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Where Does Microsoft Want You to Go Today?
blenderking sent in this Wall Street Journal story about Microsoft's new "Smart Tags" - auto-linking to Microsoft websites in any web page you visit. "From the article: "In effect, Microsoft will be able, through the browser, to re-edit anybody's site, without the owner's knowledge or permission, in a way that tempts users to leave and go to a Microsoft-chosen site -- whether or not that site offers better information." My web site is about margarita recipes....what is Microsoft going to do...offer a visitor to my site a better recipe on their site?" Another reader sent in a CNET article on the same subject.
The 'unwashed masses', society as a whole, and corporations have essentially asked for this (and the other things Microsoft is shoving down our throat).
When we didn't get up and fight for the browser war and let Netscape die, we asked for browser issues like this. Some knew they were coming. Come on - who didn't see this sort of thing coming when the anti-trust issues related to Netscape were raised in the first place?
I administer a large number of web servers including one that hosts a bunch of WebCT courses. I got a message from WebCT the other day, "Netscape 6.x will not be supported by WebCT..." And this is distance-learning/educational software! If you can't use Netscape/Mozilla on a college campus, where can you use it effectively?!?!
The only thing we can do now, to win back the web a little (maybe), is a grass-roots campaign to support Mozilla. The only thing is, Mozilla may not actually be better than IE...
And I want to see what they would do with the word "DeCSS" on a site and what MPAA would do about that ;D
That's why it's absolutely essential that the de-facto browser(s) that most people use be Open Source. There will be none of this crap, and we can prove it.
Long live Mozilla and Konqueror!
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?Smart Quotes?
the "Intellamouse" (which is actually okay, but still, it's just a damned mouse...)
And now "Smart Tags", which may very well get them sued.
If Microsoft had invented "Smartmedia", it'd be 2 feet long, 3 feet wide, and weigh several hundred pounds.
- A.P.
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Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Note: I'm an IE6 tester, so I believe I'm reasonably qualified to comment without fear of spreading FUD.
That's funny, I would have assumed that as an IE6 tester you are incapable of commenting WITHOUT spreading FUD. :)
IMO, they are a pain, but easily disabled.
Isn't life short enough without having to disable painful features?
Take it to the extreme: if my car was delivered with a "self-destruct" button, but with a manual explaining how to disable it, I doubt I would even get in the car, much less buy it and drive it for years and trust it with my life. The company could say "but some of our users need a self-destruct feature!" But that's not the point is it?
If a feature is a pain and the software is not delivered with the "feature" disabled, that company does not have your best interests at heart. The repercussions of having a monopolist company blatantly not care about its users are very great indeed. I hope you put that in your test report :)
(end sarcasm. And I'd just like to say- holy shit!! Look what you can do when you win the browser war. Who wants to bet that the way they'll appease CNet and the like is by _selling_ 'smart link' access to common english words? Talk about seizing a choke hold on communication and mindspace. This is so far out of line it makes my head spin. It potentially plays merry hell with _my_ trademarks and IP.)
If they can do this, it's not all that far from correcting regular HTML tags that happen to point to DeCSS, and 'fixing' them to point to the MPAA's FAQ.
Far from committing a 'crime', Microsoft will be in the position of protecting millions of innocent net users from committing crimes! :P even if you WANT to, you won't be able to get to 'illegal' content. It's not such a big stretch.
Their stuff takes addresses like foo.com/bar/server-junk//double-slash-format.html and turns the // into a /, making a corrupted live web link out of the text, while continuing to show it as a double slash visibly.
It's a very small step to having IE automatically change all links on the browser side if it doesn't like them. In fact, there's a logical argument for identifying links that are also represented by Smart Links, and interceding, either going instead to the smart link or popping up an annoy box, which would look like this:
Beginning to get the picture, folks? _All_ they have to do is start popping up 'choices' to go to Smart Tags at every available opportunity, including 'extra choices' for existing addresses. This, I think, would not be deemed illegal. Then it's just a matter of a 'just use the smart tags' option to stop the annoyance, and they're home free, with the user having 'chosen' to not even honor existing HTML tags out there on the net. It is _trivial_ to jockey people into the position of 'choosing' to use Microsoft's idea of what links should point to, and at that point they have a lock on electronic commerce that is truly impressive.
I would be really, really surprised if they were too dumb to realise this. Few people consider them stupid. I think they're completely aware of the whole sequence of events I've outlined. It's the logical next expansion IF .NET works- because if .NET works, they still have to expand more. It's a shrewd move that shows great foresight. The fact that the implications are shocking does not, I think, worry them one bit.
You are assuming way too much clue on behalf of the user. I frequently get email sent from a form on my web page where the senders ask questions about completely different websites apparently thinking that my site is the same as these other sites they were on because they followed a link from those sites and ended up on mine. These people aren't going to know what the difference between a regular link and a squiggly purple link signifies. Unless they have been trained to know (and you should assume that most people won't be), how is the end user supposed to know that squiggly purple links have been added by the browser and aren't part of the site? This is something that only technically savvy people are likely to recognize (as pathetic as that sounds).
I desperately hope there is some way to disable this from an individual webpage or for an entire site. Even for the "clueful" end users who do know the significance of the special links, I don't want this anywhere near my site which has negative commentary on Microsoft as it could totally distort the meaning. I don't want my site to be a springboard for Microsoft propaganda, especially since that is exactly what I'm trying to counteract on my site.
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Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
Oh come on, how obvious can they become?
They have an arguable browser monopoly, (or at least close to it) and are clearly bundling in their content services, which are pretty lukewarm, in order to boost it's views.
These are textbook monopoly practices here.
hawk
I think it's interesting. I'm reading an article and what to learn more about something-I just click on a smart link. I don't even have to visit my local library to learn more (Voyagers :)
:)
However, it sounds like the way it is being done is to sell a word to the highest bidder. I want to learn more about SCSI - instead of being taken to the SCSI FAQ, I get sent to Adaptec's product site. If I wanna learn about what a database is, I'm sure I won't be going to Oracle's site, but probably a MS SQL Server site. (And has been mentioned, I'll never click on a smart tag that promises info about goats!)
My other question is where is all of this stored? Am I going to be (unknowingly) constantly downloading new smart-tag definitions to my hard drive -> soda=www.coke.com,beer=www.guinness.com
and how much more time is it going to take for a web page to load?
