Just to take a quick alternate view on informing the company about the problem.... why? Why spend more hours giving this info to managers who are currently not prepared to know or understand the current organisation, culture and situation? Why take this time to guide a company you no longer work for to develop and improve them? Why help your likely future opposition? The one positive from doing it is that it is cathartic, you get it out of your head and perhaps you feel like you have accomplished something, but the physical result would be minimal. Harder yet is not being personally critical of those people and situations in the future, so it's something you can learn from, understand and see the signs earlier next time but unless you are there as the business consultant and restructuring 'head hunter' then it's actually not so much your responsibility to fix and even less your place to tell 'all knowing' managers what they are doing wrong. Don't burn your bridges, just leave with a smile and move on happier elsewhere.
It was already broken before Christmas, I happened to go on their site the day before and even a simple search failed, category pages didn't load in a timely way and things were just visibly bad... As they have been for so long. Months ago we had a click-frenzy promotion, an attempt to have an Australian black-Friday situation and a number of web sites failed in the deluge of visitors, including at that time.. Myer. This is a systemic problem and as a web tester I have a fair idea what is going on. The system selected and used for e-commerce is slow, the amount of legacy systems it links to and depends on is huge and when under pressure it will fail. It's not a matter of fixing it or simply throwing more technology at it, this will in fact make it worse. They don't penetration test, they are not secure, they are not up to the task of handling decent (and expected) consumer clicks and traffic, they will continue to waste money and prestige going down this path. This is another healthcare.org Companies such as Myer here in Australia are complaining about their online competition and that they are losing sales to this new opportunity, other companies are making successful inroads into the sales market here because their sites work and provide a solution to consumer demand, the Australian retail and department store logic is to provide an over-priced and costly system that fails, reduce sales and support staff in the stores and then complain to the government that they have no protection against this competition.
It's not just the running of torrent client/servers it is also all the systems we 'have' to have now. I have a NAS (Network Access SERVER) for maintaining backups and delivering content to me on demand, it even runs a little security web-cam monitoring system which also... is a server. I have a PS3, that's a server, I have a Smart TV, that's a server, my printer has a web server, my network interface has a web server. Home automation: I dont have it, but how do you control these things and turn off your lights when your at work, via the integrated web SERVER! I would even class some of the Android apps and google glass as a potential SERVER! Even LED lights now have wifi and integrated web based administration. I am not a business, I do not need to have a business account just to support the products that every first world home now has and that companies like Google themselves expect you to setup.
Just a consideration, but patent trolls normally approach those that are in a position to pay because it is best for them to gain an income and not just kill the cash-cow. This is now an unfortunate path in business, most tech companies will receive a claim and have to defend it and the resulting costs. You will need to talk to an IP lawyer and put forward a reasonable argument. A claim however (I am sure confirmed by a lawyer which I am not) will consider the request from a legal standpoint, is it a registered formal request or just an email that in all fairness may be ignored.
In my smaller efforts, I do a standard file search in the Windows folder/browser in detail view.. say *.mov or *.mp3 and sort them by file size and it's pretty quick. Add the folder/view column and you can see their location and identify all the duplicates. This may not work so well for.jpg or.raw where the file sizes are closer but if the file-names are also duplicated this will be quite obvious. Right-click and open destination for more info (what else is in that folder) or Simply select all but one of the files shown and delete , there and then. Done. Or is this too simple a solution?
For me Firefox was getting to be the slower option. Anytime I tried switching tabs to my Facebook or Google+ page it was slow to respond. Since I redid my system (full reinstall) I now suddenly got the Flash player breaking (which is very well know problem but not experienced by me before a full system/latest software install) so I went to Chrome full time. Much better experience, no memory issues and everything works quickly.
This aint Kansas any more, and Mark, this is not you and a few other developers starting a new site. You have spent a good portion of the funds you have for this, not to say it's a bad purchase and I am sure you can justify it, but I am not going to spend mega bucks on a renovation for my house without discussing it properly with the wife, and nor should you Mark, you have a management board for a reason and your obligated to use them. So no, I wont be raising Facebook investments with my wife.
