Several years ago I finally figured out a few things.
If I do one thing at a time it gets done faster, and with better results than if I try to multitask.
If I get out for exercize - any exercize - a couple of times a week I feel better and can work more productively.
If I limit work to something like 9-5 (well, actually 10-4) I get more done, with better results.
If I have interests outside work like art, or film, or reading, or just hiking in the woods, my work improves.
Despite the Wal-Martization of work in North America, it remains true that a healthy, balanced lifestyle allows you to work faster and more productively.
Yes, the less that I work, the more that I am able to do.
The old joke goes "How many lesbians does it take to change a light bulb?" The response of course is "ONE! And it's not funny!"
Go ahead and laugh, the Church if Mac types won't get it anyhow.
(this post written on a G4 Powerbook which unbelievably has not changed my life in any signifcant way and which does almost nothing better than my PC!)
All well and good, but the real step needed for OSS CMS is to create one that an average user can administer. By "average" I mean anyone who isn't a hard core code geek. The kind of person who is comfortable installing these systems to their server, but who is more interested in tweaking the look and adding content than spending hours figuring out the arcane thinking of the people who wrote the code.
I've tried Joomla, as well as few other top rated CMS, and found all of them pretty much imcomprehensible. I'm sure that there is some underlying logic to the Administration of each of these systems, but I have failed to find it. Terminology, functionality, it all cries out for testing by real users.
Blog software like Wordpress has managed to make Administration nice, understandable, and constantly improving, so why can't CMS like Joomla do the same?
And of course, they really do need some real documentation, not half baked wikis and forums.
Part of your problem is that phone companies, and cel providers in particular are re-assigning numbers faster than before.
In days of yore when you surrendered a phone number it would sit dormant for enough time that callers would stop using it.
These days your "new" number may have belonged to someone else only a few weeks ago. Consequently you get calls from people that they knew. Usually at 3 AM.
I had one phone that got calls every few hours from one particular phone number, but from different people. Near as I can tell it had been written on a washroom wall, right by the pay phone...
What really annoys me is that Joker didn't post anything until two days later. When I COULD get to joker.com, I found nothing at all about the attack. It wasn't until Saturday that I finally got some information. The attack had been going on since Thursday that I know of.
The following was posted to their website as early as Thursday:
"Joker.com currently experiences massive distributed denial of service attacks against nameservers. This affects DNS resolution of Joker.com itself, and also domains which make use of Joker.com nameservers. We are very sorry for this issue, but we are working hard for a permanent solution. Thank you for your understanding,
The DDOS attack was actually middle of last week. Joker.com is now operating fine. Timeliness is important when one posts stuff like this, or at least enough editorial sense to edit for the past tense and to check out what is being said.
I've used joker.com for years. It's significantly cheaper than Network Solutions and other US registrars and I've never had a problem.
In fact, one of the challenges being identified by Public Broadcasters and others is how to let potential listeners know about downloadable/podcasted content.
I'd say that right now it comes down to luck and word of mouth. I'm finding that I tend to stick to content from "professional" broadcasters. So much of the rest of existing podcasts are "produced" by half drunk frat boys being potty mouths and playing indy rock.
As far as clients, iTunes really does podcasts pretty well. iPodder, at least on my old PC seemed to be a resource hog in some fashion.
Pshaw... having just moved from a Win2K box to a Powerbook, I don't find that the shiny shiny stuff makes a difference in my life.
Some of it, like the animation that swooshes the dock, just irritiates me.
I personally find the PB keyboard annoying compared to my Logitech, and the mouse button on the trackpad - man was that designed by a deaf person? CLICK! CLICK!
I would love to be able to turn off even more of this flashola than I have already. I don't need my windows to swoosh down to an icon, or for every third item to start bouncing.
I dunno, maybe Mac folks are just easily amused, or I need to ingest more mushrooms.
These phones are just GIGANTIC compared to the really, really, ridiculously good looking phone carried by Derek Zoolander in the biopic of the same name.
Luckily rather than waiting for the Korean product to arrive here, you can make you own Zoolander style phone.
1) Come up with real objective standards, which are unquestionably censorship, and creates a huge backlash on the left 2) Legalize everything which creates a huge backlash on the right 3) Have a hedged nuanced position which essentially ducks the issue until the culture is more ready for options 1 or 2 4) Deliberately change the culture in some way so that 1 or 2 become easy 5) PROFIT!
