If the user (or the exploit!) tries to use these URL schemes before they're flagged, a dialog appears, requesting the user to accept the launch before opening the URL.
I do not have any better solution, but as the sky is overcast today I'm gonna complain about yours anyhow.
You are not alone in suggesting that the user should confirm what should happen in a dialog/pop-up/what-not. The problems are
a) There are too many clueless users out there, who have no idea of what they are doing.
b) Even if you are full of clues and the geekiest guru of the town, there will be moments when a dialog simply cannot give enough information on what can safely be done.
In an ideal system you (geek or your grandma) should never have to worry about understanding what is going on and judging whether it is safe or not.
But, as said before, that does not mean I have any suggestion on how to handle this particular problem in any better way. Sorry...
The "study" is not interesting as such, as it only says that it is better to sleep enough than not to. However, it is interesting that 85 slashdotters so far have bothered to reply to it, and it is interesting that BBC bothered reporting it.
My conspiracy theory is that behind all the feedback is our lurking bad conscience that most of us actually do not sleep enough and hence do not do as well as we could when we're awake.
On the other hand it is more interesting to sit up all night chatting with friends or even to watch some of the lousy tele shows or writing cobol code than to sleep. Unless you have really fun dreams.
They also have a demo page, which unfortunately proves that Apple's latest security update (of 24 May, which is the day after tomorrow - sounds like a Bond film) is not enough (another Bond film).
I tried their demo page after Apple's update and sure enough, a nasty text file was written to my home directory.
I know the compatibility can be shaky, but I have one example of the opposite. We got a huge Word document created using Rational Rose and Office 2K, and it just refused to print from Office 2K. No one knows why.
Finally someone got the bright idea to transfer it to a Mac, open it in Office X, save it as PDF and send it back to the PC. It worked like a charm. The printing from Acrobat on Windows 2K was perfect and all formating was fine.
In this case MacOS X actually helped us with an MS document that Windows 2K could not handle on its own.
The only reason for me to upgrade is a really huge bug-fix, which they call "unicode support". Why on earth was that not properly included in Office v.X?
I have tried the demo. I have found nothing else new worth paying for.
So this bug fix will cost me 300 euro. Yes, I will pay up, but I will spit at the receipt.
Besides there is still no support for right-to-left writing (like in Arab and Hebrew). I guess they will add that to the next version in three years together with a new boring clip-art of a grey over-head projector, so they can charge another 300.
However, to claim that Keynote does all you could possibly need in Powerpoint is ridiculous. What about diagrams and flowcharts? And to claim that TextEdit and Keypoint read Word and Powerpoint files is like saying that vi is the only Desktop Publishing Program you will ever need. Sometimes it works. If you have created any serious work, it won't.
I do most of my work outside Office, but there is no way I be completely without it.
I doubt that. They replaced mine, but that was only three days after the warranty ran out and after the entire harddisk had shuffled off this mortal coil. Every single byte was lost. (But luckily backed up beforehand.)
Baystar feels the only "real" business SCO has is in the courts.
Baystar feels SCO has nothing else, but what they more and more realise, is that SCO may not even have any case for the courts. That's why they want to pull out.
This is clearly good news for the Linux community.
Btw, when Baystar made the investment in SCO, they were not doing this as "bad guys". They did it as "incredibly badly informed and misguided gullible guys". If SCO really had had a valdi legal case against IBM (which Baystar clearly believed) Baystar's decision would not be immoral in any way.
SCO's decision is a different matter, as they clearly against better knowledge try to promote a dead case to get fat money for their shares and personal pay checks for as long as possible, before the whole thing falls down as a house of cards.
There seems to have been one really silly user who fell for about the oldest trick in the book - calling a bad executable something nice. Why do Macworld even bother reporting it?
It is a non story even if it happened, and it is unlikely to have happened. Unless the guy is a 10-year old who fell for a trap his 11-year old sister set up for him.
Listing the current shortcomings of Linux explains why Linux isn't big today in the desktop market, but it does not say much about the future.
Linux may never be big in desktops, but if it once gets over a critical mass, so there is a good business case for supporting the desktop functionality properly (hardware suport and usability mostly), then commercial manufacturers and developers will flock to help it in that area. Right now there is only a business case to help it in the server area.
All of the big ones (IBM, Dell, HP, etc...) would love to see Linux win in the desktop area, but so far it does not pay for them to make sure it happens.
I have a PDF reader on my phone, admittidly it never came with the phone and i installed it myself.
Great! I didn't know that existed. Should've guessed.
However, does not carrying around a mini portable keyboard and whipping that out when you want to do stuff detract from its portability and instant ease of use.
Yes and no. Mostly no. I'd love to be able to write down ideas and essays when I stand and wait for the bus, and I cannot do that with the keyboard. Can't do it without the keyboard either though. Sitting in Borders, B and N, restaurants, cafés or hotel rooms, there is no problem dipping my hands in the trouser pocket to pick out the keyboard and connect it. It takes less than 5 seconds.
PDA sales are falling all over the world except EU, this can be attributed to the power of the mobile phones that are coming out at the moment. Seriously, i have a nokia 6600, what can the Zire's do that the 6600 cant. This phone has
Calendar,
Notepad,
Plays music,
Expandable memory,
Todo lists,
convertors,
voice recorder,
Camera (with video function)
Address list,
opera,
games,
email
It does not have a pdf-reader afaik, and it does not have the possibility to attach a real but slim portable keyboard. If you don't feel you need those two features, your Nokia is perfect. I hardly ever use my Palm without connecting a keyboard, so to me the Nokia would be a fairly useless replacement.
