On Sunday, I decided to update my installation of SMF, the forum software I was previously using. The update went fairly well, I reinstalled my modifications and all looked good. The only problem (and I didn’t realize it at the time) was that there was an error in one of the script files that didn’t allow anyone to post anything. Now that’s not good.

The decision to buy vBulletin had already been made. I just hadn’t gotten up the nerve to drop the cash on it.

Purchasing vB was a breeze, I got my license key and downloaded the zip file withing minutes of paying. I also downloaded vB’s special conversion script called ImPex, and imported all the posts from SMF. All went well except some of the user’s avatars didn’t get imported correctly.

After that, I tweaked the templates and got the forums integrated with the rest of the site (I still need to change the colors to make it more congruent). Then I sent out a mass email to all the users notifying them of the change and of the fact that you all will have to change your passwords. I guess vBulletin can’t import the passwords, since they’re encrypted in the other script.

I’m really liking how this new software works. I hope you all like it too.

If you already have an account on the forums, be sure to reset your password and update your profile. If you don’t already have an account, come check out what it’s like and register for your own free account.

To begin with, here’s the premise:

In a particular apartment complex, five different people–Arnie, Bernice, Chip, Daniel, and Elizabeth–live in five different apartments–A, B, C, D, and E–that are contiguous and ordered alphabetically. Each person owns a different pet–aardvark, badger, crocodile, dolphin, or egret. Each person prefers a different drink–ale, beer, coffee, dry martini, or espresso. And, each person participates in a different sport–arm wrestling, baseball, car racing, diving, or equestrian. Also:

• Each person lives next-door to a person having a gender that is different than their own.
• For each person, the first letter of their name, apartment, pet, drink, and sport are all different.
• For each person, the number of letters (spaces not included) in their name, apartment, pet, drink, and sport are all different.

Question: Who participates in the sport of equestrian, and what does the owner of the dolphin drink?

Give it a try yourself, and see if you come up with the same answer as me. When you’re ready, take a look at my solution.

Let’s begin walking through the solution…

1. The apartments are in sequential order A to E …

2. Each person lives next door to someone who has a different gener than their own. It’s not specified whether or not [i]both[/i] neighbors must have a gender other than their own, but let’s start off like this. I’m assuming that Elizabeth and Berenice are women and the other three are men. So let’s go man-woman-man-woman-man for the sake of simplicity.

3. Let’s move on to the pets.

So far, so good. The number of letters in each person’s name & pet are different and the first letter of each person’s name, apartment and pet are different.

4. Continuemos con their favorite drinks

For each person, the number of letters in each item is different, as is the beginning letter. Up to here we’re doing fine.

4. The last item is the person’s sport. Let’s take a look at them, along with the lengths of the words. Yikes! they won’t fit in with what we’ve got!

So, you could go ahead and try random rearrangements, but I’ll try something better. Want the answer? I’ll post it tomorrow (or when I figure it out:) )