Not sure if you actually read the blog - the guy said Myspace has turned over his site over to the campaign without his permission (YRO?). No counter offer. Now the old site just redirects to the campaign's one.
He got $0
I think this would be a bit more than just 'clear cut captialism'
Both sides have over-zealous users. If you develop for one without caring for another, people call you biased. People demand your support. You simply can't "choose a door" and not expect people rooting for the other door to sneer at/badmouth you.
Even worse, if it's useful and it doesn't appear on KDE, someone will produce an open-sourced K-YourApp and end up competing with you (on an already-tiny market margin).
Like you said, why are there two different products of every useful app on both KDE and Gnome?
If you already have to choose between developing for Windows or Macs, why do you need to yet making more choices with which GUI (or even distro) to develop for?
* company out of money - don't want to fund the extra development. * heavy use of COM objects * outdated development (or web support) team that lacks the expertise. * intranet (not Internet) often have no need to having to support different types of browsers since they control office deployment anyway. There's no reason to spend $15,000 when you can get away with $10,000 (and telling people that it only works on IE).
At the end of the day, projects are funded by business. If there are not enough returns for a project it is my personal believe that the project should not go ahead.
Not disputing your point, but SARS was slightly different (for one, there were quite a few dead, and initially there was no immediate cure available a lot of the leading medical professionals died to the same disease they were trying to fight). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS
I heard from my relatives who were in the area - they say the most shocking thing was that human communication broke down. Nobody trusted anyone else. If you choked while drinking water and starts coughing everyone immediately assumed you had SARS and you'd get them killed. Nurses and doctors weren't allowed to leave the quarantine hospital (locked in for up to a month) to go home and see their own families, if they tried the police barricade would shoot them.
I guess the event brought out the selfishness in everyone. Everyone only wanted to take care of themselves, at the expense of everyone else.
If SARS had spread to America, I wonder if people would shoot their neighbours who coughed while visiting them.
In most countries where red-light cameras are used, there's a simple reply envelope where you can indicate someone else was driving at the time, and the relevant fines (and points lost on the license) will be redirected to that person instead (unless disputed - then again, if you let your friend drive your car and he wont pay the fine he incurred... that's pretty low).
I fail to see how such rules can't be followed in Minnesota.
I don't really see the main difference being price. I think web apps and window apps are just two different sets of tools. Depending on what you need to do, one is better than the other.
Let me illustrate.
I work/blog/play games from three different locations: My work; my old home (where my parents are, and I visit twice a week); and my new home.
I have different computers at each of these locations - and while I do have a laptop, I don't always bring it around with me. Sometimes, I find it a real hassle to synchronize my files between the three locations and keep them all up to date. So for things like 'todo notes', 'oh I have a great idea I gotta write it down', 'calendar' or 'quick email' I rely heavily on web-applications.
I've tried google's spreadsheet and writely but they don't really cut it for me - I feel I don't have a particular task that requires that sort of tools. Perhaps if I have a group of people that needs to modify the same file, I'd try writely (I don't know what sort of version-control systems they have). Sometimes I think the best way for a group of people to write the same document is to use a wiki (confluence or mediawiki) which is a typical web application.
On the other hand, when I'm writing software I do it solely on my laptop (when I don't take my laptop with me that's when I'm forcing myself not to code).
Email is a funny one though. At times, I try to download my gmail collection so I have them for off-line reading (I usually do this when I have a huge load of emails after a week's holidays). But I think the user's habits regarding email is strongly tied to the volume of emails they receive. If you are receiving 50+ 'useful' emails everyday, you probably will want an offline email-reader (and possibly 3 personal assistants). If you are only receiving 5~10 useful emails you can get away with gmail easily.
For calender I create all my appointments on google cal, and then one-way synchronize them down to my various devices (laptop first, then to my mobile phone). Having them hosted online as a central starting point means that I can easily share iCal with my colleagues and friends (or link it on my blog). Every time I try to create an appointment on my phone first I end up forgetting to sync back up (or sync'ed one week late).
