For the love of [insert your diety here], read the damned article! It comes with an uninstaller, and he says it can be uninstalled immediately prior to or after patching with Microsoft's patch.
Gee, isn't it ironic the most structured developments start with requirement analysis done by business analysts?
Windows fills a business need. Yes, it is also a home OS, but business analysts tend to work in the broader scope of a user's interest. The "business" aspect tends to throw people off. The requirements that they come up with is key for a product's success (whether commercially, or simply a successful development lifecycle). From the requirements, architects and project managers derive design documents, which are ultimately use to blueprint the software.
I've worked in shops with and without and analyst team, and have done analyst work, myself. Those with an analyst team consistantly released better products, IMHO.
Actually, religion held it to be fact that the Earth was flat and everything revolved around the Earth, and anyone who disagreed with the church was then an enemy of the chuch. Apparently, little has changed, eh?
At least aren't going to try to buy...
on
Google to Buy Opera?
·
· Score: 4, Funny
Oprah. I hear that the feeding and makeup costs alone would even make Bill Gates blush.
You are forgetting that Microsoft would claim a patent on the basketball and sue the others for trying to use one. And Sony's would be so top secret that they would only show you pictures of someone playing with one.
Exactly right. At first, I used to feel guilty about it - for some strange reason. I thought that I was making an absolute killing at a certain amount that I was billing for, then I found out that I wasn't getting the same interest for the.Net project work.
The reason? I was looking for *too little* and not too much. I adjusted my hourly rates upwards and landed an open-ended position. There are two directions to price yourself out of the market.;-) Of course, this was for the financial industry, and a lot of stock-related companies jump on buzzwords faster than Anna Nicole Smith jumps on a corpse.
I recently gave up contracting, because as a 1099, there was too much work not related to the contract - such as getting reasonable health insurance, setting part of the budget aside for taxes, etc. About four months ago, I took a full time.Net position that paid the same base rate as my contracts. Of course, not having the out of pocket expenses along with a nice benefits package, I actually have more to show for it.;-)
It is intersting you mention that, as I was talking about the same thing with my wife last night. A bit of irony is that I now drink Coke Zero - not because it is a diet soda, but because I hate the taste of corn syrup in Coke. I try to hit the Mexican markets every once in a while, because you still can find Coke with cane sugar - although with less and less frequency.
When I lived in the Phoenix area, there was a store in Scottsdale that had nothing but imported soda. One of the countries, I want to say it was the Netherlands, sweetened their Coke with molasses. That was mighty tasty. Funny thing was that the soda was almost pitch black, even when you held it up to the light.
I understand that corn syrup is an attractive alternative to them over sugar because of pricing. However, I would be happy to pay a little bit more for a "premium" variety that did not use corn syrup.
If you are intelligent, you have a diverse skillset and code were the market demand (directly proportionate to money) is. I don't develop in.Net because I think it is the best thing since sliced bread (although it is very solid if you take the time to learn it), but because I make a hell of a lot more than I would if I was a PHP or Delphi developer.
No, no, no... Tomorrow there will be at least one duplicate post that 3 > 2. Then we will move back to 2 > 1, finally arriving at 4 > 3 sometime next week.
...is that they are going to partner with Slashdot to achieve this through the posting of duplicate articles that target specific target sites that should be slowed down.
An anonymous Slashdot moderator, whose name rhymes with "Sonk" was quoted as saying "We already have a SRAA (Slashdot RAID Article Array) that we have been testing for redundancy over the past couple of years. Step 5... Profit!"
The problem is portability. Laptops and portable consoles are becoming ever more popular and smaller. It isn't a matter of hiding something, as it is that the portability restricts monitoring by the parent. If something is small enough to stick in a pocket, chance are that someone will.
Damndest thing is that you can fit a PSP in your backpack and also get GTA for said system. Nothing cooler than hiding on the playground showing your friends how "cool" you are.
Your logic is greatly flawed. You distinguish between the means and the ability. What about the guy who killed two police officer and claimed that it was through GTA that his "reflexes" kicked in.
