Are you kidding? Access is a fully featured ACID compliant database engine that powers many a fortune 500 company. Microsoft actually just throws that crappy interface onto its "desktop" so that people don't get intimidated by its raw power and speed. If you want to fully enable it all you need to do is some simple config changes
Change the attributes for MSDOS.SYS so it is not 'Read Only', MSDOS.SYS is found in the root directory of your C:\ drive. Open the file using Notepad or another text editor (not Microsoft Word or any word processor).
Change the value of 'BootGUI=' to 'BootGUI=0'.
Reboot and your good to go...
What does a version release *really* mean?
on
Ubuntu 6.10 is Out
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
In the grand scheme of things, what does it really mean to release a new version other than just having a continually increasing number? Why make it such a big deal?
I ask this seriously and also in jest. Why not just have
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
give you the latest and greatest? There has already been discussion of the "best" way to go about upgrading (dist-update, whatever). If instead of having repositories that were "version" specific, why not just have "current" repositories. Then as *everything* progresses, it all gets updated along the way?
Is it just the dependencies issue? Or am I missing something more? Just seems like since Ubuntu is aimed at making it the most user-friendly distro, "version" updates could follow suit.
No, I agree "command-completion" is great and wonderful. But if you don't remember what the directory starts with then it can't help you (sometime you just have to see it to remember)...again this is a somewhat contrived but valid case.
I'm not a windows person (for most things) and I too have installed unixutils and couldn't imagine working without them.
The adobe example is probably the worst example of a GUI not doing it better. First, explorer makes all of the pdf's have a "pdf" icon and by just clicking on them it would launch Adobe Acrobat reader. Second, that would require you to remember the command for running Adobe...in the explorer GUI you just click, thats it. Don't get me wrong, I prefer the command line for many a task but at the rate your going sounds like you prefer it for *everything*. Lets see you play a first person shooter with the command line, or how about graphic editing? Its a *great* tool, but it isn't for everything no matter how much you want it to be. And that was my original point, use it when it makes sense or just use the right tool for the job. Sorry if I sounded condascending back at you...
a command-line is still a hell of a lot easier way to navigate our filesystems than point-and-click
Agree and disagree. Agree because (7 times out of 10) it is faster. Disagree because it isn't always the most obvious/direct (or even fastest). If you need to go to/var/log/apache, then yep cd/var/log/apache is just about the quickest method I can think of. However, navigating to a directory that you haven't been to in a while or not exactly sure how to get there the cd ls cd ls cd ls cd ls method actually may not be quicker than clicking as you go.
I've been doing a lot of editing with vi. Both from a *nix terminal and also from a windows gvim environment with multiple instances running. Sometimes I find it faster (when given the chance on windows) to alt-tab to my document grab the mouse and highlight a section of code, ctrl-v alt-tab ctrl-p, later rinse repeat. Granted those are usually special cases where *I* find it faster than just having multiple documents open in the same vi instance and never leaving the keyboard, but it just kinda provest that there isn't a single best method across the board for all users.
That said, long live vi. Even if we go to a virtual 3d world, I'll still use it while typing on a virtual keyboard...I can just get work done (quickly).
You bring up a good/interesting dilemma/debate. What *should* matter the most? I know you may have just thrown that hypothetical situation together, but would imagine that it might have some connection to a personal experience.
Last I checked it ain't 1997 anymore and technology, especially web related technology, has changed a lot over the past 9 years. So to turn the tables on you, should site A continue to be rewarded for the service it produced way back when or should site B that is current, up-to-date, whatever be punished for simply being young?
I'm intentionally not going to put any thoughts as to which should "win" as I'll leave that to the rest of the/.'ers. I just wanted to point out the other side of your argument.
I bet your viewing this on NN4, aren't you...don't need/understand that high-fangled "tabbed-browsing" kids are using these day, huh?
Even though T-Mobile is just GPRS (with EDGE in a few places) the bandwidth isn't the real issues with that situation working, its the latency.
I've got to run to a meeting so I can't provide the full GPRS specs but most GPRS transmitters allocate a smaller number of channels to uploading, so despite my original claim that bandwidth isn't the issue it still is. So the either way, your not going to be able to make a VoIP call over T-Mobile's current data network.
For the other/.'ers:
1) Has anyone tried this on a 3G network Sprint/Verizon? How is the latency there?
2)I know someone wants to fill in the GPRS technical specs I glossed over...
