The article several times suggests that the solution to some of these problems is, essentially, user education: having balloons that signal "new item installed" or wizards open the first time you launch a program, telling you how the program works. The problem is that this approach often doesn't work. For one thing, it annoys the piss out of experience users.
There's a simple cure for that: Make balloons/alerts of this sort an integral part of GNOME/KDE; and let the GUI preferences give the option: To show these balloons, to not show these balloons, or to show a small icon - not too small so it'll get noticed, but small enough as to not be intruding; maybe something of systray icon proportions.
For another thing, new users tend to ignore most of that information... mainly because they are being overwhelmed by new information and can't possibly assimilate it all. Take, for instance, the problem that was encountered when changing screen resolution. The tester changed the resolution easily, but then she clicked the "Keep settings" immediately, which locked her into graphic settings that were hard to change back. Part of the problem, I suppose is that the system allowed the user to make a ridiculous change. But part of the problem is also, perhaps, that the user is very used to clicking "OK" on any dialog that gets in the way: there are too many new things to read and learn, and the easiest way to get things done (in the mind of a new user) is to dismiss those annoying boxes as quickly as possible. Would a second popup, that described in detail why this low resolution was a bad idea (and how to undo it when desired), have changed anything? Doubtful. Most users would just click "OK" without reading it.
The solution for this argument is right there. It's possible to help users without overwhelming them. I believe Microsoft tackled this problem pretty well: if the balloon/message window has 10 lines of text telling you, in detail, why it's bad to change the resolution to so little, and suggest better resolutions, it'll look like a blob of EULA-type text and nobody's gonna read it. But if it were a window saying "Such a small resolution might make the screen unusable. Are you sure?" with a Yes/No/Help button, text this short will enter the user's mind before she even finds the Yes key.
All this to say that I'm by no means convinced that adding more balloons, wizards, and dialog boxes will magically make it easier for users to figure out what's going on. I don't know what the solution is: usability is a tough problem. There is a place for helpful information (balloons, tool-tips, etc.), reminders, and wizards. But too much of this becomes decidedly counter-productive.
That's true, but what the article points out, is that there's a certain magical amount of small, intuitive, nonintrustive pointers that regular users NEED in order to function.
If you own a country club, hiring a guy to come over every time someone looks around to ask "Do you want to know where the restroom is?" might be way too much, but nobody's going to sign up if they can't find the little, 10" x 8" sign on the wall saying "WC ->".
The article several times suggests that the solution to some of these problems is, essentially, user education: having balloons that signal "new item installed" or wizards open the first time you launch a program, telling you how the program works.
The problem is that this approach often doesn't work. For one thing, it annoys the piss out of experience users.
There's a simple cure for that: Make balloons/alerts of this sort an integral part of GNOME/KDE; and let the GUI preferences give the option: To show these balloons, to not show these balloons, or to show a small icon - not too small so it'll get noticed, but small enough as to not be intruding; maybe something of systray icon proportions.
For another thing, new users tend to ignore most of that information... mainly because they are being overwhelmed by new information and can't possibly assimilate it all.
Take, for instance, the problem that was encountered when changing screen resolution. The tester changed the resolution easily, but then she clicked the "Keep settings" immediately, which locked her into graphic settings that were hard to change back. Part of the problem, I suppose is that the system allowed the user to make a ridiculous change. But part of the problem is also, perhaps, that the user is very used to clicking "OK" on any dialog that gets in the way: there are too many new things to read and learn, and the easiest way to get things done (in the mind of a new user) is to dismiss those annoying boxes as quickly as possible. Would a second popup, that described in detail why this low resolution was a bad idea (and how to undo it when desired), have changed anything? Doubtful. Most users would just click "OK" without reading it.
The solution for this argument is right there. It's possible to help users without overwhelming them. I believe Microsoft tackled this problem pretty well: if the balloon/message window has 10 lines of text telling you, in detail, why it's bad to change the resolution to so little, and suggest better resolutions, it'll look like a blob of EULA-type text and nobody's gonna read it.
But if it were a window saying "Such a small resolution might make the screen unusable. Are you sure?" with a Yes/No/Help button, text this short will enter the user's mind before she even finds the Yes key.