Remember that charities and non-profit groups have the same needs as any other business.
Consequently don't waste their time trying to give them ancient or underpowered computers, and don't consider anything but Windows.
Most charities that accept donations of computer equipment are accustomed to saying "no" to well meaning people that try to unload stuff that would be better used as boat anchors.
Ten years ago it made sense for groups to source used PCs, and many groups offered that kind of service. When new PCs cost thousands of dollars you could dramatically lower your costs. These days a new system can be had for under $500, so a used system with lower specs is less attractive.
When you consider the increased likelihood of component failure, and the irritations associated with older hardware's inability to run current software, it often doesn't make sense to accept second hand systems.
I'm not sure where you're finding these kids that have "never seen a PC". I've worked with teenagers in inner cities, and in Appalachia specifically, and PCs are pretty much ubiquitous in the US. Every library and school has PCs, and kids these days are more than comfortable with technology.
Is it possible that you're assuming a condition that doesn't exist? Have you talked to the target group to assess what they can use?
Said it before, I'll say it again, I worry more about handing my card to the PFK at the corner gas station that about people going though my trash or grabbing my info off of the 'net.
Most of the fruad that I've suffered has been at the hands of large corporations that reckon that my lawyer won't be willing to take on their lawyer.
Exactly. A new game machine I can understand. The exact same thing that launched last week in a different color seems a kind if thin basis for a new story.
I will then insist on knowing how the 1.3 billion number was calculated.
Somehow I expect it was by the usual cop math that estimates two scraggly pot plants and a handful of seeds to have "an estimated street value of $679,000."
Or the RIAA math that tells us that piracy has cost them $456 Billion dollars in the last six months.
When people and groups with a vested interest start tossing out huge numbers it is important to ask for substantiation.
(Identity) theft has increased by 500% since 1999 and now costs the UK economy £1.3bn a year, forcing defences against this crime to evolve rapidly.
Ah yes, more unattributed and meaningless statistics. Obviously we must leap up and address this issue!
If, as noted in another post, only 10% of this crime is attributed to on-line activities, then we're talking a paltry £1.3 million a year. Surely there are a couple of thousand varieties of crime that would offer a better return on the investments in crime fighting.
Dollar for dollar how does on-line originated fraud compare to fraud by more traditional means? Is the growth in on-line fraud increasing the amount of fraud, or are the fraudsters just moving to a new platform while keeping the level and likelihood of fraud constant?
I guess that I better turn on my TV news channel for the answers.
Meanwhile I'll continue to be more worried about handing my Visa card to the pimply faced kid at the corner gas station.
It's worth noting that the "digital" radio referred to is the In Band On Channel (IBOC) system used only by the U.S., and manufactured by Ibiquity.
The rest of the planet wisely chose a system that was entirely digital, and which consequently does not have these problems, while the Americans, defending the inalienable right to own radio stations using 1930s technology, or some such thing, fought for a system which sqeezes a digital audio stream into their existing AM or FM signals.
An all round bad idea, and yet another demonstration why engineering decisions shouldn't be the province of politicians and lobbyists.
Blah blah.. politics and big money... blah blah...
BaltikaTroika writes "A Canadian university has banned wi-fi, since the university President sees a possible link between electric and magnetic fields and brain tumors.
I know, it's slashdot, but they aren't banning WIFI, just limiting its use. If they are genuinely concerned about possible (or imagined) health risks, this would seem a reasonable compromise.
Developers are responsible for making a game to the best of their abilities within the restraints of the design and hardware.
And budget. Small operators often tend to be underfinanced. Publishers should have enough expertise to help developers to manage cashflow, providing funds as needed.
Now if only those poor little brown people a) could read English, or whatever language Wikipedia is in b) had a handy source of electricity to recharge those laptops c) had another source of reliable information for the times when Wikipedia is totally wrong d) had someone writing information that was specific to their climate and culture, not Southern California.
The problems faced the people in many developing nations are significantly more complex and profound than anything that a free laptop will solve.
Sidebar: the 1.1 Billion referred to is the amount being placed in an endowment. The actual amount that will be available to be spent will be signifcantly smaller. For comparison, check out the Ford Foundation, with assets of some 11.4 billion, and annual progam expenditures of about 500 million.
