What do non technical users do? Do they not matter anymore?
I gave it more thought, and I think you're right. Non-technical users may be the ones to benefit the most from being able to easily disable JavaScript.
That being said, I think it should also be easy for them to maintain a whitelist, so they can get their favorite and most commonly used web sites working 100% without hassle.
I think Chrome supports that functionality out of the box, though the options are a little bit tucked away.
Non technical users are precisely the ones that most need an easy way to disable javascript.
I've given it some more thought, and I think you're probably right -- it should be easy, not hard, for non-technical users to protect themselves, which means displaying it prominently in the Options dialog.
I would even go a step further and make it easy for users to disable JavaScript but maintain a whitelist. I think Chrome supports this functionality out of the box.
It's better for non-technical users, who are likely to accidentally disable JavaScript and then assume Firefox was broken when the web didn't work right anymore.
And it's just as good for technical users who can trivially go to about:config and set javascript.enabled to false.
Google does not default to https. It only does that if you are signed in with an account. If these people weren't, then anybody could have seen their searches with relative ease.
The test I just tried says otherwise: navigating to www.google.com redirected to https://www.google.com/ even though I was not logged into any Google services.
That being said, perhaps they used the search bar on IE or Firefox (or whatever) and it used vanilla non-secure www.google.com to conduct the search.
Microsoft Cloud Drive Storage Home Edition
Microsoft Cloud Drive Storage Premium Edition
Microsoft Cloud Drive Storage Enterprise Edition
I think you forgot:
Microsoft Cloud Drive Home Premium Edition
Microsoft Cloud Drive Starter Edition
Microsoft Cloud Drive Server Edition
Microsoft Cloud Drive Data Center Edition
Microsoft Cloud Drive Professional Edition
Microsoft Cloud Drive Home Media Server Edition
And let's not forget about the extra $50/year you have to pay for XDrive Gold Live if you want to be able to copy your Microsoft Cloud Drive files to your USB flash drive.
I don't agree that the censorship is a good idea, but I can see how people growing up on the weird stuff you see on the internet can lead to a very messed up outlook and set of expectations about later in life.
I'm glad you said you don't agree that censorship is a good idea otherwise we'd have to ban quite a bit of Hollywood, a lot of rap music, etc...
Have canceled my FB account a long time ago, but still caon't opt out of the government.
I find this attitude short-sighted and sad. You can influence your government. It's hard work -- you have to get involved, and stay involved -- but the government is ultimately beholden to the will of the people. If you don't like it, work to change it.
Or just throw up your hands in defeat like most people, but then you don't really have any right to complain about the results.
Kudos for dropping Facebook, though. Given their history of constant "oops, did I invade your privacy again? oops, did I quietly add another opt-out feature? oops, is my misleading UI making you choose the wrong things again?", nobody should use or trust Facebook.
I'd be interested to see the answers broken down by age. It may well be that most of the people who love paper books will be dead in 20 years.
Or it might be the opposite!
I'm middle aged, and have middle aged friends, and work with lots of middle aged (and older) people. One common trend we've noticed is that as you get older, you want less physical stuff. The trend seems to accelerate when you reach your sixties and beyond.
I can easily see older people not wanting heavy, bulky bookshelves full of books, not to mention the hassle of having to go physically acquire them.
You should be looking at either touchscreen laptops for Metro which will make it a less rough transition or a Mac. You shouldn't be considering a traditional form factor non mac at all.
And just give up using my second display then? I use a laptop with a second (external) display currently, on Windows 7, and find it very pleasant.
I think Win8 slowed PC sales. It's just anecdotal; but you hear people say they were at the store and didn't want to buy a machine unless it came with Win7. Otherwise, they're waiting to see if MS can get rid of the New Coke OS and replace it with Classic.
I'm in the market for a new PC and I can tell you that I'm waiting for that Metro train wreck to be sorted before buying another Windows PC. In fact I'm starting to lose hope and am wondering if I should be looking at Macs instead.
However, I am claiming that checked exceptions are unneccessary, a waste of both developer and CPU time.
In my experience, checked exceptions save me development time. I don't have to obsessively check the documentation to see what exceptions might be thrown: the compiler (even better, the code editor in the IDE) tells me.
In addition, you haven't shown that checked exceptions waste CPU time. When it comes to modern JVMs, I suspect you're wrong.
When you have excessive numbers of checked exceptions that a function might throw...
Why would you have methods that throw an excessive number of exceptions? Wrap them with a common exception type and re-throw them. You don't lose the original exception or stack trace.
...and you either don't care about them or you know they won't happen...
Haha, famous last words.
...it's easiest to just wrap them in a try-swallow block that silently discards any exception.
A try-swallow block sticks out like a sore thumb during code reviews (whether you're doing the review yourself or in a group). Another win for checked exceptions.
