Internet Surfer 2.0/Internet Surfer 2.0 (Wayzata Technology) (1996).iso/pc/text/mac/faqs.079

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS);faqs.079



12. Aspirin/MIGRAINES
   Aspirin/MIGRAINES 6.0 consists of a code generator that builds neural network
   simulations by reading a network description (written in a language
   called "Aspirin") and generates a C simulation. An interface
   (called "MIGRAINES") is provided to export data from the neural
   network to visualization tools.
   The system has been ported to a large number of platforms.
     The goal of Aspirin is to provide a common extendible front-end language
   and parser for different network paradigms.
     The MIGRAINES interface is a terminal based interface
   that allows you to open Unix pipes to data in the neural
   network. This replaces the NeWS1.1 graphical interface
   in version 4.0 of the Aspirin/MIGRAINES software. The
   new interface is not a simple to use as the version 4.0
   interface but is much more portable and flexible.
     The MIGRAINES interface allows users to output
   neural network weight and node vectors to disk or to
   other Unix processes. Users can display the data using
   either public or commercial graphics/analysis tools.
   Example filters are included that convert data exported through
   MIGRAINES to formats readable by Gnuplot 3.0, Matlab, Mathematica,
   and xgobi.
     The software is available from two FTP sites:
   CMU's simulator collection on "pt.cs.cmu.edu" (128.2.254.155)
   in /afs/cs/project/connect/code/am6.tar.Z".
   and UCLA's cognitive science machine "ftp.cognet.ucla.edu" (128.97.50.19)
   in alexis/am6.tar.Z
   The compressed tar file is a little less than 2 megabytes.

13. Adaptive Logic Network kit
   Available from menaik.cs.ualberta.ca.  This package differs from
   the traditional nets in that it uses logic functions rather than
   floating point; for many tasks, ALN's can show many orders of
   magnitude gain in training and performance speed.
   Anonymous ftp from menaik.cs.ualberta.ca [129.128.4.241]
   unix source code and examples: /pub/atree2.tar.Z   (145 KB)
   Postscript documentation:      /pub/atree2.ps.Z    ( 76 KB)
   MS-DOS Windows 3.0 version:    /pub/atree2.zip     (353 KB)
                                  /pub/atree2zip.readme (1 KB)

14. NeuralShell
   Availible from FTP site quanta.eng.ohio-state.edu
   (128.146.35.1) in directory "pub/NeuralShell", filename
   "NeuralShell.tar".

15. PDP
   The PDP simulator package is available via anonymous FTP at
   nic.funet.fi  (128.214.6.100) in /pub/sci/neural/sims/pdp.tar.Z (0.2 MB)
   The simulator is also available with the book
    "Explorations in Parallel Distributed Processing: A Handbook of
     Models, Programs, and Exercises" by McClelland and Rumelhart.
     MIT Press, 1988.
   Comment: "This book is often referred to as PDP vol III which is a very
   misleading practice!  The book comes with software on an IBM disk but
   includes a makefile for compiling on UNIX systems.  The version of
   PDP available at nic.funet.fi seems identical to the one with the book
   except for a bug in bp.c which occurs when you try to run a script of
   PDP commands using the DO command.  This can be found and fixed easily."

16. Xerion
   Xerion is available via anonymous ftp from
   ftp.cs.toronto.edu in the directory /pub/xerion.
   xerion-3.0.PS.Z (0.9 MB) and xerion-3.0.tar.Z (1.1 MB) plus
   several concrete simulators built with xerion (about 0.3 MB each,
   see below).
   Xerion runs on SGI and Sun machines and uses X Windows for graphics.
   The software contains modules that implement Back Propagation,
   Recurrent Back Propagation, Boltzmann Machine, Mean Field Theory,
   Free Energy Manipulation, Hard and Soft Competitive Learning, and
   Kohonen Networks. Sample networks built for each of the modules are
   also included.
   Contact: [e-mail]

17. Neocognitron simulator
  An implementation is available for anonymous ftp at
    [128.194.15.32] tamsun.tamu.edu as /pub/neocognitron.Z.tar
  The simulator is written in C and comes with a list of references
  which are necessary to read to understand the specifics of the
  implementation. The unsupervised version is coded without (!)
  C-cell inhibition.

