If you take a peek at Akopia, you will find a very robust, very well tested solution. They have changed their name since their initial product, as they merged with another company whose name escapes me.
I used their previous product and was extremely pleased, and when I relaunch our billing system in march, we will be using Akopia's system.
It has everything you are looking for, is open-source, AND has been tested by the masses over time.
I really wish you would use the new not-W3C compliant tag, it would make it so much easier to tell if you were +1, funny, or -1, troll.
:)
To respond seriously, just in case..
I have used windows (sadly) since OSR2. In that time I have built, configured, and lived with explorer (and Iexplorer) for a very long time.
I was a computer tech for many years, and now I do software engineering.
From a position of experience and knowledge, I must emphatically state that you are wrong.
Windows' explorer is horribly prone to crashing, even 'with the latest patches' which in my experience come out on less than once a month. (hoorah for that, without THOSE, I dont even want to think of how bad it would be).
On one hand, with apps installed, explorer ends up having all kinds of problems within about 5 months, in my experience.
On the other hand, with no apps installed, it runs great for a very long time.
but its the GUI shell, damnit. You have to install apps. Now, if the apps themselves were the ones crashing, like it does in gnome/X, that would be understandable.
But noooooo, its explorer itself that crashes. That makes so little sense.
Anyways, enough of ranting..
In several years of experience, a properly configured and setup gnome/X system will hands down stay up, and working ALOT longer than a properly configured and setup explorer system.
I use gnome on X all the time. I also have a windows machine for those annoying apps that just refuse to be ported, and that I am not comfortable enough with the X-ish alternatives.
On my windows machine, I really dislike explorer. It crashes regularly, and doesnt react the way I would like.
This is directly why you can choose to replace your shell with another one. I tried with litestep, but it was somewhat buggier for the things I did (YMMV), and still wasnt 'what I was looking for'.
With this, I can have a more linux-oriented desktop, showing my truer colors and spreading the word, and at the same time, allowing me to have a more consistent feel from (windows) desktop to (linux) desktop.
If music *could* be distributed securely online, would you as an artist be willing to do so INSTEAD of signing with a label?
If not, would you be willing to do so and pressure your label?
Finally, if secure transmission of music wasnt possible (as it doesnt seem to be now), are you willing to live with the possibility of people copying your music for free digitally, just to get more people to listen to it?
>1] First he was involved with Debian but then he quit because it wasn't getting newbie friendly and it wouldn't adopt the rpm package manager
Package uniformity is hands down one of the BIGGEST problems facing the linux distros today. Its also affecting the BSD's, but they have the balls and intelligence to do something about it.
I dont think thats a bad thing. It certainly made a point that resonated with me. However, that isnt the only reason he left from my understanding of posts at the time.
>2] He started Software in the Public Interest. But he quit.
(everything is this post is simply my understanding of the matter, btw..)
This was because he saw a bigger value proposition in OSI, from what I understood.
>3] Then he was involved with the OSI but he quit because ESR allowed O'Reilly to use the word open source at a comvention even the the rest of the OSI board voted not too.
Much as ESR is hailed for standing by his beliefs, why should you be a part of a group that doesnt stand by it's decisions. BP was doing IMHO, the moral thing, and showing the same level of integrity that ESR has.
>4] Then he started LSB but quit because it wasn't moving fast enough.
And its not. Its a laughing stock. They should already have a working standard for package management, desktop WM's, and kernels. They dont even have THAT. Its *RIDICULUS*.
>5] Then he started this venture capital group but now he's quiting that too.
Because he can make better money elsewhere, and because it has served its purpose.
>To me this represents a series of "stints."
When the cook stumbled upon chocolate chip cookies by accident, just because it took a short period of time, was that a stint?
The word has more meaning than just 'short period of time'. It has a very negative connotation, and thats what I was objecting to.
IMHO, they werent stints, they were logically concluded movements in his life, and in public life.
I stand by my statement about Mr. Perens. (Why does everyone call ANYONE in the open-source movement by their first name like they have known them for years personally?)
>First off, 66666 is a damned good slashdot id.
My sig referred to this fact for a little while, and then I heard the quote that is in my sig now, and it just made me die of laughter. I had to see how many trolls would reply to it.
Oddly, none have (yet).
>But to the real point
Yeah..
>Slashdot gets a bad rap in the comment sections a lot of the time...
