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Re:I don't see the problem ... by lexus99 · 2002-10-12 17:28 · Score: 1 · on Are Colleges Helping to Maintain the Microsoft Monopoly?

So ... What exactly is your problem here? do you think you should be graduated ignorant of the OS with the *vastly* greater market share? What would *that* say about your school?

I don't have a "problem" with it, but whats wrong with a more general testing program that covers other manufacturers products as well?

If I were going into the Law field, I would probably want to learn WordPerfect, as this is what a large majority of Law Firms use.

When knowledge of Powerpoint is "REQUIRED", it most certainly emplants an early familiality of that program instead of more capable products such as MacroMedia's "Director," for example. It is a fact that most people continue to use the same software they learned in school, further fueling the M$ monolopy.

Don't blame macromedia... by Zinho · 2002-10-07 04:49 · Score: 2 · on Blind User Sues Southwest Over Web Site, Cites ADA

The last web shop I worked in made extensive use of dreamweaver, and had little problem with accessibility. Macromdia actually provides a suite of excellent tools for checking ADA compliance of the code it writes. This feature is well advertised, and was one of the features that led us to choose it for use by our artists.

As an aside, our HTML programmers used a different program, HoT MetaL Pro, which checks HTML validity every time you save. Mostly it was just the artists causing accessibility problems (flash animations and the like), so by the time they handed their code over to the HTML jockeys it was ADA compliant and just needed to be dropped in place. Not a perfect solution, but we've never had any complaints.

Back to the point, if the editor you're using doesn't support validation features, get another one, or use a couple that give you the features you need. For anyone who is selling things on the web, the cost of Dreamweaver and HoTMetaL Pro licenses is negligible compared to the rest of your operating costs. Suck it up, and do the job right the first time.

You've already given permission by dspeyer · 2002-10-04 08:04 · Score: 2, Insightful · on Former DrinkOrDie Member Chris Tresco Answers

A lot of nearly-ubiquitous software packages have audit-terms in their EULAs. Here's term 2c from Flash Player's EULA:

You agree that Macromedia may audit your use of the Software for compliance with these terms at any time, upon reasonable notice.

Macromedia is one of the BSA's founders, IIRC, so the permission probably carries over (these things usually include the company's "agents"). Flash player is not the only common program to have such a term, but it's one of the few that may even find it's way onto a Debian system,

Just another reason to be paranoid, another reason to use exclusively free software, and another reason to avoid Flash.

Cliff-hangers et al. by The+Cydonian · 2002-09-18 03:41 · Score: 1 · on Enterprise Season Premiere Tonight

Shockwave II is the conclusion to last season's season- ending cliff-hanger

On other news, Macromedia today announced that it will be sponsoring the season-ending cliffhangers for this season and the next one as well.

Under the scenario being considered, this season might end with a nailbiting mystery about a Flash, while next season might feature some FireWorks in its finale. Readers will note that this is in addition to a four-hour long episode featuring the Starship Enterprise undergoing ColdFusion.

Cliff-hangers et al. by The+Cydonian · 2002-09-18 03:41 · Score: 1 · on Enterprise Season Premiere Tonight

Shockwave II is the conclusion to last season's season- ending cliff-hanger

On other news, Macromedia today announced that it will be sponsoring the season-ending cliffhangers for this season and the next one as well.

Under the scenario being considered, this season might end with a nailbiting mystery about a Flash, while next season might feature some FireWorks in its finale. Readers will note that this is in addition to a four-hour long episode featuring the Starship Enterprise undergoing ColdFusion.

Cliff-hangers et al. by The+Cydonian · 2002-09-18 03:41 · Score: 1 · on Enterprise Season Premiere Tonight

Shockwave II is the conclusion to last season's season- ending cliff-hanger

On other news, Macromedia today announced that it will be sponsoring the season-ending cliffhangers for this season and the next one as well.

Under the scenario being considered, this season might end with a nailbiting mystery about a Flash, while next season might feature some FireWorks in its finale. Readers will note that this is in addition to a four-hour long episode featuring the Starship Enterprise undergoing ColdFusion.

Dynamic web pages on your picture frame by TheViewFromTheGround · 2002-09-09 16:08 · Score: 3, Interesting · on Old PowerBook + Hot Glue = Cheap Digital Picture Frame

Assuming that you have a network connection, a solution that could run on many operating systems and be very effective would be to install a web server/database combination (like LAMP) and view with a browser that runs in full-screen/near-full-screen mode.

