Comment Re:What do you expect? (Score 1) 470
No, the ones who allowed the development or purchase of IE-only apps are incompetent and don't deserve more money. They placed the organization in a very poor strategic position.
Comment Re:5 millions for color coding? (Score 1) 129
The same way America has turned into a 3rd world country? Oooh, scary.
Comment Am a smidgen disappointed (Score 1) 272
On reading this, was looking forward to snagging a copy if it is open source, as the current Windows open source text editor I use is not entirely to my liking.
No dice. This company has an interesting variation on open source:
"... To discourage piracy, a tiny but essential core (also containing the licensing code), will be kept private (at least until users reach a certain rating)."
Well, they got some free publicity on Slashdot at any rate.
Anyone recommend a good Windows editor? Not into vi/emacs style editors. Wordpad/Notepad do as a last resort, but are not designed for technical uses.
I use an IDE for code, but frequently need a programmers editor for data files or when using PCs other than my development box.
Textpad is shareware and may not have been bought at some companies. I found its Unicode support problematic in the past. Handles massive data files well though.
Notepad++ is free &open source, but a little rough around the edges in usability. Like many IDEs, it adds code folding to XML documents. When XML files are very large this is a problem due to the number of widgets that get created to support minimizing and maximizing each parent node. Notepad++ managed to crash the video drivers on one PC here, which is almost perversely impressive.
Comment Is this case a big deal? (Score 2) 311
Applets, you have heard of them?
When you install / upgrade Java, you get support for the latest Java runtime in your browser to run those applets. It has been thus since the olden times (the mid-nineties when Java was launched).
From the description, this is just a performance optimization so the runtime is loaded and you don't get a delay when there is an applet in the page.
Whether I am right about what the plugin does or not, installing / upgrading the Java Runtime Edition has always affected your browser.
Comment German names "von und zu" meaning? (Score 1) 513
I am not a German or a German-speaker, but most of in the English speaking world have seen "von" in front of a German surname. It seems similar to the suffix "son" in English/Scandinavian surnames or the prefix "Mac" in Irish/Scottish surnames.
However "von und zu" translates as "from and to". Does this refer to some inbreeding problem in the German aristocracy?
Microsoft To Exit the Zune Business? 361
thefickler writes "According to Microsoft's quarterly filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Zune platform experienced a revenue drop of 54 percent, or $100 million. This compares to relatively healthy sales of the iPod, which were up 3 percent in the same period (though revenue did drop by 16 percent). Obviously, with the recent job cuts at Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division, pundits are wondering how soon until the Zune also gets the chop. As one pundit wrote: 'Microsoft, by now, should be realizing that it's never going to be as "cool" as Apple, so why waste its time with the Zune where it has no competitive advantage?'"
Comment Re:Fail (Score 1) 558
Holy crap. Who brags about KLOCs (thousands of line of code) in 2008?
Are you an 80's IBM programmer timewarped to today?
I will take a guess that your 250 KLOCs would have been 50 KLOCs of more maintanable less redundant and probably more correct code from a better developer.
Submission + - Antivirus: A waste of 50% of your HD throughput? (codinghorror.com)
dwalsh writes: Are we wasting our (Windows) computers performance on a placebo? Jeff Atwood seems to think so:
"The performance cost of virus scanning (lose 50% of disk performance, plus some percent of CPU speed) does not justify the benefit of a 33% detection rate and marginal protection."
"Ask yourself this: why don't Mac users run anti-virus software? Why don't UNIX users run anti-virus software? Because they don't need to. They don't run as administrators."
The article is a criticism of AV as a blacklist approach, that mostly protects against last months viruses. How many Slashdot Windows users rely solely on a firewall, a decent web browser, and good common sense (like Momma used to make it) when it comes to attachments?
"The performance cost of virus scanning (lose 50% of disk performance, plus some percent of CPU speed) does not justify the benefit of a 33% detection rate and marginal protection."
"Ask yourself this: why don't Mac users run anti-virus software? Why don't UNIX users run anti-virus software? Because they don't need to. They don't run as administrators."
The article is a criticism of AV as a blacklist approach, that mostly protects against last months viruses. How many Slashdot Windows users rely solely on a firewall, a decent web browser, and good common sense (like Momma used to make it) when it comes to attachments?
Bookmark Huge gallery of Apple iPhone Stylish Skins (ifastnet.com)
Should Chimps Have Human Rights? 1019
An anonymous reader writes "A Brazilian court has already issued a writ of habeas corpus in the name of a chimp. And now an Austrian court may well decide that a chimpanzee is a 'person' with what up until now have been called human rights." From the story in the Guardian/Observer: "He recognizes himself in the mirror, plays hide-and-seek and breaks into fits of giggles when tickled. He is also our closest evolutionary cousin. A group of world leading primatologists argue that this is proof enough that Hiasl, a 26-year-old chimpanzee, deserves to be treated like a human. In a test case in Austria, campaigners are seeking to ditch the 'species barrier' and have taken Hiasl's case to court. If Hiasl is granted human status — and the rights that go with it — it will signal a victory for other primate species and unleash a wave of similar cases."
Gran Paradiso Alpha 3 187
kbrosnan writes "Gran Paradiso Alpha 3 is a release of the Gecko rendering engine for testing purposes only. Here are the release notes. While this release uses the interface of Firefox, no significant interface changes have been made. These alpha releases focus on making improvements to the core elements: graphics, JavaScript, page rendering, etc."
