Well... if the proxy was only used by the friend, and other students weren't affected, then yes, a suspension would be the proper course.
But if the proxy was being used by other students, AND the school has asked and warned 'the friend' several times (it sounds like this), but the kid keeps moving the proxy around, then the school has no choice but to threaten legal action. They are there to protect all students, and if one student is breaking the rules on purpose, repeatedly, and not changing his ways after they punish hime (I'm sure he's received detention or some other slap on the hand before this), the school has to do something.
When you're a kid in the public school, you don't (and shouldn't) have the rights of someone "in the real world". The school is an institution meant to serve and protect. If you're there, then you abide by every rule, if you don't like the rules, take it up through the proper channels. Civil Disobedience doesn't work in school, the kids aren't the ones who've paid for their education, the taxpayers are... If you waste the school's time and money, you're wasting the community's money, and that only shows that you aren't responsible enough to be in the real world yet.
The school is In Loco Parentis... So by signing something during school hours in the presence of a school official is legally binding.
my HS and College both had little blurbs every time you logged in that says "You may only log in if you agree to abide by all rules, you are responsible for anything that happens from your account, so be sure to log out". This is also legally binding.
The Asker's friend is in the wrong... By evading the proxy he is breaking the rules and the school can punish him for it. Besides, it sounds like it's a public proxy, which means that others can access restricted sites. While he may be doing this on his own time, other students are using what he does to break the rules also... When he starts interfering with the other kids' education, then there's an undeniable issue.
Don't get me wrong,.NET framework has a lot of prebuilt stuff in that makes development quicker and easier. BUT there are MANY programmers out there who use.NET for everything, even when they don't need it. If it comes down to "I have to spend another couple days to program this widget from scratch, or I can use.NET but make my users download the 150 meg framework..." That's just lazy programming...
I'm not saying.NET doesn't have it's benefits, it keeps poor programmers from making really bad security mistakes. It makes some repetitive things easy to add in... But if Joe Blow comes along to a download.com to download your.NET Bittorrent program and sees your 1 meg file + 150 meg framework, or uTorrent's 150k download, guess which one he's going to pick.
uTorrent is a prime example of what can be done with smart programming... it's a beautiful program with nearly every feature offered by competitors, no framework needed, works with windows 95+, doesn't hog memory space, doesn't leak memory, offers user customization (skinnable buttons) and adheres to every standard it deals with (specifically bittorrent standards... encrypted sessions, DHT/Private Trackers, etc...)
When I say "Benefit", I mean "this program won't function without these things that.NET provides"... There are lots of bells and whistles that you can add to your program with.NET... but most of what.NET provides can be reproduced with a little elbow grease. You should have a real need for something you use in the framework to use it. (and really, this is the same for ALL frameworks.....NET, Java, even Ruby on Rails... don't use it just because it'll let you make a program with more bells... use it because it actually enhances the function, or spend the time programming the bells yourself)
B) Who doesn't have a 3d card in their computer now? 90% of laptop owners 80% of windows users
Even current integrated graphics won't cut it with Vista... And really, how many computers will have been purchased between now and Vista? I'm guessing that the amount of computers purchased that have adequate Video Cards to run Aero will be less than half, so this does little to really change the ratios.
You're right, computers without amazing video cards will be able to run Vista, but the whole point of this thread is that the parent suggested the "Fuck the low-end users, write inefficient code that requires a half-gig framework to be installed to run the 5 meg program" approach... (Net 1.1, Net 2.0, and the new XAML/Sparkle based frameworks will total well over 400 megs...)
Just because you can make a program doesn't make you a programmer... Write a program, write it well, don't use a framework unless it actually benefits the program, not just because it's there. (Because who says it'll be on the client computer?)
If you're looking for flexible designs, or anything concerning Standards-Based Web Design, Take a look at A List Apart. They have many articles that show you how to do things like an elastic layout, which will allow for a max and min width, and the column adjusts to the window size between these two values. There are also wonderful articles that explain how to make font-size dependant layouts, which I didn't use on my Resume, but have used several other places.
I designed my resume for default values, because that's the audience it's aimed at (i.e. Ever designer I know browses at normal font sizes, lest the site they're looking at look significantly different than what they intended for the broad majority of people... Also, HR and Managers are all more likely to have default values as well). I have a 150dpi monitor (Dell Inspiron, 1920x1200 15" LCD, do the math, 150ppi), but I still browse at normal font sizes for this very reason (I have normal sight).
