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Messages - markham
91
The Pub / Re: The Cookie Law (in the UK at least)
« on April 6th, 2012, 06:57 PM »
Around 11 months ago, El Reg reported that almost all EU member states had given a collective "thumbs-down" to the Directive with only Denmark and Estonia being fully signed-up. The UK at that time was only prepared for a partial implementation to which the EU concluded that we Brits had, yet again, fallen short of our legal obligations.
Really and truly the EU should be concentrating on getting its own house in order - Commission accounts that actually pass audit[1] would be nice - rather than forcing through measures that are arguably not needed and certainly don't appear to have much, if any, real support.
In my opinion, it's another daft directive that would be difficult - and therefore expensive - to enforce. The problem is that you and I will be paying for an expensive TV and newspaper advertising campaign to inform the masses about this new law and the Information Commissioner's office will be flooded with complaints. Unless a user either knows how to establish where a particular IP Address points to, or, has something like the Netcraft Toolbar which identifies the host's provider's name and country, he's unlikely to know if a particular site is hosted in the UK (or EU, for that matter). Most of the complaints will be invalid because the hosts are located elsewhere.
I think many web sites will simply update their T&Cs to reflect the new law.
As for Google, it might be able to circumvent the directive since Google.co.uk is hosted in the US!
Really and truly the EU should be concentrating on getting its own house in order - Commission accounts that actually pass audit[1] would be nice - rather than forcing through measures that are arguably not needed and certainly don't appear to have much, if any, real support.
In my opinion, it's another daft directive that would be difficult - and therefore expensive - to enforce. The problem is that you and I will be paying for an expensive TV and newspaper advertising campaign to inform the masses about this new law and the Information Commissioner's office will be flooded with complaints. Unless a user either knows how to establish where a particular IP Address points to, or, has something like the Netcraft Toolbar which identifies the host's provider's name and country, he's unlikely to know if a particular site is hosted in the UK (or EU, for that matter). Most of the complaints will be invalid because the hosts are located elsewhere.
I think many web sites will simply update their T&Cs to reflect the new law.
As for Google, it might be able to circumvent the directive since Google.co.uk is hosted in the US!
| 1. | And that's something the EU Commission has singularly failed to do for around 10+ years: none of its accounts in that time have passed. |
92
The Pub / Re: The Cookie Law (in the UK at least)
« on April 6th, 2012, 10:34 AM »
You know I'd be a lot more convinced by our Government seeking to protect our privacy in this way BUT for the fact that it is now monitoring every email we send and receive, knows our browsing habits, records all telephone conversations, keeps copies of our text messages AND, finally, has more CCTV cameras per capita to monitor our movements than any other country on the planet.
93
Off-topic / Re: I need help - redirection when redirection is not wanted.
« on April 3rd, 2012, 01:09 PM »I doubt anyone here can help. None of the coders here, AFAIK, have used the quiz mod, and with all honesty, even fewer of us 1) have the time to go through an SMF mod to figure out why it's broken and 2) actually care about SMF mods when we'd rather spend the time creating a Wedge plugin to replace it anyway.
Sorry, but that's how I see it.
A new chap has taken over the Mod and PM'd me a suggestion - a one line fix - which actually did completely cure the problem without having any detrimental effect.
If you're curious ...
The Portal (Adk-Portal) inserts the following two lines into SSI.php immediately after loadPermissions()and the fix is quite simply to comment that instruction out.Code: [Select] //Adk Stand Alone mod??? Yeah nose true
adk_standAloneMode(true);
Mark
94
Off-topic / I need help - redirection when redirection is not wanted.
« on April 3rd, 2012, 10:59 AM »
I have just installed a quiz mod onto my SMF 2.0.2 site which, incidentally, has a Portal (Adk-Portal). The mod installed perfectly and all the Admin functions work a treat. However, when it comes to participating in a quiz, the (javascript) QuizClient is being returned the site's home page rather than the XML data it was expecting.
If I mimic the very first call made by the client by enteringCode: [Select] into my browser's address bar, the browser navigates to "http://<sitename>.com/forum/" (as shown in the address bar) and the Forum's Portal page is displayed. In other words, something is forcing the Forum's index.php to be executed rather than Sources/SMFQuizStart.php.
Any ideas why this might be happening - and (better :)) how to fix it? Unfortunately the Mod's author has deserted the modification and taken his support site down - on which he did address this very problem, judging from the relevant SMF Community thread.
I'd really appreciate help with this problem :)
Mark
If I mimic the very first call made by the client by entering
http://<sitename>.com/forum/Sources/SMFQuizStart.php?id_quiz=1" Any ideas why this might be happening - and (better :)) how to fix it? Unfortunately the Mod's author has deserted the modification and taken his support site down - on which he did address this very problem, judging from the relevant SMF Community thread.