A simple web design could put your image in the frame's viewing area and hide any OS-junk. With a few scripts in a language like ColdFusion or PHP connected to a database of images, one could easily create a picture frame server. Upload an image to the correct directory via FTP and it gets put in the display queue automatically. Use META REFRESH tags or some other reload method to cycle through images.

It would be easy and free to use ColdFusion with Apache and MySQL or some other database to make this all happen. There are single IP developer versions of the ColdFusion 5 and MX server available at Macromedia's website. Either of these would be enough to set up an image server really quickly with the caveat that ColdFusion 5 is way more stable on Linux than ColdFusion MX. Because you can simply upload to the server via FTP, the single IP limitation isn't so bad. On the other hand, if you already know something like PHP, that might be the way to go.

One question that I have is this: would be possible to cut up a keyboard and attach new buttons to it that could be mounted on the front and back of the frame and could allow the OS to be rebooted?

If that's possible, then another advantage of using a browser would be image control. Because Javascript can log keystrokes and then do things. Because you get to pick which browser the system runs on, you don't have to worry about compatibility and accessibility issues. Forward and back buttons mapped to any keys on the keyboard could control the image and those buttons could be mounted on the frame.

Finally, to respond to the digital divide comment: I work in Chicago's public housing projects (the poorest neighborhood in America) and I've given lots of computers to residents of the development where I work. Honestly, nobody needs or wants a Duo 280c. A good activist and hacker should continue to have fun making and hacking and breaking things while being generous and helping others. Things like this aren't excessive or selfish as much as creative gestures that show that it's people who should be the ultimate beneficiaries of technology.

A worrying trend by henben · 2002-09-08 20:14 · Score: 3, Insightful · on Microsoft to Hire Xbox Hackers?

Just recently, there seem to have been a lot of cases of people who speak out against the actions of companies being hired by or "forming a business relationship" with the entity they criticise.

For example:

Jakob Nielsen and Macromedia.
Bruce Schneier and Verisign
British ISP critique sites such as NTHellWorld and Pipexwoe being bought out or mysteriously "re-aligning" themselves as support sites

Now I'm not accusing all these people of necessarily selling out, but obviously, if you work with a company, you're less likely to speak frankly about how much it sucks (if only because you have to take into account the interests your employees/shareholders).

Just downloaded it, it's great. by Trogre · 2002-08-27 12:41 · Score: 1 · on Mozilla 1.1 Hits The Street

Pity that the linux version still crashes dead when trying to load the Flash 5 plugin.
Still have to revert to Flash 4 *sigh*

Otherwise, Go Mozilla!

Thoughts on training by Stu+Charlton · 2002-08-26 14:24 · Score: 2 · on Are You Getting Enough Say In Your Training?

The replies to this message apparently are very skewed towards those that receive little or no training, or of training with little quality. I'd like to add a counter balance to that.

My background: I've been a trainer for two years for a small training & consulting company out of New York (though I've since moved on). I've trained (and consulted) globally, with my courses ranging from beginner to advanced Java, C++, Web Services, XML/XSLT, J2EE, EJB, and most recently the Microsoft 2-day VS.NET seminars. I've taught principal engineers and developers of products you may have heard of, as well as various other companies.

Is training worth it? It depends. The main benefits of training vs. books are:
a) you can't ask a book a question
b) books can't help you when their examples don't compile
c) you'd like to get an answer to that gnatty problem you've been experiencing in that DLL you've been screwing with for 3 days (i.e. free consulting advice)
d) some authors really can't write
e) some technologies are so new or specialized there isn't much in the way of quality books out there (i.e. advanced oracle performance tuning, advanced J2EE architecture, writing for an EAI framework like TIBCO, etc.)

Training is a way of imparting knowledge that the books have IN CONTEXT of the real world AND providing the extra knowledge that the books don't have.

Most training sucks, of course, because
a) it's not relevant to your day-to-day job
or
b) the buyer doesn't know what constitutes good training.

This really harkens back to the scourge of the land of IT: a lack of good managers. It's up to managers to know what training is needed & whether the vendor is of sufficient quality. It's also up to the managers to involve the team with this decision -- I fully agree with the premise of this article that those being trained should influence the training -- if you're not seen as being competent enough to know what you need, there's a real reality-deficiency occurring.

Given the above, what makes a good instructor for technical courses? IMHO, in order:
a1) advanced technical knowledge & expertise
a2) good teaching skills
b) patience
c) energy (you have to carry the crowd through the tough parts)
d) humility (you can sometimes be wrong)

They're all needed, though at bare minimum A1 & A2... if you have teaching skills but don't know much, you're not accomplishing anything except entertaining/babysitting a crowd for a few days. In an advanced crowd this will generate a lot of anger. Conversely, if you know a lot but have the communication skills of a potato chip, you'll still get a lot of angry people wanting to give you the boot.

