I'm not sure how the tagging system works, but Slashdot is a moderated site, and the use of the term "gay" in this context arguably should be moderated out. I doubt the mods would let tags through if they had racial or misogynistic meanings, and homophobia should be treated no differently.
> If that's your job, I'd say it was somewhere between the 97th and XP ring of hell.
Actually I love my job. I'm a software architect for Tier-1 emergency service comms and dispatch systems. We build and install systems for police/fire/ambulance depts of entire countries.
I use Word & Excel to track SRSs, REQs, Designs and all kinds of reporting on the progress of the project. And the best part is that when we do a good job the emergency service depts are more efficient/successful, which means we're saving lives.
> And because of its closed binary file structure, you cant use external versioning tools to version control your documents.
Actually, that's not correct. We use Rational Clearcase at work, and it quite happily versions Word documents (so long as Track Changes is turned off inside the document, of course).
Well, this will probably be unpopular in this crowd, but I totally agree.
I work for a large (85,000 people) multinational company, and we simply couldn't get by without the integrated features of Office. I spend all day editing Word docs, Excel spreadsheets and occasionally Powerpoint, and without the tight integration I'd be in a mess.
I know how much of a mess, because 10 years ago O97 didn't have the Outlook integration, and I was forced to keep multiple copies of things on disk, and the review/formatting/comments stuff was really poor.
I suspect that 90% of the folks here on/. only use office for assignments at college, and mostly because they're forced to. For folks like you, sure OO.o and O97 are more than sufficient. For the "Information Worker" that MS is targetting, they're no longer sufficient.
Oh, and if you are at college writing your thesis, then I highly recommend using LaTeX instead like I did. In terms of typesetting and formatting Word doesn't even come close.
I used to use a USB key with a list of sites, usernames and passwords on it. All protected using a secure zip drive. It became a pain in the ass to get the passwords out, so I gave up. It also concerned me as a single point of vulnerability (if someone stole it and cracked it they have access to my life).
So now instead I use this algorithm:
$password = MD5($sitename . $single_password)
So I don't have any passwords written down, just the single global password in my head along with the algorithm. There's an MD5 calculator on every UNIX system, and there's javascript ones available on the web too.
The benefits of this system:
I don't have to remember any passwords except my one global one
I don't have a list of passwords written down anywhere or on a USB key, so i'm not vulnerable
It's quick and easy to generate a new password for a new site
If someone gets a hold of one of my passwords they can't use it to guess passwords on other sites.
My passwords are 32 character random-looking strings, so they're virtually uncrackable.
Some websites don't support 32 character passwords, for those I just use the first 10 or 20 characters of the MD5 hash.
If this was truly an April fools joke they would've said they were partnering with Tampax and calling it the MaxiPod.
Thank you, thank you, I'm here til Thursday, try the fish.
Avant for IE does this already
on
IE To Block Pop-Ups
·
· Score: 2, Informative
If you want popup blocking in IE you can do it already using the Avant browser. It uses the IE engine to render pages, but provides its own front-end with tabbed browsing and popup blocking.
I've been using it at work since they changed out work proxy so that Mozilla wouldn't work here anymore.
a designated project manager who is the one point of contact with the customer, and is ultimately responsible for customer management
a change control process. if the customer asks for a change, we say "okay, we'll analyse that". then we get back to them to communicate the impact. "we can do the change, but we need $x, or y more people, or z more days."
So there's no need to actually say "No". You just have to point them to reality: there's only a certain amount of things a given number of people can do in a given time.:) We can do what you want, but we need more time, money or people.
My point is that linux users already have a mozilla installed (eg 1.3 with MDK9.1). so there's less incentive for them to download 1.4 because they've already got most of the good features (eg: tabbed browsing).
Windows users don't have any mozilla at all, so they're going to download it, and they'll go for the latest release, 1.4.
Therefore the prior availability of any recent-ish version of Moz on linux versions skews the download figures in favour of Windows.
QED!
Read this post for an example. Basically they don't tell the other ISPs on their wholesalers list when new exchanges are ADSL-enabled, so that customers sign up with Telstra because they think they can't get a connection through other ISPs. (The author of that post, Simon Hackett, is the CEO of Internode, one of the larger - and best -- wholesale ISPs).
This counterfeiting problem is just like the CD/DVD copy-protection problem: it's a technology race, with the crooks always a few steps ahead of the law.
The only way we've got a chance of preventing counterfeiting is to finally switch from paper money to digital transactions. Rather than hand over a $20 bill for my lunch, I wave my PDA/cell phone combo thingo in front of the cash register and it automatically deducts the price of the lunch from my account.
Of course that opens up a whole lot more security issues and a different set of crooks come into play, but we don't have to keep modifying our printer drivers!