Media is a teaching tool. It has been since the day it existed. Filmstrips in school, public television - they even make video games that teach. What is the difference between "programming" an easily influenced mind with getting hooked on phonics and "programming" them that cops are bad and woman are "bitches" and "hoes"? You can't claim that one works and not the other, that is hypocritical.
Also, a child can't go into a store and buy (or even rent) a porno movie. But he can go and buy or rent digital porn if it were to exist in the form of a game. There is a fundamental problem in that. Unless you are going to pass a law that states we put ankle bracelts and 24 hour monitoring enforcement on children, there will always have to be laws that enforce better judgement for minors.
Free market rule: two parties in an exchange will only exchange if both parties profit.
It is my job to sell my customer what they want at a price they're happy to pay. Laws adding responsibilities to either party only criminalize non-violent voluntary actions and create black markets.
But you are profitting from someone who is not legally considered an adult. The reason that there is a distinction between a minor and an adult is that it is assumed that it is the average age at which the person develops enough responsibility to make responsible decisions for themselves. Although the age varies, most countries in the world have some sort of system a minor/non-minor. And yes, I know that there are some that don't - but most do.
Just because something is non-violent and voluntary does not mean that it is right. Stealing is a non-violent voluntary action on the part of a thief. Does not make it right, though.
If a person wants the item, they will get it. A 13 year old wanting the above was raised wrong. My old gun club had 20 members under 13. Kids smoke, drink and do drugs creating a black market. If parents knew their kids could legally buy the product, maybe they'd spend more time parenting.
A 13 year old is still a child, so I will still refer the them that way.
It only takes a moment to make a mistake. Let's assume that a parent spend all but fifteen minutes in a day with their child. In that fifteen minutes, little Johnny buys a gun and shoots the neighbors. Buying it legally would allow for this to happen. Laws are in place to protect people, for the most part.
I'll concede the point that parents need to be more involved, that has never been a point of issue. What is, though, is that if that child goes to a public school, frequents public places, etc., the laws are there to protect other people, too. Just because the neighbor's kid is a nutjob, why should I be scared for my life that he is going to walk up to me with a gun. At the very least, the potential is minimized.
No risk is ever eliminated, but if a child learns from his/her parent(s), what kind of role model do you always expect them to be? There are great people who are parents, but serial killers and child molestors seem to have families sometimes, too.
They could because the lawyers destroyed personal responsibility.
I believe a 13 year old who isn't accountable to their parents for every dollar and hour is an adult. I don't care what your age is once you become a major. Your parents gave up too soon.
This is just turning a blind eye to the problem. Just because you cover your eyes does not mean something pops out of existance. Take a single family home, for example. The parent goes to work after the child goes to school. Then the parent picks the child up when school is out. While the parent is providing for the family, are you expecting people to believe that the child is still requiring monitoring by the parent?
If a retailer sells an AO game to a seven year old, I'd like to shake the lawyer'a hand who represents the parent(s) in the lawsuit. Morals are morals. That retailer is no better than a person pushing crack or meth on a street corner, and should be treated as such.
It is one thing to look out for your own, but if you want to be a part of society, you should really try participating in it.
That is such an ignorant stance that it is hard to believe that you can't be trolling.
As a retailer, it is your job to provide the appropriate products to the appropriate customers. You attitude basically states that you would sell tobacco, alcohol, and firearms to anyone with the money to buy them. Nobody asked you to "parent" anyone. Apparently reading a piece of plastic is just too hard for some.
It will only become a matter of time before there are some sort of standards mandated by either law or the policy of a <gasp> retailer that will set the bar. Just because Johnny smokes, is fifteen, and his mother buys him cigarettes - it doesn't mean that the people don't care. If the retailer was cutting out the middleman by selling directly to Johnny, it wouldn't matter, would it? (By the way, that was a rhetorical question...)
What will turn this all around is when the parents of some seven year old sue the ass off of someone like you for gross negligence by selling them explicit adult content in the form of a game.
