Mail shouldn't be hard. It shouldn't be up to the user to figure out how to "configure TMDA correctly", and it shouldn't be up to the general public to understand how to deal with any number of different automated challenge and response systems out there should they get such a challenge.
I'm extremely savvy when it comes to IT, computers, Internet, etc. It's what I do all day at work. I wouldn't use the system you describe...what a pain in the ass. How can you expect someone's grandmother to use such a system?
I used mailblocks.com for about 4 months...also a pain in the ass. Challenge/Response systems are not the solution.
Here's a scenario: I send you a freelance job opportunity. I've never corresponded with you before, but I visited your website, saw your resume, and saw the part on your site where you said "if you need someone with my skills, and have work, send me a message". After sending my offer, I log off and go fishing at the lake for two days. While I'm gone, your C/R system sends me a challenge. My system thinks its spam. Or maybe you've configured your C/R system to only wait 24 hours instead of 7 days for a response. The end result is that I never get a response back from you regarding my opportunity, I believe you're a tool because you blew me off, and you never get the work. Worse, in the future, if anyone ever says to me "hey, I'm thinking about sending X some work, what do you think? He has a great website with a lot of info." I will say "don't bother, the guy blew me off he'll probably blow you off, too."
My solution was simply to pay for an account at an ISP where they aggressively filter spam. Coupled with a whitelist, blacklist and goldlist, all of my spam gets filtered...hundreds of messages every day. Very simple system, I didn't have to "configure" anything except my lists when I started, and best of all, none of the people I correspond with get confused or hassled by automated systems.
I disagree, though it could be I misread the "spirit" of the other post.
Lawyers under contract are typically corporate lawyers. Since the discussion was regarding EA and the possibility of a class action suit, the only corporate lawyers would be EA's.
The lawyers on the other side would almost certainly be working on contingency, and thus, would be compensated based on either a percentage of the amount awarded to the plaintiffs by the judge/jury, or compensated by some other amount agreed on with judge/jury and involved parties.
These agreements are bogus. Don't be afraid to sign them.
You have a right, no matter where you live, to earn a wage doing what you know. No one can take that right away from you, and no court will keep you from working and earning a living.
If you have been in IT for 5 years, for example, and it is all you know, no contract on earth can prevent you from taking another IT job.
Caveats: you cannot use or appropriate any resources from your current employer. Things like client lists, bandwidth, etc cannot be used. They have a right to keep you from using those things unless it is for them, but they do not have the right to keep you from working in your chosen profession. Working for an obvious competitor might be an issue, but in general, if you behave professionally and ethically you're good to go.
Part of what makes an employee valuable is experience. If you had to legally "forget" everything you learned at previous jobs or even your current job in order to be clear of legal liability, you'd be worthless. Your experience and your knowledge are valuable assets...no one can take them from you or diminish their value without compensating you.
Agreed. I think a much better curriculum for the school would be "How To Start Your Own Game Company" not "How to Be a Game Programmer".
I'd like to see people being told that they don't have to follow the industry norms. Bust out of the box, think off the wall, not status quo. If that guy wants to build a game with positive black characters, he should do it and the school should fund him, or at least act as a clearing house for people who would fund him.
I have a doppelganger, and it is you. I was just about to type the same thing!
Well said.
I've been using MySQL for 5 years. It just works, it has handled load very well with default configurations, it is easy to install, and client support is very strong. For example, I admin all of my MySQL servers from a Windows desktop at work. All free, all without problems, very stable.
We looked at PostgreSQL...for our purposes it would have been like using a sledgehammer on a tack. Does that mean we don't have any "real databases"? Maybe so, but our revenue is growing like crazy and our systems have more than enough capacity and stability to handle it. Any software that helps us make money like that without any problems is real in my book.
Good points, but it is fairly trivial to be 100% anonymous.
Don't buy new printers, buy used. Don't buy used from eBay or similar, buy used from swap meets, garage sales, etc. Pay cash. Use a firewall. Use open source software instead of the proprietary drivers to print.