Really, where do we get the insistence that phones, a perfectly utilitarian item, need to incorporate video players (which they do really poorly), games (which they also don't do very well), web browsers (oh, the pain), cameras (OK in a pinch, but still inferior) and music players...?
In the meantime I can't even make my Moto ring like a phone instead of playing some dreadful music.
We're rapidly reaching the point where manufacturers and cellular providers have stopped considering whether your phone will actually work as a phone.
... phones would come defaulted to something like a ring tone instead of an obnoxious midi tune.
I have yet to hear a musical ring that wasn't intensly annoying. May latest phone, a Moto e815, does not include any "normal" ringtone, just stupid songs and electronic irritations. Thus far I have been unsuccessful in trying to download something better.
And why can't I just copy a sound file over from my computer and have it work? Is that too much to ask?
Beyond that, any time someone leaves a voicemail it triggers a beep every five minutes or so, apparently until the end of time, and apparently which cannot be turned off.
Then again, my previous cel provider (Primus Canada, and boy don't even THINK about using them) used to send a text message every time that a voicemail was left on the phone.
So the routine became: look at phone, see voicemail indicator, check voicemail, delete voicemail message, see text message indicator, check text messages, see reminder of voicemail that you just deleted, delete text message.
Again, there was no way to turn this thing off. The Primus drones claimed that the Ericcson phone was sending itself text messages to tell me that there was a voicemail.
A main driver for this is the desire to reduce the risk or pain associated with carpal tunnel syndrome and other RSI disorders... The idea is to allow your arm to control the mouse in a more natural position, with the thumb up, in a hand-shaking position. Doctors who specialize in ergonomics consider this position preferable.
I have to ask, did anyone at ExtremeTech actually talk to a doctor who specializes in such things, or were these comments lifted from an Evoluent press release?
The reality of RSI is just so, so much more complex than these simple solutions would suggest.
Although how can you argue with a review like this:
Gained all the votes in terms of comfort and facility of use, of "look", colour and sympathy: the panel as a whole totally adhered to this new product.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's see, the ISPs and other "authorities" can't do anything to stop the "black hat" hackers and mafia, or even refuse to do so.
Yet at the same time ATT is channelling massive amounts of customer traffic to the NSA for examination and interpretation.
Perhaps someone needs to define Mafia=Terrorist?
Several years ago I finally figured out a few things.
If I do one thing at a time it gets done faster, and with better results than if I try to multitask.
If I get out for exercize - any exercize - a couple of times a week I feel better and can work more productively.
If I limit work to something like 9-5 (well, actually 10-4) I get more done, with better results.
If I have interests outside work like art, or film, or reading, or just hiking in the woods, my work improves.
Despite the Wal-Martization of work in North America, it remains true that a healthy, balanced lifestyle allows you to work faster and more productively.
Yes, the less that I work, the more that I am able to do.
The old joke goes "How many lesbians does it take to change a light bulb?" The response of course is "ONE! And it's not funny!"
Go ahead and laugh, the Church if Mac types won't get it anyhow.
(this post written on a G4 Powerbook which unbelievably has not changed my life in any signifcant way and which does almost nothing better than my PC!)
All well and good, but the real step needed for OSS CMS is to create one that an average user can administer. By "average" I mean anyone who isn't a hard core code geek. The kind of person who is comfortable installing these systems to their server, but who is more interested in tweaking the look and adding content than spending hours figuring out the arcane thinking of the people who wrote the code.
I've tried Joomla, as well as few other top rated CMS, and found all of them pretty much imcomprehensible. I'm sure that there is some underlying logic to the Administration of each of these systems, but I have failed to find it. Terminology, functionality, it all cries out for testing by real users.
Blog software like Wordpress has managed to make Administration nice, understandable, and constantly improving, so why can't CMS like Joomla do the same?
And of course, they really do need some real documentation, not half baked wikis and forums.
Part of your problem is that phone companies, and cel providers in particular are re-assigning numbers faster than before.
In days of yore when you surrendered a phone number it would sit dormant for enough time that callers would stop using it.
These days your "new" number may have belonged to someone else only a few weeks ago. Consequently you get calls from people that they knew. Usually at 3 AM.
I had one phone that got calls every few hours from one particular phone number, but from different people. Near as I can tell it had been written on a washroom wall, right by the pay phone...