Exactly. That is another issue that I should have brought up. I am in a.Net shop, so we use XML comments. The available tools to create documentation from them (help files, etc.) is not only another example of the emphasis that people are finally putting into commenting, but it is an incredible timesaver, as well.
Looking at some coworker and ex-coworkers, I am thankful that I don't share the perfection complex that some of them seem to exhibit. There was a time that I did a lot of analysis work and could see just how badly the best requirements and designs could be bastardized by a hotshot fresh out of school and green as the fairway. SAs and PMs have a truly thankless job, if you think about it. They are usually the first ones to get blamed when something goes wrong and the last ones to be recognized when it goes right. And in today's market, it isn't uncommon for them to make less than a developer. (One of the reasons that I have resisted a move to project management, at least with the current market state).
I used to dread commenting. It was always an afterthought. For smaller projects, most often non-critical applications, I didn't realize the impact. My surprise came walking into the shop of a Fortune 500 Company and feeling lost in a sea of commentless code. To make matters worse, it was for a client who was overseas, so the language barrier slowed down the reciprication of answers to even the most basic questions.
Granted, I have been stuck with other people's code with comments as sparse as days without duplicate Slashdot articles, but I will be damned if I will leave someone in that boat.;-)
...just so I can spew off and have people think that it is an actual article of some sorts.
The best "point" in the article is the mention of CRC Cards, although I think having a solid series of class diagrams as part of the design document is better. Trust me, have you ever tried to email an index card?;-)
Seriously, though... I am sure a lot of people will disagree with me, but this is what works for me, and has worked for the places that I have been employed over my career. When I have a class diagram, I use it. When I don't have one, I make one. My reasoning is as follows. I use the class diagrams to prototype the objects as void methods and properties, commented before a single line of functional code is ever written. The idea of commenting after coding is just completely absurd and is akin of trying to justify an action after giving it no prior thought.
By commenting not only the method and property blocks and class level comments, I actually pseudo-code the entire class before I write a single line of code. Often, it helps refine things that were missed in the design and/or class diagrams. It also is nice to help identify "helper" or utility code that gets wrapped up in either a class or within an existing one (depending on scope of the utility). This can be reintroduced to the design and make it into any post development documentation, as needed (SDKs, etc.).
Many people think that this adds time to the development process, and I would think that it is just untrue. Following this methodology for more than ten years now, a lot of problems are identified up front and can be introduced into a modfied design without breaking extant code. Also, hitting key points in commenting in this style provides a cross reference to the design document. Done right, it makes it a lot faster to know where you are and what you are doing. Without it, there is the possibliity of burning cycles constantly looking for things. Even worse, the high and mighty developers out there who read a design document once and never look at it again.
People just don't seem to understand that a design document is not a friendly recommendation on how you might go about doing something, it is what the customers/employer/analysts expect. Development should not be a fluid process in the respect that you change direction whenever and to wherever the wind blows.
But remember, that it does comparisons on a song by song basis, as well. So two bands might have songs with similar traits and you might actually get a recommendation if the songs have enough in common. It is not just based upon artist vs. artist. This a real plus, since some artists can cross different genres of music in a single album.
I have to admit that I was sceptical at first, but I am using it to explore bands that have been generically deemed as "Progressive Metal" by starting with Nightwish as my artist. Over six or seven songs, I haven't had to rate anymore yet, because they are constantly bringing things in from the genre that I either already know of and like, or more importantly, exposing me to similar music that I have never heard before.
The only downside that I can see is that it is going to result in me spending more money on CDS.;-)
It doesn't matter who is in office, or what you think about him/her/collective them. The complete lack of centralization of any intelligence leaves much to be desired. The fact that each agency has its own watch lists, own covert operations, own data is both good and bad.
Each form of intelligence/law enforcement body exists because it has a purpose - or at least was intended to. Over time, excessive amounts of secrecy made some of these agencies "mini-governments" of their own accord - most likely driven by the Cold War. The problem is that there is information that should be shared, but placing this data in a culture nuetral, yet protected form is next to impossible. Why? A definite lack of communication between agencies. At least President Bush wanted to make a singular head that would be accountable for coordinating this information and cooperation between agencies. That plan was struck down quickly by elected officials who must have taken their stance on party lines, since no one could come up with a reason why it was bad other than "it is bad". Granted, it would have been a "band-aide TM", at best.