>Sure, if we were paying for it we'd have the right to yell and scream, but we don't pay
Wrong. Its a community site. We get the right to bitch. They have just as much right to reply, or mod it down, or delete the post, or turn the thing off.
However..
>this website is much more than I'm paying for it.
But is it? You *do* pay for it by viewing it, by commenting in it. Thats what makes the site popular, and thats what gets more ad revenue for them, which is what keeps them paid by OSDN.
>be patient and say thank you CmdrTaco and Hemos once in a while
This is the one thing I will really agree with you about. Despite my general bitching (and I did label it as such), it doesnt change the fact that I come here, and often too. I post regularly, I have enough karma to approach the cap.
I earn them good money.:)
My point isnt that I hate the site and that Cmdr, and Rob are jerks. Far from it. I love the site. I just strive to push them to raise it back up a level. I really have seen a decline lately.
There are more than a few services that do charge $10 a month, but they dont get a ton of press. I cant think of them offhand, but I know I referred more than a few customers to them..
First, I'll comment on the editorial question "what does this mean"..
Them ending free dialup means that they obviously learned that it wasnt worth it. The average dialup costs around $7-9 per month to service and maintain (I worked at a national isp, thats the numbers we had).
With those numbers, with a million users, they were spending $7 million roughly PER MONTH. Thats a nice fat national television ad run. Its an easy choice to stop services like that when budgets are tighter.
Now, some bitching.
The first line on the page of the article, IN BOLD was:
"update AltaVista is terminating its free Internet access service, making it the latest company to exit the market."
NOT email.
In the last two weeks, we have seen over eight stories that were old submissions with NO changes, three that were updates of old submissions that didnt mention the original (sony walking robot), and plenty of spell-checking problems, and crap like this.
Not to mention the Bruce Perens article that practically insults him. Now, I dont get around much, but in my limited dealings with the OS/FS/Linux community, he has been wonderful, open, and very accomodating.
What the hell is up guys? Now that you got paid do you just not give a damn?
Now, dont get me wrong, I am not saying "Its not like the old days", cause I wasnt on then.:)
However, in the last year, I can definitely say that they dont do nearly as much editorial checking.
Hell, Bruce submitted his story HIMSELF, TWICE, and it was rejected, but then it was submitted with that rude editorial attached.
For all the people asking if they REALLY can keep that level of bandwidth going, it looks like they can. From their faq page:
The Cogent Communications Network is a facilities based, end-to-end optical system. We have metropolitan OC48 rings in 20 major cities tied together via a national backbone designed to operate at OC192 speeds implementing an IP over Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) Cisco Powered Network.
20 OC48's would keep up very nicely.
Now, my question is what kind of money do they want for the install?
AOL's argument against other companies 'connecting' or in their words 'breaking into' their database (of users) has always been "Security".
They never elaborate, nor specify exactly what criteria have to be met, so others can meet it and get use of their network.
The FTC was considering possibly forcing them to open up instant messaging, but seemed to back down when AOL said they refused due to security of their customers.
YET, here we have AOL knowing about a problem for MONTHS and not fixing it?
Smells like time for a few senators and congressmen to say a few words to AOL about "equal standards".
With the effort underway by www.openpackages.com, and with the correlating efforts on the linux side by Connectiva to making a apt-rpm bridge, do you think it would be a good thing, from a security, and OS level point of view, to have a single type of package.
Does your team support the efforts towards a unified package structure?
Further down the road, if one package structure does develop for *BSD, would you also support an effort towards a common package from *BSD to linux?
>Maybe I live in a cave, but I personally have never seen an AMD advertisment on TV or in the trade mags.
You probably lived in a cave a year or two ago, when they launched some SERIOUSLY popular ad's about their brand name, and nothing else.
I have mirrored some of the funnier ones at http://iamsure.psychasia.com/html/funny.html
>Besides, someone needs to take a shot at those blue Intel whatever they ares.... everytime I see those ads I want to puke
Those 'blue Intel whatever' are The Blue Man Group, a world famous perfmormance group on par with Stomp!. The Intel ads capture a glimpse of their humor and style, but doesnt really do it justice.
The article definitely gets the ol' geek hairs on the back of your neck standing up. Petabyte backups, tape recovery that takes 5 days..
Lots of stuff that makes geek men howl.
