My experience with Joomla (after having used it for a few years now) is exactly what you say -- there's a steep learning curve. The documentation is a lot to blame for that, as the summary says. The documentation appears to be written (as most technical documentation is) by someone who doesn't understand what a new user's questions would be, nor how to approach set-up from start to finish in a step by step way. There's not even a basic guide on how to use it: planning -> install -> configuration options -> themes - > modules -> security etc. A lot of that is assumed knowledge, and as far as config goes, you pretty much have to spend a lot of time testing things out to see what works.
It seems also much of the more detailed documentation, and documentation for modules and other add-ons is not written by native English speakers. Some of it is completely unintelligible.
Joomla is usually straightforward if you have a good understanding of CSS, html, and how web files are structured. If you don't, you'd better like the default theme, cos you'll not be changing it. (as an aside you can often tell a Joomla site because the user has no idea how to change the favicon, and the default Joomla one is the one being used.) Also, when something goes wrong, you'll need to call in external assistance pretty much every time.
My biggest bugbear is the layout and terminology for the admin interface. It's in NO WAY intuitive. I've spent hours sometimes trying to figure out what each thing is and does -- a newbie has no chance with that.
I think with dramatically better documentation, Joomla could be easy to use for a newbie. Perhaps this book will help.
The director for the project is to be Gore Verbinski, who proved himself on the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy
I made it through 1 and a half of the Pirates trilogy movies. Without Johnny Depp I'd never have made it through the first. Verbinski took some very talented actors (and some truly awful ones (Bloom and Ikea Knightley, for example)) and proved that he barely has the ability to direct traffic. The second movie was a long rambling mess that I walked out of halfway through -- that was 100% the director's fault. I decided not to even waste a cent on the 3rd, since the 2nd was so bad.
That's patronizing. And in my experience factually inaccurate.
I've worked in the porn industry, for a number of years. In many production companies (in Europe anyway) the people in charge are women. There is no exploitation, at least I have never seen ANY in the years I've worked there.
There's a retarded, uninformed view that the sex industry and the porn industry are one and the same. Many of the women working in the porn industry are college graduates and highly intelligent. They make considered decisions to work in that field. It's an enjoyable way to make very good money. The women are respected and well looked after, often treated like stars.
Working in the porn industry is far, far less exploitative than most other "normal" jobs a young woman could be forced into. A waitress, a call center, conventional modeling, any office job, and of course fast food, are all much worse places to work, wholly exploitative and often degrading, and worse paid.
If you are going to be judgmental get your facts straight first. You've no idea what you are talking about and are just regurgitating the warped opinions of ugly, bitter, twisted, sociopathic, 1970's, men-hating lesbians -- none of whom did any bona fide research into the subject either.
You must be new here. The only way we Slashdotters are making that number is in Second Life. Most of us never even see girls, never mind mate with them.
um... this may seem like a curious question, but what -- exactly -- does this news story have to do with news for nerds, technology or whatever else that/. usually reports. Slow news day?
I know that if China-bashing was made an Olympic sport there would be lots of people from/. who'd like to the chance to compete. However... I'm still not seeing the relevance of this story. And I live under the Regime of Gordon Brownshirt in the People's Democratic Republic of the UK, so I'm not criticizing any nation on their lack of freedom. Stones, glass houses and all that.
So this is the third slashvertisment for this movie in a week. Obviously the marketing department of this movie is running scared. They're trying to make sure enough people get to see it before the reviewers get to them.
I've no idea if the movie is good or not, but this level of marketing push suggests -- very strongly -- that they've a potential turkey on their hands.
Oh, and can this please be the very last time this movie is advertised here.
In Europe (certainly in the UK), the arts are primarily funded by the government, or by other public bodies. Read the BBC article. In this respect, the US is much more antiquated. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised by this ASIMO story, but I am surprised none the less.
This is true, but this is not a good system -- at least in the UK. The problem with the Arts Council and Lottery funding is that is is bureaucratic, clique-ish, nepotistic, and absolutely thoroughly corrupt.They are unaccountable and wholly non-transparent.
