Personally, I've always preferred the tactile feel of a mouse, particularly a small one. Macally has a nice optical Bluetooth mouse called the BTMouseJr. As an optical mouse, it will function on almost any non-reflective surface. As a Bluetooth device, no cable is required. (They have the OptiMicro if you don't have Bluetooth or don't want to deal with batteries.)
To avoid the possible problem of needing to use your laptop without an available mousing surface, just slap some gaffer's tape to the right of your trackpad, or cover it entirely. I've found that you need surprisingly little space to mouse accuratly. In addition, most current operating systems will allow you to disable the trackpad when a mouse is connected, and some can disable it entirely on command. Gaffer's tape is similar to duct tape, but is matte rather than reflective. (It's usually black.) You can also find more elegant solutions vis-a-vis adhesive mouse pads, though you will need to trim them to fit. (Hint: mark out your lines beforehand, or you'll likely end up with crooked edges. Ask me how I know.);-) Alternatively, there are a number of super-thin mouse pads to be had for very little that can simply be glued into place, or kept loose to be stow-able to protect your laptop's finish.
If you prefer a trackball to a mouse, you may already have your best solution, unless you want to use one of those annoying little button that comes on the Thinkpads. (No offense to Thinkpad users intended; I've just never liked the feel or apparent lack of close accuracy that I associate with it.) If not, a small, portable mouse may be your best bet.
Uh... perhaps you should READ my post. I'm not talking about Wal-Mart carrying them as products. I'm talking about Wal-Mart USING them as automated salespeople and anti-theft devices.
What on Earth makes you think you wouldn't see this at Wal-Mart? If they can mass-produce something for pennies (or nearly that, compared to others) that will help them gain even more market share by being the most visually-impared-friendly store on the planet, you can bet they will. It's not like they don't already been having fun with using RFID tags. Case in point: Wal-Mart's top 100 suppliers have been told to have their products chipped by the first of this year. In other words, it's likely already in place. Not with ALL of them, mind you, but with many.
Regardless, it's not like self-check-out. What we're talking about is helping a visually-impared person find what they need... and likely making "helpful" suggestions along the way. In other words, helping them make considerably more sales than this visually-impared user would likely make if they simply grabbed an already-busy Wal-Mart employee to help them find something. And who's to say use of such devices would be limited to the visually-impared? Anyone not very familiar with a given store's layout would now have audible directions to what they want... again with "helpful" suggestions as they pass them. And... the "anti-theft" options are limitless. (X was in cart before checkout, Y was purchased, X is still in the cart... call security!)
Seems like a no-brainer for anyone looking at the numbers.
According to Dr. Alan Greene, you are correct in your supposition that independent studies contradict each other regarding this issue. However, both are true, from a certain point of view:
"Is antibacterial soap the best cleansing agent? The scientific studies comparing antibacterial soap to regular soap give apparently contradictory results. Some studies show it is better, others that it is worse, and others seem to show no difference. Taken together, these studies indicate that antibacterial soaps are more effective at reducing infections by some organisms (especially staph and strep); they are worse at preventing some types of infections (especially by some of the organisms called gram negative bacteria, since the antibacterial soaps kill much of the beneficial bacteria that normally live on our skin and protect us from some of these gram negative organisms); and they make no difference for some types of infections (such as cytomegalovirus [CMV], or Clostridia -- the bacteria that cause gangrene)."
The answer depends on the type of bacteria you are trying to kill. I have also read that most people don't leave the soap on their hands long enough to have a serious antibacterial effect, anyway. At most, people usually leave antibacterial soap on their hands for a maximum of 20 seconds. It is recommended that, if you wish the antibacterial properties to come into play, you leave the soap on your hands as you would a moisturizing lotion.
Obviously, this is not an ideal solution. I suppose one could try to find out "how long" the chemicals would need to remain on your skin long enough to kill whatever might be present, but otherwise it would seem that the antibacterial effects would be wasted, and thus, detrimental at best. I'd suggest dipping your hands in rubbing alcohol or something similar for the 20 seconds that you'd have otherwise spent making sure the soap touches every part of your hands.
A few years ago, there was a concern/rumor making the rounds that anti-bacterial soap would cause super-strains of bacteria to appear, having built up resistances to the soaps we use. A roommate asked me once if I thought this meant he should stop using the stuff.
At the time, I answered by asking him if he should leave his doors unlocked, to prevent thieves from becoming smarter. However, now that antibiotics have made it out into the environment in a much larger scope, I'm forced to re-think my answer. Any thoughts?
Well, quickly browsing through otherarticles she's written, a pro-microsoft/anti-linux bias can clearly be shown. This isn't the first time GrokLaw has reported on O'Gara. She also seems to go for more sensational headlines, in general. I can't say I'm terribly surprised. Here's my favorite quote:
O'Gara's fondness for anonymous sources and unattributed quotes diminishes the corroborative value of the story.
But I assume that this does not cover software, music and videos?
As far as I am aware, yes it does. Policies may have changed, but I successfully returned a game that I just never ended up playing. Now, I didn't open it, but I didn't get the sense that they would have cared if I did. When in doubt, ask 'em.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines "criminal" as follows:
Of, involving, or having the nature of crime: criminal abuse.
