This is not just about "Amazon" setting cookies, duh I knew that. This is about the potential amazon is searching through other cookies on my machine for keywords to target ads.
This is impossible. And if it were possible, it wouldn't be Amazon's fault, it would be your browser's fault. Amazon can only get the cookies that your browser sends them, your browser restricts the cookies that are sent back by domain name. If sitex.com sets a cookie and sitey.com sets a cookie, then further requests to sitey.com will only send the sitey.com cookie, if your browser is sending more, then it is your browser's fault
But even if your browser were sending back extra cookies to amazon.com, their scripts wouldn't know what to do with them because they're being set by other sites and are most likely just arbitrary strings. Amazon would have to have a whole system setup just in case some browser started sending all the cookies on your computer.
What's much more likely is something like this:
you search for something on sitex.com
sitex.com returns html with an image tag that references an image off of 2o7.net
this image url also contains some information about your search
when 2o7.net responds with the image, the response includes a cookie for 2o7.net that uniquely identifies you
you search at other sites... all these sites use the same tactics as sitex.com
2o7.net now has a lot of information on what you're searching for
you now navigate to amazon.com, they also use 2o7.net and through similar tactics they present you with ads based on what you've been searching for
This is some of the most basic stuff when it comes to online marketing. If you've ever seen the option "allow cookies for originating website only" it means "if I navigate to google.com, only allow cookies to be set for google.com, even if elements from other domains are loaded into the same page". Clear out all your cookies, set this option, and then try again.
(Note that I'm not sure if this is exactly how 2o7.net operates, but I just wanted to show how incredibly simple it is to get the behavior you're experiencing without amazon.com raiding your cookie jar)
What, are you new to this whole internet thing? Of course online marketers store your browsing information and sell it, that's how they exist. Are you also suprised at where all those 2o7.net cookies came from, and confused as to why some sites need to load images from dozens of different servers?
Of course, it could also be that you're the kind of person who shops for things like bluetooth adapters on amazon and other sites in the past. So when you went back to amazon during this session they were using your past browsing on amazon to suggest something that you actually need.
imagine the Tivo you could make out of one, you could have every reality TV program at your fingertips for a little less than the cost of an average house.
If I wasn't so confused by the summary I'd probably think this was a really pathetic stunt by Sun. I'd also probably think it was really weird and sad that executives are fighting on their blogs.
It'd be illegal to force a different UA string in the first place.
I was thinking about that. But what if the name of the original browser is trademarked and derivative works are required to call themselves something different, wouldn't that require you to use a different UA string? And what's the point of a UA string if you're not allowed to change it for different versions of a browser. Would it be illegal to allow end users to change the UA string? Are they violating the GPL by doing so?
So I haven't read through the entire draft just yet, but this section jumped out at me:
The Corresponding Source also includes any encryption or authorization keys necessary to install and/or execute modified versions from source code in the recommended or principal context of use, such that they can implement all the same functionality in the same range of circumstances. (For instance, if the work is a DVD player and can play certain DVDs, it must be possible for modified versions to play those DVDs. If the work communicates with an online service, it must be possible for modified versions to communicate with the same online service in the same way such that the service cannot distinguish.) (emphasis mine).
Should it really be fair to restrict some online service to have to treat all clients the same way just because one version was derived from another? Lets say I modify the source code of some browser that is covered by GPLv3. My version has some quirks that make it interpret css differently from the first browser. Would it then be illegal for a website to serve up different css based on my user agent string?
So I got the normal federal subsidized student loans when I went to college. But in between my junior and senior year I decided to take classes during the summer session. This cost extra, and my school recommended suplimental loans from Sallie Mae. Not fully understanding the whole loan system I went ahead and took this extra loan. Well this loan was not federally subsidized, used a variable interest rate based on prime, and is not eligible for consolidation after graduation. This was a big mistake.
