For Windows CE, there is a pretty large leap. We're not talking about the PocketPC, where there is a reference architecture and compatibility suites you have to pass to use the moniker. We're talking about a componentized version of Windows. PocketPC is a specifically designed subset of Windows CE.
For Windows CE, all Microsoft does is provide the software. The manufacturers are free to select any hardware/software combination that they want. There are about 3,000 seperate modules for Windows CE. If you aren't going to be using the.NET Compact Framework, for example, one click and it's gone from what gets pushed out. Not using a display? Click-gone. Not using a keyboard? Click-gone. Not using networking? Click-gone.
In addition, the latest licensing terms allow OEM's to make some pretty major modifications to the Windows CE software in order to make it a better fit for their products.
So in short, aside from labelling and licensing requirements, Microsoft has no control over Gizmondo. Microsoft probably chose the Gizmondo because of the comparative ease of porting from Win32 to WinCE.
Microsoft is merely porting existing games over to the Gizmondo. It's kind of like how Links 2001 was ported over to PocketPC.
The Gizmondo is not a Microsoft device, even though it's running a Microsoft OS. Now, if Microsoft purchases one of these handheld companies, then you might have something to worry about.
Accessibility is really an elective for most games.
Several games use color or slight variations in shade as the only differentiator between items, hence color-blind people may have issues with it.
Alternative methods of entry are rarely, if ever, included in test passes, so don't be surprised if your one-handed keyboard won't work when you're playing "Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude."
However, subtitles are gaining ground. Not because they're easy. They're a total resource hog. No, they're gaining ground because of spouses. Not every spouse on the face of the planet wants to listen to the same dialog over and over and over and over and over and over and over...
Being able to play the game with the sound off or low is becoming a feature, but you'll never catch me playing with no sound. My ears are valuable tools, and I won't waste them.
When you've got a celebrity voice, the worst thing that you can do is have their agent in the room during the voice recording, especially if you ask the celeb to ad-lib.
Sergio Garcia was chosen to be the cover personality for "Links 2001." He was selected because he had an amazing amount of energy. However, after his selection, his agent decided that he (Mr. Garcia) should start to tone down his behavior on the golf course.
His agent was around during the voice recording sessions as well, and it just drained all of the energy out of him.
As a result, listening to his voice-over work in "Links 2001" is a sure cure for insomnia.
So in other words, if we create a Beowulf cluster of infants, and only allow them to hear sounds from "The Matrix" trilogy, the only words they would be able to say would be, "Keanu Reeves can't act?"
As of 1:30pm, we received 193 visitors as a results of me posting our URL on Slashdot.
Our stats for the day are not significantly different, however.
Internet Explorer - 82.2% FireFox - 8.4% Mozilla - 3.6% Netscape - 1.4% Konquerer - 1.1% Safari - 1.0% Unknown - 0.9% Opera - 0.6% Firebird - 0.2% Galeon - 0.1%
Even with our visitors from Slashdot, this doesn't even come close to being our heaviest traffic day. But combine these stats with the above, and you probably get an idea of the browser usage of Slashdot users who read the comments and follow links contained within said comments.
Any effort to get usability information is worth it, whether it's a full usability lab, or just sitting behind someone who is trying to use your software with a pad of paper.
The only people who don't think that usability is worth measuring are the people you wouldn't want working on UI to begin with.
While the fact that legal documents have a very set structure and certain terms are required to be used a certain way in certain documents would help the "robolawyer" parse the documents, when you start getting into jurisdiction changes, differing court judgments on certain clauses, as well as potential legal liability for bad judgment calls made by the "robolawyer," you might just be better off with a Magic 8-Ball.
Of course, the same would apply to an actual lawyer nowadays, but the Magic 8-Ball is less likely to countersue you into oblivion.
Personally, I think it was very responsible for Microsoft to release source and instructions on how to update your global.asax file in order to prevent forms authentication bypassing. This way, web site operators can fix the bug even if they don't manage patches on the web server.
In addition, this only affects people who use Forms Authentication, and while it may let people get to the page, if your site double-checks the authentication on a per-page basis for rights checks like most do, there is no hole.
That being said, given the canonicalization bugs that have hit Microsoft before, I am disappointed that this was not found and fixed before ship.