18. Multi-Module Neural Computing Environment (MUME)

  MUME is a simulation environment for multi-modules neural computing. It
  provides an object oriented facility for the simulation and training
  of multiple nets with various architectures and learning algorithms.
  MUME includes a library of network architectures including feedforward,
  simple recurrent, and continuously running recurrent neural networks.
  Each architecture is supported by a variety of learning algorithms.
  MUME can be used for large scale neural network simulations as it provides
  support for learning in multi-net environments. It also provide pre- and
  post-processing facilities.
  The modules are provided in a library. Several "front-ends" or clients are
  also available.
  MUME can be used to include non-neural computing modules (decision
  trees, ...) in applications.
  The software is the product of a number of staff and postgraduate students
  at the Machine Intelligence Group at Sydney University Electrical
  Engineering.
  The software is written in 'C' and is being used on Sun and DEC
  workstations. Efforts are underway to port it to the Fujitsu VP2200
  vector processor using the VCC vectorising C compiler.
  MUME is made available to research institutions on media/doc/postage cost
  arrangements. Information on how to acquire it may be obtained by writing
  (or email) to:
  Marwan Jabri
  SEDAL
  Sydney University Electrical Engineering
  NSW 2006 Australia
  [e-mail]

19. LVQ_PAK, SOM_PAK
  These are packages for Learning Vector Quantization and
  Self-Organizing Maps, respectively.
  They have been built by the LVQ/SOM Programming Team of the
  Helsinki University of Technology, Laboratory of Computer and
  Information Science, Rakentajanaukio 2 C, SF-02150 Espoo, FINLAND
  There are versions for Unix and MS-DOS available from
  cochlea.hut.fi (130.233.168.48) in
  /pub/lvq_pak/lvq_pak-2.1.tar.Z   (340 kB, Unix)
  /pub/lvq_pak/lvq_p2r1.exe        (310 kB, MS-DOS self-extract archive)
  /pub/som_pak/som_pak-1.1.tar.Z   (246 kB, Unix)
  /pub/som_pak/som_p1r1.exe        (215 kB, MS-DOS self-extract archive)

For some of these simulators there are user mailing lists. Get the
packages and look into their documentation for further info.

If you are using a small computer (PC, Mac, etc.) you may want to have
a look at the  Central Neural System Electronic Bulletin Board
(see Answer 14)
Modem: 509-627-6CNS; Sysop: Wesley R. Elsberry;
P.O. Box 1187, Richland, WA 99352; [e-mail]
There are lots of small simulator packages, the CNS ANNSIM file set.
There is an ftp mirror site for the CNS ANNSIM file set at
me.uta.edu (129.107.2.20) in the /pub/neural directory.  Most ANN
offerings are in /pub/neural/annsim.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

-A16.) Commercial software packages for NN simulation ?

[preliminary]
[who will write some short comment on each of the most
 important packages ?]

The Number 1 of each volume of the journal "Neural Networks" has a list
of some dozens of commercial suppliers of Neural Network things:
Software, Hardware, Support, Programming, Design and Service.

Here is a naked list of names of Simulators running on PC (and, partly,
some other platforms, too):

1. NeuralWorks Professional 2+
2. AIM
3. BrainMaker Professional
4. Brain Cel
5. Neural Desk
6. Neural Case
7. Neuro Windows
8. Explorenet 3000

------------------------------------------------------------------------

-A17.) Neural Network hardware ?

[preliminary]
[who will write some short comment on the most important
 HW-packages and chips ?]

The Number 1 of each volume of the journal "Neural Networks" has a list
of some dozens of suppliers of Neural Network support:
Software, Hardware, Support, Programming, Design and Service.

