Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with range

Shooting Range near NYC

2bucksplus — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:00:59 -0800

I'm looking for a gun range near New York City. I'm looking for a gun range within about an hour of New York City and accessible by public transportation (train, bus, subway).

I need to rent a gun, buy bullets and handle any paperwork in one visit or over the phone prior to arrival. I have fired a rifle before, my companion has not. We are in no way licensed to handle firearms.

Westside Pistol & Rifle Range is the most obvious choice, but we don't mind traveling to find something better.

Help me find a rangy router!

jckll — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:51:38 -0800

Help me buy a Wireless (WiFi) router with exceptional signal/range for not a boatload of cash. I am, right now, using a cheapie Netgear b/g refurbished router I bought about 6 months ago. It has no external antenna. It disconnects randomly, seems to have terrible range, and needs to be recycled all the time. I only get about 2Mbits download when connected to it from about 2 feet away (20Mbits cable connection). It sucks.

I live in a dense apartment building with about 20 wireless connections, lots of walls, etc. Help me find a wireless router that will break through all that without breaking the bank (ha!)

I have been looking at this one, and it seems OK. Pretty good reviews, but it's hard to know with those things.

Am I under the right impression that an 802.11n router is going to give me better signal? Especially if most (if not all) of the "competing" routers around me are a/b/g?

If anyone has personal experience with a router with great range, that's bonus points! Or if there is a website/page with comparisons of a bunch of available consumer routers, that would be great too.

PS, I don't have any plans to use enhanced (Linux) firmware like DD-WRT or Tomato as I don't have much use for it. Don't want to run a server or a PBX or anything like that. If that would help me with range/power, I definitely would, but it's far from a requirement.

Thanks!

Searching data within an Excel cell.

sperose — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:15:14 -0800

Excel2007Filter: I want to be able to search information between two things in a single cell in Excel. So a cell may have 4-9 typed in it, but I want that cell to be highlighted if a user searches for 7. Or 4. Or anything between 4 and 9 inclusively. (More details and a screenshot of the spreadsheet inside.) This is for running Excel 2007 on Windows XP, in case it matters.

I have a spreadsheet with 127 rows and 97 columns. Just about each cell has some sort of range of data in it.

Here's some examples of the data:
just numbers (1-26)
combinations (3263 #141-170)letters and numbers (A. A45 #1323-1349)
dates (E 203 Oct 16, 1991-Nov 30, 1992)
letters and numbers (E1411-E1415)
words and numbers (C. 2906 Units 59-64)

Ideally, what I want to have happen is that there will be a set of cells that will be used for searching. The user would type in the data they have (example: E 203 November 1, 1991), the cell with that information would light up.

I'm pretty sure that I'll have to have different search cells that will have to be filled in different ways in order to get all the information searchable. So there would be a cell for the category (E), a cell for the series (203), and a cell for the date (November 1, 1991).

The problem is, I'm not sure how to get Excel to recognize the information in the middle. I'm sure searching for Oct 16, 1991 will make the cell light up, but I want to get the information in between Oct 16, 1991-Nov 30, 1992 to be picked up by the searching as well.

Here's a screenshot of part of the spreadsheet for more detail.

I've got a passing familiarity with Excel and formulas, but I have zero knowledge of VBA.

Please help me Mefi!

ExcelFilter: Between Day 1 and Day 90, I had how many of which?

SansPoint — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:09:05 -0800

How can I count certain things in a range of cells in Excel that fall between two dates? I've got an Excel workbook that keeps track of every thing I produce at my job. (What the things are is irrelevant.) The date it's created in in Column A. In Column F there are criteria to determine which type of thing is is (two specific ones). I would like to count the number of each that fall between two dates, i.e. between, say 9/01/2009 and 11/30/2009.

For the life of me, I can't figger it out.

I've tried wrapping my head around dynamic ranges, but all I can see for doing that is OFFSET(), which would be great if all the date ranges had the same amount of rows, but they don't. Besides, I add new rows to this thing regularly, as each new thingie is generated. So, having, say, the last 30 of these counted does not help.

