Bundling extra browsers is not the appropriate way to deal with this. Having the ability to choose which browser to install from an internet repository on (or after - depending on net card availability) installation would make more sense.
At least then you're getting the latest version of the browser, the list can be modified at any time and you're not installing IE initially to download Firefox which is my personal MASSIVE gripe. I don't want that crap on my PC any longer than necessary.
Of course, that leaves the problem of certain web developers being unable to comprehend that I want to use my business reporting tools on a browser OTHER than IE, but only by tearing away the reliance on it will they change their ways.
This is the solitary factor preventing me from rolling out Open Office into our business.
We deal with mortgage lenders who supply their own calculation tools in Excel files using macros. The underwriters _need_ to be able to use these. Of course complaining about these companies requiring us to own MSOffice licenses is pointless: "Everyone uses office - get with the program!".
VBA support is a (sadly) significant compatibility problem for OpenOffice in my case.
Other than that I've been using OpenOffice on my PC as a trial for the past six months with no major issues...
This is not in support of the DRM they've imposed but: I would hope that, similar to other games, they release a patch which deactivates the DRM when the product goes out of it's marketable period. I've had a few games like this already.
I installed Spore the other day - but will be downloading the crack for the DRM regardless. That's sad, as I'll count as another statistic to add to rheir 'We need DRM because of this' count.
You need two bottle holders.. one for the pepper spray, one for the cleaner. What is it about people and personal space. Yes, that two foot gap between the monitor and me is my personal space... like when people stand directly in front of you and talk, and you end up with the ungainly dance round the office of the 'trying to step back only to have them step forward' variety.
Anyway - rant over.. my thought is - touch screen = good, but not on the monitor due to gorilla arm as described above. Track pads have worked well for years, and I think a mouse-mat sized track pad would work quite well... with the flexible LCDs that are upcoming you could even replicate the screen image on it...
Seeking out those kind of files are part of the sysadmin's responsibilities, although it could just turn into an HR mess if you've not got the green light as part of your job description to delete Mavis in accounts holiday pics...
The trust side comes in just removing the offending material and not copying to your usb storage to have a good look later. I know full well that my sysadmin can access any file on the network but if I knew he had even _opened_ 'Corporate strategy 2008 for shareholders only - CONFIDENTIAL' he'd be fired for misconduct immediately.
I place integrity as high as any technical ability when hiring a sysadmin.
Also, a door with swipe-card access only into your office....No window in the door either. In a restricted access area you should provide a window in the door for health/safety reasons, sorry to be a party pooper...!
If your users are allowed to trample over their machines in any way they see fit then you deserve the hassle you're getting... I can't wait to see that company/department expand to 100 users and see you running around uninstalling nasty software. I'm surprised you have time to write on slashdot...
Group policies and basic domain user rights are there for a reason... The senior management really shouldn't have an issue with you disallowing "Janet in accounts" her right to install emoticons for MSN...
And letting spyware/viruses to the desktop is just damn silly! Have you never heard of mail server protection? You can even use blackspider style solutions which are on a per user basis so it's really not that expensive if you consider the time spent running around fixing the problems...
Spyware and trojans are unfortunately a fact of life for businesses. Until the OS/software manufacturers pull their fingers out and find a solution the only viable option is prevention.
Ahhh the arrogant 'all powerful' IT department wielding it's you've been naughty so we'll take your toys away... You have no idea how much that grates with me.
If you're a sensible 'IT guy' you'd know that your role is to maximise productivity - this DOESN'T happen if you start taking computers away. To be honest I'm surprised you still have a job.
It's possibly safe to presume your users are dumb - but that doesn't me you should treat them like it. If you damage the engine up on your Vauxhall Corsa because you've been doughnutting in the local carpark would you be content for a classic car enthusiast to take your car away because you don't know how to look after it?
Sorry - mod this flame/troll/bot/wizz/luton town if you like but you just pushed my button there and this attitude is a problem which took me months to iron out where I'm managing now.
From yesterday: 4,410 incoming emails, 3,494 spam filtered, 79%
No they're not letting up, and it depresses me every morning when I log in and see the email distribution piechart on our mail system....
This along with my recent wake-up call of putting an fresh installation of XP on an open internet line and see it instantly get trawled by virus activity kinda makes me wonder how much bandwidth we're losing due to this high percentage of useless traffic...
Before progress is continued into speed and accessibility of the internet these things REALLY need to be sorted... it seems like we're buiding a ferrari and putting a wheel clamp on it.