Here is a list of companies contributed by [e-mail]:

1. HNC, INC.
   5501 Oberlin Drive
   San Diego
   California 92121
   [phone]

   and a second address at

   7799 Leesburg Pike, Suite 900
   Falls Church, Virginia
   22043
   [phone]

   Note: Australian Dist.: Unitronics
                           Tel : [phone]
                           Contact: Martin Keye

   HNC markets:
    'Image Document Entry Processing Terminal' - it recognises
    handwritten documents and converts the info to ASCII.

    'ExploreNet 3000' - a NN demonstrator

    'Anza/DP Plus'- a Neural Net board with 25MFlop or 12.5M peak
    interconnects per second.

2. SAIC (Sience Application International Corporation)
   10260 Campus Point Drive
   MS 71, San Diego
   CA 92121
   [phone]
   Fax: [phone]

3. Micro Devices
   30 Skyline Drive
   Lake Mary
   FL 32746-6201
   [phone]

   MicroDevices makes   MD1220 - 'Neural Bit Slice'

   Each of the products mentioned sofar have very different usages.
   Although this sounds similar to Intel's product, the
   architectures are not.

4. Intel Corp
   2250 Mission College Blvd
   Santa Clara, Ca 95052-8125
   Attn ETANN, Mail Stop SC9-40
   [phone]

   Intel is making an experimental chip:
   80170NW - Electrically trainable Analog Neural Network (ETANN)

   It has 64 'neurons' on it - almost fully internally connectted
   and the chip can be put in an hierarchial architecture to do 2 Billion
   interconnects per second.

   Support software has already been made by

   California Scientific Software
   10141 Evening Star Dr #6
   Grass Valley, CA 95945-9051
   [phone]

   Their product is called 'BrainMaker'.

5. NeuralWare, Inc
   Penn Center West
   Bldg IV Suite 227
   Pittsburgh
   PA 15276

   They only sell software/simulator but for many platforms.

6. Tubb Research Limited
   7a Lavant Street
   Peterfield
   Hampshire
   GU32 2EL
   United Kingdom
   Tel: [phone]

7. Adaptive Solutions Inc
   1400 NW Compton Drive
   Suite 340
   Beaverton, OR 97006
   U. S. A.
   Tel: 503 - 690 - 1236
   FAX: 503 - 690 - 1249

------------------------------------------------------------------------

-A19.) Databases for experimentation with NNs ?

[are there any more ?]

1. The nn-bench Benchmark collection
   accessible via anonymous FTP on
     "pt.cs.cmu.edu"
   in directory
     "/afs/cs/project/connect/bench"
   or via the Andrew file system in the directory
     "/afs/cs.cmu.edu/project/connect/bench"
   In case of problems email contact is "[e-mail]".
   The data sets in this repository include the 'nettalk' data, the
   'two spirals' problem, a vowel recognition task, and a few others.

2. UCI machine learning database
   accessible via anonymous FTP on
     "ics.uci.edu" [128.195.1.1]
   in directory
     "/pub/machine-learning-databases"

3. NIST special databases of the National Institute Of Standards
   And Technology:
   NIST special database 2:
     Structured Forms Reference Set (SFRS)

     The NIST database of structured forms contains 5,590 full page images
     of simulated tax forms completed using machine print. THERE IS NO REAL
     TAX DATA IN THIS DATABASE. The structured forms used in this database
     are 12 different forms from the 1988, IRS 1040 Package X. These
     include Forms 1040, 2106, 2441, 4562, and 6251 together with Schedules
     A, B, C, D, E, F and SE.  Eight of these forms contain two pages or
     form faces making a total of 20 form faces represented in the
     database.  Each image is stored in bi-level black and white raster
     format.  The images in this database appear to be real forms prepared
     by individuals but the images have been automatically derived and
     synthesized using a computer and contain no "real" tax data. The entry
     field values on the forms have been automatically generated by a
     computer in order to make the data available without the danger of
     distributing privileged tax information.  In addition to the images
     the database includes 5,590 answer files, one for each image. Each
     answer file contains an ASCII representation of the data found in the
     entry fields on the corresponding image. Image format documentation
     and example software are also provided.  The uncompressed database
     totals approximately 5.9 gigabytes of data.