While not disputing coverity's features, I feel you should discuss other tools you've used in comparison to coverity and describe why you had the conclusion of "the best framework for creating custom tests that I have ever come across".
A TV can be used for research too, but a TV is mostly an entertainment tool. You can listen to lecture/technology podcasts on iPod, but an iPod is definitely mostly an entertainment tool.
A computer is an open tool. You can use it for entertainment, as much as you can use it for research or work.
---
When it comes down to entertainment, each person has their own likes and dislikes.
I don't buy DVD (I watch them in cinemas with family/friends). When something is on TV, I watch them again with family/friends. I don't really buy music - because I prefer singing songs I know with my guitar, or I watch MTV weekly. I don't look at cars (I read your blog briefly:P ), because I have a car that serves my needs and I've had it for 7 years now, and I have driven it all over the country (Australia). In fact, I find taking care of my car a hassle. Even though I find having a car extremely convinent. I don't drink (actually I can't really drink - allergy if I go over my low limit), I don't smoke.
I watch TV. Sometimes. I play sport on the weekend, sometimes. I use my computer for entertainment, sometimes. I enjoy dining with my fiancee and trying out different restarants, sometimes.
And I see nothing wrong with this lifestyle. But I don't go around poking at people who go to pub every second evening and say to them "You honestly can't see yourself living without alcohol?". They seem to enjoy it and I'm glad for them (although I think too much alchohol is a health risk - but you can't say that to these people who like it).
---
Back on topic.
My first computer is a Mac. I've been a Mac user through my highschool when my friends all had PC's. I'd say it was a lot tougher back then - there's far less applications (or games) on the Mac back then compared to now. With so many software freely ported to the Mac now, the gap of "must-have" applications on the PC that Macintosh doesn't have is narrowing.
I remembered as a Mac fan, getting really offended when Adobe started to ship Adobe Photoshop for PC. That was a Mac-defining product (they did the right thing to get more users though). Bungie was a Mac-game maker, and when they shipped Marathon for the PC, again many people felt betrayed. Eventually, MS bought Bungie and turned the Mac-only Halo game into an XBox best seller (they did the right thing to get more users though).
What draws people to a platform like a Mac over a PC is the software titles. The comparison is no different than say XBox 360 vs PS3. You have a powerful platform, and you need must-have applications.
---
Sorry if I sounded a bit defensive - I just get annoyed somewhat when people assumes computer games are for children.:(
And Bootcamp pretty much killed the PC+Mac games I think.
1. Mac gamers that really want to play a windows game, will play the PC version via Bootcamp. 2. When the mac version is finally ported (insert a few months), these mac gamers already played them. 3. Game developers get screwed cause the Mac port didn't sell at all. 4. Game developers says stuff this - they'll play the windows version via Bootcamp anyway. It's cheaper to support them via bootcamp than to invest and create a Mac port of the same thing.
5. People still can't live without a windows machine - because there's games ONLY on windows machines.
First computer was a Mac. I remember staring at that 20th anniversary Mac back in high school:) 2nd - till now has all been PC's. For nearly 10 years.
No particular reason really, probably just the upgrade cost that really bothered me. Upgrading one PC to another was always cheaper because I only have to get a new case/motherboard, or get a new graphics card separately. Upgrading a Mac always seems to me that I need a whole brand new machine (which will probably be top of the range for only 4 months). This has probably changed now, but I haven't been able to break my 'upgrade' cycle to just 'go get a Mac'.
May be I'll wait til Mac OS runs on non-Apple Intel machines. Then I'll partition my HD and dual load both OS, just to see what Macs are like now.
My current employer goggled and found my blog. Even left a comment prior to my interview (told me not to be late...).