I don't want to claim any knowledge, but this looks quite interesting:
The deck is supported by the superstructure. This transfers the load of the deck and the traffic carried to the supports. Within the superstructure are the girders, stringers, and other structural elements. The substructure is the foundation of the bridge and transfers the loads of the structure to the ground. The superstructure is supported by the substructure elements, such as the abutments and piers.
That's interesting - the thing that gave me the notion of trying vista (beta) out WAS the sidebar...
I use desktop sidebar right now but it's quite slow and prone to freezing...
For the record, after a day or two I reverted back - I think Vista beta jaded my interest before I even started using it by screwing up the dual boot meaning I had to get software to restore the XP partition... Give it another six months for a few service packs to be released then I'll try it... (first rule of MS products - wait for the first SP).
The way I read it, the term "technical limitations" refers to areas of the software which have been locked down for the 'express' purposes, i.e. features that are in the full version but restricted in express.
As I understand it you are not permitted to use extensions in Express edition and they removed the configuration options from the software to enforce this. Inadvertantly the developers left the ability to register extensions via the API (ie. via his installer) and so his installer will register the extension into express.
This is where the EULA would come in (ra-ra-ra EULA legality... yeah), Microsoft explicitly state (as referred to by the lawyers) that you are not permitted to work around locked features in express.
If this is true, I would say MS are in a strong position... Stating 'oh the api was left open so it's legal' is like condoning theft of a car stereo because the door was unlocked.
Looking at the soundexchange.com website disturbs me even more.
With all the thousands of labels they are harvesting, they advise that they will not pay out royalties for amounts less than $10. At a rate of $0.000762 http://www.soundexchange.com/rates.html per performance that means most of the lower level people can't even collect on their royalties. Now this in itself probably doesn't mean much to the artist... but thousands of accounts of royalties under $10? It all adds up...
Maybe I've misssed something (I know nothing about the industry, just fitting pieces together)...
oh, and soundexchange.com doesn't work properly with firefox.... gah!
Has anyone explored/implemented ethernet over powerlines? As far as I can see it has all the security, Netgear are now producing some high speed adaptors, and you're using the existing wiring within the site...
I'd be interested to know if this is a worthy replacement for any wireless network within a home? Especially bearing in mind with the dense population in the UK's cities...
Didn't see the popover ad... was blocked by my ad blocker:)
What did catch my eye though, was that IBM were advertising and provided a click to start movie - A good example of responsible advertising which I'm happy to live with.
I really can't stand moving images in my peripheral vision while I'm reading a site.. and if that animation actually slows the site down then that's REALLY annoying. I was playing stick cricket last night and the sidebar ad was chewing up cpu time making the game itself unplayable - so I installed flashblocker and continued...!
So there you go - if your site advertising gets to the point where the client's visit to the site becomes hampered there's some serious issues with the approach to advertising...
Absolutely right. It's a design flaw - which is probably more serious and costly to fix than a bug.
For a space agency which is meant to be looking to the stars and beyond this seems to be a ridiculous limitation.
You'd expect the whole mission schedule to be based on time increments from the moment of launch and not something as arbitrary as "time as defined within the confines of a small spinning globe near Mars". Leave the translation into local time to the public relations teams - they and the media are the only people interested in knowing that the rocket left the atmosphere at 13:03 GMT...
"Under some weird circumstance... if we have an 'Oh my god,' and we have to be up there, I am sure we would figure out a way to operate the vehicle safely," - Yes... that would fill me with confidence if I were on board...
Conspiracy: Weapons of Mass Destruction on the PS2 (2005). If this was an exercise in how not to produce a video game then it suceeded...
Cliched plot:...ex government secret service agent...recruited by 'the agency' for one final assignment, CHECK Bad characters: "You are Cole Justice"... for crying out loud...., CHECK Bad animation: by the bucketload, including weird distended arms when punching, CHECK Instant death: spiky trap - ah-hah! CHECK Restricted scenary: with a graphics engine this "powerful" we have to cut down on the draw distance, CHECK Stupid AI: "You ran that way last time....", CHECK Unfair difficulty: "But I shot him point blank seven times!!", CHECK Annoyance factor: The unskippable 'emotional' piano playing 'We'll miss you Cole" death sequence..., CHECK
Search for the trailer, search for the reviews... rent the CD (yes, a 2005 release on CD)... bask in the heat of games hades
Slashdot Mirror
Oh man - and I've just been given mod points... Ok, how should the last post be modded? We don't have a 'disgruntled' category...
Have some coffee and read some Cyanide and Happiness. It's too early to be going crazy over slashdot...
(running internal book on what this will be modded as)
Swapping the position of the YES|NO boxes helps in these situations, it stops the crazy clicker from doing dumb things...
