Actually, if you are looking to actually buy something, the sponsored links can be very usefull. For example, I just need to write "contact lenses" to google and chose from the plethora of sponsored results if I want to buy new lenses.
As interesting sidenote, 1 and 0 were invented and patented nearly simultaneously by two different inventors during 19th century. Unfortunately patent issues prevented advancemet of computer science for several decades, as neither of the inventors was willing to licence to the other.
The main reason I had to upgrade from Windows 2000 to XP Pro was harware (read "driver") incompatibility with a new graphics card. After trying the usual voodoo of switching cards between the PCI-slots I found out that the newest Creative's Sound Blaster driver installer couldn't detect my Audigy 2 card, even when Creative's web-update tool detected it just fine. And it was easy to read between the lines that Creative had no intentions to fix the problem.
But it gets even funnier. I decided that getting XP would be easiest choise, me being student it wasn't really even that expensive. I live in Finland. After much research and few phone calls I found out that it is impossible to buy Windows XP Pro student upgrade English in Finland without credit card, but the places from I could have pirated it were abundant. Finally I gave up and got the Finnish version. The graphics card works fine, no problem installing the SB drivers.
Designer should know the limits of the environment they are designing for. But underlying data organization shouldn't matter when designing user interfaces. There are many good books about usability engineering nowadays, for example Jakob Nielsen's book is good introduction to the topic.
I think you had two problems there: The designer didn't know the final application environment and the designer didn't know his basic UI design (cramming unrelated items together). Such problems surface when you have graphical designer without usability training, but I'm not really certain if the usability had been much better for the end user if your team of java coders had designed the user interface.
Note that these comments are in the context of designing the UI for joe sixpack and not for CS majors and database experts.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, if you are looking to actually buy something, the sponsored links can be very usefull. For example, I just need to write "contact lenses" to google and chose from the plethora of sponsored results if I want to buy new lenses.
As interesting sidenote, 1 and 0 were invented and patented nearly simultaneously by two different inventors during 19th century. Unfortunately patent issues prevented advancemet of computer science for several decades, as neither of the inventors was willing to licence to the other.
So, your websites usually have no content at all?
At least here in Finland, we call them "Immaterial Property" rights. I think it sounds less like double talk even being the oxymoron it is.
I'm really surprised that no-one mentioned the pussies and racs section of website. That's practically free porn.
Super Mario Bros. is nothing, try searchin for various Mortal Combat characters in Wikipedia.
Considering that the Z-machine sounds and looks like something out of Doom, I think it would be wise to relocate the research facilities to Mars.
It says "Find anything using the new Windows Live Search!" So lets try
my car keys
And the answer is
Are faeries playing with my car keys?
Mystery solved.
I think it should be, umm... "In Soviet Russia, number three is not trying to be you at all!"
The main reason I had to upgrade from Windows 2000 to XP Pro was harware (read "driver") incompatibility with a new graphics card. After trying the usual voodoo of switching cards between the PCI-slots I found out that the newest Creative's Sound Blaster driver installer couldn't detect my Audigy 2 card, even when Creative's web-update tool detected it just fine. And it was easy to read between the lines that Creative had no intentions to fix the problem.
But it gets even funnier. I decided that getting XP would be easiest choise, me being student it wasn't really even that expensive. I live in Finland. After much research and few phone calls I found out that it is impossible to buy Windows XP Pro student upgrade English in Finland without credit card, but the places from I could have pirated it were abundant. Finally I gave up and got the Finnish version. The graphics card works fine, no problem installing the SB drivers.
Designer should know the limits of the environment they are designing for. But underlying data organization shouldn't matter when designing user interfaces. There are many good books about usability engineering nowadays, for example Jakob Nielsen's book is good introduction to the topic.
I think you had two problems there: The designer didn't know the final application environment and the designer didn't know his basic UI design (cramming unrelated items together). Such problems surface when you have graphical designer without usability training, but I'm not really certain if the usability had been much better for the end user if your team of java coders had designed the user interface.
Note that these comments are in the context of designing the UI for joe sixpack and not for CS majors and database experts.