Most students at community colleges and four-year schools showed intermediate skills. That means they can do moderately challenging tasks, such as identifying a location on a map.
Intermediate skills are things like being able to read a map? What are they calling basic skills these days, the ability to hold your pee-pee until you're in the washroom?
I remember seeing a great.sig on Usenet a long time ago: People who can't factor polynomials shouldn't be allowed to vote. I guess today's equivelent is being able to find the polling station.
From looking at various reports on various websites, it seems you can get "approximately" 99% coverage by supporting IE 5.5+ on Windows, Firefox 1.1+, Netscape 6+, Safari, and IE 5.1x on Mac. This is what we support at our office.
Part of the problem is that every single site that offers user-agent statistics is in some way biased by its userbase. I really wish Yahoo and/or Google would publish user agent statistics; that would be probably as close to a proper sample of the world as you could get.
Right now, make sure you're turning on user-agent logging for your new site. Yes, the logs do waste some disk space, but they compress to nothing, and there's nothing better than seeing exactly what percentage of your users are using various browsers.
As an example, I made my life much easier when I stopped supporting IE 5.16 on Mac. There's a few very subtle differences between 5.16 and 5.17 when it comes to div's encosing other div's, and 5.16 rendering will break when every other browser is OK. I was able to end this nightmare when I showed my boss that he was the only user in the past six months who had accessed the site with IE 5.16 (which implies, of course, that every 5.16 rendering bug ended up at priority 1.)
And just a reminder that IE 7 is coming, with an, er, interesting collection of fixed bugs, maintained bugs, and
removed hacks
oo menya nyet proper cyrillic keyboard for this decadent western bulletin board. Comment would be less funny if I had made joke about how institute was misspelt russian word, even though mispellings here are encouraged.
Given that the galaxy is so huge, and it was discovered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and sloan is Russian for elephant, I think there may be a sinister conspiricy here... (cues X-Files music...)
[security is the] second hardest problem in computing, coming second only to DRM
Good to see those "formerly hard" problems like the halting problem, finding P-time algorithms for NP-complete algorithms, determining values for uncomputable problems like Ackerman's function, etc, have been pushed down the list by implementation problems.
This was done ~ 30 years ago, yet my entire string of xmas lights still goes out if one bulb fails.
But seriously, that's cool. Any 'net resources on this for us software types who'd like to think we can solder two wires together without burning down the house?
And I realize that a lot find the user-interface hard to use when you are a beginner.
I'm a beginner. I've never used any 3D app other than blender.
What I find difficult, and the reason I'd still like to purchase a commercial app, is that it's often very hard to find blender tutorials on the net that make sense.
I'm not trying to dis the people who take the time to write and put up tutorials, but the problem is that the user interface to Blender seems to continuously be changing.
Not really knowing what I'm doing, but trying to learn, I follow a tutorial, then get stuck when it tells me to "click this, that and that." Well, the version I'm using doesn't have "this, that and that." If the tutorial has a screen shot of the interface, I can't find a panel that resembles it or has the same buttons.
Granted, Blender is a very complex app, and I'm sure they change the UI to make it "simpler" or "more elegant," but given the lack of up-to-date tutorials, changing the UI just makes it harder for newbies to learn.
Unfortunately, there's still a lot of Mac/OS 9.x computers out there, and IE is about the only browser available for them. Safari needs OSX. Camino needs OSX.
Someone else made an (admittidly funny) remark about "just email those two users." In reality, for the place I work, our server logs show 6% of all accesses come from IE 5.x on MacOS 9.x systems.
I'll be very happy when IE 5 finally goes away, but on the other hand, I still see the occasional hit by Netscape 4.x in the logs...
Disclaimer: I work for a type- and pixel- obsessed company. They threw my copy of "The web is not a typewriter" in the trash.
While I agree this is a neat hack, I'm not sure how it's better than just rendering your text in Photoshop into a GIF file and putting that on your web page?
Or, for more maintainability, having a {servlet | cgi} that does that on the fly and caches the results for performance?
e.g. <IMG SRC="/RenderText?fontslot=14&w=400&h=200&mode=fill &textid=EH51&lang=use-locale"> )
At least by using an image, you're not dependent on the user having Flash installed and javascript enabled.
OBDisclaimer: Of course, having to do this sucks. But the font licensing issues that are a large part of the reason we don't have downloadable fonts are not going away anytime soon.
Be satisfied and gloat that you have a girlfriend.
Reminder about browser abilities.
on
Ajax in Action
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Don't get me wrong, AJAX is really cool. But if you develop your site using it, you'll be making your site inaccessable to anyone using MacOS9 or older browsers on Windows or *nix.
From the records of the site I maintain, about 6% of all accesses are from browsers that can't handle AJAX.
Incidently, from my over-optimistic decision to do all the layout for the site in CSS, those 6% also took 75% of the time and are responsible for 1/2 of the.css file being "hacks." Never again. Tables rule.
Well, to start with, I'd really hate to read a really long play like Hamlet on my cell phone with its crummy 18x8 display.
