Interesting your choice of the word "ban" there. Not simply "refused to include in iOS on performance grounds".
Well they certainly banned Flash for developing apps.
They stated from the outset that Flash was a dog for performance, especially on mobile devices. Adobe belatedly agreed with them. Everyone's happy.
Everybody's happy? I think not. Adobe did end up changing from Flash to HTML5 for mobiles, but this was because it is hard to push Flash as a platform for mobile applications when the elephant in the room is that it will not work on iOS. Adobe lost the war to Apple, plain and simple. And losers tend not to be all that happy.
There is a Basic for iOS, simply called Basic! It is not too bad, but as you anticipated it does not integrate any phone features nor does it allow you to use the standard user interface elements of normal apps.
If anything, the Chinese (and like-minded Third World countries) make a point to detect inspections early enough to clean up things.
How do they hide the clouds of black smoke that used to be visible from the fields around town as stated in the article. If they have perfected a system to remove the plumes of smoke then I think we can consider that to be good enough.
(Awaiting modbombing and overwhelming "you don't understand"'s from the 50 Cent Party)
So you expect the flames? You do realise that there is a legitimate moderation of flamebait that suits your message perfectly. You can hardly complain if people mod you down when you tell them the reason that they should do so.
Now I HAVE to get this game. I was going to get it anyway, because I played the old one made by Bullfrog. I hope it's just as good.
I'm afraid if any company can ruin the old idea then it would be Electronic Arts. And seeing that they changed it from a tactical shooter to an FPS then it seems that they are on course for a disappointment. All they have done is use the same name to convince fans of the old game to buy this one. For all I know it might be a great game, but that will be despite the name "Syndicate". But I guess the tactic works; except for Aussies - they weren't fooled!
Regarding the banning, it would be nice if the classification board could give it a tentative R18+ rating, even though that would still result in it being banned. Then when the new rating system does become law, we would suddenly have a supply of games to play and the companies would not have to take the time and expense of resubmitting the titles.
But I suppose that they can't be expected to use guidelines that have not been passed by parliament. For all the classifications board knows, some back-bencher might add a clause that bans any game that mentions sheep. (Because that's the first law of Aussie Sheep Club: you don't talk about Aussie Sheep Club - or if you do you call it the New Zealand Sheep Club).
Why be surprised that the R18+ rating has taken force when the article from the linked Slashdot story said:
O'Connor said the R18+ legislation did not make it into this year's final parliament session, but he plans to introduce it in the February 2012 session.
And like others have said here, perhaps it was the lack of imagination for remaking an isometric team-based game as an FPS that offended the classification board so much.
I can only hope that they release the original game on GOG.com to coincide with the new release. Mind you, that might confuse and disappoint some Aussies who find the only game of that name which is available to them is not what they thought it would be.
And yet other companies can make computers that happily run Windows 7 at the 1.1kg mark: Toshiba Portété, ASUS Zenbook and MacBook Air ranges for example. There is no technical reason for Dell to have their lightest unit at 50% heavier than this level.
Intel made the Ultrabook specifications to have a maximum of 1.3kg, and I am sure that they would provide the technical details to help manufacturers use Intel chipsets to make systems at that weight.
Yes, that's a niche market, and one that the big PC makers are running away from in droves. They are now trying to court it with the "ultrabook", which demonstrates that people don't want a shit notebook.
Or it demonstrates that there is a greater profit margin in selling more expensive computers. My anecdote suggests that a lot of people were happy with netbooks despite being able to buy the faster and equally light Toshiba Portété line for over decade.
I don't think any modern notebook can match 0.85 kg, but you can get a 13.3" notebook at 1.1kg (Toshibz Z830 for example),
I have owned a couple of Toshiba Portégés over the years, so I do have a Z830 on my shopping list. However, my point was that Dell has nothing at that level. I can understand that 1.1kg might be extreme, but Intel's Ultrabook specs call for a maximum of 1.3kg and Dell can't even match that weight.
and I suspect we'll see 11" notebooks hitting that 0.85 kg target at some point.
Maybe. After all these years I was beginning to think that they wouldn't, but the competition with tablets might keep the pushing them down.
The iPad completely killed the mass netbook market. Now it's little more than a niche.
I recently attended a large medical conference, and it was quite interesting to watch the people when they were between sessions. There were hundreds of people sitting around with their computers out, and it amazed me that the majority of them used netbooks. The Ultrabook/Macbook Air made up a close second place, while there were only a handful of the 15" luggables. The really surprising thing was how few people had iPads. I guess you can't beat a keyboard for writing notes.
