Recent Posts

1251

Living Room / Re: Is a college education worth the money?

« Last post by JavaJones on June 09, 2010, 11:50 PM »

we do have a very small number of positions that don't require a college degree. none of them are very good or well paid jobs.

-Gwen7 (June 07, 2010, 05:24 PM)

Is there any possibility of promotion in your company? Say, after 4 years of work?

-JavaJones (June 07, 2010, 11:07 PM)

yes.

after you've been there for 5 years they give you a new mop.

-Gwen7 (June 09, 2010, 08:41 AM)

Really? Really? Well I guess I won't bother applying then. I'll stick with the places like the $2.5m annual budget nonprofit that promoted me to Assistant Director after 3 years, with a 20% salary increase. Or the (formerly) major computer game publisher where I went from $9/hr to $20/hr in slightly more than a year (from test department to IT). Or the small software company where I went from devoted fan to technical support and documentation, to Business Manager in 3 years, and now have an equity stake in the company. The options are out there in my experience.

- Oshyan

1252

Living Room / Re: Is a college education worth the money?

« Last post by JavaJones on June 07, 2010, 11:07 PM »

we do have a very small number of positions that don't require a college degree. none of them are very good or well paid jobs.

-Gwen7 (June 07, 2010, 05:24 PM)

Is there any possibility of promotion in your company? Say, after 4 years of work?

- Oshyan

1253

General Software Discussion / Re: Specs for new pc?

« Last post by JavaJones on June 07, 2010, 01:06 AM »

Why bother building it for those simple needs? You're not going to save much money (especially if you include your time in the equation) vs. a system builder.

- Oshyan

1254

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: crack tracker

« Last post by JavaJones on June 06, 2010, 11:44 PM »

Thanks, good to know. I'll give it a workout as soon as I get a chance.

- Oshyan

1255

Living Room / Re: Why do we always wait for apple's stuff before making a i[blank]-killer??

« Last post by JavaJones on June 05, 2010, 11:04 PM »

To me, it would seem like the other companies don't care to push the envelope until they are forced to.  If the discman is bringing in enough dollars, why bother changing it?

-superboyac (June 05, 2010, 10:18 PM)

Looks like you have a pretty good answer for your own question...

- Oshyan

1256

Living Room / Re: Is a college education worth the money?

« Last post by JavaJones on June 05, 2010, 09:59 PM »

1: Take the same 4 years you spend going through college and spend it at one job. Yes, you will start with a likely lesser-paying job (which does not require a degree), but if you pick the right company, within the 4 years you'll be promoted at least once, and have a couple of raises. Even if by the end you are not earning as much as you would with the degree you would have had, you have no college debt, you have in fact been earning money that entire time.

You're also gaining experience at the same time which many businesses do value as much as education in equivalent quantities. In other words imagine a job opening, and you have 1 candidate fresh out of college with a BA in a desirable subject, and another candidate with 4 years experience on the job in the field you're hiring for. Even an HR minion is going to have to pay some attention to those 4yrs of practical experience. Next imagine the scenario with an MA (6+yrs), or Ph.D. (8+yrs). 8 years practical job experience vs. a freshly graduated Ph.D. with no experience on the job outside of perhaps an internship? Hmm... Not to mention that it's 4 years for a BA if you're lucky these days, given recent cut-backs (at least here in California) resulting in fewer classes with less room, and thus needing more time to graduate (average is becoming 5 years).

And don't forget the debt is stacking up the whole time, so even if you're qualified for a higher paying position, you'll spend at least a few years paying off the debt, so you can tack those on to the job experience option too. Say you spend 2 years paying off debt, now we're talking 10 years on the job experience vs. the Ph.D. grad with 2 years experience. Which earns more? Which is more hireable? I'm not saying there's a clear winner, but I do think it's debatable enough that going to college shouldn't be a foregone conclusion for anyone. Sure, you'll have to accept a lesser position to start, but it can easily be worth it, especially at a good company.

We'll leave the possibility of company-sponsored education out of the consideration for now, but it definitely still happens...

2: If the company you're applying for has a stupid HR department, try a different company. It's hard work, but we as the working masses can train the companies that hire us to value the right characteristics in how and where we choose (or choose not) to apply.

Now of course there are many jobs where the knowledge required to do the job is so specialized, a degree is virtually a necessity. But these jobs are generally in the minority. Practical education in high school and developing critical thinking skills would really be the best preparation for most jobs.

- Oshyan

1257

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: crack tracker

« Last post by JavaJones on June 05, 2010, 09:34 PM »

Glad to see you're still developing this. Looking forward to support for filing complaints right from the app (if possible).

