Someone already said it, but this needs to be reiterated: Lots of users reuse passwords.
It doesn't matter that you're only logging in to post "F1RST!!!!11" on FailBlog. If the wrong person watches you do it, they're going use it on your email account or your online banking. (Not you per se, fellow Slashdot readers, you Princes of the Internets. You would never be so naive as to use the same password for all of those.) At the very least, password masking should always be on by default, and the option to turn it off should be up to the browser.
But all signs indicate that Nielsen thinks you should just go ahead and implement this on your website. If users could be trusted to properly judge when to turn masking on (and they cannot), introducing optional masking to your website would actually harm the usability of the login form. You know what's a bigger barrier to logging in than a masked password? Having to always stop and evaluate:
Does this particular, esoteric website use password masking by default?
If it does not, do I need to turn it on?
For this website, what is the particular, esoteric way I can do that?
In the words of another usability advocate: Don't make me think!
In ASP.NET's AJAX Control Toolkit, MaskedEditExtender masks a TextBox, while MaskedEditValidator uses regular expressions to validate it. That takes care of the web-based prior art pretty neatly.
While the intent of Ahmadinejad's statement can still be debated, it is almost certain that it was mistranslated to some degree. This article covers the various opinions about what the proper translation should have been.
As a side note, I seem to recall Ahmadinejad not being particularly concerned with correcting the mistranslation, as it played well to his political base.
Your market has choice? Because my market has just Cox and AT&T/BellSouth. BellSouth offers underpowered, overpriced DSL service if you sign up for a one-year contract for an overpriced local phone line. As for Cox, this is a conversation I had with their salesperson:
HER: There is an installation fee of $80.
ME: What's to install? Cable already comes to the apartment.
HER: You're already a subscriber?
ME: No, your people just didn't bother to shut it off after the previous tenant moved out.
HER: Oh, well you're a new customer, so there's an installation fee.
ME: So what is the service you perform in exchange for that $80? One of your technicians flicks a switch off and then flicks it back on again, thereby "installing" my cable?
HER: (blank stare)... There's an $80 installation fee for new customers.
ME: (blank stare)
It doesn't even say anything about marketing until they can figure out a way to forcibly deliver good/bad-flavored beverages to your mouth.
Imagine it now. Coke buys ads in a video game. You're playing, and every time you see the Coke logo, it forces some Coke into your mouth. Then you play a little more and the Pepsi logo shows up. It forces vinegar into your mouth. Happy gaming!
Or you're playing, and every time you see the label for Old Milwaukee, it delivers Old Milwaukee to your mouth. Then you go out into the world and see the logo and... well, perhaps Old Milwaukee's marketing team should steer clear of this.
Re:What we REALLY need
on
Using Drupal
·
· Score: 1
Or pronouncing "Web 2.0" application names in general...
What happens to all the unskilled laborers of a nation when all of its unskilled labor moves to another, more impoverished nation? Assuming that not all people are capable of performing highly-skilled labor, how do they survive in the midst of a cost of living that is largely dictated by the wealth of the upper-class who are profiting from the relocated labor?
Much like the GP, my views on globalization are still very much conflicted, and this is one of the issues that conflicts me.
P.S. Yes I do realize that just because a person has an "upper class job" does not mean his/her job requires immense skill or that he/she is skilled at said job. We've all seen it in action at one point or another, but I think it's safe to say that these jobs are significantly more difficult to attain for an equally incompetent person who comes from a lower class background.
As you say, the more private version of this info might be useful to the other campaign but it's not going to be that interesting to foreign adversaries.
Why would potential blackmail material not be that interesting to foreign adversaries?
If you believe Greg Palast, those emails aren't so lost after all. His claim is that Rove and company messed up and accidentally sent a bunch of those emails to http://georgewbush.org/ addresses instead of http://georgewbush.com/. If these emails are genuine, they detail, among other things, how Republican operatives used a practice called caging to suppress probable opposition voters.
Of course given the nature of email, it's probably not provable that the email is genuine. And it doesn't help that Palast has a bit of a muckraker reputation. From what I've seen, he does have a bit of a bias, but I've never known him to fabricate his evidence. Personally I'm inclined to believe the emails are real, but, like I said, I'm not sure you can prove that. Unless of course they also turn up in the White House archives.
For every Starbucks here in the USA that charges for Wifi, there's a mom 'n' pop or local chain coffeehouse across the street that offers it for free.
In fact, I've heard that a sure way to open a successful independent coffee shop is to open one right by a Starbucks. They've already done all the research on the location for you, and given a choice, I think a lot of people prefer to support the little guy and enjoy a less commercial atmosphere.
