Google Chrome vs. Firebox or good old Internet Explorer?

Sat Dec 26 20:17:30 IST 2009

On Sat, Dec 26, 2009 at 2:59 PM, Micha <michf at post.tau.ac.il> wrote:
> On 26/12/2009 13:51, Shlomi Fish wrote:
>>
>> On Saturday 26 Dec 2009 02:02:15 Micha wrote:
>>>
>>> On 25/12/2009 23:29, Uri Even-Chen wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 9:21 PM, Dotan Cohen<dotancohen at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I tested all 3 browsers (Google Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer)
>>>>>> with Gmail, and the fonts look best with Internet Explorer!  The fonts
>>>>>> in Google Chrome and Firefox don't look good, I can't explain it but
>>>>>> the fonts in Internet Explorer look better!
>>>>>
>>>>> Turn on anti-aliasing for all programs. This is a known issue in
>>>>> Windows.
>>>>
>>>> Sorry, I don't know how to do that.  I'm stuck with the default.  But
>>>> I think the programmers themselves (of Google Chrome and Firefox)
>>>> should have taken care of this issue.
>>>
>>> It's not something that the programmers can control in this case. Its a
>>>  fuck with the shitty piece of software called windows.
>>>
>>
>> Well, they could offer to toggle this option in Windows on in the
>> installer.
>
> They could but I guess that they don't want to update their installer.
>
>>
>
> ...
>
>>
>>> As for IE around the world, I ran into more and more computers running
>>>  linux. I also always traver with a portable version of firefox and
>>>  thunderbird on a usb disk (Actually also skype for those windows
>>> computers
>>>  that don't have it installed). Greatly reduces the risk of password
>>> theft
>>>  (those computers around the world are usually set to store passwords and
>>>  such).
>>
>> So you're using the Firefox password manager for that? I'm just interested
>> to
>> know how you overcome the keyloggers / password sniffers.
>>
>
> 1. A lot of places just enable saving passwords without asking, so your
> passwords, even if not directly readable, are saved locally. They also
> enable automatic form filling so they get both the username and the password
> (all they need is the first letter of the username to fill the entire form).
> Using my own firefox with password manager and ssl login avoids that
> (although take note that it is possible to sniff the contents of password
> fields on the same computer so it's not completely fool proof)
>
> 2. I configured thunderbird to use ssl login for all sites and remember
> passwords so I never actually type the password and it's never sent clear
> text so it's very hard for keyloggers/password sniffers to catch those
> passwords
>
> 3. At least some of your sites are saved in the cache so you're surfing
> details can be seen later on. Portable firefox avoids that as well (although
> remember to purge the temp folder when you finish, some things go there).
>
> 4. I always keep track of all passwords I use during travel and change them
> once I get home
>
> 5. I always leave my bank accesses to someone I trust at home to do my
> transactions for me (my parents have power of attorney at the bank ...).
> Actually my parents used the same approach on their last big trip.
>
> 6. skype also saves all usernames used and possibly the last password so
> using a portable version avoids that as well.
>
>
>>>
>
> ...
>
>>>
>>>> I suppose I can convert my Word and Excel files to Open Office if I
>>>> want to, but my Access software will have to keep running on Microsoft
>>>> Access&   Windows.  I wrote this software for the company I work for,
>>>> Pazgal, since 1996 and until now.  It has about 80 forms, 40 reports
>>>> and more than 200 queries, 80 tables and a lot of Visual Basic code.
>>>> If I were to write this program again in a new platform, it would take
>>>> me years!  And I don't know which platform can replace Microsoft
>>>> Access.
>>>
>>> Access is one of the worst databases around. sql is a much better choice,
>>> although I'm not a database person so I can't recomend environments.
>>> Visual
>>> basic is also pure crap in my opinion, but I guess I'm as biased against
>>> Microsoft as you are for it.
>>>
>>
>
> I'll start with the fact that I'm not a database programmer, I actually
> rather despise doing anything database related. It's way out of my domain of
> expertise. I did get to work with mysql and firebird via php, perl and c.
> Also did some work with access but hated that the most. Could be due to me
> being more of a hacker so I'm more comfortable with programing languages
> than GUIs.

