Sounds funny, but that's pretty much what I had done with my floppy drives back then: instead of punching all floppies one per one, I put some switches on the drives, problem solved:)
There's 2 main kinds of trackballs: the ones with a ball at your fingertips, and the one with the ball at your thumb.
I CANNOT stand the fingertip ones like you're using, and I've tried several models. I have yet to see anyone like them.
I love the ones where you use your thumb. It's millions of times more useable. And I have lots of friends, family members and co-workers using those. At least a 50 to nothing ratio.
But if you use them a lot (I got 4 trackballs at home, and 2 at work), eventually you get strain in your thumb's muscles (in the wrist).
The best solution I've found to strain (overall) isn't a single pointing device by itself, but rather switching to different ones. Perhaps the common mouse is the worst (it seems that way to me at least), but swtiching from the trackball to a mouse, or using my intuos as a mouse (in other apps than photoshop as a "plain" pointing device) or even a trackpad (got a little fellowes one for 11$ in clearance) if you can stand them.
The key is frequent breaks (although it's hard stopping when you're in the middle of coding something and all concentrated), streching a bit, proper posture, and using different input devices. Using a lot of keyboard shortcuts helps too, but most people nowadays seem to not even know those exist anymore.
Heck, a few of my co-workers (IT managers, network types,... anythigng) don't know what it's for, or have basic misunderstandings.
Some decisions were taken as to not sue ASP.Net for web apps, because "you have to isntall the.net framework" on the client PCs (to view.aspx web pages!!!). Or lack of understanding why you have to install it for C#/VB.Net apps they asked me to code... Most of the complaints I've had (or troble tickets) for it is "it don't work!" - and *every single time*, it's been that they didn't have the.net fw installed.
So I don't think the average joe user has a clue either.
Ever since I've seen the LG fridge (with built in computer) that's pretty much what I've been thinking too (and not in a funny way).
It may be far off still (I've seen more appliances coming out with computers like that - a LG microwave recently), but eventually, we may have to visit some "toaster update" site every once in a while, update your AV and firewall for it...
And that's hoping it doesn't get beyond that, which wouldn't surprise me seeing the ridiculous convergence we see lately in phones and what not. I can almost see people buying toasters that play games sort of like their nokia phone does - and some free/sponsoder games would come bundled with spyware "for toaster edition" (perhaps a jam company interested in some stats? who knows where it will stop...) </tinfoilhat>
Ok, the spyware issue may be pushing it, but I'm sure we'll see such devices coming out, and some people will buy them even if they seem to do nothing useful (for the sake of coolness or whatever).
I sold 3 of my older PCs last year (down to 5 "only" now), mostly because I was sick and tired of having to "admin" them all (update stuff mostly). I *don't* want a network full of such embedded networked devices to look after by myself. If it comes down to that, I'd pay extra to have some sort of automatic update service.
In this case, I guess "virtually any webserver" means either apache, lighttpd or WebRick. I couldn't find anything IIS related (not that I spent hours looking either).
DB wise, it supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, MS SQL Server, IBM DB2 and Oracle.
Last time when Pt1 of the the article came out, in the discussions on/. some sites were pointed out (seemed like decent sites too).
I've been meaning to get around to add RoR to my apache (XAMPP) setup to try it out. Most of what I do at work is ASP/ASP.Net and I've been looking for something else (not to fully replace them, but perhaps as a complement). I'm not big on php, but it has it's uses and followers (I use it on some small websities with cheap hosting). J2EE isn't my definition of fun (although it's robust and all).
From what I had seen, RoR seemed pretty promising (and it keeps getting better they say), but I'll have to dig deeper to see it's full power. The only problem I can see now is finding some decent hosting for that, preferably cheap (RoR *with postgresql* to make things worse).
Flash itself as a technology doesn't blow - however, the only sites I've seen that used it (or say, in 99% of cases) use it either for highly annoying ads, very annoying "splash" page when you get tho their websites, or bad and non-accessible site nav (usually with no real structure and nothing to fall back to if flash plasyer isn't installed).