There is also a product called 'kryptonite' which is often used for chest surgery which is like a compound glue that sets within 24 hours. Very much improved my heart surgery healing time but I also wish they used it on my knee to improve that repair time.
Like most of the comments, it's just because people are getting it from elsewhere, places that are not monitored in the same way. Users are smarter now and limewire was too obvious, the youtube rips etc are now unmonitored and uncounted... Easy. Oh and reason B, music has become crap and the reason for downloading it has been diminished, thus sales are still down. Limewire was so 5 years ago...
Yes, in summary there are a number of issue to contend with by doing it and none actually improve the situation for users or admins or the traffic/networks.
Since intercepted traffic is not really an issue anyway (in reality with network switches etc) at least at the network level then having twitter etc login on std http is not really a big issue.
Your more likely to have your password guessed, trojaned or brute-forced or keylogged than for it being intercepted (like a postcard being read by a postman).
You can go to https://facebook/twitter/gmail to login if you want (and further protect your password) but for most web sites displaying public and open content (at least before you get to a checkout) using ssl is a big headache.
You idiot, public information actually being used is now a threat?...But guns in the US are a right? Derp!
There are at least three apps in iTunes that do this, AR is only one of them yet because it has the AR feature (overlayed on the camera view like Layar etc) it is a perceived problem.
Does anybody really think that terrorists with missiles are actually going to use this app for guidance information?
Heres is a great example. Melbourne Cricket Ground, AFL Grand Final. Planned and Expected, Qantas A380 fly-over.
I live near the Melbourne Airport, yet this shows up, the A380 comes down from Sydney, circles a nearby suburb 4 times for 30 minutes, goes over the MCG arena and leaves.
There is no way I could use this information to determine the flight-path or expected location of this plane. I knew more about it from the TV broadcast than what this app could deliver.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rexel99/5048941072/
This may depend on the country that the crack was produced. It is possible that in certain locations, the crack or cracking/modification of the original items was not in itself illegal. In Australia chipping a game console is quite legal, but obtaining illegal copies is not. In this sense copying a game chip and it's propriety content would be illegal, even if it was re-distributed back into countries where the act itself was illegal.
So (and people are skirting around it here, but to state it obviously)...
Are Rockstar illegally distributing software produced quite legally?
I will add one other scenario, you can claim a legitimate tax deduction for lost profits of illicit income. In that, if your drug money was stolen you can claim a tax deduction because of course, you were paying tax on your income and properly informing the government about this in the first place right?
True, rude to prompt for each little issue, but at the time of creating a restore point (rather than when rebooting) noting, 'this restore point will remove previous ones. You can expand the size or allow the clean up yes/no' would be nice, just to inform us before it happens.
and yes this may be 'automated' but I don't leave my pc's on all hours so they dont all automate the patches that are released, and if I do leave it on it's for a reason so I get really upset finding my PC is running blank when I return the next day with a note saying your PC rebooted because of updates and my downloads/rendering/processing apps were all terminated Doh.
It all the extra stuff though, Adobe, Firefox (and add-ins), Java, Virus, Logitech (kb's and webcams), Apps like torrent/tweet/scanner/etc/etc all look at the web and offer updates over and over again.
It's a constant task to do this, and the 'regular' user like me is probably doing it on 2 or 3 machines at home and on behalf of their parents/family/friends pc's also.
Not to mention this impacts on my downloads/net.
Perhaps nice way to do all of this automatically and run a proxy so it only downloads once would be nice, but can I see these companies getting together to make it a nice quality service for the user, unlikely.
The question is, how many times have people been lawfully charged and convicted of illegal file sharing in Australia?
I am not actually aware of any, sure the big movie companies and such send you emails accusing people of it all the time but lawfully charged and prosecuted?