The graphic design for the site is the ONLY think keeping you from reading the site as it's meant to, there's nothing wrong with the layout. If I wanted to sacrafice my metaphor of a journal for usability, all it would take would be for me to put up different graphics.
If I wanted to do some really fun Javascript, I could calculate the font size (put text of 12pt font on screen, find out height of text), then load background images that are the correct size for the text size, but I wanted my page to be as close to javascript free.
So, now that we know that the "extreme usability failure" had been already identified, and considered to be not-an-issue because of the intended audience, And that it's not an issue of the table/Div layout, which is the topic of our discussion, how about you stop trying to be critical, and start noticing the benefits, such as: much nicer printing layouts which aren't constrained to square boxes accessibility for screen readers reduced page size (in my experience, at least 30% reduction in page size) The ability to use the data with other programs, such as Flash Easy adjustment of graphics, themes, layout without affecting the underlying code (i.e. a web designer can re-design a website without touching the code that generates the page in the first place...)
I'll admit that you're correct, pages that are properly linearized can be read by page readers adequately. You mention a table with one row and three columns... Yeah, that'd be great if everyone stuck to layouts like that. But the fact of the matter is that before Standards based design came into the mainstream, you couldn't find simple layouts like that. You'd find tables that were nested three, four, five deep, sometimes they held a spacer image, sometimes just a space, sometimes they held a little graphic that was the curve to the rounded box on the table. Often times, there were tables for no other reason than to hold the graphics for the design, not holding any content what-so-ever.
Standards Based design is all about seperating content and display. It's a philosophy thats followed, and it also has a ton of nice benefits. Really, that's what it's all about..
The problem with tables + content + screen readers is that screen readers can't read through tables like your eyes can, so things don't actually get interpreted correctly (There is a firefox extension that mimics screen reader output, I highly recommend trying it out to understand how horrible the web is for visually impaired persons).
The technical reason for using div's rather than tables is growing more and more prevalant today. The seperation between content and display is a very important distinction that programmers, of all people, should understand well. With proper XHTML, I can pull data into any program I want and parse it correctly, because the data is store linearly, rather than in a table, where it might be leftImage-content-rightImage-leftImage-content-rig htImage... Specifically, I can pull an XHTML page into Flash, parse it out and extract important content. Templating becomes so much simpler that it's now a trifle to change/tweak a site's layout.
I've yet to see any layout that's "impossible" with divs (though it took a long time to figure everything out, and some of the code is VERY confusing), but it is Impossible for a table'd website to display information coherantly on my Treo, PSP, and in my desktop browser of choice. Don't even get me started on the whole printing tables issue.
The point of the matter is using tools for what they're made for (especially when they're perfectly competant)... I can almost guarantee you use a microsoft product for making web pages, considering your "Why don't they just add more processing to the user agents, rather than make me use standards" paragraph.
If you'd like to see the div vs. table arguement personified, look at my resume. I want to make a note that the only Javascript on the page is used to determine what browser the user is using, and create work-arounds for IE's lack of:hover attribute and poor handling of.png images (Both of these are addressed in IE7 thankfully). I dare you to try to recreate that site with tables and minimal javascript. Then, after you're done, make it print out nicely.
Tables limit your ability to really create sites that are unique, keep your data in formats that are impossible to use afterwards, and are ultimately the same as using a crescent wrench as a hammer... Yes, it works, but the hammer works better, and thats what it's made for... Just because you grew up using a wrench as a hammer, you're inclined to use it, but if you switched over, you'd realize how much harder your life was.
A chorded keyboard on a mobile device would be difficult at best, Thumb-boards, etc are around because you have to hold on to the device and type at the same time.. The could solve this by putting other keys on the back of the device, but this would mean you would HAVE to hold the device to input text, it would make cases for the device much MUCH more complex, AND it would not be able to be sold to the "it makes my life easier" crowd, since they would have to learn a new way to enter keys. (and really, something like this isn't something that someone would get to try to be more productive, it's pure entertainment)
The chorded keyboards that are out there now are a handful all by themselves, however it would go GREAT with a hand held device... one hand to hold, one hand to type.