Google searching has given me info about how to count for the last x of a certain range, where x is days, weeks, months, etc. Doesn't help.

Oh, and I *really* would not like to have to go into VBA scripting for this.

So, uh, help?

Unemployment Benefits and Turning Down a Job Offer

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:58:33 -0800

My state's unemployment regulations have a section indicating that turning down a job offer is grounds for terminating benefits. Given that at this point, I'm not being asked to provide them with any data as to whom I'm applying, and given the extraordinarily large number of people on the unemployment rolls, am I correct in saying that turning down an offer really has little practical chance of getting back to them? (I should also note this is theoretical at this point. I'm not yet dealing with an actual job offer.)

Should we bother with a dishwasher and a portable stove?

tavegyl — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 06:35:23 -0800

Should we look into compact dishwashers and portable gas stoves for our newly rented flat? We're soon to move to a lovely new flat which has one glaring flaw: an electric stove. I can't abide them, but the flat isn't hooked up for gas. Is it practical to have a small countertop propane or other kind of compressed gas stove for wok cooking? Would our landlord object? (We don't want to scare him off by asking but I suppose there might be insurance issues). We don't have a balcony or outside space, just large windows some distance from the open plan kitchen. Any recommendations would be gratefully accepted.

As a reward for finding this lovely place we're also thinking of buying ourselves a slimline or compact dishwasher. I've read through the earlier posts, but -- any recent recommendations or contra-recommendations from the UK? We're skint, and would prefer something inexpensive but which doesn't leak all over our solid wood floors. Our usual dishwashing load: 2-3 each of dinner plates, quarter plates, mugs and bowls plus cutlery and cooking implements. Should we bother? Should we risk Gumtree?

How Can I, Early in the Process, Make Sure a Potential Employer and I Aren't Way Too Far Apart in the Potential Salary for a Position?

WCityMike — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:45:53 -0800

Does formal, or politely euphemistic, language exist by which, early on in the job-hunt process, you can make sure you and a potential employer aren't considering salary ranges that are half a planet apart? Like many Americans, I am unemployed and job-hunting. The career I last worked in has an extremely wide range of salaries, spanning a large chunk of the range of five-figure numbers.

Some job listings do provide the salary range the employer is looking to pay, but finding that information is a real hit-or-miss affair. For those listings that do not, how can I ascertain a job's salary range, pre-interview and early in the process?

I do understand employers oft make salary offers based on an applicant's experience.

However, the problem I find with solely relying on that is that either:

(a) Despite that variability, an employer can still be working with a salary ceiling in their mind which is still impractically low (either impractically just for me or, more often, impractically for anyone), or

(b) Many employers don't factor an applicant's experience into the salary they're willing to pay for the position, yet still don't make that number public to the applicant until the very end of the process, after a lot of time and effort has already been invested in the process by both applicant and employer. This can be a source of ... frustration, to understate it.

Cold as ice. As cold as ice to me.

Mayor Curley — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:46:35 -0800

The oven portion of our gas range went from being fine to dead inside. Made baked potatoes one night, next night I turned it on and it wouldn't heat up at all. The burners still work fine. I reviewed some literature about repairing it myself, but I'm trying to decide if it's a good idea. It's not a fancy range-- no self-cleaning or anything like that. It has electric ignition for the burners and a built-in timer/digital clock but that's it. We don't know how old it is because it came with the house. But it is ghastly dead.

I have previously repaired a dishwasher and a washing machine by replacing parts, but I've never opened up an oven. I have never tested electric parts with a multimeter and don't own one.

Do you, handywomen and men, think this sounds typical of a specific part failing? Do you think I can fix this without spending an entire precious saturday swearing in my kitchen? If no, does it make more sense to find a repair person or just replace the unit? I am adverse to spending money, but it seems like repairing inexpensive appliances is often less cost-effective than paying for their repair. I live just outside of Boston, Massachusetts if it matters.

