The term "blook" made the list... which is weird because I've never even heard that word before. A look at Google generated only 300,000 hits. Some of the others I tried had well over a million hits. How could a word in so little usage be so hated?
Then I looked again at the article. The organization who commissioned the survey is called "The Lulu Blooker Prize". The parent organization, Lulu, apparently helps authors sell books as well as "blooks".
My gut feeling here is that the word "blook" barely existed until these guys came up with their business plan, fueled by a little marketing masked as a survey and spread around the internet as an amusing story.
I disagree. Microsoft has maintained a list of conventions for programmers for quite some time. I easily found this on MSDN, which was recently re-written for Vista:
I think you found out rule #1: when in doubt, right-click.
The conventions that I'm talking about are things like this:
* Hold down shift when clicking on items and you'll "gather" them into a single selection
* Hold down control when wheeling (on your mouse) and it will zoom in and out
* Press the arrow keys when you have an object selected and it will nudge around
* Dragging a rectangle on the screen selects only those objects that are *entirely* inside your rectangle
* Control-A will select all
And it's those conventions (and plenty more) that Adobe/Macromedia completely ignored when porting their products to Windows. And it's why I really hate using those products.
Let's not forget that nearly ALL of the Apple-to-Windows ported programs are not "Windows-like" in their apperance, organization of menus, or shortcut keys.
Basically all Adobe/Macromedia products do not follow any Windows convention at all. Am I the only Windows user that is horribly frustrated by this?
That's because you know what RSS is. Heck, you probably know the difference between an email address and a website address, too.
I send out a newsletter via email to about 1500 people monthly. A good portion of them have no idea what RSS is. They also like having the email come in because it reminds them to read it, and allows them to easily archive it for later reference. With an RSS feed, they would have to remember to check the feed once a month, and for casual computer users that just isn't going to happen.
This argument has been going on for almost a decade now.
As a consumer, I say GOOD. Because if all that stuff wasn't bundled into the operating system, then I'd have to get it all myself, and often pay for it.
The MacOS includes all that stuff, and more, for free when you buy OS X. Why can't I have that when I buy Windows Vista?
And there is nothing stopping me from deciding to 1) purchase a competing product and installing it, or 2) not purchasing Vista at all and getting a machine with Linux.
Couldn't you tell your router/switch not to even let the machine connect unless its in your list of "trusted" MAC addresses?
Then create a policy whereby external machines have to meet specific requirements to be allowed into the list.
Basically, you cover your ass. If your superior says "that's too secure" then at least you can point to someone else when it becomes a problem.
You could even get more sophisticated with the access list, configuring it in such as way that any unauthorized people can have internet access, but not internal network access.
Sorry about that. I missed the word "files" and thought the worst.
I wonder why you can't open the 2007 attachments, though. Have you installed the viewers on all of the computers? Compatibility should be a non-issue, I would think.
I am surprised you've got State departments who are already on 2007. Here in California, most of the State just upgraded to 2002 or 2003 in some cases.
If the migration to Office 2007 breaks your macros, then who authorized the purchase of Office 2007 without thinking through the consequences?
If you say that "office 2007 just came with new machines" then the fault is in whoever purchased those machines. A company with an IT department should know to purchase machines without Office and instead use your Open License with Microsoft so that everyone is on the same version.
The first time I opened a 2007 Word document on my machine (with only Office 2003), Word was smart enough to go "Hey, can I download the compatibility patch for you?"
I said yes, and in one click I was able to open the document up. I imagine the same holds true for the other Office apps, though I haven't tried it.
To everyone who said that "the connection is free"... um, no.
The store owner says in the article: "If he would have come in (to the coffee shop), it would have been fine."
And that is why it was illegal. Whether or not the person *knew* he was stealing makes no difference. The wireless service was offered up as a benefit only to the store's customers, and this person was taking advantage of that.
Throw around analogies all you want, the fact is that he just assumed it was free because it was unsecured.
Of course I can't. And neither can anyone else attempting to write about it.
So until Microsoft actually posts specific numbers and explainations, which Microsoft will have to do eventually, it's a huge waste of time to come up with all this speculation and doom-and-gloom.
It's all moot anyway. Vista is here to stay, just like XP was 5 years ago. Like it or not.
You realize you're citing an editorial piece, not an actual article, right? And that's an editorial piece from an IT magazine that is about as anti-Microsoft as Slashdot.
The piece doesn't cite any references itself, and is no more trustworthy than your average/. comment.