I think it works well both ways. If your would-be-employer/manager is a tech-blogger, and they see you are one too. It immediately give you a boost up the "compare two resumes" ladder. And as a tech-blogger, you'd want to work for a project manager who at least reads tech blogs too (if not have his own blogs), right?
If anything, being able to turn your own blog into advertising for your own abilities (which leads to your next job) is a good thing.
Just curious about how the click-timing works if you are on a less than desirable connection (ping) to the server. Say, if you were playing from overseas.
First in PvE, and later in PvP.
Just from experience in WoW, ping-delays really affect many things - timing that stun, counterspell, shock, etc. On a really lagged day you might even have trouble hitting someone as he sprint around the map like someone from the matrix.
Pack your bed inside your cupboard. At night, fold away your table and take out your blankets and put it in the middle of the floor. Then you can sleep on your floor (It helps if the floor is tatami).
There's a lot of benefits of such a system. For one, you keep both your table and your bed tidy. You can't use the other unless you've packed the current one away.
---
Personally, I figure if I have that much stuff to sell or give away, I might as well get a bigger apartment, or buy a piece of land design my own home.
I agree highly with the point about assembly language. While I think no school should teach students to write serious programs in assembly, I'm shocked at the fellow programmers that I talk to today who have no real idea of what a 'memory overflow' really is, or why is it called a 'overflow', why not just 'insufficient memory'. They don't understand the differences between stack or heap, what is a null-pointer, and have difficulty in understanding concepts such as arguments pass-by-reference and pass-by-value (for object references).
When they start to use Java or.NET, they can't understand what's so great about garbage collection, and when they write C++... Arrggh memory leaks galore (and/or segfaults), and then they ask - what is a segmentation fault? Why is it called a 'segfault'?
While I had no particular love for assembly or compilers back in the university days when I 'had' to write them to graduate, looking back, they laid a foundations of understanding what exactly is going on in the machine. I'm grateful for that lecturer whose name I've forgotten in the particular choice of assignment.:)
---
Anyway, I think people who want to take writing software seriously needs to know this stuff - sooner or later. It's like a carpentry artisan needs to know about wood, and not just about carving.
I always classify my work on the web into two areas:
"Web Applications" or "Web Sites".
Web Applications are created for a particular purpose, often may be replacing an intranet program that the company is using. Usually, the best argument for creating an intranet application is because of the ease of deployment. I've tried deploying 'normal applications' across different batches of computers with different specs and operating systems, or even in different cities. Intranet applications is just much more simpler. Usually, you can force people to use a particular browser as well. This is after all an internal application that doesn't need cross-browser compatibility.
(Ok, with fire-resist at 250 and using fireward, I should be safe from flames. I use.NET and write internal applications that are tested only for IE6. Not to say they won't work in other browsers, I always load it and have a look in FireFox, but my schedule really don't give me any time for testing other browsers which I don't plan to support, and supporting every browser known to mankind isn't exactly a fun event nor does it pay $).
My other type of work are Web Sites that are created for general public. Usually to sell a product or promote an event or service. With this type of work, I go down to the bare essentials. Stick with strict HTML, limit Javascript, use tables for layout instead of DIV. Don't do too many fancy stuff with style sheets. This is the 'lowest common denominator'. The goals is that even users of Netscape 4.0 or Lynx could see it look decent or neat.
I think a web applications + web site (like gmail) is a totally different beast. But I think there isn't that many cases where such application is in huge demand yet. So to answer your question, it may be entirely too early to see any of these technologies becoming widespread.
People are excited by AJAX too much in my opinion. As much as I love the technology and am excited by what it can bring, I am equally annoyed by the fact that there's just too many browsers and too many users that don't use the latest stuff.
How can anyone operate a software business if every employee that comes to your doors, learns your secret and sees your code (and your sweat and blood), then walks right out into your competitor who has more money than you, do a braindump and suddenly you have a serious problem.
All in the name of freedom? It's highly unfair and unjust.
