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shimonamit

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A C++ Windows Client Application Developer and Linux Web Developer. Email is gmail.com with shimon.amit as my user.

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Note the difference between "lots of writes" and "lots of concurrent writes". "Lots of writes" in succession without heavy concurrency support is just fine for desktop/mobile apps. It is not okay for busy webapps.

With age comes responsibility, so with time and coaching we remove restrictions. But it takes time, and I'm not willing to sacrifice my child's education in the meantime for YouTube and gaming distractions. I've grown to recognize there are certain distractions that are simply too difficult for young children to refuse.

Practical tip for parents here struggling with the problem of 'distractions during school hours': use a DNS filtering service.

I use the Family package from SafeDNS and I'm generally happy. It is also cheap at $20/year. I like SafeDNS because they provide a Desktop client that prevents tampering.

You can configure different profiles such as 'Education', 'Creative' and 'Default' for different modes you want to put your child's computer on - remotely. So during schooling hours I configure their computers to be on 'Education' mode, but if they want to just do Scratch or some other brain-stimulating activity, I put it on 'Creative' mode. For free time I'll put it on Default which I've configure to allow YouTube.

I configure each profile to block preconfigured vendor-supplied site archetypes such as Videos, Gaming, Advertising, Shopping, Chat etc. I have full control over each profile type. I can also whitelist a domain if they get in a snag.

I'm sure there are other good DNS filtering service providers, but this one is the one that worked best for me.

Printing in Windows is an unsolved problem. It never was.

To print in Windows I have a checklist: 1. Print 2. Restart printer 3. Cancel print job, try to print again. 4. Restart print spooler, try to print again. 5. Restart computer, try to print.

Usually works with #4 or #5. Having a family member print is a major tech support undertaking.

HTML5 is an excellent alternative to ActiveX, particularly in the area of mime type handling, but it does not facilitate native desktop interaction. There is still a basic need for certain websites to interact with pre-installed native/legacy applications using a secure method such as Google Native Messaging, but Microsoft hasn't committed to anything similar.

So far Mobile Opera is the only browser to support:

* Readable text size after double-tap-to-zoom

* Text reflow

I still can't find a browser that remembers my zoom level per site.

The author writes in the link:

Note that the goal here was to make the source code as small as possible, not clarity; so even the original code before minification is a horrible mess. This doesn’t do justice to the elegance and simplicity of proper raytracer code; I’m writing a book to right this wrong.

Adding HATEOAS resource links should not break client code. It is nothing more than adding an attribute or sub-element to your xml.

Easier for you, that is. The problem with HATEOAS is that it requires commitment on both parties (server and client) to that convention. For the client developer that means no hard coding changing URLs. But they will, and you'll be to blame when your server changes break their code. You'll say "but you didn't HATEOAS" and they'll say "my app is broken, fix your API now" and you... who wants to go there?

http://basecamp.com/transition

I want to migrate, but...

> Basecamp Classic and the new Basecamp don't offer the same features, so some data in Classic won't make it into the new Basecamp.

So maybe I'll stay. But wait...

> Will you continue to improve Classic? The majority of our design and development efforts moving forward will be focused on the all new Basecamp, but we'll continue to support Classic as long as customers continue using it. We expect that to be for many many years.

Maybe. Maybe not. The web moves very quickly you know. New browsers, standards, security risks etc. I can think of a million and one reasons Classic will get EOL'd sooner rather than later.

This is certainly faithful to their backwards compatibility intolerance. The new product couldn't be bound by the "burden" of the old. Now I the customer am left with a very distasteful choice to make.

Submarine Cable Map 14 years ago

I see no cables actually get routed through the Suez canal, even though many cables come up the Red Sea. The same is true for the Panama canal. Is it because they are too shallow? Maybe too concentrated?

I completely concur. I am beginning to suspect another release flop ala Windows Me and Windows Vista... if Microsoft default to Metro on traditional workstations. I say 'if' because they're still a bit vague on their roadmap. There's lots of hype in the air now, but once the dust begins to settle I think more people will come to this realization.

EDIT: Changed Windows 2000 to Windows Me. Windows 2000 was generally considered to be a successful release.