- Oshyan

1258

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: HDMI Cables: $0.60

« Last post by JavaJones on June 04, 2010, 10:39 PM »

Funny, I don't think I've ever seen any of my electronics connections corroding in my house (nor noticed any ill effects from same, at least not before the connectors became loose from over-use, e.g. after years and years). But there was that one amplifier I left out in a shed for a couple years...

- Oshyan

1259

Living Room / Re: "The More You Use Google, the More Google Knows about you"

« Last post by JavaJones on June 04, 2010, 12:28 AM »

Were those last 2 searches followed by clicks on Amazon links?

- Oshyan

1260

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Release: Open Menu

« Last post by JavaJones on June 03, 2010, 11:50 PM »

Very cool, I'll check it out. Sorry I haven't responded to your emails. Will do shortly.

- Oshyan

1261

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Re: Advantages of Chrome's Session Saving Extensions over other browsers

« Last post by JavaJones on June 03, 2010, 11:09 PM »

Funny, I recently lost a browsing session in Chrome when I had a bluescreen. No plugins/extensions being used though. Maybe I need one...

Still, Opera and FF recovered just fine.

- Oshyan

1262

Living Room / Re: "The More You Use Google, the More Google Knows about you"

« Last post by JavaJones on June 03, 2010, 11:07 PM »

Watched the CNBC program. First quarter is pretty uninteresting fluff on how great Google is.

Second quarter, the only compelling "point" made is that search data *may* not be "really anonymous" and this assertion was based on a well-known AOL data release *mistake* that was poorly handled. That release included unique ID numbers for users that, yes, allowed searches to be *associated* with a single user, and thus in some (few) cases actually associated back with a person's unique identify... *when they searched for their own name and/or address or other personally identifiable info*. Now get this: most of what people do online is unencrypted, so really almost anyone could be listening. It doesn't take Google tracking your data for it to get in the hands of the government, or anyone else who might want to watch.

But it's true, I have no proof that Google is doing a better job anonymizing their search results than AOL. I do trust them to do a better job, given their company history and intelligence (they do make mistakes, but they usually own up to them - see recent wifi data collection scandal). Let's not forget, too, that Google *voluntarily* introduced an 18 month anonymizing data policy, which other search engines then adopted, and then they reduced it to 9 months a year or so later (admittedly they weren't too happy about the reduction from 18 to 9 months): http://bits.blogs.ny...ention-policy-again/

Third quarter, some more fluff, some speculation and fearmongering.

Fourth quarter, not much more.

I didn't find the bit where they say they're selling data to other companies, but if it's handled anything like the rest of the show, I wouldn't be surprised if they said "we do not sell our data to 3rd party companies" and they just edited out the "do not". This is a pretty scandal-seeking show, in my view. "Google could overwhelm us" says an interviewee, and with a very concerned look on her face the interviewer asks, with evident sympathy, "How could Google overwhelm you?". The answer? Oh no, it could give us more sales!!! Crap, we're screwed! Come on, seriously?

Anyway, if this is the only place where this info actually shows up (and I can't even view it - maybe it was retracted as inaccurate? hehe), I have to wonder why. Google censoring their results?

- Oshyan

1263

Living Room / Re: "The More You Use Google, the More Google Knows about you"

« Last post by JavaJones on May 30, 2010, 02:54 PM »

I still haven't seen any actual information about this "Google admitted to selling their info to large corporations" bit. How about it downloder, where does that info come from?

Incidentally, Microsoft admitted to killing kittens. It's true!

- Oshyan

1264

Best Archive Tool / Re: Versions??

« Last post by JavaJones on May 30, 2010, 02:33 AM »

You're right, "withdrawn" was probably the wrong word. In fact I believe some products that support FC still exist. I know patent and proprietary technology issues had something to do with its lack of success, but I'm fairly confident it also had a lot to do with 2 issues, both mentioned in the Wikipedia article.

1: FC did not have markedly better compression than JPEG in many situations, and only at higher compression ratios did it start to show real advantages.

2: FC was more computationally expensive to perform than JPEG. In the late 80s and early 90s this mattered a lot more than it does now. It could take several minutes to fractally compress a large-ish image, whereas a JPEG could be done (even then) in at most a few 10s of seconds.

So if you have a technology that is A: Not much better than its major competitors for general use, B: computationally more expensive than generally available competitors, and C: developed, patented, and controlled by few entities who seem to license it much more strictly than competing technologies, I think it's almost a given it's going to fail.

Here's the app I was thinking of that still uses FC: http://en.wikipedia....iki/Genuine_Fractals

- Oshyan

1265

Living Room / Re: Power corrupts... and absolute power...