You won't ever see a chorded keyboard built into a mass-produced item, because someone with common sense will point out why they shouldn't do it.
Although, an add-on to a PDA would work well, I suppose I should trademark that.
I agree, it's horrible design, I blame it on them being BOTH Australian AND Artsy. (I think the Australian part makes it a tad bit more fun than it would be if it was an American and Artsy... but retailer sites aren't supposed to be fun).
OTOH, that Tom Bihn site is horribly ugly, and wonderfully usable.... Not that the Crumpler site isn't ugly, because it is...
Well, considering that most people have been recommending everything EXCEPT for bags, here's my $.02...
I have a wonderful backpack that holds my widescreen 15" laptop, my D70 SLR camera, two extra lenses, power adapters, my PSP (even bigger than a PDA), and all the cables I need to hook up any of my electronics to anything else I might find (so many adapters and cables!!!)
I HIGHLY recommend Crumpler Bags... I have one called (IIRC) Brian's Hot Tub, but sadly it doesn't look like it's for sale on their site (they have an australian site too, it might be there).... This bag is so big that when I load it up with everything, my girlfriend honestly couldn't carry it... I've had it for three years, and it's still in great condition, no broken zippers, no ripped fabric...
I'd take a look at the messenger bags they offer, you can't get a higher quality bag, and they're aimed very squarly at people with digital lifestyles.
They have little mini "digits"... they're like padded pockets you can attach to anything (PERFECT for cellphone/mp3 players, anything you need in access to in less than 10 seconds)
Boy, you sure showed me... good thing there is a site that offers up some for-pay extensions (two of the three listed on their site are, by all rights, NOT freeware)...
And what gems the "Essentials" are (same ratio, 2 of 3 are for-pay)!!!
We have PithHelmet = Adblock + $10 fee SafariStand = ?? Block Plugins, Has a "StandBar", Colors Source Code... (the home page sure doesn't say what it does) Saft = $6 and adds some (actually) great features, things I think should be built into Safari AND Firefox:draggable tabs, full-screen browsing, searchable bookmarks and history, URL shortcuts, kiosk mode and more... (well, the full-screen browsing, URL Shortcuts, Kiosk Mode are all in Firefox, and the searchable bookmarks and history were in Firefox 2.0, but they've been taken out, damn them!)
Boy... I sure was wrong, looks like there's no limit to what you can do with Safari, If you have the money to spend $6-10 for every extension... Of course, a majority of people(and all of them that sit on the FanBoy squad) who own macs(excepting the iMac/Mini) are upper-middle class, hence it's their priviledge to bitch about how Firefox's goal is to render pages the same, regardless of which platform they're viewed on.
Firefox doesn't render text like shit, it renders it consistantly... They don't implement features that are OS-Dependant.
Oh, but I do have to admit, you're definitely correct on the view that every programmer that programs for linux or windows hates humanity, it's a good thing we have Mac developers that love humanity, who else would we pay absurd prices for software to?
When I can reliably customize kerning without stupid hacks, I'll consider this arguement...
"undead widget" syndrome.
I don't even know what this is, since Firefox doesn't have widgets.
misanthropic interfaces
While I realize that your Fanboy attitude would seem ineffective (and ineffectual) without throwing insults, I have a feeling that misanthropic wasn't quite the right word (next time try a dictionary to find out the meaning of words before you use them). I think what you meant to say was:
Firefox should have a brushed metal interface d00d! Also the address bar acting as the progress bar is uber-kewl!!!!! Pardon the fact that my misanthropic views focus on Firefox, but they naturally scorn anything that seems to be popular at the moment.
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Safari (while rendering might be better, lack of extensions balances out this grievance), this comment is purely aimed at your "Steve Jobs is God" fanboy attitude and your flamebait comment.
You missed the whole "which ones would you recommend" part..
Fine.. there are some out there, good job, way to work google, but the asker seems to want someone that has an opinion about these services, not a google answer.
This library probably wasn't released for the benefit of those already waist-deep in AJAX / Javascript-UI-Niceness... I'm guessing if you already have a very complex drag-and-drop piece of code in your library, nothing that was released today would be any help...
