>but rather low ranking analysts whose job at the conferences are to assess the material presented and report back
So? I work for a private company. I 'report back' on the cool shit I saw, let people know what was around, what was popular, etc. It's a learning experience. Saying they 'report back' is useless. If you go to a con and don't talk with other people about the stuff you saw there it's almost wasteful.
I think I know what you meant though - they go and see what all the 'underground hackers' are up to.
> This destroys a non-technical user's grasp of the differences between static HTML and programatically manipulated HTML. It hides the setting amidst hundreds of other obscure settings, and does not emphasize the extremely powerful tool that JavaScript is, and the fact that it is optional.
Most 'non-technical users' don't have a clue about HTML, Javascipt, static features, etc. To them the internet consists of Facebook, Google and Youtube.
Arguably users who want to disable Javascript could be classified as 'technical', at least enough to be able to Google either a) how to do it from within Firefox, or b) install a plugin such as NoScript to do it for them.
> in spite of there being laws banning the transfer of personal data outside Australia, most people are quite lax about the issue and take the view that the risks are too small to be counted.
I can tell you from working in the finance industry in Australia and APEA, larger companies/banks take this very seriously due to compliance obligations with regulators (APRA, MAS, HKMA, etc).
This is true for places that have good conditions and internet. You have to remember, power outages are a daily occurrences in even built up places such as Bangalore, and internet connectivity isn't crash hot anyway. Latency of the website won't have as much of an impact in these conditions (IMO, anyway)
I used Zoho for a while in the place of Google Apps, and migrated back to Google Apps after about 9 months as I absolutely hated Zoho Mail. Webmail interface was awful, and it didn't play nicely with the POP client on Android.
Having not owned an iPhone, I just want to clarify: when you update an app, it does so in the foreground? That seems like an odd design decision. Would there be any reason for that to happen, as opposed to in the background (a la Android)?
One thing that's missing from the timeline is equivalent services that Google have launched/purchased. For example, Google Video didn't so much 'shut down' as merge with (the arguably better) Youtube.
Who's to say they aren't? Spending 10 seconds asking on Twitter, and getting an 'oh yeah, I had that and fixed it with x, y and z' in response sure beats staying up until 2am fixing it.
Wait... they crowdsourced the translation of their Terms and Conditions? That seems like, I don't know, a bad idea. For user content or interfaces sure, but T&Cs are essentially a legal document.
Translation is one of those things where crowdsourcing makes sense - there's not always a 'right' way to translate a particular phrase, so a consensus between multiple people helps.
So? I work for a private company. I 'report back' on the cool shit I saw, let people know what was around, what was popular, etc. It's a learning experience. Saying they 'report back' is useless. If you go to a con and don't talk with other people about the stuff you saw there it's almost wasteful.
I think I know what you meant though - they go and see what all the 'underground hackers' are up to.