I was somewhat surprised to see that they listed no less than 210 different Oracle passwords, yet neither "SCOTT/TIGER" nor "SYSTEM/MANAGER" was listed. My experience as a consultant is that SCOTT/TIGER works in well over 75% of all instances where I tried it, but usually without access to do some real damage.
SYSTEM/MANAGER works roughly 30% of the time, always with full access.
I'm in Europe. I wonder if this is generally difefrent in the US?
I highly doubt Kylie Minogue is the only Kylie out there with recorded material, for example.
I was going to call you on that one, since I thought that I remembered that her name was pretty unique. But Google found another recording Kylie Sackley, as hit 16.
And yes, of course, even if "Kylie" would have been unique, other popular artists don't all have unique names, so your points still stands.
I agree that it is "well on its way", but it isn't quite there already, IMHO. An wikipedia bears me out. Please note that I didn't even have to edit the page for it to say so!:)
"Muzak" is actually a registered trademark by a company with the same name, and not "general background music".
The idea behind it isn't to stop people from listening in on private conversations, but rather to put people in a suitable mood. The latter tends to mean "willing to shop" in department stores, which I would guess is the main use of it.
Personally, I hate the idea behind this. Either it doesn't work, in which case it is annoying as hell, or it does work, in which case it's, if not unethical at least provocative (to me, YMMV).
But what I hate even more is that a lot of public places thought that playing "mood music" was a generally good idea without any other thought behind it. Stop polluting my ears now, please!
Also, Muzak has a website that is even more annoying than their sound pollution. Use at your own risk. (No, I won't provide a link. I hate them.)
Already over ten years ago, Microsoft had it in their GUI guidelines that every program should be tested without a mosue. Just unplug the mouse and see if you can use the program. This is still exceptionally good advice, and almost never heeded.
For some programs, such as Visio and Photoshop, not using a mouse or some other pointing device is pretty pointless. But I can't think of *any* administrative system that should require a mouse.
What is truly sad is that just when MS started to get a hang of this and spent time and money to catch up to Apple, the web came and brought UI development ten years back in time. I thought that was pretty sad at the time, and I have yet today, ten years later, to encounter a web application with a UI that is as good as it would have been, had it been implemented in Windows/MacOS/whatever graphical Unix environment you prefer. If there is one, I'd love to know about it, so please tell me.
Also, not only should it be possible to ditch the mouse and use the keyboard exclusively, it should also be possible for an average user to learn the keyboard shortcuts from within the GUI. If you have to read the documentation, that is too much work. So tooltips are needed, as are showing the shortcuts in menus etc. It's OK if there is an option to turn that stuff off, but it should be there and be on by default.
Web applications are good for two things, and two things only: ease of deployment and on the fly changes. If you develop an application for the general public, ease of deployment is of course 100% critical, so I'm clearly not suggesting that Amazon or Slashdot should build downloadable applications, but for in-house systems, deployment really shouldn't be *that* difficult.
As for on the fly changes, such as adding or removing complex sets of UI components based on context and/or input, that isn't too common a situation. Enabling or disabling just a few controls doesn't count. That is perfectly possible in thick clients.
It is interseting to note that whan Apple had a huge lead in usability, Microsoft still outsold them. And when Microsoft got a clue and improved their usability, there was a massive exodus to the web and all-around sucky interfaces. It's probably the case that quite a few bank teller applications are less usable today than they were 20 years ago...
In all honesty, it should be noted that this was a duplicate on Digg as well...
Also, I noted that the article referred to soap bubbles as "the world's most popular toy". Here is an interesting question for all of us: what is actually the world's most popular toy, and how do one measure it? I'm willing to bet a good amount soap bubbles isn't the correct answer...
Bottom line is that, though the goal of SQL is to make the "how" hidden from the user, in practice this is impossible and not even desirable.
If the user is the end user, ie the guy who accesses the DB via, say, a wizard generated report in Crystal Reports, then SQL is actually very good at hiding the "how" from the user. On the other hand, most users shouldn't think about or use SQL at all. Instead they would be more helped by using a Business Objects type solution, where they are given "objects" and a "universe" (an intelligent converter) translates the usage of objects into actual SQL.
If the user is the DBA or a developer of a custom application, you are completely correct.
I only spotted one possibly correct usage, that being "How to leverage the Luxembourg financial sector?". Unfortunately, this was the headline and leverage was never again used in the text, so I can't score it better than "maybe correct".
I agree that it happens that "leverage" is used correctly, but in my experience it is much more often used instead of "use" in order to sound fancy (i.e. like a consultant), even by upper management. But maybe finacial analysts use it properly more often than not.
Googling for "we will leverage" yielded 0 correct uses of the ten presented to me on the first page. (Just googling for "leverage" will not yield results where it is used as a verb.)
This is very, very true, and, incidentally, the one area where most Microsoft bashers underestimate the giant.
