How to remove last name on posts?

I show up as Eric Fran. I want to show up as just Eric.

How do I do this?

Thanks

You don't. Check out the JavaRanch Naming Policy which explains why not.

Oh ok, thanks.

No problem. By the way if you're unsatisfied with your screen name you can certainly ask to have it changed to something else, but it does have to be something else which conforms to that policy.

also be aware that there are many sites that cache web pages, and those won't change.

How often do those sites cache "the web"?

Constantly.

Is it practical to cache constantly? Even if it just caches changes only.

They seem to manage it.

Do you really think that the Google servers take coffee breaks?

It doesn't really make sense to say that search engines cache anything "constantly". They index sites constantly, and they may cache something for a long time, but for how long they cache any particular page depends on quite a few factors, some of which are beyond your control.

Of course that's exactly what was meant.

The point being: once you post something on the open Net, you can never be sure it can ever be entirely deleted.

I do not undermine the power of mighty Google.

Let's say you posted something at 4 PM today and next day you make some change to that post. Is the archive going to have 2 versions of that post? Has it been verified? or we are going by theory. And this is just one post of JR and we are talking about caching "the web". This looks impractical.

In context of OP's concern, it looks like Javaranch/Coderanch does not allow crawling. Ref : http://www.web.archive.org/web/20120417210425/http://www.javaranch.com Though , posts do appear in Google search. but only the "current" version of website.

My initial post was in regard to Fred's post. Even if OP changes his display name, it does not leave any traces.

Saurabh Pillai wrote:Let's say you posted something at 4 PM today and next day you make some change to that post. Is the archive going to have 2 versions of that post? Has it been verified? or we are going by theory. And this is just one post of JR and we are talking about caching "the web".

The current Google index will have only one version - the one that was active whenever the crawler last visited the page. In practice, it will probably pick up the change pretty quickly. The Google Cache will have the previous version for some time (although not forever, which is how long the WayBackMachine keeps it if it is allowed to). The WayBackMachine crawls any particular page much less frequently, though - it could be months between visits, so it will not have all versions of a page that changes every so often.

Saurabh Pillai wrote:My initial post was in regard to Fred's post. Even if OP changes his display name, it does not leave any traces.

I guarantee that if you now change your name, it will stay as "Saurabh Pillai" in THIS post.

I'm not trying to be mean or vindictive - just illustrating a point. The way our quoting button works, it pulls your current name at the time I click the button, and it goes in my post as text. So if you change your name, it won't edit my post, nor do you have the rights to do so.

I would say that if the OP changes his display name, it MAY not leave any trace...but you can never be sure.