You may consider this to be a niche market, but anyone who has to travel and walk around a lot while carrying their computer will appreciate the netbooks for their weight. The fact that they are inexpensive means that you don't have to worry about the netbooks getting broken while you are travelling.
Given that there's 15 inches laptops with higher specifications available for almost the same price, it's no wonder people aren't buying netbooks anymore.
It is true that the full sized laptops have encroached on the netbook market. But Dell definitely lacks any light-weight notebook options. I had a look at their website, and the lightest Dell laptop that is available in my country is 1.56kg.
Back in the late nineties I got a sub-notebook that weighed 0.85kg (1.87lb), and have never owned a heavier notebook than 1.1kg since. It seems crazy that with nearly 15 years of technological improvements that Dell cannot offer me a similar or better computer.
Because it... seems to install on PC with strict security settings.
I hate software that does this. It is exceedingly rude for developers to deliberately bypass the operating system security setup. What is wrong with requiring administration of a computer by done by an administrator?
The first time I installed Chrome I did it under an admin login (using RunAs) and it didn't seem to install anything. I thought that it might require me to be logged in as my admin account, so I switched accounts and found the icon on the desktop! Does this mean that you have to install it multiple times on a family computer with separate accounts for everyone? That is stupid!
I wish there was a setting that would trigger a UAC prompt whenever you attempted to run an executable that was not owned by an administrator account. At least you can set the firewall to block by default.
Your criticism of my post is well deserved. It does appear that I am judging you and your story, but that was not the intention. I neglected to put something in my message that I had in mind when I hit the reply button. Unfortunately I got sidetracked with the other part about there being too many bundles, and it got omitted.
I do not think that you are a shill. (I wouldn't call anyone that word, for the same reasons that you give.) I do not think that you were wrong to post the story.
However, I do believe that this story is an advertisement; it's just not a paid advertisement. (That was the missing bit.) If you look at the definition of advertisement, it can mean "the action of making generally known; a calling to the attention of the public". That seems to be exactly what is happening here. It is true that this definition could be extended to virtually any story, but I think that it is fair to limit it to those that talk about a product for sale.
I do stand by my statement that this isn't really newsworthy, especially because it is not the first time that they have released the source code for Humble Bundle games. I also stand by my assertion that it was not a "bad thing to advertise the bundle, as it is for charity after all", although the charity part was a bit flippant. Announcing products on Slashdot (even products from Microsoft and Apple) is reasonable because this is the kind of news that is interesting to nerds.
Anyway, I apologise for any implication that you had a vested interest in the Humble Bundle or that money may have changed hands for the story. I am sure that this was what the original Anonymous Coward meant, but it had been my intention to counter it by agreeing, but to a different definition of the word "advert".
Is this news, or is this just an advert for the Humble Bundle?
Well obviously it is an advert. It is not particularly newsworthy, because - let's face it - how many of us here are going to do anything with the source code for a game that most of us had not heard of until this bundle. That is not to say that it is a bad thing to advertise the bundle, as it is for charity after all.
That said, I'm afraid I am getting a bit bundled out. This is the seventh Humble Bundle since May last year. Add to that the similar bundles that have sprung up (eg. Indie Royale which isn't for charity and does a different bundle every few weeks) and it seems less like an event and more like a perpetual sale.
The biggest problem is that I find myself second guessing my purchases of indie software via the normal distribution methods because I wonder whether I will be seeing the title in a bundle in the near future. Should I pre-order Trine 2, or wait for the inevitable virtual giveaway one of these bundles?
Will the excess of bundles mean that developers lose more profitable sales? Or do these bundles help by getting indie titles into the hands of people who would normally buy mainstream games, and so not really diminish their usual audience?
And if they want to include a picture, then they can use CSS to apply it rather than use the <img> tag
Since when can a CSS background-image be scaled?
I'm not saying that you should scale the image smaller on smaller window sizes. I am saying to remove the image at small resolutions. That is easily done with CSS.
there's still a reason to put something like max-width: 30em on a body text element
That is one strategy for making the page resize as I stated, and yet it prevents the page from becoming stupidly unreadable on large monitors. It is certainly better than just using width: 30em. That said, you don't want to make the max-width too narrow. It is annoying to maximize a window to see more of a webpage, only to be greeted with exactly the same layout as the windowed browser.