Also, can I hack the database once it is on my machine, so I can send Linux to www.linux.com, not www.microsoft.com/windows
Excellent post, but you forgot to work in the words "exciting" and "great new".
Personally, any time in the last two years that I have heard those phrases I have checked my wallet and double-locked my door.
sPh
I'd assume that Office XP has everything scriptable, just like current versions of Office, but with possibly a slightly better authentication scheme (I haven't messed with it yet). Wouldn't be be fairly interesting if someone wrote a nice script to associate every word in the dictionary (assuming it's a script-accessible object) with http://goatse.cx? I mean, I doubt anyone would click on it, at least not more than once. But I can guarantee it'd be damn annoying to see every word have the SmartTag icon hanging there.
It would be even cooler if I could share my annotations with other people.
Of course MS does not seem to care much about the user here - rather it's trying to build another marketing "bring-in-the-eyeballs" tool.
P.S. Look up "web annotations" on Google - there is plenty of research along these lines.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
LOL
Like the users will actually *use* this kind of a feature -- most of them don't even change the "home" page their browser goes to when it is opened.
IE is simply filtering out certain key words, and providing links to more information on those terms.
...Information provided *by* MS, *for* MS's benefit.
A rep from MS is quoted in the article (paraphrased by me) that the "Smart Link" feature would be used to link to Microsoft websites and other sites "blessed" by MS.
This means that MS is *adding* their own content to someone else's webpage, without their permission, and most probably without their knowledge.
While I agree that a context-sensitive keyword search could be a helpful addition to any web browser, I highly suspect any such "feature" that is controlled by an entity whose primary objective is to make money. Not just MS - but what if AOL decided to do something similar, but link to AOL/TW websites and services?
Leveraging their monopoly this way seems a BLATANT abuse of their position. It's wishful thinking that the DoJ will pick up on this and use it in their case, however.
Now, if the links themselves were controlled by a non-profit organization, or even an educational one, and the only information provided was definitions of terms (no advertizing - no plugging of "blessed" websites, etc...) - I don't think I would have a problem with it. In fact, I would welcome such a feature. But don't let it intrude on a webpage's look and feel - instead, make it a right-click option (highlight a word, right-click, and one of the options is "Look up definition", for example) so that people using text and words in artistic ways (like poetry) could retain their expression, in the way they envisioned it, while still allowing on-demand access to the new feature.
Perhaps even have the source of the definitions be user-configurable - for example, being able to choose to look up a definition from a Mirriam-Webster dictionary, then cross-reference it with the Oxford English definition of the same word...but it would have to have a *sane* default setting, because many users wouldn't change it, even if they could...
The more I think about this, the more it sounds like a feature that should be handled by a browser plug-in, rather than by the browser itself - make the feature "opt-in" rather than "opt-out".
Now I'm just rambling =)
Most of them will not know, or do not care if the sites are Microsoft-influenced. After all, they probably use almost only Microsoft-products already, and this will misguide them even more.
/. had here a couple days ago about a handful of sites getting 80+ percent of hits =)
Therein lies the problem with this.
Let's say that for speed, the "database" of words to "smart link" is stored on the client side, by the OS, in some specially encrypted, obscured DLL file (along with a couple "crucial" system components to make sure clued users don't simply remove it.
Let's say one of the links points to a page on MS's website.
Let's say MS does a drastic redesign of their website, and moves a lot of stuff around, including the page that one of these "smart links" links to.
So, Joe User is sitting in his trailer park home in Indiana (convenient example, it could just as well be a $50 a day apartment in the Bronx, or a fine $400,000 home in the suburbs of Chicago for all I care), browsing on his MSN dial-up connection. He comes across your website (by some strange sequence of events), which is all text, with no links whatsoever.
Joe User, however, sees a plethora of links -- "smart links" -- which he proceeds to click on. He gets errors. Joe User isn't happy. Joe User sees an email link on the main page of your site - and (in an astonishing show of insight for a non-clued user) emails you:
"I was on your page, and you have broken links. It makes me angry. Fix them!"
You look at his email and go "what?" - and after checking the validity of all the links in your code, are still perplexed - you email him back:
"Could you be a bit more specific about the links you say are broken? I've verified all the links on my pages as being valid - so I'm not sure what specific problems you've run into."
He doesn't understand - the links are right there in front of him, plain as day.
...You get the point. People are accustomed to the web working in a certain way. Webpages have links in them that go to other webnpages. If a ink is broken, email the site operator. They're not going to understand this new "smart link" thing. They're going to use it, but they're going to believe it comes from the page itself, not from their browser.
Remember that it is the lesser knowledgeable (in terms of internet) who use most of the web.
Actually, they use the *least* of the web, but produce the most *traffic* =) Check out the story
ok, let's say "aryan cracker" codes up a virus to add links to his hate/violence/porn filled site (www.racist.net) keyed on the words "white," "jewish," and "kumquat." now let's say he sends it out via email from a forged address: joe@site1.com. let's say a user at site2.fr and another at site3.com (located some place in the usa where www.racist.net is considered to violate some local standard or another).
now alice@site2.fr browses www.kumquats.com with xp-ie. the racist.net link has nazi literature on it, so violates french law. who does she sue? perhaps she never browses the site with another browser - perhaps her solicitor has gotten the same virus - the owner of www.kumquats.com will have to defend themselves.
this also applies to bob@site3.com browsing www.paint.com. the porn on www.racist.net violates local obscenity standards. who does he sue? how does he know, and must the operators of www.paint.com come and defend themselves for something they never did?
and if those sites - kumquat and paint - have to defend themselves, do they have recourse against microsoft?
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
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If they use MS Office they'll probably think it's the spellchecker.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
2. Smart tags can be easily turned off by a page author. There is a META tag that does this.
;-)
This is still lousy behavior. Why not REVERSE that behavior, requiring a META tag for "Smart tags" to be turned on? Otherwise this imposes (not that M$ has ever done that before
It always amazes me how little some people do care about freedom. There are a number of reasons for why we need a active monitoring of the market to ensure that it will stay competitive and open to all.
