Comment Killing DNS (Score 2) 232
Egypt turned off the internet by shutting down the DNS servers.
It is extremely useful to have public DNS servers memorized. Google:
8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4
Comment Sampling can be good (Score 2, Insightful) 321
Google and Facebook both use these "intermediate steps" to weed out malware infested sites and warn the user. Sampling can also be useful in judging if something is NSFW, or more importantly, rickrolling prevention.
Comment Re:What will Obama do ? (Score 1) 465
The Senate voted earlier, NY Times story here. It passed 68-29.
Obama voted AGAINST it (McCain voted for it).
Obama voted AGAINST it (McCain voted for it).
Feed Microsoft Attacks Google on Copyright (nytimes.com)
The Microsoft Corporation has prepared a blistering attack on rival Google, arguing that the Web search leader takes a cavalier approach to copyright protection.
Journal Journal: Novel Releases Microsoft Office XML Converter
Everyone is announcing Novel's release of their promissed OOXML converter for Open Office (Word only). The package requirements are Novel branded Office on Linux or Windows. Their server is not responding and there are no real reviews yet, so
Novell Releases OO–OOXML Translator 157
Tookis writes in with news that Novell has released an Office Open XML (OOXML) translator for OpenOffice.org. The article argues that, though this move may represent a nail in the coffin of the franchise known as Microsoft Office, and therefore a Good Thing, what is truly needed is a fully supported Evolution on Windows.
Journal Journal: Mac's advice: write down your password on a paper 1
Submission + - Microsoft gets ownd by its own Windows OneCare
Stony Stevenson writes: Microsoft has launched a marketing campaign that lets any student from an Australian university buy the Ultimate edition of Office 2007 (usually costs $1150) for only $75. A discount of about 93%. But when users go to the site, Microsoft Live OneCare pops up saying the site is a potential phishing scam.
From the article: When entering the site, some users have reported receiving a warning from Windows Live OneCare advising that the www.itsnotcheating.com.au site is a suspicious website.
The warning reads: "Phishing filter has determined this might be a phishing website. We recommend that you do not give any of your information to such websites. Phishing websites impersonate trustworthy websites for the purpose of obtaining your personal or financial information."
A Microsoft spokesperson said the company was unaware of the warning but pledged to amend it as soon as possible.
From the article: When entering the site, some users have reported receiving a warning from Windows Live OneCare advising that the www.itsnotcheating.com.au site is a suspicious website.
The warning reads: "Phishing filter has determined this might be a phishing website. We recommend that you do not give any of your information to such websites. Phishing websites impersonate trustworthy websites for the purpose of obtaining your personal or financial information."
A Microsoft spokesperson said the company was unaware of the warning but pledged to amend it as soon as possible.
Submission + - The Book of JavaScript
Michael J. Ross writes: "Developers of Web sites, whether professional programmers or Web hobbyists, are oftentimes impressed by the more advanced functionality that can be achieved on a Web page using JavaScript. Yet these personal discoveries of JavaScript's power do not always motivate the developers to implement similar functionality on their own sites — partly because most of those custom-built JavaScript functions are cryptic, and make no attempt to show how the developer would customize the code for their own use. The majority of JavaScript books are of limited help in this regard, because they focus on the language details, illustrated only with code snippets. Many readers would benefit more from instruction via working examples, which is the approach used by The Book of JavaScript.
The book was written by David Thau, a.k.a. "thau!," a veteran of the Internet and computer programming — especially JavaScript, which he has taught to countless other programmers, through this book, as well as numerous courses, conference presentations, and the tutorials he has written for Webmonkey.
Published by No Starch Press under ISBN-10 1593271069 and ISBN-13 978-1593271060, the second edition of The Book of JavaScript appeared in December 2006. The publisher maintains a Web page for the book, where visitors can find an online copy of the book's table of contents, excerpts from reader reviews, links for purchasing the paper and electronic versions of the book, a sample chapter ("Chapter 2: Using Variables and Built-In Functions to Update Your Web Pages Automatically") as a PDF file, the errata discovered by the author and readers (several reported so far), and a link to the author's companion site.
Unlike some books' companion sites, this one is worth a visit, and not just to see a working example of the tip box described in chapter 8, which is used to show how to create an array. Thau's site has links for viewing, running, and downloading all of the sample code in the book's figures. In addition, the visitor can obtain copies of the book's JavaScript libraries, for doing cookies, form validation, and plug-in detection. There are links for viewing and downloading the three sample Web sites. However, in his AntWeb site, at least as of this writing, none of the images are showing up on his homepage. Another problem, of much less importance, is the strange behavior of the "Websites" and "Freeware" options on his "Chapters" drop-down list box. Choosing either one takes the visitor to his "Websites" page, but always displays "Freeware" in the drop-down. It is hard to imagine that this behavior is intentional.