I'd really appreciate help with this problem :)
Mark
95
Off-topic / Re: The browser you loved to hate
« on March 27th, 2012, 07:35 AM »We all have to chip in and ensure IE6 users finally upgrade.
As I've mentioned previously, I administer two sites (one live, the other about to be) which are aimed at users living in the Philippines. Both are on heavily-modified SMF platforms and I've had to ensure the display templates work for XP users (with IE) as well as for those with more modern platforms. I do intend to convert both to Wedge - for two reasons: SMF support frankly sucks and, more importantly, plug-ins won't necessitate me having to dig into the core code in order to implement them. But it is my fervent hope that some thought will be given to providing a theme which provides most of the functionality but is compatible with IE6/IE7 (and possibly forced upon detection of the user agent).
96
Plugins / Re: Aeva Sub/sub albums
« on March 21st, 2012, 06:07 PM »Arantor youre a first class prick ...
No wonder everyone says the French are rude and smell.
97
Features / Re: Badges and the displaying thereof
« on March 21st, 2012, 05:06 PM »That's almost how it is now. The only exception to that is for admins and (the original) global moderator groups being the primary group, in both those cases the admin/global moderator badge will override the moderator badge.Quote My suggestion would be to show Moderator badges for Moderators' posts in those Forums/boards they manage but show their primary group badge (and not a Moderator badge) elsewhere.
Notice here for example. My primary badge is not the admin group, so I get a moderator badge despite the fact that I have a badge, but having it override any other badge I have is... potentially awkward.
The reason I say that is because if you imagine someone posts here now, they'll probably assume that I'm just a local moderator - unless they look around elsewhere. The same thing happens on sm.org actually, if you go to simplemachines.org, and start from [url]http://www.simplemachines…nity/index.php?board=33.0[/url] - you'll see Kindred making some posts in that board itself and he has a Marketing badge. But if you look at any post he's made in the Mambo or Joomla bridge boards, you'll see he has a local moderator badge. Doing so is potentially very misleading - hence the suggestion to display both together.
98
Features / Re: Duplicate post detection?
« on March 21st, 2012, 04:56 PM »As you like, Pete... ;)
Usefulness?
Just do it my way. Have a Wifi or 3G device. Type while you're moving to another place where reception isn't as good. Sit down. Press Submit. "Server not available". Oops. Moving back to that place 3 meters farther... Submit. Oh crap, it doesn't register it.
Solution: pray that you can copy the contents of your message (sometimes it'll also disable the textarea IIRC, making it impossible to copy it), press Reload, paste your post, submit.
It has happened to me quite a few times because on my porch, right where I'm used to smoking my cigarette with my iPod in hand, I'm about 30 centimetres away from the limit of my Wifi connectivity. Meaning if I bend a bit too much, I'll lose connectivity. Not fun.
My two centavos :)
99
Features / Re: Badges and the displaying thereof
« on March 20th, 2012, 08:25 AM »A side matter to attend to: board moderator badges.
I've been thinking about this and I'm inclined to suggest two avenues of badge for it.
1) If the user has a badge already from their primary group, don't bother showing the board moderator one. (Of course, if they have no badge from their primary group but instead post count, use board mod)
2) Show board moderator as an additional badge instead of replacing whatever badge is there.
Which would you use?
Mark
100
But what should happen if the username is invalid?
However, if a correct username is entered but an incorrect password is supplied (say) three times, then password recovery could be offered if further conditions are met:
- The user is attempting to log-in from the same country from where he originally registered [1].
- The email address supplied matches that recorded for the username
- The user supplied the correct answers to (at least one) security question -- and I suggest that, upon registration, users must supply at least two security Q and As
- The username, current IP address and email address pass the validation tests of a service such as Stop Spammer (and the same validation should also be performed on registration).
Having "lurked" for a while now, I think you'd be against making services such as Stop Spammer, Bad Behavio(u)r and Akismet part of the core but I do believe these should be standard plug-ins that are included by default and activated by their respective API keys.
Finally - and slightly related - please provide the option for the prospective member to choose the language used by reCaptcha. Google tries to be helpful by automatically using the language according to the country of access. Problem is that an English person accessing from Moscow won't necessarily understand the reCaptcha instructions.[2]
Mark
| 1. | but IP Addresses need not match since not everyone has a fixed IP Address) |
| 2. | Yes, I know it says something like "Type-in the two words you see" but that's because we're used to seeing reCaptchas on a regular basis; many Forum users aren't. |