You find iTunes hard to use? Crazy. Do yourself a favor, don't open Word. It's much harder. More buttons.
Music from its store is infected with DRM, it swallows memory like Internet Explorer 6, Apple decided its Windows applications needed evil skins to look like Mac applications... but iTunes is very easy to use. In fact, I modeled an inventory report generator on the Smart Playlist concept. When I explained to our clients that "it'll work a bit like iTunes", I was satisfied to see them smile as they realized they'd finally have a system they could use without the manual sitting on their desk.
...outnumber sites with pages names ending in ".rb"
This is a poor excuse for a stab at Ruby. Most Rubyist sites tend to be powered by RoR, which in part explains why you haven't seen many ".rb" pages around. Also, how would Rubyists complain about PHP "taking over" the web (implying this should be the "domain" [pun] of Ruby powered sites) when so few of them were introduced to Ruby before 2000? Though PHP and Ruby were introduced around the same time, it took Ruby slightly longer to reach an English-speaking audience. It didn't really take off until pickaxe was released.
That's right, Ruby is just a horrible mishmash of Lisp and Fortran. Uh-huh. And PHP is a horrible mishmash of Perl (and Perl is a horrible mishmash of shell scripting, C, AWK, and that holy untouchable language Lisp!) Ruby is not the cause of PHP's poor reputation. PHP is the cause of PHP's poor reputation. I speak as an open-minded 6-year PHP developer.
<sarcasm>All these newfangled languages are just for people who are too stupid to understand machine code, too ignorant to learn the good points of machine code, and too closed-minded to try learning how to use machine code. Therefore they tried to create some sort of "higher level" language to escape their ignorance. They might call it programming, but it's not machine code!</sarcasm>
Absolutely. More than anything else, these are exactly the things that are driving me away from PHP. magic_quotes* issues can be coded around (though they shouldn't have to be), but when I have to keep php.net open all the time to make sure a function is still called what I think it should be (often I'm still wrong by an underscore), I'm not a happy developer.
Fortunately, the Zend Framework will soon come to the rescue. In the meantime, I have written my own PHP DAL. It felt like reinventing the wheel, but my other options at the time were all unstandardized frameworks that were either too restrictive or just poorly written.
RoR is looking more and more attractive. I'm currently considering porting the next version of the application for which I made my own framework.
Some people also use a function to strip out less than/greater than signs from data (or simply use htmlspecialchars/htmlentities) before adding it to a database. Their desire is to prevent cross-site scripting attacks. This is a lazy hack. A better way to combat cross-site scripting is to apply htmlentities to data being pulled out of the database for display. If you are using "real" W3C DOM scripting methods and not innerHTML, you can simply add the data as-is (making sure your JSON methods slash out any would-be JavaScript escape characters)--"textContent" will display would-be markup as text.
Sorry it took so long to respond, I saw your reply early this morning but had to head off to work. (I make it a rule to avoid Slashdotting at work!)
Actually, the OP said "they are afraid of deleting everything and having to reinstall all their programs". Fear can cause reluctance, but doesn't mean a solution should be overlooked as "offtopic". Some people, for example, are afraid of doctors. This doesn't mean we should overlook encouraging a trip to the hospital in the unfortunate circumstance of a heart attack.
To take our example further, diet is a factor that contributes to some heart problems. A patient may be reluctant to change their diet, even to one that will help preserve their life. However, this doesn't mean we should overlook encouraging them to eat more healthily.
The decision to keep using Windows may not be life-threatening. However, fear of a fresh install (which, unless a corporate license is made available, may be required anyway) should not stop us from encouraging a properly planned switch to a more stable, secure operating system legally available for $200 less than retail Windows XP and free from the constraints of a Windows license. Certainly, we shouldn't regard such a recommendation as being "offtopic".
That is a good point. General computer users probably just use regular office apps, photo management apps, and maybe some music. Kubuntu is probably the best way for a Linux noob to go.
IME, Ubuntu's wireless support is excellent. If your network is WPA encrypted (and it should be), you will need to manually edit/etc/network/interfaces and add "wpa-" lines for WPA Supplicant (which is already installed - even on Server!) but that's about it.
As for what's accessible in GNOME vs what's accessible in KDE, you're probably quite right (both DEs have come a long way in the last few years) especially as far as Ubuntu's concerned. Don't forget, though, that Ubuntu's developers tend to work around GNOME's deficiencies by introducing special applications. The a la carte menu editor, for example, isn't normally bundled with GNOME.
Why are suggestions to use Linux being modded offtopic? The topic is that an operating system isn't "genuine" and he's seeking advice on proofing his computer from legal scrutiny. What better way to do that than by installing an operating system that's free?