When you install your OS, use all bogus information when filling things out like your user name, host name, etc. Don't use anything that could be traced back to you, like naming your computers after your kids or your dog or whatever. Best case, name your computers "host1" or "cpu1" or something similar.
Don't use retail gear to do your work...buy used, just like the printer. A Pentium 300 laptop is essentially free on the open market. Do a secure wipe on the hard drive, install OpenBSD, hook up your printer and use a generic driver (no fancy fonts, etc) and you are good to go.
Buy a 802.11 card on the open market, also with cash. Use a free WiFi hotspot to publish...never go into the place with the hotspot, sit outside (less chance of cameras, etc). Use privacy services, anonymizers, Publius servers, etc to publish your work.
If you need to make copies, go to any college campus or big city, pick someone off the street, and pay 10 or 20 dollars for them to go in and make the copies for you.
100% anonymity can be done without too much trouble, as long as you pay attention and stay organized. It never ceases to amaze me that they find people who write worms and other malware...in this day and age, releasing malware with 100% anonymity is trivial.
AFAIK, cups used in food service industries have a wax coating on the inside. This prevents them from being recycled cheaply (if at all) because the wax coating requires special treatment. Using cups made with recycled material isn't the same as offering cups that can be recycled.
McDonald's is the largest user of recycled paper products in the food service industry...they're using recycled paper in their food boxes, tray liners, napkins, etc, but not their cups.
Back in the day (15 years ago) I managed a McDonald's in a very "green" city (Ann Arbor, MI). I used to get a kick out of the little kids coming in to order food and demanding that everything be wrapped in paper instead of the then-current styrofoam. Whenever I pointed out that waxed paper couldn't be recycled but styrofoam could, they refused to believe me. The lesson I learned there was "alternative viewpoint != open mind".
If you had a program where the ceramic cups used in a Starbucks, for example, came only from local artisans, you'd minimize things like transport costs while providing a market for a community.
Java is flawed? How, exactly? You do mean "flawed" as in "broken", right? Or do you mean "flawed" as in "doesn't handle every possible thing that might ever need to be handled, now and forever"?
I do know one thing...the systems my company develops and sells could never be written in a "P" language. We tried perl and PHP and both failed miserably. Java works quite well, however. So from our perspective, Java is not flawed.
Love the original CSI (Marge Helgenberger is WAY hot). Hate the Miami version (smarmy David Caruso) and the NYC version (Gary Sinise as a cop? Puhleeze).
That said, I think anyone who thinks a TV show represents real life probably shouldn't be on a jury. At least not any jury judging me.
Isn't it somewhat acknowledged in the law enforcement community that eyewitnesses are suspect and can't be trusted? Conflicting versions of what happened, whether for financial gain, fame, or just an overwhelming need to be the center of attention if only for 5 minutes, are common. That means that a prosecutor is going to select the eyewitnesses that follow the police's version of events. Well, what about the other "eyewitnesses"? Seems like grounds for reasonable doubt to me.
I would think a good prosecutor would use the "CSI effect" to their advantage when selecting jurors by dismissing anyone who expected the TV show to equal real life for bias.
You're assuming his medical care was sufficient from each provider he saw. Reading the article, it confirms for me why I don't trust doctors one single bit.
When something hurts, your doctor is supposed to keep going until they figure out what is wrong and fix it, no? Do some followup, make some phone calls, etc. A good doctor, at least.
I can understand trying something and not being right the first few times, but that just reinforces the fact that, assuming his post is accurate, his doctors failed him. All of them, except maybe the ones in Montana and the ones he is seeing now. Whether that was because of health insurance reasons or not is another argument.
I realize going to see the doctor isn't like it is on TV, but I've had to deal with my Dad and Mom's care enough over the years to know that any doctor that says "looks normal" and sends you out the door with a prescription and no followup, ignoring persistent complaints from the patient, is a poor doctor.
He shouldn't be asking the community for help, he and his parents and his wife should be on the phone raising holy hell with every medical establishment he's been to in the last 4 years, rattling cages until they find someone who knows what the hell is going on and gets him the treatment he needs.
