First of all I said it was a guess and I was right because although you may now live in Windsor you are from Michigan. You said it yourself:
"When I declare citizenship at the border, I state my nation of citizenship, which is Michigan. The same could be said of any of the Founding Fathers of the United States. When asked in diplomatic meetings what country he was from, George Washington always replied, "I am a Virginian". When in France as our ambassador, Benjamin Franklin stated he was "...a Pennsylvanian".
The USA, legally, are in a state of political alliance similar to the EU. I don't take particular offence when people call me "American", as I'm used to it. I will occasionally correct people, though."
And your nation of citizenship is the USA, not Michigan. Michigan is one of the 50 states that make up the United States of America and is not a stand alone country. The "states" that make up the EU are stand alone countries and perceived so the world over. I think you are the one who needs to learn some geography as well as how the real world works. I bet when you "correct" people for calling you American and explain you are "Michiganian" or whatever they laugh their asses off and consider you a complete retard which is what you are.
Back to the original message I replied to: "Also, before you start bitching about America,note that I didn't list what country I'm from."
You said that implying you were not American but in your previous post I quoted above you said yourself you are an American citizen. Just living in Canada does not make you a citizen of Canada dumbass. And if you don't like being called an American I hope you just stay out, that would be fine with me.
That sounds great but I really don't mind ads as long as they aren't pop ups. With the popup blocker in Opera enabled and the hosts file from http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm I almost never see ads at all and it is pretty much "automatic". Also, using *'s in the hosts file really does a nice job and almost makes using regexes unneeded.
I recently reset my hosts file because I figure the websites I like need to make money somehow and while I don't buy anything I do click on the ads at the sites I frequent quite often. Without revenue from ads many sites would not be able to exist so as long as they are not intrusive I really could care less to see them on the page.
If just seeing ads bothers you so much then I can see why you would want to use filterset.g. For me as long as the ads don't cover a page or popup I don't mind them. I am glad that there are choices out there for us all, to each there own.
Opera does have pop up blocking. For the in page ads just get a good hosts file setup and that should take care of the rest of the ads. Problem solved.
Until it obtains such a feature, I have no need to try it.
Actually something similar is already in the works and I agree that browser synchronization is a HUGE bonus for firefox. The following is a quote from an interview with Wium Lie who is CTO at Opera:
"You can start, for example, reading a CNET article on your laptop in the morning and then, as you run out and catch a bus or subway, you can continue reading that article on your phone; the data can follow you. We're not quite there yet, but that's another point that's going to be a focus in our development--to try to synchronize data between the mobile world and the stationary world."http://news.com.com/For+Opera%2C+smaller+really+is +better/2008-1032_3-6124184.html
So, Opera will soon have something similar.
To be honest, I wasn't very impressed with how it didn't support my bank's site (even when changing the browser agent) -- but for some reason they support Konqueror even.
How did it fail? This sounds more like a problem with how the website was coded and not a problem with Opera itself. I think it is a case of your banks website not supporting Opera, not Opera not supporting your banks website.
That is true but at least sodium chloride is a naturally occurring substance that humans have consumed for thousands of years which is a pretty good long term study to look back on.
Chlorinated sugar on the other hand is only about 30 years old and NO long term studies have been done (and in total only THIRTY SIX humans were ever tested and the longest study was FOUR DAYS) while many of the studies that have been done show that pretty bad things can happen such as: "Sucralose (Splenda) may result shrunken thymus glands, impaired immune system and enlargement of liver and kidneys" (New Scientist, Nov 23, 1991). Take a look at the following article about the dangers of splenda for some more info: http://www.mercola.com/2000/dec/3/sucralose_danger s.htm
We don't know what long term problems could arise out of humans using sucralose and that is pretty scary and is the reason I won't use myself as one of the test subjects. If you want to assume that using man made chlorinated sugar is fine since using naturally occurring chlorinated salt is fine then go for it. I would prefer to see more long term testing done that shows more favorable results than all of the tests I have taken a look at so far.
I also don't understand why anyone would want to use a man made chemical when many natural sugar replacements are available. The reason the masses don't know about the safe, natural alternatives is because there is not nearly as much money in it as there is if a company comes up with their own man made alternative that they can patent. Did you know that stevia cannot legally call itself a sweetener here in the US because the artificial sweetener companies put pressure on the FDA to not allow it? Even though Japan has extensively studied the herb and proven it is a safe sugar alternative it cannot be called such because of that would threaten the profits that could be made using the man made sweeteners. The FDA would prefer to ban stevia if they could, read more about how stevia has been attacked here: http://www.rense.com/general37/stev.htm
Yes, the zoom function definitely comes in handy at times.
I honestly cannot say if firefox is better once it is setup with the right extensions, Opera just has everything I need already built in. I also know that the cold startup time for Opera is WAY less. According to: http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html#win speed
Opera 9 takes only 2.74 seconds to startup compared to FF 2.0's time of 11.64 seconds. That alone will keep me from seriously testing out FF, when I start up a browser I want it working NOW and having to wait over 4 times longer is not acceptable.
FF definitely has a lot more extensions to use and they may be better but Opera does have widgets now so it no longer is held back in regard to not having support for any third party extensions. Until I see a significant reason to switch over to FF I am sticking with Opera since I am used to it and prefer how it is setup and I think most diehard FF users are of the same mindset regarding FF. I used to be a Moz user until about 5 years ago when I discovered the tabbed browsing that Opera had and that is what got me to switch over at that point in time. To each their own.
This strikes me as so factually inaccurate I can't believe it. FF 2.0 may be more featureful, but it's far faster than FF 1.5 on every piece of hardware I've tried it on. And it has fewer memory leak issues.
