In my opinion, the purpose of a PDF reader is to... wait for it... *read* a PDF file, not run Java or any other sort of scripting. If a publisher wants to create an interactive program, *there are programming languages for that!* If Acrobat Reader was made to specifically prevent a document from doing anything except *being passively read*, we wouldn't have half these problems.
The Swiss Army Knife approach only works for Switzerland's military elite, not software companies!
One company I worked for did regular code reviews. Unfortunately. It quickly became an annoying waste of time that devolved into punctuation checking. The only thing that mattered was how many spaces were used to indent lines of code, how many blank lines were between subroutines, whether dashes or equal signs were placed before and after comment blocks, and other minutiae of meaningless, non-functional detail.
Unfortunately, and I'm sure this will come as a surprise to everyone, this did little to improve the quality of the software, or reduce the number of bugs.
But, hey, at least QA had job security, you know? I guess that's something.
The big problem with the series was that it had no story to tell. Say what you want about how lame the third film was, at least it had one last revelation: Skynet was software, not hardware, and it's appearance was really the direct result of the increasing complexity of the Internet (well, more or less, but you know what I mean). That was a cool idea, and as the bombs went off, turning the planet into a gigantic barbecue spit, I found myself thinking "Crap, why didn't *I* think of that?"
So, what else was the series going to tell us? What else are the new movies going to tell us? Anything? Face it, the series had nothing to say, and so (as the article tells us) did a lot of naval-gazing to justify its existence. It was down right *boring* (anyone see that god-awful episode where they all wandered around someone's funeral the whole hour?). Yes, dramas revolve around *people*, but those people have to *do* something. There has to be a *point* to it all.
If you want to get your kids to study harder and do better in school, I have one word for you: Waterboarding. Hey, if you're going to get medieval on their butts, why stop with the ball-and-chain?
This is because the extra U3 partition identified itself to Windows as a CD, which Windows automounts, unless you've deliberately turned that feature off. U3 has a Windows program that will remove the bogus CD partition, and render the thing an ordinary USB drive.
Of course, if you have Linux handy, I believe GParted will remove the partition as well.
The U3 technology needs to curl up into a ball and die!
If Ad Block Plus gets too annoying, just add the web sites serving ads to your Hosts file, and assign them to 127.0.0.0. Bottom line: if people want to block ads, they'll find a way to do so, and the only thing you will succeed in doing by fighting them is turn them against you. Never underestimate the consequences of shooting yourself in the foot on the Internet.
When the singing, dancing, popover, popunder, cover-the-article, get-in-my-way annoying ads are replaced with low-key, conservative, print-style ads, then I'll stop blocking them. Not before!
As long as the sequel isn't a remake of The Cage -- this time with Kirk in the Captain's seat instead of Pike -- I'll be happy. If Abrams tries *that* stunt, the movie will tank big time, and it'll be "stick a fork in it" time for the franchise.
When I first heard about Cable TV companies supplying internet connections through their shared pipes, I knew this whole bandwidth crunch was coming. The only way the whole thing makes sense is if very few people actually *use* it. It's like the old retail joke: you can sell a product (i.e. unlimited bandwidth) at any price you want if it's not in stock.
The architecture is fundamentally flawed, given the current technology. To put it another way: we're trying to live a Star Trek lifestyle using stone knives and bearskins (with apologies to Harlan Ellison).
In Vista, VLC is the only program that will use my TV/video capture card. As it's an older card, I have to use an XP driver for it. Media Player, et al just gives me a black screen and no audio. DRM, perhaps? Anyway, VLC is the only program that uses the card normally.
Likewise, in Ubuntu, it seems to be the only program able to use the "/dev/video0" device (that's the same card). Everything else -- mplayer included -- chokes on it. So, anyone who has had trouble using a TV card in Windows or Linux would be well advised to at least give VLC a try.
I for one would applaud ABC moving their shows to Hulu, as their current system (haven't bothered to check what they're using) doesn't work in Linux. Hulu does.
As a matter of fact, I've sent feedback on their video site telling them that, since they won't support my computer, I'm going to watch shows from someone who does.
I've been a KDE user for many years, but with the advent of version 4.0, I was forced to switch to Gnome. Why?