Access has some advantages for the programmer.  It's very good in
saving programming time, for example its visual query generator is
very good - much easier than writing the SQL code yourself.  Its forms
and reports are good, and you can connect to tables from other
databases too.  We use it at Pazgal for an internal program, the
disadvantages are that we are stuck with Windows and Microsoft Office
(although it can work on computers without Microsoft Office installed)
and that we can't export the program to anything but Access.  We are
using Office XP (2002), we didn't upgrade to office 2007 due to
several compatibility problems.  Actually Office 2007 is not
compatible with previous versions of office - Microsoft does this
every few years to force users upgrade and pay.  I hate the Microsoft
concept, but again I must admit that there are some advantages for
Microsoft software - for example, the Hebrew support in Microsoft
products was better and developed before competitors - one of the
reasons I switched from Netscape to MS IE.

>> I should note that Access is SQL-based and used the Microsoft Jet Engine
>> last
>> I've heard:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Jet_Database_Engine
>>
>> Back in my first real programming job, I used the Access DDE (the
>> predecessor
>> of OLE) interface to send SQL statements to Access and get back results.
>> That
>> was with Access 2.0 on Windows 3.11. I actually learnt SQL from the Access
>> help files. Access contains a query designer that ends up generating SQL
>> for
>> you, and other features such as forms, which were of little interest for
>> me at
>> that time, because I was only interested in it as a storage backend.
>>
>> (I should note that after using Access and eventually switching to ODBC to
>> the
>> Jet Engine, we ended up realising that using SQL for our needs would be
>> too
>> slow (to say nothing of not reliable), and that we had to use something
>> faster. So we ended up using the original in-memory lookup (using arrays
>> of C
>> structs) that I originally started to work on.)
>>
>> Regarding "Visual Basic" - Microsoft has been using many dialects of Basic
>> and
>> "Visual Basic" in its products - Access Basic, Word Basic, Visual Basic
>> 1.0-6.0 (with back compat), Visual Basic for Applications, VBScript,
>> Visual
>> Basic .NET., etc. The original Visual Basic 6.0 was now end-of-lifed and
>> has
>> never been portable to anything except Windows, but is still actively used
>> and
>> maintained.
>>
>> One can develop web apps (or GUI apps) that work against a database
>> backend in
>> a similar way to what you can do with Access, using
>> Perl/Python/Ruby/PHP/etc.
>> but it will require more programming know-how, and a less WYSIWYG
>> environment.
>>
>>> Each time I touch word (usually to change one equation in an exercise
>>> file
>>>  or solution) I regret it and end up copying the entire file to latex as
>>> it
>>>  takes me less time than to make it presentable with word.
>>>
>>>>>>   And Access - I don't know
>>>>>> about any alternative to Access.  I'm stuck with Windows.
>>>
>>> Like I said, sql, but it will require converting the software to
>>> something
>>>  that is not junk.
>>
>> SQL is a very vague term. There are many SQL-based databases both free and
>> non-free: SQLite, PostgreSQL, MySQL (with many active forks), Firebird,
>> Oracle, Informix, Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase, Ingress, naturally MS
>> Access/Jet database and the list goes on. They all use slightly different
>> SQL
>> dialects, and provide different C APIs and different environments provide
>> various unified access layers and ORMs (Object Relational Mappers):
>>
>> http://perl-begin.org/uses/databases/
>>
>> Telling someone to use SQL is like telling someone to "use UNIX".
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>>        Shlomi Fish
>>
>>>
>>>>> There is none. OOo Base is nowhere near the level that Access is, even
>>>>> for simple home users.
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Dotan Cohen
>>>>>
>>>>> http://what-is-what.com
>>>>> http://gibberish.co.il
>>>>
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>
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