I cannot bring myself to think what all of you would be saying if Microsoft was doing this.
Why would that be bad? If Microsoft wrote the software, I'd expect their site to be whitelisted for installing extensions. Indeed, doesn't MS Office today use a whitelisted Microsoft repository for installing plug-in and extensions?
Now, if MSNBC was whitelisted by default by MS Internet Explorer's (future) popup or cookie blocker, I'd complain. However, extensions and updates should be only OK from Microsoft.
Sorry; I pressed the "enter" key by accident. Since I'm online with a slow connection (dialup), there is often a large delay before a submitted form page is displayed. One did not display for me and I didn't realize that I already submitted this. Why, oh why, doesn't/. have a mandatory preview before comment submission like any sane forum?:-&
I won't link to the Mozillazine Forum thread on this issue (since they are having bandwidth problems), but you could just search for my username there (Jimmy_C) for the original thread. Rest assured that this is backed up.
The latest Mozilla Firefox builds have a feature where only extensions from white-listed urls can be installed. The UI for this feature works nearly the same as for popup-blocking. The only default white-listed site will be hosted by Mozilla.org. In addition to the no-silent-install policy and the built-in delay before the accept button is activated, this new feature should help prevent these types of attacks against Firefox from being practical.
I won't link to the Mozillazine Forum thread on this issue (since they are having bandwidth problems), but you could just search for my username there (Jimmy_C) for the origional thread. Rest assured that this is backed up.
The latest Mozilla FireFox builds have a feature where only extensions from white-listed urls can be installed. The UI for this feature works almost exactly the same as for popup-blocking.
Sigh... I wish I still had the time and the bandwidth for 1st person shooters.:-( Anyway, what does IDDQD mean? A google search just brought up nonsense.
Most words don't have precise definitions: it all depends on the context! In any field, there is an established terminology which have with different semantics than for non-professionals.
Here is a well-known example. For hundreds of years, "work" has meant something different for lay-people than physicists. No rational person would recommend that physicists redefine what "work" means so it conforms with the common definition.
P.S. Saying something is "an unnecesary abuse of language and a potentially confusing deviation" implies it is "wrong".
It kind of reminds me of Linux (firefox) vs Windows (ie). One is more powerful and customisable, but you have to work a lot at it to get it the way you like. The other isn't, but comes with basic settings that 80% of users are happy with.
After using both - Microsoft Windows and GNOME/Linux (for about 6 months now) - I have to disagree. Objectively, Windows is just as hard to customize as many Linux distributions. My mother, who has very little computer experience, actually has a little easier time using GNOME (although both are hard for her). Concepts such as virtual windows aren't really difficult for her. Of course, setting up any hardware or installing any software is equally hard (read: impossible) for mom in both distributions.
Windows seems easier for me since I have been using it for over ten years. Most Linux (from Unix) and Windows (from MS-DOS) conventions have been evolving separately for about 25 years! For Windows users, there is as steep a learning curve as for Mac users converting to Windows. It is not that Windows or GNOME/Linux are hard; they are just unfamiliar to us.
That's why I started using GNOME/Linux pretending that I was as new to computers as my mother. I had to "unlearn what I have learned" before I understood how the Unix philosophy and it's conventions. If you just have a little patience, you will find both - MS Windows and a Linux Distribution - about the same in terms of usability.
I'm a little skeptical of those figures for the Saturn V's payload cost per mass. How did the costs of launching the rocket go up or down over the program's lifespan? There are the costs associated with the immense pool of qualified technicians, which only increases over the years (at least compared with 1970) as the costs of living and quality of worker compensation (rightfully) increase. The trend would certainly continue as components become scarcer and harder to service. Your conjecture that the space shuttle is less effective than the Saturn V certainly seems logical and I think it might be correct; however, I am also usually skeptical of such claims.
You misunderatnd. The RC is not ment to encourage adoption: it is a beta release intended for finding bugs. You just got bitten by a nasty bug; however, that is to be expected with prereleased software. FireFox - including everything from the API to its integration with the OS - is unstable right now. Any users of the software must take that into account and back up their software before trying any of its features. Otherwise, you risk data loss (as you have experienced).
0.9 RC trashed my profile. Yeah, 0.9 final migrates, but hey, now that my profile is ALREADY gone, it's too late, now isn't it? 0.9 RC should have at least offered to back up my profile for future use.
Release candidates are unstable. They are released to find issues that were overlooked by the developers. If you tried it without backing up your old profile folder, the fault is with your own inadequate computer security and safety policy.
