"Saturation point" implies it isn't getting any worse because it just can't. Which ignores all the anti-virus measures people are taking, some of which are actually effective.
One big change is that Microsoft has simply thrown away a lot of features that introduced security holes. For example, you used to be able to customize Windows folders by editing the hidden web page that controlled folder layout. A cool idea, but a nasty breeding ground for viruses, given the vulnerability of ActiveX web objects. Now folder customization is much more limited, and hard-wired into Explorer.
But the big difference is that attachments are less likely to make it past email filters. Or if they do, distrustful users are less likely to open them. Speaking of which, here's that file you asked for.
My departure from Borland was a tad depressing, and I no longer track product issues. The library people were pretty obsessive about that sort of thing, so if you take this problem up with somebody who still works there, you'll probably get results.
You're a bot. And a pretty goody one. Care to share your source code?
Re:My only easter egg
on
Apple Easter Egg
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I left Borland a couple years ago, and anything relating to the company is subject to traumatic amnesia. So I can't tell your how to shut off Delphi Direct. Or find the Easter Egg. But both are possible. GIYF.
You're right, it is suprising that 3 people even know what Delphi is. But then Delphi has always had the pervase, but poorly publicized following in the developer community.
I have used OS X -- and I didn't find it all that usable. Though to be honest, the biggest issue is that the whole interaction paradigm is different from what I'm used to. Possibly I'd like it more if I didn't have so many Windows GUI idioms programmed into me.
But never mind me. If you've been following the Mac topics on Slashdot, you've heard Mac people complain that a lot of the changes between OS 9 and OS X represent adding eye candy at the expense of usability. If you want to know what the issues are, I'd suggest searching the archives, instead of forcing me to dig through my feeble brain.
Actually, I think experienced thieves don't even use the cards themselves. They just sell them to people who specialize in turning them into cash. And they don't steal one card number at a time either.
Quite correct. They also waste space displaying keywords, which are for searching, not displaying. (Assuming the author bothers to specify keywords, which he usually doesn't.) Not to mention that useless document thumbnail.
But a properly-implemented info bar is still handy. The fact that nobody does implement them properly is another issue.
But the whole evolution of Microsoft's UI in the last 10 years has centered around stealing screen real estate for useless chrome, unnecessary widgets or information of no utility.
In which respect, they're not all that different from MacOS, KDE, or GNOME. All UI designers are in love with useless eye candy.
WMP 10... uses up as much space with stupid buttons, goofy widgets of questionable use, some Photoshop flunkie's shiny excretions and other useless noise, as the actual content itself (for videos obviously).
In short WMP has become "skinnable", probably the worst idea to infiltrate GUI design. The whole point of a good GUI is to make functions obvious, not pretty.
But WMP is just imitating other media players, all of which seem to devote an absurd portion of their design effort to making themselves skinnable. I belive the idea originated with WinAmp, which supports thousands of skins, ranging from the clunky to the absurd. They all seem to contribute to some strange sense of esthetic among users -- but they actually detract from the usability of the product.
Alas, usability, is just not a priority any more. It's the original reason for the switch from command lines to GUIs. But now the main purpose of a GUI seems to be to look kewl and help sell the product. Even Apple, which literally wrote the book on the subject of usability, seems to consider prettiness a higher priority.
Anyway, I don't consider a info bar to be a major GUI design flaw. It's darned handy to get file details without having to bring up a properties box.
If an employee leaves its because his employer was not making the employee happy.
Nonsense. Being pissed off is not the only reason to leave your job. There's career strategy, returning to school, wanting/needing to relocate, etc. etc.
I once worked for a year writing technical support docs at a big computer company. I had good relatships with my boss, her boss, and my co-workers. I was just a contractor, but they treated me like a member of the team, and there was talk of my going permanent. But I wanted to be an API writer, so when I got a chance to do that, I gave notice.
