I guess that now we are ready for a post about the Intel MEI (previously known as HECI driver), and the LMS… Right? Stay tuned, and keep your questions coming on the comments section below!

Articles in the Intel® AMT software series:

1. The software bundled with Intel AMT
2. The notification area icon - understanding the pop-up
3. Configuring the notification area icon & app
4. More configurations (disabling) of the Intel AMT icon
5. Detailed information to the user with the User Notification Service
6. How the UNS works
7. UNS Error Messages and how to fix them
8. Newfangled Intel Management and Security Status
9. Intel Management and Security Status (IMSS), advanced configurations

Our guest today is Chris Cormack. Chris will talk to us about the release 2.1 of the Intel Graphics Performance Analyzer toolset.

Download link to a high quality MP4 video file of the show (about 117MB):

http://blip.tv/file/get/ISNTV-VisualizeThis07ChrisCormack913.mp4

News :
• New Video was posted on site: http://software.intel.com/en-us/videos/thoughts-on-how-larrabee-will-change-game-development – this video features Intel Application engineer Doug Mcnab and how Larrabee will change game development.

• Thread like Wildfire incentive program continues. This is a multi winner contest where we are asking our community members to tell us how they have used or improved the source code for the Smoke Tech demo that we released a few months ago. To help our community members we also released a new and improved video on how to install the smoke demo, you can find this video at http://software.intel.com/en-us/videos/a-step-by-step-guide-to-installing-smoke/, You can submit a video, source code, screenshots, or a white paper and be eligible to win one of the 5 game stop gift certificates that we will give out each month to the best entries. More details can be found on http://www.intel.com/software/thread-like-wildfire

• Mark Randel from Terminal Reality wrote the final post of his blog series on the highlights and challenges during the development of Ghostbusters. . You can read his posts at his blog on the Intel software Network under his name Mark Randel. http://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/author/mark-randel/

Questions :

• What is Intel GPA (Graphics Performance Analyzer)?
• Why do I want to use GPA?
• What are the GPA system requirements?
• What tools are included in the Intel GPA suite?
o System Analyzer – talk to what it does
o Frame Analyzer – do a quick show and tell (have Frame Analyzer already running)
o Frame Capture – talk to what it does
o GPA SDK - talk to what it does
• You recently launched GPA 2.1. What enhancements are included in this product?
• Are there developers currently using Intel GPA to analyze their games? Tell us specifically where they have used it. Can show clips on where we used GPA.

You can watch Visualize This! live alternate Tuesdays at 2:30PM Pacific on Intel Software Network TV, our new 24/7 interactive video channel. Come chat with us, or browse the On Demand section to see past episodes of our shows.

You can also automatically receive new show episodes as the become available. Subscribe to the Intel Software Network TV feed in your favorite aggregator (iTunes users, click here), or sign up to get an email when new episodes are posted.

Follow @isntv on Twitter to get notified when a live show or event is about to happen on Intel Software Network TV. Don’t miss out!

I recently started thinking more about the relationship between the economy and open source software after the Red Hat earnings announcement in late June. Headlines, like this one from Matt Asay, “Red Hat: Bad Economy is good for open source” started emerging. Jim Whitehurst, Red Hat President and CEO, seemed to fuel the interest in Red Hat's relationship to the economy with this statement: "Budgets remain tight and we don't see an end in sight for this. In relative terms, this is pretty good for us."

I decided to dig into this idea a little more to see what research I could find to support the idea that the current economy is driving more open source software adoption. Here are a few data points that support the idea.

IDC Study (PDF link):

“53% of respondents are planning to increase adoption of Linux on the server and 48% are planning to increase adoption of Linux on the client as a direct result of the economic climate.”

“Looking forward, IDC sees Linux as a platform solution that we expect to thrive in the post-recession time period, especially given the compatibility of Linux with two of the industry's more exciting trends – virtualization and cloud computing.”

Freeform Dynamics Study (sponsored by IBM):

“Desktop Linux adoption is primarily driven by cost reduction. When asked during a recent online survey of over a thousand IT professionals with experience of desktop Linux deployment in a business context, over 70% of respondents indicated cost reduction as the primary driver for adoption.”

Forrester Analyst, Jeffrey Hammond on open source software:

“Generally, the goal is to save money. That's where organizations tend to start. And then what tends to happen is the more that they become comfortable with using open source, and the more that they apply it successfully, the more they start to realize that there are benefits other than cost savings that they can take advantage of. And that's when you start to see them turn from open source opportunists into open source advocates.”