Then make your "full size PC" page scale as small as netbooks, but not necessarily smaller.
Why? Because it is harder to make a page that scales well? It is true that it takes a little bit more planning, but this is offset by eliminating the need to keep two different websites up to date.
A lot of web sites already employ grids roughly 900px to 960px wide, which fits into a netbook's screen as well as a browser window that has been Snapped to the left or right half of a 1080p monitor.
That would fail for 800x480 netbook screens. Or people on 1280 width screens who do not maximize every window. That is exactly my point: whatever assumptions you make about the client's environment, someone out there will prove you wrong.
On a device with a high-definition screen, such as a PC, Internet-enabled television, or full-size tablet, a news site might want to show both the headline, a photo thumbnail, and the first sentence of each article. But on a device with a smaller screen, such as a PDA or mobile phone, it might want to show only the headline.
With the amount of Javascript and appallingly bloated HTML on some news sites, I think a small amount of extra text per story that gets downloaded but not shown will pale into insignificance. And if they want to include a picture, then they can use CSS to apply it rather than use the <img> tag, so it would not get downloaded if it doesn't match the media type. I guess that does blur the line between content and presentation though.
The best practice is to write pages that flow naturally to the screen width. I have had to use the mobile version of a webpage before when the main website would not fit onto the screen of my notebook computer. The problem with having the mindset of separate versions of the website (to quote the summary: a mobile-ready version as well as one for much larger screens) is that it can miss out on the screen sizes in between (eg. netbooks). But if you make a single page that scales well, then there is no single defined concept of a small screen.
I have been a fan of WordPerfect for many years. I liked how it was ported to many platforms (eg. Amiga). I liked the reveal codes and macros. Some of the keystrokes were a bit obscure, but you got used to them.
But the features of the software were its downfall when it came to a Windows version. Their keyboard shortcuts directly conflicted with that used by Windows, and their massive library of printer drivers were superceded by the Windows drivers. But the biggest problem was the delay in getting a Windows 3.1 version out, and how buggy it was. They can't blame missing features in Windows 95 for that. They went 3 or 4 years before they finally came out with a non-sucky version (WPWin 5.1 to 6.0a). Even the DOS version of 6.0 was buggy - I seem to recall that they had to release a version 5.2 AFTER 6.0 was out.
When they finally did come out with a Win95 version, it would not run on Windows NT. With such a history of poor releases, it doesn't seem to unreasonable to believe that any problems that they had were of their own making.
Because its Pakistan I can't tell if they meant loser or if they were serious...
As soon as I saw 'looser' on the list, I thought that they can't be all that evil. We do need a concerted effort to eliminate this example of stupidity. It seems rare these days to find anyone spelling "loser" correctly. Ignorant loosers!
But seriously, this list seems a bit dubious to me. Why would a country so paranoid about having bad things said about the Prophet Mohammed only include Jesus Christ on the list as a blasphemy? Why would a country that was once a part of the British Empire (and as such, still has English as on of its official languages) have one word on the list with the British spelling "arse", and 71 words with the American spelling "ass"? Why would there be no attempt to include the deliberate misspellings, abbreviations and contractions that are typical of texters?
It could be that they simply sourced a list of words from elsewhere, but it seems strange that they would not tailor it to their own country's requirements.
I think that the analogy was very apt. Your response to this is exactly the same as the religious zealots who get genuinely suprised when people don't react well to their helpful teachings. "But surely everyone wants to know they are loved by God!"
Like it or not, open source software is as much a philosophy as it is a collection of useful software. It certainly feels to the recipient like you are proselytising even if it seems to the giver as providing useful software. Then you have the big problem for ordinary people that giving away free software as presents is like coming in with plastic bags full of air.
Given the predictions that have been made over the last ten years, and the claimed temperature rises and meltings over just the last few, then ocean levels should have risen over the last 2 years, DESPITE ANY LONG TERM TREND.
Have a look at the recorded data in any of those graphs that I mentioned. They show a fluctuation the sea levels. Some years it goes up, other years it goes down. With that in mind, what model is ever going to claim that it can make predictions down to the individual year. They deal in long term trends.
Now I am quite happy to be proven wrong about this. If you can point me to a model that has published what the ocean levels will be for the next few years, then we can easily compare them with the recorded results. But if you can't cite any scientist who will make such accurate predictions, then perhaps you are just making assumptions about what the models say so you can show how wrong they are. That only disproves your assumptions, not the actual climate models themselves.