However, it leaves out a *TON*. Like, what technology are they going to use to DO data mining? What database will run this monster? Which OS will it run on?
Further, what license/restrictions are there on the data once it gets published? Is it totally public knowledge, free of copyright?
Fundamental questions of large scope and size, not easily ignored.
However, the question *I* have is, why not do the data storage on online companies KNOWN for hosting data, instead of at astronomies, who have little experience at that.
>Yes you did. "Good" HTML isn't supposed to have any formatting at all
Again, an opinion crouched as fact. In my opinion, it is a good design. There is no proper way (css, etc.) to do a locked table, which is what I wanted, so I did it with html.
>Yes, I am well aware of CSS' limitations, but you should be aware that any standards organization or accessibility organization would decry this as "good" code
I made the site do what I wanted it to do, and did it using html valid code. Period.
>f you're interested in accessibility, check out the Any Browser Accessible Site Design page. You might be surprised at all the "inaccessible" elements your site uses.
If you were blind, you could read my site PERFECTLY. It renders perfectly for sight-disabled people. An easy way to verify that is to load it with lynx. Its clear, clean, and well laid out.
>I noticed you linked to Bobby. Maybe you should read it sometime.
Yes, I have. Try checking my site there. It gets a passing score. There are a few warnings, but as it says (maybe YOU should read it sometime) warnings should be interpreted. I have a blind colleague at work, and she tests my site for me. It works perfectly for her!
>I have seen many sites that look like this, and I rarely get anything good off of them
See, I love people that say this. Here are the facts, not opinions.. The FACTS are:
1. I wanted the design to look like this. I am happy it does. One or two people's opinions on slashdot DEFINITELY wont change that.
2. It is HTML valid code. TOTALLY. By just about anyone's validator, primarily Bobby, and W3C's!
3. It is accessible by almost any browser out there, UNLIKE slashdot, and eBay. Try loading THOSE in amaya. HA!
4. I get PLENTY of customers DUE to this page. You dont see my inbox. I have gotten three multiple-thousand dollar design contracts BECAUSE of that page.
So, I stand behind my page. Yes, I broke the unwritten 'gee, thats bad' rules of using html to do formatting (its *IN* the spec, so I will USE IT until CSS has a way!), of using html to lock the font size, and of locking it to a single resolution.
All of that was done so that no matter WHO looks at it, it looks *THE SAME* and is graphically pleasing. If I chose to open it up to people running at 2million x 1million, it wouldnt be NEARLY as pleasant to 640x480 users.
On another site of mine I monitored browser sizes, and the OVERWHELMING majority was 800x600 (like over 60%), and very few above 1024.
As such, I design for the greatest number of users. I stand behind my decisions, and my customers seem to be quite happy about it.
Now, Verisign should somehow block all domain name requests (from their root servers) to mainland china.
That would change that shit real quick.
Seriously, it is long past time that countries stopped playing softball with the oriental countries that want to play hardball (japan and china, primarily).
They constantly dictate rules to us, set ridiculus trade embargoes, and generally push us around.
I am not saying that isnt a good idea on their part (it is), I am simply saying that the universal response of 'respect their wishes' is how we for the tenth year running have ended up in a trade deficit to Japan, when we dont have one to almost ANY other technologically advanced country.
Its nuts.
All I am saying is, if China wants to play hardball with Verisign, Verisign should play hardball right back.
Sorry.. its a karma-whorific day today, and I lost track. Thanks for pointing that out to me.
As to my professionalism, I do strive for betterness, but I also have my own preferences as well, as does anyone. I disagree with the opinion that all sites should display as much text as possible on a screen. I would love to see more graphically designed sites out there. But again, thats just me.
And of course, to your advice about fuck, hey, its a personal choice. I am brash, and sometimes, yeah, rude. I dont pretend to be perfect. But I am honest, and I do use whatever words express what I feel best. To me, in that situation, that did. I stand behind my choice.
Although next time I might add a tag, or maybe not.
Its not just local politicians anymore. Congressmen, and BOTH presidential candidates support filters. Heck, Bush practically demands them. Thats NATIONAL.
And your own comments about the Alabama textbooks says it all. If they can do that, AND THEY DO, they will OBVIOUSLY put in filters.
I didnt for a SECOND say for ICANN to be involved AT ALL. Voluntary, at the ISP level. PERIOD.
