I guess when you say it that way it makes sense, but I use several applications with gmail (including Zoho crm) and we implemented each pretty fast. A couple of them were basically one-click.

The .dom was significant in the founding of the company and its initial growth, because it was one of the first SaaS companies and using your application 100% within a browser by going to a website was their big differentiator. They were the first ".dom" to IPO. Another notable one is Priceline.com.

These are people who will ask you how to install a program on Windows. They're experts in their own field.

I find it funny how disconnected from average programmers are at times. I can't think of any other group of people like this. I mean, construction work is easy, but your plumber doesn't question why you can't switch out your own drain pipe.

I think people who are good at following instructions tend to have programming potential with enough training. There's a ton of people who will look at a 5 page manual or even a fairly small diagram/installation instructions and freak out then instantly give up.

we're not allowed to say "sales force" but we can say ".dom"?

sales\s?force(.com)? pisses me off because their logo says "NO SOFTWARE", as if they're doing die-cast circuit design from their headquarters in soma near where my asl class used to be.

Very well said. I'll probably steal this at some point.

Edit: Although maybe on plumber forums they mock us and it turns out they just have better social skills to avoid saying it to our faces?

I find their phone number more amusing.

Their tagline is "No hardware. No software. No boundaries."

"No boundaries" my plumber's ass. I already hit 3 roadblocks. My manager created a silly GUI hack to circumvent one of them, but it is actually more work to do it.

On the computer I'm using, there is a bunch of other CRM bookmarks along with Thunderbird. I guess the killer is that none of the CRMs were able to connect directly to Amazon and eBay and, as far as they know, salesforce.dom is the only one who can do this. I was told they evaluated like 40 different solutions and "all of them sucked."

while i'm with you guys in spirit (programmers in general deserve to be bashed for their self-congratulatory elitism), i don't think this is a good analogy. the fact is there is objectively a lot more to switching out a drain pipe than to installing or setting up software. installing a new ceiling light fixture is a better fit -- it's something that could probably be learned by most people in 30 minutes to 2 hours if they really wanted to learn and got past their fear, but don't just because "zomg wires electricity ceiling **** that i'm calling a professional."

The analogy was exactly as I wanted it. Something so simple that even eHow gets it right..

You mean like 2x2.dom with an emblem of two boards equaling 4?

As far as my own experience goes, construction workers think it is sort of funny when a self-doer screws up a job since they've pretty much seen it all. The only things that upset them are "professionals" that said they could do the job but couldn't and (*sigh*), interior designers.

My own bathroom is getting fixed right now. The construction guy found a live 220 behind the shower. The shower leaked like hell and the only thing preventing the water from getting to the wires was a Styrofoam barrier. That gave him, and me, pause.

i was imagining something different. you're right an elbow drain pipe is a good analogy.

I think a lot of devs who are now in charge of an existing app will bad mouth the previous devs who did a poor job since they are stuck having to fix their mistakes.

I had a good laugh the other day when a non-technical person tried to migrate a web site over to a new host by himself but he was the type of person who barely knows how to operate an e-mail client. I didn't laugh at at his face and call him am idiot though.

I think this is a well-balanced viewpoint.

I think empathy goes a long way in life: always think about next person who has to deal with your work. I think this is the real difference between a good and bad worker. Speed, in general, is not moving much in either direction. My current job suffers from this big time. I'm glad I'm working in an area that is built from scratch so I can set it all up that a moron can follow it.

The person who sits next to me is cleaning up a massive mess, which I help him with periodically. I told him it'd be easier to nuke 75% of it and start from scratch. His mess is a perfect documentation of all the errors, changed minds, and changed hands from the past. When I first started, I was supposed to share and reuse their data and pictures, but I split my project off so that there is no mix-in between my work and the rot.

Of course, all of this is compounded by sometimes unpredictable management, awful ERP software, primitive software and tools, and a heavy dose of Excel.

could be old news to some, but just saw:

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/...-election-hack



hahahahah.

Doesn't have the same ring to it as little Bobby Tables

I want to make an "encrypted installer", but have no idea how and my googling is fruitless. Anyone here any idea on the basic method?

I want something like:

- program displays "hardware id" (I can get this from various methods, will be some shortish string)
- they tell us that, we give them a number ??? how to make this!
- number combined with hardware id (how?) is decryption key.

halp?

_dave_, if no one answers here you might want to PM scylla -- I know he uses that scheme for his products.

Yeah that was kind of what I wanted to suggest heh

dave, so the result of the func(number, hardware id) must always return the same decryption key for all user combinations of numbers and hardware ids, to proceed with installation?

so the number can just be ((hash of hardware id) XOR decryption key). Then when you send back the number, the client does ((hash of hardware id) XOR number) to get the key.

Note that this doesn't need to be cryptographically secure, it just has to be more tricky to attack than someone modifying the binary you distribute to not require any decryption key.

round,

so i know my hardware id and i know the know the number the software maker sends back, and i can xor it myself to get the decryption key.

my buddy downloads the software and i say, hey buddy, send me the hardware id on the screen. he does and i xor it with the decryption key which i now know. i now send him that and he has a valid software key. in other words, once you give out a single key with this method, haven't you now essentially created another keymaker?

you'd have to know that xor is the cipher used. you could use other algorithms that require a passphrase

but dave didn't say this was a valid key to access the software, but rather to INSTALL the software. i'd never heard of this before. it depends on the application of the encryption. as round said, if its more difficult than someone cracking the executable, then its already done its job. more security depends upon what he wants/needs

yeah it's more "impression of security" rather than bullet-proof, since once installed (more unpacked really) the software is quite vulnerable anyhow. Really just want to stop normal people sharing the installer and being able to use each other's keys trivially.

I was thinking you could obfuscate the method you use to hash the hardware string.