You're kidding me, right? In what world is 'a few months' an exceptionally short period to find a replacement for, say, an online email service?
No, I did not overreact. The person who used the word 'scramble' overreacted. And in a way that is frankly insulting to people who've ever actually had to scramble to do something. As I said: scrambling not only implies hurrying, but doing so in a haphazard/frantic way because there is extreme urgency. It is not a synonym of hurrying.
"Oh noes, Google Reader went away! Look at me typing and clicking like crazy and knocking over my coffee to find a replacement!"
Is that what scramble means to you? That isn't what it means to me. I just looked it up in my dictionary and the dictionary has pretty much the definition that I have. To scramble is to hurriedly and haphazardly overcome an obstacle. The obstacle doesn't have to be a 'terrible hardship', in fact to me the word implies a not-so-terrible hardship. Without looking it up in a dictionary, how would you define "scramble"?
Scrambling (in the only definition that reasonably applies to the GP post) implies is that it is absolutely necessary to hurry. Technically, you are correct and one could scramble for no apparent reason, but well, that is just stupid. Even more so when talking about finding a replacement for a free online service.
Logically, there should be some reason to hurry in finding the replacement. I will admit that 'terrible hardships' was a bit over the top. Not as much as 'scramble', though.
How about a gmail interface that can be used on small screens with large text?
You mean the new Gmail look that coexisted with the easily selectable old Gmail look for a year?
Have you noticed that lots of people -- google included -- now make sections of the browser window fixed, non-scrollable
You mean css position: fixed? Yeah, no website ever used that in the good old days.
1. Find documents not in any directory. You know: Everything you create goes in the root, not in any folder -- not changable. Anything you've classified or categorized with folders/tags is organized. Anything not so classified got lost. Suddenly, docs went from each to work with to painful.
Bullshit. Also, the service still exists. Are you saying they should never update it in any way? (insert this comment in all answers below)
2. A choice between page-layout oriented editing and free-form / web-page oriented editing. In fairness, this one was announced.
View -> Print layout.
3. A mail interface usable on smaller windows. Heck, a mail interface that doesn't assume it has the full screen.
These are pretty much the same as 3. We get it, you have a small screen.
Google changes the display layout all the time. As they do, with no warning they break things.
I have to say that I disagree with 'all the time', but the more important point is that webbased interfaces are inherently auto-update, unless you run them from your servers you manage. I don't know any other supplier of webbased services that announces (big) changes as well as Google. You're free to provide an example of a company that 'does it right'. In the mean time, I suggest that you switch to desktop applications instead of web applications. You obviously have issues with the latter.
I should not have to try to decipher their web page style to write a new style sheet code for the way I want the interface to look and function.
If you'd rather not have to scramble to find a replacement
Scramble? Really? Please enlighten us which free Google service essential to your life disappeared overnight and how you had to put everything aside for a week to find said replacement and prevent terrible hardships.
Just use proper sentence case and stop being some kind of bitchy linguistic rebel. You obviously have no problem in finding the shift key and even a five year old can understand the rule 'start every sentence with a capital letter'.
Alternatively, accept that people are going to poke fun at your style of writing.
Maybe it's a matter of preference then. I prefer typing fewer letters et seeing more results using the full screen rather than a small dropdown list.
I can understand preferring (the option for) a full screen result set when you're quite unsure what the name is of the thing you're looking for, but I'd say that that represents maybe one in twenty use cases. The rest is all about simple text-hint based navigation to a very well known target, for which a result set of about 20 is more than enough.
Be honest, how often do you benefit from seeing more than 20 results (and in what case)?
And simply choosing if I am searching for a file, an application (I refuse to say app!) or a control panel widget is not an inconvenience at all.
Because moving a hand from the keyboard to the mouse, finding the category that is probably applicable, selecting it and then returning to your result set to select the desired target (or worse: the text entry field or another category) doesn't cost extra time and effort?
This being said, my original comment was about the fact that I never had any luck getting Windows 7 search working properly.
