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Are you sure that we are talking about the same innocent iraqi civilians?

It's difficult to keep a cease-fire with these "innocent" people. Regardless of the basis for the war, there is no reason that it should involve any stories such as that. None of those civilians are innocent.

Why not make an exact IE clone that hooks into Gecko? Basically replicate all the "visual" functionality of IE's GUI and embed the Mozilla ActiveX Control into the browser and use that as the rendering engine. The pointless/bad features of IE (eg. Profile Assistant) could just be dummy features that doesn't really do anything. The Address Bar search could be hooked to Google, so on and so forth.. I think this would be a good place to start if you really wanted to create an "Internet Condom" of sorts for Joe Sixpack. (For the more aware users one could always include a hotkey or something that magically enables (unhides a menu?) with great Mozilla features such as tabbed browsing, popup blocker etc.)

The only problem I can see is that this wouldn't really benefit the Mozilla project at all (read: bad for mindshare) and Microsoft might even end up supporting a third-party browser without knowing it. A message that says "THIS IS NOT INTERNET EXPLORER" in big red letters in the About box would be necessary. It should be an easy task since you wont really need to invent anything new and the size of the binary image could also be kept reasonably small by using bitmap resources from the real IE DLL's.

Anyway, Just a thought...

That already exists, and has for a long time.

Here you are: Mozilla ActiveX Control

Not just a similar API

An identical one! That's right, the Mozilla control will implement the IWebBrowser and DWebBrowserEvents interfaces that Microsoft have already defined for Internet Explorer.

Since the Mozilla control implements exactly the same API, it will mean that developers can take existing IE code and port it, sometimes in a matter of minutes!

I often think that if you could get one car executive to take a 'chance'...

how about this this?

The Mozilla control is an ActiveX control that encapsulates the Gecko layout engine, allowing it to be used in any ActiveX container. Developers can use any ActiveX development tool such as VB, Visual C++, Delphi and even Internet Explorer to embed the Mozilla ActiveX control into a form.

The Mozilla control also uses the existing Internet Explorer interfaces meaning that it can be a drop in replacement for the Internet Explorer control in many cases.

Get it here

One of the other great things they are doing here in Ireland with respect to this is changing the machines without testing! The trial that you mentioned was run on a Series 1 machine, but thanks to our system with large multiple seat constituencies (up to 5 seats) they are actually using the series 2 machine to which they have since decided to add the ability to spoil a vote! So all testing has been invalidated twice!

They are planning on a nationwide rollout which will involve the distribution of almost 7,000 voting machines in 267 local electoral areas. They are planning on using the machines in the June European and Local elections.

Now this being slashdot, I thought I should really give you all a few links to set you on your way (and even one which gets technical, to the level of analysing conforming to standard best coding practices and adherence to ANSI C):

• Press Release from 25th Feb confirming the government plans, and the establishment of a Commission to verify the "secrecy and accuracy" of the Nedap/Powervote system.
• Report done by a group oppossed to the current plans, analysing the requirements and the proposed system. Should include the lovely link to this 2002 report, obtained under the Freedom of Information act and found by google, which is the software test report on the system?
• Nice write up on the sort of rubbish being spouted about e-voting in Ireland.

As posted elsewhere in this article:

The Mozilla ActiveX Control

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll embed Mozilla in an IE window.

--Dan

Mozilla ActiveX Control
ActiveX Control Implementation
Not just a similar API
An identical one! That's right, the Mozilla control will implement the IWebBrowser and DWebBrowserEvents interfaces that Microsoft have already defined for Internet Explorer. Since the Mozilla control implements exactly the same API, it will mean that developers can take existing IE code and port it, sometimes in a matter of minutes!

Has any work been done to allow the Moz renderer to be embedded into other applications the same way that IE can be?

I've dropped this Mozilla ActiveX control into my Visual Basic project using WebBrowser, and it seemed to work just fine. I didn't do any major testing, though.

Look here, but ojo! its experimental Mozilla activeControl

Anybody have any success with the Mozilla ActiveX Control? (Check the bottom of the linked page for a patcher tool intended to replace instances of the IE control with instances of the Mozilla control.)