For pointers to additional research on open source use in the current economy, you might start with these two articles:

• Open source rising as the economy continues to fall
• Linux desktop adoption boosted by economy

There are so many reasons to use open source software. The down economy and lower cost are not the only reason people are moving to open source software, but it does seem to be driving a few more companies into evaluating open source software solutions.

What do you think? Have you noticed any trends toward increased open source software adoption as a result of the down economy?

When I was a student I typically ignored case studies from my textbooks, as do my students, as well they should. I have not taken the time, a fair hunk of time, to prepare assignments based on the case studies. This is the only realistic way to help students absorb them.

I need a better name for the kind of big project I desire for my students. This big project was spawned talking with Rubin Landau about his ideas, with Dan Ernst's projects stirred into the brew as well.

When Dan and I talked, he described some of the case studies and related project assignments he is doing to inject parallel concepts into his curriculum. This is a right thing to do.I also heard Rubin suggest turning CS inside out, to be a form of physics based project learning. This would be wonderful for physics, but the discipline of computer science needs more focus on the CS side of things.

What is appropriate for computer scientists is to have at least one semester long challenging collaborative project, to start the kind of learning Rubin cited as the typical way physicists learn parallel programming: a two year stint as a postdoc where there is code to work on, tied to their research, requiring a supercomputer cluster.

I do think my CS students, usually having good math and science backgrounds, would benefit from a semester long collaborative project. It needs to be one requiring 10s to 100s or more of processors for the solution. It needs to be self contained, and "easily" understood by students. The scaffolding of the project is essential so there is room for open-ended discovery with a high likelihood of success. I am thinking of making it a semester-long whole class effort taking place during my Data Structures course. I would like to have more than one project, so students can choose the one best matching their skills and interests. I will start with it being an extra credit assignment, hopefully extra-credit extended across the other disciplines to incent more diverse students to participate. Another layer might be also structuring it as a student competition. I haven't figured it all out yet.

It is not strange I am charmed to report Rubin is helping me develop my first project, which will be based on quantum chromodynamics, in which students will explore from top to bottom a Feyman path integral simulation, along the lines of what is covered in his book "A Survey of Computational Physics: Introductory Computational Science."

I look forward to a boatload of collaboration with Rubin, dosed with the constructive bantering we usually have.

I realize that I banter a lot with the people I like and just realized why. We can let our guard down and safely discuss initial thoughts and half-baked ideas. Most of mine are quarter to half-baked. This is a very good thing: enjoyable and supportive of dashing toward desired goals.

Any ideas for well defined and contained, computationally rich problems?

It appears however that the 64-bit build of Windows Server 2008 SP2 operating system isn't supported by the Zune software. Although I haven't attempted installing it upon the 32-bit build of Windows Server 2008 SP2, the following error would indicate that platform isn't supported either.

While I will be using both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 within a dual boot configuration, it would be really useful to be able to use the Zune player and software when using Windows Server 2008 SP2 or Windows Server 2008 R2.

With the Zune team at Microsoft preparing the Zune HD, I would hope that future releases of the Zune software would allow installations onto server operating systems. I am not the only one using Windows Server 2008 SP2 or Windows Server 2008 R2 as a workstation operating system.

Ylian

To get started with VMotion, you will need a shared storage that both of the servers (considering that’s you’re only using 2 servers for your cluster) can access. A simple shared storage can be created on your client machine called an NFS Share (instructions in a previous blog). I’ll be using the ESX Server 4.0 & the new vSphere in this blog.

1. When you first login into the vCenter through vSphere, you’ll create a new datacenter and choose to create a New Cluster.

2. Give the cluster a name and click Next. Once you get to the VMware EVC page, you can choose to enable “Enhanced VMotion Compatibility” for Intel hosts & choose the Intel Xeon 45nm Core 2, which allows you to utilize Intel’s FlexMigration and move VMs from one platform to another. In this case, from the old Penryn generation to the new Nehalem platforms. Continue to click Next with default options until you’re finished creating the cluster.

3. Add your hosts (servers) to the cluster.

4. Under Configuration --> Networking for each of the servers, select Properties for the vSwitch0 and add a new VMkernel
a. Click Next, and check the box for Use this Port group for VMotion
b. On the next page, choose your IP (either DHCP or static) and click to finish

If you have already added the VMKernel, you can edit the properties of the existing VMKernel to be used for VMotion. Now you can right-click on your VM and select Migrate to move one VM from one system to the other system.