Relating to the administration of penal law.
a. Guilty of crime.
b. Characteristic of a criminal.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Law defines "criminal" thus:
relating to, involving, or being a crime <criminal neglect> <criminal
conduct>
relating to crime or its prosecution <brought a criminal action> <criminal
code> compare CIVIL 4, PENAL
Also from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Law, Definition 4 of "civil"
is:
relating to private rights and to judicial proceedings in connection with
them; especially : relating to legal matters other than those characterized
as criminal <a civil action> <a civil infraction>
There were, of course, other definitions present for these words, but they
were not directly related to this issue. My point is this: current legal actions
by organizations such as the MPAA and RIAA aside, copyright infringement has
yet to be classified as "criminal". It is still a civil issue. Your
letter does not clarify this point, and I feel that it is an important one.
Your letter likens copyright infringement to a crime that you can get arrested
for; it is not. It is very important that our representatives understand this
distinction. The alternative is that they *do* lump it into the same category,
and that no one will listen to reason. (By saying "listen to reason",
I mean "listen to me".);-)
However, I think there may be problems if they don't carry the item anymore.
Nope. If you keep your receipt, you're fine. Without the receipt, you'll get the last price the item sold for, if it's still in their system. So, keep your receipt.:-)
I buy my hard drives at Costco. (They don't sell them online; only at local stores.)
A little known fact about stores like this is that their return policy is "unlimited". They have a sign posted that says "it is helpful if you return the product with original receipt, in 30 days", etc. "Helpful", but not required. Of course, it's likely that the product will drop in price by the time you return it so you'd better keep the receipt... but the timeline is only a suggestion. It is generally thought that this policy is only 6 months... but that's for COMPLETE COMPUTER SYSTEMS. ("Desktop and notebook computers".) Everything else in the store (including peripherals) can be returned as long as you keep your membership.
Recently, I picked up a Maxtor external USB 2.0/Firewire external 160GB 8MB Cache drive with all necessary cables for $109. It's not the largest drive on the planet, but the price is decent, and the "warranty" is second to none. If I decide I don't like the color four years from now, I can just bring it back. It was also nice that it shipped with both firewire and USB cables so it was ready to go, out of the box.
Granted, there's nothing that can give the peace of mind of a decent backup. Also, their selection is somewhat minimal. But data aside, I have yet to find a better guarantee for hardware than Costco's.
It seems to me that you're missing an important point of the guy's e-mail to you:
He sent you a warning.
And not only that; he probably sent it to everyone on his list of "thousands of member names". Don't you wonder why YOU of all people received it, having no previously existing relationship with him? It's because you *weren't* the only one who received it. At least two people who replied to your Spymac post had also received it, so you're obviously not the only one.
They guy was clearly concerned with a vulnerability at Spymac, not trying to take advantage of it. Don't you detect the mild sarcasm he used? They guy isn't recruiting accomplices; he's making a statement to members.
The guy says (paraphrased) that he just got hold of all this info. Coupled with [public member info] and [specific techniques], he could compile a very complete list of member data. Now, he says he could do [evil thing1], [evil thing 2] or [evil thing 3]... or, "or simply ask Spymac to GET THEIR ACT TOGETHER and FIX EXISTING PROBLEMS like this gaping security hole before they introduce ever new functions?? I should never have been able to get my hands on this!"
Uh, hello? That was a direct quote, with his emphasis, not mine. He's not a criminal (yet, anyway), and he doesn't deserve any kind of justice, vigilante or otherwise. He's simply made it blantently obvious to at least one user (you) of a service that their data is not secure.
Now, maybe it would be appropriate for you to contact the Spymac folks to make them aware of the issue. (If they aren't already, based on the fact that many of their employees probably have their own accounts, and that he's probably e-mailed quite a few people, if my assumption is not off.) It might also be appropriate to contact him directly (if possible) and make sure he's... "guided" to the proper methods for disclosure of the data to the applicable folks and deleting it. But to go after him for doing nothing more than producing an effective proof-of-concept... he doesn't deserve what you're asking about.
Of course, it's possible that he hacked their server... but it doesn't sound like it. He said "Played around the other day with Spymac and suddenly... I couldn't believe my eyes: A list with thousands of member names right there in front of me! " That *could* be hacking (perhaps some vigilante reconnaissance would be appropriate), but something makes me doubt it.
While I think it's great that yet another "identity thief" (sort of) has been busted, this does little to stem the flow of spam. What we truly need are more cases that are strictly based on the sending of unsolicited commercial e-mail. We've got some great and not so great legislation out there to protect us... why aren't we using it? Because it costs too much?
And yes, I know that there have been a fewlandmarkcases recently, but a few big falls aren't going to convince spammers as a whole to stop spamming. An concerted effort to shut them down via thousands of small lawsuits from you and I would be much more likely to have an effect, in my humble opinion.
I don't think people dislike monopolies. They dislike what monopolies have come to represent, and what they can lead to. I don't hate the idea of a monopoly. Do you? I just don't like the apparent and usually inevitable consequences.
Monopolies aren't inherently evil, just like dictators. It's just that in almost every example of their existence, they have shown to be detrimental to individuals, businesses, or society as a whole. A "benevolent", utilitarian dictator with the intent to make life better for his/her people could be beneficial to society. He/she would not be limited by legislation, and could focus on working towards a better future without worrying about bureaucracy or red tape. History demonstrates that any good utilitarian tries to amass as much wealth and influence as possible in order to serve these exact purposes. The more power they have, the better job they can do to serve the people. Humans would do much better with a benevolent dictator that they could ever come close to with any semblance of democracy.
Of course, history also demonstrates that absolute power corrupts absolutely. The day the "benevolent" dictator decides that they've done enough for society and that it's time to serve themselves is the day that everything goes downhill. The unfortunate fact is that those who would make good dictators would never be ruthless enough to attain such power. If they were, they probably wouldn't be in the best interest of the public good.