   NIST special database 3:
     Binary Images of Handwritten Segmented Characters (HWSC)

     Contains 313,389 isolated character images segmented from the
     2,100 full-page images distributed with "NIST Special Database 1".
     223,125 digits, 44,951 upper-case, and 45,313 lower-case character
     images. Each character image has been centered in a separate
     128 by 128 pixel region, error rate of the segmentation and
     assigned classification is less than 0.1%.
     The uncompressed database totals approximately 2.75 gigabytes of
     image data and includes image format documentation and example software.


   NIST special database 4:
     8-Bit Gray Scale Images of Fingerprint Image Groups (FIGS)

     The NIST database of fingerprint images contains 2000 8-bit gray scale
     fingerprint image pairs. Each image is 512 by 512 pixels with 32 rows
     of white space at the bottom and classified using one of the five
     following classes: A=Arch, L=Left Loop, R=Right Loop, T=Tented Arch,
     W=Whirl. The database is evenly distributed over each of the five
     classifications with 400 fingerprint pairs from each class. The images
     are compressed using a modified JPEG lossless compression algorithm
     and require approximately 636 Megabytes of storage compressed and 1.1
     Gigabytes uncompressed (1.6 : 1 compression ratio). The database also
     includes format documentation and example software.

   More short overview:
   Special Database 1 - NIST Binary Images of Printed Digits, Alphas, and Text
   Special Database 2 - NIST Structured Forms Reference Set of Binary Images
   Special Database 3 - NIST Binary Images of Handwritten Segmented Characters
   Special Database 4 - NIST 8-bit Gray Scale Images of Fingerprint Image Groups
   Special Database 6 - NIST Structured Forms Reference Set 2 of Binary Images
   Special Database 7 - NIST Test Data 1: Binary Images of Handprinted Segmented
                        Characters
   Special Software 1 - NIST Scoring Package Release 1.0

   Special Database 1 - $895.00
   Special Database 2 - $250.00
   Special Database 3 - $895.00
   Special Database 4 - $250.00
   Special Database 6 - $250.00
   Special Database 7 - $1,000.00
   Special Software 1 - $1,150.00

   The system requirements for all databases are a 5.25" CD-ROM drive
   with software to read ISO-9660 format.

   Contact:  Darrin L. Dimmick
             [e-mail]     [phone]

   If you wish to order the database, please contact:
     Standard Reference Data
     National Institute of Standards and Technology
     221/A323
     Gaithersburg, MD 20899
     [phone]  or  [phone] (FAX)

4. CEDAR CD-ROM 1: Database of Handwritten
   Cities, States, ZIP Codes, Digits, and Alphabetic Characters

   The Center Of Excellence for Document Analysis and Recognition (CEDAR)
   State University of New York at Buffalo announces the availability of
   CEDAR CDROM 1: USPS Office of Advanced Technology
   The database contains handwritten words and ZIP Codes
   in high resolution grayscale (300  ppi  8-bit)  as  well  as
   binary handwritten digits and alphabetic characters (300 ppi
   1-bit).  This database is intended to encourage research  in
   off-line  handwriting  recognition  by  providing  access to
   handwriting samples  digitized  from  envelopes in a working
   post office.
     Specifications of the database include:
     +    300 ppi 8-bit grayscale handwritten words (cities,
          states, ZIP Codes)
          o    5632 city words
          o    4938 state words
          o    9454 ZIP Codes
     +    300 ppi binary handwritten characters and digits:
          o    27,837 mixed alphas  and  numerics  segmented
               from address blocks
          o    21,179 digits segmented from ZIP Codes
     +    every image supplied with  a  manually  determined
          truth value
     +    extracted from live mail in a  working  U.S.  Post
          Office
     +    word images in the test  set  supplied  with  dic-
          tionaries  of  postal  words that simulate partial
          recognition of the corresponding ZIP Code.
     +    digit images included in test  set  that  simulate
          automatic ZIP Code segmentation.  Results on these
          data can be projected to overall ZIP Code recogni-
          tion performance.
     +    image format documentation and software included
   System requirements are a 5.25" CD-ROM drive with software  to  read  ISO-
   9660 format.
   For any further information, including how to order the
   database, please contact:
     Jonathan J. Hull, Associate Director, CEDAR, 226 Bell Hall
     State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260
     [e-mail] (email)

