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Lon Widdicombe › Comments
What are Google’s real motivations behind Chrome OS? | VentureBeat - http://venturebeat.com/2009...
echostreamer liked this
Let me repeat this: Success is not about whether a lot of people use Chrome OS. It’s about whether a lot of people end up using Web applications. This is a simple conclusion, really, but very profound. Even if everyone ends up using some other OS, as long as all the apps they use are web-based, Google wins, because its products can compete on a level playing field. Instead of building special applications that run on your OS and store files through proprietary methods, a web application will run on any device, making them the same from the consumer’s perspective. Critically, enhancements proposed in HTML-5 will allow them to run offline as well as online. (In fact, Chrome OS, being open source, will probably be forked into a less proprietary system distributed by any number of parties. Even if this hurts the user base of Google Chrome, Google wins.)
good point, great foresight
- echostreamer
Leo and the gang, the video feeds are taking forever to hit the roku and mediafly. Are the video feeds going to start dropping within 24 hours, please?
- Lon Widdicombe
Office 2010 Public Beta, Part 1: Introduction - http://www.winsupersite.com/office...
when will there be a beta of Office 2011 for mac, is it a year away?
- Lon Widdicombe
Advice Needed: I have to recommend a Sci-fi/Fantasy book to a 50+ year old woman who loves to read (20 books ever two weeks) but who has never read a Sci-Fi or fantasy book. She is fairly conservative and even used to be a Nun. She really likes mysteries and thrillers.
I'm looking for a suggested book that will give her a very positive introduction to the Genre so that she will return for more. So throw out your best advice.
- Bill Rawlinson
Mary Doria Russell: The Sparrow (1996). Much appreciated as both sf and main stream literature. Won the Arthur C. Clarke Award.
- Peter
well I had hoped for a little more feedback. Thanks Peter. I checked out the blurb on Amazon and it sounds like a good choice. I like Russell's writing (I've read her novel "A Thread of Grace") so I think I'll run with your suggestion.
- Bill Rawlinson
start will some of the classics, the older stuff is usually a little more conservitive. starship trooper will get her hooked, then the I robot series of short stories. then bam Harry turtledove guns of the south. hope that helps
- Lon Widdicombe
Maybe Tamara Siler Jones? Set in a medieval Europe type setting, and they're basically police procedurals, with magic. 1st one is Ghosts in the Snow. Threads of Malice was a bit gory, though.
- Elizabeth
Thanks Lon and Elizabeth
- Bill Rawlinson
Having a hell of a time selecting a new password for a new database at work. How do YOU pick your passwords?
Kol Tregaskes, Darren Heydon, Baard @ Pixum and 9 other people liked this
abc#123 is a great password
- acedanger
I make up funny sentences. One that's no longer in use: "ZombieEatBrains!"
- Jennifer Dittrich
The letter "a"... as in apple. http://www.thewebsiteisdown.com/
- Louis Gray
First letter + case + punctuation of a song lyric I know well
- James Ostheimer
I always use 1password for all my passwords. That "1" makes it super secure!! that's what my friend told me...
- felix
Most advanced password generators would give you decent pronounceable passwords.
- Asankhaya Sharma
"Diceware" is a classic method http://world.std.com/~reinho...
- Micah Wittman
I never remember them, so I try to stick to stuff I know, but then end up mixing up the passwords and getting locked out of my stuff half the time.
- James Ferguson
Micah: The Diceware method is nice, but it would be pretty annoying in my cube at the office when I'm generating passwords for 85 system accounts to connect to my databases. LOL!
- Anthony K. Valley ©
I use 1Password to generate obnoxiously long random passwords and then sync the encrypted keylist between 3 computers
- bear (aka Mike Taylor)
I found one just thinking about whatever. I just hope I can remember it. :)
- Derrick
Anthony, sounds like a scaling problem. I highly recommend buying dice by the bucket ;)
- Micah Wittman
Linux: pwgen. Mac: 1Password. Windows: Ummm.... Cygwin with pwgen. Across all three, Keepass password generator.
- Andy Bold
Passwords are easy, just write it on a yellow sticky and put it on your monitor then you don't have to remember it. (Disclaimer: not to be used on anything you want secure) HA!
- Lon Widdicombe
maiden name of your father's grandmother.
- Janet
password generator duh!
- sofarsoShawn
I use http://www.passpack.com. Then I usually pick random passwords.
- Håkan Dahlström
I use popular movie quotes, utilizing the first letter of each word then adding a number often from the year the movie was set in or the year it premiered.
- Andrew Leyden
Micah: LOL! Really... I'm laughing out loud in the audible sense of the phrase. I'm going to have our admin order a bucket of ice. *wipes tear from eye*
- Anthony K. Valley ©
Composed of bad jokes that only a fellow academic or grad student in English could appreciate. When one of my office mate's was reading for exams, our office computer's password was Ih@teb00ks
- Katy S
hehe. Anthony, "bucket of ice" is the best typo of the day (my own are usually dull, but numerous). After all the dice rolls, putting the wrist on ice is a good idea - so you were thinking ahead =)
- Micah Wittman
I like 'admin' or 'password'. They work like a charm.
- WorldofHiglet
..or save time and just use your login as your password, too! And don;t forget to put it on a post-it note and have it attached to your monitor so you'll never forget it....yeah I'm still bitter from being a tech...
- WorldofHiglet
I look at the words or things near my desk.
- Brent - Loving Life
I try to use long, obscure movie titles, properly capitalised, with some numerics or non-alphas.