Faced with poor medical care, whatever the reason, what else can you do but take matters into your own hands? You don't just sit back and take it, or watch someone take it.
Doctors are not gods, and certainly not infallible as Patrick's story proves. I've had to almost physically force my doctor to give me the right care, and I consider my doctor to be a "good" doctor. For example, I get strep throat regularly, once a year. Almost the same time every year. I've been seeing my current doctor for 5 years. Yet every winter, when I go in complaining of a severely sore throat, I am told that it is "viral" and nothing can be done. I have to raise holy hell to get them to do a simple strep test which takes 5 minutes in office. They always find strep, and only then do I get the Zythromax I need. If I could buy the drugs myself, I would...I know my body, I know my symptoms, and heck, I could do the strep test myself at home. But no, I have to suffer until I can get an appointment, then argue to get them to do a simple test.
I've used the Wikipedia before, and was not impressed. In fact, I'm not impressed in the slightest by the idea of a wiki, or the software itself.
The interface is clunkly, you have things that are difficult to read, like the strange system of not using any spacing when labeling something, etc.
I'm a serious user as described in the article: I want a known-good resource to answer my questions, and those answers need to be as correct and as accurate as possible. That's why I prefer "niche" sites like imdb.com instead of the Wikipedia.
If you're thinking about using Lightwave or Maya for a web site, you're probably overthinking things a bit.
Clean and simple is the rule. Think apple.com, news.com, the new site at arstechnica.com, sun.com (GREAT use of color...not everyone can design around the color purple). There are hundreds more.
My recipe for websites is easy: use gotlogos.com for the main site logo. It costs $25, they're fast, and in most cases more than sufficient for what you need. After you have the logo (or before if you know ahead of time), work up a color palette. Not too hard to do, and it is free.
Then grab some icons...you can buy icon packs for a lot less than the cost of Photoshop or similar. Or use free or GPL icons (beware of licensing issues).
Interface design for the web and most applications dictate that you don't use "unusual" fonts, especially since people can easily override your specs with their browser settings, making all your font work futile. About the only place you need a font might be on the logo, and gotlogos.com will handle that for you.
So you've got a logo, a color palette, some spiffy icons, and you've spent about $200 or less. Anything more, you'd be better off getting a designer/artist.
Most clip art (if not all) looks like ass...stay away from it.
Finally, if you need photos, take your own or hit up http://www.sxc.hu/.
Even simple breathing will do the trick of outwitting a capacitive fingerprint scanner.
There are more resources available via Google.
Mass market, affordable biometric systems are far from being foolproof.
Re:Slashdot - please fix your HTML!
on
How Tomcat Works
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
Looks great to me. Ubuntu Linux + FireFox.
Re:How does it compare to OReillys book?
on
How Tomcat Works
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· Score: 2, Interesting
My servers all run Tomcat. A good chunk of them are still running Tomcat 3.1 for legacy reasons.
The sites are high-traffic (many hundreds of user sessions per day). "Hundreds" probably doesn't sound like much, but the apps are pretty intense...not just simple SQL query/display stuff. High-end graphics manipulation, workflow management, and more, with sessions lasting 10-20 minutes each.
The base OS on every server is Red Hat. Rarely do we experience problems, and in 99% of the cases, the problems are user-related (as in "problem exists between chair and keyboard"), not code related. Very very stable all around, both the Tomcat 3.1 installations and the Tomcat 4.1.x installations. I wouldn't use any other servlet container. Aside from the "plus" of the Apache license, I see no reason to "fix" something that isn't broken by trying other servlet containers, no matter what their claims.
Because of our positive experiences with Tomcat, we started rewriting a major internal application about 8 months ago. It was originally written in ASP with COM+ objects. We initially thought we would need to get into some sort of J2EE scenario in order to "mimic" the COM/COM+ architecture, but after some proofing was done, we quickly realized that we were fine with servlets and JSP using a tweaked MVC architecture. No problems with load, and we can scale as we need to.
As a comparison, and no, this isn't a troll, the ASP stuff we have crashes frequently. None of the applications running in production with Tomcat crash.