Consumers, in general, are not going to bother. "bothering" involves looking up information/spending your time on something they don't understand the purpose of. They would rather just sit and watch the N-th episode of the anorexic AllyMcBean
Consumer lock-ins Imagine you had bought all your electronic hardware from just one manufacturer. The TV, the Video, the DVD player, the radio, the Stereo .. Everything bought from Bill's Hardware. Everything works just fine together. It was relatively cheap compared to other options. But now, even if someone else manufactures a new DVD player with options that you would be ready to kill for, you can't reasonably buy it. It won't plug into your Bill's Hardware TV, nor the stereo, and not even that special powerplug you got as a bonus foe being such a nice custumer. You are locked-in
Monopoly, Economicaly speaking, a company is said to have monopoly position on a market if it can block/prevent active competition with either market position or financial power. It works like this: Let's say that some company is producing the perfect DVD player. Bill's Hardware starts selling it's DVD players way under manufacturing costs and even giving them away in some bundle-backs. When the new company goes under, the prises will of course rise again, and since there is no competition, Bill's Hardware can just blod-suck the marked dry.
brant-typing is the phenomenm when consumers connect one producers product with a product category. Examples could be McDonalds and hamburgers, Domino's and Pizzas etc etc ...
There was an interesting example of this here in france a while ago when people decided to protest against a certain dairy-product manufacturer by boycotting his products. Polls showed that about 60% of people were in favor of the boycott. But in reality sales of this producer's product's almost didn't decrease at all !! This is the power of brand-typing.2 C3AF4F2snlbxq'|dc
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echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb15CB32EF3AF9C0E5D727
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
So if you DON'T want them to use it, just stick in a tag.
In other words, if I don't want IE 6 adding smart links to any of my web pages, all I have to do is opt out on each and every?
Please pardon me if I'm still less than thrilled.
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how to invest, a novice's guide
Just noticed this the other day, press release here or http://www.pressroom.ups.com/pressreleases/0,1014, 514,00.html
Now, I don't know to what extent this can be used for customer control, but it is cool to be able to send email to someone saying a package has been shipped, with an easy link to the UPS tracking. As it is, I have to copy the tracking # from the email (if the sender bothered even to include it) and copy/paste it into the browser after opening up the UPS page and clicking on 'track'. Yet another example of Msft giving the 'path of least resistance' option.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Okay, this is a pretty good example.
Hm. I'm trying to come up with a counter-example. Failing miserably.
Damn, I hate that. :)
Okay, from the article, it seems this is pretty much just another "See a word, click it, get information" thing (like that NBCi plugin). They're not actually changing your site. And the tags appear differently from normal links, with "squiggly purple lines" that indicate a rollover target, then creates (on rollover) a button that will, if then clicked, take you somewhere else.
It sounds to me like it would be pretty easy for the end user to distinguish between links that I've put there, and links that the browser generated to sites that MS thinks I might be interested in.
Could you write a disclaimer that says "don't do this?" You could try. But would that block the end-user's fair-use rights to the page? How would that be different from someone saying that you couldn't feed their page through a translator? Both systems would be an end-user activity that adds value, in the user's mind, to the information already present in the website. If they want to be able to click on every occurrence of the word "grits," then, well, that's up to them.
My big beef with this would be if the links looked like my own, or if they replaced my own links with links that the system thought were "better." It doesn't sound like this does that. The only other thing that I'd be annoyed with, from a user level, would be if I couldn't turn the damned feature off. Sounds like you can do that, too. Which, naturally, I'd do right off the bat, if it was shipped in default "on" state.
This was exactly what I was planning to say, but with 300-odd responses already, I'm not surprised someone beat me to it :-).
They are going to say that because the squiggly lines are not links, they are not modifying anything. The HTML source is unchanged; they are not tampering with anyone's copyright.
I don't know if I buy that one. I for one wouldn't like to see my site mutilated like this. Of course the proper response from MS is "use the Meta tag, then". I will. But that doesn't lessen the slimy nature of this.
Let's be fair, though: Some lazy page writers might see this as a godsend and if there was a meta tag to ENABLE it, it might actually get used. Depends on the quality of the links more than anything.
D
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what you want a link to every fucking word ? !
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Delphis
Delphis
You know Microsoft's gone over the line when even the Wall Street Journal says the feature is "something new and dangerous."
A useful feature that will be used to promote one company.
No, since other companies can come out with their own. The user just checks the ones that he wants to use at any particular time. It's actually a cool technology that other companies have applied to web sites before. It's especially great for something like financial data. Let's say I like CBS marketwatch, but hate their stock details. Well, I just create a smart tag which grabs stock data from Yahoo instead. Of course, now some dipshit at Slashdot will accuse me of "re-editing" someone's site. Get a clue.
The amount of hypocrisy from people here is pretty astounding, though. (I'm not including you — you were reasonable about it, it just seems like you misunderstood it). Whatever happened to the mantra here that the web is for the user, not the web designer? That designers should quit trying to control layout and style, but should instead leave it up to the user? Well, so much for that, because it looks like everybody here now thinks that the user should be forced to accept the designer's every last whim.
What's next, will there be an uprising here to get Mozilla to stop letting users use an alternate stylesheet? Someone should get right on that, otherwise those evil users could distort the heavenly vision of the web designer!
Ahh, it's so fun to watch so many people's so-called principles twist and turn and bend past the point of snapping whenever Microsoft is involved. Old Slashdot message: "We're sick of Microsoft telling users that M$ knows best." New Slashdot message: "M$ can't give people this capability (or give them Unix-compatible sockets), because their users don't know what's best for themselves. We'll decide for ourselves what is best for those dumb users!" Truly comical...
Cheers,
If you don't include anything like a link to "some other site", and when MS displays it, they alter the page to include links to "those other sites", haven't they - by definition - created a derivative work of your copyrighted web page? Couldn't you (as the copyright holder for said page) give them the cluestick application they so desperately need at that point?
Well, MS isn't distributing that derivative work, though. The user's computer is creating it, showing it to that computer's users, and not sending it off to anyone else.
A good idea at first, but keep in mind that as some idiots start writing sites that check the user-agent and go out of their way to exclude non-MSIE users, then eventually non-MSIE users will start telling their browsers to spoof as MSIE 6. So you'll eventually be redirecting Opera users. Why do you think MSIE is alleged to have 80% of the userbase?
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
My first guess would be SmartTags' usefulness, from a suit's point of view, within corporate intranets. A company could add a SmartTags extension to all of the workstations on its intranet, so that, for example, whenever the phrase "health insurance" appeared on a Web page or an MS Word document, the user could follow the squiggly purple link to the health-insurance page on the company's benefits site. This would make the suits feel like have some control over their company's internal Web sites, even when they aren't personally signing off on the content of every page.
