Cool little article, although, I have heard of synaptics before - actually L-O-N-G before. Anyone who installed Linux on an old HP laptop can tell you that!
Yep, I remember getting a little standalone synaptics touchpad in 1996 as a novelty from a local computer junk store (microcache for anyone in Houston who knows of them - they bought the enron E monument at auction and have it in a small shrine now).
Any way, some people totally loved it (the touchpad) and one guy now has them on all his computers (even desktops) instead of a mouse.
Must everybody in the world have thier own broswer these days? We are already plagued by interoperability in browsers, Operating Systems, Instant messengers, etc... I know it's always good to have a choice, but not when it's this complicated. I support multiple choices, but I'd like them all to at least work, as well as work together.
You know, if everyone just stuck with the standards, this would be a non-issue.
True, but I think the important effect is that it would ensure that the end user has a clean method of energy generation. Once we have that, and we converted to, say, wind or nuclear power, we could concentrate a significantly reduced (and much easier contained) source of pollution, and deal with it more effectively.
How many third party toolbars, BHOs, etc do you have installed? I've found that pretty much every time someone whines about how insecure and unstable windows is, it's because they've installed something that broke it.
In case anyone is wondering about Download.Ject, check this link out. It's only a matter of time until a high-volume site gets compromised with this exploit. Scary stuff.
I've tested this on several machines with different versions of IE, windows SP, and such. It hasn't worked on a single one. I'm going to say this is FUD.
About that fusion
on
Odds-on Science
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Um, can't we make a sustained nuclear fusion reaction right now? I thought the only problem was setting it up in a way that it made more energy than it took to contain and cool.
This, of course, completely disregards the simple fact that there are zillions of stars that are doing it right now.
With Windows I have to log in as another user, either temporarily or permanently. Both are more painful than OSX's way. Patently incorrect. You can either manually execute something as another user (to run it as the local administrator, you just enter the password into the dialog). When you insert media containing a program installation (well, when the vendor, you know, followed the simple directions from MS), the system will automatically prompt you for the admin password to let you install it.
That's because the users demand it. Windows was made to have the "regular" user not have admin rights. Because of a combination of lazy/ignorant software vendors and lazy users listening to them, most people log on as an admin and run anything anyone tells them to. "It's just easier". They bought the computer, you can't really force them to set it up how you want.
On windows, using run as often doesn't work right because spawned programs revert to your user context (though not always? I'm not sure what's going on there), and many processes spawn new processes to do their dirty work. Even a lot of installs work this way, unfortunately. Not sure what you're experiencing. A process is launched in the security context of its parent (unless that parent specifically requests it be launched under a different context, and it has to specify the exact user, etc).
The only way I can think of for your programs to be doing this is if they're doing some kind of funky junk using the shell/desktop to get it to launch the programs for them. This is a rather convoluted procedure, even when you're using the shell script host - they'd have to actually go through a lot more trouble to get it to do that then to just launch a child process in their context.
On windows, there's only one program I've had any problems with running in a context different from the rest of the console. That's part of activesync, when you have the main part running as a user, and another part used to register an installed program that needs to talk with the first part. If they're running as different users, they can't communicate, but you can't launch a new "main part" since it checks to see if one is already running.
Running IE6 SP1 on windows xp sp2. I saw the script actions (looked like the mouse was dragging something, consistent with the documentation on the page), but nothing else happened. Oh, and my virus scanner is disabled too.
Actually it does work. It often works very well. The problem is that the girls it works on are incredibly shallow. So shallow, in fact, that a static guidebook can demonstrate exactly how they'll behave in a wide variety of situations. I find the techniques described in it to be incredibly useful for pointing out the girls that I don't need to waste time on.
I got one of these last year the the intention of doing this. The problem is that if you use the four way thumb pad as a shifter, it sends the finger key(s) held again when the thumb pad is released. I eventually got to typing on it, but that "feature" severely limited my speed.
I haven't seen anything from them lately that hasn't been a (weak) attempt to lock you into their proprietary (now-)second-rate import electronics. Seriously, it's bad enough that nothing they make is at all above low-to-average quality, but now they want to lock you into it? No way.
Slashdot Mirror
May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits. I don't think I'll get anything done for the rest of the day.
Cool little article, although, I have heard of synaptics before - actually L-O-N-G before. Anyone who installed Linux on an old HP laptop can tell you that!
Yep, I remember getting a little standalone synaptics touchpad in 1996 as a novelty from a local computer junk store (microcache for anyone in Houston who knows of them - they bought the enron E monument at auction and have it in a small shrine now).