There are dozens of countries and hundreds of millions of "Europeans", and they have very different opinions. A big but actually ridiculous divider between the US and Europe is whether you show naked breasts on public television. In the US it isn't done. In most European countries it is no problem - even in family programs. That's about the only big difference.
However, when it comes to showing pornography for sexual pleasure we ("Europeans") get much more restrictive. No country I know of shows pornography on public television before children are supposed to sleep, and it is unusual that it is done even in the middle of the night on public television.
Without referring to opinion polls in different countries, my guess is that a definite majority of Europeans is against unrestricted pornography in general - and definitely so in spam.
Artistic photography and films with occasional nudity is a different matter.
Slashdot Mirror
I like that! In other words: MacOS X will be the safest system in the world until you actually start using it.
I do not have any better solution, but as the sky is overcast today I'm gonna complain about yours anyhow.
You are not alone in suggesting that the user should confirm what should happen in a dialog/pop-up/what-not. The problems are
a) There are too many clueless users out there, who have no idea of what they are doing.
b) Even if you are full of clues and the geekiest guru of the town, there will be moments when a dialog simply cannot give enough information on what can safely be done.
In an ideal system you (geek or your grandma) should never have to worry about understanding what is going on and judging whether it is safe or not.
But, as said before, that does not mean I have any suggestion on how to handle this particular problem in any better way. Sorry...
My conspiracy theory is that behind all the feedback is our lurking bad conscience that most of us actually do not sleep enough and hence do not do as well as we could when we're awake.
On the other hand it is more interesting to sit up all night chatting with friends or even to watch some of the lousy tele shows or writing cobol code than to sleep. Unless you have really fun dreams.
I tried their demo page after Apple's update and sure enough, a nasty text file was written to my home directory.
You should have told him like it is: A bit is simply another word for 125 millibytes.
Finally someone got the bright idea to transfer it to a Mac, open it in Office X, save it as PDF and send it back to the PC. It worked like a charm. The printing from Acrobat on Windows 2K was perfect and all formating was fine.
In this case MacOS X actually helped us with an MS document that Windows 2K could not handle on its own.
I have tried the demo. I have found nothing else new worth paying for.
So this bug fix will cost me 300 euro. Yes, I will pay up, but I will spit at the receipt.
Besides there is still no support for right-to-left writing (like in Arab and Hebrew). I guess they will add that to the next version in three years together with a new boring clip-art of a grey over-head projector, so they can charge another 300.
However, to claim that Keynote does all you could possibly need in Powerpoint is ridiculous. What about diagrams and flowcharts? And to claim that TextEdit and Keypoint read Word and Powerpoint files is like saying that vi is the only Desktop Publishing Program you will ever need. Sometimes it works. If you have created any serious work, it won't.
I do most of my work outside Office, but there is no way I be completely without it.
I doubt that. They replaced mine, but that was only three days after the warranty ran out and after the entire harddisk had shuffled off this mortal coil. Every single byte was lost. (But luckily backed up beforehand.)
Baystar feels SCO has nothing else, but what they more and more realise, is that SCO may not even have any case for the courts. That's why they want to pull out.
This is clearly good news for the Linux community.
Btw, when Baystar made the investment in SCO, they were not doing this as "bad guys". They did it as "incredibly badly informed and misguided gullible guys". If SCO really had had a valdi legal case against IBM (which Baystar clearly believed) Baystar's decision would not be immoral in any way.
SCO's decision is a different matter, as they clearly against better knowledge try to promote a dead case to get fat money for their shares and personal pay checks for as long as possible, before the whole thing falls down as a house of cards.
The metric system is definitely superiour in most situations. But consider that one computer bit is 125 millibyte.
Yes.
Except the ones I have created myself. I would never trust those.
It is a non story even if it happened, and it is unlikely to have happened. Unless the guy is a 10-year old who fell for a trap his 11-year old sister set up for him.
Linux may never be big in desktops, but if it once gets over a critical mass, so there is a good business case for supporting the desktop functionality properly (hardware suport and usability mostly), then commercial manufacturers and developers will flock to help it in that area. Right now there is only a business case to help it in the server area.
All of the big ones (IBM, Dell, HP, etc...) would love to see Linux win in the desktop area, but so far it does not pay for them to make sure it happens.
Great! I didn't know that existed. Should've guessed.
However, does not carrying around a mini portable keyboard and whipping that out when you want to do stuff detract from its portability and instant ease of use.
Yes and no. Mostly no. I'd love to be able to write down ideas and essays when I stand and wait for the bus, and I cannot do that with the keyboard. Can't do it without the keyboard either though. Sitting in Borders, B and N, restaurants, cafés or hotel rooms, there is no problem dipping my hands in the trouser pocket to pick out the keyboard and connect it. It takes less than 5 seconds.
Calendar,
Notepad,
Plays music,
Expandable memory,
Todo lists,
convertors,
voice recorder,
Camera (with video function)
Address list,
opera,
games,
email
It does not have a pdf-reader afaik, and it does not have the possibility to attach a real but slim portable keyboard. If you don't feel you need those two features, your Nokia is perfect. I hardly ever use my Palm without connecting a keyboard, so to me the Nokia would be a fairly useless replacement.
However, when it comes to showing pornography for sexual pleasure we ("Europeans") get much more restrictive. No country I know of shows pornography on public television before children are supposed to sleep, and it is unusual that it is done even in the middle of the night on public television.
Without referring to opinion polls in different countries, my guess is that a definite majority of Europeans is against unrestricted pornography in general - and definitely so in spam.
Artistic photography and films with occasional nudity is a different matter.