I'm also in Australia, and I bought the Norah Jones CD. It wouldn't play on my Windows2000 box at work, nor my Mandrake9.1 machine at home. I tried to copy the CD, but I couldn't get the data off it digitally without getting a whole bunch of clicks and pops. Luckily a friend of mine had a US copy of it, so I copied that, and all is well. I vowed never to buy another CD from EMI ever again.
The next day my girlfriend went out and bought Ben Harper's "Diamonds on the Inside", which was released by EMI and featured a big copy protection symbol on the front. Strangely, this one was recognised immediately by every machine I put it in, no problems. I used grip to make copies I can carry around on my Zaurus, and it worked first time, no problems, no clicks or pops. Same company, same copy protection mechanism, what gives?
a small point, but the author is wrong about underflow. from the review:
you get a situation called either overflow (i.e. the result was greater than the highest positive integer) or underflow (i.e. the result was less than the largest negative integer)
underflow is when you're trying to represent a fractional number smaller than the smallest floating point number available. ie: you went too close to zero.
I wonder how much room there is to innovate with Office software? Up until recently, I would have agreed with anyone that said they wanted MS Office over anything else "because it is the best in its area." But lately the competitors have gotten pretty good too.
My first thought was, "oh well, MS will innovate something in MS Office that all the other office suites don't have, and then everyone will want MS Office again." I think that would've been the case a few years ago, but I think we're getting to the point where there aren't that many huge innovations to add on to an office suite. don't get me wrong, there's always nifty little bells and whistles, but MS Office has enough of those already.
My company is moving away from netscape calendar/navigator to an Active Directory/Outlook system next year. I don't run windows at home, but to be honest, I'm looking forward to the tight integration between Outlook email, Outlook calendar and Office documents. I think that's where MS Office has all the other office suites beat at the moment. I'd like to see that kind of integration between the KOffice, KMail and KOrganiser!
I work at motorola. Motorola is undoubtedly a huge source of inspiration for things like Office Space, and *especially* Dilbert.
During out "Employee Well-Being" week they showed Office Space in one of the break rooms. It created anarchy when people saw the reality of their office lives!
Slashdot Mirror
Hi Romana, I remember you. :-)
I started in ADL in 2000, then moved to the Perth centre in 2004.
I work for Motorola (in Australia, but I've work in MOT offices around the world on assignment).
It is *exactly* like Dilbert.
> But it's YOU who thought of it as derogatory, moron.
Your argument isn't strengthened by name-calling.
> Gay could be in the same context as Cute.
You might've had a point if a precedent hadn't been set in the previous 3 articles:
[+] aprilfools, lame, omg, gay, thinkgeek (tagging beta)
[+] aprilfools, lame, omg, gay, birthday (tagging beta)
[+] aprilfools, gay, ponies, omg, pink (tagging beta)
I'm not sure how the tagging system works, but Slashdot is a moderated site, and the use of the term "gay" in this context arguably should be moderated out. I doubt the mods would let tags through if they had racial or misogynistic meanings, and homophobia should be treated no differently.
> [+] lame, aprilfools, gay, omg, cute (tagging beta)
I find it pretty offensive that you use the term "gay" as a derogatory term.
> Secondly, MMOGs are not chemical addictions and should not be treated as such.
Wrong.
Gambling isn't a chemical addiction either, but it's just as damaging as alcohol and drugs, and needs to be treated the same.
> If that's your job, I'd say it was somewhere between the 97th and XP ring of hell.
Actually I love my job. I'm a software architect for Tier-1 emergency service comms and dispatch systems. We build and install systems for police/fire/ambulance depts of entire countries.
I use Word & Excel to track SRSs, REQs, Designs and all kinds of reporting on the progress of the project. And the best part is that when we do a good job the emergency service depts are more efficient/successful, which means we're saving lives.
> And because of its closed binary file structure, you cant use external versioning tools to version control your documents.
Actually, that's not correct. We use Rational Clearcase at work, and it quite happily versions Word documents (so long as Track Changes is turned off inside the document, of course).
Well, this will probably be unpopular in this crowd, but I totally agree.
/. only use office for assignments at college, and mostly because they're forced to. For folks like you, sure OO.o and O97 are more than sufficient. For the "Information Worker" that MS is targetting, they're no longer sufficient.
I work for a large (85,000 people) multinational company, and we simply couldn't get by without the integrated features of Office. I spend all day editing Word docs, Excel spreadsheets and occasionally Powerpoint, and without the tight integration I'd be in a mess.
I know how much of a mess, because 10 years ago O97 didn't have the Outlook integration, and I was forced to keep multiple copies of things on disk, and the review/formatting/comments stuff was really poor.
I suspect that 90% of the folks here on
Oh, and if you are at college writing your thesis, then I highly recommend using LaTeX instead like I did. In terms of typesetting and formatting Word doesn't even come close.
I used to use a USB key with a list of sites, usernames and passwords on it. All protected using a secure zip drive. It became a pain in the ass to get the passwords out, so I gave up. It also concerned me as a single point of vulnerability (if someone stole it and cracked it they have access to my life).
