Silverlight is Microsoft's answer to Flash, more or less. It's supposed to make Web applications more GUI-like and introduce fancy things like 3D graphics and advanced user interfaces to Web applications.
Microsoft's heard of Flash, I'm sure, but I'm also sure they prefer their own in-house developed stuff to anything coming out of a competitor.
Gates knows he can't win. Vista is a huge flop and could spell the end of Microsoft's dominance. It's game over, as far as BillG is concerned. Watch in the next few years and Microsoft's prominence and influence in the industry begins to dwindle. Just remember, you read it here first on Slashdot.
Maybe. Or you could just use variable names that make sense: 'first_name' and 'last_name' looks like they probably hold a string vs 'first' and 'last', which could hold anything, like say a pointer to the first and last records.
It's even more meaningless for dynamically-typed languages like Python. Good IDE or not, no Python IDE will give you the type of a variable since that can only be determined at runtime.
In addition to receiving funding from Bill Gates and Microsoft, another sponsor was the Charles Simonyi Foundation. Charles Simonyi, for those who are not aware, was responsible for Microsoft Office as head of Microsoft's Applications division for many years. Much of the early version of Microsoft Word for MS-DOS and Multiplan were coded by Simonyi. He is the originator of the so-called 'Hungarian' notion for identifiers prevalent among M$ developers, where an identifier's type is embedded in the name, so you get variables like sName or nCount.
GM was not an all-Microsoft shop when I worked there. Most of the engineering servers were running some form of UNIX -- either HP-UX or Solaris. They served to a mix of Windows and UNIX clients -- UNIX clients via NFS and Windows clients via CIFS9000 (yeah, yeah, I know. CIFS9000 == Samba. Tell them that.)
The file and app servers actually used high-availability clustering -- commercial stuff, not open source.
I think grandparent is saying that he thinks that more than an additional 3% could be guessed from the list of a million commonly-used passwords. He could be right.
It has nothing to do with forms-based login pages like GMail or banks use. It has to do with the 'basic auth' dialog like what gets presented to you when you login to your average LinkSys router or the 'control panel' applications that many shared hosting providers use like 'CPanel'.
And such attacks could be used in combination with stuff like DNS spoofing -- take over your ISPs DNS server and myhostingprovider.com goes where the h4x0r wants it to go.
The USPTO should be doing a better job of screening patent applications in the first place. Obviousness tests should be conducted upon applying for a patent. Some might say patents are already too hard to get, to which I say, No, they aren't. They aren't NEARLY hard ENOUGH to get. Especially when most patents are granted to corporations with deep pockets who pay the cost of doing a patent search without even thinking about it.
Yeah, DeVeDe doesn't do menus automatically, but you can do it yourself with other applications. The last time I tried QDVDAuthor, it did the same thing you're saying -- crashed horribly. I haven't tried the latest updates yet because my overall impression of the program was that it was still quite immature. *sigh* Such is the nature of open source -- it usually takes a while before you have a nice, stable program unless it does something very, very simple.
Try this little program for doing DVD conversions. It'll convert any thing playable my mplayer into a DVD ISO file. It's a front-end and requires a few backend tools, but it is, IMHO, a fairly good example of the principles I outline in my post.
Well, I never read any of those books. I've just studied what I consider to be good user interface design over the years.
And my #6 is not exactly the same. You want to feel 'native' to the OS, but at the same time, you don't let that dictate your design. For example, GIMP for Windows adopts native-looking controls along with the common controls for opening files and whatnot, but it also doesn't try to look like 'Office Picture Manager' either. Not that the GIMP is a shining example of user-interface design...but I think it illustrates my point:)
In Soviet Russia, py ("pie") is confusing to ru ("roo")!
Re:Draft OpenISO.org "Problem Report" entry
on
RTF Vs. OOXML
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
To be fair, ODF started out as a documentation of the 'StarOffice XML' format. And it still pretty much is, although changes were made late in the process to further ensure document portability and to improve multilingual support. OTOH, OOo will always follow the standard rather than define the standard. A standard isn't defined by one product, it is something that products follow.
I don't understand why this is so hard for people to understand.
That's a good book and it has plenty of common sense principles.
Most of the people on here will say something along the lines of one of the two variants:
1) Human-computer interaction is a discipline and you should read this HCI book or that HCI book. (Alan Cooper's About Face comes to mind).
2) Some vague advice about making look like the OS you're targetting.