The book's material spans 528 pages, most of which is found in 18 chapters, covering a variety of topics: an overview of JavaScript's capabilities, alternatives, and limitations, among other less technical issues; variables and built-in functions; browser detection and simple control flow; rollovers, events, images, and the "document" object; window manipulation and properties; creating your own JavaScript functions; Web forms; arrays and iteration; timing events; frames and image maps; handling form input and strings; cookies; dynamic HTML, CSS, and DOM; AJAX basics; XML; server-side AJAX; a sample application (an online to-do list); and debugging JavaScript and AJAX. The book also offers four appendices: answers to chapter assignments; online resources (tutorials, sample code, AJAX sites, and AJAX frameworks); a complete reference to JavaScript's objects and functions; the code for the book's two longest applications, namely, the Italian translator and the to-do list.
This second edition serves as a follow-up to the well-regarded first edition that came out seven years earlier. Both the book and the language itself have clearly withstood the test of time. There are several reasons for the popularity of that first edition: It taught the language and its capabilities largely through the use of complete JavaScript functions, each of which served as an illustrative example of not just the elements and rules of the language, but also straightforward ways of accomplishing common tasks in JavaScript. After all, looking at sample code is how most programmers prefer to learn or verify how a language works.
The book assumed no prior knowledge of JavaScript or any other computer language, on the part of the reader. This characteristic not only set it apart from the large number of other JavaScript titles published at that time, but it made the book more attractive to people new to programming in general and Web programming in particular. Such readers might also favor this book over others because of the author's approachable writing style, in which he fully explains topics in a leisurely manner, without the terseness seen in most programming language books. This is not to say that brevity in technical works is ever a mistake per se; the busy professional programmer wants to find answers as quickly as possible. But such brevity can quickly prove frustrating to non-techies, who lack the background for understanding terse explanations and for knowing where they can turn for clarification.
All of these laudable attributes of the first edition have been carried over into this latest edition. The primary change found in this second edition, is the coverage of AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript combined with XML). Even though the additional material substantially increases the length of the book, by 124 pages, the end result is still far from unwieldy — mostly due to several factors: The book's table of contents, along with the index, are detailed enough to make it relatively easy to find a particular topic in the book, assuming that it is included. The subsection listings in the table of contents, like good source code, make liberal use of whitespace for readability. In the text itself, coloring the headings and note numbers blue make them stand out.
Aside from the aforesaid problems with the book's companion site, there are a few other areas for improvement: It was noted earlier that the last appendix contains the sample code from chapters 15 and 17. The author states that these code listings were located in an appendix, rather than the chapters themselves, because they are too long. Actually, they comprise only a dozen pages, which would have been better located in the chapters where the reader expects to see them, and where they would be close at hand for referencing. The first listing is only two pages long, and definitely should be located in chapter 15. Even for the second listing, if the author is concerned about readers getting frustrated flipping through the 10 pages to find the continuation of the chapter's discussion, a simple note at the beginning of that code, as to what page the discussion is resumed, would be sufficient.
Some fundamental language elements of JavaScript are introduced fairly late in the book. For instance, it is noted above that an explanation as to how to create an array — an essential concept in just about any procedural language — is not found until the eighth chapter, on page 134. This is more than one third of the way into the book's 18 chapters. On the other hand, given that the author has chosen to present these language concepts, for the most part, only when needed and when describing the sample code, this later introduction of some key concepts might not prove much of a problem to most readers. However, this is a case in which the completeness and accuracy of the book's index, are even more critical than usual. In this regard, the book does not fail the reader, as the index appears to provide enough coverage.
The formatting of the code throughout the text is not entirely consistent, as evidenced by some open braces appearing on their own lines, thus wasting space, and in other cases on the same line as the preceding parenthesized expression, though separated by a pointlessly large number of spaces. Code level blocks are indented two or four spaces, seemingly at random. Continuation lines are indented exactly the same; they would be more clear if they had double the number of spaces as code level blocks. Of more importance to the reader attempting to figure out what code is serving what purpose, there are far too many large chunks of code lacking any comments, which are needed, since much of the code is not self-describing. In most of the functions, the only comment lines are those for hiding the JavaScript from outdated browsers — a practice that should have been phased out in this latest edition.