That said, I think it's positively wonderful! The hard part of web design isn't usually the design, but convincing the clients that a certain technology is OK to use. It's even harder when you're working in Microsoft land, and everyone knows you're a huge firefox supporter (I get several emails a day from people who surf in firefox for the express reason of finding sites that render incorrectly, so they can point out that not all sites look good in firefox... there is no reasoning with them, just deleting their emails)
Having Yahoo! release these to the wild will make it much easier to use this functionality, just by saying "How about we use the Yahoo UI Widget here?"
nVu may be a great tool, but it is severly limited... it re-writes code, has a horrible local/remote interface, and has many many many features to implement before it can even think about replacing frontpage, much less Notepad or Dreamweaver.
That said, I highly recommend you try it, hopefully it's limitations aren't specific to your application. nVu is somewhat patchy, so some users may have everything they need, while others (like me), can't do a thing (the re-write code thing is HUGE)
There is a HUGE difference between "Our" and "Aggro" energy sources...
Drive through Iowa/Nebraska/South Dakota/Minnesota... You'll see why there's a difference... much much lower population, and LOTS of wind farms. A Majority of energy in the US is used by people in cities, not agriculture... South Dakota gets a LOT of their energy from the Dams on the Missouri River.
Even if you don't believe me on that (it really is true), the whole point is that the plants change an energy source such that isn't mobile (regardless of how they get their energy... even coal or natural gas), into a mobile energy source... i.e. gas.
I'm from an Aggro state, and he's entirely correct...
The whole point of Ethanol is that by using Ethanol, we can use more of the corn produced in the US, therby having to export less. Also, by using Ethanol, we can import less oil. Even if it takes 29% more energy to produce Ethanol than it returns, What it doesn't say is that a LOT of Ethanol produced in the Aggro states run on power grids that get most of their power from dams/windmills.
We support the Agriculture by buying up all of the left-over crop of corn/soy from last year, we make it into a fuel to dilute the gas we import from the Middle East... Ethanol is much more valuable than left over corn/soy... and without it, small farmers in the midwest would go bankrupt...
the difference in usage is the Gecko engine that is loaded by Firefox.
The IE engine is loaded as a system resource, hence doesn't take time to swap in and out (the kernel can keep it from being paged out). This also keeps the memory from being reported in Task Manager.
Right now, I have the same 3 pages open in FF and IE, and FF is reporting 76MB, and IE is reporting 44MB. I have quite a bit more of browsing history in this FF session, which could account for some of the difference. I also don't have ANY plugins installed for IE, as I never actually use it.
I'm guessing that the special items in FF cause higher memory usage. Try turning off smooth scrolling (they may use a large off-screen buffer to render more page than needed)... and other non-essentials if you don't want all of the memory used.
here at the University of South Dakota, the Computer Science labs all use Firefox, and every other IT-administered lab has a mozilla-based browser installed as an option, unfortunately, some of web pages that students must access don't play nice with Mozilla, so we have to leave IE as the default browser:-(
it's dust proof because there aren't keys, but it is most definitely not kitchen proof!!!! water on the board is BAD, or anything else on your fingers when using the board...
I have a feeling that all of the posts replying to this are going to suggest that we tell the makers of colorsync, etc to port stuff over to linux, and that everyone needs to help convert tools over linux because anything is possible with linux and it will make it a better desktop and yada yada yada
This is where the linux community goes wrong and where the mac community went right... macs went for a niche, and perfected it. Linux is trying to take on windows, the jack-of-all-trades... Developers in linux should focus on very specific portions of linux (ok, they have stability down, let's work on Xorg + Gnome/KDE), then after that, work on apps... If development ramped up on Xorg and Destkop Environments, there would be a beautiful desktop with few applications, but look at how many applications are independantly developed for windows... build the Interface and the Apps will come.
Actually, put the crappiest most unstable computer behind a router/firewall, and it'll keep it's IP address until there is a power shortage... you can even DMZ the server to make sure it's fully accessible...
our DHCP lease on our cable modem is 7 days, so unless I'm on vacation and my power goes out, or the DHCP server loses power, I'm good to go!
Slashdot Mirror
Well... if the proxy was only used by the friend, and other students weren't affected, then yes, a suspension would be the proper course.
But if the proxy was being used by other students, AND the school has asked and warned 'the friend' several times (it sounds like this), but the kid keeps moving the proxy around, then the school has no choice but to threaten legal action. They are there to protect all students, and if one student is breaking the rules on purpose, repeatedly, and not changing his ways after they punish hime (I'm sure he's received detention or some other slap on the hand before this), the school has to do something.