Any way, some people totally loved it (the touchpad) and one guy now has them on all his computers (even desktops) instead of a mouse.
No, just implies that they don't want to follow it.
Must everybody in the world have thier own broswer these days? We are already plagued by interoperability in browsers, Operating Systems, Instant messengers, etc... I know it's always good to have a choice, but not when it's this complicated. I support multiple choices, but I'd like them all to at least work, as well as work together.
You know, if everyone just stuck with the standards, this would be a non-issue.
You can trademark "futurecast".
Keep this news away from Jack, cause when Valenti hears this shit he'll have a heart attack!
We can only hope.
And this is different from any of his other star trek appearances how?
That's happened to me several times. I've removed my submissions and won't bother to make any more.
but that wouldn't happen, you'd have to scramble to boost electricity generation, and you'd just entrench the fossil-fuel industry even more.
Factor in politics, and I can't say that's not the likely outcome.
True, but I think the important effect is that it would ensure that the end user has a clean method of energy generation. Once we have that, and we converted to, say, wind or nuclear power, we could concentrate a significantly reduced (and much easier contained) source of pollution, and deal with it more effectively.
How many third party toolbars, BHOs, etc do you have installed? I've found that pretty much every time someone whines about how insecure and unstable windows is, it's because they've installed something that broke it.
In case anyone is wondering about Download.Ject, check this link out. It's only a matter of time until a high-volume site gets compromised with this exploit. Scary stuff.
I've tested this on several machines with different versions of IE, windows SP, and such. It hasn't worked on a single one. I'm going to say this is FUD.
Um, can't we make a sustained nuclear fusion reaction right now? I thought the only problem was setting it up in a way that it made more energy than it took to contain and cool.
This, of course, completely disregards the simple fact that there are zillions of stars that are doing it right now.
With Windows I have to log in as another user, either temporarily or permanently. Both are more painful than OSX's way.
Patently incorrect. You can either manually execute something as another user (to run it as the local administrator, you just enter the password into the dialog). When you insert media containing a program installation (well, when the vendor, you know, followed the simple directions from MS), the system will automatically prompt you for the admin password to let you install it.
That's because the users demand it. Windows was made to have the "regular" user not have admin rights. Because of a combination of lazy/ignorant software vendors and lazy users listening to them, most people log on as an admin and run anything anyone tells them to. "It's just easier". They bought the computer, you can't really force them to set it up how you want.
On windows, using run as often doesn't work right because spawned programs revert to your user context (though not always? I'm not sure what's going on there), and many processes spawn new processes to do their dirty work. Even a lot of installs work this way, unfortunately.
Not sure what you're experiencing. A process is launched in the security context of its parent (unless that parent specifically requests it be launched under a different context, and it has to specify the exact user, etc).
The only way I can think of for your programs to be doing this is if they're doing some kind of funky junk using the shell/desktop to get it to launch the programs for them. This is a rather convoluted procedure, even when you're using the shell script host - they'd have to actually go through a lot more trouble to get it to do that then to just launch a child process in their context.
On windows, there's only one program I've had any problems with running in a context different from the rest of the console. That's part of activesync, when you have the main part running as a user, and another part used to register an installed program that needs to talk with the first part. If they're running as different users, they can't communicate, but you can't launch a new "main part" since it checks to see if one is already running.
Running IE6 SP1 on windows xp sp2. I saw the script actions (looked like the mouse was dragging something, consistent with the documentation on the page), but nothing else happened. Oh, and my virus scanner is disabled too.
Actually it does work. It often works very well. The problem is that the girls it works on are incredibly shallow. So shallow, in fact, that a static guidebook can demonstrate exactly how they'll behave in a wide variety of situations. I find the techniques described in it to be incredibly useful for pointing out the girls that I don't need to waste time on.
"Digital Restrictions Management"
Get it right.
Sounds right to me. Problem is I don't have the kind of magic needed to hack drivers, so I'm stuck with what they give me.
I got one of these last year the the intention of doing this. The problem is that if you use the four way thumb pad as a shifter, it sends the finger key(s) held again when the thumb pad is released. I eventually got to typing on it, but that "feature" severely limited my speed.
It's been a long time since I've actually groaned aloud from reading a slashdot headline. Eh, thanks I guess.
I was seriously considering it, but the initial cost is steep (eg the projector). Might be doing it for movies at a friend's house soon though.
I haven't seen anything from them lately that hasn't been a (weak) attempt to lock you into their proprietary (now-)second-rate import electronics. Seriously, it's bad enough that nothing they make is at all above low-to-average quality, but now they want to lock you into it? No way.
I was wondering if that immediately popped into anyone else's head.