I thought about that after posting... if the client needs a layered.PSD file to pass on to their agency or printer, maybe you'd be stuck with that. I'm not traditionally a graphics guy myself - I was pretty exclusively Paint Shop Pro for years and then Macromedia Fireworks recently - so I have no idea what formats the Gimp can handle. My business partner is a designer, so he's training me to use Photoshop so we can pass files back and forth without losing info. That was one reason I was surprised that the GPP said he switched like that.
Of course...if Photoshop is at work and you can't afford a copy for home, that's enough reason for many.
Out of curiosity, why do you use both programs regularly?
If they are generally equal, it doesn't make sense to switch back and forth. If one is superior to the other, it doesn't make sense to switch back and forth. The only reason I can think of to use both regularly is that they each have strengths that you prefer over the other; that neither meets your satisfaction all the time.
I don't mean to attack you or either software package, but your comment made me wonder about the general usage of competing software packages like this.
For those stuck on dial-up, here is a quick summary of our results:
* Both "handheld" shots were very shaky with the electronic stabilization performing only marginally better.
* The "steadicam only" shot was a significant improvement over either "handheld" shot.
* Turning on the electronic stabilization made the "steadicam" shot even smoother.
Despite all of this, we found that there was still a little bit of shake in the picture. We expect that a little practice with the steadicam could have vastly improved our shooting technique. All in all, we would say that this project was a big success!
I saw the video. It was a little better, but the combination of the two made it much better. Unfortunately, it's still far too shaky to consider it useful for any indie film that doesn't want to be branded with the Blair Witch style. So why would you go to the trouble?
I agree with your points. And the grandparent's point as well. If you want to compete with MSOffice (or any of the other packages that are leading over OpenOffice.org) then you have to get market share. Ordinary consumers couldn't care less about whether it's open source, built on free-as-in-Java, etc. They want it to work. They like the free as in beer, but if it doesn't work (at least as well as MSOffice for whatever they're doing) they won't use it.
"Box model, some defaults must be overridden to get equal output on all browsers"
Why do you need to get equal output on all browsers? It's not a realistic goal, considering the varying levels of support for CSS. What happens if a browser doesn't support CSS at all? My position is that the site should still deliver the content (a big column of text and images, probably) without any styling. The browser - or screen reader, PSP, PDA, etc. - should be able to display something regardless of your intended appearance. That's where design stops for me.
The result? I test on a handful of major browsers/platforms to ensure that the bulk of my visitors will see it as I intended (or pretty damn close). A 3-pixel difference is usually fine with me as long as it's close.
As for supporting poorly implemented CSS on certain browsers -coughcoughIEcoughcough- I've definitely had my run of CSS hacks. I was referring more to DHTML, Javascript, and new CSS. Unfortunately, not many clients want to spend the dough to do truly kickass things; they just want a pretty brochure site. I save the kickass stuff for my own pet projects and the clients with a little more vision (and budget).
Developing a pure CSS/XHTML site means that the site's content will display even without CSS support. If you're using Firefox with the Web Developer extension, you can hit CTRL+SHIFT+D and see the same thing.
I usually avoid user agent detection, simply because I don't want to keep up with the different browsers. I rarely do anything that can't be supported on all of the major browsers at the time. I've been to sites where I was rejected because I wasn't using IE4+. It was bad coding - someone assumed that all non-IE browsers were probably Netscape 4. Six years later, that no longer cuts it.
For accessibility (I think that's what you meant), it's worth setting up a handful of stylesheets for different browsers/readers. Definitely produce a print-friendly stylesheet.
C-SPAN is clearly concerned with ratings. Didn't you see the stuff they pulled out for Sweeps week? I think it was something like "old guy reading boring text to empty room."
I can find Bass at any local grocery store or liquor store. I think Wal-mart sells it. I know that Meijer does. It's everywhere. For a while, it was the only beer I'd buy.
If nothing else, shouldn't the FCC be responsible for managing the spectrum in such a way that these kinds of problems do not happen?