When you're a kid in the public school, you don't (and shouldn't) have the rights of someone "in the real world". The school is an institution meant to serve and protect. If you're there, then you abide by every rule, if you don't like the rules, take it up through the proper channels. Civil Disobedience doesn't work in school, the kids aren't the ones who've paid for their education, the taxpayers are... If you waste the school's time and money, you're wasting the community's money, and that only shows that you aren't responsible enough to be in the real world yet.
The school is In Loco Parentis... So by signing something during school hours in the presence of a school official is legally binding.
my HS and College both had little blurbs every time you logged in that says "You may only log in if you agree to abide by all rules, you are responsible for anything that happens from your account, so be sure to log out". This is also legally binding.
The Asker's friend is in the wrong... By evading the proxy he is breaking the rules and the school can punish him for it. Besides, it sounds like it's a public proxy, which means that others can access restricted sites. While he may be doing this on his own time, other students are using what he does to break the rules also... When he starts interfering with the other kids' education, then there's an undeniable issue.
Don't get me wrong, .NET framework has a lot of prebuilt stuff in that makes development quicker and easier. BUT there are MANY programmers out there who use .NET for everything, even when they don't need it. If it comes down to "I have to spend another couple days to program this widget from scratch, or I can use .NET but make my users download the 150 meg framework..." That's just lazy programming...
.NET doesn't have it's benefits, it keeps poor programmers from making really bad security mistakes. It makes some repetitive things easy to add in... But if Joe Blow comes along to a download.com to download your .NET Bittorrent program and sees your 1 meg file + 150 meg framework, or uTorrent's 150k download, guess which one he's going to pick.
.NET provides"... There are lots of bells and whistles that you can add to your program with .NET... but most of what .NET provides can be reproduced with a little elbow grease. You should have a real need for something you use in the framework to use it. (and really, this is the same for ALL frameworks.... .NET, Java, even Ruby on Rails... don't use it just because it'll let you make a program with more bells... use it because it actually enhances the function, or spend the time programming the bells yourself)
I'm not saying
uTorrent is a prime example of what can be done with smart programming... it's a beautiful program with nearly every feature offered by competitors, no framework needed, works with windows 95+, doesn't hog memory space, doesn't leak memory, offers user customization (skinnable buttons) and adheres to every standard it deals with (specifically bittorrent standards... encrypted sessions, DHT/Private Trackers, etc...)
When I say "Benefit", I mean "this program won't function without these things that
B) Who doesn't have a 3d card in their computer now?
90% of laptop owners
80% of windows users
Even current integrated graphics won't cut it with Vista... And really, how many computers will have been purchased between now and Vista? I'm guessing that the amount of computers purchased that have adequate Video Cards to run Aero will be less than half, so this does little to really change the ratios.
You're right, computers without amazing video cards will be able to run Vista, but the whole point of this thread is that the parent suggested the "Fuck the low-end users, write inefficient code that requires a half-gig framework to be installed to run the 5 meg program" approach... (Net 1.1, Net 2.0, and the new XAML/Sparkle based frameworks will total well over 400 megs...)
Just because you can make a program doesn't make you a programmer... Write a program, write it well, don't use a framework unless it actually benefits the program, not just because it's there. (Because who says it'll be on the client computer?)
If you're looking for flexible designs, or anything concerning Standards-Based Web Design, Take a look at A List Apart. They have many articles that show you how to do things like an elastic layout, which will allow for a max and min width, and the column adjusts to the window size between these two values. There are also wonderful articles that explain how to make font-size dependant layouts, which I didn't use on my Resume, but have used several other places.
I designed my resume for default values, because that's the audience it's aimed at (i.e. Ever designer I know browses at normal font sizes, lest the site they're looking at look significantly different than what they intended for the broad majority of people... Also, HR and Managers are all more likely to have default values as well). I have a 150dpi monitor (Dell Inspiron, 1920x1200 15" LCD, do the math, 150ppi), but I still browse at normal font sizes for this very reason (I have normal sight).
The graphic design for the site is the ONLY think keeping you from reading the site as it's meant to, there's nothing wrong with the layout. If I wanted to sacrafice my metaphor of a journal for usability, all it would take would be for me to put up different graphics.