PICS just doesnt do enough for their tastes, and ALSO doesnt bring BIG contributions to their pockets. They have no reason to say no to money.:)
So, in other words, go for the easy solution that works for everyone. EVEN adult sites. (They no longer have to be griped and sniped at by politicians).
I agree that he meant that more content should fit on one screen. But, in response, I go back to it being rather offtopic. It doesnt have ANYTHING to do with Amaya, nor with rendering. The pages layout is a design choice.
I will agree with you that there is a tcp/ip overhead, and that it re-renders. However, in response, I will say that the pages are very tighly designed, and load relatively quickly considering how much graphics are on them.
And of course, I will disagree with your closing statement.
I take great offense at someone going THIS offtopic when he could have simply emailed me, and handled it there. He criticized my design CHOICE. Not the validity, not why it rendered poorly on Amaya (because Amaya SUCKS), but because he had a different opinion.
As to the 'user/boss' thing.. what you fail to grasp is that I run/own/code psychasia.com. It is me. We are one and the same.
So, I make successful sites that bring in users. I know because they buy my suits, and my car radios (aiwa cdc-mp3 ROCKS).
I agree that he is opinonated, and I will even agree that some of what he said had validitiy.
One of the things I didnt like about the site was the lack of text display. However, I prefered a stand out site. It was a conscience choice.
And finally, I am a good designer, I am not afraid to say so, and I make a damn good living at it. My attitude matches my persona, and my style of business. VERY honest, VERY upfront.
What you see is what you get. If you dont like it...
Well, you get the idea.:)
(On a side note, I was being sarcastic when I did the fuck off, hence the smiley. If I MEANT it, it would have been bold, red, and lots of exclamations after it.. NOT that I react like that to a post on/. )
You have to accept one posit for the logic to follow though..
Politicians *will* filter, and *will* continue to do what they can to keep porn from kids.
It is a HUGELY popular stance, it is HUGELY important to parents, and parents are a 2-vote pair generally.:)
So, with that posit..
If a filter is coming (and they have been!), then we need to find a filter that DOESNT prevent legit info (free tibet, GOP.ORG,etc.) from being filtered.
With the.xxx domain, and voluntary compliance, filters need only remove that info.
Thus, no legit info gets sacrificed, or at least, alot less.
Their key concerns is that it wouldnt fix a problem, and that there is not a market.
However, if the.xxx domain existed, and politicians kept pushing, ISP's and webhosters could voluntarily agree to limit NEW adult websites to the.xxx domain.
Its easy enough for me to monitor to a degree (porn sites are HUGE bandwidth users), its fair, and it makes it MUCH easier to filter CORRECTLY.
Their other argument was that there wasnt demand, and that it would get costly.
There would be demand when yet-another-web-porn-empire went to get a domain, and could only get hosted if it ended in.xxx.
As to the cost?
Porn is the #1 business on the Net. Beats Yahoo, Amazon, AND mp3.com COMBINED.
>My problem with the.porn/.xxx TLD is that it gives the US too much power to enforce it's morals and beliefs onto
>other peoples.
>Like we don't already have that power as it is.
You said it yourself. They are already trying. We can either embrace a solution that will filter LESS good things (political sites, etc.), or fight with no hope of winning.
The politicians WILL put filters in place, they have, and they continue to. BOTH candidates for president and a majority of congressmen favor them.
We have to look at it logically. They arent going to stop. Their goal is to get porn away from kids.
Like good hackers, lets embrace a solution that works for BOTH sides..
Slashdot Mirror
If you take a peek at Akopia, you will find a very robust, very well tested solution. They have changed their name since their initial product, as they merged with another company whose name escapes me.
I used their previous product and was extremely pleased, and when I relaunch our billing system in march, we will be using Akopia's system.
It has everything you are looking for, is open-source, AND has been tested by the masses over time.
What more could you want?
Thats a REALLY bad analogy.
More accurate would be, I left my gun in my house. You then went into my unlocked house grabbed my gun, and went and shot someone.
I am guilty of negilgence ONLY if you *should* have had access to my house.
However, you clearly werent meant to be in my house, I never gave you permission to be in my house, I simply forgot to look the door.
THAT is how the law works, no matter how unfair you may think that is.
I really wish you would use the new not-W3C compliant tag, it would make it so much easier to tell if you were +1, funny, or -1, troll.
