It'd be alot easier to save this to check back tomorrow instead of making a half-dozen bookmarks every night. It would also help when I'm just plain lost in ebay pages when it's time to hit the sack and want to pick up where I left off the next day.
At least in Firefox 2, the session saving only kicks in if the browser closes unexpectedly (browser crash, power outage, etc.)
Does it matter? Stock Firefox needs at least half a dozen extensions just to get the basic functionality it should come with by default.
"Basic functionality" is, of course, subjective. What might be critical for one person is useless cruft for another.
For instance, nearly all of the extensions I have installed fall into one of two categories: developer tools or website integration (del.icio.us, etc.). I would hardly consider something like the Web Developer Toolbar "basic functionality" for most people, but I find it incredibly useful when working on a website. The one exception is Duplicate Tab, which allows me to split a tab off into its own window.
Myspace is already past the height of its popularity
I should've realized it was past its peak the moment I started considering getting an account. I'm so far behind the curve on every fad, it should've tipped me off immediately!
I once sold a computer for peanuts and saw its value rocket the day afterwards.
Should I consider myself a victim?
Similar story: A couple of years ago I upgraded the motherboard, CPU and RAM on my main PC. I then shifted the old mobo/CPU/RAM to my spare "expendable" system. The hardware I took out of that system was old enough (the CPU was a K6-2), and wouldn't work with anything else I had, that I figured I'd just sell the lot on eBay rather than break it up any further.
Silly me, as I discovered during the auction that people were surprisingly interested in it... and that auctions for equivalent RAM were selling for quite a bit more. It seems that the type of RAM was getting hard to find, and therefore in higher demand, so people who took the effort to look at the item description figured they were getting a great deal. I probably could've made three times as much if I'd split the set apart and sold the RAM separately (and clearly labeled).
Was I a victim of eBay, or of the bidders? Nope, just a victim of my own lack of research.
"We're not interested in jumping down a rat hole until such time as it finally figures itself out."
In other words, he sees online distribution as the wave of the future, but for once they plan to wait for other people to work out the kinks in the model.
At first glance, this seems odd, since Lucasfilm has traditionally been early adopters and innovators, technologically. ILM has been inventing new SFX techniques since the original Star Wars. Then there's THX sound, or the digital "filming" and projection they did on Attack of the Clones. But when you think about it, it's been with cinema technology that they've pushed the envelope. Holding off on online distribution isn't a tech decision, it's a business decision.
The way this went down reminds me of an event from high school. Now, to put this in perspective, it was probably 1993, so about 5 years before Columbine.
There was a drama festival that our school attended each year, held at a nearby college. One year, one of our scenes involved prop guns. One of my classmates took one of the fake guns up onto a balcony, stood on the railing, and pretended he was going to shoot himself. Big surprise, campus security showed up, assuming he had a real gun and was really going to blow his brains out. The next year, the festival banned prop weapons. IIRC if you had a scene that needed them, you could sign up to use *their* props, which would be provided for the particular scene.
Had he done the same thing on stage, introduced as a monologue he had written, with people aware the gun was a prop, no one would have freaked out.
Back to the Firefox panel, I don't know how clearly this presentation was labeled as humor. But all it takes is someone who doesn't have the full context to take it seriously -- and security people have to take threats seriously, at least long enough to investigate and find out that the gun is just a prop.
Re:Destined to be obsolete - Twice!
on
Caller ID Watches
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· Score: 2, Funny
Of course in the next year or so, when they come out with the whole Cellphone IN the watch, this product will be obsolete...
And those will be obsolete in two years, when they introduce the wrist-mounted video phone.
Just think -- we'll finally catch up with Dick Tracy!
I prefer PNG myself-- but it's amazing how many users still have browsers that don't support it.
What PNGless browsers do you encounter the most? The only significant traffic I tend to see from a graphical browser that can't manage an indexed, binary-transparent PNG is Netscape 4, and that's sitting around 0.2% and falling. Even that can manage to display the image, it just can't get the transparency right.
GIF is still usually a SMALLER format than PNG if you want to display a few-color, non-lossy image.