A company must protect itself with non-compete. Anyway, usually non-compete is a 6month ~ 1year thing. And it's on your contract, so you have to agree to it first. If you don't agree, hey, no one is really forcing you with a gun to sign it. And you are bright enough you must be able to find other work that don't require you of the same thing.
I'm almost certain Google has similar contract agreements, and M$ can't just go and hire google engineers in the same way. Swap with any other company.
Even with the legals paperworks aside, any person with some business/ethical morals will know who's at the wrong here.
Further, last time I checked, spirit of freedom shouldn't give you the right to harm other people (or other people's business). Living in a free country shouldn't give you that right either. Otherwise what's the difference in me kicking someone else for fun?
Sure we can say oh Mr. Lee didn't do it out of malice or intentional unethical behaviour. But if the law isn't upheld, plenty of real bad people can do the same thing. It is easy for me to hire a graduate student who's desperate for any job, who'd 'work for me' but go to my competitor's office and offer to work for 'free' for him. Learn all his secrets, then come back and work here for me. Who can stop me?
Not every company needs non-compete clause (not every company have secrets), and not every employee needs to work under a contract with non-compete. These are your choices, and these are your freedom.
A world without non-compete is just too naive in my opinion. There are cases where secrets must be kept.
I've worked solo and worked for a boss. My closest non-compete is just that I'm not allowed to steal my boss's clients and write software for them directly, within 6 months. To me, that's pretty easy to keep. I can find other things to keep me busy, even just for 6 months. If I talk to my boss's client and say, hey let's cut out the middleman and I work you for a 80% discount of what you pay my boss. I'd earn more, but surely that'd be immoral.
I'll leave you with one more thought. What'd happen if Pepsi learns Coca Cola's recipe?
(Sounds like business espionage, such things happens you know, not everyone play nice.)
Everything has to be clearly priced, and all prices include tax. If they give you surprises, you can report to ACCC (consumer watchdog), or just threaten them to, all business give in. It works like a charm.
If a business tells you that tax isn't included and there's 10% extra tax, you can report them to the tax office (it's illegal). Fantastic.
Of course, if you walk into a rich-looking resturant and make orders before you worked out how much you are ordering, it's a different story.
Nintendo play the we're better hardware game when they lost to Sony's 32bit PS1. N64 died.
Microsoft play the we're better hardware game when they lost to Sony's PS2. XBox did not die, managed to more or less squeeze GB out though.
Now, Sony's playing the we're better hardware game. Result unknown.
I suspect the winner will need to have: 1. More choice of games/developer support 2. Early to market 3. Other gimmicks, pricing.
Also, with the new performance power of the next generation machines - games that will really take advantage of those hardware will be more difficult to create - which will drive costs up. Either it means we'll see lots of games that are for PS3 when really they can run on PS2. Or game prices will go up, or game developers end up taking more risks and could make or break on every game they create.
With Nintendo slugging behind Sony or MS, it would be sad to see them defeated for another generation. I feel they are scaring their customers.
On hindsight as to why PS2 beat XBox. I feel the major reason was because they have more game choices. Some exclusives also made a lot of difference.
Most websites uses some sort of link-checking program on a scheduler to make sure they didn't accidentally create broken-links within their own website.
Such link-check programs also follows all the links in your webpage.
Slashdot Mirror
Not sure if you actually read the blog - the guy said Myspace has turned over his site over to the campaign without his permission (YRO?). No counter offer. Now the old site just redirects to the campaign's one.
He got $0
I think this would be a bit more than just 'clear cut captialism'
In terms of Java or .NET, this is the same as giving you the source code for the framework libraries but withheld the right to the VM to themselves.
Business as usual, but it does make a splash headline!
Both sides have over-zealous users. If you develop for one without caring for another, people call you biased. People demand your support. You simply can't "choose a door" and not expect people rooting for the other door to sneer at/badmouth you.
