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leapius

23 karma · joined May 20, 2013

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leapius··on Ferrolic
Yes, try 'Emancipator'. Samples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f02bAEGMYFQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo-fIy8wZjc

Try 'Tycho'. Samples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFr9StkVwTk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuGO6WHcruU

Also check out 'Epic 45' and 'M83'

leapius··on Cash-strapped councils switch off CCTV cameras across UK
'Cash-strapped' Hah you must be kidding! I also think 6 million cameras for a total population of 60 million is a little bit high dontchathink?!
leapius··on UK Election: What difference would proportional representation have made?
No he means personally vote him out. Only the residents of Morley had the power to vote him out, which they did of course (thankfully!)
leapius··on Be My Eyes – Lend your eyes to the blind
If only there was an Android version I'd be on it right now. In fact I think it would actually be quite an enjoyable past time answering requests, especially for lonely people.

Think about how interesting it would be to help out a complete stranger from anywhere in the world. I think it would become quite addicting.

leapius··on Mobile is Eating the World
These new functionalities you speak of in the future like finding what items are in stock nearby are all more of an information gathering exercise rather that technological. We could do all that you talk about now but it would require a massive unified collaboration with shop owners for example to adhere so a common data interchange standard.

I think the challenges are of a more political nature than technological.

leapius··on Sci-Fi Novels You Should Read
Sad not to see 'The Black Cloud - Fred Hoyle' in that list..
leapius··on Why Apple Didn't Use Sapphire for iPhone Screens
Actually you can still use the 3g / browser in that mode (except it is in black and white).
leapius··on Rolling your own CDN for $25 in 1 hour
Excellent tut!
leapius··on Password hack of vBulletin.com
I'd like to know opinions on IPB actually.
leapius··on Password hack of vBulletin.com
oh ok I thought the usual MO was:

if (md5(password + salt) == stored value) ..

leapius··on Password hack of vBulletin.com
ugh, cos md5 squared is twice as secure as just once - why not md5 x 10 to be uber secure?
leapius··on Password hack of vBulletin.com
Yes a cryptographic hash (like MD5 or SHA etc) stores a non-reversible string. Encryption means that it reversible but lets be honest here, when writing an article most laymen understand the general idea of encryption as opposed to hashing.

I'd really like to see how this hack works for general knowledge and if it's purely via the script itself and not a server attack.

leapius··on How long do disk drives last?
lol my money is on Seagate.. I thought it amusing how they rebadged their crap drives as Samsungs when they bought the name because of their very good rep in the sector.
leapius··on How long do disk drives last?
I think the floods has probably been a factor in reduced reliability. It took forever for prices to come down to where they were and the manufacturers are probably cutting corners everywhere to save costs. Why ramp up factories when the tech itself is on the way out?

I think this is most evident in the reduced warranty periods compared to before when 5 years was quite normal.

leapius··on Getting website registration completely wrong
Nice ideas! Some of them I had already implemented the same way in fact. Currently I have shipping and billing in one step - the only reason I could see for not splitting them up is that they can be different people / addresses so making them repeat an email address there might be confusing.

Right now an order number is displayed on completetion as you have described (and also emailed to them) so it's not fatal if the email address was wrong as they have a chance to note the order number down by other means. I do like the idea of telling them where the information has been emailed and giving them the option of re-sending it to a corrected address.

leapius··on Getting website registration completely wrong
I really like the idea of 'sneaking' in a confirmation surreptitiously somewhere where they might take more notice. I do agree with your idea that if you confirm right at the point of initial data entry, the user could question if the program is itself an idiot. This is the problem with double address entry on the same form as well (is this program deaf or something?!).

In thinking through this problem I was actually applying it to a real-world scenario I am dealing with right now; Shipping / email address entry for a checkout. Barrier to entry (to making a sale) has to be very low and easy enough to complete an impulse purchase quickly. (No user accounts or registration - just let me buy the damn thing already!)

In this scenario I figured having a pop-up upon submission would not usually be expected (i.e. this is not an account registration) and so would maybe surprise the user into reading it.

However, I definitely agree when confirmation boxes are situated in well-trodden interface routes, they are pointless and annoying.

leapius··on Getting website registration completely wrong
I take your points but I still think dialogue boxes are important additions to interfaces when used right. What about a delete function, which is genuinely accidentally clicked upon? Should we go ahead with a damaging delete instead of issuing a warning? Adding duplicate fields to fill out is a massive pain to all users, that cannot be denied.

My idea wasn't to invoke a dialogue pop-up but rather a visual light-boxed div pop-up in that tab, which wouldn't take control of the browser. They click no then they don't get to continue, yes next time they might just hit yes to proceed without reading. But as with duplicate field entry this is just about making an attempt to get accurate data from the user with the minimum of hassle.

leapius··on Getting website registration completely wrong
well if you have a question blocking the submission of a form the user would have to acknowledge it and surely click 'yes' is less annoying (and time consuming) than having to re-type the whole address?
leapius··on Getting website registration completely wrong
How about instead of two email input fields you do this:

One email field, when it loses focus (or you submit the form) a pop-up displays the email you entered and asks you if this is correct (Y/N). If you hit no then it focuses onto the email field for the user to make changes, and repeat.

The second field is just about forcing a user to be careful so why not make it a bit easier with a simple 'Yes' click instead?

leapius··on Sir Trevor Editor
Umm not sure how this beats sceditor tbh
leapius··on Margins on website development are shrinking
lol I don't buy this, just take a look at pretty much every CMS (hosted or otherwise) and weep if you think as a complete amateur you're going to create a site with their wysiwyg content editable that actually looks half way decent.

Website design isn't just about being able to create a site without touching html, it's actually about it looking like a grown up made it. As soon as you're a few hours into your new creation you're going to want to tweak it (a lot), good luck sifting through the html soup the editor created for you.