"Cheyenne Mountain is not going away," Keating told reporters Friday. "There will be a small number of people that will remain at Cheyenne Mountain to maintain the facility in the event we need to stand up for either a real world threat or for exercises. Day-to-day NORAD-North Com operations will occur from Peterson Air Force Base."
This is a big problem. I'm a big fan of Ajax techniques, but only for use in web applications or downgradably. Downgradable design needs to be stressed and restressed to Ajax developers: build the website in HTML first, then it's easy to add Ajax goodies simply by returning false in the "onclick"s of links. If the serverside script follows the MVC pattern, it'll be easy to add a JSON-producing View to talk to JavaScript.
While we're on the subject of prolonging updates, now that you've mentioned OS X, I'd like to offer related advice to would-be Switchers: unless your hardware needs replaced wholly, wait for Leopard! (Or at least for its preview next month!)
1.) Firefox 2 includes a Phishing filter. (Firefox 2 is to Firefox current as Internet Explorer 7 is to Internet Explorer current... except that Firefox current is already better than Internet Explorer 6, at least in terms of W3C compliance, security, privacy, RSS feed handling, 32-bit/24-bit-with-alpha PNG handling...) This isn't the same as what we're talking about, but it's the closest thing needed that's actually sensible. (I don't believe NoScript is sensible - most users would just click "allow script" all the time if they hadn't installed it willingly themselves.)
2.) Extensions are generally not for "fixes" but for extra functionality not suitable to be included with the browser. For example, an extension might remove Adwords banners from websites.
3.) To qualify as "spam", something has to be irrelevant or inappropriate. Suggesting a more secure browser to help protect against insecure websites is neither irrelevant nor inappropriate.
4.) You mentioned some good browsers as alternatives to Firefox. I'd suggest using them rather than Internet Explorer. If you use Windows, stay safe: use Internet Explorer only for Microsoft Update.
5.) Out of curiosity, could you give good reason for not using Firefox?
For an ex-Windows user with no special accessibility/language requirements, Kubuntu may better fit the bill. KDE's default layout is more Windows-like and allows you to do more without opening terminal Windows.
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You find iTunes hard to use? Crazy. Do yourself a favor, don't open Word. It's much harder. More buttons.
Music from its store is infected with DRM, it swallows memory like Internet Explorer 6, Apple decided its Windows applications needed evil skins to look like Mac applications... but iTunes is very easy to use. In fact, I modeled an inventory report generator on the Smart Playlist concept. When I explained to our clients that "it'll work a bit like iTunes", I was satisfied to see them smile as they realized they'd finally have a system they could use without the manual sitting on their desk.
Works well on Mac, though.
This is a poor excuse for a stab at Ruby. Most Rubyist sites tend to be powered by RoR, which in part explains why you haven't seen many ".rb" pages around. Also, how would Rubyists complain about PHP "taking over" the web (implying this should be the "domain" [pun] of Ruby powered sites) when so few of them were introduced to Ruby before 2000? Though PHP and Ruby were introduced around the same time, it took Ruby slightly longer to reach an English-speaking audience. It didn't really take off until pickaxe was released.
That's right, Ruby is just a horrible mishmash of Lisp and Fortran. Uh-huh. And PHP is a horrible mishmash of Perl (and Perl is a horrible mishmash of shell scripting, C, AWK, and that holy untouchable language Lisp!) Ruby is not the cause of PHP's poor reputation. PHP is the cause of PHP's poor reputation. I speak as an open-minded 6-year PHP developer.
<sarcasm>All these newfangled languages are just for people who are too stupid to understand machine code, too ignorant to learn the good points of machine code, and too closed-minded to try learning how to use machine code. Therefore they tried to create some sort of "higher level" language to escape their ignorance. They might call it programming, but it's not machine code!</sarcasm>
Absolutely. More than anything else, these are exactly the things that are driving me away from PHP. magic_quotes* issues can be coded around (though they shouldn't have to be), but when I have to keep php.net open all the time to make sure a function is still called what I think it should be (often I'm still wrong by an underscore), I'm not a happy developer.
Fortunately, the Zend Framework will soon come to the rescue. In the meantime, I have written my own PHP DAL. It felt like reinventing the wheel, but my other options at the time were all unstandardized frameworks that were either too restrictive or just poorly written.
RoR is looking more and more attractive. I'm currently considering porting the next version of the application for which I made my own framework.
Looks fine for me, except the lack of preformatted text tag has removed indentations.
Also, semicolons aren't needed at the end of MySQL queries in PHP. But that's nothing to do with the code's presentation!
Some people also use a function to strip out less than/greater than signs from data (or simply use htmlspecialchars/htmlentities) before adding it to a database. Their desire is to prevent cross-site scripting attacks. This is a lazy hack. A better way to combat cross-site scripting is to apply htmlentities to data being pulled out of the database for display. If you are using "real" W3C DOM scripting methods and not innerHTML, you can simply add the data as-is (making sure your JSON methods slash out any would-be JavaScript escape characters)--"textContent" will display would-be markup as text.