Is it worth the trouble to vent our range hood outside?

odinsdream — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 07:55:50 -0800

Is it worth the trouble to vent our range hood outside? We are replacing our old range hood with an above-range convection microwave which can either vent outside or back into the room. Is there a good reason I should go to the trouble to vent it outside?

There is a pathway above the cabinets and it's a short distance to an outside wall, which I'd have to cut a hole in from the outside. I cannot easily reach the exterior wall from inside. I'd have to do most of the cutting work from the outside and fish the vent pipe over to the hole.

What benefits would I gain from venting outside?

How far will my wireless signal go?

jammnrose — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:25:27 -0800

How far will a 35dB 2.4GHz (b/g) signal travel indoors with a ceiling mounted dome antenna? If I get this with this and this, about how far will my resulting signal travel? The calculator I tried is very hard to understand and interpret. Would it work within a 200ft radius in a small coffee shop seting? TIA

wifi router can't make it through walls: what's the most effective way to extend the range of our wifi cloud?

krautland — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 11:44:00 -0800

our new belkin router doesn't have the power to make it all the way through the house. are range extenders good? which one should I choose? (more inside) I gave my parents (in germany) a wireless router for their mac/pc mix household. it's this belkin G (802.11g), their basic model. unfortunately the router has to sit in a room in the far corner of their house and thick german cement walls (no plywood here) are ensuring the signal doesn't make it all the way across the house into the attic or kitchen. the signal currently covers half the house, so getting through the walls is not completely impossible, they just do to the router what a pair of massive mittens would do to your dexterity.

I'd like to extend that range so that certain rooms they use as offices are covered by the signal. belkin seems to offer a universal range extender but the german amazon page for that product has a user opinion stating that said extender doesn't really work if it's more than a couple feet from the router itself. I wonder if the hivemind has an opinion on this...

I'm not married to using belkins to extend the range of the router but I am married to the router since exchanging it would be rather difficult for me right now.

what's the most effective way to extend the range of our wifi cloud?

Military Range Card

furtive — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 09:46:20 -0800

PseudoMilitaryFilter: Looking for a pdf of a range card, the kind you used to fill out while sitting in your trench, OP or whatever. So far the best I've found is this one (pdf), it's great but I'd like one that takes a full 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of paper, or something like this British one.

Why? My living room window has a view of a half dozen mountains in a national park, a copse of woods, dead ground, a railroad and other interesting features. I've spotted mountain sheep 2,800m away without even needing to resort to binoculars! I figured it would be a fun idea to map out a proper range card for when guests come over.

Stumped by VBA-ising an array formula in Excel

Mokusatsu — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:20:18 -0800

How to do a VBA version of the following array formula in Excel? The following array formula (entered with ctrl,shift,enter) will produce the string 'Bank statement'!H842, which is the name of a cell I would like to be able to manipulate via VBA: {="'Bank statement'!H"&MATCH(C1&D$39,'Bank statement'!A:A&'Bank statement'!C:C,0)} It creates a string out of the values in the cells C1 and D$39 and looks those up in an array made out of the A and C columns of the sheet 'Bank statement'.

Its function is to find the row of a payment from a certain payer on a certain day, and then return the address of the cell in column H of that row.

i.e. it will find the payment from Joe Bloggs on the 15/3/2008 for example, and return the address of the cell in column H on the row that payment appears.

This formula will put the address of that cell, which I'd like to use as a range variable in VBA.

I'm completely stumped by trying to make it work though. I've tried for a day or two to do it, asked every Excel VBA related usenet and Yahoo group and not gotten a solution. I'm more confident in MeFi though. :)

A macro I can run from a button click will suffice for now, but if I could have my every wish granted I'd also like to be able to make a pivot table hyperlink-clickable, so I could click on any entry in that pivot table (pivot table consists of payments arranged by date and payer) and navigate to that payment.

How can I apply Dynamic Range Compression to my iTunes library?

Mwongozi — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:43:18 -0800

How can I apply Dynamic Range Compression to my iTunes library? We all know, of course, that Dynamic Range is usually a good thing. But when I listen to music in the car, much of my music has me cranking the volume up and down all the time to hear the quiet bits, and then avoid being deafened by the loud bits.