Pinstripe is quite ugly. I much prefer Qute, and think the Mozilla folks must be stoned to ditch Qute for Pinstripe.
Pinstripe is not very ugly! I agree that is needs polish; however, there is little wrong with it.
The backlash is mainly due to inertia; most users - like myself - just got used to Qute. When the Phoenix switched from Orbit to Qute, I first thought it was a horrible, horrible decision! However, I grew used to it and eventually preferred the new theme. After a few days of Pinstripe, I have similar feelings. Qute is pretty good, but not irreplaceably as I once thought. A few tweaks to my user chrome override-file (not the changes making the rounds) satisfied most of my objections.
You people are seriously overreacting!
They removed the theme on the download manager.
The theme was never in the download manager. Some erroneous entries used to be listed in the theme manager, but that bug seems to have been squashed.
There were license problems between Qute and Mozilla.org's tri-license policy. Therefor, they will not be able to bundle the popular theme with the oncoming stable version of FireFox Browser.:-( However, I feel the new theme is OK.
You don't need fancy software to write in a blog. Jeffery Zeldman used to write his blog exclusively in a text editor, in fact! I think Tim Bray and Norman Walsh use still use Emacs to do the majority of their writing (augmented with some client-side scripts) before uploading their content, but I may be wrong.
In Linux, the middle-mouse is set up to cut/paste text from the clipboard and to navigate to the test in the clipboard as if it is a URL (following conventions that go back over twenty years). However, you can also set it up with Windows conventions via FireFox's advanced preferences:
Type about:config into the url bar.
Type middle into the filter area.
Double click the text, browser.tabs.opentabfor.middleclick, and replace whatever's there with true.
Double click the other lines of text (about four) and make them false.
Now Mozilla FireFox will follow Window's mouse conventions.
What about Beanshell! It is a scripting language for Java-based applications like jEdit. Beanshell will interpret ordinary java source files in addition to class files. You can even write a simple web browser in less than 74 lines of code! It surely should have been considered along if languages such as Pike, Lua, and Haskell were thought of.
This entire analysis seems suspect. Take the first section. For JavaScript, their implementation uses NJS, which hasn't even stabilized with a 1.0 release yet! They also have a unix bias: many applications have no need of the shebang, #!. Even though, a script in another language could easily be written to implement that feature. Shebang support is a trivial and doesn't deserve the 15points awarded. Furthermore, awarding points for "program(s) can be passed on command line" is silly. That is a horrible horrible style of coding guaranteed to make scripts hard to maintain.
Their second section is not complet and has a heavy bias against Java and C#. The subsections, "smallest" and "hello world," are silly. I never understood why having a small size for the simplest program is important for nontrivial applications. (For that matter, I never understood why programmers wish for the "least typing" in a language. I never never never code for least typing, since that often makes programs unreadable!) Finally, their coding style is inconsistent. For instance, they use for Java:
public class formatting { public static void main(String[] args) { int a=1; int b=2; System.out.println("" + a + " + " + b + " = " + (a + b)); } }
Yet the authors throw these conventions out with JavaScript:
(Also note that the numbers reported and counted don't match, but I may just be missing something.) Why? Java and C# seem destine to loose with the author's methods. As I said, this entire report seems biased and unscientific.
P.S./. needs to fix the site's source code white-space style. This is getting ridiculous.
this is INCREDIBLY difficult, as there are rarely fewer than three people involved in securing and guarding the box,
All it takes are three people working together. I mean, there are criminal organizations with enough power to pull that sort of thing through extortion or bribes.
Compare this to the Diebold machines, which hide your ballots away on the PRIVATE servers...
As for Diebold, I wasn't referring to them. However, what about having each voting center sign their data with PGP and using an md5sum to intercept tampering? Wouldn't that solve your problems with Diebold? And how about using write-once media for storing the votes? Your objections don't seem insurmountable.
People act as if this issue (and, for that matter every other issue) has a clear solution. As if any reasonable or intelligent person can't debate the causes of the problem and the proposed solution! This is kinda arrogant. Most issues in politics are very complicated; simplifying them usually only helps the politicians and does not make a simple solution more desirable.
For instance, I wonder how many of those paper receipts could be dusted for fingerprints. Wouldn't that make it easier to figure out who voted for whom? Is it easier or harder to backtrack the voters than traditional paper ballots? And what about all those methods for electronic security. What makes a computerized voting system easier to fraud? If I wanted to fix a traditional election, all I'd do is replace ballot box with an identical one with my votes. Digital results can be harder to fake (md5 sums, multiple copies transported, and even quantum encryption could identify interception of the results by a third party).