I am waiting for even one of their predictions to come true. For example: ocean level has actually decreased over the last couple of years.
Over the last couple of years? Do a Google image search on "ocean levels graph" and you can see numerous versions of graphs that show the ocean levels going up and down for individual years, but the average over time keeps increasing. To choose a "couple of years" to prove that the predictions are wrong is simple cherry picking data to give a false impression of what is happening.
It isn't far removed from saying that it is cooling because yesterday was warmer than today. People do the same trick to discredit climate change by saying that over the last few years it has been getting cooler, but when you look at the temperature on a decade by decade basis, it just keeps getting hotter.
The other side of the argument falls into the same trap. You cannot point to the temperature of a single year and say that it is proof of climate change. People did that back in 1998 to make predictions of disaster, and they were wrong because it was El Nino that caused the sudden spike in that year. Similarly, anyone who uses 1998 since then to "prove" that the Earth is actually cooling is making the exact same mistake. To eliminate the spikes in a single year or group of years, you have to look at the longer term average. I am afraid that this is yet to show that the warming trends have reversed, nor have the sea levels have stopped rising.
Could you elaborate on what parts you can't stand or which UI concept in it you can't stand?
I'm not the original poster, but I have issues with the OS too. I dislike the inconsistencies in the user interface. Button placement is all over the screen between the apps. Also, similar operations will be done in different ways depending on the app. For example, to delete an item, you can press an edit button, then turn a red dial to enable a delete button. (Sometimes the edit button is a box with an arrow coming out of it.) Or you can swipe across the entry in a list to "cross" it out. Or you can tick a checkbox and select a delete button at the bottom of the screen. Or you have to open the entry and click on a trash can icon. Or tap and hold the icon until everything starts wobbling and an X appears over the icon. And I'm not talking about third party apps here - they have their own quirks too. (Fair enough too. If Apple can't follow a user interface policy, why should other developers.)
I really hate how there is no visual indication for a lot of the user interface features. For example, scrollbars only appear when you start scrolling. You have to just randomly swipe your finger around a screen just to see if there are more options that are hidden off screen. I found out that I could use the horizontal swipe to delete something accidentally, because the Mail app scrolls from the IMAP folders screen to the messages in a folder from right to left. I used this as a cue that swiping back would return to the folders, but instead it started to delete a message (which requires a confirm, so nothing was lost). That was an example of the glitzy interface creating a false expectation of the user interface.
The more extreme problem with the unclear user interface is when an entire feature seems to be missing because you have no idea that the option exists without know the gesture. For example, how many new users could ever work out how to create folders on the app launcher? They would just assume that you could not do it.
Then there are a bunch of random silliness in the various apps, like how you can't create a folder to store bookmarks in Safari while creating a bookmark - it has to be done in the bookmark viewing screen before you create it. And why is creating a folder to categorize things so hard to do. I can't create photo albums and contact groups on the phone with the standard apps.
The zoom on Safari can be good, but quite often is painful. Filling in a web form zooms the screen to rediculous font sizes such that you cannot see the entire field that you are currently entering. I hate how Safari reuses tabs when a third party app launches a webpage and you have 8 tabs in use. And why can't it keep the tabs cached. I could load up 10 full slashdot stories on my old Nokia phone, then turn the radio off and read them all on a plane. The iPhone can hardly keep 2 pages cached, so there is no chance that I can read lots of articles on a plane trip.
The good news is that a lot of the problems that I have found have been gradually fixed over the various releases. I don't have the latest iOS yet since my computer with iTunes, so some of the things I have mentioned may be out of date. I am certainly looking forward to getting iOS 5, even if it does slow me down to a crawl on my old 3GS.
However, looking at the Wikipedia page, this seems to have a much lower estimation than all the other website's stats. Seems reasonable considering that the users of w3schools are website developers who would be much more likely to have eschewed IE.
However, the exact figure does not change my point too much. Browsers that use Google search engine as a default have nearly double the usage of Internet Explorer (although if Firefox changed to Bing then the situation would reverse).
It is funny how access to Wikipedia turns us all into rain men. We may not be able to instantly count matches dropped onto the floor, but we can quickly total up how many people died on an airline located half way around the world!
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting your choice of the word "ban" there. Not simply "refused to include in iOS on performance grounds".
Well they certainly banned Flash for developing apps.