A monopoly is not bad in theory. If a company or organization had a monopoly on... say, microchips, they could drive the technology much faster and better, because they would control every aspect of it. They wouldn't have to worry so much about their software being compatible with their hardware, because they always know exactly what processor is being used. They wouldn't have to fight with competitors over standards, and could add as much functionality as they wanted, setting their own standards.
Unfortunately, theory is not the real world. In practice, monopolies don't do things because they're in the best interest of the public. They do them because they're in the best interest of the company. (Or at least, the company's officers.) This leads to higher profits (theoretically), but lower customer satisfaction. Some side-effects include buggy software, products that fail or break sooner than they should, etc. Because of this, the getting-screwed-public gets fed up and starts hollering. Thus, everyone hates monopolies. But what if the products and services of a monopoly just worked? I'll bet John Q. Public wouldn't care one way or the other at that point.
The average person doesn't care if something goes well. They become livid when there's a problem. A customer won't usually do very much if a company does their job exceedingly well. They will usually boycott the company and stage a rally if the company does poorly. I took an entrepreneurship class in 1992, and learned that the average person would tell 3 people when they were pleased with a product or service, but 11 when they were displeased. Since the internet became the next big thing (around 1994-1995) those numbers have probably skyrocketed. Humans are a loud, complaining bunch.
So is a monopoly bad? Not inherently, but they usually end up that way. I'd say that no one is going after ARM because their products just work and don't seem to cause problems. Their monopoly has not intentionally shut down any competition, or blatantly violated anti-trust laws. Until they screw us, I say more power to 'em.
Take it to your local filling station, and fill it with six or seven gallons of gas.
Note the amount the pump claims.
Take your mostly full container home, and measure out the gas in the container with an accurately calibrated container of your choice.
Now if the pump claims 6.83 gallons, and you only measured 6.27 gallons, you can get excited.
You're forgetting about liquid congruity and cohesion. You know how you can never quite get all the water out of a water bottle when you're drinking from one? Liquid sticks to the surface it touches, and you always end up leaving some behind. Another example of this would be to look closely at a glass of water, and watch how the liquid creeps up the side of the glass instead of staying level. The larger the container, the greater the inner surface area and thus, the more liquid you will leave behind.
You're going to make your test inaccurate merely by transferring the gasoline from one container to another. You will *always* have less than you started with after you transfer liquid. In addition, you're also going to have to worry about evaporation, especially if you do your test very far from the gas station. It is generally considered unsafe to transport liquid fuels in standard sealed containers, particularly unstable ones like gasoline, so some is going to evaporate while you travel. That's why an accurate container must be brought on-site.
A challenge for/. readers -- go buy some gasoline in graduated containers, and check for yourself [avoid 1,5, and 10 gallon sizes; many states use these for testing purposes and the computers inside the pumps 'catch up' temporarily at these intervals].
You'd better know what you're doing, or you're wasting your time. According to the article:
Some people take one of those red, five-gallon containers, fill it up with five gallons of gas and they think that's accurate,'' Pedersen said. "Those portable containers are not calibrated and different weather conditions can change the amount they hold. They are not an accurate measure of five gallons of gas
I have a feeling that most "graduated containers" that people have are going to have the same issue. Then again, I imagine that the Slashdot community just might be made up of a slightly higher percentage of scientifically-minded individuals.;-) So, perhaps a few of you might actually have a realistic chance at accuracy. Just bear in mind that the state is going to be using precisely-calibrated instruments, and know how to use them. You'd best do the same, or you'll just look like an idiot.
I don't know about you, but for the past three days, all of our staff (we are a virtual company of 20 telecommuters) and clients have been unable to get email to one another reliably. Attachments disappear or become garbled, mail disappears into the great beyond, or arrives hours after it has been sent, even within the same ISP.
Everyone has e-mail troubles, but to assume that it's because of the evil spammers and "security concerns" inherent in e-mail is ridiculous, and borders on negligent. If your server is internal, you need to find a new sysadmin. If it's external, you need to find a new host. If the person running your server knows what he/she's doing, this sort of thing rarely (if ever) happens.
No offense intended, but what you've said is the rough equivalent of saying "The car that I drive too fast, too often, don't change the oil in, and paid my neighbor's 16-year-old kid who takes autoshop to fix has finally stopped working. That must mean that internal-combustion engines are at the end of their life!"
If you aren't just talking about environmental impact, what's the solution? Give up on cars, or find someone who actually knows how to maintain them?
I'm a little disappointed in the editors for allowing this story.:-(
Of course, you can also enable a screensaver password, and have the screensaver running all the time, configure the BIOS not to allow booting from the floppy drive, and use password access to the BIOS to disallow unauthorized changes to it.
It sounds like your easiest (read: less time to deal with and less worry of hacking headaches) solutions is just to toss the suckers into one of those cabinets listed above. Hell, you can build the cabinet yourself for under $100, if you're any good with power tools and have a spare afternoon.
I warned them that they needed to improve their security, but was ignored until a hacker kindly emailed them proof that their credit-card server was compromised, and the Sasser Worm took us offline.
You're already doing your job, and not being listened to. Since I'm not a sysadmin, I've got no direct advice for you regarding the tracking of such activity. However, it seems to me that this is the smaller of two problems. The first is being able to do your job from a technical perspective. The second (and it seems, more immediate) problem is being able to do your job from a political perspective.
Your boss has already watched his public facing site(s) and servers go down due to his failure to listen to you. Now it sounds like he's about to make the same fatal mistake. This, of course, places you in the lovely position of having to remind him that he's about to make another major tactical error... but you also have to do so in as subtle manner as possible, so it doesn't sound like a recrimination. All I can suggest is to try to make it blatantly obvious to him without coming out and saying it, thus giving him the opportunity to "discover" his error and correct it on his own.