Really, what's the difference between not knowing how a computer stores its information verses ignorance of how a box of ballots are handled? They both are vulnerable.
I'm Captain Jonathon Archer of the starship, Red Hat Enterprise, NX-01 class security.;-)
I guess I'm not with linus on this one
on
Browser Wars Mark II
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· Score: 0, Redundant
Note that the original WorldWideWeb browser and all early clones displayed multimedia in separate windows. It was Mosaic's (and later Netscape's) ability to display images and other multimedia inline that led to the rise of the Internet. Inline interpretation of sound, video, and other applets are just a generalization of that idea.
As soon as there is a virus/trojan/etc. that spreads easily and is highly destructive
Yet highly destructive viruses can't spread easily if they kill their host machine before spreading! It's like the ebola virus: it kills its host so efficiently that it often dies with it. If you really wanted the virus to spread easily and be destructive, it should only deliver its payload if it can't reach the network. But if it can't reach the net, then it won't spread so easily. It's a reverse chick-and-the-egg problem!
Basically, the third option is geared towards people who maintain certain parts of the tree and get patches sent their way rather than straight to Linus. There will be a separate certificate provided to the maintainer.
Good points. It was always ingrained into me (as an engineering major) to document my sources for anything remotely borrowed. So it seems instinctually wrong not to require the contributor to cite explicitly his code's references. I considered that a sloppy developer could use the wrong source by mistake and infringe on someone else's copyrights. I'd feel a little easier if the intent of the certificate as well as each passage was explained in a preface like the GPL uses. It's always a good idea to be paranoid about copyright, I say.;-)
The second option contains the phrase "as indicated in the file", which means that the origin is already recorded.
I interpreted that as saying that the license was in the file, not the original author's name or contact info. There could be cases where the copyright info changed or stripped such as the rumors of BSD code copied into Linux without proper attribution and vice versa. A "paper trail" could be used as defense against such accusations.
That is a pretty interesting certificate; I may end up using it too. However, the second and (esp.) third options seems a little unspecific: Shouldn't it require the contributing developer to name the origional work and its author(s)/entity(ies)? That way the lead developer could independently confirm that there are no copyright problems, if needed.
If a popular web site stopped working, the IE users would just stop going to the formerly popular web site.
That certainly seems logical, but was it ever proven by an experiment? Do you know of any research studies done examining why users stopped visiting a site? What about reasons users think sites don't work? I want proof!
It's that the standards are positively byzantine, and so complicated to implement that it's simply not worth the effort.
No, most are actually pretty simple. Granted you have to first get through the language barrier (since these are specs, they have to use precise wording). However, the concepts aren't that difficult. HTML, CSS, XML, XSLT, and RDF are pretty easy to author. XML and CSS is also easy to parse (for the latter, see IE7 or my demo's source). Sometimes there are errors, but the W3C is pretty good at clarification and fixing errors, such as in the specifications: CSS level 2 revision 1, XML 1.0 third edition, HTML 4.01, and more. I don't understand why they are so confusing to you.
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Why would that be bad? If Microsoft wrote the software, I'd expect their site to be whitelisted for installing extensions. Indeed, doesn't MS Office today use a whitelisted Microsoft repository for installing plug-in and extensions?
Now, if MSNBC was whitelisted by default by MS Internet Explorer's (future) popup or cookie blocker, I'd complain. However, extensions and updates should be only OK from Microsoft.
It isn't cumbersome anymore. Acrobat, Flash, and Quicktime among others work perfectly with Mozilla Firefox 0.9 for me. What are you referring to?
Sorry; I pressed the "enter" key by accident. Since I'm online with a slow connection (dialup), there is often a large delay before a submitted form page is displayed. One did not display for me and I didn't realize that I already submitted this. Why, oh why, doesn't /. have a mandatory preview before comment submission like any sane forum? :-&
I won't link to the Mozillazine Forum thread on this issue (since they are having bandwidth problems), but you could just search for my username there (Jimmy_C) for the original thread. Rest assured that this is backed up.
The latest Mozilla Firefox builds have a feature where only extensions from white-listed urls can be installed. The UI for this feature works nearly the same as for popup-blocking. The only default white-listed site will be hosted by Mozilla.org. In addition to the no-silent-install policy and the built-in delay before the accept button is activated, this new feature should help prevent these types of attacks against Firefox from being practical.
I won't link to the Mozillazine Forum thread on this issue (since they are having bandwidth problems), but you could just search for my username there (Jimmy_C) for the origional thread. Rest assured that this is backed up. The latest Mozilla FireFox builds have a feature where only extensions from white-listed urls can be installed. The UI for this feature works almost exactly the same as for popup-blocking.
