Sadly, Flash is used for more than just video clips and silly games.
Some major products use Flash websites. The latest version of BMC's monitoring tool, for example (ProactiveNet), has a Flash frontend. For reasons best known to BMC, they migrated from a relatively normal, albeit JavaScript heavy, web frontend to Flash. I'm sure there are other examples.
At work, at least, any browser I use has to support Flash. It would be really handy to have remote access to the monitoring site from a tablet device, but the iPad has ruled itself out for our field engineers due to a lack of Flash.
Maybe I was lucky with my original Pre, but I loved the OS and didn't have a problem with the hardware either. The design was great, I liked the keyboard and it never actually let me down.
I particularly liked the physical switch to turn the phone to silent, so that you could toggle it without having to open the phone up or use the screen. I also loved the glowing notification light which stayed on when you had a missed email/call/SMS. The Android equivalent is poor by comparison and goes out after five minutes (yes, I could find an app, but how do you know which will be the right one? Especially for HTC, as it seems you need to root the phone).
On Android now, and other than finding one or two genuinely useful apps, I'd still be happier with an updated WebOS phone.
On Tuesday night I was following various friends on Facebook posting details of trouble they'd heard about. At least one person knew to avoid the local town centre, as they heard, via FB, that there were large numbers of youths gathered there and trouble looked likely.
The local police have a twitter account, and were using it to dispel invalid rumours of trouble. They were also receiving messages of support.
Social networking is just another method of communication. If Cameron is serious about it, he should also include other methods of communication - would he seriously advocate shutting down the telephone network? If not, why single out the internet just because it's new. Idiot.
Although I loved my Pre, the only reason I got the Touchstone was the flap that covered the power connection on the phone - I figured it would break if I was charging every day, so switched to the Touchstone instead.
Sadly this is taking a leaf out of the UK's book. I say sadly, sad that we got there first on this sort of nonsense. It's a crime not to reveal passwords when required to do so. It's part of the Regulation of Investigatory Power Act 2000 (look it up!)
If I recall someone demonstrated the stupidity of it by sending an encrypted file to the then home secretary. He was then in possession of a file that he could not possibly decrypt, but it would be a criminal offence for him not to supply the passphrase to decrypt it if required to do so. In other words, a law that he could not possibly obey no matter how much he wanted to.
Despite this demonstration of the stupidity of the act, I believe it still stands.
Coming back to this late, but Lulu and Blurb are basically print on demand services, so we're not talking digital books. Lulu even let you get an ISBN number for your book.
Interesting, as it's covered by law in the UK. I wonder how it would apply to self-published books, such as books sold through the likes of Blurb or Lulu.
Those companies are not UK based, so are not covered by the legislation. However, if I (as a UK resident) published a book, for sale to the public, via Lulu, would I be classed as publisher in terms of this legislation?
My home broadband is occasionally flaky, and the 3G is not only useful when travelling but as a backup for home use.
Due to the distance from my local exchange, my broadband isn't really any quicker than the 3G (I'm on 3 in the UK, and regularly get high speed connections).
Although I have a smart phone, I also prefer not to mess around with multiple gadgets when I'm getting online (plus battery would drain too quickly if I tethered). If I'd wanted to go that route, I'd have got a MiFi.
For photos I can just about manage with 8 bit for what I do in Photoshop as I do the basics converting from RAW in Lightroom - but then I need Lightroom. Back to square one.
I'd use a VM myself, but since 99% of what I do with my PC now, other than web browsing, is photo editing I figure there's no point in the overhead (and last I checked the virtual graphics card in VMWare, at least, didn't support colour calibration properly).
Maybe, for artwork. Less so for photo editing. A calibrated screen is still useful for knowing that at least on your screen the colours meet some objective standard - you can't control how they appear on other people's screens, of course.
I use adjustment layers extensively on my photos. Rather than trying to dodge and burn on the image, for example, I'll create an adjustment layer and then paint it in over the areas I want to affect. I then blur the mask to soften the edges of the effect, and adjust the opacity until it looks right.