As someone who work regularly with new filmmakers in the UK, let me assure you that none of these funding bodies will help anyone they don't know, or have a relationship with in some way. It's jobs for the boys -- just like any local government or NGO organization.
A mixture of Government funded things (with full transparency and accountability) and private finance is the only way to ensure new artists and new work is created.
For all that Europeans like to boast and be elitist about their arts systems, other than in the former communist countries, there's very little art created compared to the market driven US systems. Take TV for example -- the US TV shows hire the best people in the world, they are innovative and challenging despite the limits of the ratings system. There's no shows from any other country anywhere that offer that degree of technical talent, and technical innovation.
damn... too fast with the submit button - I meant "Sloane Foundation" and "NPOV", but I guess that's obvious.
The Sloane Foundation being only one recent example of a potential conflict and lack of transparency in Jimmy's and Wikipedia's dealings.
And always worth mentioning -- there's STILL no accepted definition of "Vandalism". Wikipedia Admins use it the way "terrorism" is used by Fox News. This is easily abused and most certainly not to be trusted. Banning IPs is a disgraceful and disgusting practice, which should be fought by anyone, and everyone, interested in free speech.
Wikipedia -- the encyclopedia anyone can edit... as long as Honest Jimbo and his Admin Regime agrees with you. All else is vandalism and must be dealt with harshly.
Also, Wikipedia recently got a grant from the Sloan Foundation. On the board of the Sloan Foundation are several General Motors execs. So... hands up anyone who is naive enough to think that Wikipedia's General Motors pages will be 100% POV.
Hmmm... I'm not sure modding him flamebait was really fair. He does have a point, all too scarily emphatic about it, but a point nonetheless. He's on that cusp between funny, insightful and flamebait. It's not really flamebait since he's only likely to offend spammers, and I'm not sure we really should care what they think.
We do definitely treat spammers (and lawyers) with far too much leniency in society. Spammers, direct marketers, viral marketers should all be in prison for a very, very long time. If Wesley Snipes gets 3 years for a misdemeanor, Spammers should get life for sure.
Blogger is odd. It was one the first things out of beta but curiously felt (to me anyway) more beta than many of the other products still in beta. It still does. It's seriously lagging behind Wordpress in most everything.
However, in the face of little to no competition, the biggest area of neglect-concern is that of Search. It's far from perfect. In fact becoming less so with time due to the ever-higher number of people figuring out new ways to game Google search. Does it really take another couple of guys working in a garage somewhere to come up with the new search paradigm -- or could Google develop it themselves if they concentrated on their core business, and left blogging etc to others who specialize?
Google seriously needs competition - it's good for everyone, including Google.
It's not being made by the BBC, it's being made by Sky, which is part of Murdock's empire and so will, no doubt, be widely distributed to anyone who wants to buy it
And, ironically, another example of Murdoch hiding in plain site. Blake's 7 was about rebels fighting an evil empire (as was Firefly also paid for by the Murdoch Empire). The irony being that News Corps International is, in fact, THE contemporary evil empire.
If you want further proof of Yahoo's impending demise... this story's been on the front page for about 14 hours. This is the 38th comment.
No-one cares about Yahoo. No-one. They've no fanbois, they've no apologists, no-one even really even hates them enough to come here and post flamebait libel.
I bet you even money Yahoo is owned by someone else by the year's end.
Why not judge them on the quality of their products instead of who thought of it first?
I very much do. This being another reason why I'm certain they've been living on borrowed time. I agree that Google's dominance of the search market isn't a good thing for anyone, including Google. But Yahoo -- as also Google are now doing -- are resting on their laurels. Search hasn't advanced much for years. Yahoo could do that, but they don't. There's little revenue from IM, and their mail system is a broken spamfest hidden behind slow, heavy code and flash ads. You use gmail, I use gmail, we all use gmail, and we all know why.
This was also my point in my original post -- why diversify away from their core business? Especially when you are not the leader in your core business, and you are under threat. Yahoo has very, very bad management, and it has had for years. There's room for VAST improvements in search. Search in no way meets anyone's needs right now, but it looks like any improvement in search tech is going to come from the next Google/Yahoo -- a small enterprise run by a couple of smart guys with a server cluster held together with duct tape. This is because Yahoo (and also Google) aren't doing enough there.
