Expert Awards 2004

The Experts By The Numbers

Most Valuable Expert - Site Wide
Member	Total Pts
SheharyaarSaahil sunray_2003 sirbounty objects jkr Callandor byundt Sembee Zvonko PeteLong	4,538,046 3,776,480 2,356,236 2,175,001 1,982,744 1,905,935 1,808,579 1,779,697 1,755,782 1,752,900

Most Valuable Rookie Expert - Site Wide
Member	Total Pts
Sembee gregoryyoung alorentz Diablo84 Zyloch grblades hernst42 DotNetLover_Baan AerosSaga tovvenki	1,779,697 1,130,486 1,051,127 850,892 748,538 718,781 679,737 635,386 624,713 591,910

So who really IS the Best Expert at Experts Exchange? The Answer, with assists from the Mods, the Page Editors, ameba (of course) and EE's Brian Abreu, is a firm "it depends on how you look at it." Below are ways to look at it; we'll explain as we go along.

The following is the list of Experts who received voted in our MVE voting by the Mods and PEs, who were asked to rank from a list of nominees their top five. Points were awarded on a 6-4-3-2-1 basis. The top ten are shown with a brief description of their contribution to the site.

sunray_2003 (63 points, 7 first place votes) - first Expert to 4 million points
TheLearnedOne (46/5) - Almost 27,000 questions closed as a Cleanup Volunteer
jkr (38/4) - No. 4 in the Hall of Fame and a truly nice guy
COBOLdinosaur (34/0) - No. 26 in the HOF, made the list by being everyone's second choice
Venabili (30/2) - Almost 26,000 questions closed as a CV
turn123 (24/1) - No. 3 on the CV list, PE for some tough TAs
nico5038 (23/1) - No. 7 in the HOF, Genius times two in MS Access
ameba (22/0) - One word says it all: QuickPost
Callandor (18/1) - No. 19 in the HOF is everyone's favorite Hardware Expert
seanpowell (16/1) - Guru and one of EE's most visible Page Editors in Web Dev

Others receiving votes: objects, SheharyaarSaahil, jlevie, sramesh2k, sunnycoder, GrahamSkan, tliotta, ozo, SunBow, and DanRollins.

So how hard is it to earn those Points, and those certificates? The table on the left shows the ten Rookies who earned their Guru (or above) certificates within months of joining, with the duplicates (two or more certificates) removed. The table on the right shows the members with the most certificates. The "GSWGM" column is the number of Genius, Sage, Wizard, Guru and Master certificates.

Fastest Guru Certificate by a Rookie
Member	Topic Area	Reg. Date
BillAn1 jnhorst BNettles73 AerosSaga DotNetLover_Baan Justin_W 0tacon grblades ldbkutty	Microsoft SQLASP.NET Exchange_Server ASP.NET ASP.NET ASP.NET MS Access Networking PHP and Databases	Aug 4 July 28 July 14 July 9 June 14 June 11 May 18 May 3 Apr 26

Top Certificate Holders
Member	GSWGM	Certs	Total Pts
sunray_2003 sirbounty CrazyOne PeteLong SheharyaarSaahil jlevie LucF oBdA war1	1/1/2/1/110/1/1/1/11 1/1/1/3/7 0/0/2/1/10 1/0/0/6/5 0/2/0/3/5 0/0/1/3/6 0/0/1/1/7 0/0/0/2/7	16 14 13 13 12 10 10 9 9	4,282,242 2,399,276 3,907,074 2,299,106 4,015,249 2,407,505 1,751,110 1,264,718 1,163,982

Most Questions Answered - Site Wide
Member	Answers Given
CrazyOne jkr objects stevenlewis jhance angelIII sunray_2003 emoreau nico5038 bruintje	5870 5418 5125 4363 4349 4291 4155 4057 4006 3960

Most Points From Assists - Site Wide
Member	Assist Pts
sunray_2003 objects SheharyaarSaahil CEHJ Callandor arbert sirbounty CrazyOne Fatal_Exception PeteLong	480,155 409,934 385,606 317,463 298,034 283,333 255,389 233,606 232,872 228,857

So which members have stuck with it all this time? It's not easy to pull up the member names of those who are Active, but during the course of our research for this edition, we found EDDYKT, who has MemberID Number 686, although he didn't register until August, 1999. That perked our interest, so we did a little looking, and found StevenB, who has been haunting EE since April, 1997. We decided not to count Brian, who is still on EE's staff under any of about twenty different names. Second on our list is ozo, who was nominated as our Most Valuable Expert.