It's all crap. Good interfaces are built by following a few principles:
1) KISS principle -- Keept It Simple, Stupid. You don't need to make every friggin' thing customizable and you don't want to overwhelm your users with a multitude of options. 2) Make it 'just work'. Automate as much as you can. Try to have configuration options that either will work in the vast majority of cases with the defaults, or have the application automatically try to determine the best settings for the user's environment. The best configuration dialog is one the user never has to see. 3) Softer software -- make things customizable, but in a way that they don't HAVE to be customized for a good user experience. Most users won't customize their environment very much. Always keep this in mind. 4) Present as little of the interface as necessary to accomplish the task at hand. Better to have more dialogs or dialog tabs with a few options than one big gargantuan dialog that has everything. 5) On layouts -- put the most commonly-used controls in a very prominent place and make them big and easy to click on. Things that are less likely to be used should be smaller and out of the way. Buttons are better than menus, but don't end up with so many buttons that the user gets lost -- again, fewer controls on more windows is better than more controls on fewer windows. 6) Don't use gaudy, distracting color schemes or fonts. Make it fit-in with the user's environment. If possible, on GNOME, you want to follow the GNOME HIG. Ditto for Mac. On Windows, follow the 'User Experience Guidelines.' But this shouldn't be your overriding priority. Don't scrimp on the other principles I've outlined just because you're trying to shoehorn your application into the OS vendor's model of what an application should look like.
That was France though, where people actually protest rather than sitting there polishing their shiny, shiny guns. Exactly. The French were NICE. Ask the British just how nice the American colonists were. We INVENTED guerrilla warfare.
We already KNOW who the terrorists are - MUSLIMS. Yeah, and they already profile Middle Eastern-looking people, especially if they look Muslim. Just ask my wife. She has worked in airport security in the past. They say "We never profile based on race," then turn around and say "But you'd BETTER profile."
This is to catch the terrorists who DON'T look Muslim. 'Sides, if YOU were a terrorist, would YOU send Muslim-looking people on the next hijack mission? Hell, no, 'cause they're ALREADY LOOKING FOR THAT. Get some white or better yet African-descent people. Dress 'em up in the latest American trends. 'Cause they're not looking for that.
Slashdot Mirror
Silverlight is Microsoft's answer to Flash, more or less. It's supposed to make Web applications more GUI-like and introduce fancy things like 3D graphics and advanced user interfaces to Web applications.
Microsoft's heard of Flash, I'm sure, but I'm also sure they prefer their own in-house developed stuff to anything coming out of a competitor.
Gates knows he can't win. Vista is a huge flop and could spell the end of Microsoft's dominance. It's game over, as far as BillG is concerned. Watch in the next few years and Microsoft's prominence and influence in the industry begins to dwindle. Just remember, you read it here first on Slashdot.
Maybe. Or you could just use variable names that make sense: 'first_name' and 'last_name' looks like they probably hold a string vs 'first' and 'last', which could hold anything, like say a pointer to the first and last records.
It's even more meaningless for dynamically-typed languages like Python. Good IDE or not, no Python IDE will give you the type of a variable since that can only be determined at runtime.
Most probably not.
In addition to receiving funding from Bill Gates and Microsoft, another sponsor was the Charles Simonyi Foundation. Charles Simonyi, for those who are not aware, was responsible for Microsoft Office as head of Microsoft's Applications division for many years. Much of the early version of Microsoft Word for MS-DOS and Multiplan were coded by Simonyi. He is the originator of the so-called 'Hungarian' notion for identifiers prevalent among M$ developers, where an identifier's type is embedded in the name, so you get variables like sName or nCount.
GM was not an all-Microsoft shop when I worked there. Most of the engineering servers were running some form of UNIX -- either HP-UX or Solaris. They served to a mix of Windows and UNIX clients -- UNIX clients via NFS and Windows clients via CIFS9000 (yeah, yeah, I know. CIFS9000 == Samba. Tell them that.)
The file and app servers actually used high-availability clustering -- commercial stuff, not open source.
I worked for GM. And when I worked there, the use of FOSS was absolutely, positively forbidden. Good to see them finally getting a clue.
I think grandparent is saying that he thinks that more than an additional 3% could be guessed from the list of a million commonly-used passwords. He could be right.
Wah? 'cause my name contains 'greywolf', you think I'm a furry? Get some imagination.