There might be good uses for it, but I've hardly ever seen that (ok, I'll give you badger badger:P )
So along with adblock (if not even BEFORE it) I load flashblock.
Oh, and be sure I'm not going to use this (flash) instead of XForms (or whatever else) either.
You do have a point. The astellite PVRs don't do analog captures like their counterparts (tivo, replaytv, mce, mythtv,...) and it makes a HUGE difference in quality (DVB is the only other way I'd consider).
And as far as PC solutions go, it's just too much of a PITA to setup everything. Assemble PC, isntall OS, tons of software, config everything, mess with driver and other issues, try to get TV guide somewhat working, setup remote control for every app manually, then it's the IR blaster,... The list of things to do is like endless. Takes too much time to setup everything, and it's just too easy for something to go wrong (a codec problem, driver problem,... anything). The only real gain IMHO is DVD burning which I wouldn't even consider given the quality of analog captures. You also get to upgrade it (windows update or whatever) all the time, and hope it doesn't crash during a show. And if you want something that looks nice (D-Vine case or similar) , quiet, good quality and decently fast, it will cost you.
Tivo and such devices (and a lot of PC software) seem too oriented toward analog cable and similar low quality setups. Plus you get monthly fees for guide.
My sat PVR worked out of the box - recording in 100% quality (digital capture of the mpeg2 transportstream straight to HD), remote control, TV guide and all. Nothing to assemble, install, configure,... It was about 50$ more than a capture card would have cost me; cheaper than a tivo too, and no monthly fees. (my sat pvr doesn't support HD, as none of the channels I watch are available in HD and my projector doesn't go above SVGA, so it would be pointless)
And for everything else there's the HTPC, but it's just never going to be used as a PVR.
I think it's a good idea for them to come up with more web based apps. My mail following me around anywhere I have internet access is something I like (no need to lug around laptop with outlook or whatever).
In fact, I already have my own little webmail page on my little server (and tons more features), but I'd really like it if there was some easy (open source?) calendaring web app like that to complement the setup (not that I really searched hard, and making a basic one would be pretty trivial...)
Pretty simple to answer. Let's say you "drop" out of "normal" school, and start reading up by yourself on things like programming or other IT stuff to get a job.
Then you show up to come potential employer for an interview. What do you tell him? "I've read about C in some book for a couple weeks"? There are no ways to know if you've even read the book (or if it was a good one, and what level), if you understood anything as there are no tests... Then the next guy having an interview says he's coming from some highly regarded university and got good marks... Think you'd get the job? (Even though you *could* be better, no one can really tell).
School also forces one to study about other things (language classes, philosophy and what not) that you don't get when "reading up" on your own.
The school system is broken, but we still rely on it to hire people (even when most of the study program was irrelevant to the job, and that it only marginally prepared you to do the job).
You can still get a job and make a decent salary if you do something like that, but you will have to use experience, references, and make your proofs to get a job.
There's also the personality thing... Some people just can't read up like that on their own. They might not have the attention span, or require someone to explain when needed, or might not have enough initiative... Lots of reasons. Peronally, I'd rather pick up a book and read at my own pace, the sections I need. Not take come boring class at fixed hours that don't work for me, only an hour at a time, at the pace set so everybody can follow (too slow), and starting from the very basics again (as some people might not know or have forgotten).
Eventually, you will have to do that anyways (read up on your own) as you just can't know all technologies and languages. I often have to freshen up on something I haven't used in months, or learn some new thing - either when working on something new, or to keep up to date with new stuff.
That's coming from someone who landed a job as an electronics technician, to later on move to a programmer's job (I've had other coding jobs before). Both electronics and programming (well, everything IT related) are self taught. The only thing I ever studied in school (college) is mechanics...
I don't think anyone's really getting pissed ofg about them. Most people have been posting (dupe) midly humorous comments about it being a dupe.