And besides, IMspeak is just the poor-man's 1337. Add some simple binary logic, and it's much briefer.
English: To be or not to be.
IM: "2B? NT2B?=???" (from article)
1337: 2B||!2Bp
And continuing (because I'm bored): 1z t3h 2u3st10n. wh3thr z n0blr n th3 m1nd 2 5uph3r t3h sl1ngz n arr0z oph 0u7r4g10s 4tun || 2 t4k rmz vs 4 c oph tr0bl3z & by 0pp0z1ng end tehm?
I haven't followed all this stuff about the new Xbox, but I read this article because a cow-orker of mine has been raving about the Elder Scrolls series.
From TFA:
The Xbox 360 poses some unique challenges in the fact that it's half console, half PC, yet a generation above either of them in their current form.
Man, a generation above current PC's! So what has it got?
A Hexium processor instead of a Pentium processor?
A 128 bit operating system?
More than 64 Gb of memory?
4000x3000 graphics? (run out through your 720x480 TV?)
Terabyte ethernet?
DTS2 audio with 18 channels at 192Kb/s per channel?
A quantum processor?
...
or is this standard journalists who don't understand quoting people who don't understand?
"Routing around" would work if the Tier-1 providers ran dynamic routing protocols...
I can't speak for all of them, but the Tier-1 provider I used to work with had basically nailed up thousands of static routes. Any failures were routed around manually at the NOC by tearing down failed routes and nailing up new static routes.
They did this because it was easier to enforce their QOS guarantees and peering agreements.
I don't know the if the same thing happens at other Tier-1 companies.
I don't know you or your situation, but jumping a wall from test engineering to development shouldn't be hard with a bachelor's degree. Or just skipping the wall, going out the door, and starting somewhere else.
In many cases, the confidence to just do something and make it work is worth more than the paper that says you could do it. Unless you're a doctor, that is...
OBDisclaimer: Pot, Kettle, Black. I have two degrees myself. But in my experience, many employers look at degrees (or certs, to keep this on topic) as an extra level of confidence that your accomplishments weren't just luck or snowing incometent bosses.
If he was really aware of his roots, his T-shirt would have shown an original
Atari 2600 joystick,
since that was the first mass market programmable videogame system.
Know your roots indeed. Hmmm, I was born in Winnipeg, so my family's history must start there...
What I'd really like is a tool that I can point at a web page and have it TELL ME what problems I can expect.
For example: You have used a div with stylesheet ID "X" having attribute 'clear: both', and then followed that with another div. This will probably display incorrectly on IE5.x on Macintosh, because it incorrectly uses lexical instead of block scoping for the clear attribute on boxes.
I'd pay money for that. Anyone want a new project?
Telus offered a contract to the union that raises salaries
The union decided that the contract was not good enough and refused to allow its membership to vote on it
Telus then unilaterally imposed the contract
Now the union is saying it is "locked out" because it didn't get a chance to vote on the contract.
The only "true" lock outs that happened have been when individual workers have taken "Study days" and not worked for a day. Those individual workers were then locked out for one day (tit for tat) and then welcomed back the next day.
Disclaimer: Management bias may be noted, as this was told to me by a manager at Telus.
Slashdot Mirror
What exactly is SeaMonkey? Based on this summary of features, it sounds exactly like Mozilla.
Intermediate skills are things like being able to read a map? What are they calling basic skills these days, the ability to hold your pee-pee until you're in the washroom?
I remember seeing a great .sig on Usenet a long time ago: People who can't factor polynomials shouldn't be allowed to vote. I guess today's equivelent is being able to find the polling station.
Part of the problem is that every single site that offers user-agent statistics is in some way biased by its userbase. I really wish Yahoo and/or Google would publish user agent statistics; that would be probably as close to a proper sample of the world as you could get.
Right now, make sure you're turning on user-agent logging for your new site. Yes, the logs do waste some disk space, but they compress to nothing, and there's nothing better than seeing exactly what percentage of your users are using various browsers.
As an example, I made my life much easier when I stopped supporting IE 5.16 on Mac. There's a few very subtle differences between 5.16 and 5.17 when it comes to div's encosing other div's, and 5.16 rendering will break when every other browser is OK. I was able to end this nightmare when I showed my boss that he was the only user in the past six months who had accessed the site with IE 5.16 (which implies, of course, that every 5.16 rendering bug ended up at priority 1.)
And just a reminder that IE 7 is coming, with an, er, interesting collection of fixed bugs, maintained bugs, and removed hacks
oo menya nyet proper cyrillic keyboard for this decadent western bulletin board. Comment would be less funny if I had made joke about how institute was misspelt russian word, even though mispellings here are encouraged.
How do you say "drop your weapon and put your hands up - you have thirty seconds to comply" in Korean?
Man, I wish I had mod points today! That was brialliant.
Or it could be a big coincidence.
