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Comment Re:Is there any competition? (Score 1) 187

Every game I've ever seen from Gameloft had absolutely no concept of gameplay... some actually as far as not being games at all, just something that resembles a game. Granted, I didn't see the NFL game... ... but just having 3D, playbooks and accurate rosters says nothing of the quality of the game as a game.

Comment Re:Security & Stability (Score 2, Interesting) 341

Linux doesn't have OLE, but they're still messing with implementing Bonobo, kpart, etc to re-create basically the same idea.

Plus, OpenOffice.org has it's own component system (UNO) which is very similar to OLE/COM, Mozilla has XUL which is also the same thing and you also have CORBA which is akin to DCOM (which is distributed OLE/COM). Components are not inherently less secure than normal applications... and even better, you have more granular control over their use (separate permissions for use, activation, instantiation, etc.)

It was ActiveX that gave a bad name to COM, but not because it's bad in itself, but rather because it was a poor idea to integrate it to web pages in the way it was done.

Comment Re:Not really... (Score 2) 267

Once upon a time I tried iTunes, hated it and uninstalled it. Then the Apple Updater tried to install it every time an update for Safari was available (I keep Safari up to date because I use it to test web sites I develop) and I diligently unchecked it every time and told it to ignore the update... that was until iTunes 9 which I accidentally forgot to uncheck and ended up installing. I went "what the heck, I'll give it another go" but went to WMP and made it the default player for MP3s, WAVs, etc. ... Then when iTunes 9.0.1 came out I updated it (just for security purpouses) and it configured itself once again as default handler for MP3s and other sound files.

I really hate Apple at times like this.

Comment Re:15 years old (Score 2, Informative) 759

From the article:

In the revised advisory, Microsoft explained why it won't patch Windows XP, the world's most popular operating system. "By default, Windows XP SP2, Windows XP SP3 and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition SP2 do not have a listening service configured in the client firewall and are therefore not affected by this vulnerability,

Microsoft has been selling Windows XP SP2 and SP3 for some time now. I really wouldn't expect them patching plain old XP.

Comment Re:Story meaning? (Score 1) 313

There are ways to measure lies in a survey. I'm not an expert, but when I took a statistics class it was explained, and as well as I remember:

- Instead of the 1.000 surveyed people separate a smaller group, say 100.
- Assume the last digit of their telephone numbers are uniformly distributed
- Ask them something along the lines of: "If you lied about file sharing or if the last digit of your phone number is an even number say YES, if not say NO"

If nobody lied you should get something close to 50% YES and 50% NO... but if the result is different you can assume it's because some of them lied (although you don't know which). ... Doing this kind of test you can approximate the percentage of people that would lie to the question.

Comment Re:Dark Tan? (Score 1) 964

If the same had been done here in Argentina it would have been completely understandable. Only in recent years we've started seeing more black people in Buenos Aires, and they're still very rare (they're very common in Uruguay, just across the pond... but it's said that argentine black people were killed in the war against Paraguay). Putting a black person in an ad is as representative of argentine people as putting an albino.

On the other hand we have a very large asian community. Mostly Korean and Chinese, AFAIK.

Comment Re:IE will still dominate (Score 1) 438

If they don't know enough about browsers to download an alternative themselves then they don't have a basis upon which to choose a browser from a list either. It'll go down to name, logo and brand (which might give a boost to Safari and Chrome over Opera and Firefox). If they don't understand why an alternative would be preferible to IE then they don't know enough to browse safely with any other browser either.

I remember, when I was young, installing SCO Unix and being offered an MTA (Sendmail and mdf I think) and being absolutely clueless about what to choose... so I went with sendmail (which I knew by name), which probably didn't do me any favors.

Comment Re:Because its a useles skill (Score 1) 921

Cursive makes much more sense with a quill, which is more suited for longer strokes. It *might* be faster with a fountain or biro, but it's not that much practical than printing.

I was taught cursive all through my primary school here in Argentina (ages 6-12) and quit when I got into high school and wasn't required to use it. Now I'm practicaly losing it, but don't really care as it was never too much to talk about anyway. I'd be interested in learning caligraphic cursive tough...

Comment USB or SATA? (Score 1) 611

I'm thinking of backing up to another hard drive and I'm torn between an external USB drive or another SATA disk. Considering I would probably (if we're being honest) leave the USB disk connected at all times (for a daily backup) with full knowledge that in the case of a fire it'd be toast along with the machine... is there any incentive to use USB over SATA? It's pricier and slower, right?

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