Of course there's always a few who will get verbal about issues, but sometimes it's also good to bring them up, you can't necessarily blame them for that either.
I mean, if you say the same article on page 2 and then again on page 8 in your newspaper - once every week, wouldn't you start to think it's time we do something about it?
They could have considered HE AAC perhaps. It has decent playback support, and would sound worlds better than mp3 (or keep same quality, but with lower bitrate, hence smaller file, less bandwidth costs...) AAC is getting more and more popular (part of the mpeg4 standard, used by iTunes, nero, quicktime, and a lot more software)
WMA is just a poor choice. Worse sound quality than mp3, and windows only (unless someone wrote some filters to playback wma on linux, I never checked).
Ogg is only marginally better than a good AAC encoder imho (if at all). The support (playback) isn't exactly great, and if you asked most people, they wouldn't have a clue it's even related to audio.
mp3 is the most widely known (and most likely supported) format. Perhaps they were more worried about that than file size or quality.
If you mean blacklist as in prevent them from using scripted means (JS) to use popups and other junk that'd be nice, but I doubt it'll happen. Sort of like how firefox lets you blacklist sites so they can't set cookies (in cookies>exceptions).
As for having a central DB, I can see people manage and update a list, but not do it "real time". That would generate WAY too much traffic, and with little gain over using a list (perhaps with a "update" button, that fetches it from a known/custom URL). This way you can also edit the list to suit your needs (add and remove websites).
Yes, that's nice for the odd once in a while when I'm booted in knoppix, but won't do help me much while in windows:( Thanks for the info anyways, good to know. Doubt I'll see this plugin idea happen anytime soon anyways.
even more that there was soem way to diable JavaScript on some sites using a blacklist. Not only for popups, but some sites have some crap that manage to bring the cpu of a 2.4GHz box to 100% with a couple windows open and make surfing painfully slow. Mostly for scollders and animations and other unwanted junk. Would be nice to have a firefox extension for that.
The thing is, the forms won't be used by the browser makers nor the back end makers (well, indirectly in both cases). It's the web application developpers who do, and they'er also the ones left using whatever technologies that are available to solve the problem.
XForms wouldn't work "out of the box" for most users of my stuff, so I'm a bit hesitant. Ideally I'd have to have an alternate method of entry with "old" forms. And I just don't feel I'm gaining much, never was big on XForms (neither has been anybody it seems, since the first draft). It could become an alternative later on if browser support improves.
Flash MX? Flash is known to too many (including me) as a way to create highly annoying ads, making us use extensions like FlashBlock. It's not a good way to make your site "accessible" either. It just feels like some field (no pun intended) where Flash doesn't belong into and shouldn't extent into. Leave it for unusable site nav and annoying ads.
XUL - you hear a lot about it lately. Haven't really seen much or heard of anybody who's really done anything (web forms related) with it. And even though it's getting more popular, it doesn't work on most browsers, so I can't really consider it anyways.
XAML - are you out of your mind? Another Windows Monopoly-OS centric solution, forcing adoption of the worst browser of them all. People are starting to get the point that those kind of standards (like ActiveX) are bad. If you need LH+IE7 to use it, it's completely and absolutely out of the question. Alternative OS/browsers are left out. And I can't see the W3C drink bad microsoft kool-aid and adopt XAML as some web standard.
I've been dying for better forms for the last year mostly as I've been doing more web stuff. I haven't read much onto Web Forms 2.0 yet, but it might be an option, especially if it has good browser adoption, and by seeing the members of the WHAT-WG, you'd think it should be the case. Otherwise, XForms may be the next best bet still.
Either ways, I'll be happy when this is all resolved, and that we have something better and consistently available for all our visitors, no matter what OS or browser. (If that ever happens, that is).
Coral Cache version (although it's not dead *yet*).
Just like the home brwer temp control setuptaht was submitted not long ago, it's not that hard to do things like that (for anybody with any kind of basic eletronisc skills). The setup is usually quite ugly and sometimes can get fairly expensive and time consuming for a "hobby" project or simple task.