If you have workloads running on the VMs, be sure to put the VMKernel for VMotion on a separate NIC(vSwitch).

I also have the fortune to talk to professors who have already started to THINK PARALLEL, and have started to weave parallel programming into their curriculums. A few weeks ago I was talking to Dr. Joel Adams at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI. and he was telling me about how he has been thinking parallel.

I want to share some of the links to his courses and work with the students at Calvin College so that you too can start to Think Parallel. In my many hours of conversations I have repeated heard “I know I need to start to do this, but it seems to be such a huge undertaking”   It is, the advent of multiple processors fundamentally changes the way that Computer Sciences curriculums need to be taught. This is not a trivial undertaking. This requires us to change the way in which we think.

About a year ago, I took up running because I got tired of hearing my own litany of excuses as to why I could not exercise. In January, I joined Team in Training and ran my first ½ marathon on May 31^st.  I went a whole 6 days before I signed up for another ½ marathon. I am running 2 ½ marathons in October. All of this effort started with 1 step out my front door.  Your journey to integrating parallelism into your curriculum starts the same way.  Like my running, you simply need to start to make the changes and just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

OK, here is what Dr. Adams is doing to prepare his students for the parallel world we now live in:

“We are trying to integrate parallelism across our curriculum, introducing all students to it in the second course.  Here are links to some of our resources:

The lab in our second course where we first introduce parallelism is here:

   http://cs.calvin.edu/curriculum/cs/112/labs/10/index.html

Our lab where students do this exercise has quad-core CPUs, so they see decent speedup going from 1 to 2 to 4 threads.

Our senior-level HPC course materials are here:

   http://cs.calvin.edu/curriculum/cs/374/

Students also see parallel issues in our Programming Languages course, and our OS & Networking course, but the two links above are our  "bookends".  Students in the HPC course (and those doing summer research) use our Beowulf cluster:

   http://dahl.calvin.edu/

You might especially be interested in our "History" page there:

   http://dahl.calvin.edu/history/

So that should give you some insight into the kinds of things going on here.”

I want to thank Dr. Adams for sharing his work with the Intel Academic Community. If you have started to Think Parallel and want to share your work, please feel free to post some links here.  If you need help, contact me and I will be happy to help you get it posted.

Remember, It takes 2 or more to go parallel.

Enter our ‘Just Ask’ contest now through July 31, 2009. The 50 best questions, as judged by Intel Software Network moderators, will be answered by Intel software engineers and experts.  For each selected question, the submitter will receive a $25 gift card to ThinkGeek.com.  There is no limit to the number of questions you can ask.  Each unique question counts as an entry.

Tweet your question(s) to @intelsoftware, and include #ISNTOPIC in the tweet.  Or, enter your question(s) into this form.  Complete details are at: http://intel.com/software/justask.

Need ideas?  See what other developers are asking.  While you're there, rate their questions.

We will announce the winners on August 6, 2009 at 3:00 p.m. PDT via direct tweet as well as posting on the Just Ask site.

Tell us. . . What development questions are on your mind?

After receiving an e-mail from Rafael Rivera today, I discovered that one of my previous blog posts, entitled Windows 7 'Incredibly Stable,' Intel Expert Says, was featured in a video on the Microsoft Showcase site. Within the video, Renee James, CVP & GM, Software and Services Group, Intel shares her thoughts on Windows 7 and how Intel will support the operating system. Within the video, Renee confirms that Intel's own internal testing has been "fantastic" and then there you have the Windows 7 'Incredibly Stable,' Intel Expert Says post.

Being quoted in the InformationWeek article was cool although this was very cool also and thank you Rafael for letting me know this was online.

Using Windows Server 2008 SP2 as both the host and virtualized operating systems I configured the virtual machine with SQL Server 2008 SP1 and Team Foundation Server SP1.

With the Hyper-V virtual machine created it was time to export the virtual machine on my workstation such that I can import the virtual machine on my laptop.

Once the virtual machine has been shutdown and is no longer running you can right click on the virtual machine and select the Export... menu. You'll then be presented with the Export Virtual Machine dialog as shown here.