At this point, interest rates were pretty low, and my interest rate on this loan was around 4% when I graduated in 2004. This was just a little more than what I could consolidate my federal loans for, so I wasn't too worried. But in the past 2 years the prime rate has doubled, my interest rate is now 8% on this loan. A little while ago I was thinking about the whole savings stuff and amongst other things I opened a CD at my bank at 5% apr. Which historically, isn't too bad for 0 risk (you could probably do even better now that interest rates have gone up again).
But at this point it would make more sense to use that money in the CD to pay back the loan with the high interest rate because I'm losing more paying 8% than I am making 5%. This is why economists make a distinction between 'good' debt and 'bad' debt. My federal student loan which I'm repaying at 3.375% is good because I can make more money by just paying the minimum on that debt and using my current income to earn at a higher interest rate. It's also federally subsidized so in certain cases I can get a deferment which means I can halt payments, and the federal government picks up the interest while the loan is defered. When the deferment period is over, the balance on my loan is exactly the same as when I started deferment.
Here are some of the conditions for deferment that I got from my federal loan holder's website:
In-school Deferment Request
Economic Hardship Deferment Request
Unemployment Deferment Request
Education Related Deferment Request
Public Service Deferment Request
Temporary Total Disability Deferment Request
Parental Leave/Working Mother Deferment Request
PLUS Borrower with Dependent Student Deferment Request
Military Deferment
You're never going to have a loan with such good terms ever again in your life, take advantage of it. Unfortunately my private loan is completely unsubsidized, and has nothing behind it like car loans or mortgages do. So it's more risky for the bank, which is why you get screwed with the interest rate. I'm guessing rates are about as high as they're going to be right now, so I would consider getting a long term CD from your local bank. But pay attention to your interest rates and pay back loans with higher rates or worse terms first. You've probably got all your debt in federally subsidized loans, so I wouldn't worry about it too much, just pay the minimum and put your money to use elsewhere.
If Robin Williams likes the game, it must be good.;)
Wow, if you guys watch that video the parent linked to, stay around till the end when he's interviewed a little bit about the games he plays. He really knows his stuff.
From the slashdot summary: Motion Picture Association President Dan Glickman and Electronic Freedom Foundation co-founder Johh Perry Barlow lock horns. And from the linked article: Motion Picture Association President Dan Glickman locks horns with Electronic Frontier Foundation's John Perry Barlow. First of all, if you're not going to use a direct quote, then don't just shuffle around a few words, while still using the exact same phrasing. Second of all get the name of the organization correct, it's Electronic Frontier Foundation.
However the Kororaa project has decided to let end users download and install the drivers themselves if need be, which defeats the purpose of continuing to develop their Live CD. As such their will be no Kororaa XGL LiveCD 0.3
This sentence was a little confusing the first seven times I read it. So I did what I hardly ever do, go to the source, read the article and gain a fuller understanding of the situation... instead of just posting here about how the summary was confusing.
My misunderstanding stemmed from my thinking that the Kororaa project was just the Live CD. So I was thinking: if they decided to script the downloading and compiling of the nvidia modules why would they then go and decide to cancel the Live CD development? The key here is that they also have a non-live CD version called Kororaa 2005, and soon to be 2006. They are still continuing this distribution, which will prompt the user to download the modules manually as other distros do.
The author's reasoning was kind of strange though, he leads us on a very logical path towards concluding that the Kororaa Live CD does *not* violate the GPL in its current form. He even says For me, with the information at hand, I cannot see how the drivers constitute a GPL violation. Yet he still decides to discontinue the live CD. He also makes a good case about why he doesn't want to have the user download and compile the drivers themselves on boot.
I can't blame him though. He's clearly a supporter of the GPL. He's striving to adhere to the letter and spirit of the license. Oh well, maybe I should check out the standard Kororaa distribution.
When our country lost its collective faith in God, it had political consequences. All our rights are up for grabs now.
It says endowed by their creator, it doesn't say God. My creator is nature and nature's god. My creator is evolution. My creator is my mother and father. Whatever it was that brought me and the rest of mankind into existence is what endowed me with these rights. Whether that 'thing' is a god, a person, or a process, it doesn't matter. I have a mind that can reason, and I can act upon my reasoning; the creator that brought this situation about is also what gave me those rights.
