Why do all the photos look like they are of Portland in its Drugstore Cowboy era? I keep expecting to see Matt Dillon dragging Heather Graham's corpse into an attic with 11:38 written on her T-shirt.
One thing that is not often mentioned is how the online format differs from print. You can thumb through -- even read cover to cover -- a magazine at Barnes and Nobles, and then decide whether you want to buy it or not. But when you buy online, you are taking much more of a gamble.
As far as subscriptions go, I think most web content is too untested and green. I subscribe to the WSJ online, but that's not a fair comparison since online is cheaper than the print version -- and comes with other value added elements. After years of reading the WSJ in print, I know what to expect with my subscription. Online publishers will have to demonstrate a strong level of value, either in the content or additional services, in order to make subscribing worthwhile.
Well, I for one am slightly relieved: Relieved to know that Philip Greenspun probably had nothing to do with that ridiculous graphic that appeared recently on the ArsDigita homepage (www.arsdigita.com). What is that supposed to mean? We're (our eyes) are open for ebusiness (fuzzy focused earlobe)? First time I saw it, I thought Philip must be in a coma for that to have made it through the concept stages. Glad to know he's not ill, just no longer part of ArsDigita, and I look forward to seeing what he does next.
All the ad hominem attacks aside, Greenspun is a writer and thinker of significant clarity. Agree with him or disagree with him, but you always know where he stands and what he believes in. Even though I don't know anyone at ArsDigita and had no idea he'd left, I knew when I read this stupid piece of corporate bullshit that the real Philip Greenspun could never have had anything to do with it. Think I'll use it next time I teach George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language."
So, I'm relieved. Relieved to know that someone like Philip Greenspun hadn't turned into just another corporate hack who can't even say what his company is about without confusing more than he clarified.
RE: "all these books seem to be written for people who have had about 20 years of programming experience."
I'm a corporate hack writer who learned HTML so that I didn't have to sit through one more meeting with a LAN administrator appointed "webmaster" who was armed only with a passing ability to operate Microsoft FrontPage telling me why something on our website HAD to be this way or that way. Surprise -- I found I enjoyed it. Soon I wanted to move beyond static pages, and began learning PHP/MySQL. I've played around with Perl, PostgreSQL, and Javascript, too, but on a more limited basis. Six months and several successful web projects later, this English major is beginning to understand and enjoy the programmer's view of the world.
However, I'm still enough of a newbie to remember what I had trouble with. I think one of the "dangers" of PHP is that it is fairly easy to get quick results, but that means people like me who don't have a solid background in the technology are opening themselves up to security risks. For instance, it took me weeks and weeks to understand why my hosting company recommended using php cgiwrap, particularly with MySQL. Once I got smart, it was a shock to find out that php cgiwrap doesn't work with their SSL service . . . . which seems to leave my secure pages more at risk than the unencrypted pages. Although I've benefitted from all the websites and books mentioned above (as well as Julie Meloni's PHP Essentials), what I've found most lacking is good information on security issues for people like me, would-be web application developers who don't have a good technical grasp of networking and webserver technology. Most of the books and tutorials throw in a brief section about security, but only after lines and lines of coding examples that don't address security issues at all.
Anyone got a recommendation on a good resource that provides a strong introduction to security for people who come to web programming from -- um -- the liberal arts, rather than computer science?
I have a Sony Mavica F81, which I love specifically because it does exactly what you say: I can take my pictures, full up a storage unit (floppy disk), change it and take some more. I can go out in the morning with $10 worth of floppies and a recharger that plugs into my van's lighter, and I can take all the pictures I care to. No muss. No fuss. And photos that are great for publishing on the web.
In a discussion on OpenACS.org, one of the project leaders said that there is a pervasive programming error in the ACS toolkit that breaks atomicity and makes "Oracle an expensive version of MySQL." Although this alleged error is supposedly being fixed, it raises a question (beyond the obvious one): if true, how come photo.net has been able to meet its heavy loads? Is Oracle really as necessary as Greenspun argues?