They stated from the outset that Flash was a dog for performance, especially on mobile devices. Adobe belatedly agreed with them. Everyone's happy.
Everybody's happy? I think not. Adobe did end up changing from Flash to HTML5 for mobiles, but this was because it is hard to push Flash as a platform for mobile applications when the elephant in the room is that it will not work on iOS. Adobe lost the war to Apple, plain and simple. And losers tend not to be all that happy.
I have done a few small apps using it.
If anything, the Chinese (and like-minded Third World countries) make a point to detect inspections early enough to clean up things.
How do they hide the clouds of black smoke that used to be visible from the fields around town as stated in the article. If they have perfected a system to remove the plumes of smoke then I think we can consider that to be good enough.
(Awaiting modbombing and overwhelming "you don't understand"'s from the 50 Cent Party)
So you expect the flames? You do realise that there is a legitimate moderation of flamebait that suits your message perfectly. You can hardly complain if people mod you down when you tell them the reason that they should do so.
Now I HAVE to get this game. I was going to get it anyway, because I played the old one made by Bullfrog. I hope it's just as good.
I'm afraid if any company can ruin the old idea then it would be Electronic Arts. And seeing that they changed it from a tactical shooter to an FPS then it seems that they are on course for a disappointment. All they have done is use the same name to convince fans of the old game to buy this one. For all I know it might be a great game, but that will be despite the name "Syndicate". But I guess the tactic works; except for Aussies - they weren't fooled!
Regarding the banning, it would be nice if the classification board could give it a tentative R18+ rating, even though that would still result in it being banned. Then when the new rating system does become law, we would suddenly have a supply of games to play and the companies would not have to take the time and expense of resubmitting the titles.
But I suppose that they can't be expected to use guidelines that have not been passed by parliament. For all the classifications board knows, some back-bencher might add a clause that bans any game that mentions sheep. (Because that's the first law of Aussie Sheep Club: you don't talk about Aussie Sheep Club - or if you do you call it the New Zealand Sheep Club).
Why be surprised that the R18+ rating has taken force when the article from the linked Slashdot story said:
O'Connor said the R18+ legislation did not make it into this year's final parliament session, but he plans to introduce it in the February 2012 session.
And like others have said here, perhaps it was the lack of imagination for remaking an isometric team-based game as an FPS that offended the classification board so much.
I can only hope that they release the original game on GOG.com to coincide with the new release. Mind you, that might confuse and disappoint some Aussies who find the only game of that name which is available to them is not what they thought it would be.
And yet other companies can make computers that happily run Windows 7 at the 1.1kg mark: Toshiba Portété, ASUS Zenbook and MacBook Air ranges for example. There is no technical reason for Dell to have their lightest unit at 50% heavier than this level.
Intel made the Ultrabook specifications to have a maximum of 1.3kg, and I am sure that they would provide the technical details to help manufacturers use Intel chipsets to make systems at that weight.
Yes, that's a niche market, and one that the big PC makers are running away from in droves. They are now trying to court it with the "ultrabook", which demonstrates that people don't want a shit notebook.
Or it demonstrates that there is a greater profit margin in selling more expensive computers. My anecdote suggests that a lot of people were happy with netbooks despite being able to buy the faster and equally light Toshiba Portété line for over decade.
I don't think any modern notebook can match 0.85 kg, but you can get a 13.3" notebook at 1.1kg (Toshibz Z830 for example),
I have owned a couple of Toshiba Portégés over the years, so I do have a Z830 on my shopping list. However, my point was that Dell has nothing at that level. I can understand that 1.1kg might be extreme, but Intel's Ultrabook specs call for a maximum of 1.3kg and Dell can't even match that weight.
and I suspect we'll see 11" notebooks hitting that 0.85 kg target at some point.
Maybe. After all these years I was beginning to think that they wouldn't, but the competition with tablets might keep the pushing them down.
The iPad completely killed the mass netbook market. Now it's little more than a niche.
I recently attended a large medical conference, and it was quite interesting to watch the people when they were between sessions. There were hundreds of people sitting around with their computers out, and it amazed me that the majority of them used netbooks. The Ultrabook/Macbook Air made up a close second place, while there were only a handful of the 15" luggables. The really surprising thing was how few people had iPads. I guess you can't beat a keyboard for writing notes.
You may consider this to be a niche market, but anyone who has to travel and walk around a lot while carrying their computer will appreciate the netbooks for their weight. The fact that they are inexpensive means that you don't have to worry about the netbooks getting broken while you are travelling.