Any other ideas?
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send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
Fundamental difference. Netscape's links are buttons in the browser toolbars and such. They don't intrude on the content. Microsoft's tags aren't buttons in their toolbars, they're presented as markup in my content.
My take: search engines don't modify my content, (Not)Smart Tags do. Indexing my Web site is fine, as long as you index what I wrote without modifying it. Going in and adding what the user sees as marking in my copyrighted content that I didn't put there is altering my work, which is not legal unless you've negotiated with me and gotten permission.
Now if it's under the user's control, ie. the user and not the software is specifying which words to mark up and where to point the resulting links, I'll call that fair use just like annotating a textbook. If it's done out-of-band, ie. the user marks a word and tells the software to mark it up for them, that's fair use. But when the editorial control over what gets marked up and where the links point to does not rest with the person viewing my site and is not at their direct request, then that's a third party distributing an altered version of my work without permission.
If Microsoft controls the operating system market and the browser market then they ultimately control how people look at information. By controlling how people look at information they can influence the message that an individual receives. For example, they could put in lots of links to good press about Microsoft anytime I browse an anti-microsoft article. Anytime I bring up slashdot, the word Linux might end up pointing to Microsoft's shared source philosophy page. They can, to some extent, control information and can therfor control thought.
You as an individual make a choice to not use these technologies, but if large portions of the general population are using them, then that means Microsoft has an increased degree of influence over their thinking. You are not an island and you'll have to deal with the influence of this technology when you meet these people on the street and when they cast their votes. Just think of the potential for smart tags on:
-Political campaign sites - Visit the gore site and see links to pages that are against gore's positions
-Corporate homepages - wonder what sorts of tags might show up on sun's page through a microsoft browser
-Anti-Microsoft sites
Be afraid... Be very afraid...
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This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Incorrect on a couple of levels. First, many webpages are explicitly copyrighted. Secondly, copyright includes the idea of derivitive products, which your on-screen website rendering most assuredly is. If what you were saying were true, you'd be able to take screenshots of sites and then sell them on your own site as yours. You can't do that; those screenshots will be copyrighted by the web site owner.
So while many renderings of the final website exist, I most assuredly do claim a copyright on the final product.
And yes, it's about redistribution. Millions of people will see the "Microsoft" version of the page. In every way that matters, Microsoft is re-distributing the page. That it happens to perform the computations locally on every system cannot be allowed to be an escape hatch, or all protections, logical and otherwise, completely break down. ("[Large cable-modem ISP] does not censor sites... it's just that every time someone requests a competitor's site, we make sure the cable modem rejects the IP address." That's censorship.)
It's almost exactly like running a scam where you bilk people out of $10 at a time, and manage to aquire a couple million that way. You will not be charged under the $10 law, you'll be hit under the full fraud law. It's a general principle, both legal and common sense: Doing lots of little things can't allow you to escape from the consequences of the totality just because each thing was little. Election fraud, bodily injury, hell, even the cigarette companies only kill one cirgarette at a time. This isn't exactly an out-of-the blue kind of thing.
I agree. I did a little more reading after my post and I discovered a few things that are very important to remember when flaming Microsoft:
:).
1. It will be an opt-in system (default: disabled)
2. Web authors can include a meta tag to disable it (although I'd prefer if it were the other way)
If it pans out like the document reads, it could be a useful tool. I believe, however, that it offers Microsoft too much control over the Internet "experience" that a user has. I don't think my words have any meaning, so we will see how it pans out
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Computer Science: solving today's problems tomorrow.
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
> If you place your cursor on the underlined
> word, an icon appears, and if you click on the
> icon, a small window opens to display links to
> sites offering more information. For instance,
> in the new browser, a Washington Post Web
> article on Japanese baseball players was
> littered with eight Microsoft-generated links
> that the Post editors never placed on their
> site.
I'd like something like this. I think it actually gets the web closer to what it was originally envisioned as - a way of linking information together. This feature would allow you to get related information that is (1) current, (2) relevent, and (3) not necessarily a reflection of the author's opinions. It sounds great... until...
> In the beta version I tested, most of these
> links weren't functional yet, but Microsoft
> officials confirm that they will send users to
> Microsoft Web properties or to other properties
> blessed by Microsoft. One of the links did
> work: It launched Microsoft's mediocre search
> engine, which is packed with plugs for other
> Microsoft services.
This leaves the taste of sour berries in my mouth. A useful feature that will be used to promote one company. I think it would be awesome if the browser cross-referenced the words with a directory project like dmoz. However, Microsoft is obviously trying their darndest to monopolize and control all sources of information on the Internet.
Maybe the mozilla developers can implement something like this into their project. I think it is a really neat idea and it would be a shame to see a good idea closed up, patented, and restricted from fair and public use.
But hey... that's the world we live in. right?
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Computer Science: solving today's problems tomorrow.
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
Hmmm...
Security-implications, anyone? I've only browsed the light documentation, but there's a risk here that viruses will have a nice little hook for gleaning information from every document you open in a SmartTags-aware program.
Ah... how foolish of me to worry, we all know Microsoft is on top of that whole security thing. I'm sure they've thought of everything...
Belief is the currency of delusion.
As I recall, didn't someone who created a site-modifier (to change the language of a site) face a lawsuit under DMCA? I could be wrong, but I seem to recall a time site modification sites were getting in trouble.
This is possibly one of the most amazingly blatant examples of Microsoft misusing its technology I have seen - and that is saying a great deal. If this doesn't affect the monopoly case it bloody well should - though under the Shrub administration I have my doubts.
As for this helping Microsoft, this is one Microsoft user (albeit rather involuntary) who won't touch XP with a ten foot pole. Now if I can only talk my wife into using Linux at home . . .
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
I agree fully. Imagine a mass-mailing from, oh say big Telcom A, and big Telcom B manages to have a lacky stand at every mailbox and slap on one of their stickers. And that's just for advertisments. I have couple of Poems on my Homepage. I don't want anyone to alter the appearance (even purple squigglies), because they look the way I wan't them to look. The publisher/creator of content (whether it is traditional or digital) should have control over their content, however the end-user will always be able to make changes (I've underline passages in a book). The difference is that M$ in essence can look over you shoulder and alter the content (yes, it is an alteration). Whether they use it initially or not doesn't matter. The fact that they control the entire environment makes it harder for average end-users ... everything requires an extra step (switch OS, download another browser, disable a feature that was accidentally turned on). I'll stick with my other OS and make plugs for it as often as I can!