The issue appears to be the distribution of the Linux Kernel and nVidia's/ATI binary drivers together. When the binary drivers are built the GPL'ed code is included in the binary result, which is a violation.
2.1.2 Linux/FreeBSD Exception. Notwithstanding the foregoing terms of Section 2.1.1, SOFTWARE designed exclusively for use on the Linux or FreeBSD operating systems, or other operating systems derived from the source code to these operating systems, may be copied and redistributed, provided that the binary files thereof are not modified in any way (except for unzipping of compressed files).
Maybe Koraraa could modify their Live CD such that it only includes the source code for the nVidia drivers, this would certainly be legal under the terms of nVidia's software license. Putting the source code for the kernel module on the same CD as other GPL'ed software is certainly no violation of the GPL or nVidia license. Upon boot you could just automatically compile the kernel module from the source and insert the module. The binary kernel module is not being distributed, therefore there is no violation of the GPL.
Just for clarification (I had to look this up myself), the nVidia Linux drivers have two parts: a closed source, binary only, platform independent component; and a kernel module distruted as (non open) source code which acts as an interface layer to the linux kernel. The binary only portion contains no GPL code and can certainly be placed on the same CD as GPL code. The kernel module which would contain the product of compiling GPL and non GPL code would not be distributed on the CD, it would only be compiled on the user's computer upon install.
I actually listened to this story last night on the way home (or the day before, can't remember). Anyway, at first I was shocked when I heard the intro, they lost all this sensitive data, did some stuff and then won a PR award. If the actions they took were so great shouldn't they have won some sort of privacy award. Winning a public relations award makes it sound like you did a great job covering it up. But actually listening to the story I found that they really did handle it in a great way for their customers.
One of the things with current physical keys is that if necessary you can 'lose' them, and no one else can open the lock. You can't do this with an implanted RFID key without ripping off your arm. This means someone can kidnap you, and they instantly have access to everything you have access to. There's no throwing your keys off a bridge or 'forgetting' your password, your presence is your password (not even something like a voice print, in which case you could simply refuse to speak).
Heck, if they were ruthless enough, they could simply rip off your arm if they don't actually need you. We don't currently have the technology to grab someone's brain and figure out his password, but a simple hacksaw would do the trick to get an RFID chip.
Why should I take special care to "check out the Postal Service?"
What exactly does this bring to the table? People who had or have an interest in the band probably saw the video in 2003 when it was released. It has NOTHING to do with the software being advertised.
Hey now, calm down now buddy. I'll see if I can help shed some light on the problem. Here's a quote from the summary: It can even scrape web pages for videos. It's an excellent way to find great internet video. For example... It then goes on to talk about the Postal Service video you mentioned. They were using this specific video as an example of how it can scrape web pages for videos, one of the features of this video player. A specific example given to display the features of a product seems very apropos to me.
Perhaps if the video were mentioned in the article it would be more accepta--OH WAIT! What article? All we have is a link to the home page of this project. Okay, it's open source, and it's probably cool. Fine. Submit an article
Since when are articles the only thing you can link to in a slashdot submission? It's an open source video player with (apparently) tons of cool features with its first released linux version. It sounds interesting and slashdot worthy. And, how else could you get any more information about an open source program other than linking to it's web site? Probably better than a press release or article.
Well there are two q's and no u's so I don't think it's a simple jumble. Also, I wonder what the significance of the capitalized J is. If it were just a matter of rearranging the letters then the J would either be the first letter of the phrase, or a name; but what would a capital letter signify amongst lower case letters?
Maybe it could still be a jumble with odd words like 'qasida' and 'qere'. Maybe it's a simple substitution cypher where each letter points to another, and a J represents the same letter as j, just capitalized.
Ctrl+PgDn / Ctrl+PgUp still worked (does same thing).
