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Comment Re:All the more reason (Score 4, Insightful) 185

The new TLDs are a cash grab and nothing more. Not only for ICANN, but for every company that manages to buy up a gTLD.

Basically, the people buying up these gTLDs are hoping to cash in on companies wanting to register .searchterm domains. Which, in my books, is nonsense. I don't trust any of these new domains to be anything but spam traps and phishing expeditions. Given the options in search results, I would always go to the .com, .org, or .net address over a gTLD.

Comment Pen/stylus tablets? (Score 1) 164

I'd think using pen/stylus tablets to scribble diagrams and then emailing or messaging those amongst the team members would be about as good as you can get, unless you can find a software package that would let the people share a drawing space using individual tablets. I've long wanted to get one of the Samsung tablets just for that purpose.

Comment What *is* their market? (Score 3, Insightful) 59

Given that iOS and Android can and do encrypt user data now, and that web device communications encryption is largely a question of whether a site uses SSL/HTTPS, what is the distinguishing feature of these phones that would make them marketable?

To me it looks like pure marketing hype, not a real benefit compared to other devices now that they've started using encryption.

Comment The black box is a trap (Score 1) 158

The problem with black-box programming is that it's a trap. Far more often than anyone cares to admit, the black box implements functionality in an unreliable or inefficient manner. When you're dealing with code that you wrote yourself, you can correct that behaviour of the "grey" box. But with a third-party black box, all you can do is file a bug report and hope that someone can not only replicate the problem, but that they'll give it high enough priority to fix it before you retire or your project is cancelled.

The worst culprit for black box problems are frameworks of all kinds. Some say you're not a "real programmer" until you've written your own framework. I firmly believe that's true, because what is a reusable code base on a large project except a custom framework?

The difference between a custom framework and an off-the-shelf one is that your custom framework is designed and coded with your project in mind, to service the bulk of your project's needs while maintaining enough flexibility to deal with the exceptional cases of your project. A third party black box framework is pretty much never designed that way. It was designed to serve the needs of someone else's conceptual or real project, then tweaked and adapted to serve needs it wasn't originally designed for, and finally unleashed on an unsuspecting world as "the next big thing."

A pox upon frameworks, I say. Design a solid object model, code to it, use it, and get over the fact that you're going to have to write some code.

At least if you wrote the code, you can fix it. Without worrying about whether some upstream integrator will deign to consider your "fix" worthy of integration to the mainstream code. Without having to wait for someone else to replicate, analyze, prioritize, schedule, implement, and test a fix for your problem.

Realistically, any half decent custom framework isn't going to be more than 10% of your total code base anyhow. "Framework" is just a fancy term for what was called for decades "application library."

Comment Was it ever alive? (Score 1) 163

I knew a lot of people who had the controllers for those types of games over the years, which they'd either bought along with their consoles in bundles, or been given by relatives. But not once in my life did I ever see anyone actually play games like "Guitar Hero." Not once.

Yet I knew over a dozen people who had the controllers.

I wonder what percentage of those overpriced components sat gathering dust, never to be used after the novelty wore off in the first couple of weeks?

Comment Re:MS can't give up decades old practice (Score 5, Informative) 132

Here are the steps to have infinite grace period with Windows 7 -- no 3rd party tools required!

Reboot
press F8 at startup
Repair Computer
System Recovery Options: Keyboard: US
Username/Password
(you will see: Windows found on Drive ?:)
Command Prompt
win7_reset.bat
exit
Reboot

The contents of: win7_reset.bat

reg load HKLM\MY_SYSTEM "\Windows\System32\config\system"
reg delete HKLM\MY_SYSTEM\WPA /f
reg unload HKLM\MY_SYSTEM

And on reboot,

Command Prompt
Right-click, Run as administrator
win7_reg.bat

Contents of: win7_reg.bat

slmgr /upk
slmgr /cpky
REM Default keys for Window s7
REM Home Premium
REM slmgr /ipk RHPQ2-RMFJH-74XYM-BH4JX-XM76F
REM Professional
slmgr /ipk HYF8J-CVRMY-CM74G-RPHKF-PW487
REM Ultimate
REM slmgr /ipk D4F6K-QK3RD-TMVMJ-BBMRX-3MBMV

Comment Re:MAKE SOMETHING NEW! (Score 4, Interesting) 163

Absolutely agree! How Rock Band jumped the shark ...

