This message was sent to NASA employees: Point of Contact: Dean Acosta, Public Affairs, (202) 358-1400
Statement on Scientific Openness
I want to make sure that NASA employees hear directly from me on how I view the issue of scientific openness and the role of public affairs within the agency. First, NASA has always been, is, and will continue to be committed to open scientific and technical inquiry and dialogue with the public. The basis for this principle is codified in the Space Act of 1958, which requires NASA to "provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and the results thereof."
Second, the job of the Office of Public Affairs, at every level in NASA, is to convey the work done at NASA to our stakeholders in an intelligible way. It is not the job of public affairs officers to alter, filter or adjust engineering or scientific material produced by NASA's technical staff. To ensure timely release of information, there must be cooperation and coordination between our scientific and engineering community and our public affairs officers.
Third, we have identified a number of areas in which clarification and improvements to the standard operating procedures of the Office of Public Affairs can and will be made. The revised policy, when complete, will be disseminated throughout the agency.
I want to encourage employees to discuss this issue and bring their concerns to management so we can work together to ensure that NASA's policies and procedures appropriately support our commitment to openness.
just a box with that appeared randomly [...] at given locations on the screen (including points in the corners)
Did you also track the eye movements of the users? Did they look at the box in the corner before clicking it?
I would posit that moving the mouse to a screen corner *without looking at it* is faster than clicking a box which appears in the corner. The users in your test may have gotten used to boxes appearing at random screen locations, and having to look where it is so they could click on it. When the box appeared in the corner, they still looked at it, to verify it was all the way in the corner. (What if it were a few pixels away from the corner?)
UNIX utilities as first-class members of the OS and not something that clings to life within the system. Yeah I'm looking at you Cygwin!
I love my Mac at work, but I use Win2k at home. Have you tried Windows Services for UNIX? Intertix used alot of OpenBSD code in SFU, and they say it runs natively rather than through a system call emulator. However, there are not as many UNIX utilities available for SFU as for cygwin. Some additional tools are available in the Tool Warehouse
Everything supports save as PDF through printing interface. No need to use Acrobat.
I love being able to save anything to PDF, but it bugs me that Preview doesn't seem to let you fill in PDF forms. Also, you can't edit PDFs in Preview; but hey, I guess it's "free".
I have no clue whether XCode is "comparable" to MS VS.NET, but it, and the other Apple developer tools are free. It comes with any Mac, or you can download it for free (with a free ADC Student membership).
If you have any costs (other than the hardware), they might be:
ADC membership (student membership is free, non-student cost is significant)
WWDC attendance
Other apple developer training/seminars
None of the above are required. ADC membership will get you access to pre-release hardware and software to test your apps; but you're not doing commercial work, right? Apple training and the WWDC gives you insight into the inner workings of the OS, but you can get much of this info on Apple's developer website
Good point on the hardware, but I'd say leaving out the cost of the OS and the software is a serious omission. That is, unless you are going to claim Linux and Free Software are a match for OS X and iLife?
Because that's exactly how mine works. True the copying takes place inside of iTunes, but since that's where all my music is anyways why would I want to use the Finder?
You can't use the Finder and expect the songs to play. The iPod requires its song database to be updated for you to play the songs. You must use iTunes (or other software which contains reverse-engineered code to update the iPod database; e.g. EphPod) to copy songs to the iPod and expect them to play.
This cleans the registry as well (which unfortunately I haven't figured out how to do under BartPE... yet).
Just an idea -- how about using regedt32's "Add Hive" to add the registry files to a temporary key (e.g. HKU/foo)? I'm not sure if AAW and S&D would look in that temporary key, but if they do they should be able to remove it. You'll have to repeat the process for each registry ".dat" file on the system (the one for the system, and one for each user).
How small is your company? If you can afford it, Web Help Desk fits the bill. The client list is huge, and includes Apple, Filemaker, Inc., an many government and educational institutions. The software is based on Mac OS X Server (thus Apple's buy-in, I think), and you have several options for the database backend (including MySQL).
Meanwhile, additions to Tiger's [...] "Security" preference panes have unveiled [...] an option to encrypt memory when its being swapped to disk.
Wow, that's paranoia!:) I guess Apple is taking pointers from Linux users. I found this script to encrypt swap -- what other options are there under Linux? Windows?
they can require you to come in; that's up to them (and its up to you to quit if you don't like it). Only if you actually get hurt while at work or traveling to/from work would they face civil or criminal penalties.
I'm not sure how much "re-writing" is required to upgrade, I just load all my databases from the old version into the new one and let it create new files in the current format. I've never had to change the database definitions.
I had one minor issue when I upgraded my FMP3 databases to FMP7. The layout was messed up in some way, which caused the text fields to wrap right in the middle of words instead of breaking at whitespace. I had to create a new database and layout, and import the data from the other database.
This occurred on only one of my databases. Six other databases (with a nearly identical layout) worked fine.
Other than physical notice like signs or TOS agreements, is there a current way to advertise "this is a public WiFi network" over the network itself? Obviously if the library wanted they could post a sign outside that said the network was public access. But what if you want to run a public spot from your house? or apartment? A sign isn't going to be seen by everyone.
If there is no current convention, maybe it could be done by, say, sending a periodic broadcast packet on a specific port with a text message. "This network is public access" or something. Maybe there needs to be an RFC?
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This message was sent to NASA employees:
Point of Contact: Dean Acosta, Public Affairs, (202) 358-1400
Statement on Scientific Openness
I want to make sure that NASA employees hear directly from me on how I view
the issue of scientific openness and the role of public affairs within the
agency. First, NASA has always been, is, and will continue to be committed
to open scientific and technical inquiry and dialogue with the public. The
basis for this principle is codified in the Space Act of 1958, which
requires NASA to "provide for the widest practicable and appropriate
dissemination of information concerning its activities and the results
thereof."
