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Comment Re:Missing what?? (Score 1) 556

If you fill the width with tabs, you end up with about a slightly less than 2/3-sized title bar. Of course, if you only have 1 or 2 tabs open, you end up with about a 1.5x-height title bar for a portion of the window. Additionally, the window function buttons are the smaller size of the title bar.

Comment Re:of all the things to copy from Chrome (Score 1) 556

Umm grabbing and moving the tab does not do the same thing as grabbing and moving the title bar, and double-clicking the tab appears to do nothing. If I manage to grab the small space above the tab I get the functionality I would expect from the title bar, but that makes for a much smaller than usual target.

Of course, if you sit around with your browser in full screen mode all day, the only one of these that applies is double-clicking the bar.

Comment Re:Tabs on top, do it NOW! (Score 1) 556

I usually use multiple applications side-by-side on a widescreen monitor, or multiple MDI windows side-by-side within a larger window maximized to the screen. While I can understand the use of the vertical space, I find it more useful for using applications full-screen than for my personal use scenarios, and when I do full-screen an app it usually is to run video ;)

Comment Re:Looks like a typical IT contractor job.. (Score 1) 207

Of course, in-house resources can screw things up badly too, but high-dollar consulting/contracting deals seem to have a special knack for it. Some places have great results with outsourcing/contracting, but others make it impossible to get high-quality work done in a reasonable time.

I'd be interested in hearing from an MBA-type about what the actual rationale for hiring third party IT help is. I know it's usually driven by raw costs and the fact that "IT's not strategic." But what is it that's actually taught in business school that has every executive that drives the whole outsourcing push? Or is it really just "my golf buddy is doing it at his company."?

Disclaimer: In the government case, I can definitely see the need for contract help. Projects would probably have a really hard time surviving administration changes, internal squabbles, etc.

I'm not an MBA type, but I have a pretty good idea about these issues.
1) High-dollar consulting/contracting deals are usually made to handle things that have the in-house people scratching their heads, or that appear to be harder to do and are usually ill-defined in the first place. Usually it's the combination of a moving target and trying to do something that may actually be difficult that screws up these types of projects, but there's also the chance that the consultant or contractor was less competent than they let the client believe.

2) Generally the idea for outsourcing is that you go to a fairly reputable consultant firm that says they can get you the expertise you need to get the job done, without having to hire someone that you don't think you'll need after the job is finished. One of the big problems here, though, is that someone usually has to maintain these systems after the consultant is gone, and no one understands it if it was setup by an outside entity.

3) In the case of government work, these problems are just as bad when they contract the work out, because the government often expects to be able to change what they're asking for after the contract is signed. The terms are usually vague enough that they can get away with it, but if their feet are held to the fire and someone managed to get a contract that works in their favor when holding the government to it, the government ends up with something that doesn't do what they had originally wanted because no one bothered to do the analysis necessary to determine what needed to be done. Of course, if it were left up to the government workers themselves, there's a good chance nothing would ever change, which is part of the reason government contractors have such a hard time in the first place (since they're an outside entity bringing unwanted change, there will be little or no cooperation from the people that could help things go smoothly).

Comment Re:Anti-Slashdot Effect (Score 1) 408

Most of the "holes" have been evolved out of the language, rather than there being any significant chance of it evolving to fill them. Almost every language that's had an influence on the English language had one or more of the missing features, and many of them even made it into English, but have long since been deprecated, as someone mentioned below with "thou", "thee", and "thine". Another instance would be the insistence on the part of some people to call certain objects "she" or "he" instead of "it", despite English having dropped the feminine and masculine references for objects.

Comment Re:Anti-Slashdot Effect (Score 1) 408

Some people will address an individual as "y'all", though, despite most of us wanting to use "y'all" as a plural of "you".

In that sense, "all y'all" would be a plural of "y'all", though I generally concur that it's more common to here it used for emphasis rather than as a plural form, similar to the way people might use "all of you" as opposed to just "you" when asking a group of people to do something.