Bundling extra browsers is not the appropriate way to deal with this. Having the ability to choose which browser to install from an internet repository on (or after - depending on net card availability) installation would make more sense.
At least then you're getting the latest version of the browser, the list can be modified at any time and you're not installing IE initially to download Firefox which is my personal MASSIVE gripe. I don't want that crap on my PC any longer than necessary.
Of course, that leaves the problem of certain web developers being unable to comprehend that I want to use my business reporting tools on a browser OTHER than IE, but only by tearing away the reliance on it will they change their ways.
When I last checked, Outlook is licensed for use with the Exchange CALs and you can obtain/install independantly without MSOffice.
This is the solitary factor preventing me from rolling out Open Office into our business.
We deal with mortgage lenders who supply their own calculation tools in Excel files using macros. The underwriters _need_ to be able to use these. Of course complaining about these companies requiring us to own MSOffice licenses is pointless: "Everyone uses office - get with the program!".
VBA support is a (sadly) significant compatibility problem for OpenOffice in my case.
Other than that I've been using OpenOffice on my PC as a trial for the past six months with no major issues...
This is not in support of the DRM they've imposed but: I would hope that, similar to other games, they release a patch which deactivates the DRM when the product goes out of it's marketable period. I've had a few games like this already.
I installed Spore the other day - but will be downloading the crack for the DRM regardless. That's sad, as I'll count as another statistic to add to rheir 'We need DRM because of this' count.
They own the patent on the mouse wheel as well.
I think the cursor keys might still be free... or dragging the scrollbar ... hmmm no, that's been patented...
I found this by printing the document and slide it behind a picture frame, it's the only safe way...
New ways of interacting don't obsolete old ways for every task.
Exactly... like inventing the car didn't make walking obselete... although you have to wonder during the daily school run.
You need two bottle holders.. one for the pepper spray, one for the cleaner. What is it about people and personal space. Yes, that two foot gap between the monitor and me is my personal space... like when people stand directly in front of you and talk, and you end up with the ungainly dance round the office of the 'trying to step back only to have them step forward' variety.
Anyway - rant over.. my thought is - touch screen = good, but not on the monitor due to gorilla arm as described above. Track pads have worked well for years, and I think a mouse-mat sized track pad would work quite well... with the flexible LCDs that are upcoming you could even replicate the screen image on it...
Baggsy the patent on that...
Seeking out those kind of files are part of the sysadmin's responsibilities, although it could just turn into an HR mess if you've not got the green light as part of your job description to delete Mavis in accounts holiday pics... The trust side comes in just removing the offending material and not copying to your usb storage to have a good look later. I know full well that my sysadmin can access any file on the network but if I knew he had even _opened_ 'Corporate strategy 2008 for shareholders only - CONFIDENTIAL' he'd be fired for misconduct immediately. I place integrity as high as any technical ability when hiring a sysadmin.
If your users are allowed to trample over their machines in any way they see fit then you deserve the hassle you're getting... I can't wait to see that company/department expand to 100 users and see you running around uninstalling nasty software. I'm surprised you have time to write on slashdot...
Group policies and basic domain user rights are there for a reason... The senior management really shouldn't have an issue with you disallowing "Janet in accounts" her right to install emoticons for MSN...
And letting spyware/viruses to the desktop is just damn silly! Have you never heard of mail server protection? You can even use blackspider style solutions which are on a per user basis so it's really not that expensive if you consider the time spent running around fixing the problems...
Spyware and trojans are unfortunately a fact of life for businesses. Until the OS/software manufacturers pull their fingers out and find a solution the only viable option is prevention.
Ahhh the arrogant 'all powerful' IT department wielding it's you've been naughty so we'll take your toys away... You have no idea how much that grates with me.
If you're a sensible 'IT guy' you'd know that your role is to maximise productivity - this DOESN'T happen if you start taking computers away. To be honest I'm surprised you still have a job.
It's possibly safe to presume your users are dumb - but that doesn't me you should treat them like it. If you damage the engine up on your Vauxhall Corsa because you've been doughnutting in the local carpark would you be content for a classic car enthusiast to take your car away because you don't know how to look after it?
Sorry - mod this flame/troll/bot/wizz/luton town if you like but you just pushed my button there and this attitude is a problem which took me months to iron out where I'm managing now.
From yesterday: 4,410 incoming emails, 3,494 spam filtered, 79%
No they're not letting up, and it depresses me every morning when I log in and see the email distribution piechart on our mail system....