Any experienced programmer who needs a complete JavaScript reference book, or a book that covers all the language's elements in fine detail, would be best served by choosing a different book from this one. On the other hand, once they had secured such a book, they would likely find David Thau's contribution an enjoyable source of ideas on what can be done using JavaScript capabilities. For anyone who wishes to learn JavaScript in a practical and relaxed way, by reading clearly explained sample projects and their code, should be well pleased with The Book of JavaScript.
Michael J. Ross is a Web programmer, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. He can be reached at www.ross.ws, hosted by SiteGround."
The book was written by David Thau, a.k.a. "thau!," a veteran of the Internet and computer programming — especially JavaScript, which he has taught to countless other programmers, through this book, as well as numerous courses, conference presentations, and the tutorials he has written for Webmonkey.
Published by No Starch Press under ISBN-10 1593271069 and ISBN-13 978-1593271060, the second edition of The Book of JavaScript appeared in December 2006. The publisher maintains a Web page for the book, where visitors can find an online copy of the book's table of contents, excerpts from reader reviews, links for purchasing the paper and electronic versions of the book, a sample chapter ("Chapter 2: Using Variables and Built-In Functions to Update Your Web Pages Automatically") as a PDF file, the errata discovered by the author and readers (several reported so far), and a link to the author's companion site.
Unlike some books' companion sites, this one is worth a visit, and not just to see a working example of the tip box described in chapter 8, which is used to show how to create an array. Thau's site has links for viewing, running, and downloading all of the sample code in the book's figures. In addition, the visitor can obtain copies of the book's JavaScript libraries, for doing cookies, form validation, and plug-in detection. There are links for viewing and downloading the three sample Web sites. However, in his AntWeb site, at least as of this writing, none of the images are showing up on his homepage. Another problem, of much less importance, is the strange behavior of the "Websites" and "Freeware" options on his "Chapters" drop-down list box. Choosing either one takes the visitor to his "Websites" page, but always displays "Freeware" in the drop-down. It is hard to imagine that this behavior is intentional.
The book's material spans 528 pages, most of which is found in 18 chapters, covering a variety of topics: an overview of JavaScript's capabilities, alternatives, and limitations, among other less technical issues; variables and built-in functions; browser detection and simple control flow; rollovers, events, images, and the "document" object; window manipulation and properties; creating your own JavaScript functions; Web forms; arrays and iteration; timing events; frames and image maps; handling form input and strings; cookies; dynamic HTML, CSS, and DOM; AJAX basics; XML; server-side AJAX; a sample application (an online to-do list); and debugging JavaScript and AJAX. The book also offers four appendices: answers to chapter assignments; online resources (tutorials, sample code, AJAX sites, and AJAX frameworks); a complete reference to JavaScript's objects and functions; the code for the book's two longest applications, namely, the Italian translator and the to-do list.
This second edition serves as a follow-up to the well-regarded first edition that came out seven years earlier. Both the book and the language itself have clearly withstood the test of time. There are several reasons for the popularity of that first edition: It taught the language and its capabilities largely through the use of complete JavaScript functions, each of which served as an illustrative example of not just the elements and rules of the language, but also straightforward ways of accomplishing common tasks in JavaScript. After all, looking at sample code is how most programmers prefer to learn or verify how a language works.
The book assumed no prior knowledge of JavaScript or any other computer language, on the part of the reader. This characteristic not only set it apart from the large number of other JavaScript titles published at that time, but it made the book more attractive to people new to programming in general and Web programming in particular. Such readers might also favor this book over others because of the author's approachable writing style, in which he fully explains topics in a leisurely manner, without the terseness seen in most programming language books. This is not to say that brevity in technical works is ever a mistake per se; the busy professional programmer wants to find answers as quickly as possible. But such brevity can quickly prove frustrating to non-techies, who lack the background for understanding terse explanations and for knowing where they can turn for clarification.
All of these laudable attributes of the first edition have been carried over into this latest edition. The primary change found in this second edition, is the coverage of AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript combined with XML). Even though the additional material substantially increases the length of the book, by 124 pages, the end result is still far from unwieldy — mostly due to several factors: The book's table of contents, along with the index, are detailed enough to make it relatively easy to find a particular topic in the book, assuming that it is included. The subsection listings in the table of contents, like good source code, make liberal use of whitespace for readability. In the text itself, coloring the headings and note numbers blue make them stand out.
Aside from the aforesaid problems with the book's companion site, there are a few other areas for improvement: It was noted earlier that the last appendix contains the sample code from chapters 15 and 17. The author states that these code listings were located in an appendix, rather than the chapters themselves, because they are too long. Actually, they comprise only a dozen pages, which would have been better located in the chapters where the reader expects to see them, and where they would be close at hand for referencing. The first listing is only two pages long, and definitely should be located in chapter 15. Even for the second listing, if the author is concerned about readers getting frustrated flipping through the 10 pages to find the continuation of the chapter's discussion, a simple note at the beginning of that code, as to what page the discussion is resumed, would be sufficient.