:)
To respond seriously, just in case..
I have used windows (sadly) since OSR2. In that time I have built, configured, and lived with explorer (and Iexplorer) for a very long time.
I was a computer tech for many years, and now I do software engineering.
From a position of experience and knowledge, I must emphatically state that you are wrong.
Windows' explorer is horribly prone to crashing, even 'with the latest patches' which in my experience come out on less than once a month. (hoorah for that, without THOSE, I dont even want to think of how bad it would be).
On one hand, with apps installed, explorer ends up having all kinds of problems within about 5 months, in my experience.
On the other hand, with no apps installed, it runs great for a very long time.
but its the GUI shell, damnit. You have to install apps. Now, if the apps themselves were the ones crashing, like it does in gnome/X, that would be understandable.
But noooooo, its explorer itself that crashes. That makes so little sense.
Anyways, enough of ranting..
In several years of experience, a properly configured and setup gnome/X system will hands down stay up, and working ALOT longer than a properly configured and setup explorer system.
YMMV.
Consider..
I use gnome on X all the time. I also have a windows machine for those annoying apps that just refuse to be ported, and that I am not comfortable enough with the X-ish alternatives.
On my windows machine, I really dislike explorer. It crashes regularly, and doesnt react the way I would like.
This is directly why you can choose to replace your shell with another one. I tried with litestep, but it was somewhat buggier for the things I did (YMMV), and still wasnt 'what I was looking for'.
With this, I can have a more linux-oriented desktop, showing my truer colors and spreading the word, and at the same time, allowing me to have a more consistent feel from (windows) desktop to (linux) desktop.
I think it kicks BUTT!
If music *could* be distributed securely online, would you as an artist be willing to do so INSTEAD of signing with a label?
If not, would you be willing to do so and pressure your label?
Finally, if secure transmission of music wasnt possible (as it doesnt seem to be now), are you willing to live with the possibility of people copying your music for free digitally, just to get more people to listen to it?
>1] First he was involved with Debian but then he quit because it wasn't getting newbie friendly and it wouldn't adopt the rpm package manager
Package uniformity is hands down one of the BIGGEST problems facing the linux distros today. Its also affecting the BSD's, but they have the balls and intelligence to do something about it.
I dont think thats a bad thing. It certainly made a point that resonated with me. However, that isnt the only reason he left from my understanding of posts at the time.
>2] He started Software in the Public Interest. But he quit.
(everything is this post is simply my understanding of the matter, btw..)
This was because he saw a bigger value proposition in OSI, from what I understood.
>3] Then he was involved with the OSI but he quit because ESR allowed O'Reilly to use the word open source at a comvention even the the rest of the OSI board voted not too.
Much as ESR is hailed for standing by his beliefs, why should you be a part of a group that doesnt stand by it's decisions. BP was doing IMHO, the moral thing, and showing the same level of integrity that ESR has.
>4] Then he started LSB but quit because it wasn't moving fast enough.
And its not. Its a laughing stock. They should already have a working standard for package management, desktop WM's, and kernels. They dont even have THAT. Its *RIDICULUS*.
>5] Then he started this venture capital group but now he's quiting that too.
Because he can make better money elsewhere, and because it has served its purpose.
>To me this represents a series of "stints."
When the cook stumbled upon chocolate chip cookies by accident, just because it took a short period of time, was that a stint?
The word has more meaning than just 'short period of time'. It has a very negative connotation, and thats what I was objecting to.
IMHO, they werent stints, they were logically concluded movements in his life, and in public life.
I stand by my statement about Mr. Perens. (Why does everyone call ANYONE in the open-source movement by their first name like they have known them for years personally?)
>First off, 66666 is a damned good slashdot id.
:)
My sig referred to this fact for a little while, and then I heard the quote that is in my sig now, and it just made me die of laughter. I had to see how many trolls would reply to it.
Oddly, none have (yet).
>But to the real point
Yeah..
>Slashdot gets a bad rap in the comment sections a lot of the time...
>Sure, if we were paying for it we'd have the right to yell and scream, but we don't pay
Wrong. Its a community site. We get the right to bitch. They have just as much right to reply, or mod it down, or delete the post, or turn the thing off.
However..
>this website is much more than I'm paying for it.