I highly recommend Tomcat, and the people on the project, the dev and user lists, etc. are generally good people and very helpful.
Maybe it is due to lack of knowledge, but I haven't found anything yet that compares to SonicFoundry (now Sony) ACID on Windows. I have a G4 Powerbook, and GarageBand, but it just isn't the same. In my amateur opinion, GarageBand doesn't come close to ACID, and the interface is horrible.
I use Windows, OS X, and Linux at home, on three different computers. Whenever I want to whip up some quick audio tracks, whether for fun or something serious, I always find myself back at ACID on Windows. It just works, the interface is great, and it is inexpensive (almost as cheap as iLife/GarageBand).
I've looked for over 2 years for something comparable, preferably on Linux, and haven't found anything. For my purposes, ACID is the "killer app"...its the one app that is preventing me from dumping Windows altogether.
If anyone out there knows of a stable, robust application that is ACID-like, can read my hundreds of ACID project files (not loops, but the project files describing tracks), isn't GarageBand, and runs on Linux, I'd love to hear about it.
Ditto!! If I could have a couple dozen acres and a decent house within 10-15 minutes drive of my job, I'd sell my current place and move in a heartbeat.
Do you have any recommendations for learning Japanese? That's my next goal, but I'm at a loss for the best way to go about it. I've read the articles at j-list.com that give an overview of the "best" way to learn, but resources where I live are pretty rare. I could take a class at a community college, but I typically learn much faster than classes go.
For corp/business: server-side alternative to Exchange, and client-side alternative to Outlook's calendaring and scheduling. With a simple conversion path, so whatever was on the server could read and utilize existing Exchange datastores without a hiccup. SuSE's product is the only one out there that I know of.
For personal: an alternative to Macromedia's Flash and Director, an alternative to Quicken (besides GnuCash), and an alternative to SonicFoundry ACID (now Sony ACID). With native support for all of the above.
Additionally, some sort of third-party testing/verification system. In other words, a process by which something like GnuCash can be absolutely verified as compatible with Quicken. Yes, GnuCash is open and I can read the source for myself, my point is that to get users to switch, you have to make it easy. If I could go to a site I trusted and see an article that tells me GnuCash supports and doesn't munge my Quicken data, and that switching is just a matter of one or two simple steps, I'd switch.
The more momentum, the harder it is to switch, even knowing the benefits. I know Linux is "better", for example, and that Linux has audio apps I can use, but I have over 300 ACID project files...I'm not going to switch unless I know I can switch to something that can pick up right where I left off with a minimum of fuss. It isn't worth the time to spend 3 weekends, for example, messing around with conversions etc. when I could use that time to be creating.
Almost forgot: a reliable, absolutely stable disk partition manager that would let me resize my Windows partition on the fly so I could install Linux dual-boot. If someone buys a new computer, and they're not savvy, the thought of reformatting, reinstalling Windows in a smaller partition (assuming the OEM install disk they get even lets me do that) and then installing Linux isn't going to happen.
Consider the guy in the article. If you were in that situation, and someone offered you $5K or $10K for copies of some documents that you were cleared to access, would you take it?
Yes, we can all talk about morals and ethics, but consider his situation. Your family's absolute survival depends on you. In one swoop all your problems are solved. Do you take the bribe and hope you don't get caught, and save your family? Or do you take the high road, put your family through pain and suffering (and possibly death if they have medical problems that remain untreated), and refuse the bribe?
Unless you've been there, there's no way you or anyone else (including me) can say with confidence how they would choose.
You're a tool. 38 states require their electors to vote according to the popular vote. By law.
Thus, all you have to do is jack the vote in those 38 states and you have 38 states' worth of jacked electors. And a lot of those 38 states are the so-called "swing" states mentioned in the articles and elsewhere.
So, contrary to your argument, in at least 38 states the popular vote *DOES* help elect the president.
Slashdot Mirror
Mail shouldn't be hard. It shouldn't be up to the user to figure out how to "configure TMDA correctly", and it shouldn't be up to the general public to understand how to deal with any number of different automated challenge and response systems out there should they get such a challenge.