A licensed operator running an illegal amplifier obviously should be given lower priority than the owner of an FCC-approved consumer device. The other guy has no right to remove your use of the spectrum, while his use is probably considered beyond reasonable.
I'm just arguing for the sake of arguing. This is Slashdot, after all.
That is pretty bad... I had some trouble with Bank One when I was using my personal card to test an e-commerce transaction site for a client. Unfortunately, there was no other way at the time and after I maxed out the card (refunding the transactions immediately, of course, but that takes time) they called me and asked me about them. As soon as I explained it, they passed me to a more technical rep and he understood. Problem went away immediately.
Before our honeymoon in the Bahamas, we also called our credit card companies to tell them there may be purchases from there between those dates.
My business partner does this all the time - Ty Willingham, Mickey Mouse, George Washington, Satan, Jesus H. Christ, Kobe Bryant, etc. Never gotten so much as a raised eyebrow.
Personally, I thank the cashier any time they ask to see my ID. The back of my credit card is signed and says (in big black letters, over my own signature) - "CHECK ID."
If the credit card isn't signed, the post office won't accept it (and you can't just sign it in front of them). If it is, you can check the signature against the current signature + the picture/name on the ID. If everyone did this, I expect there'd be a lot less fraud.
On the other hand, there's always the issue of no signature or ID checking at all - gas pump, some minor transactions, online purchases, etc.
Luckily, the fraud departments at Bank One and Capital One were good enough to resolve the two fraudulant charges I've had to my card in the last couple of years. They also called me any time there was unusual spending patterns on my account (for which I am grateful).
You can't fix credit card fraud completely, but you can certainly take precautions on both sides of the account.
Not easy to read or manage, but it sure downloads fast. And if you're serving it to a few million visitors a day, those add up fast in bandwidth savings.
Followed up with exactly the same thing that Google, Yahoo!, and many other companies do:
"For example, a car company could choose to have Microsoft display its sports car link when a man types in certain keywords, and a link to an SUV model when a woman uses the search criteria."
Not a privacy concern. It's using the Internet's advantages to the benefit of 1) the advertiser and 2) the consumer (potentially).
If I'm surfing for "SUV" then maybe I would rather see sponsored links for SUV companies rather than random, unrelated ads for shower gel. As an advertiser, I know that I can buy a billboard for n dollars and have no idea how many people drove by the billboard, made inquiries into my company as a result of the billboard, or became customers are a result of the billboard. With the Internet, I can do all of that - it lets me be a more informed advertiser, use my money more appropriately, and improve general service for customers.
If you worked at Adroit Software, you would. I don't work there, but I imagine someone does. And that person would see "Adroitly" on a regular basis.</arguing_because_i_can>
Making 35 3-foot cables sucks. I made my own cables to run from the office to the bay (about 70 ft each), but I wasn't interested in the hassle of crimping 2-3 foot pieces.
Define "normal" cable prices. I realize that "internet" pricing should be cheaper, but when I went out looking for a good place to buy bulk cables (30+), I couldn't find a single retail place with a reasonable price.
L-Com - $8 (as low as $7 if you're buying quantity)
I have no affiliation with L-Com, and I'm sure there are others out there like this, but I try to spread the word when I have a good experience with a vendor. I ended up ordering 30 3-ft cables for just over $2 each. The price was fantastic and the service was great.
You receive a National Security Letter demanding that you turn over information. You consider it an abuse, but you can't argue with them and you can't tell anyone about it (or you're in violation). So it's a big secret, nobody has to know, and they don't have to report it to Congress.
So there could be hundreds of abuses that we'll never know about...all because it's written into the law as a big fat secret.
"How can you think that the U.S. Government has any business forcing a third party--who has broken no laws, I might add--to start pointing fingers for Apple's benefit?"
The government is simply upholding a contract between two parties. They use such concepts as subpoenas, witnesses, and evidence to perform their role in our justice system. What's the problem here?