If I wanted to do some really fun Javascript, I could calculate the font size (put text of 12pt font on screen, find out height of text), then load background images that are the correct size for the text size, but I wanted my page to be as close to javascript free.
So, now that we know that the "extreme usability failure" had been already identified, and considered to be not-an-issue because of the intended audience, And that it's not an issue of the table/Div layout, which is the topic of our discussion, how about you stop trying to be critical, and start noticing the benefits, such as:
much nicer printing
layouts which aren't constrained to square boxes
accessibility for screen readers
reduced page size (in my experience, at least 30% reduction in page size)
The ability to use the data with other programs, such as Flash
Easy adjustment of graphics, themes, layout without affecting the underlying code (i.e. a web designer can re-design a website without touching the code that generates the page in the first place...)
I'll admit that you're correct, pages that are properly linearized can be read by page readers adequately. You mention a table with one row and three columns... Yeah, that'd be great if everyone stuck to layouts like that. But the fact of the matter is that before Standards based design came into the mainstream, you couldn't find simple layouts like that. You'd find tables that were nested three, four, five deep, sometimes they held a spacer image, sometimes just a space, sometimes they held a little graphic that was the curve to the rounded box on the table. Often times, there were tables for no other reason than to hold the graphics for the design, not holding any content what-so-ever.
Standards Based design is all about seperating content and display. It's a philosophy thats followed, and it also has a ton of nice benefits. Really, that's what it's all about..
The problem with tables + content + screen readers is that screen readers can't read through tables like your eyes can, so things don't actually get interpreted correctly (There is a firefox extension that mimics screen reader output, I highly recommend trying it out to understand how horrible the web is for visually impaired persons).
g htImage... Specifically, I can pull an XHTML page into Flash, parse it out and extract important content. Templating becomes so much simpler that it's now a trifle to change/tweak a site's layout.
:hover attribute and poor handling of .png images (Both of these are addressed in IE7 thankfully). I dare you to try to recreate that site with tables and minimal javascript. Then, after you're done, make it print out nicely.
The technical reason for using div's rather than tables is growing more and more prevalant today. The seperation between content and display is a very important distinction that programmers, of all people, should understand well. With proper XHTML, I can pull data into any program I want and parse it correctly, because the data is store linearly, rather than in a table, where it might be leftImage-content-rightImage-leftImage-content-ri
I've yet to see any layout that's "impossible" with divs (though it took a long time to figure everything out, and some of the code is VERY confusing), but it is Impossible for a table'd website to display information coherantly on my Treo, PSP, and in my desktop browser of choice. Don't even get me started on the whole printing tables issue.
The point of the matter is using tools for what they're made for (especially when they're perfectly competant)... I can almost guarantee you use a microsoft product for making web pages, considering your "Why don't they just add more processing to the user agents, rather than make me use standards" paragraph.
If you'd like to see the div vs. table arguement personified, look at my resume. I want to make a note that the only Javascript on the page is used to determine what browser the user is using, and create work-arounds for IE's lack of
Tables limit your ability to really create sites that are unique, keep your data in formats that are impossible to use afterwards, and are ultimately the same as using a crescent wrench as a hammer... Yes, it works, but the hammer works better, and thats what it's made for... Just because you grew up using a wrench as a hammer, you're inclined to use it, but if you switched over, you'd realize how much harder your life was.
A chorded keyboard on a mobile device would be difficult at best, Thumb-boards, etc are around because you have to hold on to the device and type at the same time.. The could solve this by putting other keys on the back of the device, but this would mean you would HAVE to hold the device to input text, it would make cases for the device much MUCH more complex, AND it would not be able to be sold to the "it makes my life easier" crowd, since they would have to learn a new way to enter keys. (and really, something like this isn't something that someone would get to try to be more productive, it's pure entertainment)
The chorded keyboards that are out there now are a handful all by themselves, however it would go GREAT with a hand held device... one hand to hold, one hand to type.
You won't ever see a chorded keyboard built into a mass-produced item, because someone with common sense will point out why they shouldn't do it.
Although, an add-on to a PDA would work well, I suppose I should trademark that.
I agree, it's horrible design, I blame it on them being BOTH Australian AND Artsy. (I think the Australian part makes it a tad bit more fun than it would be if it was an American and Artsy... but retailer sites aren't supposed to be fun).