For the conspiracy theorists out there, Kennedy had thought of disbanding the CIA. Look what happened to him.;-) Seriously, the problem is not that these agencies do not have enough power. The problem, often is the case, that they have too much power and no ways of communicating the intelligence that they have gathered. It would be nice if there was a way to start over at square one and create a singular agency, or group of limited power agencies to operate in today's world - but I don't see it happening any time soon.
Hold on a sec. Be right back. There are some guys in black suits pulling up to the office... Hey, wait!;-)
Slashdot Mirror
For the love of [insert your diety here], read the damned article! It comes with an uninstaller, and he says it can be uninstalled immediately prior to or after patching with Microsoft's patch.
Windows fills a business need. Yes, it is also a home OS, but business analysts tend to work in the broader scope of a user's interest. The "business" aspect tends to throw people off. The requirements that they come up with is key for a product's success (whether commercially, or simply a successful development lifecycle). From the requirements, architects and project managers derive design documents, which are ultimately use to blueprint the software.
I've worked in shops with and without and analyst team, and have done analyst work, myself. Those with an analyst team consistantly released better products, IMHO.
You mispelled Steve Ballmer...
Actually, religion held it to be fact that the Earth was flat and everything revolved around the Earth, and anyone who disagreed with the church was then an enemy of the chuch. Apparently, little has changed, eh?
Oprah. I hear that the feeding and makeup costs alone would even make Bill Gates blush.
Just imaging how exciting this application would be for birth control and feminine hygeine products. Ick!
You are forgetting that Microsoft would claim a patent on the basketball and sue the others for trying to use one. And Sony's would be so top secret that they would only show you pictures of someone playing with one.
The reason? I was looking for *too little* and not too much. I adjusted my hourly rates upwards and landed an open-ended position. There are two directions to price yourself out of the market. ;-) Of course, this was for the financial industry, and a lot of stock-related companies jump on buzzwords faster than Anna Nicole Smith jumps on a corpse.
I recently gave up contracting, because as a 1099, there was too much work not related to the contract - such as getting reasonable health insurance, setting part of the budget aside for taxes, etc. About four months ago, I took a full time .Net position that paid the same base rate as my contracts. Of course, not having the out of pocket expenses along with a nice benefits package, I actually have more to show for it. ;-)
When I lived in the Phoenix area, there was a store in Scottsdale that had nothing but imported soda. One of the countries, I want to say it was the Netherlands, sweetened their Coke with molasses. That was mighty tasty. Funny thing was that the soda was almost pitch black, even when you held it up to the light.
I understand that corn syrup is an attractive alternative to them over sugar because of pricing. However, I would be happy to pay a little bit more for a "premium" variety that did not use corn syrup.
If you are intelligent, you have a diverse skillset and code were the market demand (directly proportionate to money) is. I don't develop in .Net because I think it is the best thing since sliced bread (although it is very solid if you take the time to learn it), but because I make a hell of a lot more than I would if I was a PHP or Delphi developer.
No, no, no... Tomorrow there will be at least one duplicate post that 3 > 2. Then we will move back to 2 > 1, finally arriving at 4 > 3 sometime next week.
An anonymous Slashdot moderator, whose name rhymes with "Sonk" was quoted as saying "We already have a SRAA (Slashdot RAID Article Array) that we have been testing for redundancy over the past couple of years. Step 5... Profit!"
Now, about your pointing out of my grammatical miscue... ;-) Ah, well. I can't win them all.
The problem is portability. Laptops and portable consoles are becoming ever more popular and smaller. It isn't a matter of hiding something, as it is that the portability restricts monitoring by the parent. If something is small enough to stick in a pocket, chance are that someone will.
Damndest thing is that you can fit a PSP in your backpack and also get GTA for said system. Nothing cooler than hiding on the playground showing your friends how "cool" you are.