Top "Batting Average" - (min. 300,000 pts.)
Member	Answers	Responses	Average
oBdA zzzzzooc hernst42 Dave_Dietz negatyve Mob-bom duz vinnyd79 rdcpro AlexFM	784 288 515 332 247 298 274 428 497 1119	1870 843 1526 984 735 904 861 1370 1600 3604	.419 .342 .337 .337 .336 .330 .318 .312 .311 .310

Top 15 Championship - see The Rules
Member	Points	Topic Areas	Win
sunnycoder sunray_2003 ahoffmann jlevie SheharyaarSaahil CrazyOne weed yuzh Mikal613 LucF	360 308 249 244 232 208 191 174 163 161	30 25 21 14 21 19 13 13 10 19	9 4 2 8 5 2 7 2 6 1

Top Experts by Topic Area

Below are tables from the busiest topic areas at Experts Exchange; we've merged the lists of the busiest by page views with the busiest in terms of the number of questions asked.

Windows XP
SheharyaarSaahil andymsmith18 SheharyaarSaahil SheharyaarSaahil	2,315,34785,866 1755 184,424	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: sunray_2003, CrazyOne, stevenlewis, sirbounty, PeteLong, Fatal_Exception, LucF, dew_associates, LeeTutor, war1, sramesh2k, gemarti, Crash2100, Eagle6990, timothyfryer, Kenneniah

Windows 2000
oBdA Debsyl99 oBdA Fatal_Exception	362,053220,426 293 34,417	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: sunray_2003, CrazyOne, SheharyaarSaahil, sirbounty, PeteLong, Fatal_Exception, LucF, SysExpert, leew, Netman66, JamesDS, Stoner79, Housenet, 1stITMAN

Hardware
Callandor DoTheDEW335 Callandor Callandor	673,44090,326 657 140,944	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: CrazyOne, LucF, SysExpert, dogztar, magarity, RoadWarrior, tmj883

Networking
lrmoore pseudocyber lrmoore lrmoore	446,001196,367 308 49,013	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: stevenlewis, PeteLong, SysExpert, sciwriter, chicagoan

Operating Systems
SheharyaarSaahil Nyaema SheharyaarSaahil SheharyaarSaahil	312,13685,671 221 25,106	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: sunray_2003, stevenlewis

JavaScript
Zvonko Zyloch Zvonko Zvonko	1,586,884320,490 1287 123,875	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: fritz_the_blank, COBOLdinosaur, mplungjan, amit_g, CJ_S, GwyforWeb, knightEknight, devic, jaysolomon, Jester_48, a.marsh, third, avner, VincentPuglia, lil_puffball, ahosang, dakyd, kollegov, NetGroove, archrajan, Bustarooms, Nushi

Visual Basic
Shauli mladenovicz Shauli Shauli	401,842111,944 417 41,031	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: AzraSound, bruintje, emoreau, angelIII, acperkins, Idle_Mind, TimCottee, Arthur_Wood, vinnyd79, EDDYKT, ryancys, Ark, Erick37, Richie_Simonetti, Mikal613, GrahamSkan, twalgrave, PaulHews, zzzzzooc, mcrider, waty, inthedark, ameba, BlueDevilFan, aelatik, Dhaest, bobbit31, Sethi, Mirkwood, mdougan, mark2150, rspahitz, supunr, wsh2, caraf_g, unknown_routine, hes, Ruchi, mrmick