One other suggestion: document, document, DOCUMENT! Make sure that you can prove later (should it be necessary) that you did everything you could. This is another area of vital importance for your job security that also must be done very carefully. Simply CCing the higher-ups will likely piss off your boss (and possibly the folks you're CCing as well), and may look like unnecessary whistle-blowing or complaining. Do it as unobtrusively as possible, but make sure that you're covered, in case there's any question later.
One possible solution to both problems is to communicate all of your concerns in an e-mail. Write it during your lunch hour, so he can't get upset at you for "wasting" more company time on it. Make it clear exactly why you think there is an issue, and mention (if you can do so gently and without provoking him) the past incident. Remember that if you want someone to do something, you shouldn't tell them why *you* want them to do it. They don't care about what you want. Tell them why *they* want to do it. Best-case scenario, he listens. Worst-case scenario, he gets a little more annoyed at you, but you've got your documentation.
With the elections only a week away, it's surprising that these important issues have attracted little or no debate.
No it's not, and you go on to explain why:
The current Heritage Committee, for instance, has recommended that Canada ratify WIPO, and few citizens (let alone politicians) are even aware of this issue."
Unfortunately for our children, Joe Average sees that his friends and family are getting in trouble for what used to be expected of him to do, but doesn't ever make the connection. It's up to us to explain to our less paranoid friends and family exactly *why* things are headed in the wrong direction. Of course, it's somewhat difficult to do without sounding paranoid schizophrenic yourself, but do it anyway. At this point, it's our civic duty.
Go to this site or google or ebay and then tell me about attractive = requirement.
An excellent idea. Actually, I think the design treatments applied on Google's site are excellent, and you can bet they spent quite a bit developing it. They have a nice-looking, fast-loading logo that exists on every page, reinforcing their brand. It is further reinforced by using the logo as a navigational tool, with the "o"s scaling out as more and more results become available. Other than that, design is minimal, both to decrease loading time and to avoid distracting attention from the search results. Slashdot's design is also attractive, to a particular audience, and certainly makes each article, navigation section and callout easy to read, without making the site too busy. And guess what kind of people are attracted to the eBay school of design? The kind who buy things. Lots of things, the gaudier the better. These sites are attractive to their respective audiences. Regardless, the statement you quoted was not intended to say that "pretty pictures" must *always* be present. It was intended to refute the idea that they should *never* be present.
That's why you shouldn't design to a particular resolution your site becomes unusable when, say, I have two windows on my screen. Or I fire up the Treo... or for that matter, when my half-blind dad browses at 640x480 on his 19" monitor.
In an ideal world, you'd be correct... but it isn't an ideal world. If your site requires a significant amount of navigation, you're going to be stuck indenting all of your content at least 100-150 pixels to the left. If you use less than 400-ish pixels for your content area, your text becomes difficult to read. To compensate for the many different browsers and resolutions, browser-sniffing was invented. Thus, we can often get information about the user's machine before we even deliver the code to the user's browser, saving the trouble of scaling the site down by two thirds or more. Instead, we just deliver an entirely different template.
This line of thought begins to address something you mentioned earlier: target markets. If you know what your market is, you can design for it. If your market is corporate workers and executives, you design for it. If your market is mobile users, you design for it. If your market is IT professionals and geeks, you design for it. In any case, you need to know what to design for, and studies like the ones that spawned this article will give you a basis to start with. I'm not advocating that you should design sites specifically engineered to be unable to scale. Sure, it's possible to design sites that scale wonderfully. But it's also quite common to get a client spec that requires so much that there's no way it can scale gracefully.
The point of my post was to explain why knowing what the market is using is important, not to say that we should pigeonhole our sites for any standard "just because". That includes pigeonholing sites that "must be scalable in six dimentions". Sure, scalability is important, but it isn't always possible to do. It depends on your market, your requirements, and your client. Knowing all of these things requires research, which is exactly what this article has collected. That's why it matters, and that's the real point I'm trying to make.
Having standardized sizes matters to develop a universally usable site. It's not just a marketing ploy; in many cases, it's a legal requirement. Before you complain about how little it matters and demand that people be flexible, consider the following:
First, a site must be attractive. You may be a purist who still thinks that pretty pictures and good design isn't necessary if you present enough information, but you'd be wrong. Unfortunately, people still judge things by their looks. Even if you've presented your information in such a way as to make it extraordinarily easy to use and navigate, many people will never know that. Often, they'll see that your site looks like crap and figure your business is run the same way. Imagine yourself in the lobby of a company you're considering doing business with. Sure, the walls are sound and the furniture doesn't have holes in it. But if everything is cheap white plastic and particleboard, you're going to wonder if this company isn't just some fly-by-night operation. Thus, having an attractive site is important.
Second, the World Wide Web Consortium has very specific requirements for a page to be "usable". What happens if you don't do it there way? Well, you can be sued, for one thing. Also, your company will not be allowed to do business with the government, as you are most likely not in compliance with section 508, the same series of regulations that require wheelchair access, braille, and other accessibility assists for those with disabilities.