Media is a teaching tool. It has been since the day it existed. Filmstrips in school, public television - they even make video games that teach. What is the difference between "programming" an easily influenced mind with getting hooked on phonics and "programming" them that cops are bad and woman are "bitches" and "hoes"? You can't claim that one works and not the other, that is hypocritical.
Also, a child can't go into a store and buy (or even rent) a porno movie. But he can go and buy or rent digital porn if it were to exist in the form of a game. There is a fundamental problem in that. Unless you are going to pass a law that states we put ankle bracelts and 24 hour monitoring enforcement on children, there will always have to be laws that enforce better judgement for minors.
QED
It is my job to sell my customer what they want at a price they're happy to pay. Laws adding responsibilities to either party only criminalize non-violent voluntary actions and create black markets.
But you are profitting from someone who is not legally considered an adult. The reason that there is a distinction between a minor and an adult is that it is assumed that it is the average age at which the person develops enough responsibility to make responsible decisions for themselves. Although the age varies, most countries in the world have some sort of system a minor/non-minor. And yes, I know that there are some that don't - but most do.
Just because something is non-violent and voluntary does not mean that it is right. Stealing is a non-violent voluntary action on the part of a thief. Does not make it right, though.
If a person wants the item, they will get it. A 13 year old wanting the above was raised wrong. My old gun club had 20 members under 13. Kids smoke, drink and do drugs creating a black market. If parents knew their kids could legally buy the product, maybe they'd spend more time parenting.
A 13 year old is still a child, so I will still refer the them that way.
It only takes a moment to make a mistake. Let's assume that a parent spend all but fifteen minutes in a day with their child. In that fifteen minutes, little Johnny buys a gun and shoots the neighbors. Buying it legally would allow for this to happen. Laws are in place to protect people, for the most part.
I'll concede the point that parents need to be more involved, that has never been a point of issue. What is, though, is that if that child goes to a public school, frequents public places, etc., the laws are there to protect other people, too. Just because the neighbor's kid is a nutjob, why should I be scared for my life that he is going to walk up to me with a gun. At the very least, the potential is minimized.
No risk is ever eliminated, but if a child learns from his/her parent(s), what kind of role model do you always expect them to be? There are great people who are parents, but serial killers and child molestors seem to have families sometimes, too.
They could because the lawyers destroyed personal responsibility.
I believe a 13 year old who isn't accountable to their parents for every dollar and hour is an adult. I don't care what your age is once you become a major. Your parents gave up too soon.
This is just turning a blind eye to the problem. Just because you cover your eyes does not mean something pops out of existance. Take a single family home, for example. The parent goes to work after the child goes to school. Then the parent picks the child up when school is out. While the parent is providing for the family, are you expecting people to believe that the child is still requiring monitoring by the parent?
If a retailer sells an AO game to a seven year old, I'd like to shake the lawyer'a hand who represents the parent(s) in the lawsuit. Morals are morals. That retailer is no better than a person pushing crack or meth on a street corner, and should be treated as such.
It is one thing to look out for your own, but if you want to be a part of society, you should really try participating in it.
As a retailer, it is your job to provide the appropriate products to the appropriate customers. You attitude basically states that you would sell tobacco, alcohol, and firearms to anyone with the money to buy them. Nobody asked you to "parent" anyone. Apparently reading a piece of plastic is just too hard for some.
It will only become a matter of time before there are some sort of standards mandated by either law or the policy of a <gasp> retailer that will set the bar. Just because Johnny smokes, is fifteen, and his mother buys him cigarettes - it doesn't mean that the people don't care. If the retailer was cutting out the middleman by selling directly to Johnny, it wouldn't matter, would it? (By the way, that was a rhetorical question...)
What will turn this all around is when the parents of some seven year old sue the ass off of someone like you for gross negligence by selling them explicit adult content in the form of a game.