Second, the job of the Office of Public Affairs, at every level in NASA, is
to convey the work done at NASA to our stakeholders in an intelligible way.
It is not the job of public affairs officers to alter, filter or adjust
engineering or scientific material produced by NASA's technical staff. To
ensure timely release of information, there must be cooperation and
coordination between our scientific and engineering community and our public
affairs officers.
Third, we have identified a number of areas in which clarification and
improvements to the standard operating procedures of the Office of Public
Affairs can and will be made. The revised policy, when complete, will be
disseminated throughout the agency.
I want to encourage employees to discuss this issue and bring their concerns
to management so we can work together to ensure that NASA's policies and
procedures appropriately support our commitment to openness.
Mike Griffin
NASA Administrator
just a box with that appeared randomly [...] at given locations on the screen (including points in the corners)
Did you also track the eye movements of the users? Did they look at the box in the corner before clicking it?
I would posit that moving the mouse to a screen corner *without looking at it* is faster than clicking a box which appears in the corner. The users in your test may have gotten used to boxes appearing at random screen locations, and having to look where it is so they could click on it. When the box appeared in the corner, they still looked at it, to verify it was all the way in the corner. (What if it were a few pixels away from the corner?)
If you like Password Safe, Password Gorilla uses a compatible database, and it runs on many more platforms through the use of TclTk.
I love my Mac at work, but I use Win2k at home. Have you tried Windows Services for UNIX? Intertix used alot of OpenBSD code in SFU, and they say it runs natively rather than through a system call emulator. However, there are not as many UNIX utilities available for SFU as for cygwin. Some additional tools are available in the Tool Warehouse
Everything supports save as PDF through printing interface. No need to use Acrobat.
I love being able to save anything to PDF, but it bugs me that Preview doesn't seem to let you fill in PDF forms. Also, you can't edit PDFs in Preview; but hey, I guess it's "free".
When I got my student ADC membership it was free. The $99 charge is new. :(
If you have any costs (other than the hardware), they might be:
ADC membership (student membership is free, non-student cost is significant)
WWDC attendance
Other apple developer training/seminars
None of the above are required. ADC membership will get you access to pre-release hardware and software to test your apps; but you're not doing commercial work, right? Apple training and the WWDC gives you insight into the inner workings of the OS, but you can get much of this info on Apple's developer website
Fugu is a decent BSD-style licensed GUI for SFTP, SCP and SSH tunnels
ZORG: A case with four stones in it! Not one or two or three! But four!!! Four stones!!! What the fuck am I supposed to do with an EMPTY case?!!
There's a scripting component for Python called OSA Python, and one for Javascript called Javascript OSA.
Frontier's UserTalk language is another implementation.
Sounds like the plot to a bad movie.
There are several patents related to MP3 listed here. MPEG.org has a FAQ about licensing.
Good point on the hardware, but I'd say leaving out the cost of the OS and the software is a serious omission. That is, unless you are going to claim Linux and Free Software are a match for OS X and iLife?
Where did I say it was a hardship? He said you could just copy songs using the Finder; I pointed out that you can't do that.
You can't use the Finder and expect the songs to play. The iPod requires its song database to be updated for you to play the songs. You must use iTunes (or other software which contains reverse-engineered code to update the iPod database; e.g. EphPod) to copy songs to the iPod and expect them to play.
Couldn't one simply use software like ZoneAlarm or Kerio PF to deny the programs access to the 'net?
This cleans the registry as well (which unfortunately I haven't figured out how to do under BartPE... yet).
Just an idea -- how about using regedt32's "Add Hive" to add the registry files to a temporary key (e.g. HKU/foo)? I'm not sure if AAW and S&D would look in that temporary key, but if they do they should be able to remove it. You'll have to repeat the process for each registry ".dat" file on the system (the one for the system, and one for each user).
Nature has a better article here.
I like Calculator+.
How small is your company? If you can afford it, Web Help Desk fits the bill. The client list is huge, and includes Apple, Filemaker, Inc., an many government and educational institutions. The software is based on Mac OS X Server (thus Apple's buy-in, I think), and you have several options for the database backend (including MySQL).
Meanwhile, additions to Tiger's [...] "Security" preference panes have unveiled [...] an option to encrypt memory when its being swapped to disk.
:) I guess Apple is taking pointers from Linux users. I found this script to encrypt swap -- what other options are there under Linux? Windows?
Wow, that's paranoia!
they can require you to come in; that's up to them (and its up to you to quit if you don't like it). Only if you actually get hurt while at work or traveling to/from work would they face civil or criminal penalties.
No duh! Thank you ObviousMan (TM)! ;-)
What is the resonant frequency (or range of frequencies) which causes the pneumothorax?
;-)
Hey, I see a new weapon on the horizon
I'm not sure how much "re-writing" is required to upgrade, I just load all my databases from the old version into the new one and let it create new files in the current format. I've never had to change the database definitions.
I had one minor issue when I upgraded my FMP3 databases to FMP7. The layout was messed up in some way, which caused the text fields to wrap right in the middle of words instead of breaking at whitespace. I had to create a new database and layout, and import the data from the other database.
This occurred on only one of my databases. Six other databases (with a nearly identical layout) worked fine.
Other than physical notice like signs or TOS agreements, is there a current way to advertise "this is a public WiFi network" over the network itself? Obviously if the library wanted they could post a sign outside that said the network was public access. But what if you want to run a public spot from your house? or apartment? A sign isn't going to be seen by everyone.
If there is no current convention, maybe it could be done by, say, sending a periodic broadcast packet on a specific port with a text message. "This network is public access" or something. Maybe there needs to be an RFC?