Adam Lock has been working on one for quite some time now, info is at his site.

It's just a matter of getting companies to use it. The problem is the huge download needed for all the backend stuff. Which is of course already bloating up Windows whether you use it or not.

Man, I'd want to be Pepe Le Pew in this picture, even if Bugs isn't in drag...

Two Spammers Shot Dead
0600 Hrs 02 November 1999

Two spammers were found dead in New Jersey, USA on October 28th. The murders were reported as execution style killings by CNN. Investigators had not pinpointed any motives or suspects. However the Monmouth County Prosecutor John Kaye was quoted on CNN as saying that the attack likely was at least partly tied to the pair's penny stock Web operation, www.stockinvestor.com, or other ventures. The stockinvestor.com operation was responsible for spamming millions of e-mail accounts. Opinion on www.slashdot.org varied from outright applause for the action to concern for the victims and their families.

The pair, Alain Chalem and Mayir Lehmann were found face down having been shot in the back of the head. One was shot in the chest and the other had also been shot in the knee. If these wounds were inflicted before the pair were killed, the killers could have been looking for information before killing them.

The 1981 Harry Harrison" book 'Starworld' (book three of the 'To The Stars' trilogy) features a pendant computer with a holographic keyboard...

I wonder if the Patent Office will accept SF as prior art..?

. . . and the other lessons read just like Project Management 101 too.

There's already such a project: The Mozilla control also uses the existing Internet Explorer interfaces meaning that it can be a drop in replacement for the Internet Explorer control in many cases. Unfortunately, Netscape never had much interest in this, so it's not surprising that most third party apps in Windows continue to embed IE.

OT, I've always found it very ironic that the very dialog that's used to change default browser settings is powered by IE.

If you build Mozilla yourself you can enable Active X support. This has been around for quite a while. But Mozilla.org builds will never have it enabled by default.

Plug-in For Hosting ActiveX Controls http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/plugin.htm

This is merely another case of Slashdot editors not even looking at what they post - this is nonsense. For information on what ActiveX work *is* happening within the Mozilla project, visit Adam Lock's (the developer of mozilla ActiveX stuff) site. Try the FAQ.

OK, this is severly karma-whoring, but let's ask the source: Mozilla ActiveX Project.

There have been plug-ins for Mozilla to run ActiveX controls since before 1.0, so that's not new. I believe this just means that the code for making it possible for Mozilla to be used as an ActiveX control is getting into the trunk.

Among the interesting tidbit: CodeWeavers CrossOver Plugin 1.2 so you can host ActiveX controls in Linux now.

Nothing hugely earth-shattering, though.

Such a control exists, and it's coming along nicely!

Mozilla, in contrast, does not support Active X controls. So it is inherently safer, even for stupid users.

ActiveX for Mozilla

You will note that this extension installs in a couple clicks with no certificate check, which ought to tell you that the Mozilla plug-in mechanism itself is no safer than ActiveX.

Mozilla will *always* be safer by virtue of its design.

Please name one ActiveX-related exploit that's impossible with a Mozilla plugin. I can think of a few "skin" related things that would be impossible with IE. Mozilla (like IE) is designed to be very extendable, not safe.

Unless you can back up your claims, your post really reaks of unsubtantiated FUD.

I'm indifferent to pie menus, personally.

But: The very fact that contextual menus keep changing is what makes them crappy. I'd much rather ALL actions were on the right-click, and irrelevant ones GREYED OUT, rather than moving stuff around in a context-sensitive menu and preventing me muscle-memory-learning where they are.

Amiga MagicMenu worked the way I like.

Also, amiga menus allowed you to multiple-select by holding the right button down while clicking with the left on the menus - much handier - meant that most "preference dialog" style interactions could be done instead with toggle items in the menu.

Actually, one of the "subtleties" in the article I kinda-sorta dislike sometimes is the diagonal-submenu thing, since Amiga-pattern multiselecting preferences-menu usage is to scan large numbers of submenus - so the "quickly flashing up and disappearing" submenu behaviour is one that I sometimes prefer.