I work for Layton City in Utah, and we are preparing to release an interactive GIS database viewer client sometime in the next month.
The hardest part has been determining what data should be available to the public. Release of some of the data is controlled under a Utah state law called GRAMA, which stands for the Government Records Access and Management Act. It tells us what information about our citizens we are able to release, and why. Property ownership information, detailed floorplans, etc., could all be considered protected under GRAMA if read correctly.
To start with, we're going to be releasing a limited version of our "center line" file. The "center line" file is essentially a file of imaginary lines running down the center of a map. That file has addressing information, so we can use it for address location and pathfinding, but the full version of the file also includes police patrol areas, emergency response information, and lots of other easily abused information as associated metadata with each polyline.
One other issue here is space. Layton is a relatively small town, bound to the north and south by cities, to the east by a mountain, and to the west by the Great Salt Lake and another city. Even with that, our full GIS database (if exported to shape files) is several hundred gigabytes.
No where in the article did it mention that EA NHL 2005 was going to be used.
Never said it did. I was merely remarking on EA's preponderance of coverage on G4TechTV.
And to encourage less EA coverage, inform the world not to buy EA games, so EA will produce less games and will sponsor less events, therefore the media won't report on them so much.
I don't want EA to make fewer titles. While I may not approve of many of their business decisions, they do bring a lot of money and jobs into this industry. However, I do want balanced coverage from a network devoted to covering the industry. However, most of the EA coverage on G4TechTV crosses the line from coverage to product placement.
As an aside, does anyone else remember when game magazines had ratings for sale on their ad cards?
Is it just me, or does G4TechTV (and G4 before it) place an inordinate amount of coverage on Electronic Arts titles?
Every time I flip by the channel, I'm barraged with celebrities plugging EA titles on "Players," or I get a lot of EA interviews on "Icons," or some other ad masquerading as a show.
I know that EA is the 800-pound gorilla of the industry, but I'd still appreciate seeing more balanced coverage of the industry rather than just coverage of EA LA.
You don't type it into the Google toolbar. You type it into the address bar. However, as soon as you type a word without an scheme identifier (for example, "www" or "mail" instead of "http://www" or "http://mail"), the Google toolbar intercepts the request and does a "Browse By Name."
Unfortunately, if you enter a single word, it does not check to see if it can resolve the name on your Intranet first. Instead, it immediately does the "Browse By Name."
This caused a lot of issues on our Intranet. Just warning everyone.
I'm wondering if the artists are being paid for their product, or if this is eventually coming out of the artist's pockets.
The reason I'm asking is that the record industry usually charges everything that it can back to the artists: production costs, advertising costs, warehousing costs, everything. Any incoming funds are applied against the record company bottom line first, and the remainder goes against the "debt" accrued by the artist.
So, are the artists getting any money from the disbursement of their product?
I like the concept of a wiki, but I'm a bit concerned about the current implementation.
Right now, we are seeing several instances where crawlers are disrupting wikis, spammers are embedding wiki links to their sites to boost their Google rankings, and advertisers are placing ads in wikis until someone goes through and nukes them.
Do you have any thoughts as to how wikis can be modified to prevent things like this in the future?
It's a beta site. Microsoft's beta products usually collect more information in order to help recreate failure scenarios. When I've done betas in the past, I've collected additional information for the same purpose, and I disclosed it the same way.
In this case, I'd say "chill." A stable Windows Update is a boon to security.
I have an annual development budget of $125,000, which is barely enough to pay for the salaries of 2 developers, training, books and tools.
I have a choice during my fiscal year. I can either have each developer work on the same program but for different platforms (one Windows, one Linux), or I can create two seperate programs for the Windows platform.
My choice is pretty obvious (double the applications available to 99% of my citizens), but I have the law on my side as well. According to state law, if someone is requesting a tool or report that is not currently implemented, they can request it, but we have the ability to give them a quote for how much it will cost. If I have one person who wants a Linux version of one of the Windows applications, I'll give them a quote as to how much it will cost to develop it. If they pay for it, we'll develop it. If they don't, we won't. If 100 people ask for it, we'll give them a quote prorated down as such. If 1,000 people request it, again. Once the requests pass 10% of our populance, however, our costs are considered so low per person that it's considered paid as part of their taxes.