Third, you've got to make your site usable. Usability is not the same as accessibility. A 100% accessible site can be 99% unusable if it isn't clear what a user should do, how they should navigate, etc. Just because you've got braille on all of your stairways doesn't mean your users will know what floor to hit if you don't have a building directory somewhere, easy to find and easy to read. As such, it's important to make sure any idiot can navigate your site with ease. Do user testing. Record the sessions. Don't focus so much on what your users say, so much as what they do. I once had a user try to click on something that wasn't a link (but that could have been), then tell me he "should've known better"... but he didn't. (Naturally, it was a link an hour later.);-)
Once you've established that your site has to be cleanly and professionally designed, accessible and usable, you now have to make sure none of these elements breaks as you move from machine to machine, browser to browser, and platform to platform. You'll quickly notice that suddenly, you can't make your site scale as much as you want. You see that smoothly-flowing text on a 800x600 screen looks hopelessly cluttered on a 640x480 screen and ridiculously wide, yet short on a 1024x768 screen. You begin to develop visual guides that will work with lower monitor resolutions, yet still look professional on the larger screens. Your designers produce a style guide that begins to define specific column widths and template sizes. And you notice... that the web really isn't as scalable as you thought it was.
What the standard is matters because, if you want to be taken seriously or treated professionally, you had damn well make sure that your site is attractive, accessible, and usable. If not, you'll watch all of your competition march on by, taking your audience with it, regardless of whether you're out to make money or not. If your audience sees that someone else offers the same thing you do, but it's nicer and easier to use, they're going to go see that someone else, and that will be that. You had better take into account what resolutions your users have at their disposal, or your sites will cease to exist.
Slashdot Mirror
Personally, I've always preferred the tactile feel of a mouse, particularly a small one. Macally has a nice optical Bluetooth mouse called the BTMouseJr. As an optical mouse, it will function on almost any non-reflective surface. As a Bluetooth device, no cable is required. (They have the OptiMicro if you don't have Bluetooth or don't want to deal with batteries.)
To avoid the possible problem of needing to use your laptop without an available mousing surface, just slap some gaffer's tape to the right of your trackpad, or cover it entirely. I've found that you need surprisingly little space to mouse accuratly. In addition, most current operating systems will allow you to disable the trackpad when a mouse is connected, and some can disable it entirely on command. Gaffer's tape is similar to duct tape, but is matte rather than reflective. (It's usually black.) You can also find more elegant solutions vis-a-vis adhesive mouse pads, though you will need to trim them to fit. (Hint: mark out your lines beforehand, or you'll likely end up with crooked edges. Ask me how I know.) ;-) Alternatively, there are a number of super-thin mouse pads to be had for very little that can simply be glued into place, or kept loose to be stow-able to protect your laptop's finish.
If you prefer a trackball to a mouse, you may already have your best solution, unless you want to use one of those annoying little button that comes on the Thinkpads. (No offense to Thinkpad users intended; I've just never liked the feel or apparent lack of close accuracy that I associate with it.) If not, a small, portable mouse may be your best bet.
Good luck! :-)
Uh... perhaps you should READ my post. I'm not talking about Wal-Mart carrying them as products. I'm talking about Wal-Mart USING them as automated salespeople and anti-theft devices.
What on Earth makes you think you wouldn't see this at Wal-Mart? If they can mass-produce something for pennies (or nearly that, compared to others) that will help them gain even more market share by being the most visually-impared-friendly store on the planet, you can bet they will. It's not like they don't already been having fun with using RFID tags. Case in point: Wal-Mart's top 100 suppliers have been told to have their products chipped by the first of this year. In other words, it's likely already in place. Not with ALL of them, mind you, but with many.
Regardless, it's not like self-check-out. What we're talking about is helping a visually-impared person find what they need... and likely making "helpful" suggestions along the way. In other words, helping them make considerably more sales than this visually-impared user would likely make if they simply grabbed an already-busy Wal-Mart employee to help them find something. And who's to say use of such devices would be limited to the visually-impared? Anyone not very familiar with a given store's layout would now have audible directions to what they want... again with "helpful" suggestions as they pass them. And... the "anti-theft" options are limitless. (X was in cart before checkout, Y was purchased, X is still in the cart... call security!)
Seems like a no-brainer for anyone looking at the numbers.
...and they did a rather disturbing little demonstration of it:
http://www.aclu.org/pizza/
According to Dr. Alan Greene, you are correct in your supposition that independent studies contradict each other regarding this issue. However, both are true, from a certain point of view:
The answer depends on the type of bacteria you are trying to kill. I have also read that most people don't leave the soap on their hands long enough to have a serious antibacterial effect, anyway. At most, people usually leave antibacterial soap on their hands for a maximum of 20 seconds. It is recommended that, if you wish the antibacterial properties to come into play, you leave the soap on your hands as you would a moisturizing lotion.
Obviously, this is not an ideal solution. I suppose one could try to find out "how long" the chemicals would need to remain on your skin long enough to kill whatever might be present, but otherwise it would seem that the antibacterial effects would be wasted, and thus, detrimental at best. I'd suggest dipping your hands in rubbing alcohol or something similar for the 20 seconds that you'd have otherwise spent making sure the soap touches every part of your hands.
A few years ago, there was a concern/rumor making the rounds that anti-bacterial soap would cause super-strains of bacteria to appear, having built up resistances to the soaps we use. A roommate asked me once if I thought this meant he should stop using the stuff. At the time, I answered by asking him if he should leave his doors unlocked, to prevent thieves from becoming smarter. However, now that antibiotics have made it out into the environment in a much larger scope, I'm forced to re-think my answer. Any thoughts?