I also hate the way the top-of-screen menus mean your mouse pointer ends up away from what it was - but I also hate the way right-button menus do that! That's why I experimented with pointer-relative hierarchical right-button menus. You can give them a try by running a .jar file that fakes them by hiding the real mouse pointer - see
here. Note that the jar will just display a grey window - you'll have to click on it.

Wrong.

You should look at glade + pygtk + python (note there is no need for gnome stuff if not required).

An example is always best. FSlint is a project
constructed in glade, liblade, python 1.5 and gtk 1.2:.

pixelbeat

Here

A while back I did a java demo called "FlyMenu" that moved menus relative to the pointer. I liked it. So did lots of other people, and others decided it really sucked. No one was indifferent :-)

Note that when you start it, you'll just get a grey box. Right-click on it for the menu.

We gotcha on ActiveX. Right here, baby.

dipshit. Canadians are peaceful but we'll kick your lily Yankee ass all the way for them.. Stupid Yank.

Up the Republic!
Oh yeah, and go Canada go! :)

Create an ActiveX gecko to use instead of MSHTML.DLL

As you said, the IE engine is an ActiveX control. Here's a Gecko ActiveX control, and it even comes with a program that patches programs that embed IE so that they embed Gecko instead.

But ActiveX will get you nowhere on the other (non-Windows) platforms tnat Moz supports. Therefore, an ActiveX based Gecko browser for Windows should really be a separate project.

Yes, they're using common controls. But no, this doesn't mean that IE is loaded. The only advantage this sharing would give you is if your browsing with IE occurred in the same process, which it probably doesn't. I have seen an ActiveX control that allows Mozilla to be embedded in much the same way as IE. Try this, and then launch Mozilla - surely this will be an apples to apples comparison of IE and Mozilla? Based on pure speculation, I think you will find Mozilla does not load any more quickly than if it's already in the disk cache. It will still take more CPU than IE to load.

Lately, the ESB has been focussing their attention on wind power. Here's a link to the carnsore windfarm near my partner's parents home. Ironically, this was originally the site for Ireland first nuclear power station (it never happened, BTW!).

Sorry - my previous comment (sibling of this one) might merit a bit more information:

While this flies in the face of conventional UI dogma - the mouse behaviour is "different" for the menus - It's not _very_ different, especially since the scrolling of the menus underneath makes it look like the mouse is moving as usual.

The alternative is post-menu warpback, but I tried that too, and found it much more annoying than the scrolling effect my example illustrates.

FlyMenu
Here you can download a mockup of a proposal for scrolling menus, that would make using popup menus in art packages and the like a lot easier.

flymenu.jar (11K)
Requires a 1.3 JVM
Start with java -jar flymenu.jar

Explanation:
_Current Situation:_
When you press RMB, a popup-menu appears. you move the mouse.
"""Moving the mouse causes the mouse pointer to move.
You use this to select an entry from the menu. Menu then disappears and your action is carried out.
"""Mouse pointer is in a quite different position to where you left it before pressing RMB.

_Suggested Situation:_
When you press RMB, a popup-menu appears. you move the mouse.
***Moving the mouse causes popup-menu to scroll underneath the (stationary relative to physical screen) mouse pointer.
You use this to select an entry from the menu. Menu then disappears and your action is carried out.
***Mouse pointer is exactly where you left it before pressing RMB.

Have a play with this "FlyMenu" example I wrote one time.

You might want to take a look at Adam Lock's Mozilla ActiveX Projects that aims to do exactly that.

BTW, this is not a route that Netscape/AOL could have persued as their sole (or primary) strategy. Unless you've forgotten what Microsoft did with Win32 when OS/2 tried the same thing?

Even sweeter the API is compatible with existing IE control's, so if you have an application using the IE control you can switch to using Mozilla in no time.

I understand that some Window$ users might prefer an interface closer to what they're used to see (but you have to make concessions when you develop multi-platform applications), but still the possibilities for easy customization is already here.

It's like claiming you should be allowed to have 28 disciples, three Jesus Christs and a kangaroo in a painting of the Last Supper.

Why the hell not? It's a painting. That said, your first sentance actually makes sense.