Microsoft Access
shanesuebsahakarn routinet shanesuebsahakarn capricorn1	1,505,609450,511 1193 172,637	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: nico5038, jadedata, rockiroads, stevbe, Arthur_Wood, peter57r, alanwarren, heer2351, walterecook, ryancys, eghtebas, LSMConsulting, flavo, 1William, bonjour-aut, JDettman, TextReport, Data-Man, mgrattan, SidFishes, jjafferr, Nestorio, GRayL, harfang, ahmedbahgat, will_scarlet7, Trygve, 0tacon, Paurths, dannywareham, kmslogic, joekendall, paasky, brewdog, cactus_data, perkc, BrianWren, jimhorn, jobrienct, perove, rgcole, DanielSKim, dovholuk, jb79uk, MrRobin

Oracle
seazodiac annamalai77 seazodiac seazodiac	793,839114,752 577 103,768	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: schwertner, andrewst, markgeer, Henka, SDutta, dbalaski, catchmeifuwant

Windows 98
blue_zee For-Soft blue_zee blue_zee	277,1625000 259 45,125	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: CrazyOne, SheharyaarSaahil, stevenlewis, SysExpert, dew_associates, astaec, LeeTutor, war1, rayt333, pslh, BillDL, hewittg, emery800

Microsoft SQL Server
arbert BillAn1 arbert arbert	1,562,947 360,634 1308 233,531	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: ScottPletcher, angelIII, acperkins, amit_g, Lowfatspread, Hilaire, SjoerdVerweij, bhess1, namasi_navaretnam, nigelrivett, danblake, ShogunWade, jdlambert1, muzzy2003, monosodiumg, adathelad, kselvia, EugeneZ, adwiseman, miron, mcmonap, ram2098, xenon_je, ispaleny

Java Programming
objects Webstorm objects objects	2,015,348 207,,019 1930 317,190	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: CEHJ, TimYates, girionis, zzynx, heyhey_, jimmack, mayankeagle, imladris, jim_cakalic, orangehead911, sudhakar_koundinya, Javatm, petmagdy, GrandSchtroumpf, Ovi, Venci75, Giant2, yongsing, x4u

Active Server Pages (ASP)
fritz_the_blank alorentz fritz_the_blank alorentz	1,587,822 1,040,995 1028 115,734	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: acperkins, amit_g, ap_sajith, Silvers5, hongjun, GaryC123, sybe, robbert, jitganguly, peh803, mgfranz, gladxml, Dexstar, x_com, ASPGuru, kingsfan76, deighc, thunderchicken, sciber_dude, apollois, neeraj523, Slimshaneey, Shailesh15, SquareHead, apresto

Exchange Server
Sembee Sembee Sembee Sembee	1,142,068 1,142,068 957 49,241	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: Vahik, Kidego, What90, ikm7176, rhandels, BNettles73, Exchange_Admin, dstoker509, OneHump, Bembi, munichpostman, jjmck

Windows Security
SheharyaarSaahil Debsyl99 SheharyaarSaahil trywaredk	220,710 48,328 150 30,027	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA

Storage
Cyber-Dude Cyber-Dude LucF Cyber-Dude	154,588 154,588 132 31,160	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA

Applications
sunray_2003 acseven sunray_2003 sunray_2003	281,525 60,289 219 38,657	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: SheharyaarSaahil

Microsoft Outlook
sunray_2003 robinluo sunray_2003 sunray_2003	1,157,108 77,700 1006 72,766	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: sirbounty, bruintje, slink9, Neo_mvps, traval, stefri, kfalandays, Mob-bom, rjcpjc

Security
SheharyaarSaahil shahrial SheharyaarSaahil SheharyaarSaahil	249,370 44,480 180 25,835	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA

Viruses
SheharyaarSaahil rossfingal SheharyaarSaahil sunray_2003	75,09115,426 59 10,201	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA

Programming
cookre Kavar cookre cookre	251,849 212,693 251 24,369	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: sunnycoder, twalgrave, bhagyesht

Databases
SjoerdVerweij BillAn1 Arthur_Wood Arthur_Wood	193,19073,576 160 21,383	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: angelIII