I have too much dynamic range.

What I want to do it make separate versions of some of my music which have had their range reduced so I don't have to drive with one hand on the volume control.

I'm on a Mac, and am aware that I can do this using Audacity (the "Compressor" effect) but it's a pain to have to rip to WAV, compress using Audacity, then convert to AAC or MP3 (and manually type in all the lost metadata).

What I really want to be able to do is to automate this during the ripping process, or, alternatively, find an easy way to compress existing MP3s or AACs without wiping out the metadata.

Any ideas?

What Class 1 Bluetooth headphones are on the market?

chengjih — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 03:57:52 -0800

Bluetooth Class 1 headphones? Does anyone have recommendations for Bluetooth Class 1 A2DP headphones? Note the "Class 1" part. I already have Class 2 ones.

I found a Sharper Image one, but I can't seem to find any viable alternatives.

In terms of usage, I'm primarily listening to podcasts, so thumping bass and high fidelity aren't that much of a concern. Range is more of an issue. Really, I want to be able to wear these things while washing dishes, but the kitchen is just on the edge of Class 2 range: stand on the right of the sink, I get good signal; stand to the left, it starts to clip out.

I already have a Class 1 dongle. Thanks!

Are Elmira stoves good stoves, or do they just look good?

fiercecupcake — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:22:44 -0800

Is anyone familiar with Elmira stoves, especially the Northstar? My mother wants to know if they are anything special besides the obvious retro-charm appeal. My instinct is to tell her if she is going to spend this much to buy a Wolf, which is a fraction of the price. I think if the Elmiras are as well-performing as Wolfs or Vikings she might want one regardless of the cost. (I found this, but it's not quite what I'm looking for.) She wants a gas range and I think she is OK with a gas oven. The Elmiras just seem ridiculously expensive to me, and I used to love the Wolf ranges in professional kitchens. I just talked to her and she said the Elmiras sound too expensive to her, too. But she doesn't like stainless and finds that it tends to rust in their beachfront home.

Suggestions?

How can I extend the range of my 2.4GHz cordless phone?

simplesharps — Sun, 25 May 2008 22:37:35 -0800

I'm thinking of relocating the base station to a different part of the house, behind a brick wall which will significantly reduce the range of the handsets . Is it possible to open one of these up and install a more powerful antenna? Bonus points if you can find parts available in Australia.

Where can I find Cerama Bryte pads?

acoutu — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:22:31 -0800

Where can I find Cerama Bryte pads for ceramic cooktops? I am looking for Cerama Bryte pads, the kind used to clean ceramic cooktops. I can't seem to find these in Canada and I can't find a US source that will ship to me. Any suggestions? I'd prefer to keep the cost reasonable, but I am having a heck of a time finding these pads. I might be willing to accept another brand, but I'm very paranoid about scratching the stove top. I'm in Vancouver, Canada. Thanks.

How to find domain and range on graphing calculator?

meta.mark — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:37:54 -0800

How (if possible) can you find the domain and range of a graph on a graphing calculator (which in my case is a TI-84 Plus)?

Should I give up on gas?

Enroute — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:28:04 -0800

My new gas range is breaking my heart. WTF is wrong with it? And if it is a goner, should I bother trying to replace it with another gas range, or give up and switch to electric? After 15 years of longing for a gas range, I finally got this GE Profile dual fuel slide-in range 3 years ago. It has been a disaster. It fills the kitchen with mercaptan smell, puts out a tremendous amount of carbon monoxide (I forget the exact reading, but it was WAY over the safe limit), and the burners "roar" to a ridiculous degree. It makes me sick to cook with it.

We have had appliance repair guys and gas company guys out repeatedly to look at it, and they can't figure it out. We replaced two parts (and I'm sorry, I can't remember the exact names and my husband's out of cell range right now)--the little round dial thing on the underside of the range that regulates the amount of gas flow, and the thing on the individual burners that regulates the amount of gas they get. No difference. The pressure of the gas coming to the house is normal. The repair guys agree there is a problem but don't know how to fix it.

