> Separate address and search bars is old-fashioned.
> As a user, I don't want to have to make this
> distinction, and it's hard to imagine most
> users-on-street wouldn't find this confusing
Although a UI problem, this is actually a privacy feature.
As you type into the search bar, autocomplete queries are sent to the search provider. This happens even if your intention was not to search, but just to enter URL manually.
In simpler terms: you are telling Google what sites you are visiting even when you don't use Google.
(AndrewDucker mentions this on this thread too, but his comment emphasises the UI aspect, whereas I think the privacy aspect needs to be stressed).
Just make your own custom search keywords (right-click site's search box>Add a keyword for this search). Uses no autocomplete, and is much more time-saving than a separate search box.
I have around 30 set up, from Wikipedia (w) to Google Image Search (gis), etc.
Of course there's always ways around things, but browser vendors have to (unless in specific cases) cater for the general public who don't know about personalisation. These are the people who need safe defaults most.
As power users, we tend to ignore the power of default settings. Their values have to be chosen carefully because only a small part of the public are even aware of them.
Several commenters here seem to imply that they shouldn't be the ones personalising their browsers. Turns out it's the other way around: they are the ones who know how to personalise it, whereas defaults should be about users who don't know how to do it.
I saw a similar tee elsewhere, but I like that in this case the proceeds go to OpenSSL.
Also, the fact that a t-shirt can be made out of this supports Patrick McKenzie's article [1] yesterday, commenting on how this bug (or rather, its announcement) has been a case of successful marketing.
GMail does a pretty good job at blocking trackers. However, this is not enough to prevent users from triggering the tracking themselves.
As gyardley says, there's the option to enable images. I rarely enable them, but sometimes I decide that I gain more from seeing them than from avoiding the tracking.
Another mechanism is links: clicking on one will get you tracked too. Normally, if there's something that catches my eye I look it up on Google instead of clicking on the link. But sometimes I either don't care or don't see a benefit to do it.
Now, the above is my behaviour, which is that of a paranoid, tech-savvy, power user who, for example, wasn't surprised in the slightest when the whole Edward Snowden story came about. Think of how a normal user will behave instead.
Whether that comma should or not be there is actually not universally agreed. This punctuation is known as "Serial comma"[1], and some style guides require its use.
On that sentence though, I think it's different. The first part of the sentence is long enough that the comma is welcome as a natural stop (and breather) before delivering the second half.
Did you not even read the first sentence on the wiki page you linked to? Here it is:
In punctuation, a serial comma or series comma (also called Oxford comma and Harvard comma) is a comma placed immediately before the coordinating conjunction (usually and, or, or nor) in a series of three or more terms.
Note the last four words. three or more terms
On that sentence though, I think it's different. The first part of the sentence is long enough that the comma is welcome as a natural stop (and breather) before delivering the second half.
Despite your feeling that commas should, be inserted randomly when we feel the sentence, has gone too long, that is not standard English. You also missed the entire, point of my comment. It has nothing to, do with commas.
I have had two similar experiences with my Amazon Kindle. (This is in the UK, in case it's relevant).
The first time, it broke. I called on a Tuesday at 6pm, they acknowledged the problem, and the day after I had a new one at 10am. I can't remember exactly how I returned the broken one, but I think I did it myself on the following days, to their freepost address.
The second time, I lost it. A couple of days later, they contacted me saying somebody had found it and called them. They shipped it back to me for free.
I had a similar experience. The screen had been cracked in my bag, they ran me through a number of questions to determine whether it was my fault or just simple bad luck, determined bad luck and had a new one with me in 2 days (only day I could be in to swap the broken one). Great customer experience, it's one of the reasons I recommend people to buy Kindles over the competition.
The physical principle is that they detect the leakage from the local oscillator in the superheterodyne receiver circuit.
I very much doubt that they exist now, if they ever did. It just isn't cost efficient compared to sending out letters and low paid inspectors who peer through windows looking for people watching TV.
The only means I know of for one to reliably detect the image on the screen would be TEMPEST style attacks [1]. I doubt that Capita can afford to buy the necessary equipment, or even views it as economically viable given the volume of letters they sent out - 56 million letters were sent in 2009, for example [2].
I'm not sure if modern TVs will even emit anything obvious since the connection from the decoder to the panel is covered in EMI shielding.
I don't really know what direction the site will take, but I think you are missing the point there.
The FizzBuzz test might be very easy, but you are assuming that these challenges will be for people of your own skill level. Probably the site will want to cater for a wider audience, from beginner to advanced, and FizzBuzz provides a good starting point for both.
And anyway, we have all read enough about FizzBuzz to know that even "experienced" "professionals" can fail spectacularly at it.
One interesting fact: even though they are explicitly looking for Python devs, no actual Python experience is required. This is the second instance I see of something like this in London (the first being the company I work for, http://new-bamboo.co.uk).
It looks like there's a lack of experienced developers in London, or at least in some technologies. Therefore companies needs must resort to finding "generic" good programmers who can be trained.
Of course I don't have any statistically significant data, only anecdotal experience. However it does resonate with the difficulty that we have had finding Ruby devs at New Bamboo in the last few months.
Does this sound familiar to anyone? I wonder if there's the same lack of supply of PHP devs.
>It looks like there's a lack of experienced developers in London
Because anyone with half a brain has left the UK and come to SF/NYC, where they pay ~3 times as much. If I was in the UK, I'd be on some measly 26K salary and living above a chop shop in Tooting.
There's definitely a lack of good developers in London. We don't mind too much about what language people know as the fundamentals of good software translate to pretty much any language :)
This resonates with a recent experience. I'm working on a project where the PO is very keen to add integration to all kinds of third party services. This is in order to speed up development and provide simple but flashy features that he'll be better able to sell.
However, normally have a problem: when he comes to me with links to these services, I have great difficulty to see exactly what they do, because all I can find is marketing jargon. Technical documentation is often buried deep within the guts of the site, and I have a hard time seeing if the service is actually worth integrating.
As you type into the search bar, autocomplete queries are sent to the search provider. This happens even if your intention was not to search, but just to enter URL manually.
In simpler terms: you are telling Google what sites you are visiting even when you don't use Google.
(AndrewDucker mentions this on this thread too, but his comment emphasises the UI aspect, whereas I think the privacy aspect needs to be stressed).