Having said that, a good course with a good instructor can be a very rewarding experience, probably a major highlight of your career growth -- assuming you get the right course for the right reasons with a good instructor.

In perspective, a 5 day course can run between $1-3k a person, depending on the depth, level, and reputation of the instructor. That's not cheap. It's probably only worth it to go with the "world class" instructors, whether well known (like the folks at DevelopMentor, or Hotsos), or relatively unknown but promising (like my old company).

As for what industries regularily offer training -- generally in my experience, financial and insurance companies. There's always ongoing training there for new technologies, and most new IT hires get 4-12 weeks of training in business and technology.

Comparisons, plus some opinions by potcrackpot · 2002-08-20 00:52 · Score: 3, Interesting · on Who is Using Tomcat or Jetty in Production?

From my experience, Tomcat 4.x is faster than Apache and JServ.

Don't know how it compares to other servers (at least, from experience I don't), for example IIS, Resin, JRun etc.

Tomcat 3.x WAS very slow - for example, who had to combine Apache and Tomcat to get anything reasonable - using Tomcat for JSP and servlets, and Apache for static pages. This was in itself a bit of a nightmare. Tomcat 4 is miles better.

Comparing JRun to Tomcat for performance, see here.

Compared to Orion and Resin, Tomcat also lost comprehensively. The arguments raged for a while over performance (for example)- but not many about whether it "did what it said on the tin".

A more serious point here is that your bosses care more about the name and image than the quality. I'd think about trying to convince them that this is Not A Good Idea. For someone who IS using Tomcat in production, just do a google search; you'll get quite a few, for example.

Fonts are not copyrightable. by samdu · 2002-08-18 19:38 · Score: 1 · on Microsoft Typography Withdraws Free Web Fonts

In design school, my primary professor was a type junky. She taught us a great deal of things about type design and usage. One of the more enlightening things we learned was that typefaces are not copyrightable. Only the names of the typefaces. Given this fact, all someone needs to do is to import a bunch of your favorite fonts into something like Fontographer and export them back out with different names. Bundle the resulting "new" fonts into an RPM or somesuch and voila!

Hypercard... by dr00g911 · 2002-08-18 07:34 · Score: 1 · on Wherefore Art Thou, HyperCard?

Seems to me that both Macromedia Director and Revolution are offspring of the original Hypercard.

As a matter of fact, I believe that Revolution can import Hyper/Super stacks with pretty decent accuracy -- plus dig the development and deployment platforms: [snip]

Revolution supports these platforms for both development and deployment:

* Mac OS 7.1 and later
* Mac OS X
* Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000
* Unix flavors including:
* Linux (x86 and PPC)
* Digital UNIX
* BSD
* HP-UX
* SGI IRIX
* SCO Open DeskTop/UnixWare
* Solaris (x86 and SPARC)
* SunOS

[/snip]

Compare that to the Win32/MacOS Classic support in Director. Yeah, yeah... there was an OS/2 runtime environment for Director 4. But it never worked as well as running Dir 4 executables in Win compatibility mode.

Having used Director as my primary development platform during my "budding" years as a programmer, I'd be willing to bet that most people have absolutely no idea how powerful it is. I never came across a project that required more than it could deliver -- with the exception of the odd Xtra/Xobject.

In recent years, Director has started getting WAAAY too bloated, and the performance is down to a crawl -- on the Mac platform at least. Does anyone really use the 3D extensions that 8.5 provided?

I'm not even going to talk about how slow MM has been to carbonize Director, either.

Nope. Not gonna talk about that.

I've played with Revolution a bit recently -- specifically because it doesn't require the purchase of the authoring environment for multiple platforms if you wish to deliver on multiple platforms. I've been pretty impressed by it, and the company.

There's something to be said for supporting small Scottish companies with a sense of humour.

I have to say -- if I'm writing data-parsing utilities for my own/internal use -- I can get the job done in a fraction of the time (minutes vs. hours/days) using one of these tools vs perl/php or full-blown C projects.

This class of tools (and now Flash with Actionscript, and RealBasic I'd assume) is responsible for being the "training wheels" for oodles of budding programmers and shareware authors -- and the community support for this type of tool is awesome. Comparable with the PHP community.

