I think madworm was trying to say this is hard to diagnose with pseudo code that won't compile.  Can you make example sketches that display the problem?  If it can't be reproduced in a simple example, it's hard to say it's not a problem elsewhere in your code.

I do believe the floating point calculations definitely will slow things down.  If you search around a bit, there are several clever methods to avoid having to use it.

Are you sure about that ip?

Code:

byte server[] = { 64, 233, 187, 99 }; // Google

That doesn't ping for me.

Also, when posting code if you use the # icon it makes it much easier to read  

Can you explain more about exactly what you want to do?

Did you remember to connect the ground from the device to the arduino?

You could try deleting or renaming the java folder in the Arduino folder as mentioned here.  This has worked for me before on a couple machines.

If you are missing entire directories, it sounds like something went wrong with your download.  Have you tried downloading it again?  Are you sure you extracted all files and folders from the zip?  Creating empty files will not make it work, obviously you need the data too!

Providing information about your computer/operating system would make it easier for people to help you.

Did you install the ftdi drivers?

This should get you pretty close to what you want.

Code:

int val[10];               // variable used to store data from serial port
int ByteCount = 0;

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);         // connect to the serial port
  Serial.println("Arduio Online");
}

void loop() {
  if (Serial.available() > 0) {
    delay(100);
    while (Serial.available() > 0) {
      ByteCount ++;
      val[ByteCount] = Serial.read();
    }
  }
  
  if (ByteCount > 0) {
    for (int i = 1; i <= ByteCount; i++) {
      if (val[i] >= '0' && val[i] <= '9' ) {
        val[i]= val[i] - '0';
        Serial.print(val[i]);
      }
    }
    Serial.println();
    ByteCount = 0;
  }
}

I suspect you are running into some timing issues associated with the digitalwrites in the old style shiftout.  Shiftout is now included in Arduino, take a look here to see an example.  The 595 tutorial has not been updated yet.

That's still something that is better handled by your application.  If needed you could attach an interrupt to the CD pin and handle it that way.  But as was mentioned, if the card is pulled while an action is in process you may still have problems.

Good to know.

Any reason why the compiler should not add the null terminator?  Basically, I'm wondering if this is a bug or a feature.

Interesting, that does work.  Thank you.  From looking at the array reference page I thought that the compiler added that when the array was declared.

http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/Array

It also works if I use:

Code:

char testChar1[3] = {'5', '0'};
char testChar2[3] = {'9', '9'};

I'm getting some strange results when using atol depending on when I declare an array.

Code that fails:

Code:

long testVal1;
long testVal2;

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin(9600);
  Serial.println("Ready");
  
  char testChar1[] = {'5', '0'};
  char testChar2[] = {'9', '9'};
  testVal1 = atol(testChar1);
  testVal2 = atol(testChar2);

  Serial.println(testVal1);
  Serial.println(testVal2);

}

void loop()
{

}

Results:

Code:

Ready
5099
99

Code that works:

Code:

long testVal1;
long testVal2;

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin(9600);
  Serial.println("Ready");
  
  char testChar1[] = {'5', '0'};
  testVal1 = atol(testChar1);
  char testChar2[] = {'9', '9'};
  testVal2 = atol(testChar2);

  Serial.println(testVal1);
  Serial.println(testVal2);

}

void loop()
{

}

Results:

Code:

Ready
50
99

Am I missing something?

Tim, I'm not trying to be negative, I'm trying to point your energy in the right direction.  The Arduino IDE team has already stated that the way to get this into the IDE is via Processing.  I don't use these shortcuts, but I can't see how they will hurt to include them.  If you hang around for a while you will find that nothing happens overnight when it comes to the IDE.  This is generally a good thing that prevents patches from creating more bugs.  Here is a link to the Processing site:
http://processing.org/
Pushing over there will get your shortcuts in faster than here.  That is all I was trying to tell you.  If you look at my post count, you'll see that I do not post simply to elevate my status.