You made me wonder... how come nobody came up with a pr0n search engine yet? It could be called Goatsearch, and maybe even get an address like Goatsear.ch (well, I don't think the Chinese govt would like that)... man, that sounds like instant success.
I wouldn't doubt you're being serious. Back in high school a biology teacher of mine once said "I found a really cool animation explaining mitosis cell reproduction, but I couldn't print it".
I personally found the article quite lacking. There's no "directory" representation, something that appears in pretty much every graphical interface.
Not to mention they didn't consider the Win95 Plus! icons (they sucked, I never liked them, but anyway they're part of Windows' icon history).
Let's not even get into Internet Explorer being a synonym to "browser"... yeah, I found interesting to see how IE's icon changed across time (but I'm fairly sure there's a Win95 icon missing in there for IE1-IE3), but couldn't we have a specific "Internet Explorer" category? Same for e-mails: saying the Microsoft Exchange icon evolved into Outlook Express is quite dumb (btw, there's also an icon for OE missing, from the IE 4.0 times, I believe; when the Outlook Express counterpart of IE 4.01 launched they replaced the globe with the blue "e" that we see there)
What hacks? The link you supplied is about a book which teaches several Firefox tricks, but not about designing Firefox-only websites. It's for those who want to learn how to take the most from their browser.
Yes, there are features specific for Mozilla browsers, but they are mostly for internal use (XUL, for instance). Not to mention they're all prefixed (CSS properties start with "-moz-"), so you know for sure when you're making something that is not standards-oriented, unlike IE's exclusive features.
Almost right. Mozilla did not drop IDN support, just shows every IDN in punycode form (meaning that it will not make punycode URLs look pretty, but if you give it a japanese domain it will convert it to punycode, so there is some support running in there).
Apple, on the other hand, only shows punycode if your URL contains characters from sets that look like latin. A much better approach IMO, since users will be able to see URLs in their language instead of some illegible "xn--pbt44a.jp" while being protected from clones of non-IDN websites.
My other concern: aren't there kanjis that look exactly the same? Do they have different codes (very likely)? This could lead to CJK-oriented phishing schemes. Fortunately I believe they are quite rare.
Or maybe we should have a new term, like sushi, for oriental phishing:-)
Yeah, "there is no such thing as 'free'" is just being pedantic. It is quite obvious that, in a real world, if you gain something there needs to be a loss somewhere else. No need to keep saying that. It is also quite obvious that a company, looking for profit, won't offer something for free without a plan of return of investment (like free advertising when people see you using their product). Again, is it so important and insightful to state the obvious? Say what the company actually wants rather than just saying a generic sentence over and over again.
Maybe we should rename the Free Software movement.
NeroLinux completed the image in 9 seconds. The file name was saved as music.iso, which I had to add the file extension manually, though it was by default set to.NRG.
I'd assume the default format was Nero's format. Then, when the article author changed it to ISO, the application simply removed the.nrg extension from the filename field, without suffixing it with.iso.
I'd prefer "Sun's Java Runtime Vulnerable To Social Engineering". As I understood it, nothing stopped them from messing other files, registry settings and the like.
Well, you must choose between application consistency (your program feels the same across different platforms) and platform consistency (your program feels like other applications for its current environment). There are pros and cons for each approach, but I prefer the latter.
About the image manager being in a different place... I agree it may be annoying for those who are already used to Mozilla, but I believe Firefox's preferences dialog made things better.
Edit->Preferences. The only reason Options is under Tools in Firefox is because it's trying to mimic IE.:)
Actually, Firefox has an "Options" item in the Tools menu because that's a Windows tradition. On X-based systems you get Edit->Preferences, just like Mozilla.
Come on. Organizing things is GEEK? Au contraire! Geeks are the most disorganized people! Just look at physics teachers's desks (no kidding).
That hardly holds when we're talking about computers. "Non-geeks" just keep clicking Next on installer they see, click "Yes" on any IE ActiveX warning... do you really think they'd stop to choose a category? Most "non-geeks" I see leave a lot of files (yeah, actual files, not only shortcuts) in the Desktop.
About your complaint for XP's paths: that's actually organized. Your "C:\DOCS" folder wouldn't work for multiple users. Not to mention configuration files. Where were they saved in the DOS times? In the application folder! In case you wanted to format your drive (or move to a new computer, or whatever) and keep your settings you'd need to hunt configuration files manually. That's why the folder is called "Documents and Settings". There's a central place for every user, where everything that matters to him (apart from the applications theirselves, of course) are.
I agree their paths are rather lengthy, especially for a UNIX addict. But they are surely not lacking organization.
Seems like nobody noted yet that, unless the browser is maximized, there's a standard border around the window... not only it does not match the theme (in a much worse way than the scrollbar IMO), it looks hell ugly there, and makes the top left of the window look like an abandoned idea of making a non-rectangular window.
Not only that, you know that GNU/Spyware scratches an itch on thousands of open spyware developers, resulting in a product that, though not as user-friendly as proprietary spyware, is way more functional!
Maybe they're using plain ol' HTML and CSS
And maybe it should thus work just fine regardless of which OS you use. Actually, no maybe involved there.
It's not "plain ol' HTML and CSS". They're also using JavaScript. And there are known minor differences in how browsers handle the DOM, which lead to different offset calculations for things like that drop-down menu.
I just compared it on Firefox 1.0 (standard font size, 108 dpi) to IE6 SP2 (normal and small fonts, Windows set to 115 dpi), and it does overlap on Firefox. Not that the result is ugly, but there is a small difference.
