UX 101. If you have a feature that's this divisive, just make it optional! Heck, I don't care if they turn the start menu button off by default. Just give me an easy way to enable or disable it, then both sides can have their cake. Why is this so hard?
The Kindle is a neat little thing. It's the closest thing to a book in terms of text, and can store nigh-unlimited amounts of books. I love the size and the fact that it's comfortable to read for long periods of time. I have the Kindle app on my iPad too, but I can't stare at a backlit screen with a white background for that long.
With that said, there's nothing wrong with adding new features! If I'm in an area without much natural light (say, riding in a car at night where turning on other lights may distract the driver), then a backlit screen would be great. As long as I can turn the backlight off (further preserving the awesome battery life, which I forgot to mention in the last paragraph), I'm all for it!
I can prevent my own content from appearing in certain countries from my blog or other web sources.
This isn't a Freedom of Speech issue, guys. Twitter is an online service. They can show or hide content however they feel. This isn't like the government stepping in and preventing access -- it's a non-government entity doing stuff with its own content. Is it annoying? Sure. Bad precedent? Maybe. However, the "the sky is falling" SlashDot crowd is jumping the gun a bit, even for them.
I second this recommendation. I've used them for years. Great tech support and nice, clean interface. No shenanigans in my years' experience with them.
I'll cling to my prepaid cell until it's pried from my cold dead etc. Not saying having a smartphone is bad: It would be quite convenient in fact. However, I'm saving a bundle by not converting to the Dark Side, and I plan on riding this ride for as long as possible.
Here's how a typical conversation would go about a browser-specific issue.
"Hey, does this new feature have any browser-related issues?"
An IE response:
"Only in IE 7. 8 fails gracefully and still works."
A Firefox response:
"Well, it doesn't work in Firefox 4, 6, or 7."
A Chrome response:
"Well there's an issue in Chrome."
When Chrome updates, it does so eloquently. It does not cause random issues that occur in previous versions only, nor does it make us care about version numbers at all. It's no surprise it's helping to suck away at the other two markets (at least from a web developer's point of view).
Firefox is causing the same headaches that having multiple versions of IE has caused.
You'd be surprised how many laptops would go away if students couldn't access the Internet. Sure, this may hinder some students who legitimately use it to research relevant topics / look up more information during the lecture, but the majority who now cannot browse Facebook during class now have no reason to use their laptops. There are several classes that were so dull that I myself spent time doing various other things on my laptop while passively keeping notes (granted, most tasks were programming-centric and didn't even need Internet access to do). With the exception of diagrams and math notes, I can type notes far faster than write them.
Of course, this doesn't stop offline games and so forth from being used. If a professor is this paranoid about students not paying attention, s/he could simply walk around the classroom while lecturing. This would be hard for some of my professors who didn't like being more than a foot away from their laptops and Powerpoint slides, but wouldn't be difficult for those who actually cared to keep their students' attention.
With all of that said, no one class is going to interest absolutely everyone. Someway, a student is going to find a way to entertain him/herself if s/he's bored. At this point in a student's education, the responsibility really falls on him/her to pay attention and learn -- the professor need only provide the material. If students slack off, well, it's their money wasted.
Sometimes, I'll find myself getting lost in the music. This is a bit, rare, though. Most of the time it just provides suitable background noise, or just a catchy tune to keep me focused. Video game music tends to work for me more than any other, as it usually is lyric-less and does not distract me in the slightest. When I'm about to tackle particularly difficult problems, I fire up the boss music to get me pumped. In this case, it actually helps me.
Hopefully, your boss will realize the mistake he's made in disallowing music. Choosing the right music can alter your emotions and work output. Sure, if you're listening to Death Metal or whatever at full blast, that may be distracting (and for some, maybe not). But otherwise it's an aid to the work process, not a deterrence.
Does this explain why Audio Surf suddenly pops up roughly a dozen Visual C++ Runtime Error messages before actually starting? I thought it was the latest update to Audio Surf that was causing it, but it could very well be this...
Even if the suit itself had merit (which it does not), I highly doubt Facebook would be held liable for what its users say or do (even a expert in the article says this). This is just another attempt by our favorite lawyer to get in the news again. Well, I guess he succeeded somewhat.
It really depends on what style the game itself is trying to pull off. Some have criticized Team Fortress 2 for its more cartoon-like look and style than its predecessor. I think, however, that it's incredibly fitting for the game. The voice acting is incredible and the characters fit the style quite well (the Meet the Team videos only enhance these qualities further). I realize that Team Fortress 2 isn't known for these qualities, but it really is a lot more fun because of the stylistic decisions made.