Even worse, if it's useful and it doesn't appear on KDE, someone will produce an open-sourced K-YourApp and end up competing with you (on an already-tiny market margin).
Like you said, why are there two different products of every useful app on both KDE and Gnome?
If you already have to choose between developing for Windows or Macs, why do you need to yet making more choices with which GUI (or even distro) to develop for?
Plenty of reasons.
* company out of money - don't want to fund the extra development.
* heavy use of COM objects
* outdated development (or web support) team that lacks the expertise.
* intranet (not Internet) often have no need to having to support different types of browsers since they control office deployment anyway. There's no reason to spend $15,000 when you can get away with $10,000 (and telling people that it only works on IE).
At the end of the day, projects are funded by business. If there are not enough returns for a project it is my personal believe that the project should not go ahead.
jliu
Sorry I'm off topic.
Not disputing your point, but SARS was slightly different (for one, there were quite a few dead, and initially there was no immediate cure available a lot of the leading medical professionals died to the same disease they were trying to fight).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS
I heard from my relatives who were in the area - they say the most shocking thing was that human communication broke down. Nobody trusted anyone else. If you choked while drinking water and starts coughing everyone immediately assumed you had SARS and you'd get them killed. Nurses and doctors weren't allowed to leave the quarantine hospital (locked in for up to a month) to go home and see their own families, if they tried the police barricade would shoot them.
I guess the event brought out the selfishness in everyone. Everyone only wanted to take care of themselves, at the expense of everyone else.
If SARS had spread to America, I wonder if people would shoot their neighbours who coughed while visiting them.
jliu
In most countries where red-light cameras are used, there's a simple reply envelope where you can indicate someone else was driving at the time, and the relevant fines (and points lost on the license) will be redirected to that person instead (unless disputed - then again, if you let your friend drive your car and he wont pay the fine he incurred... that's pretty low).
I fail to see how such rules can't be followed in Minnesota.
I don't really see the main difference being price.
I think web apps and window apps are just two different sets of tools. Depending on what you need to do, one is better than the other.
Let me illustrate.
I work/blog/play games from three different locations:
My work; my old home (where my parents are, and I visit twice a week); and my new home.
I have different computers at each of these locations - and while I do have a laptop, I don't always bring it around with me. Sometimes, I find it a real hassle to synchronize my files between the three locations and keep them all up to date. So for things like 'todo notes', 'oh I have a great idea I gotta write it down', 'calendar' or 'quick email' I rely heavily on web-applications.
I've tried google's spreadsheet and writely but they don't really cut it for me - I feel I don't have a particular task that requires that sort of tools.
Perhaps if I have a group of people that needs to modify the same file, I'd try writely (I don't know what sort of version-control systems they have). Sometimes I think the best way for a group of people to write the same document is to use a wiki (confluence or mediawiki) which is a typical web application.
On the other hand, when I'm writing software I do it solely on my laptop (when I don't take my laptop with me that's when I'm forcing myself not to code).
Email is a funny one though. At times, I try to download my gmail collection so I have them for off-line reading (I usually do this when I have a huge load of emails after a week's holidays). But I think the user's habits regarding email is strongly tied to the volume of emails they receive. If you are receiving 50+ 'useful' emails everyday, you probably will want an offline email-reader (and possibly 3 personal assistants). If you are only receiving 5~10 useful emails you can get away with gmail easily.
For calender I create all my appointments on google cal, and then one-way synchronize them down to my various devices (laptop first, then to my mobile phone). Having them hosted online as a central starting point means that I can easily share iCal with my colleagues and friends (or link it on my blog). Every time I try to create an appointment on my phone first I end up forgetting to sync back up (or sync'ed one week late).
jliu
While not disputing coverity's features, I feel you should discuss other tools you've used in comparison to coverity and describe why you had the conclusion of "the best framework for creating custom tests that I have ever come across".