OTOH, that Tom Bihn site is horribly ugly, and wonderfully usable.... Not that the Crumpler site isn't ugly, because it is...
Well, considering that most people have been recommending everything EXCEPT for bags, here's my $.02...
I have a wonderful backpack that holds my widescreen 15" laptop, my D70 SLR camera, two extra lenses, power adapters, my PSP (even bigger than a PDA), and all the cables I need to hook up any of my electronics to anything else I might find (so many adapters and cables!!!)
I HIGHLY recommend Crumpler Bags... I have one called (IIRC) Brian's Hot Tub, but sadly it doesn't look like it's for sale on their site (they have an australian site too, it might be there).... This bag is so big that when I load it up with everything, my girlfriend honestly couldn't carry it... I've had it for three years, and it's still in great condition, no broken zippers, no ripped fabric...
I'd take a look at the messenger bags they offer, you can't get a higher quality bag, and they're aimed very squarly at people with digital lifestyles.
They have little mini "digits"... they're like padded pockets you can attach to anything (PERFECT for cellphone/mp3 players, anything you need in access to in less than 10 seconds)
Boy, you sure showed me... good thing there is a site that offers up some for-pay extensions (two of the three listed on their site are, by all rights, NOT freeware)...
And what gems the "Essentials" are (same ratio, 2 of 3 are for-pay)!!!
We have PithHelmet = Adblock + $10 fee
SafariStand = ?? Block Plugins, Has a "StandBar", Colors Source Code... (the home page sure doesn't say what it does)
Saft = $6 and adds some (actually) great features, things I think should be built into Safari AND Firefox:draggable tabs, full-screen browsing, searchable bookmarks and history, URL shortcuts, kiosk mode and more... (well, the full-screen browsing, URL Shortcuts, Kiosk Mode are all in Firefox, and the searchable bookmarks and history were in Firefox 2.0, but they've been taken out, damn them!)
Boy... I sure was wrong, looks like there's no limit to what you can do with Safari, If you have the money to spend $6-10 for every extension... Of course, a majority of people(and all of them that sit on the FanBoy squad) who own macs(excepting the iMac/Mini) are upper-middle class, hence it's their priviledge to bitch about how Firefox's goal is to render pages the same, regardless of which platform they're viewed on.
Firefox doesn't render text like shit, it renders it consistantly... They don't implement features that are OS-Dependant.
Oh, but I do have to admit, you're definitely correct on the view that every programmer that programs for linux or windows hates humanity, it's a good thing we have Mac developers that love humanity, who else would we pay absurd prices for software to?
jagged, uneven kerning,
When I can reliably customize kerning without stupid hacks, I'll consider this arguement...
"undead widget" syndrome.
I don't even know what this is, since Firefox doesn't have widgets.
misanthropic interfaces
While I realize that your Fanboy attitude would seem ineffective (and ineffectual) without throwing insults, I have a feeling that misanthropic wasn't quite the right word (next time try a dictionary to find out the meaning of words before you use them). I think what you meant to say was:
Firefox should have a brushed metal interface d00d! Also the address bar acting as the progress bar is uber-kewl!!!!! Pardon the fact that my misanthropic views focus on Firefox, but they naturally scorn anything that seems to be popular at the moment.
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Safari (while rendering might be better, lack of extensions balances out this grievance), this comment is purely aimed at your "Steve Jobs is God" fanboy attitude and your flamebait comment.
You missed the whole "which ones would you recommend" part..
Fine.. there are some out there, good job, way to work google, but the asker seems to want someone that has an opinion about these services, not a google answer.
This library probably wasn't released for the benefit of those already waist-deep in AJAX / Javascript-UI-Niceness... I'm guessing if you already have a very complex drag-and-drop piece of code in your library, nothing that was released today would be any help...
That said, I think it's positively wonderful! The hard part of web design isn't usually the design, but convincing the clients that a certain technology is OK to use. It's even harder when you're working in Microsoft land, and everyone knows you're a huge firefox supporter (I get several emails a day from people who surf in firefox for the express reason of finding sites that render incorrectly, so they can point out that not all sites look good in firefox... there is no reasoning with them, just deleting their emails)
Having Yahoo! release these to the wild will make it much easier to use this functionality, just by saying "How about we use the Yahoo UI Widget here?"