All this to say that I'm by no means convinced that adding more balloons, wizards, and dialog boxes will magically make it easier for users to figure out what's going on. I don't know what the solution is: usability is a tough problem. There is a place for helpful information (balloons, tool-tips, etc.), reminders, and wizards. But too much of this becomes decidedly counter-productive.
That's true, but what the article points out, is that there's a certain magical amount of small, intuitive, nonintrustive pointers that regular users NEED in order to function.
If you own a country club, hiring a guy to come over every time someone looks around to ask "Do you want to know where the restroom is?" might be way too much, but nobody's going to sign up if they can't find the little, 10" x 8" sign on the wall saying "WC ->".
You use a lot of metaphors, but even you say, "Unlike most languages, if you don't like a C++ feature (one that C doesn't have) you don't have to use it, and there is little or no runtime penalty imposed."
You keep saying why C, the hammer, is better than the pneumatic nail gun - but you just proved that C++ is not a pneumatic nail gun, it's the hammer with a detachable pneumatic nail gun on the side.
In most cases, it's C, and a little more. That seemingly little addition makes a difference in design, and that difference is a large part of what makes.NET and other RAD environments so successful.
While I'm against the idea of using several design schemes - procedural and object oriented - in the same section of a given project, integrating two separate sections, each written with the more suitable paradigm, would lead to a better product.
Using the same language for different schemes, which is one of C++'s strengths, makes for a more seamless, less buggy integration.
60%. That's not a small number. Consider the possibilities: 60% of cancer reduced, just by using a standard vitamin pill.
I think I'll head off to the pharmacy.
the PTO is being legally bullied by large software companies into accepting each and every one of those ridiculous software patents granted to said companies.
Does the American public find that acceptable? I sure don't, and I do believe I have to abide by those patents under Israeli-American trade agreements. As an Israeli, however, I'm powerless to do this. So can I ask you to write your congressman?
Two thumbs up on the pictures. Wherever you go, a picture is completely worthless if it doesn't contain you or someone you know. If you wanted a picture of the sphinx, you could go Google it; You can't google a picture of a chinese guy you made friends with along the way pretending to be terrified by the sphinx.:-)
1. Loop......................AddHobbie ("Computers");................Do Until 1=2
Since he says he's "**Excellent**" in Visual BASIC, one could ponder how he MIXED UP THE Do AND Loop STATEMENTS.
2. Don't ever let school, stop you from learning!
He apparently never had...
3. 10 times faster than MergeSort? That's asymptotically, right? O(10nlogn). Call the press. (Doesn't matter that Radix Sort actually takes O(n), as long as it's 10X!)
4. BitFast start by creating two arrays of size 65535 ( pow(2,16) )
Anyone got a calculator? Somehow his numbers don't add up. Is it actually possible for a positive power of two to be odd?
And...Since when do you use pow to calculate powers of two?
5. They are not the most error free,optimized,commented,beautifull code to have ever been written
Gee...really?
I'm not an American, but I know that software is used worldwide and any trend of surveillance can and will reach worldwide - some of it already does.
But I as a person with no rights in America beyond a tourist's, if I happen to go there, can do nothing.
So I ask you now, cry at the top of my lungs, fight! Fight for yourselves, fight for your children, and fight for me. Your tourist, your customer, your fellow soldier, your friend.
The best way I can think of is raising this to public awareness. Make it an issue. There's an election in how long? A year? Make sure the party who puts freedom foremost in their list will get the votes. Isn't that the American Way? Stop letting the government and the industry control you. It's you who should, and must, control them.
Found organizations. Write to your senator. Spread the word. Get to presidential candidates, their parties, their sponsors. Hopefully, it is not too late now. Fight, because tomorrow it most certainly will be too late. It is up to you to save the free world, and I wish I were exaggerating.
Slashdot Mirror
Wouldn't that be exactly a projective plane?
Not if it was cracked, but when it was cracked.
The article several times suggests that the solution to some of these problems is, essentially, user education: having balloons that signal "new item installed" or wizards open the first time you launch a program, telling you how the program works. The problem is that this approach often doesn't work. For one thing, it annoys the piss out of experience users.