Check out Mother of Storms by John Barnes. EXACTLY this theory was the premise of the book... though taken to it's extreme, of course. :-)
As far as I am aware, yes it does. Policies may have changed, but I successfully returned a game that I just never ended up playing. Now, I didn't open it, but I didn't get the sense that they would have cared if I did. When in doubt, ask 'em.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Law defines "criminal" thus:
Also from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Law, Definition 4 of "civil" is:
There were, of course, other definitions present for these words, but they were not directly related to this issue. My point is this: current legal actions by organizations such as the MPAA and RIAA aside, copyright infringement has yet to be classified as "criminal". It is still a civil issue. Your letter does not clarify this point, and I feel that it is an important one. Your letter likens copyright infringement to a crime that you can get arrested for; it is not. It is very important that our representatives understand this distinction. The alternative is that they *do* lump it into the same category, and that no one will listen to reason. (By saying "listen to reason", I mean "listen to me".) ;-)
Nope. If you keep your receipt, you're fine. Without the receipt, you'll get the last price the item sold for, if it's still in their system. So, keep your receipt. :-)
I buy my hard drives at Costco. (They don't sell them online; only at local stores.)
A little known fact about stores like this is that their return policy is "unlimited". They have a sign posted that says "it is helpful if you return the product with original receipt, in 30 days", etc. "Helpful", but not required. Of course, it's likely that the product will drop in price by the time you return it so you'd better keep the receipt... but the timeline is only a suggestion. It is generally thought that this policy is only 6 months... but that's for COMPLETE COMPUTER SYSTEMS. ("Desktop and notebook computers".) Everything else in the store (including peripherals) can be returned as long as you keep your membership.
Recently, I picked up a Maxtor external USB 2.0/Firewire external 160GB 8MB Cache drive with all necessary cables for $109. It's not the largest drive on the planet, but the price is decent, and the "warranty" is second to none. If I decide I don't like the color four years from now, I can just bring it back. It was also nice that it shipped with both firewire and USB cables so it was ready to go, out of the box.
Granted, there's nothing that can give the peace of mind of a decent backup. Also, their selection is somewhat minimal. But data aside, I have yet to find a better guarantee for hardware than Costco's.
Accidentally sleep in? Get caught embezzling? Grope the wrong person at work? The script kiddies made me do it!
And they'll probably believe you, with the rest of the mayhem going on in the office... Just think of the new form of "pop-ups" that will appear. :-P
It seems to me that you're missing an important point of the guy's e-mail to you:
He sent you a warning.
And not only that; he probably sent it to everyone on his list of "thousands of member names". Don't you wonder why YOU of all people received it, having no previously existing relationship with him? It's because you *weren't* the only one who received it. At least two people who replied to your Spymac post had also received it, so you're obviously not the only one.
They guy was clearly concerned with a vulnerability at Spymac, not trying to take advantage of it. Don't you detect the mild sarcasm he used? They guy isn't recruiting accomplices; he's making a statement to members.
The guy says (paraphrased) that he just got hold of all this info. Coupled with [public member info] and [specific techniques], he could compile a very complete list of member data. Now, he says he could do [evil thing1], [evil thing 2] or [evil thing 3]... or, "or simply ask Spymac to GET THEIR ACT TOGETHER and FIX EXISTING PROBLEMS like this gaping security hole before they introduce ever new functions?? I should never have been able to get my hands on this!"
Uh, hello? That was a direct quote, with his emphasis, not mine. He's not a criminal (yet, anyway), and he doesn't deserve any kind of justice, vigilante or otherwise. He's simply made it blantently obvious to at least one user (you) of a service that their data is not secure.
Now, maybe it would be appropriate for you to contact the Spymac folks to make them aware of the issue. (If they aren't already, based on the fact that many of their employees probably have their own accounts, and that he's probably e-mailed quite a few people, if my assumption is not off.) It might also be appropriate to contact him directly (if possible) and make sure he's... "guided" to the proper methods for disclosure of the data to the applicable folks and deleting it. But to go after him for doing nothing more than producing an effective proof-of-concept... he doesn't deserve what you're asking about.
Of course, it's possible that he hacked their server... but it doesn't sound like it. He said "Played around the other day with Spymac and suddenly... I couldn't believe my eyes: A list with thousands of member names right there in front of me! " That *could* be hacking (perhaps some vigilante reconnaissance would be appropriate), but something makes me doubt it.
A) It's intended to be mildly humorous.
B) It's an edit of a quote from The Register.
C) New holes are often discovered weekly for these packages.
I mean, come on. It's just a sig. It could've been worse. I can't believe I'm wasting time defending this.
While I think it's great that yet another "identity thief" (sort of) has been busted, this does little to stem the flow of spam. What we truly need are more cases that are strictly based on the sending of unsolicited commercial e-mail. We've got some great and not so great legislation out there to protect us... why aren't we using it? Because it costs too much?
And yes, I know that there have been a few landmark cases recently, but a few big falls aren't going to convince spammers as a whole to stop spamming. An concerted effort to shut them down via thousands of small lawsuits from you and I would be much more likely to have an effect, in my humble opinion.
I don't think people dislike monopolies. They dislike what monopolies have come to represent, and what they can lead to. I don't hate the idea of a monopoly. Do you? I just don't like the apparent and usually inevitable consequences.
Monopolies aren't inherently evil, just like dictators. It's just that in almost every example of their existence, they have shown to be detrimental to individuals, businesses, or society as a whole. A "benevolent", utilitarian dictator with the intent to make life better for his/her people could be beneficial to society. He/she would not be limited by legislation, and could focus on working towards a better future without worrying about bureaucracy or red tape. History demonstrates that any good utilitarian tries to amass as much wealth and influence as possible in order to serve these exact purposes. The more power they have, the better job they can do to serve the people. Humans would do much better with a benevolent dictator that they could ever come close to with any semblance of democracy.