Well the people I know who were complaining about the slower performance of FF noticed it with 1.5, not just 2.0. Anyway I found two somewhat recent articles showing a comparison of FF 1.5 to 2.0 as well as comparisons to Opera 9 and IE 7. NONE of them show FF 2.0 being "far faster" than FF 1.5 and for the most part 1.5 is faster or just slower by a marginal amount: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1990855 ,00.asp
This article clearly shows how FF has a pretty significant increase of memory usage after just opening 6 tabs, FF 2.0 nearly doubled its amount of memory usage while FF 1.5 nearly tripled the amount of memory used and yet FF 1.5 still used less memory. Opera actually ended up using LESS memory after opening 6 tabs than it used with no tabs, and it still used less memory overall than FF 2.0 or 1.5 with 6 tabs open.
Here it can be seen that FF 2.0 is slower than FF 1.5 in nearly every category except the cold startup time which did have a significant improvement since it dropped from a rediculous 17.26 seconds to a still very unacceptable 11.64 seconds. Why does it take so damn long to start up a freaking web browser? I mean IE 7 even beats it with a time of 7.8 seconds. Opera 9.01 kills them all with a cold startup time of 2.74 seconds which is as fast or faster than FF 1.5 and 2.0's WARM startup time. When I go to surf the web it is nice to have the browser come up almost instantaneously, I don't want to be waiting around for over 10 seconds, that is just crazy and if I don't have to do it I won't so that is one reason I prefer Opera.
Face it, the only real reason to keep using FF is if you are used to it and the extensions you use with it and/or you seriously care if you can take a look at the source or not (which IMO I don't care about as long as the software performs better). Now that Opera has something to compete with FF's extensions (the widgets), it performs faster and is more stable than FF, and it adheres to the standards better why would you not use it?
CHECK 1. Stops popups automatically CHECK 2. constant updates and improvements every x months CHECK 3. better security than IE CHECK 4. the option to easily clear cookies, history, temp files, etc on close
5. Is faster, more standards compliant, and more stable than FF or IE. 6. Includes nearly everything needed for the average user in the core build so no downloading and installing of extensions is needed.
IMHO The Opera browser is the best browser available and I wish more people knew it existed because the majority of people I know think the only choices available are IE and FF, many of them have never even heard of Opera.
Last, but not least, I'm not sure what the author of this article is proposing we all do. Switch to IE7 or Opera? Yeah, that will help the open source community.
I don't know exactly what the author was proposing people do since I cannot get the page to load now but as much as I think open source is great I will be damned before I use an open source alternative that is inferior just to "help the open source community.". I will use whatever software I feel works the best for me and if that means I do not have access to the source so be it.
Personally I have used Opera for about the last 5 years and the reason I chose it then was because IE was a POS and Mozilla was slower and neither IE nor Moz supported TABBED BROWSING. Now that both IE and FF support tabbed browsing I have given both a shot and while I will not be using IE for obvious reasons (although it now seems to perform faster than FF) I still won't switch to FF for the simple reason that I have gotten used to Opera and it still is a faster and more stable browser both in my experience and from the comparisons that other people have posted online. The thing I like the best about Opera compared to FF is that if I setup a new computer I just install the latest build of Opera and it includes all the bells and whistles I need where FF requires some extensions to be downloaded and installed to get to the same level. This is just a convenience factor since I am somewhat lazy but I still think it is relevant.
Even some of the diehard FF users I know are considering switching to another browser because they seem to feel FF has started to become bloated and FF's performance is suffering. It is one thing to add a lot of features in the core build but not suffer performance wise like Opera has done but quite another to start adding them and have the user experience suffer. I know the OS zealots will not budge and switch over to Opera but for many FF users I know if it does not cost them any money to switch to a better performing browser then they will in a heartbeat. The main reason many of the FF users I know who are complaining about its performance have not even tried another browser is because they think the only alternative is IE, Opera is just not well known to the masses. It is going to be interesting to see what happens in the next year since the Wii includes Opera and hopefully will get some more exposure out there.
Also, before you start bitching about America, note that I didn't list what country I'm from.
Well judging from your sig "Detroit's #1 Performance Art Troupe [causingascene.com]" my first guess would be you are American and live in Michigan. That wasn't too hard...
I do agree with you that it would be great to sever trade with all countries that treat their citizens as badly as China does. Economically that would be a very bad move though.
Not everything sugar free is good for you or a diabetic, contrary to the popular belief otherwise- and not everything uses Splenda (nor is it a certainty that it's any better than Nutrasweet, safety-wise...).
Please stay away from Splenda which is basically just chlorinated sugar (I don't want to let any more chlorine into my body if possible) as well as all of the other artificial sweeteners like Nutrasweet, etc. They are NOT natural substances and instead are just man made chemicals, can be dangerous, and there are natural alternatives that are proven to be safe.
Two alternatives that I know of are xylitol and stevia and they actually have some health benefits which I find great.
Xylitol is a naturally occurring wood sugar and is pretty much just as potent as table sugar so it makes a great substitute. One of the best things about xylitol is it is actually tooth friendly and some studies have shown that it can help reduce plaque as well as help repair minor cavities. Xylitol also is absorbed slower than table sugar which is great since it does not cause high blood sugar levels or hyperglycemia. I will mention that xylitol should not be used in baking recipes because it does interfere with the yeast in some way so stevia is a better replacement for baking.
Stevia is also made from a naturally occurring plant. I really like it but it is around 300 times sweeter than table sugar so it took me a while to get used to know how much to use. It also does not alter blood sugar levels like sucrose which makes it great for diabetes and those suffering from hypoclycemia. Japan did extensive research of stevia and has been using it for over 30 years without any causes for concern that I have heard about. The World Health Organization also studied it and found no ill effects. Stevia can be used in baking recipes and does not have the problems that xylitol does.
All I can say is I hope people look to some of the naturally occurring sugar replacements first before putting a man made chemical sugar replacement into their system. I recently found out I had severe hypoglycemia and am pre-diabetic which is why I went looking for some alternatives to sucrose and everyone I talked to and all the information I could obtain pointed towards stevia and xylitol as the best alternatives. After trying both of them out I will say that I don't miss sucrose at all and I wish I had been informed about the alternatives sooner, they are great tasting and SO much better for your body.