1. The default KDE looks like Vista. I find Vista's GUI to be an ugly, unpleasant monstrosity. What's with all this black, anyway?
2. KDE 4.0 was buggy and incomplete. If I wanted to use beta-quality software as Release Quality, I'd still be using Windows.
Hopefully, by the time the developers get around to screwing up Gnome with some new "artsy-fartsy" new look and feel, KDE will have gone through enough iterations to be feature complete and stable (not to mention have plenty of new non-black themes I can live with).
Quite a lot, actually, if the "rock" is actually a man-made Read-Only Crystal Knowledge wafer, which permanently stores the data in its crystal lattice.
You may have seen in the news recently how in the last decade or so Wall Street ignored some of the hard-won regulations and guidelines developed in the wake of the Great Depression.
We all know what happened as a result.
The same is true when dealing with data. You don't ignore the rules completely, or follow them only when you feel like it, or when you have time. As the old joke goes, Quality is *not* Job 1.1.
If the data isn't important enough to store correctly, then it's not important enough to be stored at all.
I have always had a terrible, unreliable memory, going back to when I was a kid. The only way I could get by in school was to compensate for the bad memory with reason and logic -- remembering the *pattern* rather than the data itself. A side effect of this technique is that I'm quite good at puzzles. I've spent the last 30 years or so working with computer software, so, while my poor memory hasn't gotten worse, the constant exercise of what I *do* have means I'm just as sharp as I was in college.
Now if I could only remember where I put my car keys!
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In my opinion, the purpose of a PDF reader is to ... wait for it ... *read* a PDF file, not run Java or any other sort of scripting. If a publisher wants to create an interactive program, *there are programming languages for that!* If Acrobat Reader was made to specifically prevent a document from doing anything except *being passively read*, we wouldn't have half these problems.
The Swiss Army Knife approach only works for Switzerland's military elite, not software companies!
I've got my wife beside me telling me where to go. And yes, she'll give me turn by turn directions if I need them!
And here I thought that folding@home had something to do with laundry. Who knew?
I want to know where the twitter client is for my VIC-20.
One company I worked for did regular code reviews. Unfortunately. It quickly became an annoying waste of time that devolved into punctuation checking. The only thing that mattered was how many spaces were used to indent lines of code, how many blank lines were between subroutines, whether dashes or equal signs were placed before and after comment blocks, and other minutiae of meaningless, non-functional detail.
Unfortunately, and I'm sure this will come as a surprise to everyone, this did little to improve the quality of the software, or reduce the number of bugs.
But, hey, at least QA had job security, you know? I guess that's something.
Well, in the Philly area, it's obviously illegal to use your turn signals unless you are *not* making a turn or changing lanes.
The big problem with the series was that it had no story to tell. Say what you want about how lame the third film was, at least it had one last revelation: Skynet was software, not hardware, and it's appearance was really the direct result of the increasing complexity of the Internet (well, more or less, but you know what I mean). That was a cool idea, and as the bombs went off, turning the planet into a gigantic barbecue spit, I found myself thinking "Crap, why didn't *I* think of that?"
So, what else was the series going to tell us? What else are the new movies going to tell us? Anything? Face it, the series had nothing to say, and so (as the article tells us) did a lot of naval-gazing to justify its existence. It was down right *boring* (anyone see that god-awful episode where they all wandered around someone's funeral the whole hour?). Yes, dramas revolve around *people*, but those people have to *do* something. There has to be a *point* to it all.
Unfortunately, the whole show was pointless!
If you want to get your kids to study harder and do better in school, I have one word for you: Waterboarding. Hey, if you're going to get medieval on their butts, why stop with the ball-and-chain?
This is because the extra U3 partition identified itself to Windows as a CD, which Windows automounts, unless you've deliberately turned that feature off. U3 has a Windows program that will remove the bogus CD partition, and render the thing an ordinary USB drive.
Of course, if you have Linux handy, I believe GParted will remove the partition as well.
The U3 technology needs to curl up into a ball and die!