That question is asked unfairly,
:P ), because I have a car that serves my needs and I've had it for 7 years now, and I have driven it all over the country (Australia). In fact, I find taking care of my car a hassle. Even though I find having a car extremely convinent.
:(
A TV can be used for research too, but a TV is mostly an entertainment tool.
You can listen to lecture/technology podcasts on iPod, but an iPod is definitely mostly an entertainment tool.
A computer is an open tool.
You can use it for entertainment, as much as you can use it for research or work.
---
When it comes down to entertainment, each person has their own likes and dislikes.
I don't buy DVD (I watch them in cinemas with family/friends). When something is on TV, I watch them again with family/friends.
I don't really buy music - because I prefer singing songs I know with my guitar, or I watch MTV weekly.
I don't look at cars (I read your blog briefly
I don't drink (actually I can't really drink - allergy if I go over my low limit),
I don't smoke.
I watch TV. Sometimes.
I play sport on the weekend, sometimes.
I use my computer for entertainment, sometimes.
I enjoy dining with my fiancee and trying out different restarants, sometimes.
And I see nothing wrong with this lifestyle. But I don't go around poking at people who go to pub every second evening and say to them "You honestly can't see yourself living without alcohol?". They seem to enjoy it and I'm glad for them (although I think too much alchohol is a health risk - but you can't say that to these people who like it).
---
Back on topic.
My first computer is a Mac. I've been a Mac user through my highschool when my friends all had PC's. I'd say it was a lot tougher back then - there's far less applications (or games) on the Mac back then compared to now. With so many software freely ported to the Mac now, the gap of "must-have" applications on the PC that Macintosh doesn't have is narrowing.
I remembered as a Mac fan, getting really offended when Adobe started to ship Adobe Photoshop for PC. That was a Mac-defining product (they did the right thing to get more users though). Bungie was a Mac-game maker, and when they shipped Marathon for the PC, again many people felt betrayed. Eventually, MS bought Bungie and turned the Mac-only Halo game into an XBox best seller (they did the right thing to get more users though).
What draws people to a platform like a Mac over a PC is the software titles. The comparison is no different than say XBox 360 vs PS3. You have a powerful platform, and you need must-have applications.
---
Sorry if I sounded a bit defensive - I just get annoyed somewhat when people assumes computer games are for children.
jliu
And Bootcamp pretty much killed the PC+Mac games I think.
1. Mac gamers that really want to play a windows game, will play the PC version via Bootcamp.
2. When the mac version is finally ported (insert a few months), these mac gamers already played them.
3. Game developers get screwed cause the Mac port didn't sell at all.
4. Game developers says stuff this - they'll play the windows version via Bootcamp anyway. It's cheaper to support them via bootcamp than to invest and create a Mac port of the same thing.
5. People still can't live without a windows machine - because there's games ONLY on windows machines.
jliu
Not trolling here, just curious.
Why World of Starcraft?
Have you tried the Sci Fi offerings currently out there? What were the things you didn't like?
Anarchy Online
EVE Online
SWG
I've been wanting to try these out for quite a while - but if people have reviews for them, I don't have to learn the hard lesson myself.
jliu
First computer was a Mac. I remember staring at that 20th anniversary Mac back in high school :)
2nd - till now has all been PC's. For nearly 10 years.
No particular reason really, probably just the upgrade cost that really bothered me. Upgrading one PC to another was always cheaper because I only have to get a new case/motherboard, or get a new graphics card separately. Upgrading a Mac always seems to me that I need a whole brand new machine (which will probably be top of the range for only 4 months). This has probably changed now, but I haven't been able to break my 'upgrade' cycle to just 'go get a Mac'.
May be I'll wait til Mac OS runs on non-Apple Intel machines. Then I'll partition my HD and dual load both OS, just to see what Macs are like now.
There isn't really that many things to do in WoW.
If the friend is skipping work may be he's trying to get the PvP rank.
Or may be his raid group runs at a time that collides with his work.