« Last post by JavaJones on May 28, 2010, 03:41 PM »

I'm not aware of any evidence of pressure on this specific issue. There was prior pressure from the German government about Street View itself in 2009, before Google was authorized to begin actually collecting photo data. They then did so with the by then standard practice (for them, and many other companies) of reading wifi network SSIDs and locations using a standard tool of some kind. Apparently Germany was unaware that they were gathering SSID info, whether through intentional omission on Google's part (possibly, but I'm not aware of proof), or simply oversight by the German government. Germany objected to *the collection of SSIDs and locations*, but was not at that time aware of the collection of other data (packet traffic) that Google had also performed. This is a news story from around that time, before the news of Google's additional data collection broke:
http://www.ndtv.com/...treet-view-22133.php

It was after this point then that Google *volunteered* the information that they had "accidentally" collected other data while scanning SSIDs. From the opinions I've read of a wide range of technology experts familiar with the kind of systems and software one might use to scan for SSIDs from a moving vehicle, it just so happens that most of the tools - especially free/open source that Google might be prone to use, or base their own tool off of - do in fact *by default* collect more than just the SSID info, basically they're network scanners that log whatever they find. Google erred (supposedly) in not turning off unnecessary parts of these tools, e.g. limiting it to SSID detection and logging only. But it *seems* like an honest mistake that could have been made.

So basically they volunteered information that could have been further incriminating. They might have done so on the assumption that the info would come out in an investigation by the German government later anyway, which might have looked worse, but I daresay few companies will still have volunteered the info.

Anyway that's the story as I've heard it from multiple sources. If you've got info to the contrary please share it.

- Oshyan

1266

Living Room / Re: Power corrupts... and absolute power...

« Last post by JavaJones on May 28, 2010, 01:41 PM »

If you believe Google's explanation of events - and I have no reason not to since they *volunteered* this information - then I don't think Google is any demonstration of the "absolute power" maxim whatsoever, and I think it's a knee-jerk reaction to "big, powerful, scary company!" to say otherwise without a clear case as to why.

The EFF's point is the key here. Google has done the "right thing" in at least one other case where they were asked to destroy the disk and happily complied, with a 3rd party witness present to certify its destruction. Clearly they're not unwilling to comply with appropriate mandates. But it's questionable, especially given Germany's current stance on open wifi, whether it's "right" for Google to turn over the data to the government there (from a moral rather than legal standpoint). After all, they might just want a list of users to try to fine!

By the way, here's an interesting update:
http://www.washingto...AR2010052705595.html

- Oshyan

1267

Best Archive Tool / Re: Versions??

« Last post by JavaJones on May 28, 2010, 01:28 PM »

"Fractal compression" was withdrawn from the market because it actually didn't provide as significant a benefit over modern JPG compression as was hoped. If it were significant enough, it would have caught on, especially in the bandwidth starved earlier days of the Internet when it was first being discussed. It is also highly demanding to compress, especially for video. See this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia..../Fractal_compression

At common compression ratios, up to about 50:1, Fractal compression provides similar results to DCT-based algorithms such as JPEG. [4]  At high compression ratios fractal compression may offer superior quality. For satellite imagery, ratios of over 170:1[5]  have been achieved with acceptable results. Fractal video compression ratios of 25:1-244:1 have been achieved in reasonable compression times (2.4 to 66 sec/frame).[6]

One cool thing about it though is that images become "resolution independent" once compressed. Of course they are not actually creating any "real" new data when scaled, but the results can look decent (see Genuine Fractals software). But it's still potentially useful.

Anyway the takeaway point is if you want maximum (lossy) image compression use a *good* JPG encoder, and be aware that not every JPG encoder is very good. I find XnView's to actually be surprisingly competitive with Photoshop's Save for Web and other such high-end dedicated professional-level solutions, so that's a good free option to consider. XnView offers batch output too, if you want to convert a group of photos. Keep in mind however that recompressing an image that is already in a lossy (e.g. JPG) format is a *bad* idea, as it will just exacerbate any already existing artifacts and lose more image data. If you want a good lossless format, PNG is pretty much your best bet. If you're really looking for a "next generation" format to look into, try JPEG2000.

- Oshyan

1268

General Software Discussion / Re: Have default printer set differently from within different applications

« Last post by JavaJones on May 27, 2010, 04:32 PM »

Woah, super useful! Thanks Mouser.

- Oshyan

1269

General Software Discussion / Re: Word 2007: Are Table Styles safe to use now?

« Last post by JavaJones on May 27, 2010, 04:31 PM »

I guess I'm not clear on how you want to format your glossary visually (nor on what the data looks like already in IQ). But likely I'd bring it into Excel and then just export as tab-separated data, load it into Word and then adjust the tabs as needed. That should neatly turn spreadsheet columns into adjustable tabs...

- Oshyan

1270

DC Gamer Club / Re: Valve: "Mac is 5 times more stable than windows running games"

« Last post by JavaJones on May 27, 2010, 03:27 PM »

To be clear, they have test data from precisely 1 game - Portal. It's also a smaller sample size by far than their Windows install base. Make of that what you will.