1. In Rock Band 1 you could slow the practice speed down to 50% speed. In Rock Band 3 some idiot designer raised this to 70%!? WTF? I'm trying to _learn_ the song. Allow me to slow this down to _25%_ for some of those songs.

2. Give me an option to show me the notes in _actual_ music notation so I can **learn to read music**. I _want_ to see the notes in Treble Cleff and/or Bass Clef.

Color-coding the music was brilliant. Teachers even used it to _actually_ teach students!

3. For the love of god use a _standard_ USB connection.

Stop locking me into your shitty proprietary vendor lock-in peripherals. If I buy a guitar, drums, or keyboard it should work across ALL games and ALL platforms: Xbox360, Xbone, PS3, PS4.

4. Stop the bullshit "No Export" option. WTF can't I export it from Rock Band 2 and import it into Rock Band 3 if I own *both* ??

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

5. Provide the band's famous song(s) not their shitty unknown songs of bands we love.

Why can't we buy Journey's "Any Way You Want It"?? We're stuck with the crappy: "Don't Stop Believing"

And now we can't even buy that??

* http://www.rockbandaide.com/20...

Greed ruined the music games.

Comment The *first* thing I uninstall is McAfee (Score 2) 210

The first thing I uninstall is McAfee. That piece of crap wedges in a VB script interpreter that breaks many of the software installers I have to put on my machines to make them useful. THE worst anti-virus product ever.

It also claims that SAP/Sybase ASE is infected, and deletes critical files from the install.

Submission + - Google allows porn on Blogger after backlash (cnn.com)

mpicpp writes: In a reversal, Google says that porn will continue to be allowed on its Blogger site.
Google said it has received a big backlash after deciding earlier in the week that bloggers will no longer be able to "publicly share images and video that are sexually explicit or show graphic nudity." The ban was to have taken place on March 23.

Instead, Google said that the company would simply double down on its crackdown of bloggers who use their sites to sell porn.
In July, Google stopped porn from appearing in its online ads that appear on Blogger. And in 2013, Google decided to remove blogs from its Blogger network that contained advertisements for online porn sites.
"We've had a ton of feedback, in particular about the introduction of a retroactive change (some people have had accounts for 10+ years), but also about the negative impact on individuals who post sexually explicit content to express their identities," wrote Jessica Pelegio, Google's social product support manager, in a post on Google product forums. "So rather than implement this change, we've decided to step up enforcement around our existing policy prohibiting commercial porn."

Comment "Mr. Spock" is everywhere today (Score 3, Insightful) 411

I find it gratifying to see that Mr. Nimoy is being remembered on every website and feed that I've visited today. And not merely remembered, but remembered by more people than I've ever seen pay tribute at the same time. Even the passing of Robin Williams wasn't marked with as many posts and comments.

RIP, Leonard.

Comment Sickening (Score 1) 187

It's absolutely sickening how many trolls have responded to this topic with comments about people "just wanting attention" or the world being better off without them, and other such tripe.

The absolute cruelty and judgementalism of people who've never dealt with chronic depression or mental illness is just shameful.

This is the "intelligent" commentary of slashdot nowadays?

Man has this place ever gone down hill. How I long for the days of harmless "trolls" posting comments about Natalie Portman and hot grits, which did nothing more than annoy instead of being outright mean, spiteful, and hurtful.

Submission + - Australia's piracy crackdown will hurt everyone (playerattack.com)

dotarray writes: You're about to pay even more to get online in Australia, as major ISPs band together to crack down on internet piracy. Even if everything you download is legal, you'll still be slugged with the bill — and while the focus is on TV shows, movies and music, video games are next in the firing line.

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