C++ Programming
jkr stefan73 jkr jkr	1,171,649 65,754 875 107,503	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: DanRollins, jhance, AlexFM, chensu, nietod, Axter, jaime_olivares, itsmeandnobodyelse, AlexVirochovsky, SteH, Salte, rstaveley, efn, bcladd, ambience, Sys_Prog

.NET
mmarinov gregoryyoung mmarinov iboutchkine	450,604267,783 364 47,298	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: Mikal613, TheLearnedOne, testn, naveenkohli, _TAD_, roverm, GoodJun, farsight

Microsoft Network
stevenlewis crissand stevenlewis stevenlewis	262,716122,768 200 19,280	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA

MS-DOS
SteveGTR For-Soft SteveGTR SteveGTR	209,90767,517 192 16,987	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA

Web Development
COBOLdinosaur arantius COBOLdinosaur COBOLdinosaur	224,48091,859 215 23,544	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: cheekycj, webwoman

Linux
jlevie wesly_chen jlevie jlevie	309,787141,784 298 38,942	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: khkremer, Gns

Microsoft Office
bruintje tajsimmons byundt byundt	191,20730,468 146 11,508	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: brettdj, Dreamboat, ture, calacuccia, cri, smozgur, antrat

Microsoft Excel
byundt matthewspatrick byundt byundt	1,452,547312,826 1270 89,113	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: brettdj, zorvek, mvidas, R_Rajesh, sebastienm, mdmackillop, MalicUK, JustinCase2, jeverist, fanpages

C#
gregoryyoung gregoryyoung gregoryyoung gregoryyoung	405,553405,553 305 32,476	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: AlexFM, testn, tovvenki, TheAvenger, _TAD_, AvonWyss, Desp, eternal_21, ptmcomp

Browser Issues
astaec humeniuk astaec astaec	305,34228,903 317 39,741	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: sunray_2003, SheharyaarSaahil, COBOLdinosaur

HTML
seanpowell Zyloch seanpowell seanpowell	373,57079,098 324 34,276	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: COBOLdinosaur, knightEknight

Crystal Reports
mlmcc bdreed35 frodoman mlmcc	1,089,153269,355 1024 135,605	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: DRRYAN3, ebolek, EwaldL

Delphi Programming
kretzschmar Ivanov_G kretzschmar Workshop_Alex	293,452157,869 323 34,762	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: Madshi, inthe, mnasman, geobul, rllibby, Slick812, Ferruccio68, DragonSlayer, Epsylon, wilson, simonet, Lee_Nover, Lischke, shaneholmes, esoftbg, ITugay, EddieShipman, TOndrej, ZifNab, mocarts, robert_marquardt

Desktops
Callandor stockhes Callandor Callandor	635,73835,062 664 75,391	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA

Firewalls
lrmoore grblades lrmoore tim_holman	409,916119,132 293 18,511	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA

Windows Server 2003
Sembee Sembee Sembee Fatal_Exception	273,272273,272 235 22,967	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: oBdA, Netman66, What90, JamesDS

JSP
TimYates sompol_kiatkamolchai TimYates kennethxu	197,61674,289 246 21,758	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: objects

Windows ME
blue_zee pjcrooks2000 blue_zee blue_zee	153,6082660 148 22,663	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: CrazyOne

VB Controls
Idle_Mind mmusante Idle_Mind Dabas	150,17721,957 150 16,502	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: vinnyd79

C Programming
sunnycoder stefan73 sunnycoder sunnycoder	262,01839,617 265 39,638	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: jkr, Kdo, ankuratvb

MySQL
Squeebee ushastry snoyes_jw Squeebee	164,09796,895 157 15,821	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: VGR, psadac

PHP
Diablo84 Diablo84 Diablo84 Diablo84	599,819599,819 482 63,318	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: hernst42, ldbkutty, VGR, lozloz, ThG, Squinky, shmert