Assuming it's true, which I don't necessarily dispute, it's not really shocking considering the tight control Apple exercises over its hardware. A ton of the Windows side machines that are being compared to are almost certainly either much older, or much lower spec/cost in hardware. The fairest comparison would be like-for-like hardware *and* cost. So let's say a $500 budget Winodws machine with cut rate hardware is comparable (Core 2 Duo or whatever) to a low-end iMac at $1000 or something. Still not a fair comparison because the iMac uses better brand hardware, with better drivers, etc. Let's compare a $1000 PC to a $1000 Mac and then we'll really see what the stability comparison is on the same *class* of system. That's the real key... Basically Mac comes out smelling like roses in this comparison because they don't *have* machines in the class of system that are likely causing most crashes.

- Oshyan

1271

General Software Discussion / Re: Word 2007: Are Table Styles safe to use now?

« Last post by JavaJones on May 27, 2010, 03:23 PM »

I just have to chime in with emphatic agreement on: Use the right tool for the job! Tables (and text boxes) in particular have been hugely problematic for me with Word. Huge tables created in Word when they should have been done in Excel. And text boxes used when they just shouldn't have been used at all (to accomplish things like aligning text properly, because the person doesn't know how to use tab stops!).

So yeah, it's a big problem when people get focused on just 1 tool and use it for all their problems.

- Oshyan

1272

General Software Discussion / Re: Pdf tools-Getting Better

« Last post by JavaJones on May 26, 2010, 01:11 PM »

The new Nitro reader looks like a nice step forward, though PDF XChange Viewer has offered many of these features for free for quite some time, so it's a bit frustrating to see everyone getting excited about Nitro when it's really just "joining the party" that others started. That being said it's a more well-known name than PDF Xchange Viewer, so hopefully it will catch on. I think the UI might be a bit better, too.

I haven't tried Nitro yet, but did have a couple concerns I thought others might be interested to consider.

First, PDF Xchange Viewer can be used for commercial purposes for free, as far as I know. I don't know if Nitro is intended to remain free for that purpose, but hopefully so. The built-in collaboration features would tend to suggest the answer is yet.

Second, for those concerned about privacy, make note of this "feature" listed on their website:
"Product Improvement Program: gathers anonymous statistics about usage patterns and click sequences, to help us improve Nitro Reader’s tool functionality and user interface based on your live use of the product."

- Oshyan

1273

Living Room / Re: Google demonstrates new communication platform "WAVE": mail, chat , wiki, ..

« Last post by JavaJones on May 25, 2010, 10:12 PM »

Yes, that would be workable (private replies). But, as you said, a bit of a hack.

But my real point more is that I don't see it as being enough of an improvement over e.g. Google Docs with notes and chat to justify the necessary hacks... at this time.

- Oshyan

1274

Living Room / Re: website maker?

« Last post by JavaJones on May 21, 2010, 09:00 PM »

Yes, I would say generally if a site has dynamic content on it, it is more likely to be made using an off-the-shelf system like Joomla or Wordpress. Sites that have content systems/structures that are widely standardized and used (e.g. blogs) are also more likely to use an existing system. More unique, static content sites are more likely to be hand-coded and figuring out what editor they used is essentially impossible without asking.

One thing to note is that the original question stated " I see a lot of fantastic sites but don't know how to tell what was used.", and I think it's important to be aware that "what was used" may have little or no bearing on how good the site looks or works.

- Oshyan

1275

Living Room / Re: Google demonstrates new communication platform "WAVE": mail, chat , wiki, ..

« Last post by JavaJones on May 21, 2010, 08:41 PM »

Ok, so they've got this nice doc with a title, bullet points, images to illustrate, etc. Let's say we want to show this to the corporate CEO to get the "rock project" approved. Do we just have to share the wave with him, with all its messy chat and everything? Can I perhaps export it somehow? Oh, no, I can't do that. How about printing it? No. Can I eliminate all the unnecessary chatter that lead to the final doc? Maybe, yes, if I manually delete it all (and rely on history to reference any of it if I need it still). But that's laborious, and doesn't it just make the whole point of using Google Wave, er, pointless anyway? How is this *that* much better than e.g. Google Docs with notes and chat? A Google Doc which I can save, export, print, etc. with no problems at all...

Fortunately the fix is easy and Google can make Wave a lot more useful very quickly. Just give us export and print. Oh, and the ability to suppress pieces or whole *types* of content for printing and export (e.g. discussion vs. final content).

It seems odd to me that you're arguing against these features, or at least against their necessity. Do you just not care, or do you actively think they're unnecessary? Have you actually tried to use Wave for the kinds of activities Google claims it's useful for? Because I have. And it's not. IMHO.

- Oshyan