In order to have a secure web site, you need time and priorities. All of a sudden, you'll find a security hole, and you'll have to drop everything to fix it now. If you're busy constantly adding new features, you will inevitably create more holes and not have time to fix the old ones.
I didn't even have my EyeTV for two years when it stopped working, nor did I get an email, nor did any of the software updates that I downloaded during the two-year period warn me that TitanTV would not work.
and required a CS degree in order to understand how to record a series.
So simply clicking on the TV show description and clicking the "Record All" button is too complicated for you?
The "Record Series" button never worked correctly. I contacted their support after it kept missing shows, and they directed me to what I remember was called a "smart recording" or something similar. Programming the thing was like writing a SQL query.
EyeTV also did something nasty where they decided to switch programming providers without any warning whatsoever. I woke up one day and nothing was being recorded! It took me about 20-30 minutes to figure out how to get it to download program data again! Totally unacceptable!
The unstablty also had a lot to do with their hardware. About once every 3-4 months I'd have to completely unplug the receiver from the wall in order to get it to work. Ironically, I had to return the first one I bought because it stopped working after a few days.
Needless to say, I replaced the entire Mac Mini + EyeTV setup with an HP desktop running Windows 7. The Microsoft DVR software is the best I've used so far; and I can play BluRay as well!
I used to run my TV using a Mac Mini with EyeTV so I could watch and record TV. It was awful, very unstable, crashed often, and required a CS degree in order to understand how to record a series. If Apple is coming out with a TV, they need something much much much better then EyeTV.
Everyone in Silicon Valley who wants to take part in the Occupy movement just goes to San Francisco and Oakland. They're not part of Silicon Valley proper, but they're still part of the Bay Area. I think the difference is that entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley are part of the 99%
I know that you don't need a college education to be a professional programmer; but I have yet to meet a college drop-out who has demonstrated the responsibility needed to do anything more then simple maintenance coding. Skipping college is only a path that I'd for someone with a family background that already provided the needed life experience.
I used to use a Mac mini. What I found is that my parents are able to figure out how to use my home theater PC because it has a "live TV" and "recorded TV" button on the remote.
I'm a self-taught programmer as well. I started in Basic when I was 11, and moved to C in high school.
How did I get a job? I went to college, like most other self-taught programmers! There's a big difference in the kind of skills and practice you need to win a high school programming competition versus building an industrial strength web application to handle millions of users.
When I was in college, the best students were those like us, self-taught in Basic. Had I NOT gone to college, I would have wasted a lot of time, and not been able to write the programs that I want to write.
In March of 2011 I bought an HP desktop that has a media center remote. (It also has a TV tuner, BluRay, and HDMI.)
I installed XMBC, which supports the remote. It provides a great menu to navigate EVERYTHING, isos, avis, mkvs, mp3s, aacs, flacs, and some of those other whacky DVD rip formats.
The only problem is that my hard drive with about 500 gigs of DVD rips crashed! Just make sure to back up everything on a regular basis!
From reading some of the linked blog entries, it sounds like some of Groupon's salespeople are lying to businesses or are being more pushy then the CEO intends. Perhaps Groupon has some salespeople who flat out lie to businesses who need to set sales limits? Things like this happen when a company grows very fast.
Just be rude when salespeople play stupid games like that. Flat out say that you're going to choose the phone first, and then say that because you're the customer, you get to buy what you want and not what they tell you to buy.
I ran the IOS 5 beta. Whenever I checked for updates after the official IOS beta came out, I was told that my phone was up-to-date.
A few weeks afterwards, I went to use my phone and it was locked with some kind of "can not connect server" error. I could only make 911 calls. I had to connect my phone to a computer and completely restore it. At the time I needed to make an important phone call. I ended up making the call two hours late due to this problem.
I could easily see a drunk guy accidentally dialing 911 because of this.
Needless to say, I will never buy another another iPhone, and I will strongly discourage anyone from using an iPhone beta. My cell phone is my primary communication device, and I refuse to pay money for any phone that would disable itself without any form of warning whatsoever.
Five years ago I switched to Mac, but kept using Windows at work because it pays the bills. A few years ago I bought a Mac mini to run my TV.
I switched my TV to Windows 7 because it supports BluRay, and Microsoft's DVR software is awesome. The DVR software for Mac, which is 3rd party, sucks. I considered trying to set up MythTV, but when I read the instructions, I realized that getting a simple DVR box based off of Myth would be a project.