The other thing that stands out for me about Photohshop is how quickly you can preview the effects of filters. Seeing immediate feedback as you change the sliders is pretty much essential for judging effects, and the Gimp was never so good at that. Again, that might be different now.
The other killer for me is that I've now got a couple of actions I use almost all the time, including a really good skin smoothing one that saves so much time when retouching images of people (and applies itself in a layer).
On the other hand I still use ImageMagick for a lot of batch resizing tasks for web-sized images.
I switched from Linux to Windows for Photoshop and OS level colour management (with support for calibration tools). No brainer unless you want to spend more than the cost of Photoshop on printer ink and paper.
All the location based adverts I see in the UK (mainly "hot girls in are waiting for you", but I digress...) seem to centre on the location of my ISP's data centre.
The only routers visible to the outside world will be upstream of my ISP. Latency might tell someone how far I am from them +/- the distance from my ISP, but last time I looked my ISP blocked ping anyway.
I would imagine this would apply to the majority of UK DSL users.
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Sadly, Flash is used for more than just video clips and silly games.
Some major products use Flash websites. The latest version of BMC's monitoring tool, for example (ProactiveNet), has a Flash frontend. For reasons best known to BMC, they migrated from a relatively normal, albeit JavaScript heavy, web frontend to Flash. I'm sure there are other examples.
At work, at least, any browser I use has to support Flash. It would be really handy to have remote access to the monitoring site from a tablet device, but the iPad has ruled itself out for our field engineers due to a lack of Flash.
Maybe I was lucky with my original Pre, but I loved the OS and didn't have a problem with the hardware either. The design was great, I liked the keyboard and it never actually let me down.
I particularly liked the physical switch to turn the phone to silent, so that you could toggle it without having to open the phone up or use the screen. I also loved the glowing notification light which stayed on when you had a missed email/call/SMS. The Android equivalent is poor by comparison and goes out after five minutes (yes, I could find an app, but how do you know which will be the right one? Especially for HTC, as it seems you need to root the phone).
On Android now, and other than finding one or two genuinely useful apps, I'd still be happier with an updated WebOS phone.
Hmm, the only thing knots are useful for in my world are shoes and trash bags.
In my world they're useful for tying people up...
Although actually if you follow Japanese techniques you don't actually need knots as such (google, or don't if you're at work, Shibari).
No, it really works - feet that have been nibbled by those fish are lovely and smooth to the touch.
In fact I think I'd like to be a garra rufa fish... as long as I could be selective about whose feet I nibble on...
No. Definitely not that one. Click and become enlightened.
Oh, I know it's not the same one, it's just a similar name, but it still gave me a moment of nostalgia! The old Spectrum/C64 game was very odd indeed.
Or not this Deux Ex then?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_Ex_Machina_(video_game)
Know nothing about this, just reminded me of my far ZX Spectrum using past...
On Tuesday night I was following various friends on Facebook posting details of trouble they'd heard about. At least one person knew to avoid the local town centre, as they heard, via FB, that there were large numbers of youths gathered there and trouble looked likely.
The local police have a twitter account, and were using it to dispel invalid rumours of trouble. They were also receiving messages of support.
Social networking is just another method of communication. If Cameron is serious about it, he should also include other methods of communication - would he seriously advocate shutting down the telephone network? If not, why single out the internet just because it's new. Idiot.
Although I loved my Pre, the only reason I got the Touchstone was the flap that covered the power connection on the phone - I figured it would break if I was charging every day, so switched to the Touchstone instead.
Except with a worse OS...
I've just switched from a Pre to an HTC Android phone (contract upgrade), and the Pre definitely had the edge for usability.
Seriously? There's a a feature called "huddle".
I wonder if huddle.com are happy about that...
Sadly this is taking a leaf out of the UK's book. I say sadly, sad that we got there first on this sort of nonsense. It's a crime not to reveal passwords when required to do so. It's part of the Regulation of Investigatory Power Act 2000 (look it up!)
