Slashdot Mirror


User: MazzThePianoman

MazzThePianoman's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
91
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 91

  1. How about Web Standards? on IE9 Throws Down the Hardware Acceleration Gauntlet · · Score: 1

    Speed is useless if you are still wasting the time of every Web developer by not meeting Web standards. It costs everyone in time and money to build a Web site. Both Safari and Chrome pass the ACID test flawlessly. IE should stop being an exception.

  2. Re:Shadowbane on Why Are There No Popular Ultima Online-Like MMOs? · · Score: 1

    I have to agree. I played Shadowbane and despite how buggy it was it was the best MMO experience I ever had. It encouraged active role-playing and political intrigue. The bugs could of been solved if they used an existing engine and not trying to write one themselves for the first time. As far as group/faction/alliance balance I believe if the mod were more active on the server with events, appearances of gods, etc. They could help equalize things. Sadly the game was closed down as Wolfpack Studios was bought out.

  3. Avoid Globat on Things To Look For In a Web Hosting Company? · · Score: 1

    From experience I have learned even a great webhost can go downhill quickly. I was orignally with Globat for a number of years without issues then they started doing things like signing you up for addons that charged you more money if you did not opt out. Their customer support was worthless and barely could speak english. The worst was when I tried to cancel my subscription. They had a dedicated cancellation phone line only open for certain hours and when I called on three occations it was not staffed! After calling and letting it ring for half an hour someone finally picked up but by then my auto-renew charged me for another month. After two months of them saying I would get a refund I called my credit card and had them issue a charge back. For a few years now I have been with Hostgator but I have also heard good things about Bluehost as well.

  4. 3G phone without 3G? on Google's Nexus One, a Steal At $49 Unlocked? · · Score: 1

    http://coverage.t-mobile.com/default.aspx?MapType=Data If you are happy with 2-3 times the speed of dialup then go for it. T-Mobile only has 3G in a few select large cities. Cripples the phone in my opinion. Even AT&T has much much better 3G coverage. And Verizon throws Rev-A (3G) on all their towers which is why they have been winning the "map wars" recently.

  5. Be Careful Now on How To Vet Clever Ideas Without Giving Them Away? · · Score: 1

    Be careful when and where you give out such ideas. Some hiring practices and some colleges make you sign away your intellectual property rights if any portion of them required resources by said party making you sign on the dotted line.

  6. This is only a start on Internet Astroturfer Fined $300,000 · · Score: 1

    Web Hosting is one area where they are going to have a field day with. I recently left a horrible webhost (double-billing, not staffing cancellation lines, technical support staff on shotty VOIP lines that hardly speak English) and know they only survive because of fake reviews and of the like.

  7. Re:You are asking the wrong question. on RAID Trust Issues — Windows Or a Cheap Controller? · · Score: 2, Informative

    Having run RAID quite a bit myself one must remember having all your drives in one box is always an invitation for trouble since hardware failures on a higher order will likely hit all the drives.

    If you want to do online backup get DSL instead of cable internet for the faster upload bandwidth.

    Get a backup service with versioning. That way if you or a virus delete something it just doesn't sync the deletion to your backup.

    I personally use JungleDisk which uses Amazon S3 storage. You can set the versioning controls and you only pay for the storage/bandwidth you use. My bill averages about $2/mo for several gigs.

  8. Find something better on Buying a Domain From a Cybersquatter · · Score: 1

    You are much better off finding something unique. I did, it uses two actual words, and it is not used by anybody except one guy as as a user name in a few places. Just Google things until it draws a blank.

  9. Maybe they are going after BB instead of Apple on Palm Kills Community Before It Begins · · Score: 1

    While the number of applications available for Blackberry has been growing their success was not because of the number of applications but the quality of the core system, phone/email/web etc. Instead of going after Apple and their app store Palm might rather be wanting to specialize, like Blackberry did, to refine, and dominate the business user market with good core functionality.

  10. Good for them on Australian Gov't Offers $560k Cryptographic Protocol For Free · · Score: 1

    It is nice to see a little social responsibility out there. More people should read up and adopt similar business models such as Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream which is proof one can be both successful and socially responsible in business.

  11. Re:Monoprice has been good for me on Handmade vs. Commercially Produced Ethernet Cables · · Score: 1

    Yes multiple occasions and I have been very impressed at the quality. I found out about them from the home theater expert they have on a technology podcast done by Leo Laporte, the tech guy from G4 tv back when the channel was good.

  12. Monoprice has been good for me on Handmade vs. Commercially Produced Ethernet Cables · · Score: 1

    I have been getting both ethernet and audio cables at http://www.monoprice.com/ . They are dirt cheap but also have been better quality than cables 10 times as expensive in box stores. I would recommend buying instead of making just for the fact that somebody might break one and blame you instead of their own abuse.

  13. Democracy on NASA Names Space Station Treadmill After Colbert · · Score: 1

    Nice to know the front lines of human-kind showed at least a little democracy.....

  14. Why do people still use Norton? on Norton Users Worried By PIFTS.exe, Stonewalling By Symantec · · Score: 1

    Yes I heard it has gotten better over years but I still see computer after computer crippled by their bloated software. It wouldn't surprise me if it was a rootkit of some sort which was used in older versions of Systemworks.

    I got rid of Norton after I saw such a huge hit I was taking on startup time and hard drive access time. If you check comparatives on anti-virus products you'll find many offer the same or better protection without the performance hit.