My current employer goggled and found my blog. Even left a comment prior to my interview (told me not to be late...).
I think it works well both ways. If your would-be-employer/manager is a tech-blogger, and they see you are one too. It immediately give you a boost up the "compare two resumes" ladder. And as a tech-blogger, you'd want to work for a project manager who at least reads tech blogs too (if not have his own blogs), right?
If anything, being able to turn your own blog into advertising for your own abilities (which leads to your next job) is a good thing.
I offer an slightly different theory. I'm sure the grammar troll / AC is just an advertising bot.
Just curious about how the click-timing works if you are on a less than desirable connection (ping) to the server. Say, if you were playing from overseas.
First in PvE, and later in PvP.
Just from experience in WoW, ping-delays really affect many things - timing that stun, counterspell, shock, etc. On a really lagged day you might even have trouble hitting someone as he sprint around the map like someone from the matrix.
This is a non-serious comment.
Pack your bed inside your cupboard. At night, fold away your table and take out your blankets and put it in the middle of the floor. Then you can sleep on your floor (It helps if the floor is tatami).
There's a lot of benefits of such a system. For one, you keep both your table and your bed tidy. You can't use the other unless you've packed the current one away.
---
Personally, I figure if I have that much stuff to sell or give away, I might as well get a bigger apartment, or buy a piece of land design my own home.
You shouldn't be reading MS TFA when your brain is running MS operating systems. No wonder you bluescreened.
BTW, (totally off topic) Ever read Snowcrash?
I agree highly with the point about assembly language. While I think no school should teach students to write serious programs in assembly, I'm shocked at the fellow programmers that I talk to today who have no real idea of what a 'memory overflow' really is, or why is it called a 'overflow', why not just 'insufficient memory'. They don't understand the differences between stack or heap, what is a null-pointer, and have difficulty in understanding concepts such as arguments pass-by-reference and pass-by-value (for object references).
When they start to use Java or
While I had no particular love for assembly or compilers back in the university days when I 'had' to write them to graduate, looking back, they laid a foundations of understanding what exactly is going on in the machine. I'm grateful for that lecturer whose name I've forgotten in the particular choice of assignment.
---
Anyway, I think people who want to take writing software seriously needs to know this stuff - sooner or later. It's like a carpentry artisan needs to know about wood, and not just about carving.
I always classify my work on the web into two areas:
.NET and write internal applications that are tested only for IE6. Not to say they won't work in other browsers, I always load it and have a look in FireFox, but my schedule really don't give me any time for testing other browsers which I don't plan to support, and supporting every browser known to mankind isn't exactly a fun event nor does it pay $).
"Web Applications" or "Web Sites".
Web Applications are created for a particular purpose, often may be replacing an intranet program that the company is using. Usually, the best argument for creating an intranet application is because of the ease of deployment. I've tried deploying 'normal applications' across different batches of computers with different specs and operating systems, or even in different cities. Intranet applications is just much more simpler. Usually, you can force people to use a particular browser as well. This is after all an internal application that doesn't need cross-browser compatibility.
(Ok, with fire-resist at 250 and using fireward, I should be safe from flames. I use
My other type of work are Web Sites that are created for general public. Usually to sell a product or promote an event or service. With this type of work, I go down to the bare essentials. Stick with strict HTML, limit Javascript, use tables for layout instead of DIV.
Don't do too many fancy stuff with style sheets. This is the 'lowest common denominator'. The goals is that even users of Netscape 4.0 or Lynx could see it look decent or neat.
I think a web applications + web site (like gmail) is a totally different beast. But I think there isn't that many cases where such application is in huge demand yet. So to answer your question, it may be entirely too early to see any of these technologies becoming widespread.