Not going to let the cat out of the bag, but my users will be the ones supplying the "usable site content". I'm just creating the foundation on correct, lean markup.
That said, I'm currently studing css like crazy. Having the knowledge of where/how to put in the *few* but necessary "extra" css "hooks" (divs and spans) will make rearranging the layout much easier down the road. Then there is seperating content from design. At some point, my markup will reach a somewhat static state. When that happends, I can either hire or create a community project to "re-style" the site...just like/. did. The markup stays the same (semantic as ever) and people can still have the "ohhh pretty" effect. Another example of how modular design will save overall effort in the long run.
Web dev is an understatment. When I release this beauty upon the tubes, well not sure what is going to happen, but hopefully it will be good.
Actually I'm designing a site from the ground up. Trying to do everything* right. Semantic markup, accesibility, proper source ordering, user customizable/specifiable everything...AND trying to accomodate most all browsers or degrade nicely. Its currently just me, but I've got a few other people that are about to come in and start working on it as well.
I'm doing this on the side, so no I wouldn't be out of a job, just gain a lot of spare time. Actually even if I could guarantee that all of my users would use the same 100% standards compliant browser I'd still have to make some of the same decisions...layouts, color schemes, etc. not to mention just implementing features...
I've mainly been focusing on making sure my markup is *perfect*. CSS can't do everything, but the nice thing is that if done correctly, you can turn CSS off and still be able to use the site. Same goes for javascript. My first version will require no javascript and all future core features will be able to run without it as well. AJAX and all this "Web2.0" hype is going to take a backseat to functionality, they'll be added as needed in future releases. I also like to test the experience from using a PDA. What's nice about this approach is that my "full" version and "mobile" version are the exact same codebase.
To top it all off, it has been developed entirely using...drumroll...vi(m).
Every "web dev" should do what I am doing at least once, so they can understand how sites work and not use their WYSIWYG "tools" as crutches and actually understand (x)HTML, CSS, and javascript. Dreamweaver is killing the web!
I completely agree that not having *all* of the CSS support is a bummer. However, it is a minor piece of the puzzle in the grand scheme of things. You can't count on all of your users having an updated browser. You (in general) have to code to the lowest common denominator. Sites are just now starting to drop support NN4, but IE5 is still a big player. So...this is actually a headline for about 3-4 years in the future when people are considering having to accomodate IE7 and its shortcomings, and consequentially considering dropping support. Today, I still sit in backwards compatibility hell...tomorrow doesn't look good either.
I'll give you that i ranted and oversimplified the situation, but its absurd to complain about technology advancing too fast.
Now, first (for the time being) terabyte storage and certainly petabyte storage is primarily a business (not consumer) requirement/market. In that arena and if you are already going to be paying $$$ for the diskspace, it is almost a no-brainer to be using some sort of RAID. I could just be out of touch with current storage trends, but for *most* systems that I know of they are either fading out or dropping completely tape stoarge in favor of either multiple on-line copies of data in different locations (multiple mirrors) or I know one place that has roughly 250GB of active storage that they put onto 500GB drives that use more like tapes. Plug them in, back up, un-plug them, store them.
As this parent points out, the interface speeds are certainly increasing...and by the time that we (consumers) start requiring terabytes and petabytes of storage the transfer speeds will increase as well.
Again, I don't see this as a problem. If your system is currently at X storage requirements just because technology allows for X^N storage capability doesn't change that you still only use/need X. So, what works for you now will continue to work. The new capabilities will only affect you once you start *needing* those capacities. Then, and only then do you need to start looking at what your backup process is/will be. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Oh yeah, and still stop bitching.
I don't understand all of the bitching about "how are we going to backup ALL of this data up..."
Filesystems aren't a problem, bigger hard drives aren't a problem, in fact there is no problem at all except people that don't understand the concept of what doing a "backup" actually means.
When we had 1024K drives it would require 1024K to do a FULL backup.
When we had 1G drives it would require 1G to do a FULL backup ...
When we had 1TB drives it would require 1TB to do a FULL backup
If you can't notice a trend, then you don't need to be anywhere near my data backup process. It is just plain, SIMPLE math. When we increase our storage capacity by X, we must also increase our backup capacity by X as well (or a percentage of X if we compress our backups). Its like people think that new drives/technology only apply to active storage, but they must rely on last year/decades technology for backups.
Let me repeat it again...there is no problem. Stop bitching!