Yeah, but I've got a powerbook, so that would be Ctrl+fn+uparrow, just too many keys (okay, the real reason is that I didn't know about it, but it's still too many keys).
264787 - [Mac] Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab Next/Previous Tab Keyboard Shortcuts no longer work (worked in Firefox 1.0.x).
Thank God! I've been waiting for this, I couldn't for the life of me understand why this no longer worked on the mac version. I also just found out that you can change firefox's keybindings to be emacs-like on any platform. Actually that article shows you how to change the keybindings to be like anything you want, they just use emacs as an example.
I've noticed that with gmail google will create an https connection for login, but then returns you to plain http after that. When you're at the login screen, look at the url string, there is a variable in there called 'continue' which is set to "http%3A%2F%2Fmail.google.com/...". I noticed that if I changed this variable to "https%3A%2F%2Fmail.google.com/..." gmail would stay secure after login. I then found out that if you start your session by going to "https://mail.google.com/mail" it will stay secure without having to mess with anything. Just keep that url bookmarked.
This doesn't appear to work with google calendar though. But after you log in, you can just change the address bar to "https://www.google.com/calendar/render" and that seems to work.
Picasa [google.com] for organizing and sharing and printing (and minor editing) pictures. I wasn't much of a believer in this one, but because of its simplicity I recommended and installed and consulted this for friends and family. And finally was hooked -- it really does a great job for all of the organizing I need. (I believe it's probably on the OpenCD). It may not rival the iPhoto (or whatever OS X has), but it's a sweet product.
Picasa is actually much much better than iPhoto. It's user interface is much more usable and looks way better. As a Mac user I'm pissed that Picasa isn't out for Mac, and I'm suprised that Apple hasn't done a better job with iPhoto compared to Picasa. Also, Picasa won't be on the OpenCD. The OpenCD: TheOpenCD is a collection of high quality Free and Open Source Software. Picasa isn't open source software (still wonderful though).
However, the current amazon.co.uk customer service falls FAR short of this standard, and I'm surprised you should mention it as such.
I guess I should have mentioned that I live in the US and therefore use amazon.com. I don't know how much the two entities act differently when it comes to customer service.
you remain stuck with the guys in India, who will answer any query with a non-committal selection of boilerplate garbage.
I've never actually had to call amazon, I might have had to email once or twice, but everything's always been resolved. But I know what you mean by "non-committal selection of boilerplate garbage". With some companies, I feel like I can see them reading straight from the "knowledgebase" on their website which I've already read through, and already explained that I've read through five minutes ago.
If you want great customer service, well... I am hard pressed for an example, to be honest. Amazon.*com* used to be great.
To be honest, I haven't noticed any decline in the customer service at amazon.com. Although I haven't really had to use it in a while, which probably says a lot more about them. If they can design their product/system such that you don't even have to use customer support, then they really know what they're doing. I guess I'm really just thinking about how simple and easy they make it for you to return items to them, they have a very relaxed return policy.
I don't care how valuable NPR is or thinks it is -- as long as they are funded through coercion (taxation), then I will treat them as an organization which is funded through coercion. That is, I will never so much as consider helping them, no matter how much they need it.
What a dick. Do you have any idea just how many organizations, profit and non, receive some funds somehow through the government? I wish this argument worked for my college tuition... since I pay taxes, and some portion of that goes to financial aid, which goes to my college, I should be able to go to college for free.
This is just yet another company that doesn't give too hoots enough to read what you send them or to respond on their forums. The article is talking a whole load of bull from my experiences with apple up to this point.
I've had plenty of experiences with companies that don't even read what you write them. It's the single most frustrating experience I've had. It just happened recently with Intuit (TurboTax). I completely laid out my issue with filing my federal return online, and the response I got sounded like the customer service rep just copied and pasted a response out of their knowledge base which didn't help at all. My problem was that I had already followed those steps and it didn't work, I don't think the support person read anything from my message.
As an interesting note, I've never had an experience like that in the open source world. If you clearly spell out what steps you took, where your problem was, and what you did to try to solve it, people will almost go out of their way to try and help you.