If it's down to what the big companies think then very few people will have an internet connection by the end of the decade, and there's the problem, nobody is going to police it at a government level, they will all just process the reams of logs and traffic that some private eye contractor on behalf of 'corny entertainment' shoves in there face and the normally responsible person get persecuted, and not properly prosecuted.
I love how 85% of comments on Slashdot are totally unhelpful and a waste of time. This developer is trying to do the right thing and get themselves motivated on their job, Slashdot and web sites in general are a distraction and they can also be an aid to a solution but 7 pages of 'get to work' and 'drink coffee' are using serious energy typing that in, for those that provided these types of comment, shuddup and go exercise!
I don't think coding block is like writers block, writing a story usually comes from imagination and new ideas where coding comes from a logical progression to a solution.
Break your tasks down into that logical progression;
First find the solutions, what the tasks your trying to accomplish actually are, go back to the beginning, go back to the requirements list and re-work it, re-write it and go over these requirements again with somebody in the know, somebody who is open to discussion and can work together with you to re-understand what it is your trying to do.
Break it down into parts, the functions, the challenges come first and the design, look and feel come later.
We use Agile project methodology where we write those tasks on cards and the developers take them as items they can accomplish as simple steps, prioritise and go through to complete.
It may seem silly but write up these tasks as line items on a list or separate pieces of paper. Have your testers contribute those cards to you also and then you will begin to get some workflow happening... Hey were moving...
I hope this helps gives you some ideas and gets you moving beyond the blockage.
Perhaps it's just the system in Australia, but since the unemployment services were 'doled' out to private indiustry a few years ago, here in Aus it has gone mad. Recruiters place non-exitent jobs online in an attempt to get more subscriptions, or people registered to their lists, this provides them with government funding based on the registrations of people looking for work (and more bonuses tacked on if those people have a disability). I submitted my resume to over 25 jobs in a 2 month period, one response indicating I was not suitable for that single position, which i argued but got nowhere with, the others got no response. The agencies also are known for simply duplicating jobs listed elsewhere (from news papers etc) so they can (try) to collect their fees doing the placements on the businesses behalf, without their request.
So in summary, ensuring the recruiters are posting jobs with valid information is the best thing to do to ensure that the applicants are getting a good service.
Make a mathematical error and the result doesn't work, make a gramatical error and the message still gets out, so for the most part it's easier to be slack and not to bother when writing.
A compiler will spell check your programming gramatics for you. If they bothered to spell-check a text doc then it would improve a lot, but it's hard to do in a quick-reply text box.
It is also of note that students are no longer told they are wrong in schools, they are told that they tried hard or did really well in a particular place so they dont take critisism very well. Dont tell them they are wrong cause they can't handle it.
We must also be able to be a little flexible on this matter too, cause as an Australian I will insist on the spelling of 'Colour' and also use colourful, non-english words like 'barbie' for a BBQ (and not the doll).
Perhaps he can afford that equipment (perhaps he [Bill] already has it?) but our strugling Australian University is not going to consider it (Even in 10 years!). It will make a lot of redundant equipment available for Linus use though...
I was required to change my password recently at a major finacial services (share trading) bank (Comsec.com.au) and found that they now required a 10 digit number as a password, no alphas or special characters, just numbers, as well as a numeric account number!
Apparently this is due to them using the same user accounting system for the web and for the telephone banking, I sort of understand but the security on this I consider way too low and I dont beleive even meets the industry and government regulation standards on such a service.
What's the alternative? If you want to get a site listed, indexed and searched successfully what else are you supposed to do? Pay Yahoo/MSN to list you? They will provide you with META tags you have to put in the site anyway to get listed, searched and found.
I have successfully listed dozens of businesses web sites from aquaculture to aeronautical research systems. They all get very high hit rates for no-money-down and no exploitive or mis-directed meta tags, just some properly directed efforts in getting free valid listings and all because of the initial set of Meta tags.
Slashdot Mirror
They asked me not to discuss my previous pay rates with others. I dont understand why you believe I would go back on that promise.
