You know, given that movie studios have been putting ads and trailers in the movies for which we pay money to buy, is anyone surprised that these kinds of problems are springing up?
I completely stopped buying anything from Disney for this reason, and waste no opportunity to complain about paying for ads. I see that strategy is paying off.
I once returned something to Wal-mart for which I had paid $20 on a debit card. They kept the original receipt, and stupidly, I didn't ask for a new one to verify the return. I later checked my bank statement, and I never got my $20 credit.
Sure, it could have been a cashier screwup, but I do wonder how often it happens to people who don't ask for a new receipt. A long, long time ago I worked at Wal-mart, and I know they will take back anything, even if it's smashed to pieces. Just make sure you actually get your money back if you pay by card.
they lock them to an account which can follow you effectively forever.
Nothing is forever, or even effectively forever.
Is there some kind of written policy as to how long you're guaranteed support of the content you buy? I tend to avoid buying downloads, but so far I have yet to see any written policies as to the availability of purchased content. Things being "delisted", or whatever they want to call it, doesn't help the issue.
I'm pretty sure DRM is here to stay, and all the consumer complaints in the world are not going to convince investors to ignore the siren songs from DRM developers. However, consumers should at least demand some written guarantees, such as a minimum support period, or that the DRM will be opened after the support period has expired.
Endless yelling that DRM is bad won't make it go away. I'm sure the business world would be willing to make changes if they could be convinced it would spur profits in one way or another.
I still don't get it. ISPs have been putting bandwidth caps on web servers for quite a long time. But people complain when ISPs do this to web browsers?
The amount of bandwidth is irrelevant. What matters is that you know what you are getting for a certain price. If I know that 250GB is enough for my needs, then I'm all set. If Comcast were to throttle my connection without telling me where the threshold is, then that would be a problem.
People complaining about HDTV channels being reduced in quality on a day-to-day basis is an issue. People not getting more than their fair share as described in the TOS for a certain price is not.
Sorry, I stand corrected in that this is an implementation issue, and not a JavaScript issue. Firefox really drives me nuts at times because even with strict warnings turned off, it will complain a lot. IE and Safari have their own problems not entirely related to the usual compatibility issues.
And try..catch block will work wonders around other-peoples-crappy-code.
That doesn't work when an applet or other embedded object uses JavaScript. In Firefox, if one object causes a JS exception, everyhing stops working, which is very annoying. I'd be nice if I could get a new Java applet to work with, but that's not an option.
That's why I don't like the idea of having all JavaScript includes behaving as if it's one giant script. This is the hyperlinked web, and not all the information that shows up on a site is specific to your domain. Every major site that uses advertising feels this pain at some point, because advertisers do not allow you to host their ad service on your server, and web browser developers didn't take that into account when they integrated scripting into the browser.
I'm not sure that this new trend of moving to separate processes will fix anything in these cases, because you can't really differentiate between your code and someone else's.
Aside from function.arguments and === in JavaScript 1.2, I'm having a hard time thinking of a JavaScript language change which was broke backwards compatibility. That includes IE.
Again, browsers have changed a lot over the years, and some methods that worked in the past no longer function these days. Scripts that were perfectly legal a couple years ago will throw some kind of security exception, and that causes the whole site to grind to a halt. That's preferable behavior if you're making a web app, but a major headache when you just have some objects trying pass messages.
It's actually fun to hack, and you can already do some nifty things like pseudo-threading using its window.setTimeout() function and some clever programming.
I had to do this, because JavaScript is single-threaded.
A Java applet I need to support kept trying to make a JavaScript call to the browser, and kept failing, which crashes a background timer I had implemented in JavaScript. I had to "restart" JavaScript using a mouseover event and use threading to keep it from using up all the CPU time. It was such a stupid hack, but it worked.
I eventually figured out the function name the applet kept calling and was able to shut it up. It still boggles me that any JavaScript from anywhere, such as from an ad, can crash the language and leave you with no JavaScript support at all. It's very hard to count on a language when browsers implement is so badly, especially when you have no choice but to support really old software that keeps doing bad things that upset newer, stricter versions of a scripting language.
Now, does this WebKit update fix the JavaScript threading issue? Then I'll be impressed.
All this tell me is that good IT managers are even harder to find than good IT coders. Managers don't need to know how to code, they just need to know how to manage resources while minding their business ethics courses so they don't tick everybody off.
If they can't code, I don't see that as a big issue. If they can't handle the stuff behind the code, that's a problem.
I think the problem is that really, really common words aren't likely to return useful searches, but they are still very common as domains. I'd rather the browser remember where I've been, rather than try to figure out which of the 54,000,000 pages out there might be where I want to go.
Personally, I hate all this integration/simplification stuff. Chrome drives me nuts for this very reason. I want a search bar, and I want an address bar. Don't put them together and call it a feature because it takes up a couple less inches of horizontal space (which compared to vertical space, is not particularly valuable real estate).