Given that there's 15 inches laptops with higher specifications available for almost the same price, it's no wonder people aren't buying netbooks anymore.
It is true that the full sized laptops have encroached on the netbook market. But Dell definitely lacks any light-weight notebook options. I had a look at their website, and the lightest Dell laptop that is available in my country is 1.56kg.
Back in the late nineties I got a sub-notebook that weighed 0.85kg (1.87lb), and have never owned a heavier notebook than 1.1kg since. It seems crazy that with nearly 15 years of technological improvements that Dell cannot offer me a similar or better computer.
Because it ... seems to install on PC with strict security settings.
I hate software that does this. It is exceedingly rude for developers to deliberately bypass the operating system security setup. What is wrong with requiring administration of a computer by done by an administrator?
The first time I installed Chrome I did it under an admin login (using RunAs) and it didn't seem to install anything. I thought that it might require me to be logged in as my admin account, so I switched accounts and found the icon on the desktop! Does this mean that you have to install it multiple times on a family computer with separate accounts for everyone? That is stupid!
I wish there was a setting that would trigger a UAC prompt whenever you attempted to run an executable that was not owned by an administrator account. At least you can set the firewall to block by default.
Your criticism of my post is well deserved. It does appear that I am judging you and your story, but that was not the intention. I neglected to put something in my message that I had in mind when I hit the reply button. Unfortunately I got sidetracked with the other part about there being too many bundles, and it got omitted.
I do not think that you are a shill. (I wouldn't call anyone that word, for the same reasons that you give.) I do not think that you were wrong to post the story.
However, I do believe that this story is an advertisement; it's just not a paid advertisement. (That was the missing bit.) If you look at the definition of advertisement, it can mean "the action of making generally known; a calling to the attention of the public". That seems to be exactly what is happening here. It is true that this definition could be extended to virtually any story, but I think that it is fair to limit it to those that talk about a product for sale.
I do stand by my statement that this isn't really newsworthy, especially because it is not the first time that they have released the source code for Humble Bundle games. I also stand by my assertion that it was not a "bad thing to advertise the bundle, as it is for charity after all", although the charity part was a bit flippant. Announcing products on Slashdot (even products from Microsoft and Apple) is reasonable because this is the kind of news that is interesting to nerds.
Anyway, I apologise for any implication that you had a vested interest in the Humble Bundle or that money may have changed hands for the story. I am sure that this was what the original Anonymous Coward meant, but it had been my intention to counter it by agreeing, but to a different definition of the word "advert".
Is this news, or is this just an advert for the Humble Bundle?
Well obviously it is an advert. It is not particularly newsworthy, because - let's face it - how many of us here are going to do anything with the source code for a game that most of us had not heard of until this bundle. That is not to say that it is a bad thing to advertise the bundle, as it is for charity after all.
That said, I'm afraid I am getting a bit bundled out. This is the seventh Humble Bundle since May last year. Add to that the similar bundles that have sprung up (eg. Indie Royale which isn't for charity and does a different bundle every few weeks) and it seems less like an event and more like a perpetual sale.
The biggest problem is that I find myself second guessing my purchases of indie software via the normal distribution methods because I wonder whether I will be seeing the title in a bundle in the near future. Should I pre-order Trine 2, or wait for the inevitable virtual giveaway one of these bundles?
Will the excess of bundles mean that developers lose more profitable sales? Or do these bundles help by getting indie titles into the hands of people who would normally buy mainstream games, and so not really diminish their usual audience?
And if they want to include a picture, then they can use CSS to apply it rather than use the <img> tag
Since when can a CSS background-image be scaled?
I'm not saying that you should scale the image smaller on smaller window sizes. I am saying to remove the image at small resolutions. That is easily done with CSS.
there's still a reason to put something like max-width: 30em on a body text element
That is one strategy for making the page resize as I stated, and yet it prevents the page from becoming stupidly unreadable on large monitors. It is certainly better than just using width: 30em. That said, you don't want to make the max-width too narrow. It is annoying to maximize a window to see more of a webpage, only to be greeted with exactly the same layout as the windowed browser.
Then make your "full size PC" page scale as small as netbooks, but not necessarily smaller.
Why? Because it is harder to make a page that scales well? It is true that it takes a little bit more planning, but this is offset by eliminating the need to keep two different websites up to date.