If Ad Block Plus gets too annoying, just add the web sites serving ads to your Hosts file, and assign them to 127.0.0.0. Bottom line: if people want to block ads, they'll find a way to do so, and the only thing you will succeed in doing by fighting them is turn them against you. Never underestimate the consequences of shooting yourself in the foot on the Internet.
When the singing, dancing, popover, popunder, cover-the-article, get-in-my-way annoying ads are replaced with low-key, conservative, print-style ads, then I'll stop blocking them. Not before!
As long as the sequel isn't a remake of The Cage -- this time with Kirk in the Captain's seat instead of Pike -- I'll be happy. If Abrams tries *that* stunt, the movie will tank big time, and it'll be "stick a fork in it" time for the franchise.
Who says Linux is difficult to use?
It's all Richard Pryor's fault!
(cf: Superman 3)
When I first heard about Cable TV companies supplying internet connections through their shared pipes, I knew this whole bandwidth crunch was coming. The only way the whole thing makes sense is if very few people actually *use* it. It's like the old retail joke: you can sell a product (i.e. unlimited bandwidth) at any price you want if it's not in stock.
The architecture is fundamentally flawed, given the current technology. To put it another way: we're trying to live a Star Trek lifestyle using stone knives and bearskins (with apologies to Harlan Ellison).
That's why you should have tried it early in the morning, and not the end of the day.
In Vista, VLC is the only program that will use my TV/video capture card. As it's an older card, I have to use an XP driver for it. Media Player, et al just gives me a black screen and no audio. DRM, perhaps? Anyway, VLC is the only program that uses the card normally.
Likewise, in Ubuntu, it seems to be the only program able to use the "/dev/video0" device (that's the same card). Everything else -- mplayer included -- chokes on it. So, anyone who has had trouble using a TV card in Windows or Linux would be well advised to at least give VLC a try.
As long as Hulu continues to work with a Linux-based browser, I'm happy. This is unlike ABC, whose system doesn't support Linux at all.
Their loss (or perhaps I should say "They're Lost").
I for one would applaud ABC moving their shows to Hulu, as their current system (haven't bothered to check what they're using) doesn't work in Linux. Hulu does.
As a matter of fact, I've sent feedback on their video site telling them that, since they won't support my computer, I'm going to watch shows from someone who does.
I've been a KDE user for many years, but with the advent of version 4.0, I was forced to switch to Gnome. Why?
1. The default KDE looks like Vista. I find Vista's GUI to be an ugly, unpleasant monstrosity. What's with all this black, anyway?
2. KDE 4.0 was buggy and incomplete. If I wanted to use beta-quality software as Release Quality, I'd still be using Windows.
Hopefully, by the time the developers get around to screwing up Gnome with some new "artsy-fartsy" new look and feel, KDE will have gone through enough iterations to be feature complete and stable (not to mention have plenty of new non-black themes I can live with).
Quite a lot, actually, if the "rock" is actually a man-made Read-Only Crystal Knowledge wafer, which permanently stores the data in its crystal lattice.
Pretty soon, we'll be archiving so much information that it'll be easier just to create a multidimensional backup of the entire universe.
Course, that'll take a spitload of DVD's and a lot of RAM. Hmmm. Wonder what God uses for backups?
Imagine what the screen will look like with all that orange Cheetos stuff smeared all over it.
Lame!
And I won't get into what peanut butter and jelly will look like.
You may have seen in the news recently how in the last decade or so Wall Street ignored some of the hard-won regulations and guidelines developed in the wake of the Great Depression.
We all know what happened as a result.
The same is true when dealing with data. You don't ignore the rules completely, or follow them only when you feel like it, or when you have time. As the old joke goes, Quality is *not* Job 1.1.
If the data isn't important enough to store correctly, then it's not important enough to be stored at all.
... Too bad Ron Moore didn't. And it shows!
I have always had a terrible, unreliable memory, going back to when I was a kid. The only way I could get by in school was to compensate for the bad memory with reason and logic -- remembering the *pattern* rather than the data itself. A side effect of this technique is that I'm quite good at puzzles. I've spent the last 30 years or so working with computer software, so, while my poor memory hasn't gotten worse, the constant exercise of what I *do* have means I'm just as sharp as I was in college.
Now if I could only remember where I put my car keys!