The following was posted to their website as early as Thursday:
The DDOS attack was actually middle of last week. Joker.com is now operating fine. Timeliness is important when one posts stuff like this, or at least enough editorial sense to edit for the past tense and to check out what is being said.
I've used joker.com for years. It's significantly cheaper than Network Solutions and other US registrars and I've never had a problem.
In fact, one of the challenges being identified by Public Broadcasters and others is how to let potential listeners know about downloadable/podcasted content.
I'd say that right now it comes down to luck and word of mouth. I'm finding that I tend to stick to content from "professional" broadcasters. So much of the rest of existing podcasts are "produced" by half drunk frat boys being potty mouths and playing indy rock.
As far as clients, iTunes really does podcasts pretty well. iPodder, at least on my old PC seemed to be a resource hog in some fashion.
Pshaw... having just moved from a Win2K box to a Powerbook, I don't find that the shiny shiny stuff makes a difference in my life.
Some of it, like the animation that swooshes the dock, just irritiates me.
I personally find the PB keyboard annoying compared to my Logitech, and the mouse button on the trackpad - man was that designed by a deaf person? CLICK! CLICK!
I would love to be able to turn off even more of this flashola than I have already. I don't need my windows to swoosh down to an icon, or for every third item to start bouncing.
I dunno, maybe Mac folks are just easily amused, or I need to ingest more mushrooms.
Oooh - that's it... mushrooms!
These phones are just GIGANTIC compared to the really, really, ridiculously good looking phone carried by Derek Zoolander in the biopic of the same name.
Luckily rather than waiting for the Korean product to arrive here, you can make you own Zoolander style phone.
1) Come up with real objective standards, which are unquestionably censorship, and creates a huge backlash on the left
2) Legalize everything which creates a huge backlash on the right
3) Have a hedged nuanced position which essentially ducks the issue until the culture is more ready for options 1 or 2
4) Deliberately change the culture in some way so that 1 or 2 become easy
5) PROFIT!
Remember that charities and non-profit groups have the same needs as any other business.
Consequently don't waste their time trying to give them ancient or underpowered computers, and don't consider anything but Windows.
Most charities that accept donations of computer equipment are accustomed to saying "no" to well meaning people that try to unload stuff that would be better used as boat anchors.
Ten years ago it made sense for groups to source used PCs, and many groups offered that kind of service. When new PCs cost thousands of dollars you could dramatically lower your costs. These days a new system can be had for under $500, so a used system with lower specs is less attractive.
When you consider the increased likelihood of component failure, and the irritations associated with older hardware's inability to run current software, it often doesn't make sense to accept second hand systems.
I'm not sure where you're finding these kids that have "never seen a PC". I've worked with teenagers in inner cities, and in Appalachia specifically, and PCs are pretty much ubiquitous in the US. Every library and school has PCs, and kids these days are more than comfortable with technology.
Is it possible that you're assuming a condition that doesn't exist? Have you talked to the target group to assess what they can use?
Said it before, I'll say it again, I worry more about handing my card to the PFK at the corner gas station that about people going though my trash or grabbing my info off of the 'net.
Most of the fruad that I've suffered has been at the hands of large corporations that reckon that my lawyer won't be willing to take on their lawyer.
Exactly. A new game machine I can understand. The exact same thing that launched last week in a different color seems a kind if thin basis for a new story.
OK, despite winning a Nintendo DS (non-lite) at a conference last month, and finding it quite fun, I am in no way a gamer.
I have to ask though, is the release of this unit with no change other than the colour of the plastic case really noteworthy or even interesting?
Oh very well. A math error.
I will then insist on knowing how the 1.3 billion number was calculated.
Somehow I expect it was by the usual cop math that estimates two scraggly pot plants and a handful of seeds to have "an estimated street value of $679,000."
Or the RIAA math that tells us that piracy has cost them $456 Billion dollars in the last six months.
When people and groups with a vested interest start tossing out huge numbers it is important to ask for substantiation.
Unless you work in the media or of course.
(Identity) theft has increased by 500% since 1999 and now costs the UK economy £1.3bn a year, forcing defences against this crime to evolve rapidly.
Ah yes, more unattributed and meaningless statistics. Obviously we must leap up and address this issue!
If, as noted in another post, only 10% of this crime is attributed to on-line activities, then we're talking a paltry £1.3 million a year. Surely there are a couple of thousand varieties of crime that would offer a better return on the investments in crime fighting.