A lot of web sites already employ grids roughly 900px to 960px wide, which fits into a netbook's screen as well as a browser window that has been Snapped to the left or right half of a 1080p monitor.
That would fail for 800x480 netbook screens. Or people on 1280 width screens who do not maximize every window. That is exactly my point: whatever assumptions you make about the client's environment, someone out there will prove you wrong.
On a device with a high-definition screen, such as a PC, Internet-enabled television, or full-size tablet, a news site might want to show both the headline, a photo thumbnail, and the first sentence of each article. But on a device with a smaller screen, such as a PDA or mobile phone, it might want to show only the headline.
With the amount of Javascript and appallingly bloated HTML on some news sites, I think a small amount of extra text per story that gets downloaded but not shown will pale into insignificance. And if they want to include a picture, then they can use CSS to apply it rather than use the <img> tag, so it would not get downloaded if it doesn't match the media type. I guess that does blur the line between content and presentation though.
The best practice is to write pages that flow naturally to the screen width. I have had to use the mobile version of a webpage before when the main website would not fit onto the screen of my notebook computer. The problem with having the mindset of separate versions of the website (to quote the summary: a mobile-ready version as well as one for much larger screens) is that it can miss out on the screen sizes in between (eg. netbooks). But if you make a single page that scales well, then there is no single defined concept of a small screen.
I have been a fan of WordPerfect for many years. I liked how it was ported to many platforms (eg. Amiga). I liked the reveal codes and macros. Some of the keystrokes were a bit obscure, but you got used to them.
But the features of the software were its downfall when it came to a Windows version. Their keyboard shortcuts directly conflicted with that used by Windows, and their massive library of printer drivers were superceded by the Windows drivers. But the biggest problem was the delay in getting a Windows 3.1 version out, and how buggy it was. They can't blame missing features in Windows 95 for that. They went 3 or 4 years before they finally came out with a non-sucky version (WPWin 5.1 to 6.0a). Even the DOS version of 6.0 was buggy - I seem to recall that they had to release a version 5.2 AFTER 6.0 was out.
When they finally did come out with a Win95 version, it would not run on Windows NT. With such a history of poor releases, it doesn't seem to unreasonable to believe that any problems that they had were of their own making.
Because its Pakistan I can't tell if they meant loser or if they were serious...
As soon as I saw 'looser' on the list, I thought that they can't be all that evil. We do need a concerted effort to eliminate this example of stupidity. It seems rare these days to find anyone spelling "loser" correctly. Ignorant loosers!
But seriously, this list seems a bit dubious to me. Why would a country so paranoid about having bad things said about the Prophet Mohammed only include Jesus Christ on the list as a blasphemy? Why would a country that was once a part of the British Empire (and as such, still has English as on of its official languages) have one word on the list with the British spelling "arse", and 71 words with the American spelling "ass"? Why would there be no attempt to include the deliberate misspellings, abbreviations and contractions that are typical of texters?
It could be that they simply sourced a list of words from elsewhere, but it seems strange that they would not tailor it to their own country's requirements.
I think that the analogy was very apt. Your response to this is exactly the same as the religious zealots who get genuinely suprised when people don't react well to their helpful teachings. "But surely everyone wants to know they are loved by God!"
Like it or not, open source software is as much a philosophy as it is a collection of useful software. It certainly feels to the recipient like you are proselytising even if it seems to the giver as providing useful software. Then you have the big problem for ordinary people that giving away free software as presents is like coming in with plastic bags full of air.
Given the predictions that have been made over the last ten years, and the claimed temperature rises and meltings over just the last few, then ocean levels should have risen over the last 2 years, DESPITE ANY LONG TERM TREND.
Have a look at the recorded data in any of those graphs that I mentioned. They show a fluctuation the sea levels. Some years it goes up, other years it goes down. With that in mind, what model is ever going to claim that it can make predictions down to the individual year. They deal in long term trends.
Now I am quite happy to be proven wrong about this. If you can point me to a model that has published what the ocean levels will be for the next few years, then we can easily compare them with the recorded results. But if you can't cite any scientist who will make such accurate predictions, then perhaps you are just making assumptions about what the models say so you can show how wrong they are. That only disproves your assumptions, not the actual climate models themselves.
I am waiting for even one of their predictions to come true. For example: ocean level has actually decreased over the last couple of years.