You did a good job of completely omitting that from your original comment. I'd say that fact makes your comparison flawed.
Very often I would get no results at all and either had to give up or go through a lenghty process of googling, rebuilding indexes, changing settings in the control panel, updating registry keys, rebooting, etc. before usually giving up.
I don't know anyone who has had such problems. What kind of things were you searching for?
and for everything else [...] the Search charm in Windows 8 [is] infinitely superior to [...] the Start Menu search in Windows 7.
Please explain, because having to select what type of thing I'm looking for is a lot less convenient than typing a couple additional characters to make my query more specific, imho.
The whole concept of security awareness training demonstrates how the computer industry has failed. We should be designing systems that won't let users choose lousy passwords and don't care what links a user clicks on. We should be designing systems that conform to their folk beliefs of security, rather than forcing them to learn new ones.
Even though TFA is pretty crappy itself with its myriad of bad analogies, the idea of trying to craft effective simplified 'folksy' models makes sense. My favourite metaphor for internet security is regarding the internet as a square in a foreign city center. It gets the message of what to trust and what not across a lot better than trying to explain Javascript, cross-site scripting, or what an executable is.
In addition to this approach to raising security awareness, a case is (sort of) made for designing systems to support users in security related decisions in a way consistent with the above. I'd say that a green colored address bar in a browser is an example of how to do it the right way and the blanket statement 'this file may harm your computer' one of how to do it the wrong way.
I guess the difficulty lies in doing so for every individual pixel. Traditional CMOS sensors are reset and read out per row of pixels. I would imagine that the Rambus technology requires extra circuitry and thus less surface area for the photosites which would result in (dramatically?) reduced sensitivity.
On the other hand, the marketing blurb lists "Improved signal-to-noise performance in low-light conditions" as an advantage of their technology. On the other other hand, a "128 x 128 pixel" sensor is a far cry from the 3000+ x 3000+ pixel sensors in current cameras.
Considering it is Rambus, maybe we shouldn't be getting our hopes for great DR up too high;-)
The problem with the binary pixel solution is that it requires essentially a multiple exposure
Well, the way I understand the dpreview description, it doesn't: "Current image sensors are unable to record light above a specific saturation point, which results in clipped highlights. Binary Pixel technology gets around this by recording when a pixel has received a certain amount of light, then resetting it and in effect restarting the exposure."
Given identical exposure times, it seems to me that the binary pixel solution has a map of how many times each pixel was saturated fully in addition to the more fine-grained data of the last not-fully-saturated cycle. The traditional solution would have just the latter, with all the pixels fully saturated (at least) once representing clipped data.
Of course, it has to be seen how well this actually works. I wasn't even aware of Rambus doing anything in the camera sensor business.
I've seen Europeans refer to the Americas as one continent
I've seen Americans claim that the sun rotates around the earth. Come to think of it, I've seen Europeans claim the same. So, logically, that means that.. Umm.. Wait, where am I?
Anyway, I think you'll find very few reasonable people that see any merit in referring to South and North America as a single continent. Unless they're trying to be dicks.
Slashdot Mirror
You're kidding me, right?
In what world is 'a few months' an exceptionally short period to find a replacement for, say, an online email service?
No, I did not overreact. The person who used the word 'scramble' overreacted. And in a way that is frankly insulting to people who've ever actually had to scramble to do something. As I said: scrambling not only implies hurrying, but doing so in a haphazard/frantic way because there is extreme urgency. It is not a synonym of hurrying.
"Oh noes, Google Reader went away! Look at me typing and clicking like crazy and knocking over my coffee to find a replacement!"
Is that what scramble means to you? That isn't what it means to me. I just looked it up in my dictionary and the dictionary has pretty much the definition that I have. To scramble is to hurriedly and haphazardly overcome an obstacle. The obstacle doesn't have to be a 'terrible hardship', in fact to me the word implies a not-so-terrible hardship. Without looking it up in a dictionary, how would you define "scramble"?