We only have about 60,000 people in our city. If we had over 6,000 people using Linux, we'd develop for Linux. But we don't, so we won't.
And I'm going to show you the major fallacy in your argument. In our town, we have flouride in the water. There was a vote to put it there, and a small minority voted against it. Based off of your argument, I would have to build two seperate but equal culinary water systems: one with flouride, one without. Instead, we build and maintain the one, and we have the people who do not want the flouride incur an extra expense for a filtering system for their own personal water.
If you're going to be a zealot, at least be an equal opportunity zealot. Equal programs, equal water preferences, seperate laws (hey, *I* don't think that homicide is bad, so why shoulid *I* be punished), etc. And with that, I'm stopping this argument because I'm sounding as polarized as most of the people here on Slashdot.
Well, government's can't discriminate on the basis of age, sex, religion, etc., etc., etc., but I don't see operating system listed anywhere on the list.
Given the market share that Microsoft has and the limited resources available to most government programmers, I think the only way that you'll win on this one is if you somehow claim that using Linux/Mac/OS/2/*BSD is a "disability."
Of course, if you make that claim, you can imagine how quickly it will be picked up by the media. "Linux Zealot sues State of Indiana. Says that his Linux wheelchair is incompatible with Indiana's Internet access ramp."
Give Indiana a break. When I'm developing software for my city, I have to ensure that I deliver the most bang for the buck. My access logs on our website show less than 1% of our visitors are running anything other than Windows, so why should I spend an equal amount of development effort on platforms that are so poorly represented by my user base?
You are correct. The PC games market is rapidly losing sales, and due to market consolidation and trends, several genres are shrinking down to nothingness, only to be supported by either startups or fan games, but it will never truly die.
And of course, with the new market sweet spot at $39.99 for PC games, PC games now have approximately the same return on investment per unit as console games.
But you are correct, the PC games market is not dying. It is currently evolving into a platform for the hardcore gamer and the casual web gamer. The PC games market will never truly die, but isn't massive hyperbole a prerequisite for any post to Slashdot?
Slashdot Mirror
For Windows CE, there is a pretty large leap. We're not talking about the PocketPC, where there is a reference architecture and compatibility suites you have to pass to use the moniker. We're talking about a componentized version of Windows. PocketPC is a specifically designed subset of Windows CE.
.NET Compact Framework, for example, one click and it's gone from what gets pushed out. Not using a display? Click-gone. Not using a keyboard? Click-gone. Not using networking? Click-gone.
For Windows CE, all Microsoft does is provide the software. The manufacturers are free to select any hardware/software combination that they want. There are about 3,000 seperate modules for Windows CE. If you aren't going to be using the
In addition, the latest licensing terms allow OEM's to make some pretty major modifications to the Windows CE software in order to make it a better fit for their products.
So in short, aside from labelling and licensing requirements, Microsoft has no control over Gizmondo. Microsoft probably chose the Gizmondo because of the comparative ease of porting from Win32 to WinCE.
Microsoft is merely porting existing games over to the Gizmondo. It's kind of like how Links 2001 was ported over to PocketPC.
The Gizmondo is not a Microsoft device, even though it's running a Microsoft OS. Now, if Microsoft purchases one of these handheld companies, then you might have something to worry about.
Accessibility is really an elective for most games.
Several games use color or slight variations in shade as the only differentiator between items, hence color-blind people may have issues with it.
Alternative methods of entry are rarely, if ever, included in test passes, so don't be surprised if your one-handed keyboard won't work when you're playing "Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude."
However, subtitles are gaining ground. Not because they're easy. They're a total resource hog. No, they're gaining ground because of spouses. Not every spouse on the face of the planet wants to listen to the same dialog over and over and over and over and over and over and over...
Being able to play the game with the sound off or low is becoming a feature, but you'll never catch me playing with no sound. My ears are valuable tools, and I won't waste them.
When you've got a celebrity voice, the worst thing that you can do is have their agent in the room during the voice recording, especially if you ask the celeb to ad-lib.