I'm a huge fan of checked exceptions (that is, exceptions that must be caught, or the method must specify that they can be thrown). My anecdotal experience is that checked exceptions have made my code more robust by helping me avoid mistakes, they are partially self documenting, and even save me time because I don't have to constantly check the documentation to see which exceptions are thrown.
However, I see a lot of hate for checked exceptions in the programming community. With the benefit of hindsight, what's your opinion on checked vs. unchecked exceptions? If you could do it all again, would you still put checked exceptions in Java?
Also, thank you for inventing the programming language I use all day every day. It's not perfect, of course, but I still consider it one of the best balanced programming languages out there.
..to shoot themselves in the ass with their desire to compartmentalize everything. One reason the Kinect was such a runaway success was the fact that people thought of doing imaginative things with it and stretching its operational boundaries.
My Kinect is gathering dust. It was novel and interesting at first, but now it feels mostly pointless and gimmicky.
I think it sucks that Microsoft is going to force people to buy a Kinect with the Xbone.
I'm afraid software developers will read this article and use it as a lame excuse to write complex code, because it's easier to write complex code than to write simple code, though it's much, much harder to maintain, enhance, and debug complex code.
Complex code hides bugs. Complex code is generally less robust and reliable. Complex code usually has more security holes.
Sure, some things have to be complex. But generally, you should strive for small functions (methods) that do one thing, and do it well, and keep side effects as localized as possible.
And the same applies up the stack. Make sure each layer (methods -> objects -> programs -> etc.) alone can be grokked inside the head of a single person. This is how you manage complexity. This is how you build big systems.
Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?
Slashdot Mirror
search for "Java Crypto" to get about 3/4 way through the show
It's hard to tell if he's talking about Java or JavaScript -- he bounces between the two as if they're interchangeable, when they're not.
What do non technical users do? Do they not matter anymore?
I gave it more thought, and I think you're right. Non-technical users may be the ones to benefit the most from being able to easily disable JavaScript.
That being said, I think it should also be easy for them to maintain a whitelist, so they can get their favorite and most commonly used web sites working 100% without hassle.
I think Chrome supports that functionality out of the box, though the options are a little bit tucked away.
Non technical users are precisely the ones that most need an easy way to disable javascript.
I've given it some more thought, and I think you're probably right -- it should be easy, not hard, for non-technical users to protect themselves, which means displaying it prominently in the Options dialog.
I would even go a step further and make it easy for users to disable JavaScript but maintain a whitelist. I think Chrome supports this functionality out of the box.
I hate it when I'm wrong on the Internet. :-)
Of course now that Fireshit not only takes away the Javascript option and never had a per site option it's 100% useless.
Oh, stop with the drama already. That's what NoScript is for.
Technical users can still navigate to about:config and set javascript.enabled to false.
It's not that big of a deal.
It's better for non-technical users, who are likely to accidentally disable JavaScript and then assume Firefox was broken when the web didn't work right anymore.
And it's just as good for technical users who can trivially go to about:config and set javascript.enabled to false.
I know I couldn't care any less if I could no longer access Russian or Chinese websites, for instance.
If I could block all data going to and coming from Russian and Chinese IP addresses, I would consider that a feature...
Google does not default to https. It only does that if you are signed in with an account. If these people weren't, then anybody could have seen their searches with relative ease.
The test I just tried says otherwise: navigating to www.google.com redirected to https://www.google.com/ even though I was not logged into any Google services.
That being said, perhaps they used the search bar on IE or Firefox (or whatever) and it used vanilla non-secure www.google.com to conduct the search.
Microsoft Cloud Drive Storage Home Edition
Microsoft Cloud Drive Storage Premium Edition
Microsoft Cloud Drive Storage Enterprise Edition
I think you forgot:
Microsoft Cloud Drive Home Premium Edition
Microsoft Cloud Drive Starter Edition
Microsoft Cloud Drive Server Edition
Microsoft Cloud Drive Data Center Edition
Microsoft Cloud Drive Professional Edition
Microsoft Cloud Drive Home Media Server Edition
And let's not forget about the extra $50/year you have to pay for XDrive Gold Live if you want to be able to copy your Microsoft Cloud Drive files to your USB flash drive.
I don't agree that the censorship is a good idea, but I can see how people growing up on the weird stuff you see on the internet can lead to a very messed up outlook and set of expectations about later in life.
I'm glad you said you don't agree that censorship is a good idea otherwise we'd have to ban quite a bit of Hollywood, a lot of rap music, etc...
You've never watched an episode of Hoarders: Buried Alive, have you?
Reality TV shows are completely and utterly fake. Don't draw any conclusions, ever, by what you see on them.
Let me guess - you're younger than 30 or so.
Bad guess. I'm far past 30.