I don't know why so many people complain about M$, and how "shocked" people are when M$ announces this kind of thing. If you're running any M$ OS at home, then by choice, you are accepting this.
I run Linux at home and I am lucky to be able to run Linux at work too. I have chosen not to fall in Microsoft's grip.
If you're gonna complain about M$, then do something about it. Convince people not to buy M$ products any more. Don't buy Microsoft products yourself. Or, by all means, switch to an alternate OS. No one is forcing you to use M$.
This is the same thing, only it's being produced by microsoft. An outside company is adding content to a webpage without the permission of the designer and you know what? It's fine. If you don't want to see additional content that wasn't originally designed with the page, then either get another browser or disable the feature within explorer 6. I'm very sorry that you might lose some business, but this is a feature for the consumers and to tell them that they may not use it is just as bad as if Microsoft told then that they must... there are options besides Internet Explorer, if you don't like IE, then get another browser... don't tell other people, however, what browser they should use or what features they wish to have in their own browser.
If I want to change a font size for a webpage, I can with my browser. If I want to disable images, I can with my browser. If I want to set up a filter to block ads, or rewrite tables, I can do so using a proxy and my browser. My browser has the power to display webpages however I want, please don't tell me that I shouldn't have the ability to do so. It's fair use, deal with it.
--
--
RumorsDaily
Having looked at the Smart Tag SDK I can say that since content providers (either the specific site you are viewing or a dictionary or something) can write thier own tags to do just about anything they want, there is no need to write this technology off as flawed.
OK, so the sample tags arn't massivly good and have a microsoft bent to them, but they are only samples.
On a more technical note, you can write these tags either as COM objects, allowing complex database lookups for example, or using a simple XML schema to create website links, which is the part that people seem to be getting worked up about.
The microsoft stock price example is written as XML and works very well. There is no reason why the mozilla developers can't support that schema themselves.
I have been very impressed by MS's smart tags through out office and i think they could be very exciting and powerful both in an internet setting and in an internal setting. I'm sure that anyone can could think of a 100 good uses for these, especially since they can be used in word etc as well:
match filmstars names and link to biographies
match company names/product names and link to the correct site
match rare words and link to a dictionary
match customer names and allow the user to access thier account info
match currency values and provide exchange info
etc. etc.
-- "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
...and can be used for good or evil -
:CueJack system.
.net is supposed to be an open standard, right? And MS will have all of your information...
/. or any pro-open source sites - less is more in this case, ok?
Or: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction...
How long will it be before this is used against them as some creative virus writer (not the ususal script kiddie), who is further offended by being directed to MS approved content, uses the no doubt present security holes in XP to write a cute little stealth virus that changes all those 'smart tag' registry settings and/or code? The potential is unlimited.
It would have to propogate without any other change to the operation of the target machine using Outlookwhatever, or even as an activeX control using one of the authentic MS security certificates that should be in the wild by now (although may be specifically decertified in this new XP release.) People will click on anything, especially when all these new squiggly links appear unbidden in their web pages. A truly elegant version of this would install itself through a 'smart tag'.
The modified version might squiggle-underline appropriate keywords with links to content or sites with objective or even anti-MS information - yes, even goatse.cx or pr0n, but that would be over the top and pop up on their radar screen way too quickly. The goal here would be to have every second or third link or so be changed so it could stay relatively invisible. It might be much like RTmark's
With the quality of MS tech support, even if the end user could talk to them, MS would insist that it's not happening. Based on MS's ususal fixes for problems of this nature, the said code would have to reside somewhere where it could reinstall itself after the user reloaded the OS (burning up another of their five authorized installs) or it would have to be so pervasive that it existed on many frequently visited sites and reloaded itself easily - web-bugs, steganography or maybe some version of the Ken Thompson CC hack?
After all,
Just don't link to
This sounds like a job for the fine back orifice team at CDC.
Disclaimer: IANAC (I am not a coder.) This is total speculation and I don't know if any of this is actually possible. Smarter folks than me may know. It just seems a likely next step.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
Slashdot already has lists of relevant links for articles - you really didn't mean to say that you preferred Slashdot build IE specific features into the site, did you?
As for shipping with it off - that's true BUT meaningless. If the default startup page is MSN with a bunch of "click here to enable SmartLinks" propaganda, most people will turn it on. I think any argument that some potentially dangerous feature will be shipped "off" by default is a weak one since there are so many ways to get people either to turn it on or have third parties turn it on before it reaches consumers.
I agree with you on the copyright aspect, once a page hits the browser (or goes through a remote filter of my choosing) I can do what I like with it.
----> Kendall
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I really don't think it matters much whether the publisher or the reader is required to opt-in, although I expect if Smarttags were such a wonderful enhancment Microsoft wouldn't have much difficulty getting authors to opt-in ;-)
The reason I think that either author or user opt-in is sufficient is that either preserves the principle of content neutrality.
To date, browsers are format-sensitive, not content sensitive. They don't care what I am talking about, just how. Smarttags are a departure from this. As an author, they give Microsoft a mechanism by which they can alter the character of my work for most readers. Imagine I put the text of the Bible on the net; I may have my bible text linked to commercial sites. Imagine I put my employee handbook on my intranet -- I may have the handbook linked to job listings by competitors.
Smartags requiring opt-out spell the end of content neutrality.
As long as the default state remains content neutral, I have no problem with this technology. Ideally, the users, authors, or both could even choose the smarttag provider the way they can choose search engines. Opt-in only automates processes that are within the powers of authors and readers to do manually. The information delivery system will as a matter of course treat all content equally, except by an act of commision by the author or the reader.
An opt-out scenario means that we accept that we must bear an added burden to maintain the integrity of our own expressions. It doesn't matter how tiny that burden is, we give up the absolute right to control our own works. Note that Microsoft on the other hand retains the right to control the integrity of its works by default, and does not share the burdens its competitors have in maintaining this right.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
what i want to know is what microsoft might do next - if they feel that they can link words on other peoples website, what would they think was wrong with changing peoples link to AI generated "better" content, thus "representing another step in personalizing the Web" (to microsofts liking) as they think of it.