Yahoo are dead men walking. This is actually a good thing, while Google tries to be not evil, Yahoo is evil. They shall be missed about as much as AOL.
So basically, this is yet another grasping at straws attempt to hold of the wolf at the door, by copying someone else's idea and further diluting their portfolio, and diversifying away from their core business.
When was the last time Yahoo innovated? In fact, have they ever?
And there folks is the reason why Yahoo is not long for this World. They've been very lucky to have lasted this long, they really should have gone under with the dotcom bubble.
Slashdot Mirror
No, I think you're not wrong.
My experience with Joomla (after having used it for a few years now) is exactly what you say -- there's a steep learning curve. The documentation is a lot to blame for that, as the summary says. The documentation appears to be written (as most technical documentation is) by someone who doesn't understand what a new user's questions would be, nor how to approach set-up from start to finish in a step by step way. There's not even a basic guide on how to use it: planning -> install -> configuration options -> themes - > modules -> security etc. A lot of that is assumed knowledge, and as far as config goes, you pretty much have to spend a lot of time testing things out to see what works.
It seems also much of the more detailed documentation, and documentation for modules and other add-ons is not written by native English speakers. Some of it is completely unintelligible.
Joomla is usually straightforward if you have a good understanding of CSS, html, and how web files are structured. If you don't, you'd better like the default theme, cos you'll not be changing it. (as an aside you can often tell a Joomla site because the user has no idea how to change the favicon, and the default Joomla one is the one being used.) Also, when something goes wrong, you'll need to call in external assistance pretty much every time.
My biggest bugbear is the layout and terminology for the admin interface. It's in NO WAY intuitive. I've spent hours sometimes trying to figure out what each thing is and does -- a newbie has no chance with that. I think with dramatically better documentation, Joomla could be easy to use for a newbie. Perhaps this book will help.
... Clippy in your ear, and in your pocket.
So yeah... good luck with this movie...
That's patronizing. And in my experience factually inaccurate.
I've worked in the porn industry, for a number of years. In many production companies (in Europe anyway) the people in charge are women. There is no exploitation, at least I have never seen ANY in the years I've worked there.
There's a retarded, uninformed view that the sex industry and the porn industry are one and the same. Many of the women working in the porn industry are college graduates and highly intelligent. They make considered decisions to work in that field. It's an enjoyable way to make very good money. The women are respected and well looked after, often treated like stars.
Working in the porn industry is far, far less exploitative than most other "normal" jobs a young woman could be forced into. A waitress, a call center, conventional modeling, any office job, and of course fast food, are all much worse places to work, wholly exploitative and often degrading, and worse paid.
If you are going to be judgmental get your facts straight first. You've no idea what you are talking about and are just regurgitating the warped opinions of ugly, bitter, twisted, sociopathic, 1970's, men-hating lesbians -- none of whom did any bona fide research into the subject either.
Learn, experience, then judge.
For the 6,666,666,666th time -- Wikipedia is NOT a source.
Yes... but can it run Vista...
You, for one, welcome your second personal overlords.
Bad day to be a Yahoo employee, bad year really...
Yahoo's got to the point where not even MS wants them. They're doomed. That's not really a bad thing. Yahoo is evil after all.
AOL called, they want their business plan back.
um... this may seem like a curious question, but what -- exactly -- does this news story have to do with news for nerds, technology or whatever else that /. usually reports. Slow news day?
/. who'd like to the chance to compete. However... I'm still not seeing the relevance of this story. And I live under the Regime of Gordon Brownshirt in the People's Democratic Republic of the UK, so I'm not criticizing any nation on their lack of freedom. Stones, glass houses and all that.
I know that if China-bashing was made an Olympic sport there would be lots of people from
So this is the third slashvertisment for this movie in a week. Obviously the marketing department of this movie is running scared. They're trying to make sure enough people get to see it before the reviewers get to them.
I've no idea if the movie is good or not, but this level of marketing push suggests -- very strongly -- that they've a potential turkey on their hands.
Oh, and can this please be the very last time this movie is advertised here.