Over the last couple of years? Do a Google image search on "ocean levels graph" and you can see numerous versions of graphs that show the ocean levels going up and down for individual years, but the average over time keeps increasing. To choose a "couple of years" to prove that the predictions are wrong is simple cherry picking data to give a false impression of what is happening.
It isn't far removed from saying that it is cooling because yesterday was warmer than today. People do the same trick to discredit climate change by saying that over the last few years it has been getting cooler, but when you look at the temperature on a decade by decade basis, it just keeps getting hotter.
The other side of the argument falls into the same trap. You cannot point to the temperature of a single year and say that it is proof of climate change. People did that back in 1998 to make predictions of disaster, and they were wrong because it was El Nino that caused the sudden spike in that year. Similarly, anyone who uses 1998 since then to "prove" that the Earth is actually cooling is making the exact same mistake. To eliminate the spikes in a single year or group of years, you have to look at the longer term average. I am afraid that this is yet to show that the warming trends have reversed, nor have the sea levels have stopped rising.
Could you elaborate on what parts you can't stand or which UI concept in it you can't stand?
I'm not the original poster, but I have issues with the OS too. I dislike the inconsistencies in the user interface. Button placement is all over the screen between the apps. Also, similar operations will be done in different ways depending on the app. For example, to delete an item, you can press an edit button, then turn a red dial to enable a delete button. (Sometimes the edit button is a box with an arrow coming out of it.) Or you can swipe across the entry in a list to "cross" it out. Or you can tick a checkbox and select a delete button at the bottom of the screen. Or you have to open the entry and click on a trash can icon. Or tap and hold the icon until everything starts wobbling and an X appears over the icon. And I'm not talking about third party apps here - they have their own quirks too. (Fair enough too. If Apple can't follow a user interface policy, why should other developers.)
I really hate how there is no visual indication for a lot of the user interface features. For example, scrollbars only appear when you start scrolling. You have to just randomly swipe your finger around a screen just to see if there are more options that are hidden off screen. I found out that I could use the horizontal swipe to delete something accidentally, because the Mail app scrolls from the IMAP folders screen to the messages in a folder from right to left. I used this as a cue that swiping back would return to the folders, but instead it started to delete a message (which requires a confirm, so nothing was lost). That was an example of the glitzy interface creating a false expectation of the user interface.
The more extreme problem with the unclear user interface is when an entire feature seems to be missing because you have no idea that the option exists without know the gesture. For example, how many new users could ever work out how to create folders on the app launcher? They would just assume that you could not do it.
Then there are a bunch of random silliness in the various apps, like how you can't create a folder to store bookmarks in Safari while creating a bookmark - it has to be done in the bookmark viewing screen before you create it. And why is creating a folder to categorize things so hard to do. I can't create photo albums and contact groups on the phone with the standard apps.
The zoom on Safari can be good, but quite often is painful. Filling in a web form zooms the screen to rediculous font sizes such that you cannot see the entire field that you are currently entering. I hate how Safari reuses tabs when a third party app launches a webpage and you have 8 tabs in use. And why can't it keep the tabs cached. I could load up 10 full slashdot stories on my old Nokia phone, then turn the radio off and read them all on a plane. The iPhone can hardly keep 2 pages cached, so there is no chance that I can read lots of articles on a plane trip.
The good news is that a lot of the problems that I have found have been gradually fixed over the various releases. I don't have the latest iOS yet since my computer with iTunes, so some of the things I have mentioned may be out of date. I am certainly looking forward to getting iOS 5, even if it does slow me down to a crawl on my old 3GS.
At least we'll finally see what patents Microsoft has been using to strong arm manufacturers of Android based phones into patent licensing.
We have already seen some of the patents with the Microsoft vs Motorola lawsuit. It is not a patent list of which I would be particularly proud.
I chose the top result in Google: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp.
However, looking at the Wikipedia page, this seems to have a much lower estimation than all the other website's stats. Seems reasonable considering that the users of w3schools are website developers who would be much more likely to have eschewed IE.
However, the exact figure does not change my point too much. Browsers that use Google search engine as a default have nearly double the usage of Internet Explorer (although if Firefox changed to Bing then the situation would reverse).
Except that Microsoft has a dominant position in the OS market, and Google does not.
But Internet Explorer only accounts for 23% of the browser market now. This means that 77% of the browsers in use have Google installed by default.
I count 99 fatalities.
It is funny how access to Wikipedia turns us all into rain men. We may not be able to instantly count matches dropped onto the floor, but we can quickly total up how many people died on an airline located half way around the world!