Definitely worth a look if you're wanting to learn the basics of programming without having to deal with OS-level display toolboxes and the like.

bigger issues in slashland by Anonymous Coward · 2002-08-11 03:15 · Score: 0 · on Study: Jet Exhaust Affects Weather

Not only was this posted only 3 days ago
on slashdot, but very serious issues for the linux crowd, like the recently discovered remote exploit on the macromedia plugin, which allows remote exploitation of your box just by viewing a webpage [in mozilla or netscape with the shockwave plugin]
.

There's even a patch available to fix the vulnerability

Are the editors interested? Story rejected. Instead, we get multiple repeats. Bah!

Re:Primary link is to some strange format called s by Anonymous Coward · 2002-08-09 05:34 · Score: 0 · on August of Wind: Rare Mars Dust Devil Footage Released

That strange format, swf, is Flash on 97.8% of standard web browsing tools. Among other conveniences it enables low aspect ratio images to be rendered interactively (right-click zoom). Unless standard web browsing is a text browser...and then you just go to other links on that topic

Get standalone Homesite while you still can by Foaf · 2002-07-25 10:52 · Score: 2 · on Recommended Text Editors for Win32?

macromedia are still offering a standalone version of Homesite (version 5) but they probably won't for long.

The official upgrade to Homesite 5 is Dreamweaver which has an editor bundled with it that is very similar to Homesite. Of course Dreamweaver is a lot more expensive than Homesite alone.

Here's a list by hether · 2002-07-25 06:20 · Score: 3, Informative · on Recommended Text Editors for Win32?

Well there's a great list of editors on PHP.net at http://213.155.159.67/phpeditors/index.php that you might find helpful. The list gives the webpage, platform, license, and reader comments for each one.

As a web developer who is almost always using Windows, lately I've used Homesite (costs a bunch), 1st Page 2000 (just like Homesite but free) and Crimson Editor. They all work fine for anything I've needed to do.

HomeSite and C++Builder by Electrum · 2002-07-24 17:56 · Score: 3, Interesting · on Recommended Text Editors for Win32?

For anything web related (HTML, CSS, PHP) I use HomeSite. It works. Great editor, nice syntax highlighting, lots of nice features. I haven't found anything even remotely comparable for Linux, unfortunately. For C/C++, C++Builder is excellent. The syntax highlighting works well and the editor is amazingly fast. Works on files of literally any size with no slowdowns.

info on flash on devices by Anonymous Coward · 2002-07-22 20:34 · Score: 2, Informative · on Controlling An Embedded Device Using Flash

fyi:
macromedia has a mobile device development center for flash
http://www.macromedia.com/desdev/mobile/

and there is this book:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0735711771/

Re:Something's missing... by Beautyon · 2002-07-08 04:15 · Score: 2 · on Web Designers Ignoring Standards and Support IE Only

Even if you ignore Frontpage's effects, a lot of the more recent authoring programs don't put out the cleanest code. Not necessarily as bad as tag soup of the past, but still putting out code that works with no problem in IE, but not good in Netscape/etc.

Anyone that really wants to solve this problem needs to take some time and write an extension for Macromedia Dreamweaver that prevents it from creating non compliant HTML.

Dreamweaver is used by around one million people, who would gladly boast that their code is 100% W3C compliant; after all, it makes them look competent.

In this way, pages would by default be viewable on any browser.

Its pointless trying to get WYSIWYG people to run two browsers and test against them both. This needs to be solved at the code creation stage, and thankfully, since Dreamweaver allows you to greatly change the way it works, this can be done.

All it takes is one person to step up to the plate, create this extension, and post it at the macromedia extensions page

Official Macromedia Flash Player Source available! by gd23ka · 2002-06-23 15:32 · Score: 1 · on Macromedia Applies For OSI Certification

I might also add that the Macromedia source code for version 5 of their Flash player is available here here. Don't get all excited just right now though, they make you fill out a questionaire and then decide whether they want to let you have it.

Re:Oooooooh well. by bons · 2002-06-23 10:30 · Score: 5, Insightful · on Macromedia Applies For OSI Certification

And here we have a perfect example of the greed that has stepped into the shoes of Free (as in Beer) software. Someone who not only has hopped on the bandwagon because, hey, Linux is cool, but now sees their position on the bandwagon to allow they to make a profit, while at the same time pointing the finger at someone else because they want to make a profit.

And what's more amazing is that someone modded it up. (Note. In the course of this essay, someone got smart and correct that little bit of insanity. Thanks.)

Macromedia has, for quite a long time, been much more open with it's technology than other companies. Any other group has been able to download the specs, sample code, and write programs that either display or create swf files.