I never tried roasting my own coffee, but I can buy some half decent stuff without having to bother with all this, and it's not really expensive either. Besides, this won't make me espresso pods, which is most of what I'm drinking lately:(
I can only agree. I still see lots of things using plain text passwords, and even sometimes non-secured access databases, and most of the time it's never caused any problems.
Using a salted SHA1 hash, properly stored, keeping keys for other things like DB connection strings secure (encrypted) and just good general practices are the main thing.
It really wouldn't matter if I used SHA-4096 if the data isn't even secure (and by that, I also mean the data that the login is protecting) or if I can login by just using the old ' or 1=1 (old and very basic sql injection method, but amazingly works too often...)
38M is still a lot of $. One would have to have quite a target if he's willing to spend any kind of money like that to break a hash. In a lot of apps (web or not), it wouldn't take much to get access otherwise...
Sure, it's not just for password hashing, but the whole "abandon ship" thing is very overrated. It looks much to me like changing your dealbolts to some really secure device, while you just may have left your windows open.
And Bell bought out a good part of of Aliant telecom (a conglomerate of several telcos in the maritimes). Right after that my long distance plan went down in minutes and up in price, and it was already more expensive than Bell's plans. I guess we know what to expect out of such mergers - it means we're all gonna get VoIP instead:)
Typical HD contents here (satellite) is 13mbps (720p 95% of the time, mpeg2 of course). Looks great:) Record it and convert to mpeg4 yourself, makes nice DRM-free HD DVDs (on DVDRs). No need to wait for whatever new expensive format/disc comes out in a year or 3:) Pretty CPU intensive mind you. OTA seems to have nice high bitrates, wish I could receive some feeds.
Add that with the usual rather limited bitrate that IPTV uses, and perhaps licensing issues (seeing how VC1 has 12 companies that popped up saying they're violating their IP, and that VC1 is WM9 based). Add that microsft just singed up a deal with Macrovision (taking some possibilities away from you - and also passing you the licensing fees to pay). And from what I recall, WM Audio isn't such a great codec either. It's probably adequate for boring TV stuff, but still sucks to settle for "less".
The DVB standard is calling for iso mpeg-4 (the AVC kind, with AAC audio) for the next set top boxes. It's also going to be used (or at least the codecs can be used) on upcoming HD DVD solutions (both), and it's starting to get more popular amongst "encoders". But i guess they wouldn't want to use something that's not heavily DRM'ed.
I hope they settle for something else, but I bet microsoft will somwhoe make it attractive to them (and not for their customers) so they can sell thousands of boxes, and have them all forced to stay with them, no matter what's happens next, as changing the existing setup (both on broadcaster side and all customer's boxes) would be expensive and troublesome.
And I'm starting to get a bit worried about everything coming to my house by IP means. I already have a lot of things depending on it, and dozens of ports in use. I wonder where their box would fit on my network, and how it would connect/interact with my router/NAT/firewall, VoIP "adapter" and home lan in general. QoS could become an issue as well.
I don't really care if WiMP is on the system or not. I don't use it, and it hardly gets in the way (of ZoomPlayer, MPC and VLC).
I'd much rather see a "Internet-Free" version, if that's what they'd call a IE-free version. Now that would be interesting!
Although they've agreed to change the name to something that sounds less like "stripped down, less-for-your-money" rather than an alternative. (think it was "media free" or something like that)
Yes, 480i displays aren't really good for reading text (webpages, menus in apps and everything like that). It's much better in HD (over DVI or component), but I hardly know anybody who own HDTVs still (only one co worker, and he's still with very crappy analog cable)... Until we get decent programming in HD (don't receive OTA, hardly anything on cable, just a few chans available over satellite) and affordable/widely adopted HD DVDs, I doubt that anybody I know will end up buying one. A lot of people just made the switch to DVDs recently, and are rather content with that quality.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds funny, but that's pretty much what I had done with my floppy drives back then: instead of punching all floppies one per one, I put some switches on the drives, problem solved :)
There's 2 main kinds of trackballs: the ones with a ball at your fingertips, and the one with the ball at your thumb.