- Mark H
A lot of people tell me one of the hardest things for a writer to do is call themselves a writer. Do you think that's true?
Kol Tregaskes, Dobromir Hadzhiev, Mahdi Ebrahimi and 18 other people liked this
Actually, one of the hardest things for a writer to do is to lick his/her elbow.
- Mistletoe Glen
Yes. I find that people who blurt out that they are writers generally aren't. Yet, my friends who are published tend to dance around the fact that they've written books or whatever. When I was in high school, one my teachers kept after me, telling me to admit that I'm a poetess. Unease is an understatement. I was like, "Can't I just be Anika?"
- Admiral Anika
Yeah I think it's easy to call yourself a writer, but many people who do so aren't really writers. Having a few vague ideas and an outline of what you want to write doesn't a writer make. Maybe it's harder for the actual writers - who have actually written something substantial - to call themselves writers, though. In that case, it'd be weird to do so because they take writing for granted - kinda like someone who breathes oxygen referring to themselves as a "breather."
- Phronk
I've also encountered many people who say things like "Well, if I lose my job, I'll be a writer." And lately, people who HAVE lost their jobs have called me up to ask, "Why can't you get me some jobs like yours? I can write." I wonder if that has a lot to do with the hesitancy. There's not a respect for that description of yourself?
- Trish R
Glen... This is true. I was unable to perform the licking of the elbow.
- Johnny Worthington
Johnny, isn't that true for everyone?
- Trish R
Now that I write "regularly," yeah, I actually do find it difficult.
- Tamar Weinberg
YES! Well, that and actually writing every day :) There is a real reluctance to 'admit' it (as if being a writer is somehow not a valid thing to be). But now my hubby actually introduces me as a writer and that is awesome....:)
- WorldofHiglet
The writers I work with face the same problem as me as a designer (anyone with Photoshop considers themselves a designer). They're no longer called copywriters, but instead 'communication specialists'. To me, that vagueness of their title is harmful to their craft. To help them get respect, I always refer to them as the writers, wordsmiths or copywriters when dealing with clients.
- Jess
You should try licking your elbow.
- Mistletoe Glen
Jess, you're right, I remember a huge argument on Twitter about a year ago between several people over someone feeling ripped off by anyone charging over $100 to design a blog site because they know how to install WordPress and upload a free template.
- Trish R
Abby: you can lick your elbow?!
- WorldofHiglet
I have some issues with it. Force myself for work reasons. Once it was "when I publish something, then I will really be a writer". Then it was "when I sell something". Now it's "when my first short story comes out in a REAL mag or anthology". I am sure after that it will "when my first novel sells" and so on. It's an effort. If you think about it about, every writer is taking on the mantle of Shakespeare, Ovid, and Shelley. It's not small shoes to fill.
- Neal Jansons
The hardest thing for a writer to do is make money. :)
- l0ckergn0me
I'm a lover not a wrighter.
- Thomas Hawk
Lockergnome- actually I made money as a writer. The hardest thing to do is make money writing something you're proud of! I walked around for a year & a half calling myself a writer, because I was writing a lot, and some in my informal crew took it very seriously to elevate the idea of a writer. In reality I was trying to get published, and the last thing i wanted to do at cocktail...
more...
- anna sauce
I didn't get mad, at that time, that there were people calling themselves writers that weren't- I actually didn't know anybody doing that. I think it is brave to call yourself a writer/poet whatever. But I also think that some of my favorite authors were Customs Agents, programmers, insurance salesmen, housewives, just plain Aunties, etc. during their lives.
- anna sauce
I have no trouble calling myself a writer. It's what's on my tax forms and the little sign on my cube at work, for one thing. What I have trouble with is ... y'know... *writing*.
- Nine
LOL, Nine. Yeah, that writer's block is a killer.
- Trish R
And at what point do you call yourself a writer? when you're paid for it? when you're published? when you are writing just for yourself?
- Steve C
Steve- why call yourself a writer?
- anna sauce
I've had several writing professors say that. But when I say I'm not a writer, I mean it. I haven't written anything of note in about four years. My writer friends like to comfort me by saying I still have the skill/talent but 1) not sure if I believe that and 2) it means very little if I do nothing with them.
- ♥patricia♥
I've had the discussion about when you can call yourself a writer numerous times. I think if someone devotes time to writing then that makes him/her a writer. Does it make them a good one? That I can't speak to. The folks who take their writing very seriously object to this take on it and I can understand why but I think the creative process should be acknowledged no matter the medium.
- ♥patricia♥
I agree with Anika.
- Akiva Moskovitz
This thread kind of reminds me why, when I'm deep in writing a novel, I hate writing workshops and writer communities. I'm just really picky about them. Like the idea of being offended by someone calling themselves a writer. what??? Also, I love nanowrimo, perhaps because it doesn't take itself (too?) seriously.
- anna sauce
That's why I ask the question on my blog, Writer or Author? I define it as; a writer writes, but an author publishes. I just completed my first novel, but I call my writing a hobby until someone publishes it, then I'll say I'm an author.
- Lon Widdicombe
No, I consider myself one however I've had essays and shorts stories published afew times
- sofarsoShawn
Yes, I always feel weird when I say I am a Writer. I think I am my worst critic
- Shevonne
The benchmark for me has always been getting paid for what I write, or some form of professional recognition. Until then I consider myself a hobbyist, which if it's as good as it gets, is fine with me. If asked about it, I say "I write."
- MASTER OF THE OBVIOUS
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