    Personally I have been very happy with Nod32 by ESET. Its startup is slower on my personal vs. work machine and I had to have it exclude some areas for false positives but overall it has been very efficient.

  15. I hand code on Dreamweaver Is Dying; Long Live Drupal! · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I have opened up Dreamweaver a few times but prefer doing things by hand in Notepad++. There are plenty of free and open bulletproof css templates for getting the basic layout of any site started and from there diving into your own code helps you better understand what you are doing. I am sure Dreamweaver has its own crowd but between a good CMS and hand coding I have never felt behind the curve.

  16. Re:I just emailed their speaker of the house. on Oklahoma, Vatican Take Opposite Tacks On Evolution · · Score: 1

    Yep, and I do not care. I got my point across all before my workstation finished squashing some PDF files together for work. I am allowed one missing spacebar depression if they are allowed to waste the taxpayers time with this crap. :)

  17. I just emailed their speaker of the house. on Oklahoma, Vatican Take Opposite Tacks On Evolution · · Score: 1

    chrisbenge@okhouse.gov
    subject: you are making national news

    Dear Chris,

    It might be good for you to note that your debate on House Bill 1015 is resulting in a mockery of your entire house.

    http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/06/1726211

    Are you aware that the Vatican sponsoring a five day conference to mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species. The subject is the compatibility of evolution and creation.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7920205.stm

    You understand the bill itself is a contradiction?

    The resolution begins:

    "WHEREAS, the University of Oklahoma is a publicly funded institution which should be open to all ideas and should train students in all disciplines of study and research and to use independent thinking and free inquiry..."

    By paragraph THREE it is condemning Dawkins for:

    "views that are not shared and are not representative of the thinking of a majority of the citizens of Oklahoma"

    I do not know if you support or do not support this bill but asspeaker you might want consider stopping this nonsense before more of the American people give up on the government's ability for rational thought.

  18. Thanks for proving Darwin wrong on Oklahoma, Vatican Take Opposite Tacks On Evolution · · Score: 1

    Thanks for proving Darwin long because people like that are obviously not evolving our species and our ability for rational thought.

  19. Re:Do we want 'normal users' to do web development on Open Source Usability — Joomla! Vs. WordPress · · Score: 1

    A CMS, including Wordpress, pretty much provide all of that as long as the users keep their passwords reasonable and safe. There are a lot of small businesses and professionals out there that do not need all the backend of Joombla or Drupal. Wordpress is perfectly suited for those who want an accessible and slick looking site that easy to edit and maintain. There is even a great caching plugin that makes them very resistant if pegged by Digg etc.

  20. Re:Who uses Wordpress for Web development??? on Open Source Usability — Joomla! Vs. WordPress · · Score: 3, Informative
  21. Wordpress on Open Source Usability — Joomla! Vs. WordPress · · Score: 2, Informative

    I looked at both Joomla! and Drupal but settled on Wordpress as a basis for setting up some freelance web development jobs. It was much easier to build a custom template from scratch by backwards engineering the default and customizing everything.

    And for those who think it is only for blogs needs to look around a little. For example http://autoshows.ford.com/ is Wordpress.

  22. Re:Open does not make them any better on Industry Open-Sources Model For Infamous CDS · · Score: 1

    But would they insure the whole house or just their materials and cost of the loss of work? Would they ensure a house they had no association with? Also when you get actual insurance the insurance company has to by law have at least a certain amount of backing to be able to make payout. The idea of insurance is good for explaining CDSs but the details make them fundamentally different than insurance.

    The problem with CDSs is that it does not take a wholesale breakdown. Just the fall of one large bank can trigger multiple CDS payouts. This is because most places that bought CDSs also sold them. This weaving of CDS contracts bought and sold between large banks worldwide created a domino situation where when one fell the other could follow as the CDS payouts snowballed.

    Allowing $50 trillion of payout on $5 trillion worth of interconnected stocks and securities is not useful, it is damn right foolish and is the root problem with the economy today.

  23. Re:Open does not make them any better on Industry Open-Sources Model For Infamous CDS · · Score: 1

    Yes but it kind of upset me that it did not explain anything about CDSs except that they were sold on the securities created from the sub-prime mortgages.

    What I find almost as absurd as CDSs themselves is the fact that the mainstream public and news is not really talking about them. Try searching CNN or FOX and you get almost nothing. Only 60 Minutes, NPR and some other more financial focused new outlets have made it known that the mortgage crisis is only one of my fuses of this bigger bomb. I do not even hear the politicians talking about it which scare me a lot.

  24. Open does not make them any better on Industry Open-Sources Model For Infamous CDS · · Score: 3, Interesting

    CDSs, priced with open software or not, are the ticking time bomb of the world economy. Nothing better than bookie betting they have created an inflated payout of $50 trillion dollars worldwide that only takes the fall of a few big banks to start. I highly recommend listening this episode of "This American Life" which explains this situation and how it happened in terms just about anybody can understand. http://www.thislife.org/radio_episode.aspx?sched=1263

  25. Re:About Time! on Norwegian Websites Declare War On IE 6 · · Score: 1

    I would love to do that but I also love box models and some of the neat CSS I have incorporating lately. While IE6 is a pain trying to emulate css with php would be even more of a pain for me right now. IE6 is a pain but I do not want to give up perfectly standard compliant CSS because of one browser. The more people do that the less it will be supported. CSS3 is going to have some really cool stuff so anything to show the industry that standards are required will be better in the long run.