You should provide an export path and leave the Export only the virtual machine configuration checkbox unchecked. Once the export is complete you can backup the virtual machine or copy it to another Windows Server 2008 machine where it can be imported.

With the exported virtual machine copied to the destination machine the Import Virtual Machine... link on the Actions pane is then used to bring the virtual machine into the new Hyper-V environment.

You'll then need to browse to the import path containing the Snapshots, Virtual Hard Disks, and Virtual Machines folders along with the config.xml for the previously exported virtual machine.

Within Hyper-V all virtual machines have unique ID's assigned to them so that the names of the virtual machines do not need to be unique themselves although it is good practice to keep them unique. We'll leave the Reuse old virtual machine ID's checkbox unchecked and then Import the virtual machine.

Once the import is completed you'll see the virtual machine listed in the Hyper-V Manager and you'll be able to run the virtual machine as shown here. It is worth noting that the original virtual machine was setup on a quad-core extreme edition machine with 8Gb of memory and the destination machine is a dual-core machine with only 4Gb of memory.

Here's a brief list of features:

• Hardware Asset
  • Platform (computer model, manufacturer, version, serial number)
  • BIOS (vendor, version)
  • Processor (manufacturer, version, maximum socket speed, speed)
  • Memory (manufacturer, serial number, size, speed, form factor, type, part number)
  • Disk (model, serial number, size)
• Event Log (display, clear)
• Networking
• Filters (display, add, delete)
• Policies (display, add, set active policy, delete, set as active policy, set as watchdog policy)
• Watchdogs (display, add, set watchdog policy, delete, state transitions)
• Remote Control (Power Up, Power Down, Reset, Power Cycle Reset)
• Serial Agent
• Process Monitor (display, kill, start)
• File Explorer (display)
• Create Package

The "Create Package" feature is actually something that I came up with. System Defense (using Agent Presence) usually requires creating a filter, a policy, and a watchdog. Then you have to set the watchdog policy and set up state transitions for the watchdog. You can still do this using IT Helper 1.0, but the Create Package feature does all of this for you. The user enters a name and GUID for the "package" and the management console creates a policy (using default RX drop and TX drop filters), sets it as the watchdog policy, and creates a watchdog (with state transitions) using the provided name and GUID. The user can then set up the client to monitor an application (perform heartbeat). If a heartbeat is not detected (10 second timeout interval, 30 second startup interval), received and transmitted packets are automatically dropped.

IT Helper 1.0 should be available for download shortly. Until then, feel free to leave a question/comment!

Here is what it looks like - it lets you pick which areas you want to search - I like to search forums and blogs - so this tool was working great for me.

So one morning a couple of months ago, I went to use our search tool on our Manageability Forum and it was GONE! OK, there are other search tools out there, but they have different options and do not give us the same results as our trusty (and favorite) search tool. I found that I could go back to the Blogs page - it's still there! (Shhhhhhh!) But it was kind of a pain to always have to go back to the Blog Page to get access to my search tool. That's when I finally asked Gina B about it. I was told that it had been removed from all the forum pages on the "Right Hand Side" of the page, but I could still access it by clicking on the Binoculars! I was so excited! I went out to our Forum and clicked on the Binoculars and BINGO - there was my search tool!

Thank You Gina B for pointing this out!!

Look, But Don't Touch

Consider the following subroutine:

subroutine sub (i)
integer i
if (i > 2) i = i + 1
return
end

Now, what happens when you call this with:

call sub(3)

???

a) The value 3 changes to the value 4 in the caller
b) Access violation or segmentation fault
c) Nothing, the variable changes value in the subroutine but not the caller
d) World War III starts

The answer, for many older compilers, was (a)!  For current Intel compilers, the correct answer, however, is (b) - a run-time error that is "access violation (on Windows) or "segmentation fault: on Linux and Mac OS.  Why?  The compiler has to put the value 3 in memory somewhere.  By default, it puts it in a section of memory it has asked the operating system to make "read-only". When the value of variable i changes in the subroutine, that is an attempt to write to read-only memory and you get a run-time error.

The Intel compiler has an option, /assume:[no]protect_constants (Windows) or -assume [no]protect_constants (Linux/Mac OS) which can change this behavior to (c). If "noprotect_constants" is specified, then the compiler creates a temporary copy of the value 3 and passes the address of the copy.  The subroutine can change the value all it wants but the changes will be discarded on return.  (Those who have been with the Doctor for a long time may recall that I wrote about this back in the CVF days, almost nine years ago.  You can read that item here.