I CANNOT stand the fingertip ones like you're using, and I've tried several models. I have yet to see anyone like them.
I love the ones where you use your thumb. It's millions of times more useable. And I have lots of friends, family members and co-workers using those. At least a 50 to nothing ratio.
But if you use them a lot (I got 4 trackballs at home, and 2 at work), eventually you get strain in your thumb's muscles (in the wrist).
The best solution I've found to strain (overall) isn't a single pointing device by itself, but rather switching to different ones. Perhaps the common mouse is the worst (it seems that way to me at least), but swtiching from the trackball to a mouse, or using my intuos as a mouse (in other apps than photoshop as a "plain" pointing device) or even a trackpad (got a little fellowes one for 11$ in clearance) if you can stand them.
The key is frequent breaks (although it's hard stopping when you're in the middle of coding something and all concentrated), streching a bit, proper posture, and using different input devices. Using a lot of keyboard shortcuts helps too, but most people nowadays seem to not even know those exist anymore.
Heck, a few of my co-workers (IT managers, network types, ... anythigng) don't know what it's for, or have basic misunderstandings.
.net framework" on the client PCs (to view .aspx web pages!!!). Or lack of understanding why you have to install it for C#/VB.Net apps they asked me to code... Most of the complaints I've had (or troble tickets) for it is "it don't work!" - and *every single time*, it's been that they didn't have the .net fw installed.
Some decisions were taken as to not sue ASP.Net for web apps, because "you have to isntall the
So I don't think the average joe user has a clue either.
Ever since I've seen the LG fridge (with built in computer) that's pretty much what I've been thinking too (and not in a funny way).
It may be far off still (I've seen more appliances coming out with computers like that - a LG microwave recently), but eventually, we may have to visit some "toaster update" site every once in a while, update your AV and firewall for it...
And that's hoping it doesn't get beyond that, which wouldn't surprise me seeing the ridiculous convergence we see lately in phones and what not. I can almost see people buying toasters that play games sort of like their nokia phone does - and some free/sponsoder games would come bundled with spyware "for toaster edition" (perhaps a jam company interested in some stats? who knows where it will stop...) </tinfoilhat>
Ok, the spyware issue may be pushing it, but I'm sure we'll see such devices coming out, and some people will buy them even if they seem to do nothing useful (for the sake of coolness or whatever).
I sold 3 of my older PCs last year (down to 5 "only" now), mostly because I was sick and tired of having to "admin" them all (update stuff mostly). I *don't* want a network full of such embedded networked devices to look after by myself. If it comes down to that, I'd pay extra to have some sort of automatic update service.
But none of them have ads if you use adblock ;)
In this case, I guess "virtually any webserver" means either apache, lighttpd or WebRick. I couldn't find anything IIS related (not that I spent hours looking either).
DB wise, it supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, MS SQL Server, IBM DB2 and Oracle.
Last time when Pt1 of the the article came out, in the discussions on /. some sites were pointed out (seemed like decent sites too).
I've been meaning to get around to add RoR to my apache (XAMPP) setup to try it out. Most of what I do at work is ASP/ASP.Net and I've been looking for something else (not to fully replace them, but perhaps as a complement). I'm not big on php, but it has it's uses and followers (I use it on some small websities with cheap hosting). J2EE isn't my definition of fun (although it's robust and all).
From what I had seen, RoR seemed pretty promising (and it keeps getting better they say), but I'll have to dig deeper to see it's full power. The only problem I can see now is finding some decent hosting for that, preferably cheap (RoR *with postgresql* to make things worse).
Flash itself as a technology doesn't blow - however, the only sites I've seen that used it (or say, in 99% of cases) use it either for highly annoying ads, very annoying "splash" page when you get tho their websites, or bad and non-accessible site nav (usually with no real structure and nothing to fall back to if flash plasyer isn't installed).