Various Source Code files for playing, reading, or writing flash files.

SWF Format Specification

Meanwhile Macromedia has been supporting Linux for awhile now. You can get a Flash 5 player for Linux (they're currently working on the Flash 6 player) and ColfFusion for Linux, Heck they even have a link to Slashdot.

Are they SourceForge or FreshMeat or some other part of ODSN? Heck no. They're a company. just like any other, but while they may not meet the various acid tests everyone here is proposing, what they are doing is trying to do the Right Thing (tm). They are becoming more open. They're starting to embrace the philosophy. They're taking the risk.

And for that, they should be rewarded, not punished, lest we drive everyone else away as well.

Re:Oooooooh well. by bons · 2002-06-23 10:30 · Score: 5, Insightful · on Macromedia Applies For OSI Certification

And here we have a perfect example of the greed that has stepped into the shoes of Free (as in Beer) software. Someone who not only has hopped on the bandwagon because, hey, Linux is cool, but now sees their position on the bandwagon to allow they to make a profit, while at the same time pointing the finger at someone else because they want to make a profit.

And what's more amazing is that someone modded it up. (Note. In the course of this essay, someone got smart and correct that little bit of insanity. Thanks.)

Macromedia has, for quite a long time, been much more open with it's technology than other companies. Any other group has been able to download the specs, sample code, and write programs that either display or create swf files.

Various Source Code files for playing, reading, or writing flash files.

SWF Format Specification

Meanwhile Macromedia has been supporting Linux for awhile now. You can get a Flash 5 player for Linux (they're currently working on the Flash 6 player) and ColfFusion for Linux, Heck they even have a link to Slashdot.

Are they SourceForge or FreshMeat or some other part of ODSN? Heck no. They're a company. just like any other, but while they may not meet the various acid tests everyone here is proposing, what they are doing is trying to do the Right Thing (tm). They are becoming more open. They're starting to embrace the philosophy. They're taking the risk.

And for that, they should be rewarded, not punished, lest we drive everyone else away as well.

Re:Oooooooh well. by bons · 2002-06-23 10:30 · Score: 5, Insightful · on Macromedia Applies For OSI Certification

And here we have a perfect example of the greed that has stepped into the shoes of Free (as in Beer) software. Someone who not only has hopped on the bandwagon because, hey, Linux is cool, but now sees their position on the bandwagon to allow they to make a profit, while at the same time pointing the finger at someone else because they want to make a profit.

And what's more amazing is that someone modded it up. (Note. In the course of this essay, someone got smart and correct that little bit of insanity. Thanks.)

Macromedia has, for quite a long time, been much more open with it's technology than other companies. Any other group has been able to download the specs, sample code, and write programs that either display or create swf files.

Various Source Code files for playing, reading, or writing flash files.

SWF Format Specification

Meanwhile Macromedia has been supporting Linux for awhile now. You can get a Flash 5 player for Linux (they're currently working on the Flash 6 player) and ColfFusion for Linux, Heck they even have a link to Slashdot.

Are they SourceForge or FreshMeat or some other part of ODSN? Heck no. They're a company. just like any other, but while they may not meet the various acid tests everyone here is proposing, what they are doing is trying to do the Right Thing (tm). They are becoming more open. They're starting to embrace the philosophy. They're taking the risk.

And for that, they should be rewarded, not punished, lest we drive everyone else away as well.

Re:flash: makes coders lazy. by spage · 2002-06-23 10:13 · Score: 5, Interesting · on Macromedia Applies For OSI Certification

Coders could easily use dhtml and animated gifs to create effective animations on their page, however instead they use bloated swf files that need state of the art pc's just to run simple animations.

Don't blame the bloat on the file format. SWF files are neck-and-neck with large animated GIFs since they're vector-based and use outline fonts; and a simple drop-down menu in Flash is very compact code compared with roll-over GIFs in DHTML layers. I've built both. If you're Microsoft and you can cram your creative designer's chosen font into the OS, then DHTML *text* layers are extremely compact, but everyone else trying to use a corporate font should find SWFs smaller.

Macromedia's own global nav movie with three fonts and a text box is all of 12.2 kB (the static GIF version may be smaller but has no rollovers). BTW, most users never realize such "quiet" animations are Flash, it's the James Bond-movie-trailer-on-acid intros that you can only do in Flash that give it the Flashy reputation.

Hey, use whatever works for you; Macromedia Dreamweaver is a fine tool for developing cross-browser DHTML animations, as is vim.

