Entries for contextfree

Subtle aspects of an app's support for Windows 7

contextfree — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:12:04 GMT

Some OS features, like extended Jump Lists or progress indicators in taskbar icons, require that your app be explicitly programmed to use them. Others are generic and function for all apps -- but, like screen resolution, some apps can still be more suited than others for use with them.

For instance, I find taskbar window previews and Aero Peek useful when I have too many apps and windows open and am looking for things to close (I tend to take a "GC cycle" approach to window management). I can quickly and smoothly move though the windows and just middle-click on anything I don't need. But this breaks down when I come to an app such as Firefox that displays a modal confirmation dialog when you attempt to close multiple tabs; that totally breaks the flow. When possible, it's much better to just close the window and have a mechanism for restoring closed tabs, as Chrome does. Aero Snap is another example: not every application (or website) is usable at half width, especially on laptops, but I think developers should give some thought to making their apps work well in this mode, as when it does work it's very convenient for coordinating between applications.

Shouldn't your Pinned (to jumplist) Explorer items = your Explorer Favorites? [Shouldn't your Pinned (to jumplist) Explorer items = your Explorer Favorites?]

contextfree — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:58:22 GMT

The two separate lists throw me off -- I never remember what I have pinned, so I never think to use the jumplist. Are they really used very differently? I guess there's more room in Explorer Favorites, but does there need to be?

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Education, academics and industry [Education, academics and industry]

contextfree — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:17:19 GMT

I sometimes think it would be better if instead of spending a lot of time in school at the beginning of your life, going to work and then only working for the rest of your life, it was standard to (after finishing elementary + some/all of high school) spend a year in school, a couple/few years in industry, another year in school ... and so on until you retire/die. Of course some people end up doing this anyway, but I think it should be the default assumed by society -- what do you think?

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What is the point of the ribbon in WordPad? [What is the point of the ribbon in WordPad?]

contextfree — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:54:18 GMT

I thought the purpose of the ribbon was to aid discoverability in applications with lots of features, as well as results-oriented editing through the live previews etc. Finding things in WordPad isn't exactly a problem and the only live gallery is the colors. The ribbon is a lose here because it wastes space (since only a small part of the tab bar is used, and if the app is maximized only a small part of the individual tab ribbons is used), and -- at least if the menus are small and don't have submenus -- clicking a tab -> clicking something in its ribbon isn't as smooth as clicking a menu -> selecting something in the menu (in Office this is mitigated by the minitoolbar, which you don't have in WordPad).

If the idea is to make MSFT applications more consistent, I don't think it's a worthwhile tradeoff in this case. Menu-based applications aren't going away, nor should they (for the above reasons), so it's not like the overall cognitive overhead for users will decrease. They'll still have to deal with other apps that are menu-based.

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Android (and Chrome OS?) security model [Android (and Chrome OS?) security model]

contextfree — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:45:35 GMT

http://d.android.com/guide/topics/security/security.html

"A central design point of the Android security architecture is that no application, by default, has permission to perform any operations that would adversely impact other applications, the operating system, or the user. This includes reading or writing the user's private data (such as contacts or e-mails), reading or writing another application's files, performing network access, keeping the device awake, etc. ... An application's process is a secure sandbox. It can't disrupt other applications, except by explicitly declaring the permissions it needs for additional capabilities not provided by the basic sandbox. These permissions it requests can be handled by the operating in various ways, typically by automatically allowing or disallowing based on certificates or by prompting the user. [...]

All Android applications (.apk files) must be signed with a certificate whose private key is held by their developer. This certificate identifies the author of the application. The certificate does not need to be signed by a certificate authority: it is perfectly allowable, and typical, for Android applications to use self-signed certificates. The certificate is used only to establish trust relationships between applications, not for wholesale control over whether an application can be installed. The most significant ways that signatures impact security is by determining who can access signature-based permissions and who can share user IDs. [...] Each Android package (.apk) file installed on the device is given its own unique Linux user ID [...]

At application install time, permissions requested by the application are granted to it by the package installer, based on checks against the signatures of the applications declaring those permissions and/or interaction with the user. No checks with the user are done while an application is running: it either was granted a particular permission when installed, and can use that feature as desired, or the permission was not granted and any attempt to use the feature will fail without prompting the user. [...]

To enforce your own permissions, you must first declare them in your AndroidManifest.xml using one or more <permission> tags.

For example, an application that wants to control who can start one of its activities could declare a permission for this operation as follows:[...] telling the system how the user is to be informed of applications requiring the permission, or who is allowed to hold that permission, as described in the linked documentation.[...]"