Perhaps I read your message incorrectly. It seems that, while your idea will certainly authenticate the *real thing*, it does nothing to prevent the average phishing email from saying "Hey, you need to log in to your account at Bank0fAmerica.com."
From reading so far, and especially from a prior post from a Best Buy employee, it doesn't appear that Microsoft knew that these customers were being signed up without concent.
It sounds more like Best Buy had an overly agressive internal campaign to refer as many sales as possible to MSN, and did whatever they could to make it happen.
Is Microsoft guilty if it had no knowledge of this? Further, did Microsoft make it easy for people to cancel the service?
If Microsoft played fair when someone asked to cancel, and if they honestly didn't know how aggressive Best Buy was, then I can't fault them for this.
The way I see it, this guy volunteered because he believed in a cause and wanted to help out. He volunteered with no expectation of being reimbursed.
Fast forward a while later, and it got to the point where it was more work than he was willing to do for free. He asked for some cash, and they didn't like his offer.
What makes him think that they should retroactively pay him $50k for all of the work he did as a volunteer? And why should they have to, since they were under the assumption he was a loyal volunteer all this time?
Going forward, if he wanted a salary to continue work, I can respect that and would expect a simple negotiation. But it sounds like he got greedy, wanted retro pay, and tried to extort them to get it. Some volunteer!
Everything you mentioned can be turned off very easily. It's called AutoCorrect.
Hit the Office button and choose Word Options. Go to Proofing and click "AutoCorrect Options". Then review the list and turn off whatever you hate. Note the tabs, as the AutoCorrect features are in various groups.
I find it interesting how so many/. users are fond of customizing and plug-ins and lots and lots of options. How many of you have fine-tuned Firefox? Yet when it comes to MS Office, you act like everything is set in stone.
Slashdot Mirror
The term "blook" made the list... which is weird because I've never even heard that word before. A look at Google generated only 300,000 hits. Some of the others I tried had well over a million hits. How could a word in so little usage be so hated?
Then I looked again at the article. The organization who commissioned the survey is called "The Lulu Blooker Prize". The parent organization, Lulu, apparently helps authors sell books as well as "blooks".
My gut feeling here is that the word "blook" barely existed until these guys came up with their business plan, fueled by a little marketing masked as a survey and spread around the internet as an amusing story.
3. Profit
You're mistaken. The free smokes are only for employees' children.
I disagree. Microsoft has maintained a list of conventions for programmers for quite some time. I easily found this on MSDN, which was recently re-written for Vista:
. aspx
. aspx
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511331
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511502
And there's more if you keep looking.
I think you found out rule #1: when in doubt, right-click.
The conventions that I'm talking about are things like this:
* Hold down shift when clicking on items and you'll "gather" them into a single selection
* Hold down control when wheeling (on your mouse) and it will zoom in and out
* Press the arrow keys when you have an object selected and it will nudge around
* Dragging a rectangle on the screen selects only those objects that are *entirely* inside your rectangle
* Control-A will select all
And it's those conventions (and plenty more) that Adobe/Macromedia completely ignored when porting their products to Windows. And it's why I really hate using those products.
Let's not forget that nearly ALL of the Apple-to-Windows ported programs are not "Windows-like" in their apperance, organization of menus, or shortcut keys.
Basically all Adobe/Macromedia products do not follow any Windows convention at all. Am I the only Windows user that is horribly frustrated by this?
I, for one, welcome our giant bird dinosaur overlo--- oh, wait, just the fossils? Nevermind then.
That's because you know what RSS is. Heck, you probably know the difference between an email address and a website address, too.
I send out a newsletter via email to about 1500 people monthly. A good portion of them have no idea what RSS is. They also like having the email come in because it reminds them to read it, and allows them to easily archive it for later reference. With an RSS feed, they would have to remember to check the feed once a month, and for casual computer users that just isn't going to happen.
I noticed that, too. And frankly, I'm glad. I'd much rather see random goatse-tagged photos than actual... well... you know. *shudder*
Finally I can geomap Goatse pictures to make for a more efficient search.
Check it out.
This technology is great!
This argument has been going on for almost a decade now.
As a consumer, I say GOOD. Because if all that stuff wasn't bundled into the operating system, then I'd have to get it all myself, and often pay for it.
The MacOS includes all that stuff, and more, for free when you buy OS X. Why can't I have that when I buy Windows Vista?