Personally, I'd prefer that they worry less about making JavaScript faster and focus on the security policy. Isn't there at least some buried option not to run JavaScript from a 3rd party source, or only to run in-line JavaScript and not imports? How about disabling certain functions? As a person who hates to install 3rd party anti-spam extensions, I think some more low-level control would be a better option than just turning off JavaScript entirely (so, for example, I can actually reply to comments on some AJAX-laden blogs).
Let the advertisers worry about how to get around this. They always do, one way or another.
As a web developer, all I care about is that the browser will work in strict mode if I tell it to do so. I noticed quite early on that if a DOCTYPE was missing the system identifier, IE would revert to quirks mode. This isn't a big deal for people like me who actually study the guidelines and use a proper DOCTYPE, but to people who tend to copypasta code from a quick Google search, they will continue to write bad code without even realizing that the browser isn't in strict mode after all. You can't force people to research, but you can still beat them over the head with rendering problems if they just piecemeal their projects together. Maybe it'll encourage the company to get a proper web developer instead of asking the clueless secretary to perform updates.
The DOCTYPE has still not made its way into old, lousy HTML tutorials, so using its presence as a way to determine strict mode would be a good idea. If IE still has exceptions for malformed DOCTYPEs and is too eager to uses quirks mode, then these rendering issues will go on forever.
To me, having strict mode on by default sounds like a major corporate headache, and I don't blame Microsoft for second guessing their promise. But, they should tighten the rules for when quirks mode is selected.
Let's hope the developer mode in IE8 final is more vocal about standards compliance issues, too. Even Firefox is loath to complain about issues unless you have an extension like Web Developer installed. Giving errors to normal people is of course a bad idea, but it shouldn't be so hard or require so much 3rd-party software for developers to get the information they need.
This shows that the only thing threatening PC industry profits is smart people. With that in mind, I don't think the industry really needs to worry about running out of demand, but rather running out of stupid gimmicks.
Unfortunately, manufacturers do whatever the focus group says, and just attack the biggest market segment.
Didn't a lot of PC manufacturers used to offer customization services? Many stopped doing that because they "couldn't afford it". Well, try marketing those services more aggressively. Make yourself stand out. Otherwise, your brand image just withers away and dies.
It never ceases to amaze me how few people recognize what made Apple competitive again. They took a chance by making their computers look like they were just imported from Candy Land, and see where it got them: a highly professional, mega-trendy, snobbish image... AND they now just use stock PC hardware.
Sure, Linux could still be around in 50 years. No matter what the code looks like or what the development philosophy is, they may still call it Linux... or whatever they want. How many times is a product rewritten and it still keeps the same name?
Even in the world of free open source software, don't overlook the value of a good marketing campaign. Firefox Download Day, for example.
I wonder if there are more Flat Earth believers than Expanding Earth believers. I didn't even hear about the Expanding Earth Theory until a few months ago.
Call me a wet blanket, but should we really just turn everything off to solve problems? Java applets are like BASIC. Just because 95% of the applets out there are totally unnecessary doesn't mean all applets are useless. The same goes with Javascript. Why can't we just have a browser not run Javascript from a 3rd party server, rather than disable it entirely?
My web site uses Java applets to allow my forum members to draw pictures on an art BBS. I plan to write a Java applet with my new gallery system that will allow people to crop images into thumbnails, too, and upload stuff in a batch. That's a lot of lost functionality if people just turn Java off.
I have an image BBS system called an Oekaki that accepts image uploads much like the channel boards do. For years, I've had a file type identifier in my code that inspects the file and makes sure it is what it's supposed to be.
Since it's a forum specifically designed for artists, I did this primarily to keep BMP files, Photoshop images, and corrupt PNG files off the board. It's effective at keeping code attacks like this from happening, though.
Turning off Java is a bit of a problem, because Oekaki involves using a Java applet to draw pictures. Perhaps web developers should simply apply the principle of filtering everything that is uploaded. It's not that hard to check image headers and the position of end markers, since (unlike many text formats) today's bitmap image formats still have proper binary headers.
I'm not looking forward to the day when image formats use markup instead of binary headers. There's a lot of opportunity for bad things to hide in there, as any web developer who has had to deal with XSS attacks and intrusive banner ads can tell you.
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You know, given that movie studios have been putting ads and trailers in the movies for which we pay money to buy, is anyone surprised that these kinds of problems are springing up?
I completely stopped buying anything from Disney for this reason, and waste no opportunity to complain about paying for ads. I see that strategy is paying off.
I once returned something to Wal-mart for which I had paid $20 on a debit card. They kept the original receipt, and stupidly, I didn't ask for a new one to verify the return. I later checked my bank statement, and I never got my $20 credit.