If you ask me, the company with the single best customer service is Amzon(.co.uk). They don't bull you... They are MORE than fair, and don't make you jump though hoops.
I absolutely agree with you here. A lot of people hate Amazon for various reasons, but they have the best customer support. They send instructions for returning your item with your package, and will take back anything no questions asked, whether it's they're fault or not. I've had a couple products which were damaged, and amazon replaced them no questions asked. They are more than fair.
Slashdot Mirror
This is impossible. And if it were possible, it wouldn't be Amazon's fault, it would be your browser's fault. Amazon can only get the cookies that your browser sends them, your browser restricts the cookies that are sent back by domain name. If sitex.com sets a cookie and sitey.com sets a cookie, then further requests to sitey.com will only send the sitey.com cookie, if your browser is sending more, then it is your browser's fault
But even if your browser were sending back extra cookies to amazon.com, their scripts wouldn't know what to do with them because they're being set by other sites and are most likely just arbitrary strings. Amazon would have to have a whole system setup just in case some browser started sending all the cookies on your computer.
What's much more likely is something like this:
This is some of the most basic stuff when it comes to online marketing. If you've ever seen the option "allow cookies for originating website only" it means "if I navigate to google.com, only allow cookies to be set for google.com, even if elements from other domains are loaded into the same page". Clear out all your cookies, set this option, and then try again.
(Note that I'm not sure if this is exactly how 2o7.net operates, but I just wanted to show how incredibly simple it is to get the behavior you're experiencing without amazon.com raiding your cookie jar)
What, are you new to this whole internet thing? Of course online marketers store your browsing information and sell it, that's how they exist. Are you also suprised at where all those 2o7.net cookies came from, and confused as to why some sites need to load images from dozens of different servers?
Of course, it could also be that you're the kind of person who shops for things like bluetooth adapters on amazon and other sites in the past. So when you went back to amazon during this session they were using your past browsing on amazon to suggest something that you actually need.
Or you could archive the entire internet with several of them...
If I wasn't so confused by the summary I'd probably think this was a really pathetic stunt by Sun. I'd also probably think it was really weird and sad that executives are fighting on their blogs.
It'd be illegal to force a different UA string in the first place.
I was thinking about that. But what if the name of the original browser is trademarked and derivative works are required to call themselves something different, wouldn't that require you to use a different UA string? And what's the point of a UA string if you're not allowed to change it for different versions of a browser. Would it be illegal to allow end users to change the UA string? Are they violating the GPL by doing so?
So I haven't read through the entire draft just yet, but this section jumped out at me:
The Corresponding Source also includes any encryption or authorization keys necessary to install and/or execute modified versions from source code in the recommended or principal context of use, such that they can implement all the same functionality in the same range of circumstances. (For instance, if the work is a DVD player and can play certain DVDs, it must be possible for modified versions to play those DVDs. If the work communicates with an online service, it must be possible for modified versions to communicate with the same online service in the same way such that the service cannot distinguish.) (emphasis mine).
Should it really be fair to restrict some online service to have to treat all clients the same way just because one version was derived from another? Lets say I modify the source code of some browser that is covered by GPLv3. My version has some quirks that make it interpret css differently from the first browser. Would it then be illegal for a website to serve up different css based on my user agent string?
So I got the normal federal subsidized student loans when I went to college. But in between my junior and senior year I decided to take classes during the summer session. This cost extra, and my school recommended suplimental loans from Sallie Mae. Not fully understanding the whole loan system I went ahead and took this extra loan. Well this loan was not federally subsidized, used a variable interest rate based on prime, and is not eligible for consolidation after graduation. This was a big mistake.
At this point, interest rates were pretty low, and my interest rate on this loan was around 4% when I graduated in 2004. This was just a little more than what I could consolidate my federal loans for, so I wasn't too worried. But in the past 2 years the prime rate has doubled, my interest rate is now 8% on this loan. A little while ago I was thinking about the whole savings stuff and amongst other things I opened a CD at my bank at 5% apr. Which historically, isn't too bad for 0 risk (you could probably do even better now that interest rates have gone up again).