Not all software running in Parallels works 100%, ESPECIALLY games which is a LARGE majority of computer users. You could run XP using Bootcamp and then I have heard things will run better so it is not like you would have no options but that is still another hoop to jump through.
I do find it funny you said "begging for drivers and software that you don't get to have." and then you admit to running XP in parallels which proves Mac doesn't run all the software you need. I also would like an answer to my question before asking what Mac software there is that I can't find basically the same thing for linux/windows and it cannot be media editing/authoring software since I know the Mac wins in that area?
I have no problem with people who prefer one platform over another, I do have a problem with people like you who are Mac fanboys, have to include the word "Mac" in all of their screenames/handles/e-mail addresses,etc, and think they have the best of the best and have a computing "Utopia" and must tell everyone about it. Mac fanboys also seem to try and rip on other platforms whenever they can even if what they say is no longer relevant such as when you said a person would have to be an idiot to plug their XP box directly into a cable modem. Hello, ever since service pack 2 was released THREE years ago the Windows firewall is turned on by default which does a pretty decent job of protecting a PC and that PC being directly connected into the cable modem would NOT be an issue.
You paid more money for a machine that is no better than the machine I hand built myself and I could have purchased a pre-built machine for less than a Mac too. I am able to run more software easier than you are be able to (especially games) and I am able to achieve just as good security as you are able to achieve. Your Mac is not better than my PC, get over it. I don't go around preaching how great PC's are every chance I get (and if I did I would at least check my facts to make sure they are still relevant, otherwise I could rip on the one button mouse couldn't I?) and I wish Mac preachers such as yourself would shut the hell up because nobody cares except your fellow sheep.
I think it is time for you to snort another line of Mac crack before you lose your obsession.
I know that is the default now. I just wanted to clarify that having that as a default is good and that by "ALWAYS ON" the OP did not mean it could never be turned off. You also don't get warnings on the system tray that the MS firewall is not turned on as long as you have another firewall installed, that would be very annoying otherwise.
Seems to me that the microsoft firewall should be light, nimble and ALWAYS ON.
I do believe that the default should be for the MS firewall to be on after installation, that would have saved problems for MANY inexperienced users whose windows boxes ended up getting owned within minutes of them connecting them to the internet. The MS firewall definitely seems to be light, nimble, and does a decent job but for users like me who prefer to use a software firewall that is more customizable (I like Kerio Personal Firewall myself) I would hope that "ALWAYS ON" means by default and not that it can NEVER be turned off or disabled.
EXCUUUUSE MEEE for being a little behind on current news
You were at least 5 years behind the current news, 4 years from now will you still not know the President is no longer George Bush? Check your facts before making claims.
I got your "fanboy" swinging right here. I'm part of the original equipment, bitch, and whether you like it or not, Macs have NEVER been as susceptible to hacking as PC's are.
I don't care if you are part of the original equipment, you still are a fanboy which is a person (I liked Wiki's definition) "who is utterly devoted to a single fannish subject, or to a single point of view within that subject, often to the point where it is considered an obsession." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanboy
I adopted the Mac platform in December of 1987 and from that day to this one I have not spent ONE CENT on measures to keep me safe from viruses, malware, spyware, trojans, bots, or any of the crap the average PC user has to guard against.
Hmm, thats funny, I have not spent one cent on my Linux box either protecting against those things. Virus/malware writers don't usually target the minority, they get better results going after more machines and yes Windows usually is easier to hack.
I plug my Mac directly into my cable modem and I don't worry about it. If you use Windows, you shouldn't do that. Ever. If you say otherwise, you expose yourself as a wet-behind-the-ears, I've-got-a-pantload ID10T.
This shows you haven't checked your facts on this subject lately either. At my work we have a Windows 2000 server plugged directly into the DSL modem and it has never gotten hacked in the last few years. At my home I have a Windows XP Pro machine that is plugged directly into the cable modem for almost 2 years and I have never had a problem with that either. Welcome to the new Millenium, installing and properly configuring a firewall and setting up good IP policies does wonders. Your Mac is no more secure than either my Linux boxes or my Windows machines.
That "fanboy" term is a bitter acknowledgement that we're busy surfing wherever we please while you're either de-fleaing your system or begging for drivers and software that you don't get to have. Wallow in it. Revel in it. You are coolness personified.
I'll go back to my utopia now.
You do realize you are just helping add to my case that you are an annoying Mac fanboy don't you?
By the way I have not had a problem with malware/viruses on my Windows XP box for over 4 years. As far as drivers, the last driver problem I had was 1.5 years ago when I got an ATI card and the drivers kept crashing my system. I got a nVidia 6800 something and it installed like a charm and has been working perfectly since. Driver problems are NOT a PC problem, it is a problem with some manufacturers, but as long as you stay away from them things are great.
What software does Mac have that I can't get something similar on the PC (disregarding media editing/authoring software)? There is WAY more software for the PC than the Mac, you are on crack. The biggest area I can think of is games, if you are a computer gamer then you NEED a PC or you will not be happy.
You can go back to your "Utopia" now, only you and your fellow Mac fanboys actually believe that it is a Utopia.
Does it suprise you he posted something like that when his handle is Macdaffy and he has a link to the website (and probably his business or where he works) called coffeemac.com.
Mac fanboys are the worst of all the fanboys IMO, they will always bring up how "superior" Mac's are no matter what, even if bringing it up is not relevant such as this case. The one area Mac's truly are superior at is graphic/video editing/authoring, other than that you can get much more functionality at a much lower price with an ordinary PC running Windows and/or Linux. Mac's are only "cool" to people who have them, the rest of us just sit back and laugh at the people getting ripped off by Apple (although Apple is getting better about prices) when all they need is a machine that can render some webpages and do some word processing.