Re:Flash by cpeterso · 2002-06-23 10:01 · Score: 2 · on Macromedia Applies For OSI Certification

Do you know that both the Flash Player and the Flash Authoring Tool are also released for Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X? See here: Macromedia Flash MX System Requirements

Re:Wait, I'm confused... by Redline · 2002-06-18 15:46 · Score: 2 · on Java Thrown Back in Windows, For Now

I don't see Macromedia complaining that Flash isn't built into Windows

Ahem, Flash does come with Windows.

Re:Important not for what they standardize... by Isofarro · 2002-06-11 04:54 · Score: 1 · on Return of the WaSP

the next BLINK tag

Flash -- if Macromedia's Usability drive doesn't take off.

Re:Flash may no longer be 99% bad. by Allen+Varney · 2002-06-05 09:30 · Score: 1 · on Slashback: Gnoogle, PlayStation, Assault

Google does in fact now index Flash sites. Do a search that includes "Flash."

Flash MX supports accessibility by screen readers, with integrated support for Microsoft Active Accessibility and US government accessibility standards.

No one should argue that Flash is suitable for every possible Web function, but it has been improving. If everyone had to design every page so that it works in (say) Lynx, the Web would be a more widely accessible but less interesting place.

Re:All of them should be by Tet · 2002-06-02 12:23 · Score: 2 · on When Should File Formats Be Placed in the Public Domain?

the specs for quark, MS Word (.doc), framemaker, flash, shockwave, etc. are not.

As far as I'm aware, all of those have been documented to a greater or lesser extent. MS published the file formats for Word 6 and Word 8 on MSDN (see http://www.wotsit.org for details). Equally, Macromedia published the Flash 5 SWF file format, Adobe published the FrameMaker MIF format (can't find it online, but it's in the printed docs), and I believe the Quark file format is also documented. These are far from complete (no Word 2k, no Flash 6, no Framemaker native format, etc.), but at least the basics are there.

Forced maintenance and bad specification? by Satan's+Librarian · 2002-05-29 02:10 · Score: 2, Interesting · on Macromedia SDK License: You Must Debug

(f) You agree that your Product must output SWF files that can playback without Errors in the latest versions of the Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh, and Linux Macromedia Flash Players as listed at http://www.macromedia.com/go/flashsource_platforms ("Macromedia Supported Platforms") as may be amended from time to time at Macromedia's sole discretion.

So... they can change their software at any point, any way they want, and you are in violation of their license agreement if your product doesn't overcome the backwards incompatibilities and bugs that they release? Sounds like it's putting the responsibility of creating a stable format and environment on the wrong side.

I'm all for developers actually debugging and testing their code - everyone knows that needs to happen quite a bit more often in our industry - but this license sounds like an attempt to shift blame away from the deserving target more than anything else.

If you write a plugin for a browser, you are operating in an environment that should be *secure*. Any third-party software should be forced into compliance or not executed. If a flash site can crash their plugin, a better crafted one could root the system. On a similar note, if content runs on Windows and not on Mac, then their plugin environment isn't suitably abstracted.

Re:Tabbed browsing? by stefanlasiewski · 2002-05-22 09:14 · Score: 1 · on A First Look at Netscape 7

Is there a reason you need an old version of Flash installed?

Because version 5 is readily available. When I click on "MacroMedia Flash Player" on this page, I am directed to Flash 5, not Flash 6. I have never heard of Flash 6 (or Flash MX) until your post. Poor (or purposeful) marketing on Macromedia's part.

Windows Media plays inside Mozilla with no problems

Thanks for the link, I'll give it a try.

Here is one major difference between Netscape & Mozilla: I searched all over mozilla.org for the word "Shockwave" and never found a link to a working product. For Netscape, the link was readily available.

Thanks for your helpful response.

Re:Tabbed browsing? by ncc74656 · 2002-05-22 08:47 · Score: 4, Informative · on A First Look at Netscape 7

There are numerous plugins which work with Netscape 6.x that do not work with Mozilla 1rc2 .
Some examples:
- Flash 5 (I recently needed it to play in a scavenger hunt)

Is there a reason you need an old version of Flash installed? Flash 6 works OK for me, but it took some persuasion. Macromedia didn't want to provide the correct download link, but you should be able to download and install the Flash 6 installer from this link. You should also make sure that npswf32.dll is in your Mozilla plugin directory when the install is complete.

- Microsoft OLE plugin, so you can view MS Mediaplayer clips without switching to IE

Windows Media plays inside Mozilla with no problems if you use this plugin. There are three files that you'll need to copy from %systemroot%\system32 (IIRC) into the Mozilla plugin directory: npdsplay.dll, npwmsdrm.dll, and npdrmv2.dll.