So what you are saying is that intelligence is all around us, just sometimes we have to either look harder to find it or just redefine intelligence all together?
Another example, some might have thought Earl was stumbling mindlessly drunk at the party last night, but had they looked closer they would have noticed that his intricatly placed footsteps were actually a plot of the first 18,000 coordinates of the Tau Dirichlet Series.
Rookie mistake. But little do they know that will end up spending orders of magnitude more time trying to "fix" it in the future.
Although the context is different. The best programmers I know are the laziest ones. Not in that they don't do much work, but that they have extensive knowledge of tried and true libraries. They don't reinvent the wheel.
To bring this back full circle, being able to use both a modular AND mature filtering process would be a GIANT leap forward for most web application. I'm in the process of using/learning Pear::DB and all of its features. Also, I just stumbled on the OWASP project http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Main_Page/ It looks like it has promise, but still needs some polishing.
Although it got modded funny, I could potentially welcome the idea (given the right implementation). My "watch" could be my communications hub. All of my other peripherial devices could connect to whatever networks "through" it. It wouldn't have a crazy interface as it was more of a connection broker. It might seem far-fetched now. But todays cell-phones/pda's have as much (if not more) processing power as computers from the late 90's, and mobile bandwith is just going to increase. Again, the limiting factor is going to be battery power...they have an exponential jump or two and our "crazy" ideas could start to become reality.
Just imagine back in the early (room-sized) computer days what people would have thought of a "laptop computer"
Back to the original thought, I wear a watch probably more than I have a cell phone on me (and when I have one, I usually have the other). So, if I could trade my phone for just a BT headset, then it might be a worthwhile swap.
Completely agree. Probably one of the biggest "problems" with large corporations.
I know I'm sounding like I'm promoting "execs" but for the most part they put up with a lot. Granted some truly are heartless, but there are also nice people that have to fire hundreds (if not more) people that they may even be friends with. If it truly were a walk in the park and everyone could (or even would want to) do it, then ummm...things would be...different. I'm not sure how, but it would just be different. In another sense, I doubt many of the/.'ers would be good CEOs for the same reason that most CEOs wouldn't be good programmers/sysadmins/whatever.
All jobs work this way (or at least they should). Return on Investment. In order for a company to make money, they will pay you a wage. Hopefully you will produce work that is at minimum equivalent to the amount that they pay you. If not, then they will be losing money employing you and if they have decent reporting/management will probably fire you.
Many companies do offer incentive programs (more likely for upper level positions), but is still just a percentage of the actual "value" that you created, not all of it.
Sidenote. We all like to complain about how overpaid execs are. They usually don't have earth shattering ideas. However, if they find a way to increase efficiency by 10% but it is for a $100 million dollar project, then they essentially create $10 million worth of "value." If they only get a 10% cut, then they get a paycheck of $1 million, even if they didn't do any of the work to actually realize the improved efficiency.
Why stop there. Why not just go ahead an make it an infinte number of read/write cycles? That way it would last SEVERAL years. But then again, how long is technology like this supposed to stick around? Once something hits mainstream usage, there is already something bigger/better/faster/whatever that will come along and make it obsolete. Its a viscious cycle.
All of that to say, we take steps forward to keep from moving backwards.
I agree. However, this was talking about high-profile sites that are affected. *Hopfully* sites like that doesn't have "steaming pile of turd spaghetti" making it run.
I do think that most any code especially high-profile code that has the potential to affect personal data (of large numbers of usres) should be reviewed by "pros" and third-party's. I want the largest number of eyes to review my code, and someone wanting a review shouldn't be taken as not "trusting" or whatever...it just makes sense.
Granted it is difficult to get great pictures using a small fixed lens (ie cameraphones), and additionally just increasing pixel count doesn't directly increase image quailty, so I would think that part of the reason that we are holding at roughly VGA resolution cameraphones has something to do with storage requirements. *Most* camera phones are now the standard/base model phones. They don't spend the extra money on hardware for external storage, and also most of their users don't want to spend the additionaly money on storage. All of that to say, even if this was "available" for cameraphones, until we can easily have/add several gigs of storage, the ability to have several photos will probably be more useful that having *better* photos.
Am I way off base here, but don't your two examples have nothing to do with OS, and everything to do with the language that you are writing in? Different languages are going to handle null comparisons differently regardless of platform.