So now instead I use this algorithm:
$password = MD5($sitename . $single_password)
So I don't have any passwords written down, just the single global password in my head along with the algorithm. There's an MD5 calculator on every UNIX system, and there's javascript ones available on the web too.
The benefits of this system:
Some websites don't support 32 character passwords, for those I just use the first 10 or 20 characters of the MD5 hash.
I bought the Powerpack last week and reviewed it:
Mandrake 10.0 Official Powerpack Review
On the whole, I love it.
If this was truly an April fools joke they would've said they were partnering with Tampax and calling it the MaxiPod.
Thank you, thank you, I'm here til Thursday, try the fish.
If you want popup blocking in IE you can do it already using the Avant browser. It uses the IE engine to render pages, but provides its own front-end with tabbed browsing and popup blocking.
I've been using it at work since they changed out work proxy so that Mozilla wouldn't work here anymore.
- a designated project manager who is the one point of contact with the customer, and is ultimately responsible for customer management
- a change control process. if the customer asks for a change, we say "okay, we'll analyse that". then we get back to them to communicate the impact. "we can do the change, but we need $x, or y more people, or z more days."
So there's no need to actually say "No". You just have to point them to reality: there's only a certain amount of things a given number of people can do in a given time.My point is that linux users already have a mozilla installed (eg 1.3 with MDK9.1). so there's less incentive for them to download 1.4 because they've already got most of the good features (eg: tabbed browsing). Windows users don't have any mozilla at all, so they're going to download it, and they'll go for the latest release, 1.4. Therefore the prior availability of any recent-ish version of Moz on linux versions skews the download figures in favour of Windows. QED!
Remember that while Windows -doesn't- come with Moz, most linux distros -do-. So that would skew the figures even more to the Windows direction.
... they're anti-competitive too.
Read this post for an example. Basically they don't tell the other ISPs on their wholesalers list when new exchanges are ADSL-enabled, so that customers sign up with Telstra because they think they can't get a connection through other ISPs. (The author of that post, Simon Hackett, is the CEO of Internode, one of the larger - and best -- wholesale ISPs).
This counterfeiting problem is just like the CD/DVD copy-protection problem: it's a technology race, with the crooks always a few steps ahead of the law.
The only way we've got a chance of preventing counterfeiting is to finally switch from paper money to digital transactions. Rather than hand over a $20 bill for my lunch, I wave my PDA/cell phone combo thingo in front of the cash register and it automatically deducts the price of the lunch from my account.
Of course that opens up a whole lot more security issues and a different set of crooks come into play, but we don't have to keep modifying our printer drivers!
I'm also in Australia, and I bought the Norah Jones CD. It wouldn't play on my Windows2000 box at work, nor my Mandrake9.1 machine at home. I tried to copy the CD, but I couldn't get the data off it digitally without getting a whole bunch of clicks and pops. Luckily a friend of mine had a US copy of it, so I copied that, and all is well. I vowed never to buy another CD from EMI ever again.
The next day my girlfriend went out and bought Ben Harper's "Diamonds on the Inside", which was released by EMI and featured a big copy protection symbol on the front. Strangely, this one was recognised immediately by every machine I put it in, no problems. I used grip to make copies I can carry around on my Zaurus, and it worked first time, no problems, no clicks or pops. Same company, same copy protection mechanism, what gives?
(Not that I'm complaining!)
a small point, but the author is wrong about underflow. from the review:
you get a situation called either overflow (i.e. the result was greater than the highest positive integer) or underflow (i.e. the result was less than the largest negative integer)
underflow is when you're trying to represent a fractional number smaller than the smallest floating point number available. ie: you went too close to zero.
Cringely seems to think that Sun won't last long though, so will there be long-term benefit to AMD?
I wonder how much room there is to innovate with Office software? Up until recently, I would have agreed with anyone that said they wanted MS Office over anything else "because it is the best in its area." But lately the competitors have gotten pretty good too.
My first thought was, "oh well, MS will innovate something in MS Office that all the other office suites don't have, and then everyone will want MS Office again." I think that would've been the case a few years ago, but I think we're getting to the point where there aren't that many huge innovations to add on to an office suite. don't get me wrong, there's always nifty little bells and whistles, but MS Office has enough of those already.
My company is moving away from netscape calendar/navigator to an Active Directory/Outlook system next year. I don't run windows at home, but to be honest, I'm looking forward to the tight integration between Outlook email, Outlook calendar and Office documents. I think that's where MS Office has all the other office suites beat at the moment. I'd like to see that kind of integration between the KOffice, KMail and KOrganiser!
i'll just rip everything to WAVs and leave them like that!
I work at motorola. Motorola is undoubtedly a huge source of inspiration for things like Office Space, and *especially* Dilbert. During out "Employee Well-Being" week they showed Office Space in one of the break rooms. It created anarchy when people saw the reality of their office lives!