I'm extremely savvy when it comes to IT, computers, Internet, etc. It's what I do all day at work. I wouldn't use the system you describe...what a pain in the ass. How can you expect someone's grandmother to use such a system?
I used mailblocks.com for about 4 months...also a pain in the ass. Challenge/Response systems are not the solution.
Here's a scenario: I send you a freelance job opportunity. I've never corresponded with you before, but I visited your website, saw your resume, and saw the part on your site where you said "if you need someone with my skills, and have work, send me a message". After sending my offer, I log off and go fishing at the lake for two days. While I'm gone, your C/R system sends me a challenge. My system thinks its spam. Or maybe you've configured your C/R system to only wait 24 hours instead of 7 days for a response. The end result is that I never get a response back from you regarding my opportunity, I believe you're a tool because you blew me off, and you never get the work. Worse, in the future, if anyone ever says to me "hey, I'm thinking about sending X some work, what do you think? He has a great website with a lot of info." I will say "don't bother, the guy blew me off he'll probably blow you off, too."
My solution was simply to pay for an account at an ISP where they aggressively filter spam. Coupled with a whitelist, blacklist and goldlist, all of my spam gets filtered...hundreds of messages every day. Very simple system, I didn't have to "configure" anything except my lists when I started, and best of all, none of the people I correspond with get confused or hassled by automated systems.
I disagree, though it could be I misread the "spirit" of the other post.
Lawyers under contract are typically corporate lawyers. Since the discussion was regarding EA and the possibility of a class action suit, the only corporate lawyers would be EA's.
The lawyers on the other side would almost certainly be working on contingency, and thus, would be compensated based on either a percentage of the amount awarded to the plaintiffs by the judge/jury, or compensated by some other amount agreed on with judge/jury and involved parties.
I think that's a sweeping generalization, and inaccurate.
Lawyers don't define how much money they get. Juries define how much lawyers get by determining the award amount given to the plaintiff.
Even then, the lawyers only collect if the plaintiff collects.
You know, sometimes things are wrong and need to be corrected. Even when lawyers are involved.
These agreements are bogus. Don't be afraid to sign them.
You have a right, no matter where you live, to earn a wage doing what you know. No one can take that right away from you, and no court will keep you from working and earning a living.
If you have been in IT for 5 years, for example, and it is all you know, no contract on earth can prevent you from taking another IT job.
Caveats: you cannot use or appropriate any resources from your current employer. Things like client lists, bandwidth, etc cannot be used. They have a right to keep you from using those things unless it is for them, but they do not have the right to keep you from working in your chosen profession. Working for an obvious competitor might be an issue, but in general, if you behave professionally and ethically you're good to go.
Part of what makes an employee valuable is experience. If you had to legally "forget" everything you learned at previous jobs or even your current job in order to be clear of legal liability, you'd be worthless. Your experience and your knowledge are valuable assets...no one can take them from you or diminish their value without compensating you.
Agreed. I think a much better curriculum for the school would be "How To Start Your Own Game Company" not "How to Be a Game Programmer".
I'd like to see people being told that they don't have to follow the industry norms. Bust out of the box, think off the wall, not status quo. If that guy wants to build a game with positive black characters, he should do it and the school should fund him, or at least act as a clearing house for people who would fund him.
I have a doppelganger, and it is you. I was just about to type the same thing!
Well said.
I've been using MySQL for 5 years. It just works, it has handled load very well with default configurations, it is easy to install, and client support is very strong. For example, I admin all of my MySQL servers from a Windows desktop at work. All free, all without problems, very stable.
We looked at PostgreSQL...for our purposes it would have been like using a sledgehammer on a tack. Does that mean we don't have any "real databases"? Maybe so, but our revenue is growing like crazy and our systems have more than enough capacity and stability to handle it. Any software that helps us make money like that without any problems is real in my book.
Good points, but it is fairly trivial to be 100% anonymous.
Don't buy new printers, buy used. Don't buy used from eBay or similar, buy used from swap meets, garage sales, etc. Pay cash. Use a firewall. Use open source software instead of the proprietary drivers to print.