But at this point it would make more sense to use that money in the CD to pay back the loan with the high interest rate because I'm losing more paying 8% than I am making 5%. This is why economists make a distinction between 'good' debt and 'bad' debt. My federal student loan which I'm repaying at 3.375% is good because I can make more money by just paying the minimum on that debt and using my current income to earn at a higher interest rate. It's also federally subsidized so in certain cases I can get a deferment which means I can halt payments, and the federal government picks up the interest while the loan is defered. When the deferment period is over, the balance on my loan is exactly the same as when I started deferment.
Here are some of the conditions for deferment that I got from my federal loan holder's website:
You're never going to have a loan with such good terms ever again in your life, take advantage of it. Unfortunately my private loan is completely unsubsidized, and has nothing behind it like car loans or mortgages do. So it's more risky for the bank, which is why you get screwed with the interest rate. I'm guessing rates are about as high as they're going to be right now, so I would consider getting a long term CD from your local bank. But pay attention to your interest rates and pay back loans with higher rates or worse terms first. You've probably got all your debt in federally subsidized loans, so I wouldn't worry about it too much, just pay the minimum and put your money to use elsewhere.
If Robin Williams likes the game, it must be good. ;)
Wow, if you guys watch that video the parent linked to, stay around till the end when he's interviewed a little bit about the games he plays. He really knows his stuff.
From the slashdot summary: Motion Picture Association President Dan Glickman and Electronic Freedom Foundation co-founder Johh Perry Barlow lock horns. And from the linked article: Motion Picture Association President Dan Glickman locks horns with Electronic Frontier Foundation's John Perry Barlow. First of all, if you're not going to use a direct quote, then don't just shuffle around a few words, while still using the exact same phrasing. Second of all get the name of the organization correct, it's Electronic Frontier Foundation.
This sentence was a little confusing the first seven times I read it. So I did what I hardly ever do, go to the source, read the article and gain a fuller understanding of the situation... instead of just posting here about how the summary was confusing.
My misunderstanding stemmed from my thinking that the Kororaa project was just the Live CD. So I was thinking: if they decided to script the downloading and compiling of the nvidia modules why would they then go and decide to cancel the Live CD development? The key here is that they also have a non-live CD version called Kororaa 2005, and soon to be 2006. They are still continuing this distribution, which will prompt the user to download the modules manually as other distros do.
The author's reasoning was kind of strange though, he leads us on a very logical path towards concluding that the Kororaa Live CD does *not* violate the GPL in its current form. He even says For me, with the information at hand, I cannot see how the drivers constitute a GPL violation. Yet he still decides to discontinue the live CD. He also makes a good case about why he doesn't want to have the user download and compile the drivers themselves on boot.
I can't blame him though. He's clearly a supporter of the GPL. He's striving to adhere to the letter and spirit of the license. Oh well, maybe I should check out the standard Kororaa distribution.
It says endowed by their creator, it doesn't say God. My creator is nature and nature's god. My creator is evolution. My creator is my mother and father. Whatever it was that brought me and the rest of mankind into existence is what endowed me with these rights. Whether that 'thing' is a god, a person, or a process, it doesn't matter. I have a mind that can reason, and I can act upon my reasoning; the creator that brought this situation about is also what gave me those rights.
The issue appears to be the distribution of the Linux Kernel and nVidia's/ATI binary drivers together. When the binary drivers are built the GPL'ed code is included in the binary result, which is a violation.
From the nVidia Software License:
Maybe Koraraa could modify their Live CD such that it only includes the source code for the nVidia drivers, this would certainly be legal under the terms of nVidia's software license. Putting the source code for the kernel module on the same CD as other GPL'ed software is certainly no violation of the GPL or nVidia license. Upon boot you could just automatically compile the kernel module from the source and insert the module. The binary kernel module is not being distributed, therefore there is no violation of the GPL.