:P )
There might be good uses for it, but I've hardly ever seen that (ok, I'll give you badger badger
So along with adblock (if not even BEFORE it) I load flashblock.
Oh, and be sure I'm not going to use this (flash) instead of XForms (or whatever else) either.
You do have a point. The astellite PVRs don't do analog captures like their counterparts (tivo, replaytv, mce, mythtv, ...) and it makes a HUGE difference in quality (DVB is the only other way I'd consider).
... The list of things to do is like endless. Takes too much time to setup everything, and it's just too easy for something to go wrong (a codec problem, driver problem, ... anything). The only real gain IMHO is DVD burning which I wouldn't even consider given the quality of analog captures. You also get to upgrade it (windows update or whatever) all the time, and hope it doesn't crash during a show. And if you want something that looks nice (D-Vine case or similar) , quiet, good quality and decently fast, it will cost you.
... It was about 50$ more than a capture card would have cost me; cheaper than a tivo too, and no monthly fees. (my sat pvr doesn't support HD, as none of the channels I watch are available in HD and my projector doesn't go above SVGA, so it would be pointless)
And as far as PC solutions go, it's just too much of a PITA to setup everything. Assemble PC, isntall OS, tons of software, config everything, mess with driver and other issues, try to get TV guide somewhat working, setup remote control for every app manually, then it's the IR blaster,
Tivo and such devices (and a lot of PC software) seem too oriented toward analog cable and similar low quality setups. Plus you get monthly fees for guide.
My sat PVR worked out of the box - recording in 100% quality (digital capture of the mpeg2 transportstream straight to HD), remote control, TV guide and all. Nothing to assemble, install, configure,
And for everything else there's the HTPC, but it's just never going to be used as a PVR.
I think it's a good idea for them to come up with more web based apps. My mail following me around anywhere I have internet access is something I like (no need to lug around laptop with outlook or whatever).
In fact, I already have my own little webmail page on my little server (and tons more features), but I'd really like it if there was some easy (open source?) calendaring web app like that to complement the setup (not that I really searched hard, and making a basic one would be pretty trivial...)
why are schools still here?
Pretty simple to answer. Let's say you "drop" out of "normal" school, and start reading up by yourself on things like programming or other IT stuff to get a job.
Then you show up to come potential employer for an interview. What do you tell him? "I've read about C in some book for a couple weeks"? There are no ways to know if you've even read the book (or if it was a good one, and what level), if you understood anything as there are no tests... Then the next guy having an interview says he's coming from some highly regarded university and got good marks... Think you'd get the job? (Even though you *could* be better, no one can really tell).
School also forces one to study about other things (language classes, philosophy and what not) that you don't get when "reading up" on your own.
The school system is broken, but we still rely on it to hire people (even when most of the study program was irrelevant to the job, and that it only marginally prepared you to do the job).
You can still get a job and make a decent salary if you do something like that, but you will have to use experience, references, and make your proofs to get a job.
There's also the personality thing... Some people just can't read up like that on their own. They might not have the attention span, or require someone to explain when needed, or might not have enough initiative... Lots of reasons. Peronally, I'd rather pick up a book and read at my own pace, the sections I need. Not take come boring class at fixed hours that don't work for me, only an hour at a time, at the pace set so everybody can follow (too slow), and starting from the very basics again (as some people might not know or have forgotten).
Eventually, you will have to do that anyways (read up on your own) as you just can't know all technologies and languages. I often have to freshen up on something I haven't used in months, or learn some new thing - either when working on something new, or to keep up to date with new stuff.
That's coming from someone who landed a job as an electronics technician, to later on move to a programmer's job (I've had other coding jobs before). Both electronics and programming (well, everything IT related) are self taught. The only thing I ever studied in school (college) is mechanics...
I don't think anyone's really getting pissed ofg about them. Most people have been posting (dupe) midly humorous comments about it being a dupe.
Of course there's always a few who will get verbal about issues, but sometimes it's also good to bring them up, you can't necessarily blame them for that either.