That your friend is on the same cable node, and he wants all of the pr0n bandwidth for himself...
Buy a router, your computer will have the SAME security it would have through dialup....
you'll still have to deal with viruses and backdoors from emails, malware, etc,
nVu may be a great tool, but it is severly limited... it re-writes code, has a horrible local/remote interface, and has many many many features to implement before it can even think about replacing frontpage, much less Notepad or Dreamweaver.
That said, I highly recommend you try it, hopefully it's limitations aren't specific to your application. nVu is somewhat patchy, so some users may have everything they need, while others (like me), can't do a thing (the re-write code thing is HUGE)
Actually, for the record, you can run IE 4, 5.0, 5.5, 6.0, 6.eolas, and 7 all on one box....
check out QuirksMode Multiple IE
in Dreamweaver, there's a command "Clean up MS Word HTML". Its made to clean up Word's crappy html, and does a pretty nice job of it.
Yeah, maybe once every 10 years we have a drought... and that means that we can only water our lawns 5 days a week rather than 7 days...
There is a HUGE difference between "Our" and "Aggro" energy sources...
Drive through Iowa/Nebraska/South Dakota/Minnesota... You'll see why there's a difference... much much lower population, and LOTS of wind farms. A Majority of energy in the US is used by people in cities, not agriculture... South Dakota gets a LOT of their energy from the Dams on the Missouri River.
Even if you don't believe me on that (it really is true), the whole point is that the plants change an energy source such that isn't mobile (regardless of how they get their energy... even coal or natural gas), into a mobile energy source... i.e. gas.
I'm from an Aggro state, and he's entirely correct...
The whole point of Ethanol is that by using Ethanol, we can use more of the corn produced in the US, therby having to export less. Also, by using Ethanol, we can import less oil. Even if it takes 29% more energy to produce Ethanol than it returns, What it doesn't say is that a LOT of Ethanol produced in the Aggro states run on power grids that get most of their power from dams/windmills.
We support the Agriculture by buying up all of the left-over crop of corn/soy from last year, we make it into a fuel to dilute the gas we import from the Middle East... Ethanol is much more valuable than left over corn/soy... and without it, small farmers in the midwest would go bankrupt...
the difference in usage is the Gecko engine that is loaded by Firefox.
The IE engine is loaded as a system resource, hence doesn't take time to swap in and out (the kernel can keep it from being paged out). This also keeps the memory from being reported in Task Manager.
Right now, I have the same 3 pages open in FF and IE, and FF is reporting 76MB, and IE is reporting 44MB. I have quite a bit more of browsing history in this FF session, which could account for some of the difference. I also don't have ANY plugins installed for IE, as I never actually use it.
I'm guessing that the special items in FF cause higher memory usage. Try turning off smooth scrolling (they may use a large off-screen buffer to render more page than needed)... and other non-essentials if you don't want all of the memory used.
here at the University of South Dakota, the Computer Science labs all use Firefox, and every other IT-administered lab has a mozilla-based browser installed as an option, unfortunately, some of web pages that students must access don't play nice with Mozilla, so we have to leave IE as the default browser :-(
NO!!!
it's dust proof because there aren't keys, but it is most definitely not kitchen proof!!!! water on the board is BAD, or anything else on your fingers when using the board...
I have a feeling that all of the posts replying to this are going to suggest that we tell the makers of colorsync, etc to port stuff over to linux, and that everyone needs to help convert tools over linux because anything is possible with linux and it will make it a better desktop and yada yada yada
This is where the linux community goes wrong and where the mac community went right... macs went for a niche, and perfected it. Linux is trying to take on windows, the jack-of-all-trades... Developers in linux should focus on very specific portions of linux (ok, they have stability down, let's work on Xorg + Gnome/KDE), then after that, work on apps... If development ramped up on Xorg and Destkop Environments, there would be a beautiful desktop with few applications, but look at how many applications are independantly developed for windows... build the Interface and the Apps will come.
Actually, put the crappiest most unstable computer behind a router/firewall, and it'll keep it's IP address until there is a power shortage... you can even DMZ the server to make sure it's fully accessible...
our DHCP lease on our cable modem is 7 days, so unless I'm on vacation and my power goes out, or the DHCP server loses power, I'm good to go!