I agree that having multiple pages just to increase ad impressions is a little annoying, but why do people gripe about a site trying to profit from its work/research/journalism/whatever? How else is it going to make money/pay for the bandwidth that slashdot/anyone generates? Get off your soapbox!
Javascript isn't an entirely horrible language. It isn't as full featured as Java, C/C++/C#, perl, etc. However, it is a decent OO language. Most people don't know/use half of its capabilities. So your question of whether or not javascript can cut it...is *probably* yes.
There are no one size fits all solutions, but XUL could be a decent platform for some projects.
Slashdot Mirror
I ask this seriously and also in jest. Why not just have give you the latest and greatest? There has already been discussion of the "best" way to go about upgrading (dist-update, whatever). If instead of having repositories that were "version" specific, why not just have "current" repositories. Then as *everything* progresses, it all gets updated along the way?
Is it just the dependencies issue? Or am I missing something more? Just seems like since Ubuntu is aimed at making it the most user-friendly distro, "version" updates could follow suit.
No, I agree "command-completion" is great and wonderful. But if you don't remember what the directory starts with then it can't help you (sometime you just have to see it to remember)...again this is a somewhat contrived but valid case.
I'm not a windows person (for most things) and I too have installed unixutils and couldn't imagine working without them.
The adobe example is probably the worst example of a GUI not doing it better. First, explorer makes all of the pdf's have a "pdf" icon and by just clicking on them it would launch Adobe Acrobat reader. Second, that would require you to remember the command for running Adobe...in the explorer GUI you just click, thats it. Don't get me wrong, I prefer the command line for many a task but at the rate your going sounds like you prefer it for *everything*. Lets see you play a first person shooter with the command line, or how about graphic editing? Its a *great* tool, but it isn't for everything no matter how much you want it to be. And that was my original point, use it when it makes sense or just use the right tool for the job. Sorry if I sounded condascending back at you...
Agree and disagree. Agree because (7 times out of 10) it is faster. Disagree because it isn't always the most obvious/direct (or even fastest). If you need to go to
I've been doing a lot of editing with vi. Both from a *nix terminal and also from a windows gvim environment with multiple instances running. Sometimes I find it faster (when given the chance on windows) to alt-tab to my document grab the mouse and highlight a section of code, ctrl-v alt-tab ctrl-p, later rinse repeat. Granted those are usually special cases where *I* find it faster than just having multiple documents open in the same vi instance and never leaving the keyboard, but it just kinda provest that there isn't a single best method across the board for all users.
That said, long live vi. Even if we go to a virtual 3d world, I'll still use it while typing on a virtual keyboard...I can just get work done (quickly).
Whenever I see 4x4 I think of a truck. So, is this going to be able to "off road"?
You bring up a good/interesting dilemma/debate. What *should* matter the most? I know you may have just thrown that hypothetical situation together, but would imagine that it might have some connection to a personal experience.
/.'ers. I just wanted to point out the other side of your argument.
Last I checked it ain't 1997 anymore and technology, especially web related technology, has changed a lot over the past 9 years. So to turn the tables on you, should site A continue to be rewarded for the service it produced way back when or should site B that is current, up-to-date, whatever be punished for simply being young?
I'm intentionally not going to put any thoughts as to which should "win" as I'll leave that to the rest of the
I bet your viewing this on NN4, aren't you...don't need/understand that high-fangled "tabbed-browsing" kids are using these day, huh?
I was wondering what M$ had done to keep people from going to AllOfMp3.com
Even though T-Mobile is just GPRS (with EDGE in a few places) the bandwidth isn't the real issues with that situation working, its the latency.
/.'ers:
I've got to run to a meeting so I can't provide the full GPRS specs but most GPRS transmitters allocate a smaller number of channels to uploading, so despite my original claim that bandwidth isn't the issue it still is. So the either way, your not going to be able to make a VoIP call over T-Mobile's current data network.
For the other
1) Has anyone tried this on a 3G network Sprint/Verizon? How is the latency there?
2)I know someone wants to fill in the GPRS technical specs I glossed over...
Not going to let the cat out of the bag, but my users will be the ones supplying the "usable site content". I'm just creating the foundation on correct, lean markup.
/. did. The markup stays the same (semantic as ever) and people can still have the "ohhh pretty" effect. Another example of how modular design will save overall effort in the long run.