Especially now that Java is the language most university computer science degree courses are based on.
There's no such thing as a humble opinion.
I think that was Pratchett.
Sorry it took so long to respond, I saw your reply early this morning but had to head off to work. (I make it a rule to avoid Slashdotting at work!)
Actually, the OP said "they are afraid of deleting everything and having to reinstall all their programs". Fear can cause reluctance, but doesn't mean a solution should be overlooked as "offtopic". Some people, for example, are afraid of doctors. This doesn't mean we should overlook encouraging a trip to the hospital in the unfortunate circumstance of a heart attack.
To take our example further, diet is a factor that contributes to some heart problems. A patient may be reluctant to change their diet, even to one that will help preserve their life. However, this doesn't mean we should overlook encouraging them to eat more healthily.
The decision to keep using Windows may not be life-threatening. However, fear of a fresh install (which, unless a corporate license is made available, may be required anyway) should not stop us from encouraging a properly planned switch to a more stable, secure operating system legally available for $200 less than retail Windows XP and free from the constraints of a Windows license. Certainly, we shouldn't regard such a recommendation as being "offtopic".
Evidently some Slashdot posters can't handle the concept of the submit button, and therefore feel it should be removed.
That is a good point. General computer users probably just use regular office apps, photo management apps, and maybe some music. Kubuntu is probably the best way for a Linux noob to go.
IME, Ubuntu's wireless support is excellent. If your network is WPA encrypted (and it should be), you will need to manually edit /etc/network/interfaces and add "wpa-" lines for WPA Supplicant (which is already installed - even on Server!) but that's about it.
As for what's accessible in GNOME vs what's accessible in KDE, you're probably quite right (both DEs have come a long way in the last few years) especially as far as Ubuntu's concerned. Don't forget, though, that Ubuntu's developers tend to work around GNOME's deficiencies by introducing special applications. The a la carte menu editor, for example, isn't normally bundled with GNOME.
Sorry, that was supposed to read USA (isin) North America using the proper HTML entity name, but evidently Slashdot can't handle high school math.
To elaborate further (since it's common in Europe to use America and USA as synonyms): USA North America.
Na, all you need is faith the size of a mustard seed.
Why are suggestions to use Linux being modded offtopic? The topic is that an operating system isn't "genuine" and he's seeking advice on proofing his computer from legal scrutiny. What better way to do that than by installing an operating system that's free?
"Sure, commander Keating, we won't throw no parties while you're out!"
"Let's go burn down the observatory so this never happens again!"
This is a big problem. I'm a big fan of Ajax techniques, but only for use in web applications or downgradably. Downgradable design needs to be stressed and restressed to Ajax developers: build the website in HTML first, then it's easy to add Ajax goodies simply by returning false in the "onclick"s of links. If the serverside script follows the MVC pattern, it'll be easy to add a JSON-producing View to talk to JavaScript.
While we're on the subject of prolonging updates, now that you've mentioned OS X, I'd like to offer related advice to would-be Switchers: unless your hardware needs replaced wholly, wait for Leopard! (Or at least for its preview next month!)
Flamebait/troll, but I'll bite:
1.) Firefox 2 includes a Phishing filter. (Firefox 2 is to Firefox current as Internet Explorer 7 is to Internet Explorer current... except that Firefox current is already better than Internet Explorer 6, at least in terms of W3C compliance, security, privacy, RSS feed handling, 32-bit/24-bit-with-alpha PNG handling...) This isn't the same as what we're talking about, but it's the closest thing needed that's actually sensible. (I don't believe NoScript is sensible - most users would just click "allow script" all the time if they hadn't installed it willingly themselves.)
2.) Extensions are generally not for "fixes" but for extra functionality not suitable to be included with the browser. For example, an extension might remove Adwords banners from websites.
3.) To qualify as "spam", something has to be irrelevant or inappropriate. Suggesting a more secure browser to help protect against insecure websites is neither irrelevant nor inappropriate.
4.) You mentioned some good browsers as alternatives to Firefox. I'd suggest using them rather than Internet Explorer. If you use Windows, stay safe: use Internet Explorer only for Microsoft Update.
5.) Out of curiosity, could you give good reason for not using Firefox?
For an ex-Windows user with no special accessibility/language requirements, Kubuntu may better fit the bill. KDE's default layout is more Windows-like and allows you to do more without opening terminal Windows.
That's memory bandwidth. 2 GB/s.
For PCs to qualify as Vista "capable", they need at least 512MB RAM. 1GB is considered "premium ready".
Until the last couple of years, most cheapo PCs came with only 256MB RAM. Upgrades are dirt cheap, though.