My contract was day-to-day, so legally, I didn't even owe them two weeks notice. But it would have been totally unfair to leave these people in the lurch. Unprofessional, even if these guys weren't my friends. So I hung around for a month so they could find a replacement and I could spend some time bringing her up to speed. They were reasonably nice about the whole thing, and even footed the bill for the traditional goodbye lunch.
A lot of bosses treat their employees like shit, and they don't deserve any more consideration than you absolutely have to give them. But you should never screw over a friend, even if he happens to be your boss.
Most of the people who are uncomfortable with Paypal are the ones who think whining about it makes them seem experienced or intelligent.
I'm sorry, but that's a bigoted, arrogant attitude. There are a lot of legitimate complaints against Paypal relating to poor customer support and indiscriminate anti-fraud measure that often victimize innocent people. Even the complaints against Paypal that don't have a legitimate basis are mostly from people who can't accept that Paypal doesn't indemnify against fraud. Which is certainly lame, but not the sort of nonsense you describe.
That said, Paypal is my first choice for all online transactions. Every system has problems, but Paypal doesn't do all that badly, compared to the alternatives.
What you say is quite true, but kind of beside the point. What Microsoft deprecates is fixed-size swap files. Of course, that means they don't like you to have a special swap partition -- but that's just by implication, since a swap partition implies a fixed-size swap file.
Honestly, I wonder why people take the high and mighty road. The number one problem with computers is people simply don't understand them. The number one way to solve this problem is to educate the user about these little facets of the OS.
It is helpful to educate about system features they have interact with from day to day. But teach them all the little low-level features of the OS? Few users have the background, time, or patience.
In any case, this article sucks. It's on an overdesigned server with a weird dynamic page generation thing that seems to malfunction under the slightest load -- so simply reading the article straight through is painful-to-impossible, depending on the degree of Slashdotting. And the author doesn't understand the technical concepts all that well anyway.
Oh come on. I have had to clean up enough customers' computers to know they find ways to do stupid things.
Perfectly true. (Perhaps you've heard the saying, "There's no such thing as a foolproof system, because fools are very clever.") But that still doesn't explain what you're afraid a naive user could do to a swap file.
I keep a 2 gig partition with a fixed-size swap file on my WinXP box. Set the registry key to ignore "out of space" warnings for that drive, remove read privileges from everybody to that drive, and you basically have an invisible, un-fragmentable swap file that is invincible to user stupidity...
A logical strategy, but one that Microsoft strongly deprecates. Don't ask me to explain why, I don't understand either. Maybe their logic is, "We have this clever scheme for an adaptable page file, and if you don't use it you're a jerk!"
But I don't get the "invincible to user stupidity" bit. Are you afraid that your wife will somehow delete the paging file? I'm pretty sure that's not possible.
Another reasonable scheme (only good after you've defragmented the page file, or before its had a chance to fragment) is to specify a fixed size page file -- you just specify the maximum and minimum as the same. Not quite as efficient as your scheme, but a little easier to set up.
Let's not take "official" trek history too seriously. TOS has the Eugenics Wars starting in 1993. TNG and First Contact has civilization more or less collapsing in the near future.
One thing I can't abide about Trekkies is their compulsive need to tie up all loose ends and resolve all inconsistencies, no matter how trivial or uninteresting. The purpose of background is to help tell a story, not the other way around.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, they're just floundering.
One big change is that Microsoft has simply thrown away a lot of features that introduced security holes. For example, you used to be able to customize Windows folders by editing the hidden web page that controlled folder layout. A cool idea, but a nasty breeding ground for viruses, given the vulnerability of ActiveX web objects. Now folder customization is much more limited, and hard-wired into Explorer.
But the big difference is that attachments are less likely to make it past email filters. Or if they do, distrustful users are less likely to open them. Speaking of which, here's that file you asked for.
My departure from Borland was a tad depressing, and I no longer track product issues. The library people were pretty obsessive about that sort of thing, so if you take this problem up with somebody who still works there, you'll probably get results.