That said, I'm currently studing css like crazy. Having the knowledge of where/how to put in the *few* but necessary "extra" css "hooks" (divs and spans) will make rearranging the layout much easier down the road. Then there is seperating content from design. At some point, my markup will reach a somewhat static state. When that happends, I can either hire or create a community project to "re-style" the site...just like
Web dev is an understatment. When I release this beauty upon the tubes, well not sure what is going to happen, but hopefully it will be good.
Actually I'm designing a site from the ground up. Trying to do everything* right. Semantic markup, accesibility, proper source ordering, user customizable/specifiable everything...AND trying to accomodate most all browsers or degrade nicely. Its currently just me, but I've got a few other people that are about to come in and start working on it as well.
I'm doing this on the side, so no I wouldn't be out of a job, just gain a lot of spare time. Actually even if I could guarantee that all of my users would use the same 100% standards compliant browser I'd still have to make some of the same decisions...layouts, color schemes, etc. not to mention just implementing features...
I've mainly been focusing on making sure my markup is *perfect*. CSS can't do everything, but the nice thing is that if done correctly, you can turn CSS off and still be able to use the site. Same goes for javascript. My first version will require no javascript and all future core features will be able to run without it as well. AJAX and all this "Web2.0" hype is going to take a backseat to functionality, they'll be added as needed in future releases. I also like to test the experience from using a PDA. What's nice about this approach is that my "full" version and "mobile" version are the exact same codebase.
To top it all off, it has been developed entirely using...drumroll...vi(m).
Every "web dev" should do what I am doing at least once, so they can understand how sites work and not use their WYSIWYG "tools" as crutches and actually understand (x)HTML, CSS, and javascript. Dreamweaver is killing the web!
I completely agree that not having *all* of the CSS support is a bummer. However, it is a minor piece of the puzzle in the grand scheme of things. You can't count on all of your users having an updated browser. You (in general) have to code to the lowest common denominator. Sites are just now starting to drop support NN4, but IE5 is still a big player. So...this is actually a headline for about 3-4 years in the future when people are considering having to accomodate IE7 and its shortcomings, and consequentially considering dropping support. Today, I still sit in backwards compatibility hell...tomorrow doesn't look good either.
I'll give you that i ranted and oversimplified the situation, but its absurd to complain about technology advancing too fast.
Now, first (for the time being) terabyte storage and certainly petabyte storage is primarily a business (not consumer) requirement/market. In that arena and if you are already going to be paying $$$ for the diskspace, it is almost a no-brainer to be using some sort of RAID. I could just be out of touch with current storage trends, but for *most* systems that I know of they are either fading out or dropping completely tape stoarge in favor of either multiple on-line copies of data in different locations (multiple mirrors) or I know one place that has roughly 250GB of active storage that they put onto 500GB drives that use more like tapes. Plug them in, back up, un-plug them, store them.
As this parent points out, the interface speeds are certainly increasing...and by the time that we (consumers) start requiring terabytes and petabytes of storage the transfer speeds will increase as well.
Again, I don't see this as a problem. If your system is currently at X storage requirements just because technology allows for X^N storage capability doesn't change that you still only use/need X. So, what works for you now will continue to work. The new capabilities will only affect you once you start *needing* those capacities. Then, and only then do you need to start looking at what your backup process is/will be. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Oh yeah, and still stop bitching.
I don't understand all of the bitching about "how are we going to backup ALL of this data up..."
...
Filesystems aren't a problem, bigger hard drives aren't a problem, in fact there is no problem at all except people that don't understand the concept of what doing a "backup" actually means.
When we had 1024K drives it would require 1024K to do a FULL backup.
When we had 1G drives it would require 1G to do a FULL backup
When we had 1TB drives it would require 1TB to do a FULL backup
If you can't notice a trend, then you don't need to be anywhere near my data backup process. It is just plain, SIMPLE math. When we increase our storage capacity by X, we must also increase our backup capacity by X as well (or a percentage of X if we compress our backups). Its like people think that new drives/technology only apply to active storage, but they must rely on last year/decades technology for backups.
Let me repeat it again...there is no problem. Stop bitching!
So what you are saying is that intelligence is all around us, just sometimes we have to either look harder to find it or just redefine intelligence all together?
Another example, some might have thought Earl was stumbling mindlessly drunk at the party last night, but had they looked closer they would have noticed that his intricatly placed footsteps were actually a plot of the first 18,000 coordinates of the Tau Dirichlet Series.
Although the context is different. The best programmers I know are the laziest ones. Not in that they don't do much work, but that they have extensive knowledge of tried and true libraries. They don't reinvent the wheel.
