I've become quite a fan of Joel Spolsky's writing. He's also got some good commentary on email and programmer productivity.
Like the Tyranny of Email article, Getting Things Done When You're Only a Grunt also suggests that there's a significant productivity boost to be gained from shutting off your email client.
The guy claimed that MS infringed on his "Pocket PC" which was just a casino style chip that you flip to make decisions.
Dude, the guy was claiming he had a common-law trademark on the term "PocketPC." He tried to sue Microsoft in small claims court. I'd hardly say that's much of a "fiasco."
Google already scans in thousands and thousands of pages of catalogs. They have the capability to search the catalogs for keywords. (I tried Westlaw and got "about" 16 hits.) And sure, the summary they provide for search hits and Similar Pages, while good for web searches, don't really compare with an abstract and cross-referencing. However, I'm sure Google could do it if they wanted to.
Dynamism is expensive but from what I can see they provide top-notch service. They've been around for some time, and if you have a warranty problem, they'll pay to fedex the product back.
Actually it's not a very easy solution, since in most cases "the provider which sent it" can be very difficult to determine. The From: address is completely useless, of course. You can track back through the Received: headers to find (most likely) an open relay that send the spam to you. More than likely it's in China and complaints to its owner will do nothing. Spammers also like open relays that don't add useful Received: headers (i.e., don't put the IP address in) so good luck finding out where the spam really came from.
There's a lot of discusson on the FastTrack network, Sharman networks, Kazaa, etc. and a lot of confusion. Slyck has an informative FastTrack history that explains how Kazaa/FastTrack got to where it is now.
I typicaly can have well over TWENTY IE windows open and navigate them just fine.
Have you tried tabbed browsing in Mozilla? I used to have a bunch of IE or Netscape windows open and alt-tab between them, but after experiencing tabbed browsing I just can't go back.
My favourite feature is using the middle button to open in a new tab. I just middle click on a number of links, and each one opens in the background in a new tab while I finish reading the original page.
It is of course 2 300-ohm resistors. This problem actually shows up fairly often, since a capital omega in some symbol font turns into a W when an original document is changed to use the same font throughout.
Circuit Cellar has been running these types of contests for ages. They're sponsored by some microcontroller company e.g. Atmel, Microchip, etc. and although it's Circuit Cellar staff that do the judging, there's usally extra points for designs that really show off the featured part for the contest.
This is from the PSOC contest description:
Any working electronics project based on the Cypress PSoC(TM) MCU (CY8C25xxx/26xxx family). Innovation, architectural elegance, and quality of design were key factors in the PSoC(TM) Design Challenge 2002 Contest. Entries ran the gamut between proven and leading-edge technologies. From very simple to the most intricate, winning was not a function of complexity.
Bonus consideration was given for the most effective use of internal hardware integration, the most effective use of dynamic reconfiguration, and the most novel application.
Hey, I'm no huge RIM fan but it's not really fair to connect them with the RIM park financing scandal on them. The dispute is between MFP financial (a financing company) and the City of Waterloo. RIM got their name on the park because they donated a bucket of cash; as far as I know they didn't have anything to do with this financing deal.
Here, I'll quote from the article you linked to:
In June, nine months after signing the deal, the city filed a lawsuit against MFP and Robson, alleging fraud, deceit and fraudulent misrepresentation.
It is also suing Clarica Life Insurance Co., which bought the right to collect the debt from MFP, and the Maritime Life Assurance Co., which bought part of the debt from Clarica.
Note - no mention of RIM itself. Yep, they probably got more (by having the park named after them) than what they deserved for their money. But linking to an article that makes them look (to casual readers) that they're scamming the city isn't fair.
No, it's not doing anything fancy. strings turns up the following interesting tidbits:
GET/cogs/login.php?build=114&username=
202.12.147.24
network.ausgamers.com
eth0
COGS Linux Authentication Tool. .cogs.rc
Login:
Password:
%s%s
Reading login and password from config file.
To use a different login 'rm.cogs.rc'
password=
HTTP/1.0
Login Successful...
Login Failed!
Backgrounding...
HELO LUNIX 117
HELO %s %s
I DON'T LIKE IT WHEN YOU DO THINGS LIKE THIS
202.12.147.162
They didn't even bother stripping the binary. It uses the following functions from libc:
chmod
close
connect
fclose
fgets
fopen
fork
fprintf
gethostbyname
getppid
htons
ioctl
kill
memcpy
memset
printf
ptrace
recv
send
sleep
socket
sprintf
strcat
strchr
strcpy
strlen
strstr
usleep
waitpid
(I had a nice bulleted list but Slashdot complained that I had too few characters per line.)
So there you go. If someone was so inclined, I'm sure that in a matter of minutes they could crack this to report a random MAC address.
Damn, that has to be the funniest thing I've read in years! After the first few weeks of All Your Base I never thought it would be funny again, but the link proved me wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
I need to find a friend or a PO box in Buffalo NY :)
Like the Tyranny of Email article, Getting Things Done When You're Only a Grunt also suggests that there's a significant productivity boost to be gained from shutting off your email client.
Human Task Switches Considered Harmful and Where do These People Get Their (Unoriginal) Ideas? have more on this topic.
Joel's archives have quite a number of interesting articles.
Nah, just get an 850X CD burner.
What a great idea!
Urban Legends Research Centre
P-Guard poster (scare the kids into thinking it's true)
A logical argument from UrbanLegends.com
A huge thread archived by google about this topic
Have you tried tabbed browsing in Mozilla? I used to have a bunch of IE or Netscape windows open and alt-tab between them, but after experiencing tabbed browsing I just can't go back.
My favourite feature is using the middle button to open in a new tab. I just middle click on a number of links, and each one opens in the background in a new tab while I finish reading the original page.
Here's your link in a nice non-pdf format.
It is of course 2 300-ohm resistors. This problem actually shows up fairly often, since a capital omega in some symbol font turns into a W when an original document is changed to use the same font throughout.
This is from the PSOC contest description:
Here, I'll quote from the article you linked to:
strings turns up the following interesting tidbits:
They didn't even bother stripping the binary. It uses the following functions from libc: chmod close connect fclose fgets fopen fork fprintf gethostbyname getppid htons ioctl kill memcpy memset printf ptrace recv send sleep socket sprintf strcat strchr strcpy strlen strstr usleep waitpid (I had a nice bulleted list but Slashdot complained that I had too few characters per line.)
So there you go. If someone was so inclined, I'm sure that in a matter of minutes they could crack this to report a random MAC address.