NX Bit for User Entered Text

As pointed out in this link, YouTube got hit with a bit of an elaborate scripting attack via its comments. And while programmers can be very creative in parsing comments and other user entered text fields, I feel that it is a waste of programmer time.

HTML5 is still a work in progress right?

I know this might not be the best place for it, but I have a suggestion I think just might work to fix this problem. A simple tag generally could just be closed by the text it is trying to prevent scripting in, killing something like <NX></NX>.

But a bit of a modification on that would fix that problem. The only issue is that it will require a little server side work.

Passwords. Generate a new password for the script when a comment is created, and every time the comment faces an edit. Thus, <NX=15></NX=15> or something much like that, preferably with a longer password/phrase.

Simple right? I think such a tag would reduce much of the work that web developers have to factor in when taking user created text.

Re: There Are No Famous Programmers

Zed A. Shaw wrote an article called “There Are No Famous Programmers” recently (as far as I can tell).

There Are No Famous Programmers

Really now?

Because I know a handful or three.

Steven Wozniac, Bill Gates, Dave Cutler, John Carmack, Grace Hopper, Paul Allen, Tim Berners-Lee, Anders Hejlsberg, Miguel de Icaza, Linus Torvalds, and Ada Lovelace, just to name a few.

It's even gone so far that people demand that we use the BSD license (or any license) that doesn't require credit for using your work.

No, this goes back to Stallman asking the BSD folks to remove the advertising clause so he could “steal” their work and put his GPL license on it, preventing them from reusing any code modification to their terms.

The famous programmers aren't really famous for programming anymore, but instead because they created some business or non-profit.

Linus Torvalds, Dave Cutler, Grace Hopper, etc.

Anyways, I don’t mean any ill will, but the post was interesting enough to talk about.

Webtiles

So I heard that you will be able to set tiles with websites, from tech journalist Paul Thurrott. If I am mistaken, and this is not a feature, it is now. Get developing.

Since I am unaware of what the current state of development is on this function, I would like to give some input on this feature. It is not nearly enough to put a link as a tile. Information has to be given, but in a way that doesn't take up the screen, and isn't just an RSS feed.

But the best part of this, is that Microsoft already has a nod to this idea; webslices in IE8 allow you to get a small piece of a website. Although I think the implementation IE presents isn't perfect, the idea is a good one, and since this is a different environment, the implementation will have to change anyway.

Thus, while there should be a default slice view for bookmarked pages, there should be a specialized tile/slice view if the website maker chooses. This should either be based on the webslices standard, or should be the webslice standard. I do not think that the webslices standard provides a 1:1 view for tiles however, thus I propose something a little smaller, as a subset of that standard. It should remain a standard implementation to encourage adoption too.

Certain features should be added to this enhanced webslice. Thus, a the person updating a website can set the specialized webslice, which I shall call a webtile from here on, to show many different updates. He or she should be able to make it merely show if the website has been updated since the last time the tileslice if he or she wishes. If the web developer wants it to show how many articles have been added since the user has last visited the website, he should be able to do so. If the web developer wants to add a notification of the user receiving messages in addition to if there is new content, that web developer should be able to do both in the small space. And if the website is a photosharing site, the web developer should be able to show the latest photo. Webtiles should also be able to notify the device of how often to check for updates, from a reasonable often rate that doesn't clog the phone's connection, to a high rate that won't kill the website's connection.

Giving a website access to a webtile's content should be as powerful as an application getting access to a tile. Additionally, the user should be given the option to use webtiles or the default link tile on a per site basis.

So called webtiles will have several advantages. For one, there will not need to be an application for every single website that wants to be able to notify users of changes on their website, just a simple webtile that does not need to be downloaded from some application store. Users will be able to maintain the information flow from an easy tile without having to visit every website.

I will end here so people can comment, or Microsoft devs can get to implementing. Additionally, they will not need to worry about me claiming this as my original idea, as the basic concept is already in several web browsers as most visited sites, or a users 9-16 favorite sites, as a homepage. This idea is far from original or patented. I would like to remind Microsoft that webtiles is a good name however.

I posted that in the forums of the Windows Phone 7 Series website under the title “Setting Websites as Tiles and Maintaining Tile Informability: Webtiles” where you can read and comment on it there.