As long as we're talking slippery slopes -- what if Microsoft decided to incorporate this "feature" into applications in other areas they control, such as MS Office?
How'd you like to send a quote to a customer and have it linked to Microsoft's competive products?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I agree that this kind of technology has its legitimate uses.
However, I disagree with your assertion that this will not give Microsoft editorial control over other people's pages. Navigation is a critical part of web content. A browser company adding its own links to a web page is like a printer adding his own footnotes to a book.
The critical issue is who does this -- the reader or the browser producer. If a user opts-in to have Microsoft's (or perhaps some other third party) links added, then it's a fair use by the user.
If the user has to opt out, then Microsoft is insinuating itself into the content of other people's web pages.
Finally, on an offtopic note -- if this "feature" makes it into the mainstream IE, anybody interested in starting a pool as to how long before it gets cracked and we start seeing goatsex smarttags inserted into Slashdot?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
You're missing the point. In your scenario, A puts up a SmartTag. B puts up a resource for that SmartTag. C (Microsoft, presumably) puts "support" for that SmartTag into their next update. Now, all of those "links" that used to point to provider B now point to provider C. Microsoft is the only one that has this level of control because they're the only one that can update the OS.
Enjoy!
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Aaron Sherman (ajs@ajs.com)
Any program can update smart tags.
We'll see.... I expect Microsoft to be as willing to relinquish that control as they were to export the Windows/Explorer API so that other browsers could be integrated into Windows.
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Aaron Sherman (ajs@ajs.com)
I can't believe, by reading people's comments, how many of you don't understand how this works. NO, Microsoft isn't modifying your web page ON YOUR SERVER, geeze. They're filtering whatever you send out through their browser, on the client side, as it comes in. Now, to come back to the issue at hand...
If I write a text, a copyrighted text that is, there is no way at all that the browser could legitimately modify this text by presenting it to the user. What is scary is that MS's lawyers probably thought of that, and my bet is that they're going to argue that the links are not part of the content, that they are not the text, and therefore more links can be inserted with no legal implications. But we all agree that links are part of the content, that they express as much as the text itself. I think Microsoft is prepared to challenge that if the need arises.
And that's not good.
Oh, and by the way, the possibility that you can insert a tag in your page to prevent IE from doing that is not making this feature any more or any less legal. If the copyright argument holds, a copyright notice suffices, I don't need to put a tag to prevent every possible copyright-infringing browser feature.
Maybe he gets paid by the post?
War is necrophilia.
"Ah, but: nothing in that case is being copied in a form which the user can access. A web page is being published across the web and the user actually has the result in a form that they can save to disk and access at will."
The smart tags are still evaluated client-side, I think. At any rate, it's nothing the user wouldn't otherwise have.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
"For a game genie to have those effects on a game, you would have to go to the store, buy a game genie, place it in your console, then place the cartridge onto the console, not exactly something that could happen without the end user knowing about it."
To be fair, attribution is one of the exclusive rights protected by copyright. This could infringe that, except that HTML does not really specify presentation - even CSS won't change how a blind user hears a page. So, an author cannot expect that her page will appear exactly as she expects to the audience. Does Junkbuster violate the right of attribution?
Galoob was decided for two reasons: 1. There was no infringement because there was no copy created in a fixed form, and thus no derivative work. 2. Users of GG were fair users - their purposes (not Galoob's) were non-commercial, not significant in alteration, and not distributed. This applies to smart tags (or Junkbuster) instead.
Besides, MS isn't forcing you to use this (it can be turned off). They are forcing you to use IE6, in that they have a monopoly, about which see DOJ v. MS.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
Could MS be sued for copyright breach on the grounds that the displayed page is now a derived work?
Sure. The plaintiff would lose, tho. See Nintendo v. Galoob. Galoob made a product that altered the reactions, graphics, and gameplay of Nintendo's copyrighted stuff. Nintendo sued for copyright infringement, and lost. The product? Game Genie.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
Can someone explain to me why this is a troll?
--
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
That's right, I sent email to a couple of Post columnists, and the editor,containing links to the article, and the quote mentioning the Post. I wonder what they think about it?
Best Slashdot Co
If I want this functionality, then I will download it myself. However that isn't the issue. The issue is with linking to unapproved material (material I have not approved) from a website that I have created.
Surely a better option is to give the power to the website creator - using cunning things known as hyperlinks! :) Maybe even "HyperHyperLinks", where the webpage author ca do the following in the HTML header:
[!--
[multilink name="linux"]
[mlitem href="http://www.linux.com/"]Linux.com
[mlitem href="http://www.linuxworld.com/"]Linux World
[/multilink]
--]
That would take the power from Microsoft and give it to the web site author. From the above example, for all instances of the word Linux in the webpage, the browser will show that there are "multilinks" in some way (purple underline?!), and then show you the web site authors intended links. You could even have a site-wide hyperlinks.xml file, like the site wide stylesheet.css file that you can have...
Do you work for M$?
You need to read the article.
These tags don't modify the web page, they are additions to what the browser presents to the user. What the columnist was pointing out was how micr~1.oft added links throughout every article he viewed on his paper's website, that weren't orignally placed there by the site editors. Most of the links were non-functional, but one took him to a lame micr~.oft site. Only M$ will have control over where these links lead, and will sell that link-space to others.
My favorite line in the article
ONE MICROSOFT OFFICIAL says the feature will spare users from "under-linked" sites.
And as Walter Mossberg points out, that changes the editorial content so carefully designed by the website's owners. It gives M$ the power to add or alter any link it feels like, and the end users may never know they are being re-directed to M$ approved content.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Hell, no, but that's beside the point. We're not the customer. OEM computer manufacturers and Microsoft's marketing products are the customers, Windows users are the product.
Umm, while we're at it - didn't we rake Dejanews over the coals for this last year?
When I put up a web page about modems, I don't want every instance of the word modem to go to a specific modem manufacturer chosen my MSFT.
Which brings me to the privacy implications.
What do you want to bet that it doesn't go to a ;o dem&GUID=[your GUID]">Microsoft-operated tracking site</A>
<A HREF="http://www.usrobotics.com">modem%lt;/A>
manufacturer's site, but it actually goes to a
<A HREF="http://msid.msn.com/tracker.cgi?smart_tag=m
before redirecting you to the advertised site?
(And what do you want to bet that when you mouseover to see where the smart tag goes, you don't see the actual MSFT tracker, but just the words "Smart Tag! Find out about 'Modem'" in the status bar?)