Sigh... I wish I still had the time and the bandwidth for 1st person shooters. :-( Anyway, what does IDDQD mean? A google search just brought up nonsense.
Most words don't have precise definitions: it all depends on the context! In any field, there is an established terminology which have with different semantics than for non-professionals.
Here is a well-known example. For hundreds of years, "work" has meant something different for lay-people than physicists. No rational person would recommend that physicists redefine what "work" means so it conforms with the common definition.
P.S. Saying something is "an unnecesary abuse of language and a potentially confusing deviation" implies it is "wrong".
After using both - Microsoft Windows and GNOME/Linux (for about 6 months now) - I have to disagree. Objectively, Windows is just as hard to customize as many Linux distributions. My mother, who has very little computer experience, actually has a little easier time using GNOME (although both are hard for her). Concepts such as virtual windows aren't really difficult for her. Of course, setting up any hardware or installing any software is equally hard (read: impossible) for mom in both distributions.
Windows seems easier for me since I have been using it for over ten years. Most Linux (from Unix) and Windows (from MS-DOS) conventions have been evolving separately for about 25 years! For Windows users, there is as steep a learning curve as for Mac users converting to Windows. It is not that Windows or GNOME/Linux are hard; they are just unfamiliar to us.
That's why I started using GNOME/Linux pretending that I was as new to computers as my mother. I had to "unlearn what I have learned" before I understood how the Unix philosophy and it's conventions. If you just have a little patience, you will find both - MS Windows and a Linux Distribution - about the same in terms of usability.
same here. odd. sorry i can't be of more help. I do compile my own builds, so perhaps that had something to do with it.
I'm a little skeptical of those figures for the Saturn V's payload cost per mass. How did the costs of launching the rocket go up or down over the program's lifespan? There are the costs associated with the immense pool of qualified technicians, which only increases over the years (at least compared with 1970) as the costs of living and quality of worker compensation (rightfully) increase. The trend would certainly continue as components become scarcer and harder to service. Your conjecture that the space shuttle is less effective than the Saturn V certainly seems logical and I think it might be correct; however, I am also usually skeptical of such claims.
Odd: that's not what happens on my machine. Which distribution are you using?
You misunderatnd. The RC is not ment to encourage adoption: it is a beta release intended for finding bugs. You just got bitten by a nasty bug; however, that is to be expected with prereleased software. FireFox - including everything from the API to its integration with the OS - is unstable right now. Any users of the software must take that into account and back up their software before trying any of its features. Otherwise, you risk data loss (as you have experienced).
Release candidates are unstable. They are released to find issues that were overlooked by the developers. If you tried it without backing up your old profile folder, the fault is with your own inadequate computer security and safety policy.
Pinstripe is not very ugly! I agree that is needs polish; however, there is little wrong with it.
The backlash is mainly due to inertia; most users - like myself - just got used to Qute. When the Phoenix switched from Orbit to Qute, I first thought it was a horrible, horrible decision! However, I grew used to it and eventually preferred the new theme. After a few days of Pinstripe, I have similar feelings. Qute is pretty good, but not irreplaceably as I once thought. A few tweaks to my user chrome override-file (not the changes making the rounds) satisfied most of my objections.
You people are seriously overreacting!
The theme was never in the download manager. Some erroneous entries used to be listed in the theme manager, but that bug seems to have been squashed.
There were license problems between Qute and Mozilla.org's tri-license policy. Therefor, they will not be able to bundle the popular theme with the oncoming stable version of FireFox Browser. :-( However, I feel the new theme is OK.
You don't need fancy software to write in a blog. Jeffery Zeldman used to write his blog exclusively in a text editor, in fact! I think Tim Bray and Norman Walsh use still use Emacs to do the majority of their writing (augmented with some client-side scripts) before uploading their content, but I may be wrong.
In Linux, the middle-mouse is set up to cut/paste text from the clipboard and to navigate to the test in the clipboard as if it is a URL (following conventions that go back over twenty years). However, you can also set it up with Windows conventions via FireFox's advanced preferences:
Now Mozilla FireFox will follow Window's mouse conventions.
What about Beanshell! It is a scripting language for Java-based applications like jEdit. Beanshell will interpret ordinary java source files in addition to class files. You can even write a simple web browser in less than 74 lines of code! It surely should have been considered along if languages such as Pike, Lua, and Haskell were thought of.