Not in my experience. I do a lot of web graphics with images up to about 300x300 pixels. I'll convert the image to an indexed palette with binary transparency, with anywhere from 32 to 256 colors, depending on the image. With very few exceptions, Gimp will write a smaller PNG than GIF. Running advpng -z (similar to pngcrush) on the result will (usually) make it even smaller.
If you're dealing with bandwidth issues and lots of users, it can add up.
PNG is nice, but thanks to Microsoft, and it's own not supporting animation, it just doesn't work for some things yet.
I'm sure a big supporter of PNG, but understand why GIF is still around.
I'd only count the lack of animation as a cause. Microsoft hasn't done anything to hamper PNG as a GIF replacement. IE has been able to read indexed PNGs (<=256 colors) with binary transparency for years. That's identical in capabilities to a static GIF.
For a GIF-equivalent PNG, you have to go all the way back to Netscape 4 and IE 3 to run into compatibility problems. There may be a lingering perception of compatibility issues, but it's extremely outdated.
Microsoft is to blame for making it tricky to use PNG's wider range of features -- like alpha transparency and lossless 24-bit color -- on the web. For that reason I'm hoping IE7 will quickly supplant IE6 where possible, and Firefox and Opera will supplant it elsewhere.
I suppose with IE preventing PNG from showing off its advantages, the choice ends up looking like a case of "different, not better." Though in my experience I can usually get the same image to compress better with PNG than GIF, giving PNG a small technical advantage to go with the finally-no-longer-relevant philosophical/legal advantages.
Sometimes I find myself wondering: 10-15 years from now, am I going to be the old fogey freaking out about something new that I don't trust, but all the kids are into?
Not sure. Certainly the concept of a bunch of people suddenly developing powers in an otherwise "real world" setting has been done before -- Rising Stars, for instance. But I don't know whether this show was based on a particular comic book.
What, like some sort of fem-bot or Steel Angel or something?
Or maybe with WWII-style cheesecake art painted on the side of the case?
I realize our society has become saturated with sexuality, but come on, people -- it's a box. You can (and probably should) make it more aesthetic, you can make it visually interesting, you can make it artistic... but I've always thought the term "sexy" was overloaded.
Just how arousing can a bunch of metal and plastic be, anyway?
That is all it is - nothing more. Call it what it is.
"podcast" is a lot easier to say than "a file sitting on a website with a database back end and an RSS feed that lists what mp3/avi/etc files the webmaster has put onto the server."
Or do you call your toaster a "Black & Decker" or a "Sunbeam" and you call toast by the brand name of the appliance that toasted the bread?
No, but I do call my tissues "kleenex." And I call medium density bead board "styrofoam." And I call certain types of hook-and-loop fasteners "velcro." And I call tooth-based fasteners "zippers."
Back in July(?) when Microsoft issued an update to the WGA tool, I figured I may as well install it (I'd be forced to eventually) on my one Windows box. So I installed it, and rebooted, and the login screen proclaimed loudly that Windows was not genuine. (Well, not literally loudly, it didn't shout over the speakers or anything -- which would be an interesting deterrent, now that I think about it.)
This came as something of a surprise, given that:
This was a Dell, not some no-name computer.
It still had the original OS install, and no hardware had been changed.
The previous version of WGA had reported no problems.
I logged in, did some searching on Microsoft's knowledge base, and found a link that said something like "Validate here." I clicked on it.
To my surprise, it told me my copy was perfectly valid.
I eventually concluded that Norton Internet Security had blocked the initial validation attempt. Because there was no desktop shell, there was no opportunity for it to pop up a notice and ask me if I wanted it to let the data through.
After that experience, I can't say I'm surprised that Microsoft found many of their false positives to be the result of security software. Admittedly, they were looking at registry changes, crypto problems and McAfee, rather than a transient error with Norton.
Calling an MP3 or OGG or AVI or MPEG file (etc) a "podcast" is a joke.
Actually, that would be more like calling a JPEG or GIF a "website."
They simply sit on a server until a person goes to that website and downloads that file.
Not exactly. The term "podcast" refers not just to the media file itself, but to the packaging of said media file with an RSS feed such that a client application can automatically locate new content, download it, and optionally place it on a device (such as an MP3 player) for playback.