When you install your OS, use all bogus information when filling things out like your user name, host name, etc. Don't use anything that could be traced back to you, like naming your computers after your kids or your dog or whatever. Best case, name your computers "host1" or "cpu1" or something similar.
Don't use retail gear to do your work...buy used, just like the printer. A Pentium 300 laptop is essentially free on the open market. Do a secure wipe on the hard drive, install OpenBSD, hook up your printer and use a generic driver (no fancy fonts, etc) and you are good to go.
Buy a 802.11 card on the open market, also with cash. Use a free WiFi hotspot to publish...never go into the place with the hotspot, sit outside (less chance of cameras, etc). Use privacy services, anonymizers, Publius servers, etc to publish your work.
If you need to make copies, go to any college campus or big city, pick someone off the street, and pay 10 or 20 dollars for them to go in and make the copies for you.
100% anonymity can be done without too much trouble, as long as you pay attention and stay organized. It never ceases to amaze me that they find people who write worms and other malware...in this day and age, releasing malware with 100% anonymity is trivial.
Are you sure?
AFAIK, cups used in food service industries have a wax coating on the inside. This prevents them from being recycled cheaply (if at all) because the wax coating requires special treatment. Using cups made with recycled material isn't the same as offering cups that can be recycled.
McDonald's is the largest user of recycled paper products in the food service industry...they're using recycled paper in their food boxes, tray liners, napkins, etc, but not their cups.
Back in the day (15 years ago) I managed a McDonald's in a very "green" city (Ann Arbor, MI). I used to get a kick out of the little kids coming in to order food and demanding that everything be wrapped in paper instead of the then-current styrofoam. Whenever I pointed out that waxed paper couldn't be recycled but styrofoam could, they refused to believe me. The lesson I learned there was "alternative viewpoint != open mind".
If you had a program where the ceramic cups used in a Starbucks, for example, came only from local artisans, you'd minimize things like transport costs while providing a market for a community.
Java is flawed? How, exactly? You do mean "flawed" as in "broken", right? Or do you mean "flawed" as in "doesn't handle every possible thing that might ever need to be handled, now and forever"?
I do know one thing...the systems my company develops and sells could never be written in a "P" language. We tried perl and PHP and both failed miserably. Java works quite well, however. So from our perspective, Java is not flawed.
Love the original CSI (Marge Helgenberger is WAY hot). Hate the Miami version (smarmy David Caruso) and the NYC version (Gary Sinise as a cop? Puhleeze).
That said, I think anyone who thinks a TV show represents real life probably shouldn't be on a jury. At least not any jury judging me.
Isn't it somewhat acknowledged in the law enforcement community that eyewitnesses are suspect and can't be trusted? Conflicting versions of what happened, whether for financial gain, fame, or just an overwhelming need to be the center of attention if only for 5 minutes, are common. That means that a prosecutor is going to select the eyewitnesses that follow the police's version of events. Well, what about the other "eyewitnesses"? Seems like grounds for reasonable doubt to me.
I would think a good prosecutor would use the "CSI effect" to their advantage when selecting jurors by dismissing anyone who expected the TV show to equal real life for bias.
You're assuming his medical care was sufficient from each provider he saw. Reading the article, it confirms for me why I don't trust doctors one single bit.
When something hurts, your doctor is supposed to keep going until they figure out what is wrong and fix it, no? Do some followup, make some phone calls, etc. A good doctor, at least.
I can understand trying something and not being right the first few times, but that just reinforces the fact that, assuming his post is accurate, his doctors failed him. All of them, except maybe the ones in Montana and the ones he is seeing now. Whether that was because of health insurance reasons or not is another argument.
I realize going to see the doctor isn't like it is on TV, but I've had to deal with my Dad and Mom's care enough over the years to know that any doctor that says "looks normal" and sends you out the door with a prescription and no followup, ignoring persistent complaints from the patient, is a poor doctor.
He shouldn't be asking the community for help, he and his parents and his wife should be on the phone raising holy hell with every medical establishment he's been to in the last 4 years, rattling cages until they find someone who knows what the hell is going on and gets him the treatment he needs.