My wife pointed out that you can go to the IRS.gov FREE FILE page you can file through H&R Block or TurboTax online for free.
"Free federal online tax preparation and e-filing for all taxpayers. No restrictions. Everyone qualifies."
Some free filings do have restrictions, but some do not. If you can't get free as in speech (with taxes, you won't) you might as well get free as in beer.
* If you go to the tax prep sites directly, you may not be able to get the same offer. You have to go through the IRS site.
I was going to respond to that post, but you have made the point for me.
As part of our work, we lease dedicated server for hosting. We only offer hosting to our clients, and we use that as a selling point - with a budget hosting account, your site will be sitting next to hundreds of other sites. No matter how well we secure your site, you have to trust that the other sites used competent, security-minded developers. A single compromise could extend to the entire server, including your own site.
If a company doesn't fix a problem that's brought to their attention, published or not, they could be found negligent for damages as a result of that security hole.
Can you really make a secure system? Open source or closed, there are going to be security risks. So what happens if the security hole would be so expensive to fix that you simply couldn't afford to address it? Keeping it quiet, while not always effective or preferred, is still security (through obscurity).
I discover security holes in web applications all the time. My protocol is to stop once I've proven it's possible to compromise, notify the company of the issue, the implications of the hole, and ways to go about fixing it. I always include a link to my company's website, but I never threaten to publish it or do anything that might be construed as extortion. I've never been accused to wrongdoing, I usually get a big thank you, and sometimes it lands me a meeting - which is where they become clients.
People generally appreciate a helpful tip, whether it's a "you have a word spelled wrong on your site" or "you have a SQL Injection vulnerability on your site." Just don't be an ass about it.
Slashdot Mirror
Apparently, you have some technology to transport us back to humor in 1998!
Fantastic!
I thought about that after posting... if the client needs a layered .PSD file to pass on to their agency or printer, maybe you'd be stuck with that. I'm not traditionally a graphics guy myself - I was pretty exclusively Paint Shop Pro for years and then Macromedia Fireworks recently - so I have no idea what formats the Gimp can handle. My business partner is a designer, so he's training me to use Photoshop so we can pass files back and forth without losing info. That was one reason I was surprised that the GPP said he switched like that.
Of course...if Photoshop is at work and you can't afford a copy for home, that's enough reason for many.
Out of curiosity, why do you use both programs regularly?
If they are generally equal, it doesn't make sense to switch back and forth. If one is superior to the other, it doesn't make sense to switch back and forth. The only reason I can think of to use both regularly is that they each have strengths that you prefer over the other; that neither meets your satisfaction all the time.
I don't mean to attack you or either software package, but your comment made me wonder about the general usage of competing software packages like this.
From the article:
For those stuck on dial-up, here is a quick summary of our results:
* Both "handheld" shots were very shaky with the electronic stabilization performing only marginally better.
* The "steadicam only" shot was a significant improvement over either "handheld" shot.
* Turning on the electronic stabilization made the "steadicam" shot even smoother.
Despite all of this, we found that there was still a little bit of shake in the picture. We expect that a little practice with the steadicam could have vastly improved our shooting technique. All in all, we would say that this project was a big success!
I saw the video. It was a little better, but the combination of the two made it much better. Unfortunately, it's still far too shaky to consider it useful for any indie film that doesn't want to be branded with the Blair Witch style. So why would you go to the trouble?
I agree with your points. And the grandparent's point as well. If you want to compete with MSOffice (or any of the other packages that are leading over OpenOffice.org) then you have to get market share. Ordinary consumers couldn't care less about whether it's open source, built on free-as-in-Java, etc. They want it to work. They like the free as in beer, but if it doesn't work (at least as well as MSOffice for whatever they're doing) they won't use it.
