Posts by DrXym

This is not hard to defeat

Advertisers would have to jump a few more hoops but I doubt it's *that* hard for them to change the JS boiler plate they supply to hosting sites to inject their ads. Javascript can read and write cookies from its own origin so the glue the advertiser supplies could read the cookie from the host's origin, slap it onto the url request for the ad, and then update the cookie again in the host based on the response.

And that's just on the client side. Advertisers could provide modules for PHP, Java, Apache which injects the tracking cookies from the host domain in the request so there is no way to tell it apart from other cookies the site might issue.

Then there's storing data in flash shared objects, silverlight storage, HTML 5 storage and a raft of other places. See Evercookie for the ways this could be done. Basically if an advertiser wanted to track you they will.

Mixed blessing

I just tried the PDF viewer there and while it works the print functionality is a bit crap. Printing appears to render a lossy jpeg snapshot of the page into an HTML page with headers and footers and the whole lot is printed. The font kerning also looks iffy with characters not properly spaced. I hope that future versions improve on this.

So while it's okay at a pinch to use it's no substitute for a proper PDF viewer. I switched back to the Adobe plugin from the Applications options almost immediately.

I had a Freeplay radio

I got it as a Christmas present. The thing lasted about 4 weeks before the plastic widget that regulated the enormous spring snapped and the thing would then unwind itself frighteningly fast in about 3 seconds flat. As an idea it was pretty good but the implementation put me off the idea permanently. It was a shame because it was a good radio when it worked.

It also does not follow that just because he invented a clockwork radio that it would have covered other kinds of wind up devices. Most don't even "wind up" per se - the handle is usually attached to a dynamo which stores charge in a battery. Dynamo operated devices have been around for ages most notably in vehicles but also bicycle lights and even torches.

Another Twitter prima donna

He read all the criticism of his tweets and just decided to rage quit.

I don't see the issue

If a company is worried for its security, the choice should be simple - If an employee does not have a company sanctioned phone they don't get on the network.

They could always provide limited access via an external facing mail proxy or webmail ui for those who desire it which is probably what most people need anyway. This is a desirable thing to do even if smart phones didn't exist - so much more sensible than some companies which issue laptops with layers of encryption, antivirus, VPNs, wifi stacks etc. just so somebody can read a lousy email.

Some tips for sites

Browsing the web with a tablet can be a frustrating experience. Not because the browser is bad or renders the content wrongly. It's because sites see that I'm using a tablet and implement some intensely annoying behaviour.

With that in mind, here are some rules that all sites should follow.

1. DO NOT open a popup every time I visit the site asking if I want an app to view the content I'm viewing right this instance. If I said no the last time then there is a 99.99% chance you're just annoying me by asking again.

2. Instead, DO put a discrete "get our app" link somewhere in the main page, and potentially at the *bottom* of other pages where it can be ignored if not desired.

3. DO NOT redirect the user to the "mobile" version of your website. Most tablets are more than capable of rendering the full site. Even most phones are. If you absolutely must inflict mobile on a user, use a heuristic, e.g. user agent & screen res, and ASK ONCE.

4. DO remember this decision so future visits to the site pick the right site.

5. DO put a discrete "switch to mobile" link somewhere in the main page / bottom of content where a user can switch to the mobile version.

6. DO put a discrete "switch to desktop" link in the mobile site.

7. DO NOT maintain a www. and m. version of the same site or different urls to the same content. There is no reason for this at all. Use a filter to redirect a user based no their expressed display mode to one HTML template or another. Two links just confuses everyone and makes it a nuisance to bookmark content.

There.

They should be fed their own dogfood

Don't give them dividends in USD. Give them Zynga points, good for one wheelbarrow, Hawaiian shirt, Miso soup recipe or some other virtual item in one of their shitty skinner box "games". Let the investors see what they're investing in.

Two different things with some overlapping functionality

Apache Httpd is often used as an app server in LAMP style deployments, Nginx is often used as a load balancer / reverse proxy that sits in front of app servers. They have overlapping functionality but those would be their main specialities.

So sites might use them in conjunction, or not depending on what the site is trying to do, the type of content its service (dynamic / static) and what is generating the dynamic content.

By ambitious they mean broken

It's very clear that Microsoft made a beeline to tablet land with their metro interface and didn't pay much regard to what the experience would be like for mouse / keyboard "encumbered" devices. And now they're feigning surprise that the reaction from users and the market should reflect that.

I hope that MS have gotten over the hump of making their OS touch friendly they can set about fixing these problems for conventional systems. It probably doesn't radical modifications, just a refinement (e.g. being able to change the zoom level of tiles, tile groups, some form of compact launcher and so on). After all, Vista introduced some not-inconsiderable changes to the user experience and got a slagging for it too but once MS polished the experience up in Windows 7 people were generally very favourable about.

I hope that's what happens with Windows 9 or 8.5 or whatever. And until it does expect the general disquiet to continue.

Watching it now

It's not a bad series at all although it feels a bit slow in places.

I like the swipe philosophy

I have a Playbook and I find the swiping a very intuitive and second nature way of navigating the UI. The only time it can get annoying is for playing some games where it's too easy to swipe in-game and the OS thinks you're swiping out of the app. It could do with a swipe lock.

By contrast Android now permanently reserves a chunk of space from the bottom of the screen or the device has to have buttons and it feels a little bit clunkier.

Why download games at all?

Anyone who has the colossal bandwidth needed to download a full retail game in a timely fashion probably has the bandwidth to just stream the thing. For most games any latency is largely irrelevant. Why even bother installing it on a console when the video and sound can be sent over the wire?

Anyway I think most probably they will support disc based games. It would be madness not to. Broadband is not ubiquitous by a long shot and people still want to watch things like blu rays and DVDs.

I love my netbook

It's small enough to throw in a bag, cheap enough to not shed tears if it's stolen / broken, and (just) fast enough for stuff like browsing, casual gaming. I'll mourn netbooks when they're gone though I think in time that small laptops will creep back down in price soon enough especially when manufacturers realise people are not going to pay stupid money for an ultrabook. Asus are already tentatively going that way with their Vivo book devices.

Do not underestimate the power of fanboys

So it's not existing users I think RIM / Blackberry need to worry about but the greater public, especially businesses currently pondering the whole BYOD thing vs security. If Blackberry can convince businesses that their phones are relevant again, and convince managers and other recipients of said phones that they're actually pretty useful, then I think they'll get a second wind.

For existing users I think the upgrade is probably a given. I've been reading Crackberry.com articles surrounding the launch and many of the comments border on the delusional. The brand has a near cult like following which means even if these things were coated in dog sick there would be people who'd buy them. Anyway, the Q10 is the sop for people who absolutely must have a keyboard and the remainder will get the full touchscreen model.

RIM now called Blackberry

Trying to listen to their webcast and having severe issues with their crappy live stream but caught that bit.