The GP's solution allows bad sellers to avoid negative feedback by simply not posting any feedback themselves. To prevent that, eBay should also, after a period of time, display any feedback left by either party and disallow anymore feedback for the transaction.
Also, just so we're clear, neither party's feedback should figure into the other party's overall rating until that feedback is displayed. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who left negative feedback about you when your rating falls.
Note that music fans will continue to buy the CDs of the favorite bands regardless of file sharing --- that's what fans do. The sharing is really just free promotion.
I'm certainly no defender of the music industry, but the reality of the matter is that a very significant slice of the population, who would otherwise buy CDs, is perfectly happy with downloaded MP3s. Sharing is not free promotion. It has an opportunity cost associated with the CDs that aren't sold. We all know that the particular dollar amount the RIAA claims is absurd, but there is a loss of potential revenue.
That all said, I would love to see any industry model in which creators, rather than marketers, win. If freely-distributed digital music accompanied by full-quality CDs for sale and extensive touring proves to be a sustainable model, then I'll be all for it. I don't think we know that for certain yet, but it shouldn't be too long before we find out.
The immediate future of technology will have a very eco-conscious angle. Some of it will be legitimately good for the earth and society. A lot of it will be merely fashionable. But maybe, just maybe, we can finally dispel the myth that ethanol from corn is good for anyone but ADM.
I know I shouldn't be replying to this, but the coward has a point even if he's making it in an asinine way. I assume his point is that the telecoms have more experience with these auctions and thus have an advantage. There's certainly validity to that claim.
My own claim is that the auction process, as the article describes it, has a very game-like quality, and I doubt that the telecoms have ever considered attacking the problem with mathematics. But guess who employs lots of mathematically-inclined brains with big academic credentials...
To some degree it depends upon who, at at each company, determines how to bid in any given round to achieve that company's goal. Is it the suits? Or is it the brains? (Yes, I know there are suits with brains; let's lump them in with the brains.) I'd be surprised if a telecom involved anyone but the suits. Google, on the other hand, could go either way.
Of course, we'll never really know if math or experience won out in the end because, however the auction turns out, Google will claim it's what they intended. They have to keep the shareholders calm. We'll also probably never know if they applied math in any significant way. Would you give away your winning strategy if it involved billions of dollars?
Whatever Google is maneuvering to do, they're probably more likely to employ the kind of people who know how to play the game than Verizon is. Whatever Google is trying to achieve, my money's on them. (Well, not really; I don't have any GOOG shares.)
Slashdot Mirror
It doesn't matter that you're only logging in to post "F1RST!!!!11" on FailBlog. If the wrong person watches you do it, they're going use it on your email account or your online banking. (Not you per se, fellow Slashdot readers, you Princes of the Internets. You would never be so naive as to use the same password for all of those.) At the very least, password masking should always be on by default, and the option to turn it off should be up to the browser.
But all signs indicate that Nielsen thinks you should just go ahead and implement this on your website. If users could be trusted to properly judge when to turn masking on (and they cannot), introducing optional masking to your website would actually harm the usability of the login form. You know what's a bigger barrier to logging in than a masked password? Having to always stop and evaluate:
In the words of another usability advocate: Don't make me think!
ASP.NET MaskedEditExtender
In ASP.NET's AJAX Control Toolkit, MaskedEditExtender masks a TextBox, while MaskedEditValidator uses regular expressions to validate it. That takes care of the web-based prior art pretty neatly.
While the intent of Ahmadinejad's statement can still be debated, it is almost certain that it was mistranslated to some degree. This article covers the various opinions about what the proper translation should have been.
As a side note, I seem to recall Ahmadinejad not being particularly concerned with correcting the mistranslation, as it played well to his political base.
Your market has choice? Because my market has just Cox and AT&T/BellSouth. BellSouth offers underpowered, overpriced DSL service if you sign up for a one-year contract for an overpriced local phone line. As for Cox, this is a conversation I had with their salesperson:
Which is what this is made for.
It doesn't even say anything about marketing until they can figure out a way to forcibly deliver good/bad-flavored beverages to your mouth.
Imagine it now. Coke buys ads in a video game. You're playing, and every time you see the Coke logo, it forces some Coke into your mouth. Then you play a little more and the Pepsi logo shows up. It forces vinegar into your mouth. Happy gaming!
Or you're playing, and every time you see the label for Old Milwaukee, it delivers Old Milwaukee to your mouth. Then you go out into the world and see the logo and... well, perhaps Old Milwaukee's marketing team should steer clear of this.
Or pronouncing "Web 2.0" application names in general...
But for the record: DROO-puhl
Questions from the devil's advocate:
What happens to all the unskilled laborers of a nation when all of its unskilled labor moves to another, more impoverished nation? Assuming that not all people are capable of performing highly-skilled labor, how do they survive in the midst of a cost of living that is largely dictated by the wealth of the upper-class who are profiting from the relocated labor?