Oh and before some Mac fanboy replies saying OSX is sooo secure and they never get malware I hope they realize that someone running Linux can get just as much security and even a Windows box is relatively easy to keep secure and malware free. Another reason Mac's are "more secure" is because almost nobody cares to target them (or Linux) since attacking Windows machines yields better results just by the sheer volume of users (although bad security on the users end helps the attackers too).
What happens when the data is stolen from a country and sent to another country?
Well if the person who stole that data resides in my home country or their country has laws (that are enforced) against stealing data then not only will the person likely lose their job but they will face legal ramifications as well. I do not want to only have legal recourse against the company, I want to be able to go after the employee too because otherwise there is not as much deterent for the employee to do such things.
How do you contain that? Whom do you go after to get that data back?
Theft Happens! As long as there is some motive somewhere to do this - it will be done!
It is near impossible to contain it and get it back once the data is out of the country. All that I am saying is I would prefer people who handle my personal information to be in a country that has laws against them mistreating my personal information because that is WAY more deterent then just having to lose a job.
Yes, theft happens and always will happen. However, sometimes the payoff is not worth the risk. As an example lets say someone in India who handles my personal information makes $3840 a year (I based that on $2/hr). Now, someone offers them $100 per credit card account information and they may easily be able to somehow get 1000 accounts which I think is a rather low number. They could then go sell that data, make $100,000, and basically make about 26 times as much as he would have made in one year, they could not work for a decent amount of their remaining life. Would this be very tempting to do if the worst thing that could happen would be I would lose my job? YES, if I lose my job who cares, I have 26 years to find a new job. Would it be as tempting if I could lose my job, lose all the money I made, and also go to jail for a long time? NO, the risk would not be worth as much since getting caught is relatively easy to do.
Right now there are almost no enforced laws in India dealing with keeping personal information confidentiality, so the worst that happens to Indians that go sell this information is they lose their job. Big deal. Once they have laws and enforce those laws THEN I won't have as much of a problem with them having access to that data.
Let's face it - companies outsourcing to India have obviously taken a look at the legal implications (in terms of jurisdiction and a "if things go wrong scenario") - and these companies have not become big and successful by doing the wrong things! (Well one or two or ten maybe - but hundreds - I don't think so).
Ha, don't make me laugh, do you seriously think the companies have considered legal implications as much as the huge cost savings? The bottom line is all that most companies care about and the only thing making the companies now consider the legal implications is because a lot of them have been embarrassed in the last couple of years by having outsourced employees sell customers personal information.
People with either a xenophobic agenda, or a protectionist agenda will jump on this with the whole "India is evil! Don't outsource to India" paranoia and hysteria, when in fact there is no reason to believe your data is more secure anywhere else.
There is a reason to believe my data would be more secure somewhere else and for me that would be here in the US. The reason it would be safer is because if someone were to sell my information working at a company here in the US then they would be held accountable to the laws we have against that and they would pay the price because I certainly would go after them myself if necessary. If the person who sells my data happens to be in another country then I would not have the choice to go after them myself and even though they most likely would lose their job their home country may not have any laws against what they did with my information so they could basically get away with it. So while there truly are "bad apples" everywhere there would be MUCH more deterent to sell someones personal information in a country that has laws against it than in a country where those laws do not exist.
I think if I was making $2/hr (I made that up, I don't know what the real number is but I am sure it is low compared to the US) while I knew I was being exploited for cheap labor and was offered a large sum of money in exchange for personal data knowing I would lose my job but not be in trouble legally that I would probably take the money and go hunting for a new job.
Basically I hope that some laws are passed in the US (and other countries) that already have laws guarding personal information to make sure if companies outsource access to that information that they are only allowed to outsource it to a country that has at least the same laws in regard to personal information. The best choice would to not outsource that information at all (so if the company in another country did not persue the employee legally I could do it myself) but at least this way if someone did do something with my personal information I would have some hope that they would be punished more than just losing their job.
That is if you want to pay MS for an office suite. Like the replier above me said Open Office is available for Windows too, so there is a still a free option available.
It also is not like Redhat wrote Open Office, them "including" it costs the company absolutely no extra money so don't act like the company is "nicer" for including it and/or Redhat WS has some huge advantage because OO is included on the installation disc.
Well bad management decisions like what happened at your company should eventually result in the companies realizing that the "cost savings" of outsourcing a lot of times is not all it is cut out to be. You are just another story of the many I have heard of recently where outsourcing ended up costing more in the long run. Companies will change their ways and smart companies will either do their research well before they outsource or not outsource at all.
Your extra skills didn't help you at your last job but I am pretty sure they will help you find a new and hopefully better job. Good luck, the jobs are available, I know since a few months ago I checked out what was available and I found the market to be VERY good.
I'm curious if many of the competent, professional I.T. people are really losing their jobs.
I don't think they are losing their jobs. I wouldn't say it is exactly the opposite of the tech boom but it is similar since a lot of the lower skilled jobs are being outsourced. People who keep their skills up to par and make sure they have a lot to offer will still be in demand for quite some time.
That's right, I should not have to compete with prisoner slaves in China, with Cayman Islands' girls that are forced to undergo abortions so their employer does not need to pay for maternity leave...
Since this is a discussion about I.T. jobs I think your comment is irrelevant. I highly doubt any of your examples of slave labor/badly treated employees are experienced by workers performing outsourced I.T. related jobs. In fact, most I.T. jobs in India and elsewhere actually are VERY desirable jobs to have and while what they are paid pales in comparison to American wages it is very good pay for the people in those countries.
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First of all I said it was a guess and I was right because although you may now live in Windsor you are from Michigan. You said it yourself:
"When I declare citizenship at the border, I state my nation of citizenship, which is Michigan. The same could be said of any of the Founding Fathers of the United States. When asked in diplomatic meetings what country he was from, George Washington always replied, "I am a Virginian". When in France as our ambassador, Benjamin Franklin stated he was "...a Pennsylvanian".
