Yeah, that's correct. You'd have to use OpenDNS (or something), but after that (if they're not intercepting IP packets), you're good to go.
This is a special case for Slashdot, because it has a bunch of other virtual sites (apple.slashdot.org, etc.). For many sites, you can can go directly to the main site with just the IP address.
1) They ban slashdot.org using PROTECT-IP. I.e., they direct your ISP's DNS server not to return 216.34.181.45 when a client (you) asks what "slashdot.org" is.
In that case, you can (hopefully) use OpenDNS or Google DNS instead of your ISP's DNS. So, you use an alternative DNS, and find out slashdot.org is 216.34.181.45.
You can still access 216.34.181.45 because mucking with DNS isn't the same as banning access to the IP address (though they might do that separately).
I.e., they're preventing access to the directory service, not preventing you from dialing a specific phone number.
2) Your ISP also intercepts and redirects DNS requests anywhere (including to OpenDNS). If so, that's tough. Possibly you might be able to access an encrypted DNS server.
3) Your ISP intercepts and prevents access to 216.34.181.45. In this case, you have to do what Iranians and Chinese do: use a proxy server.
>Does Nordstrom have to advertise for The Bon Marche?
In regards of Facebook:
1. Maybe, according to federal anti-trust law. Whether that's a good or bad thing is different matter.
2. In a sense, Facebook can do anything it wants. But, then, so can users. There's a tipping point where users will abandon it (as they did with Friendster and MySpace). I doubt if this is the tipping point, though.
All these patents start off with "a method and system for blah".
But where's the method?
All this is, is a bland description of how such a system might work. It's not a system or method itself.
This is so pathetic the lawyer$ didn't even bother to create complete sentences:
[0048] Till date presently available web technologies and other communication media are more or less passive in nature. The concept of blogging providing an effective active medium for knowledge sharing. Still is restrictive and lacks organizer and other management mechanisms to derive most relevant as well as real time knowledge through active dialog.
Is that a sentence?
If this is the state of tech patents today, it's truly pathetic. This is nothing more than a UserLand-esque rant in legalese on current and future possibilities in e-mail.
But for your average ho-hum corporate HR data-entry app? Web's it.
No installation. Stateless. Testable. Cross-platform. Copy-pastable. Font-resizable. Scriptable. If it's written right, you can bookmark locations within the app with hypertext. Try that with a normal application. And also get/set information. See REST
I'll agree that many corporate web apps aren't written correctly. They're not written for heads-down data entry. But's that not to say they couldn't be.
After a 4-char field is filled up, use Javascript to move to the next field automatically. Associate labels to fields. Set keyboard mnemonics for fields (Alt+letter)--it's in the HTML spec. Order the fields for easy, logical tab order.
Don't force the user to use the mouse to save the record and move to the next one.
Can you name other problems you have with webapps vs. desktop?
1) "After being ordered by the Belgian courts to 'remove from its Google.be and Google.com sites, and in particular, cached links visible on Google Web and the Google News service, all articles, photographs and graphics of daily newspapers published in French and German by Belgian publishers,'
2) Google had removed all traces of the newspapers in question from all its search services.
#2 is the exact thing the court ordered in #1, right?
So why, O, why, are the publishers whining in #3:
3) The newspapers, however, are crying foul, and alleged that it was done in retaliation for being sued for copyright violations."
The joke was not that iPhone is a proprietary platform (in fact, it is, just like Windows, and a lot of other platforms).
The joke was the irony in Steve Ballmer, head of the company famous for its "DOS isn't done till Lotus doesn't run" proprietary platform hypothetically complaining about another's proprietariness.
This hypothetical scenario, constructed for the purpose of eliciting a humorous reaction, was supposed to be a parody of the actual situation described in the headline, wherein the head (Mark Z) of a company dedicated to data mining is supposed to have complained about his data being mined by another company (Google).
The fact that I'm spelling this joke out in minute detail on Slashdot is meta-funny.
OK, you might not like the source, for whatever reason. But:
"In reading the Daubert briefing, it appears possible that early on Google recognized that it would infringe patents protecting at least part of Java, entered into negotiations with Sun [Microsystems] to obtain a license for use in Android, then abandoned the negotiations as too expensive, and pushed home with Android without any license at all," Alsup wrote in the letter filed in US District Court for the Northern District of California.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Richard Stallman's famous parable about the Right to Read, and what will happen if intellectual monopoly laws continue to grow.
It's amazing how RMS, obstinate as he is, has been so prescient.
The story's about what will happen when we're all converted to electronic books.
Yeah, that's correct. You'd have to use OpenDNS (or something), but after that (if they're not intercepting IP packets), you're good to go.
This is a special case for Slashdot, because it has a bunch of other virtual sites (apple.slashdot.org, etc.). For many sites, you can can go directly to the main site with just the IP address.
>you can rest assured the src and dst IPs on every single one of those packets is recorded and linked to your account.
Really? What kind of storage space would be required to keep track of every single packet, src, dest, + time and size?
Why stop there? Why not record the entire contents of every IP conversation?
I'd think it would be easier to do a usage = usage + x every few packets or so to keep track of usage.
Scenarios:
1) They ban slashdot.org using PROTECT-IP. I.e., they direct your ISP's DNS server not to return 216.34.181.45 when a client (you) asks what "slashdot.org" is.
In that case, you can (hopefully) use OpenDNS or Google DNS instead of your ISP's DNS. So, you use an alternative DNS, and find out slashdot.org is 216.34.181.45.
You can still access 216.34.181.45 because mucking with DNS isn't the same as banning access to the IP address (though they might do that separately).