Scrambling (in the only definition that reasonably applies to the GP post) implies is that it is absolutely necessary to hurry. Technically, you are correct and one could scramble for no apparent reason, but well, that is just stupid. Even more so when talking about finding a replacement for a free online service.
Logically, there should be some reason to hurry in finding the replacement. I will admit that 'terrible hardships' was a bit over the top.
Not as much as 'scramble', though.
How about a gmail interface that can be used on small screens with large text?
You mean the new Gmail look that coexisted with the easily selectable old Gmail look for a year?
Have you noticed that lots of people -- google included -- now make sections of the browser window fixed, non-scrollable
You mean css position: fixed? Yeah, no website ever used that in the good old days.
1. Find documents not in any directory. You know: Everything you create goes in the root, not in any folder -- not changable. Anything you've classified or categorized with folders/tags is organized. Anything not so classified got lost. Suddenly, docs went from each to work with to painful.
Bullshit. Also, the service still exists. Are you saying they should never update it in any way? (insert this comment in all answers below)
2. A choice between page-layout oriented editing and free-form / web-page oriented editing. In fairness, this one was announced.
View -> Print layout.
3. A mail interface usable on smaller windows. Heck, a mail interface that doesn't assume it has the full screen.
You mean like the myriad of mobile versions that exist? Try http://m.gmail.com/
Or the basic HTML view? https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=html (admittedly, this one should be more accessible)
4. Usability by people who need large fonts.
5. Usability by people with a low pixel count.
These are pretty much the same as 3. We get it, you have a small screen.
Google changes the display layout all the time. As they do, with no warning they break things.
I have to say that I disagree with 'all the time', but the more important point is that webbased interfaces are inherently auto-update, unless you run them from your servers you manage. I don't know any other supplier of webbased services that announces (big) changes as well as Google. You're free to provide an example of a company that 'does it right'.
In the mean time, I suggest that you switch to desktop applications instead of web applications. You obviously have issues with the latter.
I should not have to try to decipher their web page style to write a new style sheet code for the way I want the interface to look and function.
FTFY.
If you'd rather not have to scramble to find a replacement
Scramble? Really?
Please enlighten us which free Google service essential to your life disappeared overnight and how you had to put everything aside for a week to find said replacement and prevent terrible hardships.
Technically, capitalization is not a part of grammar but of orthography.
*curtsey*
Just use proper sentence case and stop being some kind of bitchy linguistic rebel.
You obviously have no problem in finding the shift key and even a five year old can understand the rule 'start every sentence with a capital letter'.
Alternatively, accept that people are going to poke fun at your style of writing.
I don't know, man. I wouldn't be surprised if SJHillman was dead serious.
If not, then:
Ha.
"I am unable to start my sentences with a capital letter, because I went to a crappy school!"
Now there's some ironic mind-numbing apologism for you.
Do they teach proper capitalization in your son's kindergarten?
Maybe it's a matter of preference then. I prefer typing fewer letters et seeing more results using the full screen rather than a small dropdown list.
I can understand preferring (the option for) a full screen result set when you're quite unsure what the name is of the thing you're looking for, but I'd say that that represents maybe one in twenty use cases. The rest is all about simple text-hint based navigation to a very well known target, for which a result set of about 20 is more than enough.
Be honest, how often do you benefit from seeing more than 20 results (and in what case)?
And simply choosing if I am searching for a file, an application (I refuse to say app!) or a control panel widget is not an inconvenience at all.
Because moving a hand from the keyboard to the mouse, finding the category that is probably applicable, selecting it and then returning to your result set to select the desired target (or worse: the text entry field or another category) doesn't cost extra time and effort?
This being said, my original comment was about the fact that I never had any luck getting Windows 7 search working properly.
You did a good job of completely omitting that from your original comment. I'd say that fact makes your comparison flawed.
Very often I would get no results at all and either had to give up or go through a lenghty process of googling, rebuilding indexes, changing settings in the control panel, updating registry keys, rebooting, etc. before usually giving up.
I don't know anyone who has had such problems. What kind of things were you searching for?
and for everything else [...] the Search charm in Windows 8 [is] infinitely superior to [...] the Start Menu search in Windows 7.
