Save your vote: get off your ass and get counted

Grok Headline matches for Save your vote: get off your ass and get counted

"Every vote counts - if it's counted"

"Every vote counts - if it's counted" 08/10/2004 02:30 PM

CNN.com - Gore: Let's make sure this
time every vote is counted - Jul 26,
2004

CNN.com - Gore: Let's make sure this
time every vote is counted - Jul 26,
2004 07/27/2004 02:41 PM
Al Gore was next .. transcript

cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/26/dems.gore.transcript/index .html
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Will Someone Please Find John Kerry and
Tell Him There are Valiant Members of
the Black Caucus Trying to Restore
Democracy and One-Person, One-Vote, and
His Help His Needed. Oh, Forget About
It. He Has More Important Things to Do.
Like Save Face. 1/6

Will Someone Please Find John Kerry and
Tell Him There are Valiant Members of
the Black Caucus Trying to Restore
Democracy and One-Person, One-Vote, and
His Help His Needed. Oh, Forget About
It. He Has More Important Things to Do.
Like Save Face. 1/6 01/06/2005 07:50 PM

nytimes.com/2005/01/06/politics/06elect.html
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Save time, save effort, save money

Save time, save effort, save money 05/28/2004 04:57 PM
CNET Asia May 28 2004 9:16PM GMT

""the GOP is already calling a vote for
Democrats a vote for bin Laden (or if
you prefer, a vote for Hitler).""

""the GOP is already calling a vote for
Democrats a vote for bin Laden (or if
you prefer, a vote for Hitler)."" 03/06/2004 02:05 AM

Determined to be counted

Determined to be counted 03/31/2005 11:33 AM
As Mugabe predicts victory, one Zimbabwean says, "Remember the American elections between Bush and Gore? It came down to just a handful of votes."

Kerry, Edwards: Fla. votes to be counted

Kerry, Edwards: Fla. votes to be counted 07/08/2004 03:36 PM

Kerry, Edwards: Fla. Votes to Be Counted
(AP)

Kerry, Edwards: Fla. Votes to Be Counted
(AP) 07/08/2004 12:13 PM
AP - Democrats John Kerry and John Edwards, on their first trip together to the state that narrowly put President Bush in the White House after a disputed recount in 2000, promised on Thursday that "every vote is going to be counted" this year.

Gaming downloads counted on to lift
sales

Gaming downloads counted on to lift
sales 07/31/2004 08:40 AM
Chicago Tribune Jul 31 2004 12:11PM GMT

With All Votes Counted in Ukraine,
Yushchenko Wins 51.99 %

With All Votes Counted in Ukraine,
Yushchenko Wins 51.99 % 12/28/2004 11:27 AM
Prime Minister Viktor F. Yanukovich, who has refused to accept the results and said he would challenge the results in court, polled 44.19 percent.

Analysis reveals flaws in voting by
touch-screen. One Out of Every 100 Votes
Not Counted! 7/12

Analysis reveals flaws in voting by
touch-screen. One Out of Every 100 Votes
Not Counted! 7/12 07/12/2004 05:29 AM
prompting further questions .. Read article

sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-touchscreens11j ul11,0,305144.story?coll=sfla-news-sfla
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"A vote for Bush is a vote for a
divided, unstable, paranoid America"

"A vote for Bush is a vote for a
divided, unstable, paranoid America" 08/05/2004 05:00 AM
Baby, we were born to run against Bush More than 20 artists, including Bruce Springsteen, the Dave Matthews Band, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, James Taylor and the Dixie Chicks, announced the launch of a ``Vote For Change'' tour yesterday. "A vote for Bush is a vote for a divided, unstable, paranoid America,'' Dave Matthews said in one of the more strongly worded statement....

America's Man in the White House
Continues to Lie Like a Thief and Our
Soldiers Continue to Die: When Will the
Spoiled, Lying, Rich Kid Be Held
Accountable? Save the Nation. Save Our
Soldiers. Impeach and Prosecute Bush and
Cheney for High Crimes

America's Man in the White House
Continues to Lie Like a Thief and Our
Soldiers Continue to Die: When Will the
Spoiled, Lying, Rich Kid Be Held
Accountable? Save the Nation. Save Our
Soldiers. Impeach and Prosecute Bush and
Cheney for High Crimes 11/02/2003 06:30 AM

story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=1&u=/ap/20031101/ap_ on_re_mi_ea/iraq
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"Iraq concedes that anyone the
insurgents don't want to vote won't get
to vote in the upcoming elections, as
Mr. Rumsfeld said and Mr. Allawi either
does or doesn't agree to and Mr.
Armitage denied"

"Iraq concedes that anyone the
insurgents don't want to vote won't get
to vote in the upcoming elections, as
Mr. Rumsfeld said and Mr. Allawi either
does or doesn't agree to and Mr.
Armitage denied" 09/27/2004 02:37 AM

Vote for a real change, vote ...For
Dummies!

Vote for a real change, vote ...For
Dummies! 05/05/2004 10:48 PM
Sunday Times South Africa May 6 2004 3:26AM GMT

A vote for kotte.org is actually a vote
for kottke.org (and freedom!)