Sergio Garcia was chosen to be the cover personality for "Links 2001." He was selected because he had an amazing amount of energy. However, after his selection, his agent decided that he (Mr. Garcia) should start to tone down his behavior on the golf course.
His agent was around during the voice recording sessions as well, and it just drained all of the energy out of him.
As a result, listening to his voice-over work in "Links 2001" is a sure cure for insomnia.
So in other words, if we create a Beowulf cluster of infants, and only allow them to hear sounds from "The Matrix" trilogy, the only words they would be able to say would be, "Keanu Reeves can't act?"
Sounds like a plan to me. [grin]
The parent post is using Penny Arcade's redirector to ship people off into the evil netherworld of the Internet.
Parent poster is a bad puppy, and should be ravaged by a rabid wolverine.
Well, for my personal website, here are the stats as of 11:07am:
If someone had visited using Opera prior to my posting, I would have included it.
I can't comment for other sites, but for our city's website, http://www.laytoncity.org/, here's our breakdown as of 9:14am today:
Any effort to get usability information is worth it, whether it's a full usability lab, or just sitting behind someone who is trying to use your software with a pad of paper.
The only people who don't think that usability is worth measuring are the people you wouldn't want working on UI to begin with.
While the fact that legal documents have a very set structure and certain terms are required to be used a certain way in certain documents would help the "robolawyer" parse the documents, when you start getting into jurisdiction changes, differing court judgments on certain clauses, as well as potential legal liability for bad judgment calls made by the "robolawyer," you might just be better off with a Magic 8-Ball.
Of course, the same would apply to an actual lawyer nowadays, but the Magic 8-Ball is less likely to countersue you into oblivion.
Personally, I think it was very responsible for Microsoft to release source and instructions on how to update your global.asax file in order to prevent forms authentication bypassing. This way, web site operators can fix the bug even if they don't manage patches on the web server.
In addition, this only affects people who use Forms Authentication, and while it may let people get to the page, if your site double-checks the authentication on a per-page basis for rights checks like most do, there is no hole.
That being said, given the canonicalization bugs that have hit Microsoft before, I am disappointed that this was not found and fixed before ship.
I work for Layton City in Utah, and we are preparing to release an interactive GIS database viewer client sometime in the next month.
The hardest part has been determining what data should be available to the public. Release of some of the data is controlled under a Utah state law called GRAMA, which stands for the Government Records Access and Management Act. It tells us what information about our citizens we are able to release, and why. Property ownership information, detailed floorplans, etc., could all be considered protected under GRAMA if read correctly.
To start with, we're going to be releasing a limited version of our "center line" file. The "center line" file is essentially a file of imaginary lines running down the center of a map. That file has addressing information, so we can use it for address location and pathfinding, but the full version of the file also includes police patrol areas, emergency response information, and lots of other easily abused information as associated metadata with each polyline.
One other issue here is space. Layton is a relatively small town, bound to the north and south by cities, to the east by a mountain, and to the west by the Great Salt Lake and another city. Even with that, our full GIS database (if exported to shape files) is several hundred gigabytes.
Never said it did. I was merely remarking on EA's preponderance of coverage on G4TechTV.
I don't want EA to make fewer titles. While I may not approve of many of their business decisions, they do bring a lot of money and jobs into this industry. However, I do want balanced coverage from a network devoted to covering the industry. However, most of the EA coverage on G4TechTV crosses the line from coverage to product placement.
As an aside, does anyone else remember when game magazines had ratings for sale on their ad cards?
Is it just me, or does G4TechTV (and G4 before it) place an inordinate amount of coverage on Electronic Arts titles?
Every time I flip by the channel, I'm barraged with celebrities plugging EA titles on "Players," or I get a lot of EA interviews on "Icons," or some other ad masquerading as a show.
I know that EA is the 800-pound gorilla of the industry, but I'd still appreciate seeing more balanced coverage of the industry rather than just coverage of EA LA.
You don't type it into the Google toolbar. You type it into the address bar. However, as soon as you type a word without an scheme identifier (for example, "www" or "mail" instead of "http://www" or "http://mail"), the Google toolbar intercepts the request and does a "Browse By Name."
Unfortunately, if you enter a single word, it does not check to see if it can resolve the name on your Intranet first. Instead, it immediately does the "Browse By Name."
