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Re:software protection by Anonymous Coward · 2002-02-28 23:01 · Score: 0 · on On the (Im)possibility of Obfuscating Programs

This is a very nice intro to the most obvious techniques... I've never used a Palm device before and I certainly didn't know it ran 68k code...

Did you know I write hard-drive installers for old (original, uncracked) Amiga games, and have to remove all their copy-protection at runtime to do so? In that particular field there is one luminary known as Rob Northen, who understood all of the above, and produced fantastic self-modifying code that decrypted and re-encrypted itself using trace mode. Now that's what I call proper protection, and even Rob knew that his protection only bought a few days delay.

Keep it Simple, but not too simple by Tim+Colgate · 2002-02-27 13:29 · Score: 2, Interesting · on What Makes a Good Web Design?

Have a look at your competitors sites. A lot of people here are saying keep it simple, but if all your competitors' sites have animated GIFs, mouseover effects, gratuitous photos etc., and you don't, you may find potential clients don't even bother reading your content at all because they don't take your site seriously. For example, compare these two home pages - the content is identical, but which one looks like it might be a real company? over-complicated? or simple?.

Other things to consider:
Don't constrain your content to a two inch-wide column no matter how wide the user's browser window is.
Don't have a picture on your front page saying "click here to enter this site".
Don't use Flash, unless you're selling Flash consultancy services.

... and lastly, don't ever say "I've detected your browser and it's not IE or Nescape, so I've decided to direct you to this page instead where you won't actually be able to view this site at all, even though that's what you wanted to do, but instead there are some really useful links to download IE and Netscape".

Keep it Simple, but not too simple by Tim+Colgate · 2002-02-27 13:29 · Score: 2, Interesting · on What Makes a Good Web Design?

Have a look at your competitors sites. A lot of people here are saying keep it simple, but if all your competitors' sites have animated GIFs, mouseover effects, gratuitous photos etc., and you don't, you may find potential clients don't even bother reading your content at all because they don't take your site seriously. For example, compare these two home pages - the content is identical, but which one looks like it might be a real company? over-complicated? or simple?.

Other things to consider:
Don't constrain your content to a two inch-wide column no matter how wide the user's browser window is.
Don't have a picture on your front page saying "click here to enter this site".
Don't use Flash, unless you're selling Flash consultancy services.

... and lastly, don't ever say "I've detected your browser and it's not IE or Nescape, so I've decided to direct you to this page instead where you won't actually be able to view this site at all, even though that's what you wanted to do, but instead there are some really useful links to download IE and Netscape".

Not exactly a CAB file by kyz · 2002-01-27 05:14 · Score: 2 · on Extracting HTML and Images from MHT and CHM?

The CAB format is a structure for archiving files, which can use MSZIP, LZX or Quantum compression. CHM is a completely different structure for collating HTML pages and lots of metadata, which uses a slightly tweaked form of LZX compression. That's the only thing the formats have in common.

CHM extractor. by kyz · 2002-01-27 05:10 · Score: 4, Informative · on Extracting HTML and Images from MHT and CHM?

First off, MHT is just a mime message, run mpack on it.

However, for CHM extraction, you can use this portable CHM extractor. I don't think Matthew has officially released it, but it should be OK to use. Get in touch with him if you want.

Free speech by Zulu+One · 2001-12-03 01:36 · Score: 1, Interesting · on Advice for Websites Combating Net.Obscurity?

I am somewhat minded of the Robert Heinlein quotation: "Anyone can have free speech if he owns a printing house." (IIRC) The upshot of this in internet terms is that you can only have free speech if you can get people to read what you post. This has long been a problem for magazines in that it is difficult to get people to read a new magazine until they hear it recommended by someone else.

By the way, if you want to combat this, you might like to visit my website-in-development at www.doublezero.uklinux.net. I am developing the code a bit like Slash, PHP-Nuke etc. but it has far to go before it even becomes capable of holding a community, let alone attracting one :->

IE will get blocked too.... by grandmofftarkin · 2001-10-25 22:44 · Score: 1 · on MSN Blocks Mozilla, Other Browsers [updated]

The interesting thing is that I'm not sure what would happen if you made a copy of IE using the IEAK that contained a custom UA string that had the word "Opera 5" in it. I wonder if it'd get blocked too. :)

If you do this by using a utility like utility like The Proxomiton, IE displays the same error message! See here for an example of this.

Furthermore, if you use the same utility on Opera 5 to alter the UA from 'Opera' to 'OpXra' MSN will actually display pretty much as expected. Admitadley, it doesn't display exactly the same as IE normally displays but it is very similar and completely usable.

Microsoft are clearly targetting specific browsers which I think is very wrong! What about people who can't use IE because of having old hardware (and hence use a less resource intensive browser), the 'wrong' OS or disabled users who rely on browsers like BLynx???

Surely these users should be allowed to eXPerience the 'joys' of MSN. If Microsoft truely believe that you can only really appreciate how good MSN is with IE, then have a disclaimer appear at the top of the page when a so called 'non-complient' browser accesses your website but don't stop people accessing altogether!!!