A vote for kotte.org is actually a vote
for kottke.org (and freedom!) 12/07/2003 04:57 AM
Best Overall Blog? .. decidedly liberal

wizbangblog.com/poll.php#BOB
track this site | 5 links

Vote for this bill. Or vote for Pedro.

Vote for this bill. Or vote for Pedro. 04/12/2005 05:04 PM
Idaho House Resolution 29 WHEREAS, any members of the House of Representatives or the Senate of the Legislature of the State of Idaho who choose to vote "Nay" on this concurrent resolution are "FREAKIN' IDIOTS!" I wish all legislation were worded this way.

Don't Vote Your Conscience, Vote HIP!

Don't Vote Your Conscience, Vote HIP! 02/06/2005 01:09 AM
Yulia Timoshenko (her personal website) is the new premier of Ukraine (bio). She is the hippest politician I've ever laid my eyes on. Here is a picture of her giving a speech to the Ukrainian parliament when it approved her nomination to the premiership. Here's another picture of her being insufferably hip. Russia has issued an international arrest warrant for her through Interpol, but who cares when she's this cool? Don't you wish you had politicians who dressed like that? Strike that. Don't you wish you had politicians who could dress like that?

vote early, vote often

vote early, vote often 03/14/2005 05:43 PM
Oh dear. It appears that TV Guide is holding an online poll about Star Trek, and our dear, sweet young...

Save the HST!

Save the HST! 07/16/2004 01:43 AM
Usatoday.com - Wed Jul 14, 08:58 am GMT

Mac Tip: Save as PDF

Mac Tip: Save as PDF 07/16/2004 06:47 PM
G4 Tech TV Jul 16 2004 11:06PM GMT

How Much Should You Save?

How Much Should You Save? 01/23/2004 04:14 PM
Depends if you're single, scared, or have a significant other.

Save us all

Save us all 10/28/2003 11:09 PM
This is a somewhat onimous commercial clip of our governor-elect. Is this what the future brings? Oh, and this one...

How to save the FCC

How to save the FCC 06/22/2004 09:06 AM
ZDNet Jun 22 2004 1:19PM GMT

How to save the FCC?

How to save the FCC? 06/22/2004 09:06 AM
ZDNet Jun 22 2004 1:27PM GMT

Do You Want to Save Your Changes?

Do You Want to Save Your Changes? 06/18/2004 02:44 PM

Web apps are great, but they have interface problems. A Web-based interface is just never going to be as rich as a traditional client-server app. Spolsky alluded to this in a post I made yesterday. HTML can really go just so far before you run into limitations. Here's a big one:

That's a pretty common dialogue box, but very hard to do on the Web. Picture this:

Joe User has just spent 20 minutes in the article editing interface of your Web-based content management app. He's worked over this article until it's just perfect, laboring intensively over every word. Then he accidentally hits Refresh and it's all gone. Joe is not happy.

That's the problem with Web forms — there's no real way to stop the user from screwing themselves this way.

After they start work on the form content, they can (1) click a link and navigate away from the page, (2) press the Reset button on the form (never put these on your forms — think about it: when was the last time you used one), (3) close the browser, (4) refresh the page, etc. There's any number of things they can do to wipe out their form data, and it's very hard to stop them. I know this because I tried...

I set out this morning to try and minimize these risks in an app I'm developing. I come away from this process pretty convinced that it's not practical. Here's what I tried to do:

In my page, I bound a JavaScript function to the unload event:

window.onunload = warn_if_form_dirty;

This means the "warn_if_form_dirty" function will run whenever the current page leaves the browser window for any reason. Note that you can't stop the event — the page is leaving no matter what, but you can do a few things before it goes. (If you could actually stop the page from unloading, then pop-up advertisers would have a field day with it.)

I also set two variables:

form_dirty = false;
warn_onunload = true;

The first variable indicates whether or not the form data is "dirty" — whether it's been changed since they loaded the page. The second variable indicates whether or not we should warn them that they're going to lose their data. When should we NOT warn them? When they submit the form. Remember that the unload event fires whenever the page unloads, even if it's because they submit, in which case they WANT it to unload.

I added this to all my form fields:

onchange="form_dirty=true;"

So whenever a form field changes, the "dirty" switch is flipped. And I added this to my FORM tag:

onsubmit="warn_onunload=false;"

Because, remember, if they submit the form, I don't want to warn them. In this case the unload event is fine.

Then I wrote the actual function that will run when they attempt to navigate away from the page while the form is dirty:

function warn_if_form_dirty()
{
if(warn_onunload == true && form_dirty == true)
{
alert('WARNING: You have chosen to navigate away from this page.  You have UNSAVED CHANGES in this form.  If you want to save these changes, click the Back button on your browser to return to your changes and press the "Save" button.');
}
}

So, the system works something like this:

1. User loads the page and starts working. "form_dirty" is false, because no changes have been made. "warn_onunload" is true because we want to warn them.


2. User changes some form data. When this happens "form_dirty" is now true because they have done some work and are at risk of losing it.