ASP.NET
mmarinov AerosSaga mmarinov AerosSaga	633,788593,906 591 71,503	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: tovvenki, DotNetLover_Baan, Justin_W, Thogek, ihenry, raterus, tusharashah, jnhorst, nauman_ahmed

VB.NET
RonaldBiemans gregoryyoung RonaldBiemans TheLearnedOne	545,977359,888 514 33,776	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: Idle_Mind, iboutchkine, DotNetLover_Baan, planocz, ptakja

MFC
AlexFM nonubik AlexFM AndyAinscow	329,50996,578 322 28,832	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: jkr, DanRollins, chensu, jaime_olivares, roshmon, migel, thui, Zoppo, mikeblas

Windows NT Networking
bbao spareticus bbao bbao	235,76026,622 168 20,396	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: nazirahmed

Routers/Switches
lrmoore mikebernhardt lrmoore lrmoore	411,899117,778 283 37,697	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: JFrederick29

Windows NT
ahmedbahgat spareticus Computer101 ahmedbahgat	112,01314,750 98 14,426	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: SysExpert

Macromedia Flash
negatyve ccarey negatyve blue-genie	394,094101,559 247 18,091	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: rascalpants, Zeffer, muso, rexmor

ColdFusion
mrichmon INSDivision6 mrichmon mrichmon	462,15029,975 385 70,469	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: anandkp, cheekycj, Jester_48, Tacobell777, pinaldave, hart, jyokum, substand, shooksm

Lotus Notes/Domino
qwaletee HappyFunBall qwaletee qwaletee	674,53229,504 545 144,210	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: Zvonko, HemanthaKumar, sjef_bosman, Bozzie4, Arunkumar, p_partha, madheeswar

Perl
ozo gripe ozo ozo	397,62054,128 325 35,795	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: maneshr, Tintin, jmcg, kandura, rj2

Microsoft Word
JOrzech rosesolutions1 JOrzech JOrzech	419,98724,473 409 32,842	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: Dreamboat, GrahamSkan

PHP and Databases
ldbkutty ldbkutty ldbkutty ldbkutty	199,248199,248 164 14,555	Most Points in TA Most Points by Rookie in TA Most Answers in TA Most Assist Points in TA
Honorable mention: Diablo84, hernst42

Your questions and solutions

We sent out a list of about twenty questions to the Moderators and Page Editors, and asked them to select the ten best. Their selections are to the left below. To the right are another ten that we're calling our "Editor's Choice" questions. Take a look, and then check the third list of questions to see what the Members of EE were reading.

The top two selections by our panel tied in our poll of Moderators and Page Editors.

Standard response material re Spyware, Adware, BHOs, and other Malware

Browser Issues PE COBOLdinosaur came up with a list; it also helped cut down the repetitive posting of long lists of links.

The Great Calendar Project

Member prettykittyq was so impressed with the help she got at EE, she put up a website, complete with code, about it.

Windows Update Error 0x80072EE4

Quite a few Experts, and in the end, the user solves the problem, but awarded the points for the comments that jogged his elbow.

Expert Notify Question

MS Access Page Editor JDettman and his colleagues came up with a unique way of getting help for Members.

Educating experts

Page Editor kronostm launched a discussion of how to teach new members how EE works.

Adobe Reader error "Could not find Acrobat External Window Handler"

jqualteri had a problem Adobe couldn't solve -- but the Experts could.

Vote for EE as top tech site

guidway posted the question that got the votes, but stone5150 gets credit for posting it first.

Best of EE (?)

DanRollins is always coming up with something; this one became a discussion of the role of the Page Editors.

QuickPost -- bug reports

We can't say enough about ameba and QuickPost. He wrote it, he supports it, and has continued over a dozen questions.

Still open: Rhtools.asp (IIS Expolit)

We just couldn't pass up having at least one open question; this one is about spyware and what happens when you visit the wrong website.

The following questions are, for lack of a better term, "Editor's Choices" -- questions we think you'll find interesting.

CSS sniffer browser issues

Two Experts, working at different times, backing each other up.

Grid on top of desktop?

A novel Visual Basic problem, with a complete solution -- and even a bug fix.