Sure, it could have been a cashier screwup, but I do wonder how often it happens to people who don't ask for a new receipt. A long, long time ago I worked at Wal-mart, and I know they will take back anything, even if it's smashed to pieces. Just make sure you actually get your money back if you pay by card.
...and in the end, he'll have the cake.
I think it saves time to just assume they're wrong, and read the decompiled source directly.
I personally find it much easier to translate Japanese documentation into broken English than try to reverse-engineer an application. Yes, seriously.
How do they clean the thing after using it?
Yes, that's a serious question.
they lock them to an account which can follow you effectively forever.
Nothing is forever, or even effectively forever.
Is there some kind of written policy as to how long you're guaranteed support of the content you buy? I tend to avoid buying downloads, but so far I have yet to see any written policies as to the availability of purchased content. Things being "delisted", or whatever they want to call it, doesn't help the issue.
I'm pretty sure DRM is here to stay, and all the consumer complaints in the world are not going to convince investors to ignore the siren songs from DRM developers. However, consumers should at least demand some written guarantees, such as a minimum support period, or that the DRM will be opened after the support period has expired.
Endless yelling that DRM is bad won't make it go away. I'm sure the business world would be willing to make changes if they could be convinced it would spur profits in one way or another.
Games are no longer dark, brown, and full of bloom?
Finally, next-gen has arrived!
I still don't get it. ISPs have been putting bandwidth caps on web servers for quite a long time. But people complain when ISPs do this to web browsers?
The amount of bandwidth is irrelevant. What matters is that you know what you are getting for a certain price. If I know that 250GB is enough for my needs, then I'm all set. If Comcast were to throttle my connection without telling me where the threshold is, then that would be a problem.
People complaining about HDTV channels being reduced in quality on a day-to-day basis is an issue. People not getting more than their fair share as described in the TOS for a certain price is not.
Sorry, I stand corrected in that this is an implementation issue, and not a JavaScript issue. Firefox really drives me nuts at times because even with strict warnings turned off, it will complain a lot. IE and Safari have their own problems not entirely related to the usual compatibility issues.
And try..catch block will work wonders around other-peoples-crappy-code.
That doesn't work when an applet or other embedded object uses JavaScript. In Firefox, if one object causes a JS exception, everyhing stops working, which is very annoying. I'd be nice if I could get a new Java applet to work with, but that's not an option.
That's why I don't like the idea of having all JavaScript includes behaving as if it's one giant script. This is the hyperlinked web, and not all the information that shows up on a site is specific to your domain. Every major site that uses advertising feels this pain at some point, because advertisers do not allow you to host their ad service on your server, and web browser developers didn't take that into account when they integrated scripting into the browser.
I'm not sure that this new trend of moving to separate processes will fix anything in these cases, because you can't really differentiate between your code and someone else's.
Aside from function.arguments and === in JavaScript 1.2, I'm having a hard time thinking of a JavaScript language change which was broke backwards compatibility. That includes IE.
Again, browsers have changed a lot over the years, and some methods that worked in the past no longer function these days. Scripts that were perfectly legal a couple years ago will throw some kind of security exception, and that causes the whole site to grind to a halt. That's preferable behavior if you're making a web app, but a major headache when you just have some objects trying pass messages.
It's actually fun to hack, and you can already do some nifty things like pseudo-threading using its window.setTimeout() function and some clever programming.
I had to do this, because JavaScript is single-threaded.
A Java applet I need to support kept trying to make a JavaScript call to the browser, and kept failing, which crashes a background timer I had implemented in JavaScript. I had to "restart" JavaScript using a mouseover event and use threading to keep it from using up all the CPU time. It was such a stupid hack, but it worked.
I eventually figured out the function name the applet kept calling and was able to shut it up. It still boggles me that any JavaScript from anywhere, such as from an ad, can crash the language and leave you with no JavaScript support at all. It's very hard to count on a language when browsers implement is so badly, especially when you have no choice but to support really old software that keeps doing bad things that upset newer, stricter versions of a scripting language.
Now, does this WebKit update fix the JavaScript threading issue? Then I'll be impressed.
It's comforting to know that such a small number of superhuge companies control so much. The bigger they are...
I wonder if spam redirects and Rick Rolls count when advertisers tailor their ads towards your tastes.
So, we see "targeted" ads and have "suggestive" sponsorship in other browsers in exchange for getting the browser for free.
Isn't IE a part of Windows, and don't we sort of pay for it already?
All this tell me is that good IT managers are even harder to find than good IT coders. Managers don't need to know how to code, they just need to know how to manage resources while minding their business ethics courses so they don't tick everybody off.
If they can't code, I don't see that as a big issue. If they can't handle the stuff behind the code, that's a problem.
I think the problem is that really, really common words aren't likely to return useful searches, but they are still very common as domains. I'd rather the browser remember where I've been, rather than try to figure out which of the 54,000,000 pages out there might be where I want to go.