Re:Bad thing if it is a Mac only change by Dark+Paladin · 2002-05-17 08:35 · Score: 5, Insightful · on AOL Drops MSIE for Netscape in Mac OS X Beta

I wrote about this this morning, reposted here:

As reported on The Register, which was really a repost of an article from Compuwire, AOL has announced that in its next upgrade to their AOL client for Apple's OS X, it will use Netscape by default. (And just for those who want another link, Spider-Man is cool).

Most people (well, me) assume this means that AOL is using the Macintosh crowd as a testing base, then will make the same move on the Windows side of things by changing their PC client's default from IE to Netscape. The move won't really hurt Microsoft - it will still own 80% of the browser market, and since both Netscape and Internet Explorer are free, neither company will start having shifts of money.

But this isn't so much about money, as it is about control. AOL knows that their are two reasons Microsoft pushes Internet Explorer. Control of standards, and control of eyeballs. With every Windows computer that ships, it has Internet Explorer on it. And it's home page is MSN, Microsoft's media system.

Control the Eyeballs!

Netscape, by comparison, points to Netscape.com - which contains the collective linked knowledge to all things AOL/Time Warner. Links to news articles on CNN, Cartoon Network, and all else.

It's about the eyeballs. AOL wants you to see Time/Warner stuff, Microsoft wants those eyeballs to check out MSN. Both companies have a lot to gain by keeping your attention. AOL/Time Warner wants you to know all about their movies (like the upcoming Power Puff Girls movie, or their cable channels, or their electronic entertainment partnerships, or, just as important, keeping you signed up with AOL.

MSN has its wants, with its line of cable shows, plus all of the other Microsoft goodies, like Gamezone, Hotmail, Expedia and other services - which keep you plugged into the Microsoft system, and keeps those dollars coming in.

Control the browser, control the world

Just as important as the eyeballs is the technology that drives what they see. At last year's E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo), AOl and Sony demonstrated using AOL on the Playstation 2 system, at the same time that Sony talked about running Linux on the Playstation 2. Now, almost a year later, Sony is getting ready to start shipping their hard drive/Ethernet/modem combo unit for $150. And AOL sees a large market place - one where there are more TV's than computers, and a $200 Playstation 2 in plenty of homes.

Odds are, Microsoft isn't going to make Internet Explorer for the Playstation system (not with their own Xbox on the market) - let alone for Linux. But since AOL has been sponsoring the creation of Mozilla, the Open Source browser Netscape is based on. Mozilla has been ported to nearly every operating system in existence - Linux, Macintosh, Solaris, and, of course, Windows. And across all operating systems, it provides the same look and feel - so now it doesn't matter what operating system you're using to surf the web/check your mail/chat with your friends on - Netscape looks the same. And you can bet it will be easy enough to develop and port to the Playstation 2 as well.

The implications could drive a shift of development. Suppose you're a web developer at this second, and you want to make sure people visiting your web page see all the whiz bang stuff. Right now, you spend most of your time making sure that Internet Explorer sees the page perfectly - then concentrate on the other browsers out there. Microsoft is happy, because to make sure IE looks the best, odds are you'll use Microsoft technology, which means you're spending Microsoft money (note: not Microsoft Money - different thing).

Netscape, being built on Mozilla, is HTML 4.0 standards compliant. That means that anything written for Netscape is certain to work with every other browser out there - including Internet Explorer (as long as Microsoft codes IE to be fully HTML compliant).

So now the web developer, in a post AOL-switching-to-Netscape time, has a new choice. Program your web site for IE, then for all the others - or make your web site HTML 4.0 standards compliant, and know that all browsers will render it correct the first time. There will still be questions about plug-ins (like those who like to use Flash enabled web sites, but by changing that over to Java, which runs on as many operating systems as Mozilla, developers can code around that hurdle. HTML 4.0 standards mean that anyone's tools can be used - Open Source, proprietary, or otherwise. Which means less money to Microsoft, and more power everyone else.

Maybe the move to Netscape won't change the world overnight, or drive subscribers to AOL. But it keeps the competition between the two companies alive.

And for most of us, competition is a good thing.

As always, I'm John "Dark Paladin" Hummel. And that's my opinion.

Potential Vulnerability: spoof Macromedia by frankie · 2002-05-14 04:50 · Score: 2 · on Freaky Flash 6 Fishy Features

Right away I found one possibility in Flash MX:

Surf to a page with a Flash 6 object
right-click Settings
change some settings
now click the little blue question mark
a new window opens
Read/write access to your settings for all web sites

What happens if you crack a router and spoof Macromedia?