The USA, legally, are in a state of political alliance similar to the EU. I don't take particular offence when people call me "American", as I'm used to it. I will occasionally correct people, though."
And your nation of citizenship is the USA, not Michigan. Michigan is one of the 50 states that make up the United States of America and is not a stand alone country. The "states" that make up the EU are stand alone countries and perceived so the world over. I think you are the one who needs to learn some geography as well as how the real world works. I bet when you "correct" people for calling you American and explain you are "Michiganian" or whatever they laugh their asses off and consider you a complete retard which is what you are.
Back to the original message I replied to:
"Also, before you start bitching about America,note that I didn't list what country I'm from."
You said that implying you were not American but in your previous post I quoted above you said yourself you are an American citizen. Just living in Canada does not make you a citizen of Canada dumbass. And if you don't like being called an American I hope you just stay out, that would be fine with me.
That sounds great but I really don't mind ads as long as they aren't pop ups. With the popup blocker in Opera enabled and the hosts file from http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm I almost never see ads at all and it is pretty much "automatic". Also, using *'s in the hosts file really does a nice job and almost makes using regexes unneeded.
I recently reset my hosts file because I figure the websites I like need to make money somehow and while I don't buy anything I do click on the ads at the sites I frequent quite often. Without revenue from ads many sites would not be able to exist so as long as they are not intrusive I really could care less to see them on the page.
If just seeing ads bothers you so much then I can see why you would want to use filterset.g. For me as long as the ads don't cover a page or popup I don't mind them. I am glad that there are choices out there for us all, to each there own.
Opera does have pop up blocking. For the in page ads just get a good hosts file setup and that should take care of the rest of the ads. Problem solved.
It fails my check 1. Browser synchronization.
s +better/2008-1032_3-6124184.html
Until it obtains such a feature, I have no need to try it.
Actually something similar is already in the works and I agree that browser synchronization is a HUGE bonus for firefox. The following is a quote from an interview with Wium Lie who is CTO at Opera:
"You can start, for example, reading a CNET article on your laptop in the morning and then, as you run out and catch a bus or subway, you can continue reading that article on your phone; the data can follow you. We're not quite there yet, but that's another point that's going to be a focus in our development--to try to synchronize data between the mobile world and the stationary world." http://news.com.com/For+Opera%2C+smaller+really+i
So, Opera will soon have something similar.
To be honest, I wasn't very impressed with how it didn't support my bank's site (even when changing the browser agent) -- but for some reason they support Konqueror even.
How did it fail? This sounds more like a problem with how the website was coded and not a problem with Opera itself. I think it is a case of your banks website not supporting Opera, not Opera not supporting your banks website.
That is true but at least sodium chloride is a naturally occurring substance that humans have consumed for thousands of years which is a pretty good long term study to look back on.
r s.htm
Chlorinated sugar on the other hand is only about 30 years old and NO long term studies have been done (and in total only THIRTY SIX humans were ever tested and the longest study was FOUR DAYS) while many of the studies that have been done show that pretty bad things can happen such as: "Sucralose (Splenda) may result shrunken thymus glands, impaired immune system and enlargement of liver and kidneys" (New Scientist, Nov 23, 1991). Take a look at the following article about the dangers of splenda for some more info:
http://www.mercola.com/2000/dec/3/sucralose_dange
We don't know what long term problems could arise out of humans using sucralose and that is pretty scary and is the reason I won't use myself as one of the test subjects. If you want to assume that using man made chlorinated sugar is fine since using naturally occurring chlorinated salt is fine then go for it. I would prefer to see more long term testing done that shows more favorable results than all of the tests I have taken a look at so far.
I also don't understand why anyone would want to use a man made chemical when many natural sugar replacements are available. The reason the masses don't know about the safe, natural alternatives is because there is not nearly as much money in it as there is if a company comes up with their own man made alternative that they can patent. Did you know that stevia cannot legally call itself a sweetener here in the US because the artificial sweetener companies put pressure on the FDA to not allow it? Even though Japan has extensively studied the herb and proven it is a safe sugar alternative it cannot be called such because of that would threaten the profits that could be made using the man made sweeteners. The FDA would prefer to ban stevia if they could, read more about how stevia has been attacked here:
http://www.rense.com/general37/stev.htm
Yes, the zoom function definitely comes in handy at times.
n speed
I honestly cannot say if firefox is better once it is setup with the right extensions, Opera just has everything I need already built in. I also know that the cold startup time for Opera is WAY less. According to:
http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html#wi
Opera 9 takes only 2.74 seconds to startup compared to FF 2.0's time of 11.64 seconds. That alone will keep me from seriously testing out FF, when I start up a browser I want it working NOW and having to wait over 4 times longer is not acceptable.
FF definitely has a lot more extensions to use and they may be better but Opera does have widgets now so it no longer is held back in regard to not having support for any third party extensions. Until I see a significant reason to switch over to FF I am sticking with Opera since I am used to it and prefer how it is setup and I think most diehard FF users are of the same mindset regarding FF. I used to be a Moz user until about 5 years ago when I discovered the tabbed browsing that Opera had and that is what got me to switch over at that point in time. To each their own.
This strikes me as so factually inaccurate I can't believe it. FF 2.0 may be more featureful, but it's far faster than FF 1.5 on every piece of hardware I've tried it on. And it has fewer memory leak issues.