Personally, I hate all this integration/simplification stuff. Chrome drives me nuts for this very reason. I want a search bar, and I want an address bar. Don't put them together and call it a feature because it takes up a couple less inches of horizontal space (which compared to vertical space, is not particularly valuable real estate).
Personally, I'd prefer that they worry less about making JavaScript faster and focus on the security policy. Isn't there at least some buried option not to run JavaScript from a 3rd party source, or only to run in-line JavaScript and not imports? How about disabling certain functions? As a person who hates to install 3rd party anti-spam extensions, I think some more low-level control would be a better option than just turning off JavaScript entirely (so, for example, I can actually reply to comments on some AJAX-laden blogs).
Let the advertisers worry about how to get around this. They always do, one way or another.
As a web developer, all I care about is that the browser will work in strict mode if I tell it to do so. I noticed quite early on that if a DOCTYPE was missing the system identifier, IE would revert to quirks mode. This isn't a big deal for people like me who actually study the guidelines and use a proper DOCTYPE, but to people who tend to copypasta code from a quick Google search, they will continue to write bad code without even realizing that the browser isn't in strict mode after all. You can't force people to research, but you can still beat them over the head with rendering problems if they just piecemeal their projects together. Maybe it'll encourage the company to get a proper web developer instead of asking the clueless secretary to perform updates.
The DOCTYPE has still not made its way into old, lousy HTML tutorials, so using its presence as a way to determine strict mode would be a good idea. If IE still has exceptions for malformed DOCTYPEs and is too eager to uses quirks mode, then these rendering issues will go on forever.
To me, having strict mode on by default sounds like a major corporate headache, and I don't blame Microsoft for second guessing their promise. But, they should tighten the rules for when quirks mode is selected.
Let's hope the developer mode in IE8 final is more vocal about standards compliance issues, too. Even Firefox is loath to complain about issues unless you have an extension like Web Developer installed. Giving errors to normal people is of course a bad idea, but it shouldn't be so hard or require so much 3rd-party software for developers to get the information they need.
Buy it, if it fails, return it.
That's a lot harder if the chip is hardwired into a laptop.
This shows that the only thing threatening PC industry profits is smart people. With that in mind, I don't think the industry really needs to worry about running out of demand, but rather running out of stupid gimmicks.
Unfortunately, manufacturers do whatever the focus group says, and just attack the biggest market segment.
Didn't a lot of PC manufacturers used to offer customization services? Many stopped doing that because they "couldn't afford it". Well, try marketing those services more aggressively. Make yourself stand out. Otherwise, your brand image just withers away and dies.
It never ceases to amaze me how few people recognize what made Apple competitive again. They took a chance by making their computers look like they were just imported from Candy Land, and see where it got them: a highly professional, mega-trendy, snobbish image... AND they now just use stock PC hardware.
Um, go figure.
I might be missing something, but I don't see a demo. Can I try before I buy?
Maybe that's what makes it so hardcore. Real men don't need a parachute -- they just jump.
Sure, Linux could still be around in 50 years. No matter what the code looks like or what the development philosophy is, they may still call it Linux... or whatever they want. How many times is a product rewritten and it still keeps the same name?
Even in the world of free open source software, don't overlook the value of a good marketing campaign. Firefox Download Day, for example.
I wonder if there are more Flat Earth believers than Expanding Earth believers. I didn't even hear about the Expanding Earth Theory until a few months ago.
Call me a wet blanket, but should we really just turn everything off to solve problems? Java applets are like BASIC. Just because 95% of the applets out there are totally unnecessary doesn't mean all applets are useless. The same goes with Javascript. Why can't we just have a browser not run Javascript from a 3rd party server, rather than disable it entirely?
My web site uses Java applets to allow my forum members to draw pictures on an art BBS. I plan to write a Java applet with my new gallery system that will allow people to crop images into thumbnails, too, and upload stuff in a batch. That's a lot of lost functionality if people just turn Java off.
I have an image BBS system called an Oekaki that accepts image uploads much like the channel boards do. For years, I've had a file type identifier in my code that inspects the file and makes sure it is what it's supposed to be.
Since it's a forum specifically designed for artists, I did this primarily to keep BMP files, Photoshop images, and corrupt PNG files off the board. It's effective at keeping code attacks like this from happening, though.
Turning off Java is a bit of a problem, because Oekaki involves using a Java applet to draw pictures. Perhaps web developers should simply apply the principle of filtering everything that is uploaded. It's not that hard to check image headers and the position of end markers, since (unlike many text formats) today's bitmap image formats still have proper binary headers.
I'm not looking forward to the day when image formats use markup instead of binary headers. There's a lot of opportunity for bad things to hide in there, as any web developer who has had to deal with XSS attacks and intrusive banner ads can tell you.