There is already a product available that lets you modify binaries of programs that use the IE ActiveX component so that they use the Mozilla ActiveX component instead. If a standardized way for replacing the component was created, it would be even easier to do this.

(BTW, I hear in the next (last?) WinXP patch, you'll be able to strip IE from your system entirely? Where can I find detailed information about this?)

I bet they could use some of that Mozilla code in IE7! MS Mozilla!

You too can use the Gecko engine (Mozilla's rendering engine) in Microsoft Internet Explorer. Use this tool to patch iexplore.exe and other apps to use an ActiveX wrapper around the Gecko engine instead of MSHTML.

And finally, if you want you can use the KMozilla bindings to replace KHTML with Gecko - well I say replace, actually unlike Windows KHTML is not required per se for KDE to function, rather an HTML Renderer with the correct KParts interface is.

You can do the same thing with Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Internet Explorer. IE is just an ActiveX component, and any other component that implements the same interface will work in 98% of cases. For instance, Mozilla ActiveX Control implements all IE interfaces (except for document.all and VBScript) in terms of Gecko. Heck, it even comes with a program that patches IE to use Gecko!

DOS doesn't require IE to run.

Now that Microsoft has discontinued Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition in favor of NT-based XP, it's no longer licensing MS-DOS for use on new mass-market PCs. All operating systems that are sold on new desktop machines include a shell that uses IE components and the Microsoft IE DOM.

Linux doesn't require KDE to run. Many KDE apps require konqueror components to run.

Most graphical apps on *BSD and *Linux don't need Konqueror because most X11 apps aren't KDE apps. On the other hand, Explorer is the only desktop environment on Win32 with any market share. Remember, when Microsoft gained a desktop OS monopoly, it had to start playing by different rules.

Many Win98 apps require IE to run.

Most of them don't really require Microsoft® brand IE but just an ActiveX control that exposes the IE API. Such controls include this Mozilla control, which implements everything in IE but document.all, VBScript, and security holes.

Microsoft could release the API

IE is an ActiveX control. Microsoft has already released IE's API; otherwise, no app would be able to embed the IE control. Look through the MSDN library for more information.

then a 3rd party could implement the interface.

Done. Here's a drop-in replacement for IE that uses Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine. However, it's missing a few IE proprietary features such as document.all and the VBScript language.

That would create the possibility of non-microsoft providers of mshtml.dll.

The Mozilla control page links to a tool that patches mshtml.dll apps (even IExplore itself) to use the Mozilla control instead.

You can find out about it here: http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/mozilla.htm. One of the biggest drawbacks is that there is no scripting.

are there pics of this? that'd be really interesting...

Hell, no! I can recall my brother-in-law getting into major trouble for photographing my baby daughter out in the parking lot one day. No cameras, no nothing!

The time the C1/iMac was under development, we were brought into a room in Cupertino which was under guard & shown an early prototype which was stored under a cloth. Major paranoia. :) The iMac was translucent plastic, not the infamous Bondi Blue & had a laptop CD-ROM bodged into place. Interestingly enough, when the LifeSavers project went ahead, the first time we became aware that the iMac colours had changed was when they trundled down the manufacturing line! Here's a pic of the production line from Apple PR

As for the TiBook - it's wasn't much to look at. A big 3" thick perspex box with some Pismo and EVT parts inside. The wide LCD screen was naked and held in place on a sheet of plastic with Kapton tape. The whole display 'hinge' was propped up behind the case. The slightest jiggle was enough to crash the beast as all the flex connectors were just pushed onto free-floating pcbs. There was a honking big piece of metal stuck over the processor card & a conventional CPU fan was attached.

It really wasn't that much to look at but the speed of the thing was phenomenal to us G3/400 types ....

http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/mozilla.htm

It can only handle the simplist of ActiveX controls, and there's no scripting. If you want that, get coding!

It even uses IE API making it a drop in replacement for the IE control.

You are absolutely right. A desktop CPU processor is thousands times more sophicated than a smart chip, but you don't really need a microscope to hack into a computer.

Just like people has cracked GSM, all it needed was to break the algorithm, not the physical card itself.

Fields medal winner Richard Borcherds believes he has Asperger's syndrome; see for example this article.