"Box model, some defaults must be overridden to get equal output on all browsers"
Why do you need to get equal output on all browsers? It's not a realistic goal, considering the varying levels of support for CSS. What happens if a browser doesn't support CSS at all? My position is that the site should still deliver the content (a big column of text and images, probably) without any styling. The browser - or screen reader, PSP, PDA, etc. - should be able to display something regardless of your intended appearance. That's where design stops for me.
The result? I test on a handful of major browsers/platforms to ensure that the bulk of my visitors will see it as I intended (or pretty damn close). A 3-pixel difference is usually fine with me as long as it's close.
As for supporting poorly implemented CSS on certain browsers -coughcoughIEcoughcough- I've definitely had my run of CSS hacks. I was referring more to DHTML, Javascript, and new CSS. Unfortunately, not many clients want to spend the dough to do truly kickass things; they just want a pretty brochure site. I save the kickass stuff for my own pet projects and the clients with a little more vision (and budget).
Developing a pure CSS/XHTML site means that the site's content will display even without CSS support. If you're using Firefox with the Web Developer extension, you can hit CTRL+SHIFT+D and see the same thing.
I usually avoid user agent detection, simply because I don't want to keep up with the different browsers. I rarely do anything that can't be supported on all of the major browsers at the time. I've been to sites where I was rejected because I wasn't using IE4+. It was bad coding - someone assumed that all non-IE browsers were probably Netscape 4. Six years later, that no longer cuts it.
For accessibility (I think that's what you meant), it's worth setting up a handful of stylesheets for different browsers/readers. Definitely produce a print-friendly stylesheet.
C-SPAN is clearly concerned with ratings. Didn't you see the stuff they pulled out for Sweeps week? I think it was something like "old guy reading boring text to empty room."
Are you kidding?! What area?
I can find Bass at any local grocery store or liquor store. I think Wal-mart sells it. I know that Meijer does. It's everywhere. For a while, it was the only beer I'd buy.
And I'm in Indiana.
If nothing else, shouldn't the FCC be responsible for managing the spectrum in such a way that these kinds of problems do not happen?
A licensed operator running an illegal amplifier obviously should be given lower priority than the owner of an FCC-approved consumer device. The other guy has no right to remove your use of the spectrum, while his use is probably considered beyond reasonable.
I'm just arguing for the sake of arguing. This is Slashdot, after all.
That is pretty bad... I had some trouble with Bank One when I was using my personal card to test an e-commerce transaction site for a client. Unfortunately, there was no other way at the time and after I maxed out the card (refunding the transactions immediately, of course, but that takes time) they called me and asked me about them. As soon as I explained it, they passed me to a more technical rep and he understood. Problem went away immediately.
Before our honeymoon in the Bahamas, we also called our credit card companies to tell them there may be purchases from there between those dates.
My business partner does this all the time - Ty Willingham, Mickey Mouse, George Washington, Satan, Jesus H. Christ, Kobe Bryant, etc. Never gotten so much as a raised eyebrow.
Personally, I thank the cashier any time they ask to see my ID. The back of my credit card is signed and says (in big black letters, over my own signature) - "CHECK ID."
If the credit card isn't signed, the post office won't accept it (and you can't just sign it in front of them). If it is, you can check the signature against the current signature + the picture/name on the ID. If everyone did this, I expect there'd be a lot less fraud.
On the other hand, there's always the issue of no signature or ID checking at all - gas pump, some minor transactions, online purchases, etc.
Luckily, the fraud departments at Bank One and Capital One were good enough to resolve the two fraudulant charges I've had to my card in the last couple of years. They also called me any time there was unusual spending patterns on my account (for which I am grateful).
You can't fix credit card fraud completely, but you can certainly take precautions on both sides of the account.
"However, their was a mistake"
Do you mean "there" was a mistake? I'm pretty sure you do.
Not easy to read or manage, but it sure downloads fast. And if you're serving it to a few million visitors a day, those add up fast in bandwidth savings.
Followed up with exactly the same thing that Google, Yahoo!, and many other companies do:
"For example, a car company could choose to have Microsoft display its sports car link when a man types in certain keywords, and a link to an SUV model when a woman uses the search criteria."
