djce - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Feature Request (Score 1) 238

by djce on Tuesday February 24, 2009 @03:08AM (#26966555) Attached to: Homemade PDF Patch Beats Adobe By Two Weeks

When loading a PDF, if Reader sees there's JavaScript that wants to run, Reader pops up a dialog along the lines of, "Hey, this file contains executable code which is, y'know, kind of contrary to the whole concept of a 'document'. Do you want to allow the code to run? [Yes] [[Hell, No]]"

Do you think that the average user will read anything before clicking "Yes"?

So make sure that pressing escape, space or return will all do the same thing: fail safe.

And/or maybe reword the question: "This file contains unsafe content which could harm your computer. Protect your computer against this threat?"

Or don't even make it a question: make it an alert box with only one option (ok), and you have to go elsewhere (dive into some menu) to turn on scripting.

Comment Risk (Score 1) 690

by djce on Monday February 16, 2009 @03:28AM (#26869815) Attached to: Do We Need a New Internet?

enter at your own risk and keep an eye over your shoulder while you were there

People should already be doing that for the existing intarweb, no?

Comment "illegally" launching? (Score 5, Insightful) 258

by djce on Thursday February 12, 2009 @07:09PM (#26835737) Attached to: Microsoft Slaps $250K Bounty On Conficker Worm

Until you know who launched this, under what circumstances, and in which jurisdiction, don't assume that it's illegal. In other words, innocent until proven guilty.

Acorns Disappear Across the Country 474

Posted by kdawson on Monday December 01, 2008 @09:11AM from the curiouser-and-curiouser dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Botanist Rod Simmons thought he was going crazy when couldn't find any acorns near his home in Arlington County, Virginia. 'I'm used to seeing so many acorns around and out in the field, it's something I just didn't believe,' said Simmons. Then calls started coming in about crazy squirrels. Starving, skinny squirrels eating garbage, inhaling bird feed, greedily demolishing pumpkins. Squirrels boldly scampering into the road. And a lot more calls about squirrel roadkill. Simmons and Naturalist Greg Zell began to do some research and found Internet discussion groups, including one on Topix called 'No acorns this year,' reporting the same thing from as far away as the Midwest up through New England and Nova Scotia. 'We live in Glenwood Landing, N.Y., and don't have any acorns this year. Really weird,' wrote one. 'None in Kansas either! Curiouser and curiouser.' The absence of acorns could have something to do with the weather and Simmons has a theory about the wet and dry cycles. But many skeptics say oaks in other regions are producing plenty of acorns, and the acorn bust is nothing more than the extreme of a natural boom-and-bust cycle. But the bottom line is that no one really knows. 'It's sort of a mystery,' Zell said."

Comment Re:Now what will happen? (Score 2, Insightful) 206

by djce on Saturday September 20, 2008 @12:37PM (#25084433) Attached to: Comcast Discloses Throttling Practices

It's not discriminating against any application, not even the legal ones.

I hope by "application" you mean "use" (noun), as opposed to "software product".

BitTorrent, for example, isn't illegal (I hope). Using it to distribute some specific content might be.

When Your Site Ceases To Exist 191

Posted by kdawson on Saturday January 13, 2007 @07:40PM from the without-a-trace dept.

El Lobo writes with a sobering account of how Javalobby dropped off the face of Google last month. The site had been attacked by forum spammers and Google indexed some of their spew before the Javalobby guys could remove it. According to a post in Rich Skrenta's blog, Google is now the de-facto front page for the Internet, accounting for anywhere from 70% to 78% of the search market. The power this conveys is hard to overstate. From the Javalobby saga: "We had completely disappeared from Google's main index! If you run a website, then you know how serious a problem this is. On any given day over 10,000 visitors arrive at Javalobby as a result of Google searches, and suddenly they stopped coming! ... Suddenly we no longer existed in the eyes of Google."

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