Slashdot Mirror
You might recommend to the author of this webpage that he or she look up "then" and "than" in a dictionary.
Why do all the photos look like they are of Portland in its Drugstore Cowboy era? I keep expecting to see Matt Dillon dragging Heather Graham's corpse into an attic with 11:38 written on her T-shirt.
I know a woman who said she was in labor for 24 hours . . . . I wouldn't even want to do something that feels GOOD for 24 hours.
One thing that is not often mentioned is how the online format differs from print. You can thumb through -- even read cover to cover -- a magazine at Barnes and Nobles, and then decide whether you want to buy it or not. But when you buy online, you are taking much more of a gamble. As far as subscriptions go, I think most web content is too untested and green. I subscribe to the WSJ online, but that's not a fair comparison since online is cheaper than the print version -- and comes with other value added elements. After years of reading the WSJ in print, I know what to expect with my subscription. Online publishers will have to demonstrate a strong level of value, either in the content or additional services, in order to make subscribing worthwhile.
The Boston Globe chimes in.
All the ad hominem attacks aside, Greenspun is a writer and thinker of significant clarity. Agree with him or disagree with him, but you always know where he stands and what he believes in. Even though I don't know anyone at ArsDigita and had no idea he'd left, I knew when I read this stupid piece of corporate bullshit that the real Philip Greenspun could never have had anything to do with it. Think I'll use it next time I teach George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language." So, I'm relieved. Relieved to know that someone like Philip Greenspun hadn't turned into just another corporate hack who can't even say what his company is about without confusing more than he clarified.
RE: "all these books seem to be written for people who have had about 20 years of programming experience." I'm a corporate hack writer who learned HTML so that I didn't have to sit through one more meeting with a LAN administrator appointed "webmaster" who was armed only with a passing ability to operate Microsoft FrontPage telling me why something on our website HAD to be this way or that way. Surprise -- I found I enjoyed it. Soon I wanted to move beyond static pages, and began learning PHP/MySQL. I've played around with Perl, PostgreSQL, and Javascript, too, but on a more limited basis. Six months and several successful web projects later, this English major is beginning to understand and enjoy the programmer's view of the world. However, I'm still enough of a newbie to remember what I had trouble with. I think one of the "dangers" of PHP is that it is fairly easy to get quick results, but that means people like me who don't have a solid background in the technology are opening themselves up to security risks. For instance, it took me weeks and weeks to understand why my hosting company recommended using php cgiwrap, particularly with MySQL. Once I got smart, it was a shock to find out that php cgiwrap doesn't work with their SSL service . . . . which seems to leave my secure pages more at risk than the unencrypted pages. Although I've benefitted from all the websites and books mentioned above (as well as Julie Meloni's PHP Essentials), what I've found most lacking is good information on security issues for people like me, would-be web application developers who don't have a good technical grasp of networking and webserver technology. Most of the books and tutorials throw in a brief section about security, but only after lines and lines of coding examples that don't address security issues at all. Anyone got a recommendation on a good resource that provides a strong introduction to security for people who come to web programming from -- um -- the liberal arts, rather than computer science?
I have a Sony Mavica F81, which I love specifically because it does exactly what you say: I can take my pictures, full up a storage unit (floppy disk), change it and take some more. I can go out in the morning with $10 worth of floppies and a recharger that plugs into my van's lighter, and I can take all the pictures I care to. No muss. No fuss. And photos that are great for publishing on the web.
In a discussion on OpenACS.org, one of the project leaders said that there is a pervasive programming error in the ACS toolkit that breaks atomicity and makes "Oracle an expensive version of MySQL." Although this alleged error is supposedly being fixed, it raises a question (beyond the obvious one): if true, how come photo.net has been able to meet its heavy loads? Is Oracle really as necessary as Greenspun argues?