It's not just the file, it's the distribution method.
On the plus side, it's nice to see someone making the opposite of the classic mistake, taking current information and assuming it was true in the past, rather than taking outdated information and assuming it still applies to the present.
Slashdot Mirror
Fortunately, there's a drop-down list at the far right that shows all open tabs. It's a bit easier to navigate than scrolling the tab bar.
At least in Firefox 2, the session saving only kicks in if the browser closes unexpectedly (browser crash, power outage, etc.)
"Basic functionality" is, of course, subjective. What might be critical for one person is useless cruft for another.
For instance, nearly all of the extensions I have installed fall into one of two categories: developer tools or website integration (del.icio.us, etc.). I would hardly consider something like the Web Developer Toolbar "basic functionality" for most people, but I find it incredibly useful when working on a website. The one exception is Duplicate Tab, which allows me to split a tab off into its own window.
An actual sighting of STFU in the wild.
I should've realized it was past its peak the moment I started considering getting an account. I'm so far behind the curve on every fad, it should've tipped me off immediately!
Similar story: A couple of years ago I upgraded the motherboard, CPU and RAM on my main PC. I then shifted the old mobo/CPU/RAM to my spare "expendable" system. The hardware I took out of that system was old enough (the CPU was a K6-2), and wouldn't work with anything else I had, that I figured I'd just sell the lot on eBay rather than break it up any further.
Silly me, as I discovered during the auction that people were surprisingly interested in it... and that auctions for equivalent RAM were selling for quite a bit more. It seems that the type of RAM was getting hard to find, and therefore in higher demand, so people who took the effort to look at the item description figured they were getting a great deal. I probably could've made three times as much if I'd split the set apart and sold the RAM separately (and clearly labeled).
Was I a victim of eBay, or of the bidders? Nope, just a victim of my own lack of research.
In other words, he sees online distribution as the wave of the future, but for once they plan to wait for other people to work out the kinks in the model.
At first glance, this seems odd, since Lucasfilm has traditionally been early adopters and innovators, technologically. ILM has been inventing new SFX techniques since the original Star Wars. Then there's THX sound, or the digital "filming" and projection they did on Attack of the Clones. But when you think about it, it's been with cinema technology that they've pushed the envelope. Holding off on online distribution isn't a tech decision, it's a business decision.
Interestingly enough, someone has already tried converting a Google Gadget to an Opera Widget.
The terminology is getting really odd, though... gadgets+widgets = gidgets?
Go-go-Gadget Google?
The way this went down reminds me of an event from high school. Now, to put this in perspective, it was probably 1993, so about 5 years before Columbine.
There was a drama festival that our school attended each year, held at a nearby college. One year, one of our scenes involved prop guns. One of my classmates took one of the fake guns up onto a balcony, stood on the railing, and pretended he was going to shoot himself. Big surprise, campus security showed up, assuming he had a real gun and was really going to blow his brains out. The next year, the festival banned prop weapons. IIRC if you had a scene that needed them, you could sign up to use *their* props, which would be provided for the particular scene.
Had he done the same thing on stage, introduced as a monologue he had written, with people aware the gun was a prop, no one would have freaked out.
Back to the Firefox panel, I don't know how clearly this presentation was labeled as humor. But all it takes is someone who doesn't have the full context to take it seriously -- and security people have to take threats seriously, at least long enough to investigate and find out that the gun is just a prop.
And those will be obsolete in two years, when they introduce the wrist-mounted video phone.
Just think -- we'll finally catch up with Dick Tracy!
What PNGless browsers do you encounter the most? The only significant traffic I tend to see from a graphical browser that can't manage an indexed, binary-transparent PNG is Netscape 4, and that's sitting around 0.2% and falling. Even that can manage to display the image, it just can't get the transparency right.
Not in my experience. I do a lot of web graphics with images up to about 300x300 pixels. I'll convert the image to an indexed palette with binary transparency, with anywhere from 32 to 256 colors, depending on the image. With very few exceptions, Gimp will write a smaller PNG than GIF. Running advpng -z (similar to pngcrush) on the result will (usually) make it even smaller.