I.e., they're preventing access to the directory service, not preventing you from dialing a specific phone number.
2) Your ISP also intercepts and redirects DNS requests anywhere (including to OpenDNS). If so, that's tough. Possibly you might be able to access an encrypted DNS server.
3) Your ISP intercepts and prevents access to 216.34.181.45. In this case, you have to do what Iranians and Chinese do: use a proxy server.
That is the true IP address. After it's told to redirect to slashdot.org, it looks up slashdot.org, which is 216.34.181.45.
No, it's not a circular path.
In the first instance, you're asking for the HTTP server at 216.34.181.45 .
In the second, you're asking the HTTP server at 216.34.181.45 for the virtual site "slashdot.org".
What annoys me is how they want you to sign up even to view pages.
Strangely, though, it's able to be made available to googlebot. Hence, you can search for a page, and then view Google's cache of it.
>Does Nordstrom have to advertise for The Bon Marche?
In regards of Facebook:
1. Maybe, according to federal anti-trust law. Whether that's a good or bad thing is different matter.
2. In a sense, Facebook can do anything it wants. But, then, so can users. There's a tipping point where users will abandon it (as they did with Friendster and MySpace). I doubt if this is the tipping point, though.
Also, is "Kootol" supposed to be TooKool reversed and mangled? Lame.
All these patents start off with "a method and system for blah".
But where's the method?
All this is, is a bland description of how such a system might work. It's not a system or method itself.
This is so pathetic the lawyer$ didn't even bother to create complete sentences:
Is that a sentence?
If this is the state of tech patents today, it's truly pathetic. This is nothing more than a UserLand-esque rant in legalese on current and future possibilities in e-mail.
Also see here.
A lot of companies have ads set to display when a user searches for their company name. That's not apparently the case for Facebook.
But has anybody seen a Facebook ad in the context of any other search terms on Google?
Sounds like you've been around. Do you have a blog?
OK, I'll grant that webapps aren't the best for *everything*.
Specifically, mining or other industrial control or information apps where you have to have a highly customized user interface. Stuff like:
http://platform.netbeans.org/screenshots.html
or
Palantir
But for your average ho-hum corporate HR data-entry app? Web's it.
No installation. Stateless. Testable. Cross-platform. Copy-pastable. Font-resizable. Scriptable.
If it's written right, you can bookmark locations within the app with hypertext. Try that with a normal application. And also get/set information. See REST
I'll agree that many corporate web apps aren't written correctly. They're not written for heads-down data entry. But's that not to say they couldn't be.
After a 4-char field is filled up, use Javascript to move to the next field automatically. Associate labels to fields. Set keyboard mnemonics for fields (Alt+letter)--it's in the HTML spec. Order the fields for easy, logical tab order.
Don't force the user to use the mouse to save the record and move to the next one.
Can you name other problems you have with webapps vs. desktop?
>In the USA you can patent a white webpage with a box and two buttons in the middle (Google did).
Do you have a link that talks about a patent for the Google home page?
I know they have a patent on PageRank, but that's a different matter.
LOL, in a govt search engine, all sites would be equal.
So of course, they'd all have to display on page 1.
But in a random order?
See this story from today about the government and randomness:
Green Card Lottery Judgment Favors Mathematical Randomness
Given the ridiculousness of the plaintiffs, how can Google assume a link would be fine?
Doesn't a link need to have the name of the site? Or of the newspaper?
The newspaper could then claim copyright on the title of the newspaper.
>I assume it was the lawyers idea just to take it to court...
That's a fair assumption.
You: Should we sue?
Lawyer: Yes.
You: Should I get an operation?
Surgeon: Yes.
You: Should I spent hundreds of millions on NYCTime?
Web firm: Yes.
Help me out:
#2 is the exact thing the court ordered in #1, right?
So why, O, why, are the publishers whining in #3:
Yeah, this.
The worst thing is when someone wants to give you a test on syntax minutiae for language $X.
Regardless of the fact that, to put together the average project, you have to be able to use 5 or 6 languages.
Does anybody know of a mini tower case that's functional, toolless (both for case and HDD), and also doesn't look "cool" ?
I.e., no glow lights, cutouts, etc.?
Way to go mentioning gender.
Now we all know it can only have been one of, what, 3 people?
The point of the bill is to stop the court ruling that says you might have to collect sales taxes.
So, in effect, the bill would be restoring the status quo ante.
So, I think you (and me, and other users of Rackspace et alia) want this bill to pass.
The joke was not that iPhone is a proprietary platform (in fact, it is, just like Windows, and a lot of other platforms).
The joke was the irony in Steve Ballmer, head of the company famous for its "DOS isn't done till Lotus doesn't run" proprietary platform hypothetically complaining about another's proprietariness.
This hypothetical scenario, constructed for the purpose of eliciting a humorous reaction, was supposed to be a parody of the actual situation described in the headline, wherein the head (Mark Z) of a company dedicated to data mining is supposed to have complained about his data being mined by another company (Google).
The fact that I'm spelling this joke out in minute detail on Slashdot is meta-funny.
Yeah, the suit against MS was one billion dollar lawsuit that geeks cheered on. The reason for the suit was MS fracturing Java.
Of course, that's what Google's doing with Android, as well.
The reason it gets a pass is simply because it's Google.
OK, you might not like the source, for whatever reason. But:
That's the judge, not J. Random Blogger.
Steve Ballmer says he doesn't want to a buy an iPhone over proprietary software concerns.
Timothy Geithner is worried that we're spending too much on the FDIC program.
And Fox News is banning MSNBC from their studios over 'bias'.