Awww. Come here and let me hug you. You're too sweet!!!
LOL! :-)
We can vote, but governments are run by money and corporations.
True right now, but we can change that.
Have canceled my FB account a long time ago, but still caon't opt out of the government.
I find this attitude short-sighted and sad. You can influence your government. It's hard work -- you have to get involved, and stay involved -- but the government is ultimately beholden to the will of the people. If you don't like it, work to change it.
Or just throw up your hands in defeat like most people, but then you don't really have any right to complain about the results.
Kudos for dropping Facebook, though. Given their history of constant "oops, did I invade your privacy again? oops, did I quietly add another opt-out feature? oops, is my misleading UI making you choose the wrong things again?", nobody should use or trust Facebook.
I'd be interested to see the answers broken down by age. It may well be that most of the people who love paper books will be dead in 20 years.
Or it might be the opposite!
I'm middle aged, and have middle aged friends, and work with lots of middle aged (and older) people. One common trend we've noticed is that as you get older, you want less physical stuff. The trend seems to accelerate when you reach your sixties and beyond.
I can easily see older people not wanting heavy, bulky bookshelves full of books, not to mention the hassle of having to go physically acquire them.
Interesting stuff and thanks for the screen shot. :-)
You should be looking at either touchscreen laptops for Metro which will make it a less rough transition or a Mac. You shouldn't be considering a traditional form factor non mac at all.
And just give up using my second display then? I use a laptop with a second (external) display currently, on Windows 7, and find it very pleasant.
I think Win8 slowed PC sales. It's just anecdotal; but you hear people say they were at the store and didn't want to buy a machine unless it came with Win7. Otherwise, they're waiting to see if MS can get rid of the New Coke OS and replace it with Classic.
I'm in the market for a new PC and I can tell you that I'm waiting for that Metro train wreck to be sorted before buying another Windows PC. In fact I'm starting to lose hope and am wondering if I should be looking at Macs instead.
- Listen to users before releasing Win8, not wait until Win8.1 to start "listening"
Microsoft is only pretending to listen with Win 8.1. It's still 95% the same train wreck Metro interface.
However, I am claiming that checked exceptions are unneccessary, a waste of both developer and CPU time.
In my experience, checked exceptions save me development time. I don't have to obsessively check the documentation to see what exceptions might be thrown: the compiler (even better, the code editor in the IDE) tells me.
In addition, you haven't shown that checked exceptions waste CPU time. When it comes to modern JVMs, I suspect you're wrong.
When you have excessive numbers of checked exceptions that a function might throw...
Why would you have methods that throw an excessive number of exceptions? Wrap them with a common exception type and re-throw them. You don't lose the original exception or stack trace.
...and you either don't care about them or you know they won't happen...
Haha, famous last words.
...it's easiest to just wrap them in a try-swallow block that silently discards any exception.
A try-swallow block sticks out like a sore thumb during code reviews (whether you're doing the review yourself or in a group). Another win for checked exceptions.
I'm a huge fan of checked exceptions (that is, exceptions that must be caught, or the method must specify that they can be thrown). My anecdotal experience is that checked exceptions have made my code more robust by helping me avoid mistakes, they are partially self documenting, and even save me time because I don't have to constantly check the documentation to see which exceptions are thrown.
However, I see a lot of hate for checked exceptions in the programming community. With the benefit of hindsight, what's your opinion on checked vs. unchecked exceptions? If you could do it all again, would you still put checked exceptions in Java?
Also, thank you for inventing the programming language I use all day every day. It's not perfect, of course, but I still consider it one of the best balanced programming languages out there.
..to shoot themselves in the ass with their desire to compartmentalize everything. One reason the Kinect was such a runaway success was the fact that people thought of doing imaginative things with it and stretching its operational boundaries.
My Kinect is gathering dust. It was novel and interesting at first, but now it feels mostly pointless and gimmicky.
I think it sucks that Microsoft is going to force people to buy a Kinect with the Xbone.
I'm afraid software developers will read this article and use it as a lame excuse to write complex code, because it's easier to write complex code than to write simple code, though it's much, much harder to maintain, enhance, and debug complex code.
Complex code hides bugs. Complex code is generally less robust and reliable. Complex code usually has more security holes.
Sure, some things have to be complex. But generally, you should strive for small functions (methods) that do one thing, and do it well, and keep side effects as localized as possible.
And the same applies up the stack. Make sure each layer (methods -> objects -> programs -> etc.) alone can be grokked inside the head of a single person. This is how you manage complexity. This is how you build big systems.
Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?
-Brian Kernighan
People who don't think java7 is ready are smoking crack. It's been production ready for a long time.. Works on Linux, works on OSX, works on Windows.
Java 7 doesn't work on OS X 10.6.x (Snow Leopard).