I think this kind of model is the future of security on consumer operating systems. The Unix/Windows style ACL model was designed to protect the system and the administrator from users, not to protect users from programs, and the attempt to use it for the latter purpose by having admins do most of their work as standard user and elevate to root when necessary (either manually or through some automated system like gksudo or UAC) is basically a hack. It doesn't provide all the protection that users need (e.g. doesn't protect their personal data, only system data), and it doesn't make sense to them because it doesn't make sense. That's why UAC was rejected on Windows (it was only accepted on Linux and Mac because their users are cultists). Meanwhile, the iPhone model of locking down everything will eventually start to be seen as too restrictive even among the general public.

I bet, and hope, Chrome OS will use a similar model, and also that this will spur Microsoft to follow suit. I think Midori is based on capability security so let's hope it comes out of incubation sooner than later, and/or aspects of it are incorporated into Windows in advance.

in reply to Android (and Chrome OS?) security model

Comma operator in C# (warning: caffeine-overdose-induced FUBAR code inside) [Comma operator in C# (warning: caffeine-overdose-induced FUBAR code inside)]

contextfree — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 01:07:27 GMT

I've always found the lack of a comma operator irritating, but I recently realized I can simulate one, or at least its most common use (and in general put statement blocks wherever single statements or expressions are expected) by (ab)using the lambda syntax like so:

[code language="csharp"]for((()=>{int i = 1; int j = 1})(); j < 10000; (()=>{i = j; j = i + j})()) { Console.WriteLine(i.ToString()); } [/code]

what do you think, sirs? if you were my manager, would you have me lynched if you found the above in my code?

in reply to Comma operator in C# (warning: caffeine-overdose-induced FUBAR code inside)

when I can has vs2010 beta 2? [when I can has vs2010 beta 2?]

contextfree — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:06:45 GMT

i want it NOWWWWW :'(

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Solving the "losing your work on forum posts" issue at the browser level? [Solving the "losing your work on forum posts" issue at the browser level?]

contextfree — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:31:51 GMT

I'm sure many of us have had the wonderful experience of spending some time on a web forum post, blog comment, message on a social site, email from webmail client, etc. -- in short, something typed into a browser text box -- and losing it due to some server or connection issue. Of course, a solution is to always type any long text you're composing into a separate text editor window, and copy + paste, but for some reason no matter how many times I'm burned by not doing this, and tell myself to be sure to do it next time, I still keep forgetting to do it. :$ I suspect many others are in the same boat.

It seems to me that rather than relying on every web developer to account for this in their software design, this could be dealt with by the web browser by incorporating more editor-like features into their text boxes. For example after noticing that you'd typed a certain amount into a textbox, the browser would automatically save it to a file (perhaps it would also display its name for the file in the status bar, and an inobtrusive icon similar to Word's autocorrect/IE8's Accelerator icons would appear allowing you to change the name) which would then show up in a "Composition Manager" screen allowing you to browse and search for previous text entries. Does anyone know of browsers or plugins with features like this? I know of a Firefox plugin called "It's All Text" which lets you open a separate text editor window with one click on an icon that appears in textboxes, but of course that's not quite the same.

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Office 2010 leaked beta icons: huh? [Office 2010 leaked beta icons: huh?]

contextfree — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 22:13:56 GMT

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/09/another-office-2010-mondo-build-leaked-into-the-wild.ars

How could anyone think using the initial of your application as the signature element in the icons of a suite of which three of your applications have the same initial (and another two -- both included in a standard SKU! -- would if you didn't cheat by arbitrarily using an inner capital for one of them) is a good idea? :S

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So when will we get a CLR JIT to DNA? [So when will we get a CLR JIT to DNA?]

contextfree — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:18:09 GMT

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article6804599.ece

"Artificial life will be created within four months, a controversial scientist has predicted. Craig Venter, who led a private project to sequence the human genome, told The Times that his team had cleared a critical hurdle to creating man-made organisms in a laboratory.

“Assuming we don’t make any errors, I think it should work and we should have the first synthetic species by the end of the year,” he said.

Last January the team built a bacterium’s entire genetic code from scratch. The next step was to transfer this synthetic genome into a host cell, using the 2007 transplant technique, to “reboot” it with genetic instructions written by humans. This has failed so far because the synthetic genome will not work when it is transplanted into host cells."

Seriously, if we're going to be building genetic codes, at some point we'll need high-level languages to build them, right? Anyone know about research in this area?

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Why doesn't ICollection implement IStructuralEquatable? [Why doesn't ICollection implement IStructuralEquatable?]

contextfree — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 20:31:12 GMT

Is there some obvious reason it shouldn't that I'm not seeing?

While we're at it, wouldn't it be nice if there were some way for me to have some existing class in an external assembly implement some interface without changing its code, a.k.a. extension interfaces a.k.a. typeclasses ... :P

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If IObservable is the dual of IEnumerable, what is the dual of IQueryable? [If IObservable is the dual of IEnumerable, what is the dual of IQueryable?]

contextfree — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 20:31:02 GMT

Hmm ...

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