WiThrax? WiVi? I hear Sony is actually pushing for Wiinfluenza for some reason.
Ha! They'll never guess my router admin password, which is '5l@$hd0t.!st.ps0t!'
Care to provide citations, AC Troll? I can.
It has nothing to do with forms-based login pages like GMail or banks use. It has to do with the 'basic auth' dialog like what gets presented to you when you login to your average LinkSys router or the 'control panel' applications that many shared hosting providers use like 'CPanel'.
And such attacks could be used in combination with stuff like DNS spoofing -- take over your ISPs DNS server and myhostingprovider.com goes where the h4x0r wants it to go.
The USPTO should be doing a better job of screening patent applications in the first place. Obviousness tests should be conducted upon applying for a patent. Some might say patents are already too hard to get, to which I say, No, they aren't. They aren't NEARLY hard ENOUGH to get. Especially when most patents are granted to corporations with deep pockets who pay the cost of doing a patent search without even thinking about it.
Yeah, DeVeDe doesn't do menus automatically, but you can do it yourself with other applications. The last time I tried QDVDAuthor, it did the same thing you're saying -- crashed horribly. I haven't tried the latest updates yet because my overall impression of the program was that it was still quite immature. *sigh* Such is the nature of open source -- it usually takes a while before you have a nice, stable program unless it does something very, very simple.
s/my/by
Try this little program for doing DVD conversions. It'll convert any thing playable my mplayer into a DVD ISO file. It's a front-end and requires a few backend tools, but it is, IMHO, a fairly good example of the principles I outline in my post.
Well, I never read any of those books. I've just studied what I consider to be good user interface design over the years.
:)
And my #6 is not exactly the same. You want to feel 'native' to the OS, but at the same time, you don't let that dictate your design. For example, GIMP for Windows adopts native-looking controls along with the common controls for opening files and whatnot, but it also doesn't try to look like 'Office Picture Manager' either. Not that the GIMP is a shining example of user-interface design...but I think it illustrates my point
I thought they wanted .ру
In Soviet Russia, py ("pie") is confusing to ru ("roo")!
To be fair, ODF started out as a documentation of the 'StarOffice XML' format. And it still pretty much is, although changes were made late in the process to further ensure document portability and to improve multilingual support. OTOH, OOo will always follow the standard rather than define the standard. A standard isn't defined by one product, it is something that products follow.
I don't understand why this is so hard for people to understand.
That's a good book and it has plenty of common sense principles.
Most of the people on here will say something along the lines of one of the two variants:
1) Human-computer interaction is a discipline and you should read this HCI book or that HCI book. (Alan Cooper's About Face comes to mind).
2) Some vague advice about making look like the OS you're targetting.
It's all crap. Good interfaces are built by following a few principles:
1) KISS principle -- Keept It Simple, Stupid. You don't need to make every friggin' thing customizable and you don't want to overwhelm your users with a multitude of options.
2) Make it 'just work'. Automate as much as you can. Try to have configuration options that either will work in the vast majority of cases with the defaults, or have the application automatically try to determine the best settings for the user's environment. The best configuration dialog is one the user never has to see.
3) Softer software -- make things customizable, but in a way that they don't HAVE to be customized for a good user experience. Most users won't customize their environment very much. Always keep this in mind.
4) Present as little of the interface as necessary to accomplish the task at hand. Better to have more dialogs or dialog tabs with a few options than one big gargantuan dialog that has everything.
5) On layouts -- put the most commonly-used controls in a very prominent place and make them big and easy to click on. Things that are less likely to be used should be smaller and out of the way. Buttons are better than menus, but don't end up with so many buttons that the user gets lost -- again, fewer controls on more windows is better than more controls on fewer windows.
6) Don't use gaudy, distracting color schemes or fonts. Make it fit-in with the user's environment. If possible, on GNOME, you want to follow the GNOME HIG. Ditto for Mac. On Windows, follow the 'User Experience Guidelines.' But this shouldn't be your overriding priority. Don't scrimp on the other principles I've outlined just because you're trying to shoehorn your application into the OS vendor's model of what an application should look like.
This is to catch the terrorists who DON'T look Muslim. 'Sides, if YOU were a terrorist, would YOU send Muslim-looking people on the next hijack mission? Hell, no, 'cause they're ALREADY LOOKING FOR THAT. Get some white or better yet African-descent people. Dress 'em up in the latest American trends. 'Cause they're not looking for that.