So here are my questions:

1) Any idea what the problem could be?
2) Do you think it would be crazy to buy another gas range? I'm worried that the problem is with the gas feed to our house and the problem would just repeat with a new range. They say the feed is fine, but of course they obviously don't know everything or they would have fixed it by now.
3) If I do get another gas range, what is a RELIABLE brand?
4) One of the main things I wanted from a gas range was super high heat for stir-frying and such. Is it possible to get this from an electric range? What should I look for?

Wifi to connect two detached houses?

dance — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 10:38:57 -0800

I've decided to abandon 'plan A' and think it's best to connect my two houses using wifi because of electrical concerns. I've read through tons of past Askme and other threads on the internet about range boosting, repeaters, gain, antennas etc but I'm asking this question because I'm hoping that there's a kit someone can point me in the direction of that matches my needs! Okay, so I've understood I need to use a directional antenna to establish a connection to this house (but should I use one on each AP?).

The first problem is, it seems my WRT150N doesn't allow for antenna swapping. I've made a couple of those tinfoil reflectors but whilst they could well work they're so feeble that they're not really a permanent solution.

What I really need is for an AP in house B to be able to reliably connect to the wifi in house A. The houses are about 25m apart and line of sight is there but inhibited a little by a big tree. If it was just one computer in house B that wanted to be connected, I'd be tempted by a daughterboard card with a directional antenna on a cable. As it is, though, it's two computers so it looks like I'll need to use an AP to extend the range of the network.

Questions

1) Wireless N's MIMO - Will it really improve signal reception?
2) Can anyone recommend a kit or hardware I can buy to get this done effectively
3) Is the connection likely to go down when it snows?
4) Should I use an external antenna and if so do I need two - one for each AP?

Basically the problem isn't actually that complex but I've only ever done in house wifi before so I don't actually know what's overkill and what's a good idea for a good connection.

Has anyone done this before?

Help me suck harder!

Thrillhouse — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 12:28:44 -0800

How do I increase the sucking power of my kitchen vent? I have a GE Advantium over the range microwave/hood. The 300cfm vent is vented straight out the back wall outside. The run is about 8" total.
The blower is far from adequate for my cooking style. I need some serious suction.

Is it possible to retrofit something on the outside of the house where the rectangular vent comes through that I can use THROUGH the existing microwave hood that will be much stronger?

I don't want to add an additional vent or anything behind the range since the wall is all tile and would look stupid. I'd rather improve the "hood" that I currently have.

Please help!

Getting more range on a WiFi card

chips ahoy — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:07:44 -0800

How do I get more WiFi range on my laptop computer? More info follows. I know the obvious answer here is to stick an antenna on my wireless adapter card. The problem is that none of my cards appear to have an antenna jack!

I looked on my Office Depot site for something quick I could pick up today, but all the PC card models shown only have internal antennas and there is no indication whether any of them can take an external antenna.

Googling this I'm coming up empty, and I looked on some of the wardriving forums, specifically the netstumbler forum, but mostly what I found were soldering mods and snarky answers to people asking the same thing.

I use Windows and have a Dell laptop, if it matters, and I'd prefer not to have to spend more than $80 on this. Please no suggestions for fixing the base station; thanks.

Copper pans and electric heat, do they mix?

aussicht — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 21:42:04 -0800

Can I use my three-ply (out-middle-inner) copper-aluminum-stainless steel pots and pans on an electric range? Will it mess them up?

Travel dates in the months before passport expiration

Anonymous — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 09:12:30 -0800

My U.S. passport expires 13 Oct 08 and I need to book one international trip before then: leaving New York 17 July 08, returning 2 Aug 08 (one destination country, a non-EU-member in Eastern Europe, plus stops for flight transfers in one or two EU member countries). Is it even worth researching various countries' and airlines' how-close-to-expiration-date safety ranges for travel, or should I just assume I MUST renew my passport before then?