------------------------------------------------------------------------



That's all folks.

========================================================================

Acknowledgements: Thanks to all the people who helped to get the stuff
                  above into the posting. I cannot name them all, because
                  I would make far too many errors then. :->

                  No ?  Not good ?  You want individual credit ?
                  OK, OK. I'll try to name them all. But: no guarantee....

  THANKS FOR HELP TO:
(in alphabetical order of email adresses, I hope)

S.Taimi Ames <[e-mail]>
[e-mail]
Kim L. Blackwell <[e-mail]>
Paul Bakker <[e-mail]>
Yijun Cai <[e-mail]>
L. Leon Campbell <[e-mail]>
David DeMers <[e-mail]>
Denni Rognvaldsson <[e-mail]>
Wesley R. Elsberry <[e-mail]>
Frank Schnorrenberg <[e-mail]>
Gary Lawrence Murphy <[e-mail]>
[e-mail]
Glen Clark <opto![e-mail]>
[e-mail]
Jean-Denis Muller <[e-mail]>
Jonathan Kamens <[e-mail]>
Luke Koops <[e-mail]>
William Mackeown <[e-mail]>
Peter Marvit <[e-mail]>
Yoshiro Miyata <[e-mail]>
Jyrki Alakuijala <[e-mail]>
[e-mail]
Michael Plonski <[e-mail]>
[myself]
Richard Cornelius <[e-mail]>
Rob Cunningham <[e-mail]>
Osamu Saito <[e-mail]>
Ted Stockwell <[e-mail]>
[e-mail]
Ulrich Wendl <[e-mail]>
Matthew P Wiener <[e-mail]>

Bye

  Lutz

--
Lutz Prechelt   (email: [e-mail])            | Whenever you
Institut fuer Programmstrukturen und Datenorganisation  | complicate things,
Universitaet Karlsruhe;  D-7500 Karlsruhe 1;  Germany   | they get
(Voice: ++49/721/608-4317, FAX: ++49/721/694092)        | less simple.
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Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!athena.mit.edu!jik
From: [e-mail] (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions,news.answers
Subject: Welcome to news.newusers.questions! (weekly posting)
Supersedes: <[e-mail]>
Followup-To: news.newusers.questions
Date: 24 Dec 1992 06:01:19 GMT
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Approved: [e-mail]
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Summary: READ THIS BEFORE POSTING TO THIS NEWSGROUP
X-Version: $Id: news-newusers-intro,v 1.14 1992/12/21 21:59:09 jik Exp $

Archive-name: news-newusers-intro
Version: $Id: news-newusers-intro,v 1.14 1992/12/21 21:59:09 jik Exp $


  Welcome to the news.newusers.questions newsgroup!  According to the
"List of Active Newsgroups" posting in news.announce.newusers, the
purpose of this newsgroup is "Q & A for users new to the Usenet."  So
if you've got questions about the USENET, this is the place to post
them!


         Get to know news.announce.newusers.


  However, before you do that, there is another newsgroup with which
you should become acquainted.  The news.announce.newusers newsgroup
contains (once again according to the "List of Active Newsgroups"
posting) "Explanatory postings for new users."  Its purpose is to
provide a base set of information with which all participants in the
USENET should be familiar in order to make the USENET a better place
for all of us.