Microsoft caught an incredibly lucky break some 25 years ago that allowed them to grow and become huge. However, they are not that big today because of that one incident. The reason they are as big as they are today is that they, around '92 or '93, realized that usability is tremendously important. Sure, that wasn't an original thought. In fact, that was what Apple had been doing all the time, and at that time, Apple was 5-10 years ahead of MS.
But Microsoft realised this, got their act together, and spent an incredible amount of time and effort om Windows and, in particular, on the Office suite. Excel (and to some extent Word) is the reason everyone uses Windows today, not the other way around. And Excel is an incredible piece of software.
Excel used to have competitors, like 1-2-3 and Quattro Pro. In the early nineties they were about as good as Excel (or possibly better?). But when Microsoft decided that usability was what counted, they crushed their competitors who considered that less important (or simply didn't have the resources to keep up in the arms race).
In the real world, productivity is what counts, and in an office settig ("office" as in "office, not as in "Microsoft Office"), usability is by far and away the most important productivity factor. It is far, far more important than security and reliability, for instance.
This is not true for databases, for instance, which is the reason Oracle is huge there. Neither is it true for back end servers, which is why Linux/Unix/AS400 is widely used there. But on the desktop? Usability, usability, usability.
I will believe Open Office will have a future when I see usability test that show them ahead of the MS Office suite. Not TCO, not feature set, not reliability but plain old "can your average50-year-old semi computer illiterate desk jockey create a simple budget in the spreadsheet application?".
By the way, I likewise finally doing away with the idiotic ways agencies sell tickets to sporting events. The prices of those too, or at least sure-to-be-sold-out-at-current-prices events, should be sold in some kind of auction system to ensure a) maximal profits for the sellers and b) fair availability for those willing to pay. In other words, in market terms, a win-win.
I completely agree, and the current system is one of the true mysteries in life to me. Not only are they giving away money, they are actually giving that money to scalpers! If they gave them to the buyers, it could be considered PR and maybe a good thing in the long run, but they don't even do that.
Before the web, it was probably difficult to setup a proper auction, but now it should really be a piece of cake. I am very surprised this isn't being done today.
In/. speak:
1. Auction
2. Profit
...and not the lack of "???"...
What sort of prinicple is that? The same principle that explains why cell phone calls have dropped dramatically?
I would suggest that economic principle says that the functioning of the market decides to what extent prices are set at marginal costs (i.e. the optimal price in a perfect market). In this particular instance, I assume that competition is less than perfect for any number of reasons, but "sticky downward" really has nothing to do with it.
That would be a "giant piccolino Cafè au Lait without milk".
It is imperative that the little thingy on the "e" in "Cafè" is the wrong direction, or else you risk that someone outside of Starbucks may actually understand you.
I know you are trolling, but assume for a minute that you are right and EA will actually license every car. I would have to thnik that that would be a Good Thing(TM) as it would force game designers to make fun/interesting games, as opposed to games with realistic looking cars.
The one case where realism counts is sports games, but those licenses are received from the sports and not from EA anyway.
This is at least four years away, and will be done over several years. This was very undramatic and in fact a non-issue when going from 3.11 to 95. I do not expect it to be a major issue this time either.
Slashdot Mirror
SYSTEM/MANAGER works roughly 30% of the time, always with full access.
I'm in Europe. I wonder if this is generally difefrent in the US?
...welcome our new SETI-hacking overlords.
I was going to call you on that one, since I thought that I remembered that her name was pretty unique. But Google found another recording Kylie Sackley, as hit 16.
And yes, of course, even if "Kylie" would have been unique, other popular artists don't all have unique names, so your points still stands.
I agree that it is "well on its way", but it isn't quite there already, IMHO. An wikipedia bears me out. Please note that I didn't even have to edit the page for it to say so! :)
The idea behind it isn't to stop people from listening in on private conversations, but rather to put people in a suitable mood. The latter tends to mean "willing to shop" in department stores, which I would guess is the main use of it.
Personally, I hate the idea behind this. Either it doesn't work, in which case it is annoying as hell, or it does work, in which case it's, if not unethical at least provocative (to me, YMMV).
But what I hate even more is that a lot of public places thought that playing "mood music" was a generally good idea without any other thought behind it. Stop polluting my ears now, please!
Also, Muzak has a website that is even more annoying than their sound pollution. Use at your own risk. (No, I won't provide a link. I hate them.)
For some programs, such as Visio and Photoshop, not using a mouse or some other pointing device is pretty pointless. But I can't think of *any* administrative system that should require a mouse.
What is truly sad is that just when MS started to get a hang of this and spent time and money to catch up to Apple, the web came and brought UI development ten years back in time. I thought that was pretty sad at the time, and I have yet today, ten years later, to encounter a web application with a UI that is as good as it would have been, had it been implemented in Windows/MacOS/whatever graphical Unix environment you prefer. If there is one, I'd love to know about it, so please tell me.