Good to see those "formerly hard" problems like the halting problem, finding P-time algorithms for NP-complete algorithms, determining values for uncomputable problems like Ackerman's function, etc, have been pushed down the list by implementation problems.
Since they also give SLOC and whole-lifecycle-SLOC/day metrics, we can calculate the "sizes" of the projects...
CDIS: 42.5 person years
SHOLIS: 10.5 person years
MULTOS CA: 9.8 person years
A: 9.7 person years
NSA: 8.6 person months
So we're not talking about "tiny" projects here...
But seriously, that's cool. Any 'net resources on this for us software types who'd like to think we can solder two wires together without burning down the house?
cat > /vmunix
I'm a beginner. I've never used any 3D app other than blender.
What I find difficult, and the reason I'd still like to purchase a commercial app, is that it's often very hard to find blender tutorials on the net that make sense.
I'm not trying to dis the people who take the time to write and put up tutorials, but the problem is that the user interface to Blender seems to continuously be changing.
Not really knowing what I'm doing, but trying to learn, I follow a tutorial, then get stuck when it tells me to "click this, that and that." Well, the version I'm using doesn't have "this, that and that." If the tutorial has a screen shot of the interface, I can't find a panel that resembles it or has the same buttons.
Granted, Blender is a very complex app, and I'm sure they change the UI to make it "simpler" or "more elegant," but given the lack of up-to-date tutorials, changing the UI just makes it harder for newbies to learn.
Someone else made an (admittidly funny) remark about "just email those two users." In reality, for the place I work, our server logs show 6% of all accesses come from IE 5.x on MacOS 9.x systems.
I'll be very happy when IE 5 finally goes away, but on the other hand, I still see the occasional hit by Netscape 4.x in the logs...
While I agree this is a neat hack, I'm not sure how it's better than just rendering your text in Photoshop into a GIF file and putting that on your web page?
Or, for more maintainability, having a {servlet | cgi} that does that on the fly and caches the results for performance?l &textid=EH51&lang=use-locale"> )
e.g. <IMG SRC="/RenderText?fontslot=14&w=400&h=200&mode=fil
At least by using an image, you're not dependent on the user having Flash installed and javascript enabled.
OBDisclaimer: Of course, having to do this sucks. But the font licensing issues that are a large part of the reason we don't have downloadable fonts are not going away anytime soon.
Be satisfied and gloat that you have a girlfriend.
From the records of the site I maintain, about 6% of all accesses are from browsers that can't handle AJAX.
Incidently, from my over-optimistic decision to do all the layout for the site in CSS, those 6% also took 75% of the time and are responsible for 1/2 of the .css file being "hacks." Never again. Tables rule.
Finally. Sun hasn't shipped a C compiler with its OS since SunOS 4.1.3 (circa 1990).
And besides, IMspeak is just the poor-man's 1337. Add some simple binary logic, and it's much briefer.
English: To be or not to be.
IM: "2B? NT2B?=???" (from article)
1337: 2B||!2Bp
And continuing (because I'm bored): 1z t3h 2u3st10n. wh3thr z n0blr n th3 m1nd 2 5uph3r t3h sl1ngz n arr0z oph 0u7r4g10s 4tun || 2 t4k rmz vs 4 c oph tr0bl3z & by 0pp0z1ng end tehm?
From TFA:
Man, a generation above current PC's! So what has it got?
or is this standard journalists who don't understand quoting people who don't understand?
I can't speak for all of them, but the Tier-1 provider I used to work with had basically nailed up thousands of static routes. Any failures were routed around manually at the NOC by tearing down failed routes and nailing up new static routes.
They did this because it was easier to enforce their QOS guarantees and peering agreements.
I don't know the if the same thing happens at other Tier-1 companies.
In many cases, the confidence to just do something and make it work is worth more than the paper that says you could do it. Unless you're a doctor, that is...
OBDisclaimer: Pot, Kettle, Black. I have two degrees myself. But in my experience, many employers look at degrees (or certs, to keep this on topic) as an extra level of confidence that your accomplishments weren't just luck or snowing incometent bosses.
Know your roots indeed. Hmmm, I was born in Winnipeg, so my family's history must start there...
If DreamWeaver would support a server technology beyond PHP or MS-whatever, I'd love to use it to develop the presentation layer. Unfortunately...
For example: You have used a div with stylesheet ID "X" having attribute 'clear: both', and then followed that with another div. This will probably display incorrectly on IE5.x on Macintosh, because it incorrectly uses lexical instead of block scoping for the clear attribute on boxes.
I'd pay money for that. Anyone want a new project?
Telus offered a contract to the union that raises salaries
The union decided that the contract was not good enough and refused to allow its membership to vote on it
Telus then unilaterally imposed the contract
Now the union is saying it is "locked out" because it didn't get a chance to vote on the contract.
The only "true" lock outs that happened have been when individual workers have taken "Study days" and not worked for a day. Those individual workers were then locked out for one day (tit for tat) and then welcomed back the next day.
Disclaimer: Management bias may be noted, as this was told to me by a manager at Telus.