But is it? You *do* pay for it by viewing it, by commenting in it. Thats what makes the site popular, and thats what gets more ad revenue for them, which is what keeps them paid by OSDN.
>be patient and say thank you CmdrTaco and Hemos once in a while
This is the one thing I will really agree with you about. Despite my general bitching (and I did label it as such), it doesnt change the fact that I come here, and often too. I post regularly, I have enough karma to approach the cap.
I earn them good money.
My point isnt that I hate the site and that Cmdr, and Rob are jerks. Far from it. I love the site. I just strive to push them to raise it back up a level. I really have seen a decline lately.
There are more than a few services that do charge $10 a month, but they dont get a ton of press. I cant think of them offhand, but I know I referred more than a few customers to them..
First, I'll comment on the editorial question "what does this mean"..
:)
.. dont get it.
Them ending free dialup means that they obviously learned that it wasnt worth it. The average dialup costs around $7-9 per month to service and maintain (I worked at a national isp, thats the numbers we had).
With those numbers, with a million users, they were spending $7 million roughly PER MONTH. Thats a nice fat national television ad run. Its an easy choice to stop services like that when budgets are tighter.
Now, some bitching.
The first line on the page of the article, IN BOLD was:
"update AltaVista is terminating its free Internet access service, making it the latest company to exit the market."
NOT email.
In the last two weeks, we have seen over eight stories that were old submissions with NO changes, three that were updates of old submissions that didnt mention the original (sony walking robot), and plenty of spell-checking problems, and crap like this.
Not to mention the Bruce Perens article that practically insults him. Now, I dont get around much, but in my limited dealings with the OS/FS/Linux community, he has been wonderful, open, and very accomodating.
What the hell is up guys? Now that you got paid do you just not give a damn?
Now, dont get me wrong, I am not saying "Its not like the old days", cause I wasnt on then.
However, in the last year, I can definitely say that they dont do nearly as much editorial checking.
Hell, Bruce submitted his story HIMSELF, TWICE, and it was rejected, but then it was submitted with that rude editorial attached.
I just
Wake up guys, RUN YOUR SITE!
For all the people asking if they REALLY can keep that level of bandwidth going, it looks like they can. From their faq page:
The Cogent Communications Network is a facilities based, end-to-end optical system. We have metropolitan OC48 rings in 20 major cities tied together via a national backbone designed to operate at OC192 speeds implementing an IP over Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) Cisco Powered Network.
20 OC48's would keep up very nicely.
Now, my question is what kind of money do they want for the install?
AOL's argument against other companies 'connecting' or in their words 'breaking into' their database (of users) has always been "Security".
They never elaborate, nor specify exactly what criteria have to be met, so others can meet it and get use of their network.
The FTC was considering possibly forcing them to open up instant messaging, but seemed to back down when AOL said they refused due to security of their customers.
YET, here we have AOL knowing about a problem for MONTHS and not fixing it?
Smells like time for a few senators and congressmen to say a few words to AOL about "equal standards".
Open your protocol back up, AOL.
With the effort underway by www.openpackages.com, and with the correlating efforts on the linux side by Connectiva to making a apt-rpm bridge, do you think it would be a good thing, from a security, and OS level point of view, to have a single type of package.
Does your team support the efforts towards a unified package structure?
Further down the road, if one package structure does develop for *BSD, would you also support an effort towards a common package from *BSD to linux?
Thanks for a great OS..
>Maybe I live in a cave, but I personally have never seen an AMD advertisment on TV or in the trade mags.
You probably lived in a cave a year or two ago, when they launched some SERIOUSLY popular ad's about their brand name, and nothing else.
I have mirrored some of the funnier ones at http://iamsure.psychasia.com/html/funny.html
>Besides, someone needs to take a shot at those blue Intel whatever they ares.... everytime I see those ads I want to puke
Those 'blue Intel whatever' are The Blue Man Group, a world famous perfmormance group on par with Stomp!. The Intel ads capture a glimpse of their humor and style, but doesnt really do it justice.
The article definitely gets the ol' geek hairs on the back of your neck standing up. Petabyte backups, tape recovery that takes 5 days..
Lots of stuff that makes geek men howl.
However, it leaves out a *TON*. Like, what technology are they going to use to DO data mining? What database will run this monster? Which OS will it run on?
Further, what license/restrictions are there on the data once it gets published? Is it totally public knowledge, free of copyright?