Do people actually check this out before calling it bogus?
Slashdot Mirror
You made me wonder... how come nobody came up with a pr0n search engine yet? It could be called Goatsearch, and maybe even get an address like Goatsear.ch (well, I don't think the Chinese govt would like that)... man, that sounds like instant success.
I wouldn't doubt you're being serious. Back in high school a biology teacher of mine once said "I found a really cool animation explaining mitosis cell reproduction, but I couldn't print it".
Yeah... April 1st :-)
(just kidding!)
I personally found the article quite lacking. There's no "directory" representation, something that appears in pretty much every graphical interface.
Not to mention they didn't consider the Win95 Plus! icons (they sucked, I never liked them, but anyway they're part of Windows' icon history).
Let's not even get into Internet Explorer being a synonym to "browser"... yeah, I found interesting to see how IE's icon changed across time (but I'm fairly sure there's a Win95 icon missing in there for IE1-IE3), but couldn't we have a specific "Internet Explorer" category? Same for e-mails: saying the Microsoft Exchange icon evolved into Outlook Express is quite dumb (btw, there's also an icon for OE missing, from the IE 4.0 times, I believe; when the Outlook Express counterpart of IE 4.01 launched they replaced the globe with the blue "e" that we see there)
What hacks? The link you supplied is about a book which teaches several Firefox tricks, but not about designing Firefox-only websites. It's for those who want to learn how to take the most from their browser.
Yes, there are features specific for Mozilla browsers, but they are mostly for internal use (XUL, for instance). Not to mention they're all prefixed (CSS properties start with "-moz-"), so you know for sure when you're making something that is not standards-oriented, unlike IE's exclusive features.
Almost right. Mozilla did not drop IDN support, just shows every IDN in punycode form (meaning that it will not make punycode URLs look pretty, but if you give it a japanese domain it will convert it to punycode, so there is some support running in there).
Apple, on the other hand, only shows punycode if your URL contains characters from sets that look like latin. A much better approach IMO, since users will be able to see URLs in their language instead of some illegible "xn--pbt44a.jp" while being protected from clones of non-IDN websites.
My other concern: aren't there kanjis that look exactly the same? Do they have different codes (very likely)? This could lead to CJK-oriented phishing schemes. Fortunately I believe they are quite rare.
Or maybe we should have a new term, like sushi, for oriental phishing :-)
Yeah, "there is no such thing as 'free'" is just being pedantic. It is quite obvious that, in a real world, if you gain something there needs to be a loss somewhere else. No need to keep saying that. It is also quite obvious that a company, looking for profit, won't offer something for free without a plan of return of investment (like free advertising when people see you using their product). Again, is it so important and insightful to state the obvious? Say what the company actually wants rather than just saying a generic sentence over and over again.
Maybe we should rename the Free Software movement.
"Look, matey, I know a dead chip when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now."
Reading your own quote from the article:
I'd assume the default format was Nero's format. Then, when the article author changed it to ISO, the application simply removed the .nrg extension from the filename field, without suffixing it with .iso.
I'd prefer "Sun's Java Runtime Vulnerable To Social Engineering". As I understood it, nothing stopped them from messing other files, registry settings and the like.
I'd say they were the first two!
This whole reverse-order trilogies thing makes my head hurt...
Well, you must choose between application consistency (your program feels the same across different platforms) and platform consistency (your program feels like other applications for its current environment). There are pros and cons for each approach, but I prefer the latter.
About the image manager being in a different place... I agree it may be annoying for those who are already used to Mozilla, but I believe Firefox's preferences dialog made things better.
Actually, Firefox has an "Options" item in the Tools menu because that's a Windows tradition. On X-based systems you get Edit->Preferences, just like Mozilla.
I don't know about OS X, though.
I feel a great disturbance in the Force...
That hardly holds when we're talking about computers. "Non-geeks" just keep clicking Next on installer they see, click "Yes" on any IE ActiveX warning... do you really think they'd stop to choose a category? Most "non-geeks" I see leave a lot of files (yeah, actual files, not only shortcuts) in the Desktop.
About your complaint for XP's paths: that's actually organized. Your "C:\DOCS" folder wouldn't work for multiple users. Not to mention configuration files. Where were they saved in the DOS times? In the application folder! In case you wanted to format your drive (or move to a new computer, or whatever) and keep your settings you'd need to hunt configuration files manually. That's why the folder is called "Documents and Settings". There's a central place for every user, where everything that matters to him (apart from the applications theirselves, of course) are.
I agree their paths are rather lengthy, especially for a UNIX addict. But they are surely not lacking organization.
So, the plan is...
Does not sound all that interesting...
Seems like nobody noted yet that, unless the browser is maximized, there's a standard border around the window... not only it does not match the theme (in a much worse way than the scrollbar IMO), it looks hell ugly there, and makes the top left of the window look like an abandoned idea of making a non-rectangular window.
Nah, personally I don't think it's worth more than £ 2.20462262.
The sibling post of this one says it well.
Not only that, you know that GNU/Spyware scratches an itch on thousands of open spyware developers, resulting in a product that, though not as user-friendly as proprietary spyware, is way more functional!
It's not "plain ol' HTML and CSS". They're also using JavaScript. And there are known minor differences in how browsers handle the DOM, which lead to different offset calculations for things like that drop-down menu.
Do people actually check this out before calling it bogus?
Brought to you by McDonald's :-)
Posted summaries are supposed to be descriptive.
Slashdot brought a new level of mirror indirection now :-)