This along with my recent wake-up call of putting an fresh installation of XP on an open internet line and see it instantly get trawled by virus activity kinda makes me wonder how much bandwidth we're losing due to this high percentage of useless traffic...
Before progress is continued into speed and accessibility of the internet these things REALLY need to be sorted... it seems like we're buiding a ferrari and putting a wheel clamp on it.
The superstructure doesn't sound trivial according to this...
That's interesting - the thing that gave me the notion of trying vista (beta) out WAS the sidebar...
I use desktop sidebar right now but it's quite slow and prone to freezing...
For the record, after a day or two I reverted back - I think Vista beta jaded my interest before I even started using it by screwing up the dual boot meaning I had to get software to restore the XP partition... Give it another six months for a few service packs to be released then I'll try it... (first rule of MS products - wait for the first SP).
So it should be called a QAMMOQAMDEM?
The way I read it, the term "technical limitations" refers to areas of the software which have been locked down for the 'express' purposes, i.e. features that are in the full version but restricted in express.
As I understand it you are not permitted to use extensions in Express edition and they removed the configuration options from the software to enforce this. Inadvertantly the developers left the ability to register extensions via the API (ie. via his installer) and so his installer will register the extension into express.
This is where the EULA would come in (ra-ra-ra EULA legality... yeah), Microsoft explicitly state (as referred to by the lawyers) that you are not permitted to work around locked features in express.
If this is true, I would say MS are in a strong position... Stating 'oh the api was left open so it's legal' is like condoning theft of a car stereo because the door was unlocked.
Looking at the soundexchange.com website disturbs me even more.
.... gah!
With all the thousands of labels they are harvesting, they advise that they will not pay out royalties for amounts less than $10. At a rate of $0.000762 http://www.soundexchange.com/rates.html per performance that means most of the lower level people can't even collect on their royalties. Now this in itself probably doesn't mean much to the artist... but thousands of accounts of royalties under $10? It all adds up...
Maybe I've misssed something (I know nothing about the industry, just fitting pieces together)...
oh, and soundexchange.com doesn't work properly with firefox
Has anyone explored/implemented ethernet over powerlines? As far as I can see it has all the security, Netgear are now producing some high speed adaptors, and you're using the existing wiring within the site...
I'd be interested to know if this is a worthy replacement for any wireless network within a home? Especially bearing in mind with the dense population in the UK's cities...
Didn't see the popover ad... was blocked by my ad blocker :)
What did catch my eye though, was that IBM were advertising and provided a click to start movie - A good example of responsible advertising which I'm happy to live with.
I really can't stand moving images in my peripheral vision while I'm reading a site.. and if that animation actually slows the site down then that's REALLY annoying. I was playing stick cricket last night and the sidebar ad was chewing up cpu time making the game itself unplayable - so I installed flashblocker and continued...!
So there you go - if your site advertising gets to the point where the client's visit to the site becomes hampered there's some serious issues with the approach to advertising...
So in years to come the jazz magazines of choice will feature amazonian moon mamas with genuinely gravity defying assets?
Bring that space travel on!!
ooh - low blow... and there's me with no mod points :)
Absolutely right. It's a design flaw - which is probably more serious and costly to fix than a bug.
... if we have an 'Oh my god,' and we have to be up there, I am sure we would figure out a way to operate the vehicle safely," - Yes... that would fill me with confidence if I were on board...
For a space agency which is meant to be looking to the stars and beyond this seems to be a ridiculous limitation.
You'd expect the whole mission schedule to be based on time increments from the moment of launch and not something as arbitrary as "time as defined within the confines of a small spinning globe near Mars". Leave the translation into local time to the public relations teams - they and the media are the only people interested in knowing that the rocket left the atmosphere at 13:03 GMT...
"Under some weird circumstance
Conspiracy: Weapons of Mass Destruction on the PS2 (2005). If this was an exercise in how not to produce a video game then it suceeded...
...ex government secret service agent...recruited by 'the agency' for one final assignment, CHECK
Cliched plot:
Bad characters: "You are Cole Justice"... for crying out loud...., CHECK
Bad animation: by the bucketload, including weird distended arms when punching, CHECK
Instant death: spiky trap - ah-hah! CHECK
Restricted scenary: with a graphics engine this "powerful" we have to cut down on the draw distance, CHECK
Stupid AI: "You ran that way last time....", CHECK
Unfair difficulty: "But I shot him point blank seven times!!", CHECK
Annoyance factor: The unskippable 'emotional' piano playing 'We'll miss you Cole" death sequence..., CHECK
Search for the trailer, search for the reviews... rent the CD (yes, a 2005 release on CD)... bask in the heat of games hades