This caused a lot of issues on our Intranet. Just warning everyone.
I'm wondering if the artists are being paid for their product, or if this is eventually coming out of the artist's pockets.
The reason I'm asking is that the record industry usually charges everything that it can back to the artists: production costs, advertising costs, warehousing costs, everything. Any incoming funds are applied against the record company bottom line first, and the remainder goes against the "debt" accrued by the artist.
So, are the artists getting any money from the disbursement of their product?
I like the concept of a wiki, but I'm a bit concerned about the current implementation.
Right now, we are seeing several instances where crawlers are disrupting wikis, spammers are embedding wiki links to their sites to boost their Google rankings, and advertisers are placing ads in wikis until someone goes through and nukes them.
Do you have any thoughts as to how wikis can be modified to prevent things like this in the future?
Which dead Kennedy? John, Robert, John Jr., or Ted's liver?
It's a beta site. Microsoft's beta products usually collect more information in order to help recreate failure scenarios. When I've done betas in the past, I've collected additional information for the same purpose, and I disclosed it the same way.
In this case, I'd say "chill." A stable Windows Update is a boon to security.
Or you can look at it this way:
I have an annual development budget of $125,000, which is barely enough to pay for the salaries of 2 developers, training, books and tools.
I have a choice during my fiscal year. I can either have each developer work on the same program but for different platforms (one Windows, one Linux), or I can create two seperate programs for the Windows platform.
My choice is pretty obvious (double the applications available to 99% of my citizens), but I have the law on my side as well. According to state law, if someone is requesting a tool or report that is not currently implemented, they can request it, but we have the ability to give them a quote for how much it will cost. If I have one person who wants a Linux version of one of the Windows applications, I'll give them a quote as to how much it will cost to develop it. If they pay for it, we'll develop it. If they don't, we won't. If 100 people ask for it, we'll give them a quote prorated down as such. If 1,000 people request it, again. Once the requests pass 10% of our populance, however, our costs are considered so low per person that it's considered paid as part of their taxes.
We only have about 60,000 people in our city. If we had over 6,000 people using Linux, we'd develop for Linux. But we don't, so we won't.
And I'm going to show you the major fallacy in your argument. In our town, we have flouride in the water. There was a vote to put it there, and a small minority voted against it. Based off of your argument, I would have to build two seperate but equal culinary water systems: one with flouride, one without. Instead, we build and maintain the one, and we have the people who do not want the flouride incur an extra expense for a filtering system for their own personal water.
If you're going to be a zealot, at least be an equal opportunity zealot. Equal programs, equal water preferences, seperate laws (hey, *I* don't think that homicide is bad, so why shoulid *I* be punished), etc. And with that, I'm stopping this argument because I'm sounding as polarized as most of the people here on Slashdot.
Yes. Does the phrase "misallocation of taxpayer dollars" mean anything to you, though?
Well, government's can't discriminate on the basis of age, sex, religion, etc., etc., etc., but I don't see operating system listed anywhere on the list.
Given the market share that Microsoft has and the limited resources available to most government programmers, I think the only way that you'll win on this one is if you somehow claim that using Linux/Mac/OS/2/*BSD is a "disability."
Of course, if you make that claim, you can imagine how quickly it will be picked up by the media. "Linux Zealot sues State of Indiana. Says that his Linux wheelchair is incompatible with Indiana's Internet access ramp."
Give Indiana a break. When I'm developing software for my city, I have to ensure that I deliver the most bang for the buck. My access logs on our website show less than 1% of our visitors are running anything other than Windows, so why should I spend an equal amount of development effort on platforms that are so poorly represented by my user base?
You are correct. The PC games market is rapidly losing sales, and due to market consolidation and trends, several genres are shrinking down to nothingness, only to be supported by either startups or fan games, but it will never truly die.
And of course, with the new market sweet spot at $39.99 for PC games, PC games now have approximately the same return on investment per unit as console games.
But you are correct, the PC games market is not dying. It is currently evolving into a platform for the hardcore gamer and the casual web gamer. The PC games market will never truly die, but isn't massive hyperbole a prerequisite for any post to Slashdot?