And there is nothing stopping me from deciding to 1) purchase a competing product and installing it, or 2) not purchasing Vista at all and getting a machine with Linux.
Just a thought... You could download the trial versions of Microsoft Expression graphic designer and web designer.
Couldn't you tell your router/switch not to even let the machine connect unless its in your list of "trusted" MAC addresses?
Then create a policy whereby external machines have to meet specific requirements to be allowed into the list.
Basically, you cover your ass. If your superior says "that's too secure" then at least you can point to someone else when it becomes a problem.
You could even get more sophisticated with the access list, configuring it in such as way that any unauthorized people can have internet access, but not internal network access.
That's what firewalls are for (not the networking kind).
Sorry about that. I missed the word "files" and thought the worst.
I wonder why you can't open the 2007 attachments, though. Have you installed the viewers on all of the computers? Compatibility should be a non-issue, I would think.
I am surprised you've got State departments who are already on 2007. Here in California, most of the State just upgraded to 2002 or 2003 in some cases.
If the migration to Office 2007 breaks your macros, then who authorized the purchase of Office 2007 without thinking through the consequences?
If you say that "office 2007 just came with new machines" then the fault is in whoever purchased those machines. A company with an IT department should know to purchase machines without Office and instead use your Open License with Microsoft so that everyone is on the same version.
But don't blame Microsoft for this.
The first time I opened a 2007 Word document on my machine (with only Office 2003), Word was smart enough to go "Hey, can I download the compatibility patch for you?"
I said yes, and in one click I was able to open the document up. I imagine the same holds true for the other Office apps, though I haven't tried it.
To everyone who said that "the connection is free"... um, no.
The store owner says in the article: "If he would have come in (to the coffee shop), it would have been fine."
And that is why it was illegal. Whether or not the person *knew* he was stealing makes no difference. The wireless service was offered up as a benefit only to the store's customers, and this person was taking advantage of that.
Throw around analogies all you want, the fact is that he just assumed it was free because it was unsecured.
Of course I can't. And neither can anyone else attempting to write about it.
So until Microsoft actually posts specific numbers and explainations, which Microsoft will have to do eventually, it's a huge waste of time to come up with all this speculation and doom-and-gloom.
It's all moot anyway. Vista is here to stay, just like XP was 5 years ago. Like it or not.
You realize you're citing an editorial piece, not an actual article, right? And that's an editorial piece from an IT magazine that is about as anti-Microsoft as Slashdot.
/. comment.
The piece doesn't cite any references itself, and is no more trustworthy than your average
How about using an email application that periodically saves your work?
That concept is so new, I know.
Perhaps I read your message incorrectly. It seems that, while your idea will certainly authenticate the *real thing*, it does nothing to prevent the average phishing email from saying "Hey, you need to log in to your account at Bank0fAmerica.com."
From reading so far, and especially from a prior post from a Best Buy employee, it doesn't appear that Microsoft knew that these customers were being signed up without concent.
It sounds more like Best Buy had an overly agressive internal campaign to refer as many sales as possible to MSN, and did whatever they could to make it happen.
Is Microsoft guilty if it had no knowledge of this? Further, did Microsoft make it easy for people to cancel the service?
If Microsoft played fair when someone asked to cancel, and if they honestly didn't know how aggressive Best Buy was, then I can't fault them for this.
The way I see it, this guy volunteered because he believed in a cause and wanted to help out. He volunteered with no expectation of being reimbursed.
Fast forward a while later, and it got to the point where it was more work than he was willing to do for free. He asked for some cash, and they didn't like his offer.
What makes him think that they should retroactively pay him $50k for all of the work he did as a volunteer? And why should they have to, since they were under the assumption he was a loyal volunteer all this time?
Going forward, if he wanted a salary to continue work, I can respect that and would expect a simple negotiation. But it sounds like he got greedy, wanted retro pay, and tried to extort them to get it. Some volunteer!
Everything you mentioned can be turned off very easily. It's called AutoCorrect.
/. users are fond of customizing and plug-ins and lots and lots of options. How many of you have fine-tuned Firefox? Yet when it comes to MS Office, you act like everything is set in stone.
Hit the Office button and choose Word Options. Go to Proofing and click "AutoCorrect Options". Then review the list and turn off whatever you hate. Note the tabs, as the AutoCorrect features are in various groups.
I find it interesting how so many
Did you see the model in the story's photo?
This is most definitely not a win-win.
I, for one, fear our wine-dress wearing, water-emerging, zombie-lookin' overlords.