This is a *client side* implementation of smart tags, with a default set of smart tags provided by Microsoft. Read the article.
It would be no more binding than are the phony EULAs found in most commercial software.
There's no question that Microsoft is adding this "feature" to benefit themselves rather than their customers. Still, it's conceptually the same as me looking at your website through a Junkbuster proxy, or changing the text and background colors to some weird combination. Even if you are the copyright holder on a work, you do not get to exert absolute control over how it is viewed or used. Isn't this why we're opposed to the DMCA, because it unreasonably limits what users can do with their own machines?
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Blake's seven is an old BBC SF series, and IMO one of the all time best.. very dystopian. I can really recommend it, even if the special effects are a bit dated. (what do you expect from a late 70s/begin 80s show :)
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
be a bastard and check it server-side. javascript can be turned off...Too bad for opera users posing as IE though..
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
...and my public utilities analogy was meant to point out that unless you're some sort of fanatic, this sort of change may be possible but it really isn't feasible. Just like it's possible to spend all day breathing through scuba gear if you're really that worried about pollution, but unless you're nuts it really isn't feasible.
Nah, you're insulting people again. It isn't that people don't know that Windows sucks, it's that they either [a] don't care, or [b] know, but aren't able to change their position at this point. There's actually a category [c], of people who know and *are* able to do something about it, but that 2% of users has already switched to Linux, and we're talking about the other 98% here.
What you're acknoledging here is that de facto standards are more important than de jure ones. On paper, drugs are (or were, until recently) illegal in the Netherlands, and yet in practice they were mostly tolerated, so the de facto standard prevailed. On paper (specifically, the constitution), you can reside in the US for five years and then become a US citizen; in practice, the INS raises so many hoops for people to jump through that people can live here for decades without gaining their citizenship. On paper, you can run any operating system on your computer that you like, but in practice you have to run Windows if you want to be able to work with anyone else. Like I say, it isn't worth it to make yourself a pariah.
Yeah, now that you mention it, I really like BeOS. It should be the best operating system for media type work, which would be useful to me as a web developer. And yet I've got it installed on my laptop at work, and it isn't able to use my network card, so there goes any kind of web work. It can't run the software that my colleagues need me to keep an eye on, so that cripples them & me. And because every other BeOS user out there is hitting problems like this, the user base is dwindling, the developers are abandoning it for bigger names like Windows, Mac, and Linux, and the company behind it seems to be dying. All this in spite of the fact that, on paper, this is the best OS that I have been able to find. Once again, a de facto standard ("anything but BeOS") is trumping a de jure one ("go ahead & use BeOS").
It is *not* the fact that people are lemmings. Stop saying that, stop thinking that. It's that, given a choice between putting up with Windows' familiar quirks and taking on an entirely new & alien system, most people simply can't be bothered with the alternatives. It's a big deal to the Slashdot crowd. It isn't a big deal to anyone else. If you're still hell bent on your car analogy, you might as well compare it to a gas engine against a diesel or electric one: from the average user's point of view, the gas/windows one seems to perform better (despite some flaws) while the other one is harder to find fuel for and is overall just a pain in the ass for regular commuting.
Well, there you go. Everyone has their reasons. Yours happens to be games. For other people, it might be Office. Whatever. Despite your passion, you yourself are doing what these "lemmings" of yours do: putting up with whatever flaws you see in Windows because it happens to provide something you want that no other operating system currently provides. If you *really* want to convince people that it's possible to totally abandon Windows -- and I would accept that it is possible, if your work & leisure roles allow you to get away with it -- then you can't speak out of both sides of your mouth like this. Practice what you preach, or cut people some slack.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
You're carefully avoiding my point. It doesn't matter if it's one game or a million of them; if there is something that you want to use & it's only available on Windows, then you are no different than the people you criticize.
Note that it has nothing to do with it being "too hard" or anything else. You seem to be not at all intimidated by the difficulties of using Linux on a day to day basis, and yet still you're booting into That Other OS. Clearly, there is an issue preventing even your full fledged adoption of Linux, and at least in this case, it ain't the difficulty of using it. So I repeat: everyone has their reasons...
My advice to you is simple. Put up, or shut up.
:)
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
We're just going in circles at this point, but I still stand by my argument, citing the "walks like a duck, talks like a duck" principle. You say that you're somehow better than people who are doing the exact same thing you're doing; I say that simply being aware of what's going on without making any changes to your behavior doesn't make you different, and being condescending about it actually makes you (or me, or anyone) worse.
It's like saying "well, I'm not a vegetarian, but a lot of my friends are and I like veggie food, so I might as well be one." Well, no. You either are or you aren't, and such a person isn't. Or saying (uh oh, here comes Godwin to ruin the fun... :) "I'm not actually a Nazi, I just work at the camp because the money is good" doesn't make such a person better than the people that work there for, well, whatever other reasons.
Sorry.
Sure. And I also consider the fact that, because you paid for that Windows license, it really doesn't matter whether you use it constantly or 1% of the time. They got their money from you, end of story. Granted, short of building a system from raw components, it is a pain in the ass to get a PC without paying for that license along with it, but it would be a different matter if that license had never been used. That's not the case here. You are using it, however infrequently. You paid the money and are now using the product, just like millions of others.So again, put up or shut up. If you're gonna be a vegetarian, stop sneaking the McBurgers. If you're gonna be a Linux purist, stop playing the damn Windows video games. You can't just say you want to be one, you have to actually follow through with your convictions here.
Well again we're just going in circles here (not that that isn't fun sometimes), but once again you make & then refute your point. You say that people can switch at any time, and this is plainly true. But then you say people don't "for whatever reason", as if people's reasons were just some trivial thing to be swept under the carpet. This clearly isn't the case. A lot of people clearly have reasons to stick with Windows that are much more important to them than the reasons to switch.In your case, your reason is a game, which you don't play often but still you play often enough to dual boot. Whatever, same difference. In my case, the reason is that I have NT software that I have to be able to run at work from time to time, and it's not worth spending 15 minutes round trip from a running *nix login to a running NT login & back. In my parents' case, it's that they've just started to get the hang of using Windows and are not about to try again with some much more arcane system just because their son thinks it's cool -- especially when that would mean having to switch away from AOL. At my company, it's because we write software that emulates Windows software for test purposes, so we have to be able to both experiment with the originals & deploy our simulations on Windows for others. Etc.