Of course, history also demonstrates that absolute power corrupts absolutely. The day the "benevolent" dictator decides that they've done enough for society and that it's time to serve themselves is the day that everything goes downhill. The unfortunate fact is that those who would make good dictators would never be ruthless enough to attain such power. If they were, they probably wouldn't be in the best interest of the public good.
A monopoly is not bad in theory. If a company or organization had a monopoly on... say, microchips, they could drive the technology much faster and better, because they would control every aspect of it. They wouldn't have to worry so much about their software being compatible with their hardware, because they always know exactly what processor is being used. They wouldn't have to fight with competitors over standards, and could add as much functionality as they wanted, setting their own standards.
Unfortunately, theory is not the real world. In practice, monopolies don't do things because they're in the best interest of the public. They do them because they're in the best interest of the company. (Or at least, the company's officers.) This leads to higher profits (theoretically), but lower customer satisfaction. Some side-effects include buggy software, products that fail or break sooner than they should, etc. Because of this, the getting-screwed-public gets fed up and starts hollering. Thus, everyone hates monopolies. But what if the products and services of a monopoly just worked? I'll bet John Q. Public wouldn't care one way or the other at that point.
The average person doesn't care if something goes well. They become livid when there's a problem. A customer won't usually do very much if a company does their job exceedingly well. They will usually boycott the company and stage a rally if the company does poorly. I took an entrepreneurship class in 1992, and learned that the average person would tell 3 people when they were pleased with a product or service, but 11 when they were displeased. Since the internet became the next big thing (around 1994-1995) those numbers have probably skyrocketed. Humans are a loud, complaining bunch.
So is a monopoly bad? Not inherently, but they usually end up that way. I'd say that no one is going after ARM because their products just work and don't seem to cause problems. Their monopoly has not intentionally shut down any competition, or blatantly violated anti-trust laws. Until they screw us, I say more power to 'em.
You're forgetting about liquid congruity and cohesion. You know how you can never quite get all the water out of a water bottle when you're drinking from one? Liquid sticks to the surface it touches, and you always end up leaving some behind. Another example of this would be to look closely at a glass of water, and watch how the liquid creeps up the side of the glass instead of staying level. The larger the container, the greater the inner surface area and thus, the more liquid you will leave behind.
You're going to make your test inaccurate merely by transferring the gasoline from one container to another. You will *always* have less than you started with after you transfer liquid. In addition, you're also going to have to worry about evaporation, especially if you do your test very far from the gas station. It is generally considered unsafe to transport liquid fuels in standard sealed containers, particularly unstable ones like gasoline, so some is going to evaporate while you travel. That's why an accurate container must be brought on-site.
You'd better know what you're doing, or you're wasting your time. According to the article:
I have a feeling that most "graduated containers" that people have are going to have the same issue. Then again, I imagine that the Slashdot community just might be made up of a slightly higher percentage of scientifically-minded individuals. ;-) So, perhaps a few of you might actually have a realistic chance at accuracy. Just bear in mind that the state is going to be using precisely-calibrated instruments, and know how to use them. You'd best do the same, or you'll just look like an idiot.
Everyone has e-mail troubles, but to assume that it's because of the evil spammers and "security concerns" inherent in e-mail is ridiculous, and borders on negligent. If your server is internal, you need to find a new sysadmin. If it's external, you need to find a new host. If the person running your server knows what he/she's doing, this sort of thing rarely (if ever) happens.
No offense intended, but what you've said is the rough equivalent of saying "The car that I drive too fast, too often, don't change the oil in, and paid my neighbor's 16-year-old kid who takes autoshop to fix has finally stopped working. That must mean that internal-combustion engines are at the end of their life!"
If you aren't just talking about environmental impact, what's the solution? Give up on cars, or find someone who actually knows how to maintain them?
I'm a little disappointed in the editors for allowing this story. :-(
Well, if I'm understanding what you're trying to do, you've got both software and operating system options, as well as a whole bunch of hardware solutions.
Of course, you can also enable a screensaver password, and have the screensaver running all the time, configure the BIOS not to allow booting from the floppy drive, and use password access to the BIOS to disallow unauthorized changes to it.
It sounds like your easiest (read: less time to deal with and less worry of hacking headaches) solutions is just to toss the suckers into one of those cabinets listed above. Hell, you can build the cabinet yourself for under $100, if you're any good with power tools and have a spare afternoon.
You're already doing your job, and not being listened to. Since I'm not a sysadmin, I've got no direct advice for you regarding the tracking of such activity. However, it seems to me that this is the smaller of two problems. The first is being able to do your job from a technical perspective. The second (and it seems, more immediate) problem is being able to do your job from a political perspective.
Your boss has already watched his public facing site(s) and servers go down due to his failure to listen to you. Now it sounds like he's about to make the same fatal mistake. This, of course, places you in the lovely position of having to remind him that he's about to make another major tactical error... but you also have to do so in as subtle manner as possible, so it doesn't sound like a recrimination. All I can suggest is to try to make it blatantly obvious to him without coming out and saying it, thus giving him the opportunity to "discover" his error and correct it on his own.
One other suggestion: document, document, DOCUMENT! Make sure that you can prove later (should it be necessary) that you did everything you could. This is another area of vital importance for your job security that also must be done very carefully. Simply CCing the higher-ups will likely piss off your boss (and possibly the folks you're CCing as well), and may look like unnecessary whistle-blowing or complaining. Do it as unobtrusively as possible, but make sure that you're covered, in case there's any question later.