3. User accidentally hits the Refresh button (stupid user...). The onunload event fires, the "warn_if_form_dirty" function runs. It finds that both "form_dirty" and "warn_onunload" are true, so it pops the warning.

The warning, for its part, basically says, "you may have screwed up, and here's how to fix it if you want." Remember that I can't stop the event. It would be nice if I could, but the potential for abuse is huge, so you can't. All I can do is tell them what they did, and how to fix it.

The problem: the advice isn't always true.

It would be nice if you could always hit Back and get back to your data, but this turned out to be a lie. I tried it on a number of machines here in the office, and whether or not this is true depends on the browser and on the cache settings.

It seemed to work on Mozilla and Firefox all the time, but IE was fussy. For some people it worked, but for others, IE pulled the page fresh every time. It didn't work more often than it did.

So I come away from his experiment thinking that fighting this scenario is a losing battle. If you're on an intranet, and everyone is using IE with loose security, you could conceivably do some ActiveX mojo to head it off, but that isn't an option for me.

A possible solution: browser developers should build this functionality into the browser. They should detect whenever a user (not script) has changed form data and warn the user if they try to unload the page. Let the user choose to continue or cancel the unload.

If anyone else has thoughts on theories on this subject, I'd love to hear them.

Click here to comment on this entry

RE: [ISN] How To Save The Internet

RE: [ISN] How To Save The Internet 03/22/2005 05:13 PM
David Gillett (Mar 22 2005)

Save Our Sandcrawler

Save Our Sandcrawler 04/29/2004 01:49 AM
Disappointed by Target’s cancellation of the Jawa Sandcrawler? Frustrated that this long awaited treasure seems to be slipping through our fingers like so much Tatooine sand? Looking for a way to tell a would be buyer how much you want this toy, and perhaps help turn the tide? Have I got the forum thread for you...

"Save the Children"

"Save the Children" 01/01/2005 10:39 AM

SAVE THE DATE!

SAVE THE DATE! 07/11/2004 01:48 PM
Creative Commons will be hosting a book party to celebrate Dan Gillmor's new book, We the Media, which (the good) O'Reilly is publishing, and which will also be available under a Creative Commons license. The date is July 30, in the evening. More details soon. Creative Commons will be hosting a book party to celebrate Dan Gillmor's new book, We the Media, which (the good) O'Reilly is publishing, and which will also be available under a Creative Commons license. (They never got around to having a book party for my book. Oh well. They're busy.) The date is July 30, in the evening. More details soon.

Have sex, save the planet

Have sex, save the planet 05/04/2004 05:05 AM
Rainforest needs you - so get naked

Save a life

Save a life 12/30/2004 02:28 PM
Help earthquake and tsunami survivors who need medical attention, shelter, food, and safe drinking water.

Save the Whales! Then What?

Save the Whales! Then What? 08/16/2004 07:56 PM
Some whale populations are on the rebound. Can they be both protected and eaten?

Auto save, anyone?

Auto save, anyone? 03/14/2005 05:38 PM
I feel Adam's pain! The TEXTAREA does generally suck. Maybe someone will come up with a great ajax application for...

Will porn save 3G?

Will porn save 3G? 05/05/2004 08:10 AM

Will porn save 3G? Vodaphone seems to think so.

International Herald Tribune - Pornographers to ring up more profit

Antoin doesn't think so. I agree with his analysis.

save your posts? why not

save your posts? why not 03/17/2005 03:20 AM
the simplest ideas are usually the best ones. Its easy to forget that the internet is a relatively new medium. Whats the bet that in the future that we will all be wishing that we still had all of our content that we contributed to "cyberspace" such as reviews, comments, posts... Who knows if 10 - 15 years from now, if the sites we post on will still be up, even stable sites such as MetaFilter may not exist in the future. sites have shut down before, taking everyones content with it. Its a simple idea, why not just store your content, be it on your desktop or a web application? So who wants to start a MeFi label over at bulletin board buddy.

How to Save Web Accessibility from
Itself

How to Save Web Accessibility from
Itself 01/07/2004 07:09 PM
An upcoming revision to the Web Accessibility Guidelines is in danger of becoming unrealistically divorced from real-world web development, yielding guidelines that are at once too vague and too specific. Your expertise and input can help create realistic guidelines that work.

Save Betamax

Save Betamax 09/13/2004 06:44 AM
Save Betamax.

Save 30% on Schedule-It 1.0

Save 30% on Schedule-It 1.0 03/22/2005 05:05 PM
Acutus Trading today announced that Schedule-It, desktop automation software for Mac OS X, has been reduced in price by 30%. Schedule-It is immediately available for US $6.79, reduced from US $8.89.

Schedule-It is a small desktop application that automates the way you use your Mac. Automatically open documents, launch applications, play iTunes playlists and set alarms using an easy-to-set schedule. Easily set multiple events for weekdays, weekends, individual days or any combination thereof. Schedule-It is available for download and evaluation prior to purchasing. Activation codes are available from the Kagi Store.

Grok Description matches for Save your vote: get off your ass and get counted
GrokA matches for Save your vote: get off your ass and get counted

Save your vote: get off your ass and get counted

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