Just for clarification (I had to look this up myself), the nVidia Linux drivers have two parts: a closed source, binary only, platform independent component; and a kernel module distruted as (non open) source code which acts as an interface layer to the linux kernel. The binary only portion contains no GPL code and can certainly be placed on the same CD as GPL code. The kernel module which would contain the product of compiling GPL and non GPL code would not be distributed on the CD, it would only be compiled on the user's computer upon install.
Would this solution work?
I actually listened to this story last night on the way home (or the day before, can't remember). Anyway, at first I was shocked when I heard the intro, they lost all this sensitive data, did some stuff and then won a PR award. If the actions they took were so great shouldn't they have won some sort of privacy award. Winning a public relations award makes it sound like you did a great job covering it up. But actually listening to the story I found that they really did handle it in a great way for their customers.
One of the things with current physical keys is that if necessary you can 'lose' them, and no one else can open the lock. You can't do this with an implanted RFID key without ripping off your arm. This means someone can kidnap you, and they instantly have access to everything you have access to. There's no throwing your keys off a bridge or 'forgetting' your password, your presence is your password (not even something like a voice print, in which case you could simply refuse to speak).
Heck, if they were ruthless enough, they could simply rip off your arm if they don't actually need you. We don't currently have the technology to grab someone's brain and figure out his password, but a simple hacksaw would do the trick to get an RFID chip.
Why should I take special care to "check out the Postal Service?"
What exactly does this bring to the table? People who had or have an interest in the band probably saw the video in 2003 when it was released. It has NOTHING to do with the software being advertised.
Hey now, calm down now buddy. I'll see if I can help shed some light on the problem. Here's a quote from the summary: It can even scrape web pages for videos. It's an excellent way to find great internet video. For example... It then goes on to talk about the Postal Service video you mentioned. They were using this specific video as an example of how it can scrape web pages for videos, one of the features of this video player. A specific example given to display the features of a product seems very apropos to me.
Perhaps if the video were mentioned in the article it would be more accepta--OH WAIT! What article? All we have is a link to the home page of this project. Okay, it's open source, and it's probably cool. Fine. Submit an article
Since when are articles the only thing you can link to in a slashdot submission? It's an open source video player with (apparently) tons of cool features with its first released linux version. It sounds interesting and slashdot worthy. And, how else could you get any more information about an open source program other than linking to it's web site? Probably better than a press release or article.
Well there are two q's and no u's so I don't think it's a simple jumble. Also, I wonder what the significance of the capitalized J is. If it were just a matter of rearranging the letters then the J would either be the first letter of the phrase, or a name; but what would a capital letter signify amongst lower case letters?
Maybe it could still be a jumble with odd words like 'qasida' and 'qere'. Maybe it's a simple substitution cypher where each letter points to another, and a J represents the same letter as j, just capitalized.
Jonathan Coulton's latest song in his thing-a-week series, Code Monkey...
Oh man, I wanna be this guy so bad...
Ctrl+PgDn / Ctrl+PgUp still worked (does same thing).
Yeah, but I've got a powerbook, so that would be Ctrl+fn+uparrow, just too many keys (okay, the real reason is that I didn't know about it, but it's still too many keys).
Thank God! I've been waiting for this, I couldn't for the life of me understand why this no longer worked on the mac version. I also just found out that you can change firefox's keybindings to be emacs-like on any platform. Actually that article shows you how to change the keybindings to be like anything you want, they just use emacs as an example.
for all of you behind a firewall. Be warned though, https://www.google.com/calendar/render sometimes redirects to http://www.google.com/calendar/render when your session has timed-out. Is there a FF extension that could rewrite urls and force https://www.google.com/calender to be used? Cheers, Palad1 ps: this thing does seem to grok webdav, I'll check tonight with iCal
I've noticed that with gmail google will create an https connection for login, but then returns you to plain http after that. When you're at the login screen, look at the url string, there is a variable in there called 'continue' which is set to "http%3A%2F%2Fmail.google.com/...". I noticed that if I changed this variable to "https%3A%2F%2Fmail.google.com/..." gmail would stay secure after login. I then found out that if you start your session by going to "https://mail.google.com/mail" it will stay secure without having to mess with anything. Just keep that url bookmarked.