Now that, I'll agree with.
I'd only count the lack of animation as a cause. Microsoft hasn't done anything to hamper PNG as a GIF replacement. IE has been able to read indexed PNGs (<=256 colors) with binary transparency for years. That's identical in capabilities to a static GIF.
For a GIF-equivalent PNG, you have to go all the way back to Netscape 4 and IE 3 to run into compatibility problems. There may be a lingering perception of compatibility issues, but it's extremely outdated.
Microsoft is to blame for making it tricky to use PNG's wider range of features -- like alpha transparency and lossless 24-bit color -- on the web. For that reason I'm hoping IE7 will quickly supplant IE6 where possible, and Firefox and Opera will supplant it elsewhere.
I suppose with IE preventing PNG from showing off its advantages, the choice ends up looking like a case of "different, not better." Though in my experience I can usually get the same image to compress better with PNG than GIF, giving PNG a small technical advantage to go with the finally-no-longer-relevant philosophical/legal advantages.
Sometimes I find myself wondering: 10-15 years from now, am I going to be the old fogey freaking out about something new that I don't trust, but all the kids are into?
Then I think of MySpace.
It was phrased as a question. Something like, "Do both brothers share this power?" So it's not clear yet, at least not from what's been shown.
Someone actually came up with a term for this: the Viewer Friendly Interface.
What's really unusual about this appearance was that they actually had a normal, multi-windowed interface with regular-sized fonts.
Clearly a rip-off of the XMen idea
Wait, X-Men invented the idea of a super-hero team? I'm not so sure about that one...
Not sure. Certainly the concept of a bunch of people suddenly developing powers in an otherwise "real world" setting has been done before -- Rising Stars, for instance. But I don't know whether this show was based on a particular comic book.
What, like some sort of fem-bot or Steel Angel or something?
Or maybe with WWII-style cheesecake art painted on the side of the case?
I realize our society has become saturated with sexuality, but come on, people -- it's a box. You can (and probably should) make it more aesthetic, you can make it visually interesting, you can make it artistic... but I've always thought the term "sexy" was overloaded.
Just how arousing can a bunch of metal and plastic be, anyway?
"podcast" is a lot easier to say than "a file sitting on a website with a database back end and an RSS feed that lists what mp3/avi/etc files the webmaster has put onto the server."
No, but I do call my tissues "kleenex." And I call medium density bead board "styrofoam." And I call certain types of hook-and-loop fasteners "velcro." And I call tooth-based fasteners "zippers."
Back in July(?) when Microsoft issued an update to the WGA tool, I figured I may as well install it (I'd be forced to eventually) on my one Windows box. So I installed it, and rebooted, and the login screen proclaimed loudly that Windows was not genuine. (Well, not literally loudly, it didn't shout over the speakers or anything -- which would be an interesting deterrent, now that I think about it.)
This came as something of a surprise, given that:
I logged in, did some searching on Microsoft's knowledge base, and found a link that said something like "Validate here." I clicked on it.
To my surprise, it told me my copy was perfectly valid.
I eventually concluded that Norton Internet Security had blocked the initial validation attempt. Because there was no desktop shell, there was no opportunity for it to pop up a notice and ask me if I wanted it to let the data through.
After that experience, I can't say I'm surprised that Microsoft found many of their false positives to be the result of security software. Admittedly, they were looking at registry changes, crypto problems and McAfee, rather than a transient error with Norton.
Actually, that would be more like calling a JPEG or GIF a "website."
Not exactly. The term "podcast" refers not just to the media file itself, but to the packaging of said media file with an RSS feed such that a client application can automatically locate new content, download it, and optionally place it on a device (such as an MP3 player) for playback.
It's not just the file, it's the distribution method.
You probably mean http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/20/121723 2
The story you linked to was the celebratory free license giveaway they did about a month before they dropped the registration requirements entirely
Really? The ads didn't come in until version 5. Before that, it was straight shareware.
On the plus side, it's nice to see someone making the opposite of the classic mistake, taking current information and assuming it was true in the past, rather than taking outdated information and assuming it still applies to the present.