Not a privacy concern. It's using the Internet's advantages to the benefit of 1) the advertiser and 2) the consumer (potentially).
If I'm surfing for "SUV" then maybe I would rather see sponsored links for SUV companies rather than random, unrelated ads for shower gel. As an advertiser, I know that I can buy a billboard for n dollars and have no idea how many people drove by the billboard, made inquiries into my company as a result of the billboard, or became customers are a result of the billboard. With the Internet, I can do all of that - it lets me be a more informed advertiser, use my money more appropriately, and improve general service for customers.
If you worked at Adroit Software, you would. I don't work there, but I imagine someone does. And that person would see "Adroitly" on a regular basis.</arguing_because_i_can>
My exact thoughts. Shaky before, shaky after. There's a nice period in between where I get work done.
Making 35 3-foot cables sucks. I made my own cables to run from the office to the bay (about 70 ft each), but I wasn't interested in the hassle of crimping 2-3 foot pieces.
Define "normal" cable prices. I realize that "internet" pricing should be cheaper, but when I went out looking for a good place to buy bulk cables (30+), I couldn't find a single retail place with a reasonable price.
7 ft. Cat-6, blue:
Best Buy - $17
L-Com - $8 (as low as $7 if you're buying quantity)
I have no affiliation with L-Com, and I'm sure there are others out there like this, but I try to spread the word when I have a good experience with a vendor. I ended up ordering 30 3-ft cables for just over $2 each. The price was fantastic and the service was great.
Grilled cheese sandwiches, people's skin, and breast implants may come and go...but a cruise ship in a fiction novel will last forever.
You receive a National Security Letter demanding that you turn over information. You consider it an abuse, but you can't argue with them and you can't tell anyone about it (or you're in violation). So it's a big secret, nobody has to know, and they don't have to report it to Congress.
So there could be hundreds of abuses that we'll never know about...all because it's written into the law as a big fat secret.
"How can you think that the U.S. Government has any business forcing a third party--who has broken no laws, I might add--to start pointing fingers for Apple's benefit?"
The government is simply upholding a contract between two parties. They use such concepts as subpoenas, witnesses, and evidence to perform their role in our justice system. What's the problem here?
My wife pointed out that you can go to the IRS.gov FREE FILE page you can file through H&R Block or TurboTax online for free.
"Free federal online tax preparation and e-filing for all taxpayers. No restrictions. Everyone qualifies."
Some free filings do have restrictions, but some do not. If you can't get free as in speech (with taxes, you won't) you might as well get free as in beer.
* If you go to the tax prep sites directly, you may not be able to get the same offer. You have to go through the IRS site.
I was going to respond to that post, but you have made the point for me.
As part of our work, we lease dedicated server for hosting. We only offer hosting to our clients, and we use that as a selling point - with a budget hosting account, your site will be sitting next to hundreds of other sites. No matter how well we secure your site, you have to trust that the other sites used competent, security-minded developers. A single compromise could extend to the entire server, including your own site.
If a company doesn't fix a problem that's brought to their attention, published or not, they could be found negligent for damages as a result of that security hole.
Can you really make a secure system? Open source or closed, there are going to be security risks. So what happens if the security hole would be so expensive to fix that you simply couldn't afford to address it? Keeping it quiet, while not always effective or preferred, is still security (through obscurity).
I discover security holes in web applications all the time. My protocol is to stop once I've proven it's possible to compromise, notify the company of the issue, the implications of the hole, and ways to go about fixing it. I always include a link to my company's website, but I never threaten to publish it or do anything that might be construed as extortion. I've never been accused to wrongdoing, I usually get a big thank you, and sometimes it lands me a meeting - which is where they become clients.
People generally appreciate a helpful tip, whether it's a "you have a word spelled wrong on your site" or "you have a SQL Injection vulnerability on your site." Just don't be an ass about it.