There's a simple cure for that: Make balloons/alerts of this sort an integral part of GNOME/KDE; and let the GUI preferences give the option: To show these balloons, to not show these balloons, or to show a small icon - not too small so it'll get noticed, but small enough as to not be intruding; maybe something of systray icon proportions.
For another thing, new users tend to ignore most of that information... mainly because they are being overwhelmed by new information and can't possibly assimilate it all. Take, for instance, the problem that was encountered when changing screen resolution. The tester changed the resolution easily, but then she clicked the "Keep settings" immediately, which locked her into graphic settings that were hard to change back. Part of the problem, I suppose is that the system allowed the user to make a ridiculous change. But part of the problem is also, perhaps, that the user is very used to clicking "OK" on any dialog that gets in the way: there are too many new things to read and learn, and the easiest way to get things done (in the mind of a new user) is to dismiss those annoying boxes as quickly as possible. Would a second popup, that described in detail why this low resolution was a bad idea (and how to undo it when desired), have changed anything? Doubtful. Most users would just click "OK" without reading it.
The solution for this argument is right there. It's possible to help users without overwhelming them. I believe Microsoft tackled this problem pretty well: if the balloon/message window has 10 lines of text telling you, in detail, why it's bad to change the resolution to so little, and suggest better resolutions, it'll look like a blob of EULA-type text and nobody's gonna read it. But if it were a window saying "Such a small resolution might make the screen unusable. Are you sure?" with a Yes/No/Help button, text this short will enter the user's mind before she even finds the Yes key.
All this to say that I'm by no means convinced that adding more balloons, wizards, and dialog boxes will magically make it easier for users to figure out what's going on. I don't know what the solution is: usability is a tough problem. There is a place for helpful information (balloons, tool-tips, etc.), reminders, and wizards. But too much of this becomes decidedly counter-productive.
That's true, but what the article points out, is that there's a certain magical amount of small, intuitive, nonintrustive pointers that regular users NEED in order to function.
If you own a country club, hiring a guy to come over every time someone looks around to ask "Do you want to know where the restroom is?" might be way too much, but nobody's going to sign up if they can't find the little, 10" x 8" sign on the wall saying "WC ->".
The article several times suggests that the solution to some of these problems is, essentially, user education: having balloons that signal "new item installed" or wizards open the first time you launch a program, telling you how the program works. The problem is that this approach often doesn't work. For one thing, it annoys the piss out of experience users. There's a simple cure for that: Make balloons/alerts of this sort an integral part of GNOME/KDE; and let the GUI preferences give the option: To show these balloons, to not show these balloons, or to show a small icon - not too small so it'll get noticed, but small enough as to not be intruding; maybe something of systray icon proportions. For another thing, new users tend to ignore most of that information... mainly because they are being overwhelmed by new information and can't possibly assimilate it all. Take, for instance, the problem that was encountered when changing screen resolution. The tester changed the resolution easily, but then she clicked the "Keep settings" immediately, which locked her into graphic settings that were hard to change back. Part of the problem, I suppose is that the system allowed the user to make a ridiculous change. But part of the problem is also, perhaps, that the user is very used to clicking "OK" on any dialog that gets in the way: there are too many new things to read and learn, and the easiest way to get things done (in the mind of a new user) is to dismiss those annoying boxes as quickly as possible. Would a second popup, that described in detail why this low resolution was a bad idea (and how to undo it when desired), have changed anything? Doubtful. Most users would just click "OK" without reading it. The solution for this argument is right there. It's possible to help users without overwhelming them. I believe Microsoft tackled this problem pretty well: if the balloon/message window has 10 lines of text telling you, in detail, why it's bad to change the resolution to so little, and suggest better resolutions, it'll look like a blob of EULA-type text and nobody's gonna read it. But if it were a window saying "Such a small resolution might make the screen unusable. Are you sure?" with a Yes/No/Help button, text this short will enter the user's mind before she even finds the Yes key. All this to say that I'm by no means convinced that adding more balloons, wizards, and dialog boxes will magically make it easier for users to figure out what's going on. I don't know what the solution is: usability is a tough problem. There is a place for helpful information (balloons, tool-tips, etc.), reminders, and wizards. But too much of this becomes decidedly counter-productive. That's true, but what the article points out, is that there's a certain magical amount of small, intuitive, nonintrustive pointers that regular users NEED in order to function. If you own a country club, hiring a guy to come over every time someone looks around to ask "Do you want to know where the restroom is?" might be way too much, but nobody's going to sign up if they can't find the little, 10" x 8" sign on the wall saying "WC ->".