I mean, if you say the same article on page 2 and then again on page 8 in your newspaper - once every week, wouldn't you start to think it's time we do something about it?
Because if nothingness, silence, absence of contents or the like are copyrightable, I'm gonna write this nice program and copyright it:
They could have considered HE AAC perhaps. It has decent playback support, and would sound worlds better than mp3 (or keep same quality, but with lower bitrate, hence smaller file, less bandwidth costs...) AAC is getting more and more popular (part of the mpeg4 standard, used by iTunes, nero, quicktime, and a lot more software)
WMA is just a poor choice. Worse sound quality than mp3, and windows only (unless someone wrote some filters to playback wma on linux, I never checked).
Ogg is only marginally better than a good AAC encoder imho (if at all). The support (playback) isn't exactly great, and if you asked most people, they wouldn't have a clue it's even related to audio.
mp3 is the most widely known (and most likely supported) format. Perhaps they were more worried about that than file size or quality.
If you mean blacklist as in prevent them from using scripted means (JS) to use popups and other junk that'd be nice, but I doubt it'll happen. Sort of like how firefox lets you blacklist sites so they can't set cookies (in cookies>exceptions).
As for having a central DB, I can see people manage and update a list, but not do it "real time". That would generate WAY too much traffic, and with little gain over using a list (perhaps with a "update" button, that fetches it from a known/custom URL). This way you can also edit the list to suit your needs (add and remove websites).
Yes, that's nice for the odd once in a while when I'm booted in knoppix, but won't do help me much while in windows :( Thanks for the info anyways, good to know. Doubt I'll see this plugin idea happen anytime soon anyways.
even more that there was soem way to diable JavaScript on some sites using a blacklist. Not only for popups, but some sites have some crap that manage to bring the cpu of a 2.4GHz box to 100% with a couple windows open and make surfing painfully slow. Mostly for scollders and animations and other unwanted junk. Would be nice to have a firefox extension for that.
The thing is, the forms won't be used by the browser makers nor the back end makers (well, indirectly in both cases). It's the web application developpers who do, and they'er also the ones left using whatever technologies that are available to solve the problem.
XForms wouldn't work "out of the box" for most users of my stuff, so I'm a bit hesitant. Ideally I'd have to have an alternate method of entry with "old" forms. And I just don't feel I'm gaining much, never was big on XForms (neither has been anybody it seems, since the first draft). It could become an alternative later on if browser support improves.
Flash MX? Flash is known to too many (including me) as a way to create highly annoying ads, making us use extensions like FlashBlock. It's not a good way to make your site "accessible" either. It just feels like some field (no pun intended) where Flash doesn't belong into and shouldn't extent into. Leave it for unusable site nav and annoying ads.
XUL - you hear a lot about it lately. Haven't really seen much or heard of anybody who's really done anything (web forms related) with it. And even though it's getting more popular, it doesn't work on most browsers, so I can't really consider it anyways.
XAML - are you out of your mind? Another Windows Monopoly-OS centric solution, forcing adoption of the worst browser of them all. People are starting to get the point that those kind of standards (like ActiveX) are bad. If you need LH+IE7 to use it, it's completely and absolutely out of the question. Alternative OS/browsers are left out. And I can't see the W3C drink bad microsoft kool-aid and adopt XAML as some web standard.
I've been dying for better forms for the last year mostly as I've been doing more web stuff. I haven't read much onto Web Forms 2.0 yet, but it might be an option, especially if it has good browser adoption, and by seeing the members of the WHAT-WG, you'd think it should be the case. Otherwise, XForms may be the next best bet still.
Either ways, I'll be happy when this is all resolved, and that we have something better and consistently available for all our visitors, no matter what OS or browser. (If that ever happens, that is).
Coral Cache version (although it's not dead *yet*).
:(
Just like the home brwer temp control setuptaht was submitted not long ago, it's not that hard to do things like that (for anybody with any kind of basic eletronisc skills). The setup is usually quite ugly and sometimes can get fairly expensive and time consuming for a "hobby" project or simple task.