If I recall someone demonstrated the stupidity of it by sending an encrypted file to the then home secretary. He was then in possession of a file that he could not possibly decrypt, but it would be a criminal offence for him not to supply the passphrase to decrypt it if required to do so. In other words, a law that he could not possibly obey no matter how much he wanted to.
Despite this demonstration of the stupidity of the act, I believe it still stands.
Coming back to this late, but Lulu and Blurb are basically print on demand services, so we're not talking digital books. Lulu even let you get an ISBN number for your book.
Interesting, as it's covered by law in the UK. I wonder how it would apply to self-published books, such as books sold through the likes of Blurb or Lulu.
Those companies are not UK based, so are not covered by the legislation. However, if I (as a UK resident) published a book, for sale to the public, via Lulu, would I be classed as publisher in terms of this legislation?
Kind of a twist on Wonko The Sane's asylum...
My home broadband is occasionally flaky, and the 3G is not only useful when travelling but as a backup for home use.
Due to the distance from my local exchange, my broadband isn't really any quicker than the 3G (I'm on 3 in the UK, and regularly get high speed connections).
Although I have a smart phone, I also prefer not to mess around with multiple gadgets when I'm getting online (plus battery would drain too quickly if I tethered). If I'd wanted to go that route, I'd have got a MiFi.
No, but it has "color" management. *Dodges*
Ah, so the feature is only available in America then, I see...
Yes, that's another killer.
For photos I can just about manage with 8 bit for what I do in Photoshop as I do the basics converting from RAW in Lightroom - but then I need Lightroom. Back to square one.
I'd use a VM myself, but since 99% of what I do with my PC now, other than web browsing, is photo editing I figure there's no point in the overhead (and last I checked the virtual graphics card in VMWare, at least, didn't support colour calibration properly).
The painting mentioned as a profile picture is Courbet's Origin of the World.
Probably best not check it out at work.
Although, of course, it is on the wall of a major gallery where anyone can see it.
Maybe, for artwork. Less so for photo editing. A calibrated screen is still useful for knowing that at least on your screen the colours meet some objective standard - you can't control how they appear on other people's screens, of course.
I use adjustment layers extensively on my photos. Rather than trying to dodge and burn on the image, for example, I'll create an adjustment layer and then paint it in over the areas I want to affect. I then blur the mask to soften the edges of the effect, and adjust the opacity until it looks right.
The other thing that stands out for me about Photohshop is how quickly you can preview the effects of filters. Seeing immediate feedback as you change the sliders is pretty much essential for judging effects, and the Gimp was never so good at that. Again, that might be different now.
The other killer for me is that I've now got a couple of actions I use almost all the time, including a really good skin smoothing one that saves so much time when retouching images of people (and applies itself in a layer).
On the other hand I still use ImageMagick for a lot of batch resizing tasks for web-sized images.
OK, I'll bite.
Has it got colour management yet?
I switched from Linux to Windows for Photoshop and OS level colour management (with support for calibration tools). No brainer unless you want to spend more than the cost of Photoshop on printer ink and paper.
I'd have thought The Sun would be all in favour of 3D. It would improve page 3...
Indeed. They'd be cold by the time you got there.
All the location based adverts I see in the UK (mainly "hot girls in are waiting for you", but I digress...) seem to centre on the location of my ISP's data centre.
The only routers visible to the outside world will be upstream of my ISP. Latency might tell someone how far I am from them +/- the distance from my ISP, but last time I looked my ISP blocked ping anyway.
I would imagine this would apply to the majority of UK DSL users.
WTF does the advice not to wear a tie "not adapted to the morphology of the face" mean?
Is this a mistranslation? How would I know if my tie was adapted to the morphology of my face?
Me? I'm showing a bit of cleavage today, and, yes, my bra is showing. If it's going to show anyway, wear
a nice one.
...laura
Pics or it didn't happen ;-)