In my current job I now develop software for both Mac and Windows. Now that Lion came out, Mac is no longer better then Windows. Windows 7 is pretty damn good; not perfect. Lion is pretty damn good; but also not perfect.
I guess the only real advantage that Apple has is that Objective C is supported for low-level development. On Windows, you need to use C for low-level development..Net is nicer then Objective C, but unlike Objective C, it's not a first-class citizen in the operating system.
It just comes down to this: Laziness. Everyone's spent a decade or so learning to use Mac, Windows, or some form of open-source UI. Most people just want to quickly adapt to a few new buttons here and there; as opposed to re-learning how to use their computer.
Or, considering that we'll need to apt-get a bunch of stuff; why not release a tiny installer with a script to apt-get popular stuff after installation?
When I interview candidates, I try to take them through all the different practical skills that are needed for the kinds of products I work on. I start with a little theory, then I move to database basics because "that's where the data lives," and then I get to programming. I try to gauge if the developed programmer experience matches the stated experience; if there's potential to learn, and if the developer has a good / bad attitude.
I start with a general quiz on the basics: What's the difference between a class and an object? What's the difference between the stack and the heap? I'm not looking for correctness; but a general comfort level with general programming topics and vocabulary. In general, I want a candidate that answers these questions from experience, as opposed to wrote memorization.
Then I ask the candidate to design some simple tables and queries based on our business. Nothing too complicated; but if the candidate doesn't get SQL or a relational database; it comes right out. I've spent too much time cleaning up messes from people who don't get programming with a relational database that this kind of filter very quickly separates the men from the boys.
Depending on what kind of time I have, I may ask the candidate how to convert data from the database into objects. The goal is to ensure that the candidate isn't going to blindly rely on an ORM and write code that runs 1,000,000,000 times more slowly then it needs to do.
Finally, I ask the candidate a very simple programming question that requires wrapping a basic collection. I don't care if they come up with the most optimal way right away; what I'm trying to judge at this point is how much of a "programmer's instinct" the candidate has established.
I do think some kind of sandboxing would be nice; for example, blocking Skype from automatically installing plugins in every browser under the sun without asking my permission. It's important that sandboxing doesn't prevent programs from being useful.
Lossless audio compression is pretty brain-dead simple. If you think of how sticking a wav file in a.zip or.gz only saves about 10% of space, (give or take,) the most basic lossless codecs work by essentially zipping the mathematical difference between each sample. Because storing the difference between each sample, instead of the sample itself, is more likely to have repetition in audio; algorithms like.zip and.gz can then be applied.
What I'd like to know is, considering how brain-dead-simple lossless audio compression is, are there technical merits for using ALAC, especially on embedded devices? Does FLAC rely on floating point when ALAC is purely integer, thus making ALAC easier to implement? Is it easier to seek within an ALAC? Or, is Apple's insistance on ALAC purely a "not invented here" mentality?
What I don't get is why haven't you been using some kind of public repo like Github? (Bitbucket, ect,) At that point, publicly releasing your source code is just a matter of tagging the repo and/or branch at a particular point in time.
Even tarballing or zipping your build environment isn't a major undertaking, especially if it's part of your release process.
It seems like you're spending more time "making excuses" on message boards when it would take less time to just put a zip of source code on your web site.
In 2008 I helped the Obama campaign go door to door in Reno. As most of the people going door-to-door were from out of town, they explained to us that people in Reno really, really, really do not want Yucca mountain to open because they really, really, really do not want nuclear waste traveling on interstate 80.
Interstate 80 travels through the middle of Reno. A nuclear accident on the freeway will cause the city to grind to a halt and potentially destroy their homes and businesses.
Even though it's possible to argue that the containers used to transport waste are accident-proof, when it comes to keeping our fellow Americans peace of mind, it's probably best that we avoid transporting so much waste to close to people's homes.
I gather he drank the kool-aid when he went through the door. I'm halfway through the interview and its basically ".NET is better than Java"
Java and Lamp's advantages have more to do with deployment simplicity then quality of language. C# is a better language, but there's so much more to a development platform then the language or even the VM. With PHP you can just open the script in any text editor and change it without having to recompile. Java has a much more robust open-source / Linux deployment scenario compared to Mono.
Having used PHP, C#, and Java, I'll gladly state that even though C# /.Net is the best language and VM; Java and Lamp are often a better fit for what people are trying to make.
Slashdot Mirror
In order to have a secure web site, you need time and priorities. All of a sudden, you'll find a security hole, and you'll have to drop everything to fix it now. If you're busy constantly adding new features, you will inevitably create more holes and not have time to fix the old ones.