I myself have never really had the most cutting-edge technology, but I have never felt truly immersed in a game based on the graphics alone. In the back of my mind I always go "this is just a video game," but the story, characters, gameplay (i.e. the attributes that are truly meaningful) can reel me in. Games like GoldenEye and Perfect Dark come to mind here. The graphics were good for the time, but nothing close to realistic. However, they were still able to pull me in just as well.
As the Game Boy Color commercials proclaimed: "Get into it." If a game can get me interested in the other facets of its world, then it could be from the 8-bit era and still get me to feel immersed.
Indeed, the number of impressions (i.e. views that an advertisement gets does factor into the revenue earned by a particular advertisement. Clicks generally are worth more, but are susceptible to click fraud and so forth. The turnaround (registrations, purchases, etc. per click/impression) is the biggest determinant, naturally.
Are small hosting services like that even necessary anymore? For those who just want to post content online, all they have to do is start a blog or get an account at one of the many Web 2.0 sites (MySpace, Facebook, etc.) available nowadays. I recall the advertisements being a bit irritating. Heck, the ads on the Web 2.0 sites now are irritating (hence AdBlock). I recall some GeoCities pages being useful. I even used them to do some research for homework back in middle and high school. Now I primarily use Wikipedia and Google for my researching needs.
When I code is definitely a big factor that I neglected to consider in a post I made earlier. I'm a morning person, and am most productive in the morning hours. This is really true for anything I have to focus on to complete, whether it'd be coding or schoolwork. While I can sometimes get some good productivity out of an afternoon, I'm usually a lot less focused by that point, so getting things done in the morning is what works best for me.
I suppose that's the real disadvantage to working at home. I have a lot of ways to distract myself. At work while on the clock, on the other hand, there's almost no chance of that happening. With that, you could say my productivity is better at work, while working at home is more comfortable overall.
I'd say the place where I can be the most productive and feel the most comfortable when coding is my own dorm room. I have all of my music available to me, a spare PC for Internet access (pretty much a separate monitor), and food and drink if I get hungry. Plus, it's a pretty quiet place, so there are no distractions. With all of that said, where I work (as a developer intern for Lake Quincy Media) isn't that bad of a place either. It's quiet most of the time, I have access to a really awesome rig with a dual-monitor setup, and am surrounded by knowledgeable people. I guess I'm one of the fortunate few who likes his workplace environment.
I'm sure HALO/2 reached this number through the sheer amount of LAN/offline matches played. Sure know my group of friends contributed significantly, anyway.
Actually the first amendment merely limits what Congress can and can't make into law. Private companies can do whatever the heck they want, provided you "agree" to it first before paying them for a service. I'm not saying what they do is right, but rather there's no constitutional case here.
This program, while shareware, has done wonders for me when converting from DRM-ridden music to MP3s with no restrictions. For those who lack decent recording capabilities, this program will do it for you. It has a shareware limitation of 14 days, and you also have to be at the computer to keep clicking the "OK" button (it's nagware too). I can't speak for quality differences either, not being an audiophile, but I know I've not heard any loss of sound quality.
Our campus signed up with Ruckus, a music site where we can download songs for free, but they're full of DRM (have to phone home once a month to stay active.) Using PMC allowed me to not have to worry about that anymore. Give it a shot.
Sorry, but I can't seem to find them again. It's been at least a couple of years since I downloaded them. Google seems to be providing some decent search results, however.
Said options were disabled on my computer too. When I finally required its use, I got around to fixing it by going to SigmaTel's web site and acquiring updated drivers. The 'Stereo Mix' option then appeared and worked without issues.
In regards to their fair access policy, if you exceed more than your not-quite-daily allotted download limit (200 MB for the basic home account, which in addition to installation fees is $60/month), you're connection becomes slower than dial-up for a period of no less than 24 hours. Web pages will take forever to load, if they don't time out. Good luck getting anything else to work. In addition to the naturally large latency (a minimum of 500ms) due to the signal having to travel to space and back, which makes online gaming impossible, I'm lucky enough to see downloads of anything greater than 20 kB/s most of the time. We have to deal with this sort of garbage, all because cable and DSL services are not available in the area. I'd gladly welcome a better solution than this tripe.
Slashdot Mirror
UX 101. If you have a feature that's this divisive, just make it optional! Heck, I don't care if they turn the start menu button off by default. Just give me an easy way to enable or disable it, then both sides can have their cake. Why is this so hard?