  If you have not already done so, you are strongly encouraged to read
the introductory postings in news.announce.newusers before posting any
messages to any newsgroup.  In particular, the following postings in
that newsgroup might be considered the "mandatory course" for new
users:

    A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community
    Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Usenet
    Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette
    Hints on writing style for Usenet
    Rules for posting to Usenet
    What is Usenet?

Furthermore, you should be aware that the following articles exist in
the newsgroup so that you can use them for reference in the future
(you might want to glance at them now so you have a slight familiarity
with their contents):

    A Guide to Social Newsgroups and Mailing Lists
    Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part I
    Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part II
    How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup
    How to Get Information about Networks
    Introduction to news.announce
    Introduction to the news.answers newsgroup
    List of Active Newsgroups, Part I
    List of Active Newsgroups, Part II
    List of Moderators for Usenet
    List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part 1/4
    List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part 2/4
    List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part 3/4
    List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part 4/4
    Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part I
    Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part II
    Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part III
    Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part IV
    Regional Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part I (*)
    Regional Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part II (*)
    Regional Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part III (*)
    USENET Software: History and Sources

 (*) Note that as of December 21, 1992, the "Regional Newsgroup
     Hierarchies" postings are unavailable.  However, their maintainer
     does plan to resume posting them at some point in the future,
     hence their inclusion in this list.

Finally, note that before posting in any newsgroup, you should read
the group for a while in order to become familiar with what is
acceptable in it and to make sure that you have seen and read the FAQ
posting(s) for the newsgroup, if there is/are any.

  The articles in news.announce.newusers are posted in such a way that
each version should stay around at each site until the new version is
posted.  However, some sites are configured incorrectly so that this
does not occur.  If the articles listed above do not appear in the
news.announce.newusers newsgroup at your site, you can get copies of
them using the instructions appended to the end of this message.


              Get to know news.answers.


  The news.answers newsgroup contains a collection of all (well, it's
*supposed* to contain all of them, but it's still missing quite a few)
of the periodic informational postings that appear on the USENET
(including, for example, this posting, as well as most or all of the
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want to sit down and read through every posting in news.answers from
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interest.  However, news.answers is a good place to "browse the wealth
of the USENET."  Since the periodic informational postings in the
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newsgroups, news.answers might be considered the distilled wisdom of
the USENET.  Glancing at the articles in it will give you a good idea
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       Get to know what other newsgroups are out there.


  There is no well-defined limit on what questions belong in this
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  For example, if you have a question about a UNIX command and that
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      It's often a good idea to try to get help locally.


  Many questions that are asked by new USENET users concern details
about their particular site that no one else is going to know about.
Furthermore, new users often don't know what information to provide
when asking their questions, so several exchanges are necessary before
the people helping out have enough information to be able to give a
conclusive answer.  Finally, it's often easier to learn something when
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participating in the USENET for a while, you'll get an intuitive feel
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  Note that "getting help locally" includes checking available local
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information in the rn man page (type "man rn", and if it doesn't work
find someone who knows what's going on and ask them why "man rn"
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  Remember that posting to the USENET uses resources.  You may not pay
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   If you DO decide to ask a question in news.newusers.questions...


  If, after checking the postings in news.announce.newusers to see if
your question is answered there, and after looking to see if there is
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thousands of sites on the USENET, and they're all just a little bit
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  Try to provide the following information when posting a question.
If you don't know the answers to some of these questions, then try to
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5. What version of the program is it?
6. If you are trying to interpret some sort of error, what exactly did
   you type to provoke the error, what was the exact error, and how is
   the actual error different from what you expected to happen?  For
   example, if you're trying to figure out why a mail message bounced,
   what address did you send the mail to, and what error message came
   back in the bounced message?
7. What have you done to try to find the answer to your question
   before posting?  If you've tried different possible answers
   already, exactly what have you tried, and what was the result?
8. If you have checked the documentation and cannot understand the