Re:You are making good points. by karm13 · 2002-05-13 18:51 · Score: 1 · on Freaky Flash 6 Fishy Features

first of all: if Macromedia can make this change without warning users, it can make other changes. it is not a change without warning users, as i see it. i downloaded the flash 6 player public beta and the camera and microphone setting were the first thing that i noticed. they were there all the time, exept you count the version step as a change without warning users, which i am sure you don't.

the cam/mic usage are not official (i.e. documented ) features yet, they seem to wait for some communication server they want to sell with it later this year. if they would make these features public now, everybody would build video chat sites without buying this server. so they sort of save this feature to push a future product. if this is good marketing or not -- time will tell. but opening up swf and even providing people interested with an sdk for programms that generate swfs were good decitions.

it is very much possible that this article causes damage to macromedia, you are right about that. what saddens me is that this is without any apparent reason, as i don't think that 'hiding' the cam/mic setting behind a right-click is sneaky at all.
that the existance of the possibility to make web based video chats in flash, with default 'no' settings, is getting misinterpreted by /. readers as spyware could raise concerns about some readers ability to make technical decisions, rather than about macromedia. but i believe that they simply hate flash, without really knowing anything about it. this can only be described as ignorance, because flash has come a long way over the last two versions. actionscript (flashs ecma based scripting language) matured, and you can actually do very useful things in flash (needless to say, the possibilities to make really bad things increased, too). hell, you can even stream video :)
but to get back to the decision making, i don't think that your typical /. reader is in the position to block web development in flash for their company. they might be responsible for a companies security concept, or their network infrastructure, but when it comes to the company website the appropriate tools are chosen by the web developers/designers and the companies marketing department, not the server administrators (who, as you can read almost everywhere in this thread don't know anything about flash, its capabilities and its security model anyway).

the quote, "The data is not public, but the privacy of this data depends on the policies of the web site where the movie is hosted." could also be understood as "we can not say what the owners of that website do with the data", as in "they might store an id to track your movement on their site or your visiting habits of that site in general". its the same as with cookies, and just as with them you are free to switch it off.

they have made this one fault in the past, the one you were linking to further up this thread. and, to quote eEye from said security bulletin: "In this, we congratulate Macromedia for: locating the bug, fixing it, and releasing a new build in a timely fashion. This truly shows that they are dedicated to building secure products - kudos." and yes, they might make other mistakes, just like everybody. however, only one security hole that was fixed within a day, by version 6 of a product is not such a bad record. therefore i can't see why you say they have security on low priority, to the contrary.
maybe you would like to read their security white paper (pdf).

You are making good points. by Futurepower(R) · 2002-05-13 17:35 · Score: 2 · on Freaky Flash 6 Fishy Features

What you are saying strikes me as sensible. However, if Macromedia can make this change without warning users, it can make other changes.

I corresponded with someone at Macromedia about problems of this nature. It is possible that the company just appears to be sneaky, and in fact they are only ignorant of proper marketing.

This Slashdot story, "Freaky Flash 6 Fishy Features", has certainly done the company a huge amount of damage. The story was motivated by the surprise at what Macromedia has done. That is terrible marketing. For a full realization of the depth of the damage, reflect upon the fact that Slashdot readers are a significant percentage of all the people who make technical policy about computer use at their companies. That is terrible marketing; it's so bad that it makes me wonder about the ability of the company managers to make any decision.

Also, look at this quote (2nd paragraph), from the Macromedia web site: "The data is not public, but the privacy of this data depends on the policies of the web site where the movie is hosted."

Translation: "We have arranged a situation in which the privacy of your computer is out of your control and is dependent on someone else." That is becoming very close to the exact purpose of spyware and malware.

Translation 2: "We are moving toward a way of making money in which we make it possible for web sites to control a user's computer, without the user's understanding or knowledgeable permission."

What is also VERY scary about this is that Macromedia has made programming mistakes in the past, and will no doubt make mistakes again. When you use Flash, you are allowing non-standard ways of communicating which have not been reviewed by a standards committee (such as with the upgrade and install process). As this shows, and the Slashdot story implies, Macromedia is willing to make your computer less secure as a result of their money-making schemes. This gives the strong impression that the user's security is not their priority.

I agree with the Open BSD team: Security is a primary concern. I don't like the direction Macromedia wants to take us, and I don't like their ideas of what is acceptable behavior. But Macromedia is worse than sneaky, the company has bad judgement, and that is even more frightening.