The Kindle is a neat little thing. It's the closest thing to a book in terms of text, and can store nigh-unlimited amounts of books. I love the size and the fact that it's comfortable to read for long periods of time. I have the Kindle app on my iPad too, but I can't stare at a backlit screen with a white background for that long. With that said, there's nothing wrong with adding new features! If I'm in an area without much natural light (say, riding in a car at night where turning on other lights may distract the driver), then a backlit screen would be great. As long as I can turn the backlight off (further preserving the awesome battery life, which I forgot to mention in the last paragraph), I'm all for it!
I can prevent my own content from appearing in certain countries from my blog or other web sources.
This isn't a Freedom of Speech issue, guys. Twitter is an online service. They can show or hide content however they feel. This isn't like the government stepping in and preventing access -- it's a non-government entity doing stuff with its own content. Is it annoying? Sure. Bad precedent? Maybe. However, the "the sky is falling" SlashDot crowd is jumping the gun a bit, even for them.
I second this recommendation. I've used them for years. Great tech support and nice, clean interface. No shenanigans in my years' experience with them.
I'll cling to my prepaid cell until it's pried from my cold dead etc. Not saying having a smartphone is bad: It would be quite convenient in fact. However, I'm saving a bundle by not converting to the Dark Side, and I plan on riding this ride for as long as possible.
Here's how a typical conversation would go about a browser-specific issue. "Hey, does this new feature have any browser-related issues?" An IE response: "Only in IE 7. 8 fails gracefully and still works." A Firefox response: "Well, it doesn't work in Firefox 4, 6, or 7." A Chrome response: "Well there's an issue in Chrome." When Chrome updates, it does so eloquently. It does not cause random issues that occur in previous versions only, nor does it make us care about version numbers at all. It's no surprise it's helping to suck away at the other two markets (at least from a web developer's point of view). Firefox is causing the same headaches that having multiple versions of IE has caused.
Sounds to me like less of a problem with Silverlight and more of a problem with the designer's choice to run the entire thing inside of a plugin.
You'd be surprised how many laptops would go away if students couldn't access the Internet. Sure, this may hinder some students who legitimately use it to research relevant topics / look up more information during the lecture, but the majority who now cannot browse Facebook during class now have no reason to use their laptops. There are several classes that were so dull that I myself spent time doing various other things on my laptop while passively keeping notes (granted, most tasks were programming-centric and didn't even need Internet access to do). With the exception of diagrams and math notes, I can type notes far faster than write them.
Of course, this doesn't stop offline games and so forth from being used. If a professor is this paranoid about students not paying attention, s/he could simply walk around the classroom while lecturing. This would be hard for some of my professors who didn't like being more than a foot away from their laptops and Powerpoint slides, but wouldn't be difficult for those who actually cared to keep their students' attention.
With all of that said, no one class is going to interest absolutely everyone. Someway, a student is going to find a way to entertain him/herself if s/he's bored. At this point in a student's education, the responsibility really falls on him/her to pay attention and learn -- the professor need only provide the material. If students slack off, well, it's their money wasted.
Sometimes, I'll find myself getting lost in the music. This is a bit, rare, though. Most of the time it just provides suitable background noise, or just a catchy tune to keep me focused. Video game music tends to work for me more than any other, as it usually is lyric-less and does not distract me in the slightest. When I'm about to tackle particularly difficult problems, I fire up the boss music to get me pumped. In this case, it actually helps me.
Hopefully, your boss will realize the mistake he's made in disallowing music. Choosing the right music can alter your emotions and work output. Sure, if you're listening to Death Metal or whatever at full blast, that may be distracting (and for some, maybe not). But otherwise it's an aid to the work process, not a deterrence.
Does this explain why Audio Surf suddenly pops up roughly a dozen Visual C++ Runtime Error messages before actually starting? I thought it was the latest update to Audio Surf that was causing it, but it could very well be this...
Even if the suit itself had merit (which it does not), I highly doubt Facebook would be held liable for what its users say or do (even a expert in the article says this). This is just another attempt by our favorite lawyer to get in the news again. Well, I guess he succeeded somewhat.
It really depends on what style the game itself is trying to pull off. Some have criticized Team Fortress 2 for its more cartoon-like look and style than its predecessor. I think, however, that it's incredibly fitting for the game. The voice acting is incredible and the characters fit the style quite well (the Meet the Team videos only enhance these qualities further). I realize that Team Fortress 2 isn't known for these qualities, but it really is a lot more fun because of the stylistic decisions made.