Due to previous confidentiality agreements I am unable to release this info.
Just to take a quick alternate view on informing the company about the problem.... why?
Why spend more hours giving this info to managers who are currently not prepared to know or understand the current organisation, culture and situation?
Why take this time to guide a company you no longer work for to develop and improve them?
Why help your likely future opposition?
The one positive from doing it is that it is cathartic, you get it out of your head and perhaps you feel like you have accomplished something, but the physical result would be minimal. Harder yet is not being personally critical of those people and situations in the future, so it's something you can learn from, understand and see the signs earlier next time but unless you are there as the business consultant and restructuring 'head hunter' then it's actually not so much your responsibility to fix and even less your place to tell 'all knowing' managers what they are doing wrong.
Don't burn your bridges, just leave with a smile and move on happier elsewhere.
It was already broken before Christmas, I happened to go on their site the day before and even a simple search failed, category pages didn't load in a timely way and things were just visibly bad... As they have been for so long. Months ago we had a click-frenzy promotion, an attempt to have an Australian black-Friday situation and a number of web sites failed in the deluge of visitors, including at that time.. Myer.
This is a systemic problem and as a web tester I have a fair idea what is going on. The system selected and used for e-commerce is slow, the amount of legacy systems it links to and depends on is huge and when under pressure it will fail. It's not a matter of fixing it or simply throwing more technology at it, this will in fact make it worse. They don't penetration test, they are not secure, they are not up to the task of handling decent (and expected) consumer clicks and traffic, they will continue to waste money and prestige going down this path. This is another healthcare.org
Companies such as Myer here in Australia are complaining about their online competition and that they are losing sales to this new opportunity, other companies are making successful inroads into the sales market here because their sites work and provide a solution to consumer demand, the Australian retail and department store logic is to provide an over-priced and costly system that fails, reduce sales and support staff in the stores and then complain to the government that they have no protection against this competition.
It's not just the running of torrent client/servers it is also all the systems we 'have' to have now.
I have a NAS (Network Access SERVER) for maintaining backups and delivering content to me on demand, it even runs a little security web-cam monitoring system which also... is a server.
I have a PS3, that's a server, I have a Smart TV, that's a server, my printer has a web server, my network interface has a web server.
Home automation: I dont have it, but how do you control these things and turn off your lights when your at work, via the integrated web SERVER!
I would even class some of the Android apps and google glass as a potential SERVER!
Even LED lights now have wifi and integrated web based administration.
I am not a business, I do not need to have a business account just to support the products that every first world home now has and that companies like Google themselves expect you to setup.
Just a consideration, but patent trolls normally approach those that are in a position to pay because it is best for them to gain an income and not just kill the cash-cow. This is now an unfortunate path in business, most tech companies will receive a claim and have to defend it and the resulting costs. You will need to talk to an IP lawyer and put forward a reasonable argument. A claim however (I am sure confirmed by a lawyer which I am not) will consider the request from a legal standpoint, is it a registered formal request or just an email that in all fairness may be ignored.
In my smaller efforts, I do a standard file search in the Windows folder/browser in detail view.. say *.mov or *.mp3 and sort them by file size and it's pretty quick. .jpg or .raw where the file sizes are closer but if the file-names are also duplicated this will be quite obvious. Right-click and open destination for more info (what else is in that folder) or Simply select all but one of the files shown and delete , there and then. Done.
Add the folder/view column and you can see their location and identify all the duplicates. This may not work so well for
Or is this too simple a solution?
For me Firefox was getting to be the slower option. Anytime I tried switching tabs to my Facebook or Google+ page it was slow to respond. Since I redid my system (full reinstall) I now suddenly got the Flash player breaking (which is very well know problem but not experienced by me before a full system/latest software install) so I went to Chrome full time. Much better experience, no memory issues and everything works quickly.