Fundamental questions of large scope and size, not easily ignored.
However, the question *I* have is, why not do the data storage on online companies KNOWN for hosting data, instead of at astronomies, who have little experience at that.
>Yes you did. "Good" HTML isn't supposed to have any formatting at all
Again, an opinion crouched as fact. In my opinion, it is a good design. There is no proper way (css, etc.) to do a locked table, which is what I wanted, so I did it with html.
>Yes, I am well aware of CSS' limitations, but you should be aware that any standards organization or accessibility organization would decry this as "good" code
I made the site do what I wanted it to do, and did it using html valid code. Period.
>f you're interested in accessibility, check out the Any Browser Accessible Site Design page. You might be surprised at all the "inaccessible" elements your site uses.
If you were blind, you could read my site PERFECTLY. It renders perfectly for sight-disabled people. An easy way to verify that is to load it with lynx. Its clear, clean, and well laid out.
>I noticed you linked to Bobby. Maybe you should read it sometime.
Yes, I have. Try checking my site there. It gets a passing score. There are a few warnings, but as it says (maybe YOU should read it sometime) warnings should be interpreted. I have a blind colleague at work, and she tests my site for me. It works perfectly for her!
>I have seen many sites that look like this, and I rarely get anything good off of them
See, I love people that say this. Here are the facts, not opinions.. The FACTS are:
1. I wanted the design to look like this. I am happy it does. One or two people's opinions on slashdot DEFINITELY wont change that.
2. It is HTML valid code. TOTALLY. By just about anyone's validator, primarily Bobby, and W3C's!
3. It is accessible by almost any browser out there, UNLIKE slashdot, and eBay. Try loading THOSE in amaya. HA!
4. I get PLENTY of customers DUE to this page. You dont see my inbox. I have gotten three multiple-thousand dollar design contracts BECAUSE of that page.
So, I stand behind my page. Yes, I broke the unwritten 'gee, thats bad' rules of using html to do formatting (its *IN* the spec, so I will USE IT until CSS has a way!), of using html to lock the font size, and of locking it to a single resolution.
All of that was done so that no matter WHO looks at it, it looks *THE SAME* and is graphically pleasing. If I chose to open it up to people running at 2million x 1million, it wouldnt be NEARLY as pleasant to 640x480 users.
On another site of mine I monitored browser sizes, and the OVERWHELMING majority was 800x600 (like over 60%), and very few above 1024.
As such, I design for the greatest number of users. I stand behind my decisions, and my customers seem to be quite happy about it.
Now, Verisign should somehow block all domain name requests (from their root servers) to mainland china.
That would change that shit real quick.
Seriously, it is long past time that countries stopped playing softball with the oriental countries that want to play hardball (japan and china, primarily).
They constantly dictate rules to us, set ridiculus trade embargoes, and generally push us around.
I am not saying that isnt a good idea on their part (it is), I am simply saying that the universal response of 'respect their wishes' is how we for the tenth year running have ended up in a trade deficit to Japan, when we dont have one to almost ANY other technologically advanced country.
Its nuts.
All I am saying is, if China wants to play hardball with Verisign, Verisign should play hardball right back.
I am a webhoster by night, and a member of the Information Security team for a large unnamed phone company.
Let me just say how reassuring this is. We were watching this more than we were the election.
It simply makes NO sense to draft an international law banning the tools that help us secure systems.
Of course, we would love some more enforcement power to use against potential crackers, but not if it is a trade off for our tools.
Thats just NUTS.
My question is, what ratifications have to take place, and what is the current standing in Congress towards it?
Come on slashdot, make some calls!
Because, ummm, welll, okay yeah.
Sorry.. its a karma-whorific day today, and I lost track. Thanks for pointing that out to me.
As to my professionalism, I do strive for betterness, but I also have my own preferences as well, as does anyone. I disagree with the opinion that all sites should display as much text as possible on a screen. I would love to see more graphically designed sites out there. But again, thats just me.
And of course, to your advice about fuck, hey, its a personal choice. I am brash, and sometimes, yeah, rude. I dont pretend to be perfect. But I am honest, and I do use whatever words express what I feel best. To me, in that situation, that did. I stand behind my choice.
Although next time I might add a tag, or maybe not.
Eventually, yes, that would be a problem.