Also, not only should it be possible to ditch the mouse and use the keyboard exclusively, it should also be possible for an average user to learn the keyboard shortcuts from within the GUI. If you have to read the documentation, that is too much work. So tooltips are needed, as are showing the shortcuts in menus etc. It's OK if there is an option to turn that stuff off, but it should be there and be on by default.
Web applications are good for two things, and two things only: ease of deployment and on the fly changes. If you develop an application for the general public, ease of deployment is of course 100% critical, so I'm clearly not suggesting that Amazon or Slashdot should build downloadable applications, but for in-house systems, deployment really shouldn't be *that* difficult.
As for on the fly changes, such as adding or removing complex sets of UI components based on context and/or input, that isn't too common a situation. Enabling or disabling just a few controls doesn't count. That is perfectly possible in thick clients.
It is interseting to note that whan Apple had a huge lead in usability, Microsoft still outsold them. And when Microsoft got a clue and improved their usability, there was a massive exodus to the web and all-around sucky interfaces. It's probably the case that quite a few bank teller applications are less usable today than they were 20 years ago...
Also, I noted that the article referred to soap bubbles as "the world's most popular toy". Here is an interesting question for all of us: what is actually the world's most popular toy, and how do one measure it? I'm willing to bet a good amount soap bubbles isn't the correct answer...
If the user is the end user, ie the guy who accesses the DB via, say, a wizard generated report in Crystal Reports, then SQL is actually very good at hiding the "how" from the user. On the other hand, most users shouldn't think about or use SQL at all. Instead they would be more helped by using a Business Objects type solution, where they are given "objects" and a "universe" (an intelligent converter) translates the usage of objects into actual SQL.
If the user is the DBA or a developer of a custom application, you are completely correct.
I only spotted one possibly correct usage, that being "How to leverage the Luxembourg financial sector?". Unfortunately, this was the headline and leverage was never again used in the text, so I can't score it better than "maybe correct".
Googling for "we will leverage" yielded 0 correct uses of the ten presented to me on the first page. (Just googling for "leverage" will not yield results where it is used as a verb.)
Microsoft caught an incredibly lucky break some 25 years ago that allowed them to grow and become huge. However, they are not that big today because of that one incident. The reason they are as big as they are today is that they, around '92 or '93, realized that usability is tremendously important. Sure, that wasn't an original thought. In fact, that was what Apple had been doing all the time, and at that time, Apple was 5-10 years ahead of MS.
But Microsoft realised this, got their act together, and spent an incredible amount of time and effort om Windows and, in particular, on the Office suite. Excel (and to some extent Word) is the reason everyone uses Windows today, not the other way around. And Excel is an incredible piece of software.
Excel used to have competitors, like 1-2-3 and Quattro Pro. In the early nineties they were about as good as Excel (or possibly better?). But when Microsoft decided that usability was what counted, they crushed their competitors who considered that less important (or simply didn't have the resources to keep up in the arms race).
In the real world, productivity is what counts, and in an office settig ("office" as in "office, not as in "Microsoft Office"), usability is by far and away the most important productivity factor. It is far, far more important than security and reliability, for instance.
This is not true for databases, for instance, which is the reason Oracle is huge there. Neither is it true for back end servers, which is why Linux/Unix/AS400 is widely used there. But on the desktop? Usability, usability, usability.
I will believe Open Office will have a future when I see usability test that show them ahead of the MS Office suite. Not TCO, not feature set, not reliability but plain old "can your average50-year-old semi computer illiterate desk jockey create a simple budget in the spreadsheet application?".
I completely agree, and the current system is one of the true mysteries in life to me. Not only are they giving away money, they are actually giving that money to scalpers! If they gave them to the buyers, it could be considered PR and maybe a good thing in the long run, but they don't even do that.
Before the web, it was probably difficult to setup a proper auction, but now it should really be a piece of cake. I am very surprised this isn't being done today.
In /. speak:
1. Auction
2. Profit
...and not the lack of "???"...
What sort of prinicple is that? The same principle that explains why cell phone calls have dropped dramatically? I would suggest that economic principle says that the functioning of the market decides to what extent prices are set at marginal costs (i.e. the optimal price in a perfect market). In this particular instance, I assume that competition is less than perfect for any number of reasons, but "sticky downward" really has nothing to do with it.
That would be a "giant piccolino Cafè au Lait without milk". It is imperative that the little thingy on the "e" in "Cafè" is the wrong direction, or else you risk that someone outside of Starbucks may actually understand you.
I know you are trolling, but assume for a minute that you are right and EA will actually license every car. I would have to thnik that that would be a Good Thing(TM) as it would force game designers to make fun/interesting games, as opposed to games with realistic looking cars. The one case where realism counts is sports games, but those licenses are received from the sports and not from EA anyway.
This is at least four years away, and will be done over several years. This was very undramatic and in fact a non-issue when going from 3.11 to 95. I do not expect it to be a major issue this time either.