Faced with poor medical care, whatever the reason, what else can you do but take matters into your own hands? You don't just sit back and take it, or watch someone take it.
Doctors are not gods, and certainly not infallible as Patrick's story proves. I've had to almost physically force my doctor to give me the right care, and I consider my doctor to be a "good" doctor. For example, I get strep throat regularly, once a year. Almost the same time every year. I've been seeing my current doctor for 5 years. Yet every winter, when I go in complaining of a severely sore throat, I am told that it is "viral" and nothing can be done. I have to raise holy hell to get them to do a simple strep test which takes 5 minutes in office. They always find strep, and only then do I get the Zythromax I need. If I could buy the drugs myself, I would...I know my body, I know my symptoms, and heck, I could do the strep test myself at home. But no, I have to suffer until I can get an appointment, then argue to get them to do a simple test.
I couldn't have said it any better.
I've used the Wikipedia before, and was not impressed. In fact, I'm not impressed in the slightest by the idea of a wiki, or the software itself.
The interface is clunkly, you have things that are difficult to read, like the strange system of not using any spacing when labeling something, etc.
I'm a serious user as described in the article: I want a known-good resource to answer my questions, and those answers need to be as correct and as accurate as possible. That's why I prefer "niche" sites like imdb.com instead of the Wikipedia.
If you're thinking about using Lightwave or Maya for a web site, you're probably overthinking things a bit.
Clean and simple is the rule. Think apple.com, news.com, the new site at arstechnica.com, sun.com (GREAT use of color...not everyone can design around the color purple). There are hundreds more.
My recipe for websites is easy: use gotlogos.com for the main site logo. It costs $25, they're fast, and in most cases more than sufficient for what you need. After you have the logo (or before if you know ahead of time), work up a color palette. Not too hard to do, and it is free.
Then grab some icons...you can buy icon packs for a lot less than the cost of Photoshop or similar. Or use free or GPL icons (beware of licensing issues).
Interface design for the web and most applications dictate that you don't use "unusual" fonts, especially since people can easily override your specs with their browser settings, making all your font work futile. About the only place you need a font might be on the logo, and gotlogos.com will handle that for you.
So you've got a logo, a color palette, some spiffy icons, and you've spent about $200 or less. Anything more, you'd be better off getting a designer/artist.
Most clip art (if not all) looks like ass...stay away from it.
Finally, if you need photos, take your own or hit up http://www.sxc.hu/.
...it's pretty easy, all things considered. Unless the tech has gotten better in the last year or so.
0 0.aspHere's one article that's 2 years old.
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,13919,
Even simple breathing will do the trick of outwitting a capacitive fingerprint scanner.
There are more resources available via Google.
Mass market, affordable biometric systems are far from being foolproof.
Looks great to me. Ubuntu Linux + FireFox.
My servers all run Tomcat. A good chunk of them are still running Tomcat 3.1 for legacy reasons.
The sites are high-traffic (many hundreds of user sessions per day). "Hundreds" probably doesn't sound like much, but the apps are pretty intense...not just simple SQL query/display stuff. High-end graphics manipulation, workflow management, and more, with sessions lasting 10-20 minutes each.
The base OS on every server is Red Hat. Rarely do we experience problems, and in 99% of the cases, the problems are user-related (as in "problem exists between chair and keyboard"), not code related. Very very stable all around, both the Tomcat 3.1 installations and the Tomcat 4.1.x installations. I wouldn't use any other servlet container. Aside from the "plus" of the Apache license, I see no reason to "fix" something that isn't broken by trying other servlet containers, no matter what their claims.
Because of our positive experiences with Tomcat, we started rewriting a major internal application about 8 months ago. It was originally written in ASP with COM+ objects. We initially thought we would need to get into some sort of J2EE scenario in order to "mimic" the COM/COM+ architecture, but after some proofing was done, we quickly realized that we were fine with servlets and JSP using a tweaked MVC architecture. No problems with load, and we can scale as we need to.