I didn't even have my EyeTV for two years when it stopped working, nor did I get an email, nor did any of the software updates that I downloaded during the two-year period warn me that TitanTV would not work.
and required a CS degree in order to understand how to record a series.
So simply clicking on the TV show description and clicking the "Record All" button is too complicated for you?
The "Record Series" button never worked correctly. I contacted their support after it kept missing shows, and they directed me to what I remember was called a "smart recording" or something similar. Programming the thing was like writing a SQL query.
EyeTV also did something nasty where they decided to switch programming providers without any warning whatsoever. I woke up one day and nothing was being recorded! It took me about 20-30 minutes to figure out how to get it to download program data again! Totally unacceptable!
The unstablty also had a lot to do with their hardware. About once every 3-4 months I'd have to completely unplug the receiver from the wall in order to get it to work. Ironically, I had to return the first one I bought because it stopped working after a few days.
Needless to say, I replaced the entire Mac Mini + EyeTV setup with an HP desktop running Windows 7. The Microsoft DVR software is the best I've used so far; and I can play BluRay as well!
When I bought my Mac Mini, Windows 7 hadn't come out. I've now switched to an HP desktop running Windows 7, and it's a dream come true.
I used to run my TV using a Mac Mini with EyeTV so I could watch and record TV. It was awful, very unstable, crashed often, and required a CS degree in order to understand how to record a series. If Apple is coming out with a TV, they need something much much much better then EyeTV.
Everyone in Silicon Valley who wants to take part in the Occupy movement just goes to San Francisco and Oakland. They're not part of Silicon Valley proper, but they're still part of the Bay Area. I think the difference is that entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley are part of the 99%
I'm sure it'll keep young children out, and keep the prankster in your dorm from loading up your computer with gay porn.
I know that you don't need a college education to be a professional programmer; but I have yet to meet a college drop-out who has demonstrated the responsibility needed to do anything more then simple maintenance coding. Skipping college is only a path that I'd for someone with a family background that already provided the needed life experience.
I used to use a Mac mini. What I found is that my parents are able to figure out how to use my home theater PC because it has a "live TV" and "recorded TV" button on the remote.
I'm a self-taught programmer as well. I started in Basic when I was 11, and moved to C in high school.
How did I get a job? I went to college, like most other self-taught programmers! There's a big difference in the kind of skills and practice you need to win a high school programming competition versus building an industrial strength web application to handle millions of users.
When I was in college, the best students were those like us, self-taught in Basic. Had I NOT gone to college, I would have wasted a lot of time, and not been able to write the programs that I want to write.
In March of 2011 I bought an HP desktop that has a media center remote. (It also has a TV tuner, BluRay, and HDMI.)
I installed XMBC, which supports the remote. It provides a great menu to navigate EVERYTHING, isos, avis, mkvs, mp3s, aacs, flacs, and some of those other whacky DVD rip formats.
The only problem is that my hard drive with about 500 gigs of DVD rips crashed! Just make sure to back up everything on a regular basis!
From reading some of the linked blog entries, it sounds like some of Groupon's salespeople are lying to businesses or are being more pushy then the CEO intends. Perhaps Groupon has some salespeople who flat out lie to businesses who need to set sales limits? Things like this happen when a company grows very fast.
Just be rude when salespeople play stupid games like that. Flat out say that you're going to choose the phone first, and then say that because you're the customer, you get to buy what you want and not what they tell you to buy.
I ran the IOS 5 beta. Whenever I checked for updates after the official IOS beta came out, I was told that my phone was up-to-date.
A few weeks afterwards, I went to use my phone and it was locked with some kind of "can not connect server" error. I could only make 911 calls. I had to connect my phone to a computer and completely restore it. At the time I needed to make an important phone call. I ended up making the call two hours late due to this problem.
I could easily see a drunk guy accidentally dialing 911 because of this.
Needless to say, I will never buy another another iPhone, and I will strongly discourage anyone from using an iPhone beta. My cell phone is my primary communication device, and I refuse to pay money for any phone that would disable itself without any form of warning whatsoever.
Five years ago I switched to Mac, but kept using Windows at work because it pays the bills. A few years ago I bought a Mac mini to run my TV.
I switched my TV to Windows 7 because it supports BluRay, and Microsoft's DVR software is awesome. The DVR software for Mac, which is 3rd party, sucks. I considered trying to set up MythTV, but when I read the instructions, I realized that getting a simple DVR box based off of Myth would be a project.