Much like the GP, my views on globalization are still very much conflicted, and this is one of the issues that conflicts me.
P.S. Yes I do realize that just because a person has an "upper class job" does not mean his/her job requires immense skill or that he/she is skilled at said job. We've all seen it in action at one point or another, but I think it's safe to say that these jobs are significantly more difficult to attain for an equally incompetent person who comes from a lower class background.
Indeed, the NFL looks poorly upon spearing your opponent.
As you say, the more private version of this info might be useful to the other campaign but it's not going to be that interesting to foreign adversaries.
Why would potential blackmail material not be that interesting to foreign adversaries?
Seriously, does anyone make heated (external) keyboards? My office is often very cold, and it's hard to type when your fingers are numb.
You can't be elected by Florida without the Cuban-American vote. You won't get that vote by dropping the embargo on the nation those people fled.
Robot Observes Dreams, Does Interpretive Dance
If you believe Greg Palast, those emails aren't so lost after all. His claim is that Rove and company messed up and accidentally sent a bunch of those emails to http://georgewbush.org/ addresses instead of http://georgewbush.com/. If these emails are genuine, they detail, among other things, how Republican operatives used a practice called caging to suppress probable opposition voters.
Of course given the nature of email, it's probably not provable that the email is genuine. And it doesn't help that Palast has a bit of a muckraker reputation. From what I've seen, he does have a bit of a bias, but I've never known him to fabricate his evidence. Personally I'm inclined to believe the emails are real, but, like I said, I'm not sure you can prove that. Unless of course they also turn up in the White House archives.
Oh, right. Nevermind.
For every Starbucks here in the USA that charges for Wifi, there's a mom 'n' pop or local chain coffeehouse across the street that offers it for free.
In fact, I've heard that a sure way to open a successful independent coffee shop is to open one right by a Starbucks. They've already done all the research on the location for you, and given a choice, I think a lot of people prefer to support the little guy and enjoy a less commercial atmosphere.
The GP's solution allows bad sellers to avoid negative feedback by simply not posting any feedback themselves. To prevent that, eBay should also, after a period of time, display any feedback left by either party and disallow anymore feedback for the transaction.
Also, just so we're clear, neither party's feedback should figure into the other party's overall rating until that feedback is displayed. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who left negative feedback about you when your rating falls.
Crystal Pepsi was actually from the early 90's.
I'm certainly no defender of the music industry, but the reality of the matter is that a very significant slice of the population, who would otherwise buy CDs, is perfectly happy with downloaded MP3s. Sharing is not free promotion. It has an opportunity cost associated with the CDs that aren't sold. We all know that the particular dollar amount the RIAA claims is absurd, but there is a loss of potential revenue.
That all said, I would love to see any industry model in which creators, rather than marketers, win. If freely-distributed digital music accompanied by full-quality CDs for sale and extensive touring proves to be a sustainable model, then I'll be all for it. I don't think we know that for certain yet, but it shouldn't be too long before we find out.
I don't know how "Mercury" translated to "Mars" in my head, but that is why my previous comment makes pretty much no sense whatsoever.
Is it the Great Stone Ass of Mars? http://www.gotfuturama.com/Multimedia/EpisodeSounds/3ACV10/09.mp3
The immediate future of technology will have a very eco-conscious angle. Some of it will be legitimately good for the earth and society. A lot of it will be merely fashionable. But maybe, just maybe, we can finally dispel the myth that ethanol from corn is good for anyone but ADM.
I know I shouldn't be replying to this, but the coward has a point even if he's making it in an asinine way. I assume his point is that the telecoms have more experience with these auctions and thus have an advantage. There's certainly validity to that claim.
My own claim is that the auction process, as the article describes it, has a very game-like quality, and I doubt that the telecoms have ever considered attacking the problem with mathematics. But guess who employs lots of mathematically-inclined brains with big academic credentials...
To some degree it depends upon who, at at each company, determines how to bid in any given round to achieve that company's goal. Is it the suits? Or is it the brains? (Yes, I know there are suits with brains; let's lump them in with the brains.) I'd be surprised if a telecom involved anyone but the suits. Google, on the other hand, could go either way.
Of course, we'll never really know if math or experience won out in the end because, however the auction turns out, Google will claim it's what they intended. They have to keep the shareholders calm. We'll also probably never know if they applied math in any significant way. Would you give away your winning strategy if it involved billions of dollars?
HURD?
Whatever Google is maneuvering to do, they're probably more likely to employ the kind of people who know how to play the game than Verizon is. Whatever Google is trying to achieve, my money's on them. (Well, not really; I don't have any GOOG shares.)