As someone who work regularly with new filmmakers in the UK, let me assure you that none of these funding bodies will help anyone they don't know, or have a relationship with in some way. It's jobs for the boys -- just like any local government or NGO organization.
A mixture of Government funded things (with full transparency and accountability) and private finance is the only way to ensure new artists and new work is created.
For all that Europeans like to boast and be elitist about their arts systems, other than in the former communist countries, there's very little art created compared to the market driven US systems. Take TV for example -- the US TV shows hire the best people in the world, they are innovative and challenging despite the limits of the ratings system. There's no shows from any other country anywhere that offer that degree of technical talent, and technical innovation.
It's spam really. Spam we like, but nonetheless, spam.
Basically this comes down to either:
The Government was Incompetent.
or...
The Government is lying and covering up.
Hmmm.... Mr Rock, meet Mr Hardplace.
damn... too fast with the submit button - I meant "Sloane Foundation" and "NPOV", but I guess that's obvious.
The Sloane Foundation being only one recent example of a potential conflict and lack of transparency in Jimmy's and Wikipedia's dealings.
And always worth mentioning -- there's STILL no accepted definition of "Vandalism". Wikipedia Admins use it the way "terrorism" is used by Fox News. This is easily abused and most certainly not to be trusted. Banning IPs is a disgraceful and disgusting practice, which should be fought by anyone, and everyone, interested in free speech.
Wikipedia -- the encyclopedia anyone can edit... as long as Honest Jimbo and his Admin Regime agrees with you. All else is vandalism and must be dealt with harshly.
Also, Wikipedia recently got a grant from the Sloan Foundation. On the board of the Sloan Foundation are several General Motors execs. So... hands up anyone who is naive enough to think that Wikipedia's General Motors pages will be 100% POV.
4 legs good, 2 legs better.
Hmmm... I'm not sure modding him flamebait was really fair. He does have a point, all too scarily emphatic about it, but a point nonetheless. He's on that cusp between funny, insightful and flamebait. It's not really flamebait since he's only likely to offend spammers, and I'm not sure we really should care what they think.
We do definitely treat spammers (and lawyers) with far too much leniency in society. Spammers, direct marketers, viral marketers should all be in prison for a very, very long time. If Wesley Snipes gets 3 years for a misdemeanor, Spammers should get life for sure.
... was one of the 17, perchance, Steve Ballmer?
Blogger is odd. It was one the first things out of beta but curiously felt (to me anyway) more beta than many of the other products still in beta. It still does. It's seriously lagging behind Wordpress in most everything.
However, in the face of little to no competition, the biggest area of neglect-concern is that of Search. It's far from perfect. In fact becoming less so with time due to the ever-higher number of people figuring out new ways to game Google search. Does it really take another couple of guys working in a garage somewhere to come up with the new search paradigm -- or could Google develop it themselves if they concentrated on their core business, and left blogging etc to others who specialize?
Google seriously needs competition - it's good for everyone, including Google.
May the schwartz be with you.
If you want further proof of Yahoo's impending demise... this story's been on the front page for about 14 hours. This is the 38th comment.
No-one cares about Yahoo. No-one. They've no fanbois, they've no apologists, no-one even really even hates them enough to come here and post flamebait libel.
I bet you even money Yahoo is owned by someone else by the year's end.
This was also my point in my original post -- why diversify away from their core business? Especially when you are not the leader in your core business, and you are under threat. Yahoo has very, very bad management, and it has had for years. There's room for VAST improvements in search. Search in no way meets anyone's needs right now, but it looks like any improvement in search tech is going to come from the next Google/Yahoo -- a small enterprise run by a couple of smart guys with a server cluster held together with duct tape. This is because Yahoo (and also Google) aren't doing enough there.
Yahoo are dead men walking. This is actually a good thing, while Google tries to be not evil, Yahoo is evil. They shall be missed about as much as AOL.
So basically, this is yet another grasping at straws attempt to hold of the wolf at the door, by copying someone else's idea and further diluting their portfolio, and diversifying away from their core business.
When was the last time Yahoo innovated? In fact, have they ever?
And there folks is the reason why Yahoo is not long for this World. They've been very lucky to have lasted this long, they really should have gone under with the dotcom bubble.
Borrowed. Time.