I never tried roasting my own coffee, but I can buy some half decent stuff without having to bother with all this, and it's not really expensive either. Besides, this won't make me espresso pods, which is most of what I'm drinking lately
I can only agree. I still see lots of things using plain text passwords, and even sometimes non-secured access databases, and most of the time it's never caused any problems.
Using a salted SHA1 hash, properly stored, keeping keys for other things like DB connection strings secure (encrypted) and just good general practices are the main thing.
It really wouldn't matter if I used SHA-4096 if the data isn't even secure (and by that, I also mean the data that the login is protecting) or if I can login by just using the old ' or 1=1 (old and very basic sql injection method, but amazingly works too often...)
38M is still a lot of $. One would have to have quite a target if he's willing to spend any kind of money like that to break a hash. In a lot of apps (web or not), it wouldn't take much to get access otherwise...
Sure, it's not just for password hashing, but the whole "abandon ship" thing is very overrated. It looks much to me like changing your dealbolts to some really secure device, while you just may have left your windows open.
And Bell bought out a good part of of Aliant telecom (a conglomerate of several telcos in the maritimes). Right after that my long distance plan went down in minutes and up in price, and it was already more expensive than Bell's plans. I guess we know what to expect out of such mergers - it means we're all gonna get VoIP instead :)
Typical HD contents here (satellite) is 13mbps (720p 95% of the time, mpeg2 of course). Looks great :) Record it and convert to mpeg4 yourself, makes nice DRM-free HD DVDs (on DVDRs). No need to wait for whatever new expensive format/disc comes out in a year or 3 :) Pretty CPU intensive mind you. OTA seems to have nice high bitrates, wish I could receive some feeds.
Add that with the usual rather limited bitrate that IPTV uses, and perhaps licensing issues (seeing how VC1 has 12 companies that popped up saying they're violating their IP, and that VC1 is WM9 based). Add that microsft just singed up a deal with Macrovision (taking some possibilities away from you - and also passing you the licensing fees to pay). And from what I recall, WM Audio isn't such a great codec either. It's probably adequate for boring TV stuff, but still sucks to settle for "less".
The DVB standard is calling for iso mpeg-4 (the AVC kind, with AAC audio) for the next set top boxes. It's also going to be used (or at least the codecs can be used) on upcoming HD DVD solutions (both), and it's starting to get more popular amongst "encoders". But i guess they wouldn't want to use something that's not heavily DRM'ed.
I hope they settle for something else, but I bet microsoft will somwhoe make it attractive to them (and not for their customers) so they can sell thousands of boxes, and have them all forced to stay with them, no matter what's happens next, as changing the existing setup (both on broadcaster side and all customer's boxes) would be expensive and troublesome.
And I'm starting to get a bit worried about everything coming to my house by IP means. I already have a lot of things depending on it, and dozens of ports in use. I wonder where their box would fit on my network, and how it would connect/interact with my router/NAT/firewall, VoIP "adapter" and home lan in general. QoS could become an issue as well.
I don't really care if WiMP is on the system or not. I don't use it, and it hardly gets in the way (of ZoomPlayer, MPC and VLC).
I'd much rather see a "Internet-Free" version, if that's what they'd call a IE-free version. Now that would be interesting!
Although they've agreed to change the name to something that sounds less like "stripped down, less-for-your-money" rather than an alternative. (think it was "media free" or something like that)
Yes, 480i displays aren't really good for reading text (webpages, menus in apps and everything like that). It's much better in HD (over DVI or component), but I hardly know anybody who own HDTVs still (only one co worker, and he's still with very crappy analog cable)... Until we get decent programming in HD (don't receive OTA, hardly anything on cable, just a few chans available over satellite) and affordable/widely adopted HD DVDs, I doubt that anybody I know will end up buying one. A lot of people just made the switch to DVDs recently, and are rather content with that quality.