Dollar for dollar how does on-line originated fraud compare to fraud by more traditional means? Is the growth in on-line fraud increasing the amount of fraud, or are the fraudsters just moving to a new platform while keeping the level and likelihood of fraud constant?
I guess that I better turn on my TV news channel for the answers.
Meanwhile I'll continue to be more worried about handing my Visa card to the pimply faced kid at the corner gas station.
It's worth noting that the "digital" radio referred to is the In Band On Channel (IBOC) system used only by the U.S., and manufactured by Ibiquity.
The rest of the planet wisely chose a system that was entirely digital, and which consequently does not have these problems, while the Americans, defending the inalienable right to own radio stations using 1930s technology, or some such thing, fought for a system which sqeezes a digital audio stream into their existing AM or FM signals.
An all round bad idea, and yet another demonstration why engineering decisions shouldn't be the province of politicians and lobbyists.
Blah blah.. politics and big money... blah blah...
BaltikaTroika writes "A Canadian university has banned wi-fi, since the university President sees a possible link between electric and magnetic fields and brain tumors.
I know, it's slashdot, but they aren't banning WIFI, just limiting its use. If they are genuinely concerned about possible (or imagined) health risks, this would seem a reasonable compromise.
Developers are responsible for making a game to the best of their abilities within the restraints of the design and hardware.
And budget. Small operators often tend to be underfinanced. Publishers should have enough expertise to help developers to manage cashflow, providing funds as needed.
Now if only those poor little brown people a) could read English, or whatever language Wikipedia is in b) had a handy source of electricity to recharge those laptops c) had another source of reliable information for the times when Wikipedia is totally wrong d) had someone writing information that was specific to their climate and culture, not Southern California.
The problems faced the people in many developing nations are significantly more complex and profound than anything that a free laptop will solve.
Sidebar: the 1.1 Billion referred to is the amount being placed in an endowment. The actual amount that will be available to be spent will be signifcantly smaller. For comparison, check out the Ford Foundation, with assets of some 11.4 billion, and annual progam expenditures of about 500 million.
Really, where do we get the insistence that phones, a perfectly utilitarian item, need to incorporate video players (which they do really poorly), games (which they also don't do very well), web browsers (oh, the pain), cameras (OK in a pinch, but still inferior) and music players...?
In the meantime I can't even make my Moto ring like a phone instead of playing some dreadful music.
We're rapidly reaching the point where manufacturers and cellular providers have stopped considering whether your phone will actually work as a phone.
I have yet to hear a musical ring that wasn't intensly annoying. May latest phone, a Moto e815, does not include any "normal" ringtone, just stupid songs and electronic irritations. Thus far I have been unsuccessful in trying to download something better.
And why can't I just copy a sound file over from my computer and have it work? Is that too much to ask?
Beyond that, any time someone leaves a voicemail it triggers a beep every five minutes or so, apparently until the end of time, and apparently which cannot be turned off.
Then again, my previous cel provider (Primus Canada, and boy don't even THINK about using them) used to send a text message every time that a voicemail was left on the phone.
So the routine became: look at phone, see voicemail indicator, check voicemail, delete voicemail message, see text message indicator, check text messages, see reminder of voicemail that you just deleted, delete text message.
Again, there was no way to turn this thing off. The Primus drones claimed that the Ericcson phone was sending itself text messages to tell me that there was a voicemail.
Yah, right....
Cripes, even at +2 there isn't a single informative comment in this thread. Bash Microsoft, bash Norton... yadda yadda...
Someone let me know when some useful analysis emerges.
Yah, I know, it's slashdot, but geez folks. The only way this could be more pathetic is if it was a dupe.
A main driver for this is the desire to reduce the risk or pain associated with carpal tunnel syndrome and other RSI disorders ... The idea is to allow your arm to control the mouse in a more natural position, with the thumb up, in a hand-shaking position. Doctors who specialize in ergonomics consider this position preferable.
I have to ask, did anyone at ExtremeTech actually talk to a doctor who specializes in such things, or were these comments lifted from an Evoluent press release?
The reality of RSI is just so, so much more complex than these simple solutions would suggest.
Although how can you argue with a review like this:
Gained all the votes in terms of comfort and facility of use, of "look", colour and sympathy: the panel as a whole totally adhered to this new product.