This aint Kansas any more, and Mark, this is not you and a few other developers starting a new site. You have spent a good portion of the funds you have for this, not to say it's a bad purchase and I am sure you can justify it, but I am not going to spend mega bucks on a renovation for my house without discussing it properly with the wife, and nor should you Mark, you have a management board for a reason and your obligated to use them. So no, I wont be raising Facebook investments with my wife.
There is also a product called 'kryptonite' which is often used for chest surgery which is like a compound glue that sets within 24 hours. Very much improved my heart surgery healing time but I also wish they used it on my knee to improve that repair time.
Like most of the comments, it's just because people are getting it from elsewhere, places that are not monitored in the same way. Users are smarter now and limewire was too obvious, the youtube rips etc are now unmonitored and uncounted... Easy. Oh and reason B, music has become crap and the reason for downloading it has been diminished, thus sales are still down. Limewire was so 5 years ago...
Yes, in summary there are a number of issue to contend with by doing it and none actually improve the situation for users or admins or the traffic/networks. Since intercepted traffic is not really an issue anyway (in reality with network switches etc) at least at the network level then having twitter etc login on std http is not really a big issue. Your more likely to have your password guessed, trojaned or brute-forced or keylogged than for it being intercepted (like a postcard being read by a postman). You can go to https://facebook/twitter/gmail to login if you want (and further protect your password) but for most web sites displaying public and open content (at least before you get to a checkout) using ssl is a big headache.
You idiot, public information actually being used is now a threat? ...But guns in the US are a right? Derp!
There are at least three apps in iTunes that do this, AR is only one of them yet because it has the AR feature (overlayed on the camera view like Layar etc) it is a perceived problem.
Does anybody really think that terrorists with missiles are actually going to use this app for guidance information?
Heres is a great example. Melbourne Cricket Ground, AFL Grand Final. Planned and Expected, Qantas A380 fly-over.
I live near the Melbourne Airport, yet this shows up, the A380 comes down from Sydney, circles a nearby suburb 4 times for 30 minutes, goes over the MCG arena and leaves.
There is no way I could use this information to determine the flight-path or expected location of this plane. I knew more about it from the TV broadcast than what this app could deliver.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rexel99/5048941072/
This may depend on the country that the crack was produced. It is possible that in certain locations, the crack or cracking/modification of the original items was not in itself illegal. In Australia chipping a game console is quite legal, but obtaining illegal copies is not. In this sense copying a game chip and it's propriety content would be illegal, even if it was re-distributed back into countries where the act itself was illegal. So (and people are skirting around it here, but to state it obviously)... Are Rockstar illegally distributing software produced quite legally? I will add one other scenario, you can claim a legitimate tax deduction for lost profits of illicit income. In that, if your drug money was stolen you can claim a tax deduction because of course, you were paying tax on your income and properly informing the government about this in the first place right?
True, rude to prompt for each little issue, but at the time of creating a restore point (rather than when rebooting) noting, 'this restore point will remove previous ones. You can expand the size or allow the clean up yes/no' would be nice, just to inform us before it happens.
and yes this may be 'automated' but I don't leave my pc's on all hours so they dont all automate the patches that are released, and if I do leave it on it's for a reason so I get really upset finding my PC is running blank when I return the next day with a note saying your PC rebooted because of updates and my downloads/rendering/processing apps were all terminated Doh. It all the extra stuff though, Adobe, Firefox (and add-ins), Java, Virus, Logitech (kb's and webcams), Apps like torrent/tweet/scanner/etc/etc all look at the web and offer updates over and over again. It's a constant task to do this, and the 'regular' user like me is probably doing it on 2 or 3 machines at home and on behalf of their parents/family/friends pc's also. Not to mention this impacts on my downloads/net. Perhaps nice way to do all of this automatically and run a proxy so it only downloads once would be nice, but can I see these companies getting together to make it a nice quality service for the user, unlikely.