For the time being most politicians are rallying behind porn. Not violence, not guns, not bombs.
So, stop porn, and you stop their movement in a BIG way.
Its not just local politicians anymore. Congressmen, and BOTH presidential candidates support filters. Heck, Bush practically demands them. Thats NATIONAL.
:)
And your own comments about the Alabama textbooks says it all. If they can do that, AND THEY DO, they will OBVIOUSLY put in filters.
I didnt for a SECOND say for ICANN to be involved AT ALL. Voluntary, at the ISP level. PERIOD.
PICS just doesnt do enough for their tastes, and ALSO doesnt bring BIG contributions to their pockets. They have no reason to say no to money.
So, in other words, go for the easy solution that works for everyone. EVEN adult sites. (They no longer have to be griped and sniped at by politicians).
I do COMPLETELY agree with you.
I hate that the posit is true. If I could fix THAT, I would dedicate my life to the cause.
Sadly, I know the public isnt that bright.
:(
I agree with you on some of what you said.
:)
/. )
I agree that he meant that more content should fit on one screen. But, in response, I go back to it being rather offtopic. It doesnt have ANYTHING to do with Amaya, nor with rendering. The pages layout is a design choice.
I will agree with you that there is a tcp/ip overhead, and that it re-renders. However, in response, I will say that the pages are very tighly designed, and load relatively quickly considering how much graphics are on them.
And of course, I will disagree with your closing statement.
I take great offense at someone going THIS offtopic when he could have simply emailed me, and handled it there. He criticized my design CHOICE. Not the validity, not why it rendered poorly on Amaya (because Amaya SUCKS), but because he had a different opinion.
As to the 'user/boss' thing.. what you fail to grasp is that I run/own/code psychasia.com. It is me. We are one and the same.
So, I make successful sites that bring in users. I know because they buy my suits, and my car radios (aiwa cdc-mp3 ROCKS).
I agree that he is opinonated, and I will even agree that some of what he said had validitiy.
One of the things I didnt like about the site was the lack of text display. However, I prefered a stand out site. It was a conscience choice.
And finally, I am a good designer, I am not afraid to say so, and I make a damn good living at it. My attitude matches my persona, and my style of business. VERY honest, VERY upfront.
What you see is what you get. If you dont like it...
Well, you get the idea.
(On a side note, I was being sarcastic when I did the fuck off, hence the smiley. If I MEANT it, it would have been bold, red, and lots of exclamations after it.. NOT that I react like that to a post on
I'll explain.
:)
.xxx domain, and voluntary compliance, filters need only remove that info.
You have to accept one posit for the logic to follow though..
Politicians *will* filter, and *will* continue to do what they can to keep porn from kids.
It is a HUGELY popular stance, it is HUGELY important to parents, and parents are a 2-vote pair generally.
So, with that posit..
If a filter is coming (and they have been!), then we need to find a filter that DOESNT prevent legit info (free tibet, GOP.ORG,etc.) from being filtered.
With the
Thus, no legit info gets sacrificed, or at least, alot less.
I read their statements.
.xxx domain existed, and politicians kept pushing, ISP's and webhosters could voluntarily agree to limit NEW adult websites to the .xxx domain.
.xxx.
.xxx!
Their key concerns is that it wouldnt fix a problem, and that there is not a market.
However, if the
Its easy enough for me to monitor to a degree (porn sites are HUGE bandwidth users), its fair, and it makes it MUCH easier to filter CORRECTLY.
Their other argument was that there wasnt demand, and that it would get costly.
There would be demand when yet-another-web-porn-empire went to get a domain, and could only get hosted if it ended in
As to the cost?
Porn is the #1 business on the Net. Beats Yahoo, Amazon, AND mp3.com COMBINED.
They can afford it. We cant afford BAD filters..
Give us
>My problem with the .porn/.xxx TLD is that it gives the US too much power to enforce it's morals and beliefs onto
>other peoples.
>Like we don't already have that power as it is.
You said it yourself. They are already trying. We can either embrace a solution that will filter LESS good things (political sites, etc.), or fight with no hope of winning.
The politicians WILL put filters in place, they have, and they continue to. BOTH candidates for president and a majority of congressmen favor them.
We have to look at it logically. They arent going to stop. Their goal is to get porn away from kids.
Like good hackers, lets embrace a solution that works for BOTH sides..