I will point out now that the above call is not legal Fortran - the literal constant 3 is not "definable" and that means you are not allowed to "redefine or cause to become undefined" the associated dummy argument. However, code like this has appeared in many applications over the years.

Now, what if you did this?

call sub((3))

What is being passed  here is an expression, not a literal, so is that legal?  No!  An expression is not definable either!  However, Intel Fortran treats this differently and will always pass a temporary copy of the value, as if you had said /assume:noprotect_constants.

But what if you wanted to pass any variable to this subroutine but have the original value preserved?  You could write:

call sub((j))

and take advantage of Intel Fortran's extension where it passes a copy, but Fortran 2003 has another way. If you give the dummy argument the VALUE attribute, which requires an explicit interface to be visible, then the effect is similar in some ways to passing an expression.  Actually, what happens is that on entry to the subroutine, a new local variable is created that copies the value of the argument, and all references in the subroutine are to that local variable, which is definable.  On exit, like other local variables, the copy is discarded. VALUE has another purpose as part of C interoperability, but I'll discuss that another time.

By the way, there's a less obvious way that you can pass an argument that is not definable: an array with a vector subscript.  For example, A([1,3,5]).  Here too, you're not allowed to assign into a dummy argument that is associated with such an actual argument.

Alias Smith and Jones

It is often said that Fortran is faster than C because Fortran disallows variable aliasing, where the same storage can be referred to by two or more different names, and in C everything can be aliased.  There is some truth to this on both sides, but it is not absolute - especially when more recent versions of the C standard are considered.

It is true that in most cases, a Fortran compiler can assume that no aliasing occurs, but not always.  Unfortunately, a lot of programmers inadvertently violate the language rules and run int trouble. Here's the basic text that the standard has to say about aliasing:

While an entity is associated with a dummy argument, the following restrictions hold:
(1) Action that affects the allocation status of the entity or a subobject thereof shall be taken
through the dummy argument. Action that affects the value of the entity or any subobject
of it shall be taken only through the dummy argument unless
(a) the dummy argument has the POINTER attribute or
(b) the dummy argument has the TARGET attribute, the dummy argument does not
have INTENT (IN), the dummy argument is a scalar object or an assumed-shape
array, and the actual argument is a target other than an array section with a vector
subscript.

[12.4.1.7 Restrictions on entities associated with dummy arguments]

Let's look at the simplest example:

program alias1
real x
x = 4.0
call sub (x,x)
print *, x
end

subroutine sub (a,b)
real a,b
a = a + 2.0
b = b * 3.0
return
end subroutine sub

What does this program print?

a) 6.0
b) 8.0
c) 12.0
d) 18.0
e) Any of the above

The correct answer is (e).  The program is not legal Fortran and the results are unpredictable.  For example, the compiler could do either the add or the multiply first, or it could copy the values of the arguments into a temporary (say, a register), do the add/multiply, then store the result.

Ok, that one is pretty obvious.  How about this?

program alias2
real x
common /CMN/ x
x = 4.0
call sub(x)
print *, x
end
subroutine sub (y)
common /CMN/ x
real x,y
y = y + 2.0
x = x * 3.0
return
end subroutine sub

The choices, and answer, are the same as for alias1 above.  Here, the aliasing is between a dummy argument and a COMMON variable.  As of Fortran 90, you could extend this case to module variables or host-associated variables in addition to COMMON.  It's ok if all you do is get the value, but once you change the value (or change the definition status), then the requirement is that all such changes must be through the dummy argument only.

This second scenario is much easier to stumble into, especially with large applications.  Recognizing this, the Intel compiler has an option to tell the compiler to assume that such aliasing may exist and to disable optimizations that depend on the absence of aliasing.  That option is /assume:dummy_aliases (Windows) or -assume dummy_aliases (Linux and Mac IOS).  If you have an old and large program that isn't getting correct answers, try enabling this option to see if it helps.  In many cases, it will.

In Conclusion

Wow, this has been one of my longer posts, and there's lots more that could be said on the general topic of arguments, but we'll save that for another time.

If you have a comment on this article, or a suggestion for a future topic, feel free to add a comment here. (If you need technical support, please visit our user forum instead.)   Also, you can now follow me on Twitter, if you're so inclined: @DoctorFortran I'm still feeling my way with this "fluttering" thing, so be kind...