Full disclosure: I work for a company that uses these types of ads.

We use Akamai to serve up these kinds of ads. Believe it or not, most internet traffic goes through Akamai at some point, so when they decide to cookie you, they can find you just about anywhere. From the advertiser's point of view, it makes sense. Only between 2% and 5% of visits result in sales. So, by hitting you with these ads, they're trying to get a second chance at that business.

But if the question whether is whether I'd rather see an ad for some random diet that doesn't work, or some other scam, or to see an ad for a website that I willingly chose to go to, I'll take the latter any day.

As for the particular case of that woman and the pair of shoes, I wouldn't advertise for a particular pair of shoes, but then again, being a shoe company, they may have a better insight into the shopping mind of a woman.

Just be glad that these ads are being served up based on some fact. The fact that you visited that site previously. I think that's better than them trying to build a profile of me based on sites I've visited, and then trying to sell me running gear or viagra.

~Aero2600

simply for being the youngest and therefore least mature in their classes.

A million misdiagnosed just because they're younger? Wait until they start looking into how many kids are misdiagnosed because they're too smart and not being challenged by our schools that are set up to cater to the lowest common denominator.

I was misdiagnosed with ADD as a kid. Turns out, I was just bored out of my fucking skull. Second, third, and fourth grades were the hardest for me because the material should have been covered in one year, not three. Some schools have realized this and starting pulling the smart kids out of 'general population' and putting them in their own curriculum track which is much more challenging.

That's what they should look into

Aero2600

I'm going to have to disagree with this, caveats aside. Whether or not you can assume your web users have HTML5 and CSS3 depends on your website's specific traffic. For example, I work for a fairly popular e-commerce store. We averaged in excess of 100k+ visits a day in the past month. 20.1% of that traffic was using IE7 or IE6, and 5.2% of our traffic was specifically IE6. That's over half a million visits in the past month from users running IE6 or IE7. Can we assume that our users have HTML5 and CSS3? Only if we can tell them to fuck off and that we really don't want their money. IE6 and IE7 will have to be less than 1% combined of our traffic before we can start using HTML5 and CSS3, in our individual case.

~Aero2600

I used to be a certified electronics calibration technician, and I've never noticed a difference between the analog and the digital.

If $2k is your budget, and not having any idea what you're going to be using it for, I highly recommend a handheld Fluke. They were just as reliable as the old analog ones, but with more features.

This is the model I'm referring to:

Fluke 125
Official Fluke 125 page

aero2600

The answer to your question depends on your boss, actually. I've found that there are generally two types of bosses: The better kind that are intelligent, do things right, and get shit done; and the crap kind, whom are generally idiots, don't care about doing things right, and are only out to make themselves look good.

So, if you have an intelligent boss, here's your advice:
An intelligent boss respects good communication and honesty. If you inform your boss enough about the projects and solutions you are working on, he'll have a better idea of the status of whatever project you are working on. If he can answers basic questions from the 'customer' without having to bother you, you're doing it right. I find my boss greatly enjoys that I keep him informed enough about my projects that he lets me operate pretty much unsupervised. Second, always be honest, especially with your boss. If you're having a problem with someone's crap code, make sure he knows about your impediment. If you've run into a tricky problem that will take time to figure out, or you've made a mistake that's going to cause to take longer on your project, be honest with him. A late project with an honest explanation is so much better than a late project with no explanation or an on-time project that has subtle flaws that will inevitably cause problems. Lastly, be flexible. We all know it's difficult to drop what you're doing and work on something else, but your boss is generally not the one setting priorities. If he asks you to drop what you're doing, do it, and if the change of direction will cost time, let him know, politely.

Now, if you have a crap boss, here's some advice:
Keep your mouth shut, keep your head down, do what you're told, and if your boss hasn't been replaced with a better one after two years, get those resumes out. A shitty boss will do everything in his power to make sure you can't advance.

That's all I got.
~Aero

I'm a web developer for a top 100 online retailer. I hate IE6 like most of you. I realize that IE6 has caused millions of man-hours lost on a global scale. I also know that I was hired and paid well because of my expertise in working around IE6's many flaws. But it what boils down to is money.

In the past month, according to our Google Analytics, we have had 5,279,955 visits. That's visits, not pageviews. Of those 5.2m visits, 3,716,805, or 70.39% were users running some form of IE with javascript enabled. (no javascript, no countie) Of that 70.39%, 12.73% were running IE6. That's 473,168 visits from customers using IE6 in the past month. That's about 8.96% of our total traffic. Would we like to stop supporting IE6? Certainly. Would we like to encourage IE6 users to upgrade to a better browser? Certainly. Can we tell 473,168 users that we don't want their fucking money? Absolutely fucking not.

So, as much as we hate IE6, we'll make damn sure that our stores look good in IE6 because it's about the money.

-- aero2600

Hold on.

You don't have to support IE? I must know what this job is. Please? I do not wish to become known as the IE Developer Serial Killer. What do you do for a living? Seriously. I would take a 20% pay cut to not have to support IE.

Aero

P.S. I can't believe anyone still uses table for layouts. GP is a troll.

More options is always a good thing.

But I can't imagine HTML 5 being capable of something like this.

Aero

The easy solution: Just use Google.

Aero

Disclaimer: I 'do HTML' for a living and get paid well too.

I've always used 'Web Developer' or 'UI Developer' for a title, but 'UI Engineer' does have a nice ring to it. First off, no one is going to pay anyone to just 'do HTML'. Writing HTML, even well formed XHTML Strict compliant HTML is not that complicated. I wouldn't pay someone to just write HTML. It's the extras that count. CSS expertise, including cross browser incompatibilities and work-arounds, make a 'Web Developer'. Extensive knowledge of Javascript libraries, events, and cross-browser incompatibilities make a 'Web Developer'. Working knowledge of PHP, Perl, C#, Java, and a host of templating engines and content management systems make a 'Web Developer'. My little sister can 'do HTML'. You should see her MySpace page. You hire a 'Web Developer' or 'UI Engineer' when you want to have that professional appearance for your website, properly search engine optimized and 508 accessibility compliant. The website that works in all browsers, degrades nicely for the older browser crowd, and is still cutting edge enough to do all the fancier stuff that's now considered 'Web 2.0'. </rant>

So what do call a people that 'do HTML'? Interns.

Aero

According to who? Everyone has different numbers. I can pull some out my ass that make Firefox #1, or Firefox #4.

Who is the authority on browser percentages?

Aero

So, being a web developer, the first thing I did after seeing this news was look for the standalone version of IE8, so that I can run it next to IE7 and test in both. No such luck. So I called their support line, and spoke to some guy in India with a fake American-sounding name, who told me that I couldn't run IE7 and IE8 at the same time. He's probably right, if you discount the Virtual PC option.

So can anyone out there point me at a free virtual PC image that runs IE7 or IE8 so that I can do my QA work? Or to a standalone version of IE8?

Thanks in advance.

Wait a second here.. the RFID licenses are $30 more expensive than regular licenses, yet the residents have the option to get the cheaper RFID-free license? Who's going to choose to willingly pay more to be tracked more effectively?

Let me guess. The state isn't telling them that they can choose to get the cheaper older style of license? Brilliant!

Aero