Looking at some coworker and ex-coworkers, I am thankful that I don't share the perfection complex that some of them seem to exhibit. There was a time that I did a lot of analysis work and could see just how badly the best requirements and designs could be bastardized by a hotshot fresh out of school and green as the fairway. SAs and PMs have a truly thankless job, if you think about it. They are usually the first ones to get blamed when something goes wrong and the last ones to be recognized when it goes right. And in today's market, it isn't uncommon for them to make less than a developer. (One of the reasons that I have resisted a move to project management, at least with the current market state).
I used to dread commenting. It was always an afterthought. For smaller projects, most often non-critical applications, I didn't realize the impact. My surprise came walking into the shop of a Fortune 500 Company and feeling lost in a sea of commentless code. To make matters worse, it was for a client who was overseas, so the language barrier slowed down the reciprication of answers to even the most basic questions.
Granted, I have been stuck with other people's code with comments as sparse as days without duplicate Slashdot articles, but I will be damned if I will leave someone in that boat. ;-)
The best "point" in the article is the mention of CRC Cards, although I think having a solid series of class diagrams as part of the design document is better. Trust me, have you ever tried to email an index card? ;-)
Seriously, though... I am sure a lot of people will disagree with me, but this is what works for me, and has worked for the places that I have been employed over my career. When I have a class diagram, I use it. When I don't have one, I make one. My reasoning is as follows. I use the class diagrams to prototype the objects as void methods and properties, commented before a single line of functional code is ever written. The idea of commenting after coding is just completely absurd and is akin of trying to justify an action after giving it no prior thought.
By commenting not only the method and property blocks and class level comments, I actually pseudo-code the entire class before I write a single line of code. Often, it helps refine things that were missed in the design and/or class diagrams. It also is nice to help identify "helper" or utility code that gets wrapped up in either a class or within an existing one (depending on scope of the utility). This can be reintroduced to the design and make it into any post development documentation, as needed (SDKs, etc.).
Many people think that this adds time to the development process, and I would think that it is just untrue. Following this methodology for more than ten years now, a lot of problems are identified up front and can be introduced into a modfied design without breaking extant code. Also, hitting key points in commenting in this style provides a cross reference to the design document. Done right, it makes it a lot faster to know where you are and what you are doing. Without it, there is the possibliity of burning cycles constantly looking for things. Even worse, the high and mighty developers out there who read a design document once and never look at it again.
People just don't seem to understand that a design document is not a friendly recommendation on how you might go about doing something, it is what the customers/employer/analysts expect. Development should not be a fluid process in the respect that you change direction whenever and to wherever the wind blows.
Sorry. Rant mode off. ;-)
But remember, that it does comparisons on a song by song basis, as well. So two bands might have songs with similar traits and you might actually get a recommendation if the songs have enough in common. It is not just based upon artist vs. artist. This a real plus, since some artists can cross different genres of music in a single album.
The waterproof version that works when I am rocking out in the shower and the mobile version for when I am stuck in traffic. ;-)
The only downside that I can see is that it is going to result in me spending more money on CDS. ;-)
Each form of intelligence/law enforcement body exists because it has a purpose - or at least was intended to. Over time, excessive amounts of secrecy made some of these agencies "mini-governments" of their own accord - most likely driven by the Cold War. The problem is that there is information that should be shared, but placing this data in a culture nuetral, yet protected form is next to impossible. Why? A definite lack of communication between agencies. At least President Bush wanted to make a singular head that would be accountable for coordinating this information and cooperation between agencies. That plan was struck down quickly by elected officials who must have taken their stance on party lines, since no one could come up with a reason why it was bad other than "it is bad". Granted, it would have been a "band-aide TM", at best.
For the conspiracy theorists out there, Kennedy had thought of disbanding the CIA. Look what happened to him. ;-) Seriously, the problem is not that these agencies do not have enough power. The problem, often is the case, that they have too much power and no ways of communicating the intelligence that they have gathered. It would be nice if there was a way to start over at square one and create a singular agency, or group of limited power agencies to operate in today's world - but I don't see it happening any time soon.
Hold on a sec. Be right back. There are some guys in black suits pulling up to the office... Hey, wait! ;-)
Yes, now that we will have another primary color to deal with. The Red Screen of Death: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_screen_of_death)