The question is, how many times have people been lawfully charged and convicted of illegal file sharing in Australia? I am not actually aware of any, sure the big movie companies and such send you emails accusing people of it all the time but lawfully charged and prosecuted? If it's down to what the big companies think then very few people will have an internet connection by the end of the decade, and there's the problem, nobody is going to police it at a government level, they will all just process the reams of logs and traffic that some private eye contractor on behalf of 'corny entertainment' shoves in there face and the normally responsible person get persecuted, and not properly prosecuted.
I love how 85% of comments on Slashdot are totally unhelpful and a waste of time. This developer is trying to do the right thing and get themselves motivated on their job, Slashdot and web sites in general are a distraction and they can also be an aid to a solution but 7 pages of 'get to work' and 'drink coffee' are using serious energy typing that in, for those that provided these types of comment, shuddup and go exercise! I don't think coding block is like writers block, writing a story usually comes from imagination and new ideas where coding comes from a logical progression to a solution. Break your tasks down into that logical progression; First find the solutions, what the tasks your trying to accomplish actually are, go back to the beginning, go back to the requirements list and re-work it, re-write it and go over these requirements again with somebody in the know, somebody who is open to discussion and can work together with you to re-understand what it is your trying to do. Break it down into parts, the functions, the challenges come first and the design, look and feel come later. We use Agile project methodology where we write those tasks on cards and the developers take them as items they can accomplish as simple steps, prioritise and go through to complete. It may seem silly but write up these tasks as line items on a list or separate pieces of paper. Have your testers contribute those cards to you also and then you will begin to get some workflow happening... Hey were moving... I hope this helps gives you some ideas and gets you moving beyond the blockage.
Perhaps it's just the system in Australia, but since the unemployment services were 'doled' out to private indiustry a few years ago, here in Aus it has gone mad. Recruiters place non-exitent jobs online in an attempt to get more subscriptions, or people registered to their lists, this provides them with government funding based on the registrations of people looking for work (and more bonuses tacked on if those people have a disability). I submitted my resume to over 25 jobs in a 2 month period, one response indicating I was not suitable for that single position, which i argued but got nowhere with, the others got no response. The agencies also are known for simply duplicating jobs listed elsewhere (from news papers etc) so they can (try) to collect their fees doing the placements on the businesses behalf, without their request. So in summary, ensuring the recruiters are posting jobs with valid information is the best thing to do to ensure that the applicants are getting a good service.
What portion were overwight?
Make a mathematical error and the result doesn't work, make a gramatical error and the message still gets out, so for the most part it's easier to be slack and not to bother when writing. A compiler will spell check your programming gramatics for you. If they bothered to spell-check a text doc then it would improve a lot, but it's hard to do in a quick-reply text box. It is also of note that students are no longer told they are wrong in schools, they are told that they tried hard or did really well in a particular place so they dont take critisism very well. Dont tell them they are wrong cause they can't handle it. We must also be able to be a little flexible on this matter too, cause as an Australian I will insist on the spelling of 'Colour' and also use colourful, non-english words like 'barbie' for a BBQ (and not the doll).
Perhaps he can afford that equipment (perhaps he [Bill] already has it?) but our strugling Australian University is not going to consider it (Even in 10 years!). It will make a lot of redundant equipment available for Linus use though...
I was required to change my password recently at a major finacial services (share trading) bank (Comsec.com.au) and found that they now required a 10 digit number as a password, no alphas or special characters, just numbers, as well as a numeric account number! Apparently this is due to them using the same user accounting system for the web and for the telephone banking, I sort of understand but the security on this I consider way too low and I dont beleive even meets the industry and government regulation standards on such a service.
What's the alternative? If you want to get a site listed, indexed and searched successfully what else are you supposed to do? Pay Yahoo/MSN to list you? They will provide you with META tags you have to put in the site anyway to get listed, searched and found. I have successfully listed dozens of businesses web sites from aquaculture to aeronautical research systems. They all get very high hit rates for no-money-down and no exploitive or mis-directed meta tags, just some properly directed efforts in getting free valid listings and all because of the initial set of Meta tags.