I myself have never really had the most cutting-edge technology, but I have never felt truly immersed in a game based on the graphics alone. In the back of my mind I always go "this is just a video game," but the story, characters, gameplay (i.e. the attributes that are truly meaningful) can reel me in. Games like GoldenEye and Perfect Dark come to mind here. The graphics were good for the time, but nothing close to realistic. However, they were still able to pull me in just as well.
As the Game Boy Color commercials proclaimed: "Get into it." If a game can get me interested in the other facets of its world, then it could be from the 8-bit era and still get me to feel immersed.
Indeed, the number of impressions (i.e. views that an advertisement gets does factor into the revenue earned by a particular advertisement. Clicks generally are worth more, but are susceptible to click fraud and so forth. The turnaround (registrations, purchases, etc. per click/impression) is the biggest determinant, naturally.
Are small hosting services like that even necessary anymore? For those who just want to post content online, all they have to do is start a blog or get an account at one of the many Web 2.0 sites (MySpace, Facebook, etc.) available nowadays. I recall the advertisements being a bit irritating. Heck, the ads on the Web 2.0 sites now are irritating (hence AdBlock). I recall some GeoCities pages being useful. I even used them to do some research for homework back in middle and high school. Now I primarily use Wikipedia and Google for my researching needs.
When I code is definitely a big factor that I neglected to consider in a post I made earlier. I'm a morning person, and am most productive in the morning hours. This is really true for anything I have to focus on to complete, whether it'd be coding or schoolwork. While I can sometimes get some good productivity out of an afternoon, I'm usually a lot less focused by that point, so getting things done in the morning is what works best for me.
I suppose that's the real disadvantage to working at home. I have a lot of ways to distract myself. At work while on the clock, on the other hand, there's almost no chance of that happening. With that, you could say my productivity is better at work, while working at home is more comfortable overall.
I'd say the place where I can be the most productive and feel the most comfortable when coding is my own dorm room. I have all of my music available to me, a spare PC for Internet access (pretty much a separate monitor), and food and drink if I get hungry. Plus, it's a pretty quiet place, so there are no distractions. With all of that said, where I work (as a developer intern for Lake Quincy Media) isn't that bad of a place either. It's quiet most of the time, I have access to a really awesome rig with a dual-monitor setup, and am surrounded by knowledgeable people. I guess I'm one of the fortunate few who likes his workplace environment.
I'm sure HALO/2 reached this number through the sheer amount of LAN/offline matches played. Sure know my group of friends contributed significantly, anyway.
The machines we have at work are named after various characters from the Lord of the Rings books (including the Silmarillion).
Actually the first amendment merely limits what Congress can and can't make into law. Private companies can do whatever the heck they want, provided you "agree" to it first before paying them for a service. I'm not saying what they do is right, but rather there's no constitutional case here.
This program, while shareware, has done wonders for me when converting from DRM-ridden music to MP3s with no restrictions. For those who lack decent recording capabilities, this program will do it for you. It has a shareware limitation of 14 days, and you also have to be at the computer to keep clicking the "OK" button (it's nagware too). I can't speak for quality differences either, not being an audiophile, but I know I've not heard any loss of sound quality.
Our campus signed up with Ruckus, a music site where we can download songs for free, but they're full of DRM (have to phone home once a month to stay active.) Using PMC allowed me to not have to worry about that anymore. Give it a shot.
Sorry, but I can't seem to find them again. It's been at least a couple of years since I downloaded them. Google seems to be providing some decent search results, however.
Said options were disabled on my computer too. When I finally required its use, I got around to fixing it by going to SigmaTel's web site and acquiring updated drivers. The 'Stereo Mix' option then appeared and worked without issues.
In regards to their fair access policy, if you exceed more than your not-quite-daily allotted download limit (200 MB for the basic home account, which in addition to installation fees is $60/month), you're connection becomes slower than dial-up for a period of no less than 24 hours. Web pages will take forever to load, if they don't time out. Good luck getting anything else to work. In addition to the naturally large latency (a minimum of 500ms) due to the signal having to travel to space and back, which makes online gaming impossible, I'm lucky enough to see downloads of anything greater than 20 kB/s most of the time. We have to deal with this sort of garbage, all because cable and DSL services are not available in the area. I'd gladly welcome a better solution than this tripe.
It was a machine pistol, not an SMG. Kudos for properly capitalizing GoldenEye though.