As a comparison, and no, this isn't a troll, the ASP stuff we have crashes frequently. None of the applications running in production with Tomcat crash.
I highly recommend Tomcat, and the people on the project, the dev and user lists, etc. are generally good people and very helpful.
I agree with your assessment. I've had many similar difficulties myself.
Maybe it is due to lack of knowledge, but I haven't found anything yet that compares to SonicFoundry (now Sony) ACID on Windows. I have a G4 Powerbook, and GarageBand, but it just isn't the same. In my amateur opinion, GarageBand doesn't come close to ACID, and the interface is horrible.
I use Windows, OS X, and Linux at home, on three different computers. Whenever I want to whip up some quick audio tracks, whether for fun or something serious, I always find myself back at ACID on Windows. It just works, the interface is great, and it is inexpensive (almost as cheap as iLife/GarageBand).
I've looked for over 2 years for something comparable, preferably on Linux, and haven't found anything. For my purposes, ACID is the "killer app"...its the one app that is preventing me from dumping Windows altogether.
If anyone out there knows of a stable, robust application that is ACID-like, can read my hundreds of ACID project files (not loops, but the project files describing tracks), isn't GarageBand, and runs on Linux, I'd love to hear about it.
Ditto!! If I could have a couple dozen acres and a decent house within 10-15 minutes drive of my job, I'd sell my current place and move in a heartbeat.
Do you have any recommendations for learning Japanese? That's my next goal, but I'm at a loss for the best way to go about it. I've read the articles at j-list.com that give an overview of the "best" way to learn, but resources where I live are pretty rare. I could take a class at a community college, but I typically learn much faster than classes go.
Suggestions welcome!
I love a good smackdown.
For corp/business: server-side alternative to Exchange, and client-side alternative to Outlook's calendaring and scheduling. With a simple conversion path, so whatever was on the server could read and utilize existing Exchange datastores without a hiccup. SuSE's product is the only one out there that I know of.
For personal: an alternative to Macromedia's Flash and Director, an alternative to Quicken (besides GnuCash), and an alternative to SonicFoundry ACID (now Sony ACID). With native support for all of the above.
Additionally, some sort of third-party testing/verification system. In other words, a process by which something like GnuCash can be absolutely verified as compatible with Quicken. Yes, GnuCash is open and I can read the source for myself, my point is that to get users to switch, you have to make it easy. If I could go to a site I trusted and see an article that tells me GnuCash supports and doesn't munge my Quicken data, and that switching is just a matter of one or two simple steps, I'd switch.
The more momentum, the harder it is to switch, even knowing the benefits. I know Linux is "better", for example, and that Linux has audio apps I can use, but I have over 300 ACID project files...I'm not going to switch unless I know I can switch to something that can pick up right where I left off with a minimum of fuss. It isn't worth the time to spend 3 weekends, for example, messing around with conversions etc. when I could use that time to be creating.
Almost forgot: a reliable, absolutely stable disk partition manager that would let me resize my Windows partition on the fly so I could install Linux dual-boot. If someone buys a new computer, and they're not savvy, the thought of reformatting, reinstalling Windows in a smaller partition (assuming the OEM install disk they get even lets me do that) and then installing Linux isn't going to happen.
Consider the guy in the article. If you were in that situation, and someone offered you $5K or $10K for copies of some documents that you were cleared to access, would you take it?
Yes, we can all talk about morals and ethics, but consider his situation. Your family's absolute survival depends on you. In one swoop all your problems are solved. Do you take the bribe and hope you don't get caught, and save your family? Or do you take the high road, put your family through pain and suffering (and possibly death if they have medical problems that remain untreated), and refuse the bribe?
Unless you've been there, there's no way you or anyone else (including me) can say with confidence how they would choose.
You're a tool. 38 states require their electors to vote according to the popular vote. By law.
Thus, all you have to do is jack the vote in those 38 states and you have 38 states' worth of jacked electors. And a lot of those 38 states are the so-called "swing" states mentioned in the articles and elsewhere.
So, contrary to your argument, in at least 38 states the popular vote *DOES* help elect the president.
Perhaps you should be the one learning.