5 ,00.asp
n speed
Well the people I know who were complaining about the slower performance of FF noticed it with 1.5, not just 2.0. Anyway I found two somewhat recent articles showing a comparison of FF 1.5 to 2.0 as well as comparisons to Opera 9 and IE 7. NONE of them show FF 2.0 being "far faster" than FF 1.5 and for the most part 1.5 is faster or just slower by a marginal amount:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,199085
This article clearly shows how FF has a pretty significant increase of memory usage after just opening 6 tabs, FF 2.0 nearly doubled its amount of memory usage while FF 1.5 nearly tripled the amount of memory used and yet FF 1.5 still used less memory. Opera actually ended up using LESS memory after opening 6 tabs than it used with no tabs, and it still used less memory overall than FF 2.0 or 1.5 with 6 tabs open.
Here is the next article:
http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html#wi
Here it can be seen that FF 2.0 is slower than FF 1.5 in nearly every category except the cold startup time which did have a significant improvement since it dropped from a rediculous 17.26 seconds to a still very unacceptable 11.64 seconds. Why does it take so damn long to start up a freaking web browser? I mean IE 7 even beats it with a time of 7.8 seconds. Opera 9.01 kills them all with a cold startup time of 2.74 seconds which is as fast or faster than FF 1.5 and 2.0's WARM startup time. When I go to surf the web it is nice to have the browser come up almost instantaneously, I don't want to be waiting around for over 10 seconds, that is just crazy and if I don't have to do it I won't so that is one reason I prefer Opera.
Face it, the only real reason to keep using FF is if you are used to it and the extensions you use with it and/or you seriously care if you can take a look at the source or not (which IMO I don't care about as long as the software performs better). Now that Opera has something to compete with FF's extensions (the widgets), it performs faster and is more stable than FF, and it adheres to the standards better why would you not use it?
Have you ever tried out Opera?
Let's look at the facts for Opera:
CHECK 1. Stops popups automatically
CHECK 2. constant updates and improvements every x months
CHECK 3. better security than IE
CHECK 4. the option to easily clear cookies, history, temp files, etc on close
5. Is faster, more standards compliant, and more stable than FF or IE.
6. Includes nearly everything needed for the average user in the core build so no downloading and installing of extensions is needed.
IMHO The Opera browser is the best browser available and I wish more people knew it existed because the majority of people I know think the only choices available are IE and FF, many of them have never even heard of Opera.
Last, but not least, I'm not sure what the author of this article is proposing we all do. Switch to IE7 or Opera? Yeah, that will help the open source community.
I don't know exactly what the author was proposing people do since I cannot get the page to load now but as much as I think open source is great I will be damned before I use an open source alternative that is inferior just to "help the open source community.". I will use whatever software I feel works the best for me and if that means I do not have access to the source so be it.
Personally I have used Opera for about the last 5 years and the reason I chose it then was because IE was a POS and Mozilla was slower and neither IE nor Moz supported TABBED BROWSING. Now that both IE and FF support tabbed browsing I have given both a shot and while I will not be using IE for obvious reasons (although it now seems to perform faster than FF) I still won't switch to FF for the simple reason that I have gotten used to Opera and it still is a faster and more stable browser both in my experience and from the comparisons that other people have posted online. The thing I like the best about Opera compared to FF is that if I setup a new computer I just install the latest build of Opera and it includes all the bells and whistles I need where FF requires some extensions to be downloaded and installed to get to the same level. This is just a convenience factor since I am somewhat lazy but I still think it is relevant.
Even some of the diehard FF users I know are considering switching to another browser because they seem to feel FF has started to become bloated and FF's performance is suffering. It is one thing to add a lot of features in the core build but not suffer performance wise like Opera has done but quite another to start adding them and have the user experience suffer. I know the OS zealots will not budge and switch over to Opera but for many FF users I know if it does not cost them any money to switch to a better performing browser then they will in a heartbeat. The main reason many of the FF users I know who are complaining about its performance have not even tried another browser is because they think the only alternative is IE, Opera is just not well known to the masses. It is going to be interesting to see what happens in the next year since the Wii includes Opera and hopefully will get some more exposure out there.
Also, before you start bitching about America, note that I didn't list what country I'm from.
Well judging from your sig "Detroit's #1 Performance Art Troupe [causingascene.com]" my first guess would be you are American and live in Michigan. That wasn't too hard...
I do agree with you that it would be great to sever trade with all countries that treat their citizens as badly as China does. Economically that would be a very bad move though.
Not everything sugar free is good for you or a diabetic, contrary to the popular belief otherwise- and not everything uses Splenda (nor is it a certainty that it's any better than Nutrasweet, safety-wise...).
Please stay away from Splenda which is basically just chlorinated sugar (I don't want to let any more chlorine into my body if possible) as well as all of the other artificial sweeteners like Nutrasweet, etc. They are NOT natural substances and instead are just man made chemicals, can be dangerous, and there are natural alternatives that are proven to be safe.
Two alternatives that I know of are xylitol and stevia and they actually have some health benefits which I find great.
Xylitol is a naturally occurring wood sugar and is pretty much just as potent as table sugar so it makes a great substitute. One of the best things about xylitol is it is actually tooth friendly and some studies have shown that it can help reduce plaque as well as help repair minor cavities. Xylitol also is absorbed slower than table sugar which is great since it does not cause high blood sugar levels or hyperglycemia. I will mention that xylitol should not be used in baking recipes because it does interfere with the yeast in some way so stevia is a better replacement for baking.
Stevia is also made from a naturally occurring plant. I really like it but it is around 300 times sweeter than table sugar so it took me a while to get used to know how much to use. It also does not alter blood sugar levels like sucrose which makes it great for diabetes and those suffering from hypoclycemia. Japan did extensive research of stevia and has been using it for over 30 years without any causes for concern that I have heard about. The World Health Organization also studied it and found no ill effects. Stevia can be used in baking recipes and does not have the problems that xylitol does.
All I can say is I hope people look to some of the naturally occurring sugar replacements first before putting a man made chemical sugar replacement into their system. I recently found out I had severe hypoglycemia and am pre-diabetic which is why I went looking for some alternatives to sucrose and everyone I talked to and all the information I could obtain pointed towards stevia and xylitol as the best alternatives. After trying both of them out I will say that I don't miss sucrose at all and I wish I had been informed about the alternatives sooner, they are great tasting and SO much better for your body.