You're a bot. And a pretty goody one. Care to share your source code?
You're right, it is suprising that 3 people even know what Delphi is. But then Delphi has always had the pervase, but poorly publicized following in the developer community.
RTFA. The file was not easy to find. Probably there's a magic command to play it.
If you can find the easter egg in Delphi 7, I'm the guy holding the giant plastic rat.
But never mind me. If you've been following the Mac topics on Slashdot, you've heard Mac people complain that a lot of the changes between OS 9 and OS X represent adding eye candy at the expense of usability. If you want to know what the issues are, I'd suggest searching the archives, instead of forcing me to dig through my feeble brain.
Actually, I think experienced thieves don't even use the cards themselves. They just sell them to people who specialize in turning them into cash. And they don't steal one card number at a time either.
But a properly-implemented info bar is still handy. The fact that nobody does implement them properly is another issue.
But WMP is just imitating other media players, all of which seem to devote an absurd portion of their design effort to making themselves skinnable. I belive the idea originated with WinAmp, which supports thousands of skins, ranging from the clunky to the absurd. They all seem to contribute to some strange sense of esthetic among users -- but they actually detract from the usability of the product.
Alas, usability, is just not a priority any more. It's the original reason for the switch from command lines to GUIs. But now the main purpose of a GUI seems to be to look kewl and help sell the product. Even Apple, which literally wrote the book on the subject of usability, seems to consider prettiness a higher priority.
Anyway, I don't consider a info bar to be a major GUI design flaw. It's darned handy to get file details without having to bring up a properties box.
I once worked for a year writing technical support docs at a big computer company. I had good relatships with my boss, her boss, and my co-workers. I was just a contractor, but they treated me like a member of the team, and there was talk of my going permanent. But I wanted to be an API writer, so when I got a chance to do that, I gave notice.
My contract was day-to-day, so legally, I didn't even owe them two weeks notice. But it would have been totally unfair to leave these people in the lurch. Unprofessional, even if these guys weren't my friends. So I hung around for a month so they could find a replacement and I could spend some time bringing her up to speed. They were reasonably nice about the whole thing, and even footed the bill for the traditional goodbye lunch.
A lot of bosses treat their employees like shit, and they don't deserve any more consideration than you absolutely have to give them. But you should never screw over a friend, even if he happens to be your boss.
Not a darn thing -- if you do it once. But thieves never can stop with just one score.
That said, Paypal is my first choice for all online transactions. Every system has problems, but Paypal doesn't do all that badly, compared to the alternatives.
What you say is quite true, but kind of beside the point. What Microsoft deprecates is fixed-size swap files. Of course, that means they don't like you to have a special swap partition -- but that's just by implication, since a swap partition implies a fixed-size swap file.
In any case, this article sucks. It's on an overdesigned server with a weird dynamic page generation thing that seems to malfunction under the slightest load -- so simply reading the article straight through is painful-to-impossible, depending on the degree of Slashdotting. And the author doesn't understand the technical concepts all that well anyway.
But I don't get the "invincible to user stupidity" bit. Are you afraid that your wife will somehow delete the paging file? I'm pretty sure that's not possible.
Another reasonable scheme (only good after you've defragmented the page file, or before its had a chance to fragment) is to specify a fixed size page file -- you just specify the maximum and minimum as the same. Not quite as efficient as your scheme, but a little easier to set up.
Second, Newhart's gimmick was non-lame, and therefore should not be mentioned in this context!
One thing I can't abide about Trekkies is their compulsive need to tie up all loose ends and resolve all inconsistencies, no matter how trivial or uninteresting. The purpose of background is to help tell a story, not the other way around.
It isn't what Braga says. It's what the network says. Which is basically, "We paid you millions of dollars for this???!!!"
If you wanted to con millions of people into watching a lame TV show about your breakup, then it would be a "very special breakup"!