Comment Re:Most SHOULD NOT think about security... (Score 1) 216

Actually, one of the problems is that it's non-trivial for most users to even discover that the security of their system has been compromised, on any operating system, until it's far too late (or has been compromised in so many different ways that the system succumbs and fails to function in the expected manner).

If someone comes along and steals your car, it's not there when you get back. If they steal the car stereo, there's probably glass all over the place and the stereo's gone. Even if the take it for a joy ride and return it there may be clues, like the position of the seat and mirrors, the odometer reading, the amount of gas in the car, or a change in the position in which it is parked.

If your computer becomes part of a botnet, the best thing for the controlling interests to do is make sure that it's very hard to tell that your computer is infected. A virus or worm might sit on the machine for months infecting other systems before finally unleashing a destructive payload, for the simple reason that this makes it more effective. Tracking malware will hide itself in order to have more time on the system to gain more information for the advertisers that bought the information.

So the most effective, and damaging for the overall security of the network, forms of malware are those that are hardest to find. If the system doesn't tell you that there's suspicious behavior going on, and most users don't know how to see what processes are running on their system (and don't know what processes should be running on their system), then all of the security looks like hand waving, because they don't see a difference between the compromised and secure systems.

Half of the functionality in security products is alerting the user to potentially harmful activity taking place on their computer or network. Of course end users hate when these alerts get in their face and require action on their part, so if they're given a chance to disable them, they do so. The trick is alerting the user without annoying the user, and making it easier to disable a security warning when it's being overly paranoid than it is to disable the entire security system.

My simple analogy is not for a car, but rather my house: if I had to use the older style of home alarm system where I keyed in a security code and then attempted to exit the house while it armed itself, or come into the house and key in the code before the alarm went off, I would never use it. I'd rather depend on the keys that are only effective against those that would probably be stopped just as easily by the fact the door is closed. However, since my house's alarm has a keychain remote like most cars do, it's a simple matter of locking up the house and arming or disarming from outside. Additionally, the alarm is obnoxiously obvious when someone opens/breaks a window, trips a motion sensor, or opens a door. There's simply no chance of someone getting into the house without me knowing it unless they find a way to bypass the system.

Bypassing the system may turn out to be fairly easy for someone that knows how to do so, I really don't know. However, the system is there to handle a higher percentage of possible intruders than the simple lock that my wife can bypass in 30 seconds or less.

Make it easier for the user to understand what is really going on behind the scenes on their machines. Let them see the network traffic, where it's going, and what processes are using it. Make it easy for them to figure out what is supposed to be running on their system and what is not.

Comment Re:Most people simply don't think about security (Score 1) 216

It's not quite the same as trying to educate a whole office full of users with different ideas and levels of knowledge about computer security, but my wife has taken quite well to basic home user computer security in a way I never really expected to see from someone that didn't grow up with it. She still needs a little work in regards to browser use (Firefox vs. IE) and the sites she visits (coupon sites are evil), but the basics of dealing with email and attachments, clicking on suspicious links, and keeping reasonable passwords on most of her accounts have set in pretty well.

Of course, she also doesn't have to spend much time on a completely open internet connection, either.

Comment Re:Excessive Marketing (Score 1) 442

I don't work for EA, I'm just going on the fact that people still buy their garbage. Why do people keep buying the crap they produce if they're unhappy with the product? The easiest way to get the message across to them is to stop giving them money. Sure, they'll blame it on piracy, but if you're not buying and not pirating their games, let them play the blame game until they find themselves being bought up by someone else.

Comment Re:Skill Development (Score 1) 286

Teach your kid that it's important to maintain a high degree of accuracy when typing and you won't have these problems. FOaD and ESaD were favorites when I was in Jr. high, and we certainly didn't have texting or IM.

Of course, my handwriting is terrible, and though I used computers most of my life I didn't learn to type quickly (and with more than 2 fingers per hand) until I was in my twenties. Both my handwriting and my typing are better than my father's, though.

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