The last line of the above article clearly asks that this letter not be circulated widely. Why do so anyway?
You use a lot of metaphors, but even you say, "Unlike most languages, if you don't like a C++ feature (one that C doesn't have) you don't have to use it, and there is little or no runtime penalty imposed." You keep saying why C, the hammer, is better than the pneumatic nail gun - but you just proved that C++ is not a pneumatic nail gun, it's the hammer with a detachable pneumatic nail gun on the side. In most cases, it's C, and a little more. That seemingly little addition makes a difference in design, and that difference is a large part of what makes .NET and other RAD environments so successful.
While I'm against the idea of using several design schemes - procedural and object oriented - in the same section of a given project, integrating two separate sections, each written with the more suitable paradigm, would lead to a better product.
Using the same language for different schemes, which is one of C++'s strengths, makes for a more seamless, less buggy integration.
Free speech. (Get it?)
60%. That's not a small number. Consider the possibilities: 60% of cancer reduced, just by using a standard vitamin pill. I think I'll head off to the pharmacy.
the PTO is being legally bullied by large software companies into accepting each and every one of those ridiculous software patents granted to said companies. Does the American public find that acceptable? I sure don't, and I do believe I have to abide by those patents under Israeli-American trade agreements. As an Israeli, however, I'm powerless to do this. So can I ask you to write your congressman?
The iPod buys YOU!
Two thumbs up on the pictures. Wherever you go, a picture is completely worthless if it doesn't contain you or someone you know. If you wanted a picture of the sphinx, you could go Google it; You can't google a picture of a chinese guy you made friends with along the way pretending to be terrified by the sphinx. :-)
is that this teacher claims she has a graduate degree (M.Ed.) from Harvard.
1. Loop ......................AddHobbie ("Computers"); ................Do Until 1=2
Since he says he's "**Excellent**" in Visual BASIC, one could ponder how he MIXED UP THE Do AND Loop STATEMENTS.
2. Don't ever let school, stop you from learning!
He apparently never had...
3. 10 times faster than MergeSort? That's asymptotically, right? O(10nlogn). Call the press. (Doesn't matter that Radix Sort actually takes O(n), as long as it's 10X!)
4. BitFast start by creating two arrays of size 65535 ( pow(2,16) )
Anyone got a calculator? Somehow his numbers don't add up. Is it actually possible for a positive power of two to be odd?
And...Since when do you use pow to calculate powers of two?
5. They are not the most error free,optimized,commented,beautifull code to have ever been written
Gee...really?
That's exactly the reason Apple moved to Intels.
I don't get it - why do people who are going to commit a crime not innocent? I thought you were only guilty if you already committed the crime...?
Who's he assisting?
If you think debugging is a pain NOW...
I'm not an American, but I know that software is used worldwide and any trend of surveillance can and will reach worldwide - some of it already does. But I as a person with no rights in America beyond a tourist's, if I happen to go there, can do nothing. So I ask you now, cry at the top of my lungs, fight! Fight for yourselves, fight for your children, and fight for me. Your tourist, your customer, your fellow soldier, your friend. The best way I can think of is raising this to public awareness. Make it an issue. There's an election in how long? A year? Make sure the party who puts freedom foremost in their list will get the votes. Isn't that the American Way? Stop letting the government and the industry control you. It's you who should, and must, control them. Found organizations. Write to your senator. Spread the word. Get to presidential candidates, their parties, their sponsors. Hopefully, it is not too late now. Fight, because tomorrow it most certainly will be too late. It is up to you to save the free world, and I wish I were exaggerating.
Apple would not have sued had Creative stayed silent. Creative should mind their own business and not blame their losses on patent infringement.
You just have to find the right balance.
How many forks were of the same quality as the original product?
You do know it's the same guy, don't you?
But nobody cared that he wrote "cites" as "sites".
We also left out input devices, such a keyboard, mouse or monitor, I never knew my monitor was an input device. Stdin 2?
Even big evil corporations hate spammers.