Security issues are discussed all over the web as if everyone cares. Actually none does. Anyway, amidst the fuss, we do miss many simple things. Do not confuse features in a software with security vulnerabilities. If a user has a privilege to shut down the computer, he can do it by running a script in the console, writing a piece of code to do it, or just clicking on the shut down icon in the GUI. Any of these features are not security vulnerabilities. It is not the way in which the user accomplishes a task make it a security vulnerability. The question is whether the user is entitled to do the job he is trying to do. Raymond Chen observes:
It is not a security vulnerability that users with permission to shut down the computer can shut down the computer. This is another example of people getting excited that they were able to do something unusual. But just because you can do something unusual doesn’t mean that you’ve found a security vulnerability.
So something is a security vulnerability only when you can do what you were not supposed to do. If you can do something that you are allowed to do, that is what is called… hmm… I don’t know… may be just you don’t call it anything. You just continue with your work.
Some people just don’t get it.
You have a new idea of a product using the latest technology. You think that you can make it work using the smart new logic you invented, and you dream that you will make a lot of fame and money from the product.
Everything is fine with the assumption except that it will remain a dream. It will never ever work. For any real thing to work in the world, it should have a good business logic behind it. It is not sufficient to have a great technology behind your idea. It is all about business.
Joel Spolsky writes in Architecture astronauts take over about this:
It sort of bothers me, intellectually, that there are these people running around acting like they’re building the next great thing who keep serving us the same exact TV dinner that I didn’t want on Sunday night, and I didn’t want it when you tried to serve it again Monday night, and you crunched it up and mixed in some cheese and I didn’t eat that Tuesday night, and here it is Wednesday and you’ve rebuilt the whole goddamn TV dinner industry from the ground up and you’re giving me 1955 salisbury steak that I just DON’T WANT. What is it going to take for you to get the message that customers don’t want the things that architecture astronauts just love to build. The people? They love twitter. And flickr and delicious and picasa and tripit and ebay and a million other fun things, which they do want, and this so called synchronization problem is just not an actual problem, it’s a fun programming exercise that you’re doing because it’s just hard enough to be interesting but not so hard that you can’t figure it out.
The thing is that it is always about business.
It is not about how cute your idea is. It is not about the overload of latest Martian technology you use in your product. People never care about your technology. They don’t care about your idea or your dreams. They want a reasonable return for using your product. Your product must help them do their job better. If not, your product will fail. Watch out for the disaster.
The simple question is will people want to use it. I repeat, it is not about will people use it. It is about will people want to use it.
Will your product compel people to use it for the second time?
Think about it the next time you are planning your ground-breaking product.
Copying data and pasting it wherever necessary is a huge advantage that the field of computers has brought us. It was not possible in earlier communication or data manipulation technologies. Copy/Pasting data saves a lot of time thereby directly affecting our productivity. Copy/Pasting facility is a basic necessity in any computing device. It is very easy to implement and incredibly useful.
That is why every device that can be used to manipulate data must have Copy/Pasting mechanism in it. It is not an advanced feature I am asking for. It is a basic necessity.
But many computing devices fail miserably in providing this functionality. Mobile phones are the major culprits found in this area. Most of the mobile phones don’t have Copy/Pasting ability built into them. By Copy/Pasting ability I mean copying from any conceivable user screen and pasting in any input field. That is what we are used to in our personal computers. Exactly that functionality is needed in each and every device that can be used to manipulate data.
Giving this small tweak to your devices is a trivial task, but the user experience is enhanced manifold. Providing Copy/Pasting functionality in your applications or devices must be a priority in your usability design.
Which is the optimal time to start doing your favorite work, your dream?
If you have any work you think you must do, anything that you feel you must pursue in your life, you should actually stop doing everything else. Even stop reading this article. Start working for your dream now. Assume that your dream is X (replace X with whatever your dream is. For example, to run faster than everybody else or to start your own online business).
Don’t tell that you will start X next year.
Don’t tell that you will start X after gaining experience.
Don’t tell that you will start X when you have enough money.
Stop using all those words: next, after, when, if, later…….etc. Those are words used by ordinary people. You are not ordinary. You are exceptional. So start working now. To be on top, run. Fast. Now.
This is a post on how to connect your PC or Laptop to the internet using your vodafone mobile connection in India (It may work for other countries also).
You need:
- A vodafone connection in India
- A Bluetooth enabled mobile phone with GPRS facility.
- A Personal Computer or Laptop.
- Bluetooth Dongle.
Steps:
- Delete all the internet profiles (if any) from your mobile phone.
- Delete all the data accounts (if any) from your mobile phone.
- Send the message WWW to 52586
- Save the settings that you receive.
- Connect your PC/Laptop to the mobile phone using the Bluetooth software.
- In the software select the option resembling “Connect to Internet”.
- Provide the number to dial as *99***1# and dial.
- You will be connected to the internet.
This procedure was tested from Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh and it worked fine. If you know of any different procedure for any other locale, please comment below.
The field of distributed computing is a fascinating one, especially the online distributed computing projects. I have participated in some of the online distributed computing projects in the past just because of my interest in the field. I still remember the days when I was participating in the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search. My computer will search for a Mersenne Prime when I would sitting in front of it with my eyes wide open (and was hoping to win some prize and fame).
Distributed computing projects make use of processor cycles of computers over the internet. Now the problem is that we need to find a way to use the processor cycles. In most of the projects, an application is downloaded to the client computers to aid the process. This application will perform all the computations that are necessary and give the results back to he server. The problem with this approach is that only a limited number of users will download and and install this software. So in effect, the distibuted project is not distributed enough.
Is there any distributed software that can actually do this work? Which is the largest network of software that can be used to harness the CPU cycles form different omputers all around the world? It turns out that there is one. – Google Ads.
Google Adsense Ads are shown in millions of webpages across the globe. Adsense ads are viewed more than the google homepage itself. If some javascript code can be inserted to each adsense ad, it can do very huge calculations faster than any other distributed system, and that too without installing any aditional software. The end users will not feel the difference in performance either.
If Google starts using Adsense ads for helping scientific calcuations, I am willing to view ads in all webpages I visit. Then I would know that even though ads are a distraction, they serve a huge prpose. The purpose of promoting the progress of human race.
