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Comment IE8 is on top for 2 reasons.... (Score 1) 319

I'm surprised nobody has caught the obvious here, that IE8 is gaining ground thanks to a two-pronged strategy. The first is Microsoft pushing IE8 out forcefully to everyone via windows/microsoft update. Even on the server side of things. They rank it as a critical download rather than optional, so if you just have important updates turned on, it will show up all by itself eventually. The second is that Windows 7 and Server 2008 are both gaining momentum as people buy new stuff and companies begin to upgrade their infrastructures. It's a new year which means a new budget and money to spend on replacing dead or dying computers and servers.

All this results in IE8 gaining marketshare. It will end up capturing as much, if not more, of IE7's share over time. There may always be some old holdouts from companies running some crazy in-house web-based app that only works on IE6, but I'm sure there are still NT4 boxen humming away in some dusty server closets somewhere too.

My only beef with IE8 is how the rendering engine destroys some pages. Buttons don't appear, images and text gets cut off, and I'll be damned if the page printing feature doesn't still chop the sides off of pages rather than reformat them to fit the page for printing. MS releases "compatibility" updates for it nearly every week or two, just to get it to render as cleanly (which is relative at this point) as IE7. At many companies I take care of, I have intentionally disabled IE8 from WSUS and unchecked it from Windows Update using the "fuck you don't come back" button due to rendering problems that end up crippling some work-related sites.

User Journal

Submission + - Reducing RSI Pain Once it's Happened

Wellington Grey writes: "I've been a heavy computer user since my parents bought home an Apple ][. Immediately addicted by the glowing screen, I typed and clicked until my wrists and fingers would no longer let me. But last month something scary happened: the pain in my hand didn't go away. The first and middle fingers on my right hand chronically hurt even when I wasn't on the computer.

The pain grew and, concerned, I visited a doctor who diagnosed it as a repetitive strain injury. When I asked what could be done to fix it, his advice was essentially: "Sucks to be you. Take some ibuprofen and stay off the computer, nerd."

While just five years ago I would have felt guilty not following advice to limit my computer use, I don't now. Like it or not, benefit or not, the computer is a central focus of life. My work, and all my hobbies, from photography to writing, to drawing involve the computer.

So my question to slashdotters is this: once you already have RSI, what can you do to reduce the pain if limiting computer use isn't an option?"
Media

New AACS Crack Called "Undefeatable" 554

Tuoqui writes "With all the focus on the infamous hexadecimal number, people may be ignoring a bigger weakness in the AACS armor, which emerged two weeks ago. Some hackers have figured out how to crack AACS in a way that cannot be defeated, even by revoking all the keys in circulation."

Feed Space shuttle crashes in Alabama (theregister.com)

It was on a train at the time

A train carrying the solid rocket boosters used on space shuttles has crashed in Alabama, injuring six people. The accident happened when a bridge collapsed over boggy ground, according to reports. One of the people is reported to have been critically hurt.


Feed Maggots Rid Patients Of Antibiotic-resistant Infection, MRSA (sciencedaily.com)

Medical researchers are ridding diabetic patients of the superbug MRSA -- by treating their foot ulcers with maggots. The scientists used green bottle fly larvae to treat 13 diabetic patients whose foot ulcers were contaminated with MRSA and found all but one were cured within a mean period of three weeks, much quicker than the 28-week duration for the conventional treatment.
Unix

Submission + - Define: /etc

ogar572 writes: There has been an ongoing and heated debate around the office concerning the definition of what /etc means on *nix operating systems. One side says "et cetera" per Wikipedia. Another side says it means "extended tool chest" per this gnome mailing list entry or per this Norwegian article. Yet another side says neither, but he doesn't remember exactly what he heard in the past. All he remembers is that he was flamed when he called it "et cetera", but that "extended tool chest" didn't sound right either. So, what does it really mean?

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