News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

LyleK

Re:Old People Icons That Don't Make Sense Anymore on Wednesday May 09, 2012 @07:48PM (#3951114)
Why do we even have a save icon function anymore anyway? Just to torture people who forgot to save their file? Google Docs doesn't have a save button because it is saving all the time. Why would you not want to save what you are doing? Why is not saving the default? (Alan Cooper made this argument in About Face in 1995.)

Also, if you want to talk about outdated terminology, theres "disk" and "drive". These are being incorrectly applied to flash/solid state storage. They do apply to hard disk drives, and optical media.

Re:JQuery knobs on Wednesday May 09, 2012 @04:39PM (#3950352)
Very nice!
Re:Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business? on Monday May 07, 2012 @01:45PM (#3940068)
Most people are not going to be able to follow the classes from MIT and Harvard. (Certainly, there are a lot of people who can't get into the schools who could follow the material just fine.) Remember, this material is already available in books, but that didn't put the universities out of business. But if you look at how many people are struggling with math classes and having to hire tutors, I don't think it is fair to assume that by watching videos from MIT lecturers would suddenly make it all make sense.
Re:Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business? on Monday May 07, 2012 @01:36PM (#3940027)
So much for all the professors on food stamps. Now they have to compete with free classes from Harvard.

http://chronicle.com/article/From-Graduate-School-to/131795/

Re:Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business? on Monday May 07, 2012 @01:32PM (#3940014)
Agreed. If they thought it would put them out of business, would they do it? It makes more sense to ask if it will put community colleges out of business.
Re:Gmvault: gmail backup. Liberate your emails on Monday May 07, 2012 @01:24PM (#3939958)
Can this store mail in mbox format? In what header do the gmail labels go?
Re:MIT and Harvard announce edX on Wednesday May 02, 2012 @08:02PM (#3921781)
There's nothing in the article that says the classes will be free.
Re:Death by a thousand great ideas on Tuesday May 01, 2012 @01:57PM (#3915592)
It baffles me why someone would want to start a business when they don't have an idea. That's backwards. You should only desire to start a business once you have had an idea that is burning in you so badly that you can't do anything else.
Best use of SVG I have seen yet!
Re:How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome on Thursday April 26, 2012 @05:41PM (#3896274)
Staying on track with a goal or two is easy. The hard part is that when you have enough goals, they all compete for time. So choosing which goals you want to follow becomes the ultimate problem.
Re:Introducing Google Drive... yes, really on Tuesday April 24, 2012 @06:44PM (#3886713)
Sounds like a good start, but not a replacement for SugarSync. You have to put everything in their special Google Drive folder, can't sync existing folders. So I can't use it to back up configuration files that need to stay in their own directories.
Does this mean you no longer need a permit to film in Connecticut? Ought to bolster the movie industry there.
Re:NameCheap Overtakes Go Daddy In Google on Friday April 20, 2012 @02:36PM (#3869187)
Crud. There goes my hipster cred. Been using NameCheap for years, now they are too mainstream.
Re:Haskell School of Music by Paul Hudak on Friday April 20, 2012 @02:22PM (#3869121)
Are you referring The Haskell School of Expression? I don't think this new music book has been published in physical form yet.
Great tips! Another fascinating (Creative Commons-licensed!) framework I have heard about recently is Language Hunters. http://www.languagehunters.org. Their methods involve playing games with native speakers, in person or via Skype. They claim someone can reach fluency in a few months.
Re:From idea to replacing full-time salary in 4 months on Monday April 16, 2012 @01:38PM (#3848413)
Why is it a PIA to ask your friends? And why would you trust a web site more than your friends' recommendations?