Some fundamental language elements of JavaScript are introduced fairly late in the book. For instance, it is noted above that an explanation as to how to create an array — an essential concept in just about any procedural language — is not found until the eighth chapter, on page 134. This is more than one third of the way into the book's 18 chapters. On the other hand, given that the author has chosen to present these language concepts, for the most part, only when needed and when describing the sample code, this later introduction of some key concepts might not prove much of a problem to most readers. However, this is a case in which the completeness and accuracy of the book's index, are even more critical than usual. In this regard, the book does not fail the reader, as the index appears to provide enough coverage.
The formatting of the code throughout the text is not entirely consistent, as evidenced by some open braces appearing on their own lines, thus wasting space, and in other cases on the same line as the preceding parenthesized expression, though separated by a pointlessly large number of spaces. Code level blocks are indented two or four spaces, seemingly at random. Continuation lines are indented exactly the same; they would be more clear if they had double the number of spaces as code level blocks. Of more importance to the reader attempting to figure out what code is serving what purpose, there are far too many large chunks of code lacking any comments, which are needed, since much of the code is not self-describing. In most of the functions, the only comment lines are those for hiding the JavaScript from outdated browsers — a practice that should have been phased out in this latest edition.
Any experienced programmer who needs a complete JavaScript reference book, or a book that covers all the language's elements in fine detail, would be best served by choosing a different book from this one. On the other hand, once they had secured such a book, they would likely find David Thau's contribution an enjoyable source of ideas on what can be done using JavaScript capabilities. For anyone who wishes to learn JavaScript in a practical and relaxed way, by reading clearly explained sample projects and their code, should be well pleased with The Book of JavaScript.
Michael J. Ross is a Web programmer, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. He can be reached at www.ross.ws, hosted by SiteGround."
Submission + - Beware how much your WiFi is sharing about you!
QuantumCrypto writes: "Errata has developed a new network sniffer that looks for traffic using 25 protocols, including those for the popular instant message clients as well as DHCP, SNMP, DNS and HTTP. This means the sniffer will capture requests for network addresses, network management tools, Web sites queries, Web traffic and more. "You don't realize how much you're making public, so I wrote a tool that tells you," said Robert Graham, Errata's chief executive. The tool will soon be released publicly on the Black Hat Web site. Anyone with a wireless card will be able to run it, Graham said. Errata also plans to release the source code on its Web site."
Demystifying Salary Information 184
Arun Jacob points us to an article in the NYTimes about online tools that can help in salary negotiations. The article concentrates on two websites — Salary.com and Payscale.com — that use different approaches to provide information on standard compensation packages for particular positions and roles. The theory is that, armed with information that was once available only to corporate HR departments, you could have an easier time negotiating your pay using a fact-based rather than a feelings-based approach.
Submission + - NASA can't pay for killer asteroid hunt
CGISecurity.com writes: "NASA officials say the space agency is capable of finding nearly all the asteroids that might pose a devastating hit to Earth, but there isn't enough money to pay for the task so it won't get done. "We know what to do, we just don't have the money," said Simon "Pete" Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center.""
Submission + - Major Broadcasters hit with $12M Payola Fine
Gr8Apes writes: Listeners and Indies may rejoice according to a just breaking story. According to the AP story:
Four major broadcast companies would pay the government $12.5 million and provide 8,400 half-hour segments of free airtime for independent record labels and local artists, The Associated Press has learned.
Digital Film Distribution System Coming 124
aniyo~ writes with word of a collaboration of movie studios with distribution companies to come up with a system for rapid digital distribution of movie masters. Universal Pictures, Warner Bros., and a company called Digital Cinema Implementation Partners are working on technology that will allow much more responsive film distribution based on local needs. DCIP is wholly owned by the Regal, AMC, and Cinemark theater chains, which among them run 14,000 screens in North America. The new system would be available to those and other interested theater operators. About 2,200 U.S. theater screens currently show digital films, and today these are, by and large, delivered on hard drives.
Submission + - U.S. Senators Pressure Canada on Canadian DMCA
An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. copyright lobby brought out some heavy artillery last week as
it continued to pressure Canada to introduce a Canadian DMCA. U.S.
Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins gave a public
talk in which he described Canadian copyright law as the weakest in
the G7, while Senators Dianne Feinstein and John Cornyn wrote to
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to urge him to bring in movie piracy
legislation.
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