Background app that takes screenshots

Seems simple? It was for IdleMind, who posted a complete solution in one comment.

Shortest integer to string algorithm

software_elico already had a solution to his question, but he wanted a better one. The discussion continued long after the question was closed.

MS04-011 and HFNETCHK

Here's a novel thought for net admins: see if you can find a solution before it becomes a problem.

Find square root of a number

... without using the function designed to do just that? Take a look at what our C Programming Experts came up with.

stable_sort() & predicate routines -- need help thinking at higher level of abstraction

The title alone is enough to wear me out. Fortunately, the C++ Experts are a more resilient bunch.

How to Connect to SQL Server to Retrieve Data from Query

Simple enough -- unless you have 25,000 users and a distributed application. See how the MFC Experts did it.

What is negative 32768 for 16-bit ints?

Go ahead, admit it. You've always been curious about how those negative numbers work, and what they mean when it comes to your new desktop...

Mysterious Virus?

Not a terribly difficult question to answer, but one of the best descriptions of Kazaa as a source of spyware, viruses and other problems. A Must Read.

Your Top Ten: The most viewed questions at EE

What do I need to open *.BIN files - (234,600 views)

Windows XP administrator password LOST !!! - (232,019 views)

System shutdown problem - NT Authority\system - RPC service terminated. - (200,421 views)

Where in the registry does the cd key code reside - (178,686 views)

Is csrss.exe a virus? - (172,784 views)

lsass.exe error shuts down XP Home in 60 seconds! - (172,354 views)

PS2 emulator - (158,097 views)

DVD Decoder software - (156,195 views)

Hotmail pop3 & SMTP config - (141,583 views)

LSA Shell (Export Version) - (128,627 views)

Inside the numbers

ameba, one of EE's prominent Experts, provides us with a list of newly earned Certificates. His list of all of the Certified Experts is located at his site. The list below covers the period from December 12 through December 26.

Expert	Certified	in Topic Area
Nestorio jimhorn BobLamberson peh803 SquareHead sajuks thefritterfatboy jmelika ram2098 ispaleny itsvtk KarinLoos paelo billy21 ldbkutty Workshop_Alex robert_marquardt EddieShipman PierreC leew leew coral47 jvuz munichpostman jaguarpriest flyguybob	Wizard Guru Master Wizard Guru Master Master Master Guru Guru Master Master Master Master Master Wizard Guru Guru Master Guru Master Master Master Guru Master Master	MS Access MS Access Visual Basic ASP ASP ASP ASP ASP Microsoft SQL Microsoft SQL Microsoft SQL Microsoft SQL Microsoft SQL Microsoft SQL JavaScript Delphi Delphi Delphi Delphi Windows 2000 Hardware Hardware Windows XP Exchange_Server Exchange_Server Exchange_Server

Expert	Certified	in Topic Area
leew DVation191 paquicuba zorvek matthewspatrick tmharvey patrickab stochastic DRJ jkr AndyAinscow stevenlewis SheharyaarSaahil stefri kfalandays hernst42 RonaldBiemans Idle_Mind ptakja Chaosian Lacutah prakash_prk nauman_ahmed gripe inq123 sokhodom	Master Master Master Sage Wizard Master Master Master Master Sage Wizard Sage Guru Wizard Guru Wizard Sage Wizard Guru Master Master Master Guru Master Master Master	Networking Networking Oracle Excel Excel Excel Excel Excel Excel MFC MFC Windows 98 Windows 98 Outlook Outlook PHP VB.NET VB.NET VB.NET VB.NET VB.NET VB.NET ASP.NET Perl Perl Flash