WHOOOOSH!!! He made a joke... and you missed it.
Not all software running in Parallels works 100%, ESPECIALLY games which is a LARGE majority of computer users. You could run XP using Bootcamp and then I have heard things will run better so it is not like you would have no options but that is still another hoop to jump through.
I do find it funny you said "begging for drivers and software that you don't get to have." and then you admit to running XP in parallels which proves Mac doesn't run all the software you need. I also would like an answer to my question before asking what Mac software there is that I can't find basically the same thing for linux/windows and it cannot be media editing/authoring software since I know the Mac wins in that area?
I have no problem with people who prefer one platform over another, I do have a problem with people like you who are Mac fanboys, have to include the word "Mac" in all of their screenames/handles/e-mail addresses,etc, and think they have the best of the best and have a computing "Utopia" and must tell everyone about it. Mac fanboys also seem to try and rip on other platforms whenever they can even if what they say is no longer relevant such as when you said a person would have to be an idiot to plug their XP box directly into a cable modem. Hello, ever since service pack 2 was released THREE years ago the Windows firewall is turned on by default which does a pretty decent job of protecting a PC and that PC being directly connected into the cable modem would NOT be an issue.
You paid more money for a machine that is no better than the machine I hand built myself and I could have purchased a pre-built machine for less than a Mac too. I am able to run more software easier than you are be able to (especially games) and I am able to achieve just as good security as you are able to achieve. Your Mac is not better than my PC, get over it. I don't go around preaching how great PC's are every chance I get (and if I did I would at least check my facts to make sure they are still relevant, otherwise I could rip on the one button mouse couldn't I?) and I wish Mac preachers such as yourself would shut the hell up because nobody cares except your fellow sheep.
I think it is time for you to snort another line of Mac crack before you lose your obsession.
Good day.
I know that is the default now. I just wanted to clarify that having that as a default is good and that by "ALWAYS ON" the OP did not mean it could never be turned off. You also don't get warnings on the system tray that the MS firewall is not turned on as long as you have another firewall installed, that would be very annoying otherwise.
Seems to me that the microsoft firewall should be light, nimble and ALWAYS ON.
I do believe that the default should be for the MS firewall to be on after installation, that would have saved problems for MANY inexperienced users whose windows boxes ended up getting owned within minutes of them connecting them to the internet. The MS firewall definitely seems to be light, nimble, and does a decent job but for users like me who prefer to use a software firewall that is more customizable (I like Kerio Personal Firewall myself) I would hope that "ALWAYS ON" means by default and not that it can NEVER be turned off or disabled.
EXCUUUUSE MEEE for being a little behind on current news
You were at least 5 years behind the current news, 4 years from now will you still not know the President is no longer George Bush? Check your facts before making claims.
I got your "fanboy" swinging right here. I'm part of the original equipment, bitch, and whether you like it or not, Macs have NEVER been as susceptible to hacking as PC's are.
I don't care if you are part of the original equipment, you still are a fanboy which is a person (I liked Wiki's definition) "who is utterly devoted to a single fannish subject, or to a single point of view within that subject, often to the point where it is considered an obsession." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanboy
I adopted the Mac platform in December of 1987 and from that day to this one I have not spent ONE CENT on measures to keep me safe from viruses, malware, spyware, trojans, bots, or any of the crap the average PC user has to guard against.
Hmm, thats funny, I have not spent one cent on my Linux box either protecting against those things. Virus/malware writers don't usually target the minority, they get better results going after more machines and yes Windows usually is easier to hack.
I plug my Mac directly into my cable modem and I don't worry about it. If you use Windows, you shouldn't do that. Ever. If you say otherwise, you expose yourself as a wet-behind-the-ears, I've-got-a-pantload ID10T.
This shows you haven't checked your facts on this subject lately either. At my work we have a Windows 2000 server plugged directly into the DSL modem and it has never gotten hacked in the last few years. At my home I have a Windows XP Pro machine that is plugged directly into the cable modem for almost 2 years and I have never had a problem with that either. Welcome to the new Millenium, installing and properly configuring a firewall and setting up good IP policies does wonders. Your Mac is no more secure than either my Linux boxes or my Windows machines.
That "fanboy" term is a bitter acknowledgement that we're busy surfing wherever we please while you're either de-fleaing your system or begging for drivers and software that you don't get to have. Wallow in it. Revel in it. You are coolness personified.
I'll go back to my utopia now.
You do realize you are just helping add to my case that you are an annoying Mac fanboy don't you?
By the way I have not had a problem with malware/viruses on my Windows XP box for over 4 years. As far as drivers, the last driver problem I had was 1.5 years ago when I got an ATI card and the drivers kept crashing my system. I got a nVidia 6800 something and it installed like a charm and has been working perfectly since. Driver problems are NOT a PC problem, it is a problem with some manufacturers, but as long as you stay away from them things are great.
What software does Mac have that I can't get something similar on the PC (disregarding media editing/authoring software)? There is WAY more software for the PC than the Mac, you are on crack. The biggest area I can think of is games, if you are a computer gamer then you NEED a PC or you will not be happy.
You can go back to your "Utopia" now, only you and your fellow Mac fanboys actually believe that it is a Utopia.
Does it suprise you he posted something like that when his handle is Macdaffy and he has a link to the website (and probably his business or where he works) called coffeemac.com.
Mac fanboys are the worst of all the fanboys IMO, they will always bring up how "superior" Mac's are no matter what, even if bringing it up is not relevant such as this case. The one area Mac's truly are superior at is graphic/video editing/authoring, other than that you can get much more functionality at a much lower price with an ordinary PC running Windows and/or Linux. Mac's are only "cool" to people who have them, the rest of us just sit back and laugh at the people getting ripped off by Apple (although Apple is getting better about prices) when all they need is a machine that can render some webpages and do some word processing.