This entire analysis seems suspect. Take the first section. For JavaScript, their implementation uses NJS, which hasn't even stabilized with a 1.0 release yet! They also have a unix bias: many applications have no need of the shebang, #!. Even though, a script in another language could easily be written to implement that feature. Shebang support is a trivial and doesn't deserve the 15points awarded. Furthermore, awarding points for "program(s) can be passed on command line" is silly. That is a horrible horrible style of coding guaranteed to make scripts hard to maintain.
Their second section is not complet and has a heavy bias against Java and C#. The subsections, "smallest" and "hello world," are silly. I never understood why having a small size for the simplest program is important for nontrivial applications. (For that matter, I never understood why programmers wish for the "least typing" in a language. I never never never code for least typing, since that often makes programs unreadable!) Finally, their coding style is inconsistent. For instance, they use for Java:
Yet the authors throw these conventions out with JavaScript:
(Also note that the numbers reported and counted don't match, but I may just be missing something.) Why? Java and C# seem destine to loose with the author's methods. As I said, this entire report seems biased and unscientific.
P.S. /. needs to fix the site's source code white-space style. This is getting ridiculous.
All it takes are three people working together. I mean, there are criminal organizations with enough power to pull that sort of thing through extortion or bribes.
As for Diebold, I wasn't referring to them. However, what about having each voting center sign their data with PGP and using an md5sum to intercept tampering? Wouldn't that solve your problems with Diebold? And how about using write-once media for storing the votes? Your objections don't seem insurmountable.
People act as if this issue (and, for that matter every other issue) has a clear solution. As if any reasonable or intelligent person can't debate the causes of the problem and the proposed solution! This is kinda arrogant. Most issues in politics are very complicated; simplifying them usually only helps the politicians and does not make a simple solution more desirable.
For instance, I wonder how many of those paper receipts could be dusted for fingerprints. Wouldn't that make it easier to figure out who voted for whom? Is it easier or harder to backtrack the voters than traditional paper ballots? And what about all those methods for electronic security. What makes a computerized voting system easier to fraud? If I wanted to fix a traditional election, all I'd do is replace ballot box with an identical one with my votes. Digital results can be harder to fake (md5 sums, multiple copies transported, and even quantum encryption could identify interception of the results by a third party).
Really, what's the difference between not knowing how a computer stores its information verses ignorance of how a box of ballots are handled? They both are vulnerable.
I'm Captain Jonathon Archer of the starship, Red Hat Enterprise, NX-01 class security. ;-)
Note that the original WorldWideWeb browser and all early clones displayed multimedia in separate windows. It was Mosaic's (and later Netscape's) ability to display images and other multimedia inline that led to the rise of the Internet. Inline interpretation of sound, video, and other applets are just a generalization of that idea.
Yet highly destructive viruses can't spread easily if they kill their host machine before spreading! It's like the ebola virus: it kills its host so efficiently that it often dies with it. If you really wanted the virus to spread easily and be destructive, it should only deliver its payload if it can't reach the network. But if it can't reach the net, then it won't spread so easily. It's a reverse chick-and-the-egg problem!
Good points. It was always ingrained into me (as an engineering major) to document my sources for anything remotely borrowed. So it seems instinctually wrong not to require the contributor to cite explicitly his code's references. I considered that a sloppy developer could use the wrong source by mistake and infringe on someone else's copyrights. I'd feel a little easier if the intent of the certificate as well as each passage was explained in a preface like the GPL uses. It's always a good idea to be paranoid about copyright, I say. ;-)
I interpreted that as saying that the license was in the file, not the original author's name or contact info. There could be cases where the copyright info changed or stripped such as the rumors of BSD code copied into Linux without proper attribution and vice versa. A "paper trail" could be used as defense against such accusations.
That is a pretty interesting certificate; I may end up using it too. However, the second and (esp.) third options seems a little unspecific: Shouldn't it require the contributing developer to name the origional work and its author(s)/entity(ies)? That way the lead developer could independently confirm that there are no copyright problems, if needed.
That certainly seems logical, but was it ever proven by an experiment? Do you know of any research studies done examining why users stopped visiting a site? What about reasons users think sites don't work? I want proof!
No, most are actually pretty simple. Granted you have to first get through the language barrier (since these are specs, they have to use precise wording). However, the concepts aren't that difficult. HTML, CSS, XML, XSLT, and RDF are pretty easy to author. XML and CSS is also easy to parse (for the latter, see IE7 or my demo's source). Sometimes there are errors, but the W3C is pretty good at clarification and fixing errors, such as in the specifications: CSS level 2 revision 1, XML 1.0 third edition, HTML 4.01, and more. I don't understand why they are so confusing to you.