One possible solution to both problems is to communicate all of your concerns in an e-mail. Write it during your lunch hour, so he can't get upset at you for "wasting" more company time on it. Make it clear exactly why you think there is an issue, and mention (if you can do so gently and without provoking him) the past incident. Remember that if you want someone to do something, you shouldn't tell them why *you* want them to do it. They don't care about what you want. Tell them why *they* want to do it. Best-case scenario, he listens. Worst-case scenario, he gets a little more annoyed at you, but you've got your documentation.
I don't envy your position, and wish you luck.
No it's not, and you go on to explain why:
Unfortunately for our children, Joe Average sees that his friends and family are getting in trouble for what used to be expected of him to do, but doesn't ever make the connection. It's up to us to explain to our less paranoid friends and family exactly *why* things are headed in the wrong direction. Of course, it's somewhat difficult to do without sounding paranoid schizophrenic yourself, but do it anyway. At this point, it's our civic duty.
An excellent idea. Actually, I think the design treatments applied on Google's site are excellent, and you can bet they spent quite a bit developing it. They have a nice-looking, fast-loading logo that exists on every page, reinforcing their brand. It is further reinforced by using the logo as a navigational tool, with the "o"s scaling out as more and more results become available. Other than that, design is minimal, both to decrease loading time and to avoid distracting attention from the search results. Slashdot's design is also attractive, to a particular audience, and certainly makes each article, navigation section and callout easy to read, without making the site too busy. And guess what kind of people are attracted to the eBay school of design? The kind who buy things. Lots of things, the gaudier the better. These sites are attractive to their respective audiences. Regardless, the statement you quoted was not intended to say that "pretty pictures" must *always* be present. It was intended to refute the idea that they should *never* be present.
In an ideal world, you'd be correct... but it isn't an ideal world. If your site requires a significant amount of navigation, you're going to be stuck indenting all of your content at least 100-150 pixels to the left. If you use less than 400-ish pixels for your content area, your text becomes difficult to read. To compensate for the many different browsers and resolutions, browser-sniffing was invented. Thus, we can often get information about the user's machine before we even deliver the code to the user's browser, saving the trouble of scaling the site down by two thirds or more. Instead, we just deliver an entirely different template.
This line of thought begins to address something you mentioned earlier: target markets. If you know what your market is, you can design for it. If your market is corporate workers and executives, you design for it. If your market is mobile users, you design for it. If your market is IT professionals and geeks, you design for it. In any case, you need to know what to design for, and studies like the ones that spawned this article will give you a basis to start with. I'm not advocating that you should design sites specifically engineered to be unable to scale. Sure, it's possible to design sites that scale wonderfully. But it's also quite common to get a client spec that requires so much that there's no way it can scale gracefully.
The point of my post was to explain why knowing what the market is using is important, not to say that we should pigeonhole our sites for any standard "just because". That includes pigeonholing sites that "must be scalable in six dimentions". Sure, scalability is important, but it isn't always possible to do. It depends on your market, your requirements, and your client. Knowing all of these things requires research, which is exactly what this article has collected. That's why it matters, and that's the real point I'm trying to make.
Having standardized sizes matters to develop a universally usable site. It's not just a marketing ploy; in many cases, it's a legal requirement. Before you complain about how little it matters and demand that people be flexible, consider the following:
First, a site must be attractive. You may be a purist who still thinks that pretty pictures and good design isn't necessary if you present enough information, but you'd be wrong. Unfortunately, people still judge things by their looks. Even if you've presented your information in such a way as to make it extraordinarily easy to use and navigate, many people will never know that. Often, they'll see that your site looks like crap and figure your business is run the same way. Imagine yourself in the lobby of a company you're considering doing business with. Sure, the walls are sound and the furniture doesn't have holes in it. But if everything is cheap white plastic and particleboard, you're going to wonder if this company isn't just some fly-by-night operation. Thus, having an attractive site is important.
Second, the World Wide Web Consortium has very specific requirements for a page to be "usable". What happens if you don't do it there way? Well, you can be sued, for one thing. Also, your company will not be allowed to do business with the government, as you are most likely not in compliance with section 508, the same series of regulations that require wheelchair access, braille, and other accessibility assists for those with disabilities.
Third, you've got to make your site usable. Usability is not the same as accessibility. A 100% accessible site can be 99% unusable if it isn't clear what a user should do, how they should navigate, etc. Just because you've got braille on all of your stairways doesn't mean your users will know what floor to hit if you don't have a building directory somewhere, easy to find and easy to read. As such, it's important to make sure any idiot can navigate your site with ease. Do user testing. Record the sessions. Don't focus so much on what your users say, so much as what they do. I once had a user try to click on something that wasn't a link (but that could have been), then tell me he "should've known better"... but he didn't. (Naturally, it was a link an hour later.) ;-)
Once you've established that your site has to be cleanly and professionally designed, accessible and usable, you now have to make sure none of these elements breaks as you move from machine to machine, browser to browser, and platform to platform. You'll quickly notice that suddenly, you can't make your site scale as much as you want. You see that smoothly-flowing text on a 800x600 screen looks hopelessly cluttered on a 640x480 screen and ridiculously wide, yet short on a 1024x768 screen. You begin to develop visual guides that will work with lower monitor resolutions, yet still look professional on the larger screens. Your designers produce a style guide that begins to define specific column widths and template sizes. And you notice... that the web really isn't as scalable as you thought it was.
What the standard is matters because, if you want to be taken seriously or treated professionally, you had damn well make sure that your site is attractive, accessible, and usable. If not, you'll watch all of your competition march on by, taking your audience with it, regardless of whether you're out to make money or not. If your audience sees that someone else offers the same thing you do, but it's nicer and easier to use, they're going to go see that someone else, and that will be that. You had better take into account what resolutions your users have at their disposal, or your sites will cease to exist.