Oh and before some Mac fanboy replies saying OSX is sooo secure and they never get malware I hope they realize that someone running Linux can get just as much security and even a Windows box is relatively easy to keep secure and malware free. Another reason Mac's are "more secure" is because almost nobody cares to target them (or Linux) since attacking Windows machines yields better results just by the sheer volume of users (although bad security on the users end helps the attackers too).
What happens when the data is stolen from a country and sent to another country?
Well if the person who stole that data resides in my home country or their country has laws (that are enforced) against stealing data then not only will the person likely lose their job but they will face legal ramifications as well. I do not want to only have legal recourse against the company, I want to be able to go after the employee too because otherwise there is not as much deterent for the employee to do such things.
How do you contain that? Whom do you go after to get that data back?
Theft Happens! As long as there is some motive somewhere to do this - it will be done!
It is near impossible to contain it and get it back once the data is out of the country. All that I am saying is I would prefer people who handle my personal information to be in a country that has laws against them mistreating my personal information because that is WAY more deterent then just having to lose a job.
Yes, theft happens and always will happen. However, sometimes the payoff is not worth the risk. As an example lets say someone in India who handles my personal information makes $3840 a year (I based that on $2/hr). Now, someone offers them $100 per credit card account information and they may easily be able to somehow get 1000 accounts which I think is a rather low number. They could then go sell that data, make $100,000, and basically make about 26 times as much as he would have made in one year, they could not work for a decent amount of their remaining life. Would this be very tempting to do if the worst thing that could happen would be I would lose my job? YES, if I lose my job who cares, I have 26 years to find a new job. Would it be as tempting if I could lose my job, lose all the money I made, and also go to jail for a long time? NO, the risk would not be worth as much since getting caught is relatively easy to do.
Right now there are almost no enforced laws in India dealing with keeping personal information confidentiality, so the worst that happens to Indians that go sell this information is they lose their job. Big deal. Once they have laws and enforce those laws THEN I won't have as much of a problem with them having access to that data.
Let's face it - companies outsourcing to India have obviously taken a look at the legal implications (in terms of jurisdiction and a "if things go wrong scenario") - and these companies have not become big and successful by doing the wrong things! (Well one or two or ten maybe - but hundreds - I don't think so).
Ha, don't make me laugh, do you seriously think the companies have considered legal implications as much as the huge cost savings? The bottom line is all that most companies care about and the only thing making the companies now consider the legal implications is because a lot of them have been embarrassed in the last couple of years by having outsourced employees sell customers personal information.
People with either a xenophobic agenda, or a protectionist agenda will jump on this with the whole "India is evil! Don't outsource to India" paranoia and hysteria, when in fact there is no reason to believe your data is more secure anywhere else.
There is a reason to believe my data would be more secure somewhere else and for me that would be here in the US. The reason it would be safer is because if someone were to sell my information working at a company here in the US then they would be held accountable to the laws we have against that and they would pay the price because I certainly would go after them myself if necessary. If the person who sells my data happens to be in another country then I would not have the choice to go after them myself and even though they most likely would lose their job their home country may not have any laws against what they did with my information so they could basically get away with it. So while there truly are "bad apples" everywhere there would be MUCH more deterent to sell someones personal information in a country that has laws against it than in a country where those laws do not exist.
I think if I was making $2/hr (I made that up, I don't know what the real number is but I am sure it is low compared to the US) while I knew I was being exploited for cheap labor and was offered a large sum of money in exchange for personal data knowing I would lose my job but not be in trouble legally that I would probably take the money and go hunting for a new job.
Basically I hope that some laws are passed in the US (and other countries) that already have laws guarding personal information to make sure if companies outsource access to that information that they are only allowed to outsource it to a country that has at least the same laws in regard to personal information. The best choice would to not outsource that information at all (so if the company in another country did not persue the employee legally I could do it myself) but at least this way if someone did do something with my personal information I would have some hope that they would be punished more than just losing their job.
100,000 decimal places? That's only 100kb
Why would you inefficiently store it as characters? Store it as binary and you can fit WAAAY more digits into that space.
That is if you want to pay MS for an office suite. Like the replier above me said Open Office is available for Windows too, so there is a still a free option available.
It also is not like Redhat wrote Open Office, them "including" it costs the company absolutely no extra money so don't act like the company is "nicer" for including it and/or Redhat WS has some huge advantage because OO is included on the installation disc.
Is your enter key broken? Damn, that was one HUGE paragraph.
Well bad management decisions like what happened at your company should eventually result in the companies realizing that the "cost savings" of outsourcing a lot of times is not all it is cut out to be. You are just another story of the many I have heard of recently where outsourcing ended up costing more in the long run. Companies will change their ways and smart companies will either do their research well before they outsource or not outsource at all.
Your extra skills didn't help you at your last job but I am pretty sure they will help you find a new and hopefully better job. Good luck, the jobs are available, I know since a few months ago I checked out what was available and I found the market to be VERY good.
I'm curious if many of the competent, professional I.T. people are really losing their jobs.
I don't think they are losing their jobs. I wouldn't say it is exactly the opposite of the tech boom but it is similar since a lot of the lower skilled jobs are being outsourced. People who keep their skills up to par and make sure they have a lot to offer will still be in demand for quite some time.
That's right, I should not have to compete with prisoner slaves in China, with Cayman Islands' girls that are forced to undergo abortions so their employer does not need to pay for maternity leave...
Since this is a discussion about I.T. jobs I think your comment is irrelevant. I highly doubt any of your examples of slave labor/badly treated employees are experienced by workers performing outsourced I.T. related jobs. In fact, most I.T. jobs in India and elsewhere actually are VERY desirable jobs to have and while what they are paid pales in comparison to American wages it is very good pay for the people in those countries.
Come up with a different arguement and come back.