Expert	Certified	in Topic Area
SheharyaarSaahil sunray_2003 DVation191 nobus grblades cracky knightEknight hernst42 Diablo84 RQuadling COBOLdinosaur yuzh blue_zee yuzh wesly_chen sunray_2003 pcbrat lrmoore PsiCop drichards duz jlevie msjammu Joel_Sisko SheharyaarSaahil	Wizard Guru Master Master Master Master Guru Guru Guru Master Guru Wizard Guru Guru Master Guru Master Sage Wizard Master Wizard Wizard Master Master Master	Operating Systems Operating Systems Operating Systems Storage Linux Mysql HTML PHP and Databases PHP and Databases PHP and Databases Browser Issues Solaris Windows ME Unix Linux Setup Email Email Firewalls Netware Visual C++.NET Online Marketing Linux Admin. Palm Pilot VoIP/Voice over IP Bugs and Alerts

1148 experts have 1762 certifications: Genius:26 Sage:80 Wizard:112 Guru:329 Master:1215

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routinet SidFishes Nestorio 0tacon kmslogic dannywareham jimhorn alorentz BillAn1 Zyloch dakyd archrajan Ivanov_G Debsyl99 1stITMAN Webstorm gregoryyoung Sembee BNettles73 pseudocyber grblades gregoryyoung eternal_21	Wizard Wizard Wizard Guru Guru Guru Guru Genius Wizard Wizard Guru Guru Guru Guru Guru Guru Guru Genius Guru Guru Guru Wizard Guru	MS Access MS Access MS Access MS Access MS Access MS Access MS Access ASP Microsoft SQL JavaScript JavaScript JavaScript Delphi Windows 2000 Windows 2000 Java .NET Exchange_Server Exchange_Server Networking Networking C# C#	03/08/2004 01/07/2004 03/01/2004 05/18/2004 01/16/2004 03/26/2004 06/22/2004 01/02/2004 08/04/2004 04/14/2004 04/11/2004 10/03/2004 04/06/2004 01/27/2004 01/21/2004 02/02/2004 04/07/2004 02/06/2004 07/14/2004 02/19/2004 05/03/2004 04/07/2004 01/12/2004

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tovvenki matthewspatrick MalicUK jeverist Kavar gregoryyoung DotNetLover_Baan Diablo84 hernst42 ldbkutty AerosSaga DotNetLover_Baan tovvenki jnhorst Justin_W Sembee bdreed35 ebolek Cyber-Dude ldbkutty hernst42 Diablo84 Dave_Dietz	Guru Wizard Guru Guru Guru Wizard Guru Sage Wizard Guru Sage Guru Guru Guru Guru Guru Guru Guru Guru Guru Guru Guru Guru	C# Excel Excel Excel Programming VB.NET VB.NET PHP PHP PHP ASP.NET ASP.NET ASP.NET ASP.NET ASP.NET Win Server 2003 Crystal Reports Crystal Reports Storage PHP and Databases PHP and Databases PHP and Databases IIS	02/09/2004 02/20/2004 01/20/2004 04/19/2004 01/30/2004 04/07/2004 06/14/2004 03/20/2004 03/19/2004 04/26/2004 07/09/2004 06/14/2004 02/09/2004 07/28/2004 06/11/2004 02/06/2004 03/10/2004 04/12/2004 04/29/2004 04/26/2004 03/19/2004 03/20/2004 03/28/2004

The real MVPs

We at Experts Exchange can't say enough good things about the Moderators and Administrators, we felt we had to say something.

WesLennon, our DoCS, Netminder, our PE manager, and BooMod, who created the Moderator and Cleanup tools, aren't seen around the site as much as they once were, but their efforts behind the scenes would be very obvious if they weren't there.

Computer101, our Senior Site Administrator, Lunchy, the Site Administrator, and ee_ai_construct, the Moderator Admin, have kept the site moving as we've grown to four million members and over one million answered questions; AnnieMod, the Cleanup Admin, has overseen an effort that has reduced the Open Questions list by 80 per cent in the last year.

RomMod, modulo, CetusMod, DarthMod, DigitalXtreme, GhostMod, PashaMod, OzzMod, and our newest Moderators, Balrog and PAQ_man, put in long hours, and we've never been too sure why. They don't earn points, they're occasionally vilified, and yet they keep coming back and doing the job.

Folks, friends -- you have our sincere thanks, and congratulations on a great year.