Please explain, because having to select what type of thing I'm looking for is a lot less convenient than typing a couple additional characters to make my query more specific, imho.
No. TFS is a terrible representation of TFA.
This is a more fitting excerpt:
The whole concept of security awareness training demonstrates how the computer industry has failed. We should be designing systems that won't let users choose lousy passwords and don't care what links a user clicks on. We should be designing systems that conform to their folk beliefs of security, rather than forcing them to learn new ones.
Even though TFA is pretty crappy itself with its myriad of bad analogies, the idea of trying to craft effective simplified 'folksy' models makes sense. My favourite metaphor for internet security is regarding the internet as a square in a foreign city center. It gets the message of what to trust and what not across a lot better than trying to explain Javascript, cross-site scripting, or what an executable is.
In addition to this approach to raising security awareness, a case is (sort of) made for designing systems to support users in security related decisions in a way consistent with the above. I'd say that a green colored address bar in a browser is an example of how to do it the right way and the blanket statement 'this file may harm your computer' one of how to do it the wrong way.
Which, incidentally, is exactly what is done to achieve the desired dramatic effect in the (painfully amateuristic) video accompanying 'The Slammer'.
Actually, it (also?) works by using the vibration characteristics of the iPhone 5:
http://cycloramic.com/tutorial.html
It is still stupid and more of a party trick than anything else, but it doesn't require extra hardware.
Mod parent up, please.
and it's very fast and very crisp
You may even have a point somewhere, but that is just such a watery thing to say.
Well, yes :-)
I guess the difficulty lies in doing so for every individual pixel. Traditional CMOS sensors are reset and read out per row of pixels. I would imagine that the Rambus technology requires extra circuitry and thus less surface area for the photosites which would result in (dramatically?) reduced sensitivity.
On the other hand, the marketing blurb lists "Improved signal-to-noise performance in low-light conditions" as an advantage of their technology.
On the other other hand, a "128 x 128 pixel" sensor is a far cry from the 3000+ x 3000+ pixel sensors in current cameras.
Considering it is Rambus, maybe we shouldn't be getting our hopes for great DR up too high ;-)
The problem with the binary pixel solution is that it requires essentially a multiple exposure
Well, the way I understand the dpreview description, it doesn't:
"Current image sensors are unable to record light above a specific saturation point, which results in clipped highlights. Binary Pixel technology gets around this by recording when a pixel has received a certain amount of light, then resetting it and in effect restarting the exposure."
Given identical exposure times, it seems to me that the binary pixel solution has a map of how many times each pixel was saturated fully in addition to the more fine-grained data of the last not-fully-saturated cycle. The traditional solution would have just the latter, with all the pixels fully saturated (at least) once representing clipped data.
Of course, it has to be seen how well this actually works. I wasn't even aware of Rambus doing anything in the camera sensor business.
If dynamic range is important to you, you may be interested in Rambus' new technology:
http://www.dpreview.com/news/2013/02/27/rambus-shows-binaryt-pixel-sensor-technology-for-expanded-dynamic-range
Even worse than the vulnerabilities are the _constant_ nagging for updates.
1. Remove the scheduled updater task.
2. Install Secunia PSI
3. Profit.
Also, the JRE is updated nowadays. Only old JDKs are not removed, but that makes sense (to a developer).
The comedian Ed Byrne said it best: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT1TVSTkAXg
I've seen Europeans refer to the Americas as one continent
I've seen Americans claim that the sun rotates around the earth. Come to think of it, I've seen Europeans claim the same.
So, logically, that means that.. Umm..
Wait, where am I?
Anyway, I think you'll find very few reasonable people that see any merit in referring to South and North America as a single continent. Unless they're trying to be dicks.
A racing game called 'Live for Speed'? Sounds like car names and designs aren't the only thing they're 'sortof borrowing'.
Woosh.
My favorite video to support the point:
Iran before 1979
It's amazing how, deep down, humans are all alike.