This doesn't appear to work with google calendar though. But after you log in, you can just change the address bar to "https://www.google.com/calendar/render" and that seems to work.
Picasa [google.com] for organizing and sharing and printing (and minor editing) pictures. I wasn't much of a believer in this one, but because of its simplicity I recommended and installed and consulted this for friends and family. And finally was hooked -- it really does a great job for all of the organizing I need. (I believe it's probably on the OpenCD). It may not rival the iPhoto (or whatever OS X has), but it's a sweet product.
Picasa is actually much much better than iPhoto. It's user interface is much more usable and looks way better. As a Mac user I'm pissed that Picasa isn't out for Mac, and I'm suprised that Apple hasn't done a better job with iPhoto compared to Picasa. Also, Picasa won't be on the OpenCD. The OpenCD: TheOpenCD is a collection of high quality Free and Open Source Software. Picasa isn't open source software (still wonderful though).
However, the current amazon.co.uk customer service falls FAR short of this standard, and I'm surprised you should mention it as such.
I guess I should have mentioned that I live in the US and therefore use amazon.com. I don't know how much the two entities act differently when it comes to customer service.
you remain stuck with the guys in India, who will answer any query with a non-committal selection of boilerplate garbage.
I've never actually had to call amazon, I might have had to email once or twice, but everything's always been resolved. But I know what you mean by "non-committal selection of boilerplate garbage". With some companies, I feel like I can see them reading straight from the "knowledgebase" on their website which I've already read through, and already explained that I've read through five minutes ago.
If you want great customer service, well... I am hard pressed for an example, to be honest. Amazon.*com* used to be great.
To be honest, I haven't noticed any decline in the customer service at amazon.com. Although I haven't really had to use it in a while, which probably says a lot more about them. If they can design their product/system such that you don't even have to use customer support, then they really know what they're doing. I guess I'm really just thinking about how simple and easy they make it for you to return items to them, they have a very relaxed return policy.
I don't care how valuable NPR is or thinks it is -- as long as they are funded through coercion (taxation), then I will treat them as an organization which is funded through coercion. That is, I will never so much as consider helping them, no matter how much they need it.
What a dick. Do you have any idea just how many organizations, profit and non, receive some funds somehow through the government? I wish this argument worked for my college tuition... since I pay taxes, and some portion of that goes to financial aid, which goes to my college, I should be able to go to college for free.
This is just yet another company that doesn't give too hoots enough to read what you send them or to respond on their forums. The article is talking a whole load of bull from my experiences with apple up to this point.
I've had plenty of experiences with companies that don't even read what you write them. It's the single most frustrating experience I've had. It just happened recently with Intuit (TurboTax). I completely laid out my issue with filing my federal return online, and the response I got sounded like the customer service rep just copied and pasted a response out of their knowledge base which didn't help at all. My problem was that I had already followed those steps and it didn't work, I don't think the support person read anything from my message.
As an interesting note, I've never had an experience like that in the open source world. If you clearly spell out what steps you took, where your problem was, and what you did to try to solve it, people will almost go out of their way to try and help you.
If you ask me, the company with the single best customer service is Amzon(.co.uk). They don't bull you... They are MORE than fair, and don't make you jump though hoops.
I absolutely agree with you here. A lot of people hate Amazon for various reasons, but they have the best customer support. They send instructions for returning your item with your package, and will take back anything no questions asked, whether it's they're fault or not. I've had a couple products which were damaged, and amazon replaced them no questions asked. They are more than fair.
Does the extension automatically remove dupes and fix typos in the titles of submitted stories???
No, but I just used it to reply to your post, and it works pretty well. In the quick reply section of the preferences, I put this in for my format:
And it works great.