People are excited by AJAX too much in my opinion. As much as I love the technology and am excited by what it can bring, I am equally annoyed by the fact that there's just too many browsers and too many users that don't use the latest stuff.
jliu - johnliu.net
How can anyone operate a software business if every employee that comes to your doors, learns your secret and sees your code (and your sweat and blood), then walks right out into your competitor who has more money than you, do a braindump and suddenly you have a serious problem.
All in the name of freedom? It's highly unfair and unjust.
A company must protect itself with non-compete. Anyway, usually non-compete is a 6month ~ 1year thing. And it's on your contract, so you have to agree to it first. If you don't agree, hey, no one is really forcing you with a gun to sign it. And you are bright enough you must be able to find other work that don't require you of the same thing.
I'm almost certain Google has similar contract agreements, and M$ can't just go and hire google engineers in the same way. Swap with any other company.
Even with the legals paperworks aside, any person with some business/ethical morals will know who's at the wrong here.
Further, last time I checked, spirit of freedom shouldn't give you the right to harm other people (or other people's business). Living in a free country shouldn't give you that right either. Otherwise what's the difference in me kicking someone else for fun?
Sure we can say oh Mr. Lee didn't do it out of malice or intentional unethical behaviour. But if the law isn't upheld, plenty of real bad people can do the same thing. It is easy for me to hire a graduate student who's desperate for any job, who'd 'work for me' but go to my competitor's office and offer to work for 'free' for him. Learn all his secrets, then come back and work here for me. Who can stop me?
Not every company needs non-compete clause (not every company have secrets), and not every employee needs to work under a contract with non-compete. These are your choices, and these are your freedom.
A world without non-compete is just too naive in my opinion. There are cases where secrets must be kept.
I've worked solo and worked for a boss. My closest non-compete is just that I'm not allowed to steal my boss's clients and write software for them directly, within 6 months. To me, that's pretty easy to keep. I can find other things to keep me busy, even just for 6 months. If I talk to my boss's client and say, hey let's cut out the middleman and I work you for a 80% discount of what you pay my boss. I'd earn more, but surely that'd be immoral.
I'll leave you with one more thought.
What'd happen if Pepsi learns Coca Cola's recipe?
(Sounds like business espionage, such things happens you know, not everyone play nice.)
jliu
Come live in Australia.
Everything has to be clearly priced, and all prices include tax. If they give you surprises, you can report to ACCC (consumer watchdog), or just threaten them to, all business give in. It works like a charm.
If a business tells you that tax isn't included and there's 10% extra tax, you can report them to the tax office (it's illegal). Fantastic.
Of course, if you walk into a rich-looking resturant and make orders before you worked out how much you are ordering, it's a different story.
In Outlook, press ALT-F11
Write your macro that plays your sound file.
Go to your Rules & Alerts
Create a rule for receiving emails - to play your Macro.
Bonus point.
Make your macro play a random sound.
I think the whole effort should take about 5 minutes.
Nintendo play the we're better hardware game when they lost to Sony's 32bit PS1. N64 died.
Microsoft play the we're better hardware game when they lost to Sony's PS2. XBox did not die, managed to more or less squeeze GB out though.
Now, Sony's playing the we're better hardware game. Result unknown.
I suspect the winner will need to have:
1. More choice of games/developer support
2. Early to market
3. Other gimmicks, pricing.
Also, with the new performance power of the next generation machines - games that will really take advantage of those hardware will be more difficult to create - which will drive costs up. Either it means we'll see lots of games that are for PS3 when really they can run on PS2. Or game prices will go up, or game developers end up taking more risks and could make or break on every game they create.
With Nintendo slugging behind Sony or MS, it would be sad to see them defeated for another generation. I feel they are scaring their customers.
On hindsight as to why PS2 beat XBox. I feel the major reason was because they have more game choices. Some exclusives also made a lot of difference.
Most websites uses some sort of link-checking program on a scheduler to make sure they didn't accidentally create broken-links within their own website.
Such link-check programs also follows all the links in your webpage.
Bug in the webpage. Nothing to do with Google.