In my current job I now develop software for both Mac and Windows. Now that Lion came out, Mac is no longer better then Windows. Windows 7 is pretty damn good; not perfect. Lion is pretty damn good; but also not perfect.
I guess the only real advantage that Apple has is that Objective C is supported for low-level development. On Windows, you need to use C for low-level development. .Net is nicer then Objective C, but unlike Objective C, it's not a first-class citizen in the operating system.
It just comes down to this: Laziness. Everyone's spent a decade or so learning to use Mac, Windows, or some form of open-source UI. Most people just want to quickly adapt to a few new buttons here and there; as opposed to re-learning how to use their computer.
Or, considering that we'll need to apt-get a bunch of stuff; why not release a tiny installer with a script to apt-get popular stuff after installation?
I still install off of 1.4meg floppies, you insensitive clods!!!
When I interview candidates, I try to take them through all the different practical skills that are needed for the kinds of products I work on. I start with a little theory, then I move to database basics because "that's where the data lives," and then I get to programming. I try to gauge if the developed programmer experience matches the stated experience; if there's potential to learn, and if the developer has a good / bad attitude.
I start with a general quiz on the basics: What's the difference between a class and an object? What's the difference between the stack and the heap? I'm not looking for correctness; but a general comfort level with general programming topics and vocabulary. In general, I want a candidate that answers these questions from experience, as opposed to wrote memorization.
Then I ask the candidate to design some simple tables and queries based on our business. Nothing too complicated; but if the candidate doesn't get SQL or a relational database; it comes right out. I've spent too much time cleaning up messes from people who don't get programming with a relational database that this kind of filter very quickly separates the men from the boys.
Depending on what kind of time I have, I may ask the candidate how to convert data from the database into objects. The goal is to ensure that the candidate isn't going to blindly rely on an ORM and write code that runs 1,000,000,000 times more slowly then it needs to do.
Finally, I ask the candidate a very simple programming question that requires wrapping a basic collection. I don't care if they come up with the most optimal way right away; what I'm trying to judge at this point is how much of a "programmer's instinct" the candidate has established.
I do think some kind of sandboxing would be nice; for example, blocking Skype from automatically installing plugins in every browser under the sun without asking my permission. It's important that sandboxing doesn't prevent programs from being useful.
You can mark posts from other people as abusive. Perhaps your friend needed to unfriend someone who didn't like what she had to say?
Lossless audio compression is pretty brain-dead simple. If you think of how sticking a wav file in a .zip or .gz only saves about 10% of space, (give or take,) the most basic lossless codecs work by essentially zipping the mathematical difference between each sample. Because storing the difference between each sample, instead of the sample itself, is more likely to have repetition in audio; algorithms like .zip and .gz can then be applied.
What I'd like to know is, considering how brain-dead-simple lossless audio compression is, are there technical merits for using ALAC, especially on embedded devices? Does FLAC rely on floating point when ALAC is purely integer, thus making ALAC easier to implement? Is it easier to seek within an ALAC? Or, is Apple's insistance on ALAC purely a "not invented here" mentality?
Chris,
What I don't get is why haven't you been using some kind of public repo like Github? (Bitbucket, ect,) At that point, publicly releasing your source code is just a matter of tagging the repo and/or branch at a particular point in time.
Even tarballing or zipping your build environment isn't a major undertaking, especially if it's part of your release process.
It seems like you're spending more time "making excuses" on message boards when it would take less time to just put a zip of source code on your web site.
In 2008 I helped the Obama campaign go door to door in Reno. As most of the people going door-to-door were from out of town, they explained to us that people in Reno really, really, really do not want Yucca mountain to open because they really, really, really do not want nuclear waste traveling on interstate 80.
Interstate 80 travels through the middle of Reno. A nuclear accident on the freeway will cause the city to grind to a halt and potentially destroy their homes and businesses.
Even though it's possible to argue that the containers used to transport waste are accident-proof, when it comes to keeping our fellow Americans peace of mind, it's probably best that we avoid transporting so much waste to close to people's homes.
I gather he drank the kool-aid when he went through the door. I'm halfway through the interview and its basically ".NET is better than Java"
Java and Lamp's advantages have more to do with deployment simplicity then quality of language. C# is a better language, but there's so much more to a development platform then the language or even the VM. With PHP you can just open the script in any text editor and change it without having to recompile. Java has a much more robust open-source / Linux deployment scenario compared to Mono.
Having used PHP, C#, and Java, I'll gladly state that even though C# / .Net is the best language and VM; Java and Lamp are often a better fit for what people are trying to make.