To bring this back full circle, being able to use both a modular AND mature filtering process would be a GIANT leap forward for most web application. I'm in the process of using/learning Pear::DB and all of its features. Also, I just stumbled on the OWASP project http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Main_Page/ It looks like it has promise, but still needs some polishing.
Although it got modded funny, I could potentially welcome the idea (given the right implementation). My "watch" could be my communications hub. All of my other peripherial devices could connect to whatever networks "through" it. It wouldn't have a crazy interface as it was more of a connection broker. It might seem far-fetched now. But todays cell-phones/pda's have as much (if not more) processing power as computers from the late 90's, and mobile bandwith is just going to increase. Again, the limiting factor is going to be battery power...they have an exponential jump or two and our "crazy" ideas could start to become reality.
Just imagine back in the early (room-sized) computer days what people would have thought of a "laptop computer"
Back to the original thought, I wear a watch probably more than I have a cell phone on me (and when I have one, I usually have the other). So, if I could trade my phone for just a BT headset, then it might be a worthwhile swap.
Completely agree. Probably one of the biggest "problems" with large corporations.
/.'ers would be good CEOs for the same reason that most CEOs wouldn't be good programmers/sysadmins/whatever.
I know I'm sounding like I'm promoting "execs" but for the most part they put up with a lot. Granted some truly are heartless, but there are also nice people that have to fire hundreds (if not more) people that they may even be friends with. If it truly were a walk in the park and everyone could (or even would want to) do it, then ummm...things would be...different. I'm not sure how, but it would just be different. In another sense, I doubt many of the
All jobs work this way (or at least they should). Return on Investment. In order for a company to make money, they will pay you a wage. Hopefully you will produce work that is at minimum equivalent to the amount that they pay you. If not, then they will be losing money employing you and if they have decent reporting/management will probably fire you.
Many companies do offer incentive programs (more likely for upper level positions), but is still just a percentage of the actual "value" that you created, not all of it.
Sidenote. We all like to complain about how overpaid execs are. They usually don't have earth shattering ideas. However, if they find a way to increase efficiency by 10% but it is for a $100 million dollar project, then they essentially create $10 million worth of "value." If they only get a 10% cut, then they get a paycheck of $1 million, even if they didn't do any of the work to actually realize the improved efficiency.
Why stop there. Why not just go ahead an make it an infinte number of read/write cycles? That way it would last SEVERAL years. But then again, how long is technology like this supposed to stick around? Once something hits mainstream usage, there is already something bigger/better/faster/whatever that will come along and make it obsolete. Its a viscious cycle.
All of that to say, we take steps forward to keep from moving backwards.
I agree. However, this was talking about high-profile sites that are affected. *Hopfully* sites like that doesn't have "steaming pile of turd spaghetti" making it run.
I do think that most any code especially high-profile code that has the potential to affect personal data (of large numbers of usres) should be reviewed by "pros" and third-party's. I want the largest number of eyes to review my code, and someone wanting a review shouldn't be taken as not "trusting" or whatever...it just makes sense.
Granted it is difficult to get great pictures using a small fixed lens (ie cameraphones), and additionally just increasing pixel count doesn't directly increase image quailty, so I would think that part of the reason that we are holding at roughly VGA resolution cameraphones has something to do with storage requirements. *Most* camera phones are now the standard/base model phones. They don't spend the extra money on hardware for external storage, and also most of their users don't want to spend the additionaly money on storage. All of that to say, even if this was "available" for cameraphones, until we can easily have/add several gigs of storage, the ability to have several photos will probably be more useful that having *better* photos.
Am I way off base here, but don't your two examples have nothing to do with OS, and everything to do with the language that you are writing in? Different languages are going to handle null comparisons differently regardless of platform.
Sorry if I am missing something...
I agree that having multiple pages just to increase ad impressions is a little annoying, but why do people gripe about a site trying to profit from its work/research/journalism/whatever? How else is it going to make money/pay for the bandwidth that slashdot/anyone generates? Get off your soapbox!
Javascript isn't an entirely horrible language. It isn't as full featured as Java, C/C++/C#, perl, etc. However, it is a decent OO language. Most people don't know/use half of its capabilities. So your question of whether or not javascript can cut it...is *probably* yes.
There are no one size fits all solutions, but XUL could be a decent platform for some projects.
Probably about the time the adoption rate of these pick up. They'll wait till people drink the kool-aid, then move in...