Clearly, everyone has some reason or another, and almost all of them are stronger than mere ideology or variety. Ignorance really doesn't come into play -- some are aware of the alternatives, some aren't, but mere ignorance usually isn't the barrier. Even if everyone were informed about the glories of *nix, the vast majority wouldn't switch to it -- certainly not overnight, anyway.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
That one line both summarizes & refutes your point. Yeah, it would be nice if we could live in a purely Windows free world. I like the idea of putting "I don't do Windows" on my resume. But we don't live in a Windows free world, and most of us, including you it seems, don't have the flexibility to put that quip on our resumes.
Your car analogy only works on the assumption that if all cars can work the same way & drive on the same roads, then any car can be used in place of any other car. But you know well that software doesn't work that way. It has nothing to do with being a lemming, so stop making pointless insults about average folks.
Walk into any place that sells computers, and damn near all of them are going to have Windows installed. Most people have neither the time nor the inclination to switch to something else, especially when leaving Windows on there means being able to run the same applications and documents that most other people are using. Being a pariah isn't that rewarding to most people, so advocating it is an uphill battle.
Rather than comparing operating systems to cars, it's better to compare them to something like public utilities. It's something that is always there in the background and, aside from a certain geeky demographic, people generally don't spend much time thinking about it. If the utility or the OS company makes a change we don't like, there isn't much that can be done about it. Sure, you could switch your computer to Linux and you could put solar panels on your roof & a windmill in the backyard, but really these sorts of measures aren't feasible for the majority.
I'd love to turn my building into a gleaming solar powered home of the future, but there are a lot of obstacles in the way: I would have to figure out where to get equipment and how to set it up, and I'd probably have to get used to spending my spare time on maintaining it unless I can pay someone else to do so (not likely, I think). Further, I live in a condo, so I'd have to convince eight other families that it's a good idea, and get them all to switch with me. Maybe we'd all be happier afterwards, but I can't see persuading that many people to change, when just sending out a check to the electric company every month is so much easier in the short term.
Same deal here. Skipping from present hell to a future utopia would be nice, but it's much more complicated than just telling people to abandon the present. Most of us can't simply do that, and advocating such things really isn't as constructive as you seem to think it is.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
1) The WSJ article states that sites can include a meta tag that will prevent this "feature". This is intrusive, pig-headed, and backwards. It should be the other way around.
2) The googlizer (look for it, AC wrote it) is far better. It works with any selectable text and will almost surely provide better data.
What would happen if every webmaster who could set their page up to have a BIG warning show if if the host type string sent by the client indicated the client supported this? Something along the lines of:
www.eFax.com are spammers
That's not a bug, that's a security feature!
I mean, if Microsoft cannot modify your personal page to protect you against 3133t h4x0r, DMCA-violating university professors and cancerous communist open-source software, who is going to? Hmmm?
Thank you, Mr Gates! A clear case of benevolent consumer protection, that's what it is!
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
I know Microsoft is evil and is just doing this to bolster traffic to their networks and wouldn't THINK of doing anything that benefitted people, but apparently just by coincidence I think they've hit on the best feature the web can ever offer.
The example above is really corporate child's play. They basically have a list of keywords in a DLL (or maybe they're smart and get a new one from MSN every day), and when they find those keywords, they tell you more about the subject in question. Now, the reason I say it's CORPORATE child's play is because I'm sure companies can buy this access, or will be able to in the future. Which does nothing at all to gaurantee that it'll be useful.
But consider if you could simply highlight arbitrary text on a page, and ask for more information about it. Now consider that maybe this feature is written into your favorite open source browser, and instead of the MS site, it hits a user-chosen search site instead. Myself, I might hook it up so that it goes to Google's "I'm feeling lucky" link for any section of arbitrary text. Or at least I would if search engines produced decent results more often :)
But seriously. This is the neatest thing ever. Wasn't there something like this in Ender's Game? Some book I was reading when I read that, anyway. The library was all electronic and arbitrary text could be cross-referenced in the entire rest of the library.
What's not to love?
---
Usually, I hate the /. anti-microsoft bias, as it is often socialist banter. However, this is rediculous. How on earth, does Microsoft think this will float muster. They would never put this feature in say MS Word or Excel. Imagine reading some Acrobat PDF tech manual, and the thing inserting advertisment links into the documentation. How f-ing confusing would that be?
No way this feature ends up in the release version. They couldn't possibly attempt it. Its ludicrous. In fact, this is the worst marketing crap I've ever heard from any compnay anywhere. This is worse than the CD club that sends you the CD, and if you don't want it you have to send it back. Microsoft is bucking for some serious trouble here. Balmer just poured fuel on the fire.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Ok, Smart Tags are obviously beyond evil. I'm curious if they are even legal. If I had a trademarked site, which had advertisments for Burger King, and Microsoft put up links to McDonalds wouldn't that be bullshit. I mean they would be using my trademarked logos etc to endorse their product.
I think there are some serious legal issues here. Here are other examples:
American Heart Association site mentions the word asprin, and Microsoft puts links to Bayer, suggesting that The AHA endorses Bayer. That is definitly illegal.
There will be a flood of legal cases if this thing ever flys.
Someone you trust is one of us.
The problem here is that you are making the assumption that the average user *can* distinguish between a regular hyperlink and a smart tag. I think you are being overly optimistic about the savvy of the average user - I am certain I will receive countless emails from users who clicked on a smart tag on my website and when it was broken, contacted me not microsoft.
The majority of users cannot tell you what browser they are using, don't know what an OS is, or what one they are using - and if asked probably get the two confused. They sure as hell won't recognize that there are more than one type of hyperlink on a document.
I will also assume that smart tags are turned on by default - the average user will not know how to turn them off, why they should, or what the "smart tags" button refers to. The fact that I can turn them off via a META tag is almost acceptable - I will be including this in *all* webpages I design for myself, and recommending it as mandatory to all my clients as well. However, I should not have to include a tag to turn them *off*, I should have to include a tag to turn them *on*.
The mere fact that Microsoft can, by virtue of their dictatorshi^H^H^H, er Monopol^H^H^H, I mean innovation foist this *feature* on the majority of web users regardless of what the content generators on a website want is or should be completely illegal. I look forward to the lawsuits I hope will arise - although since the US has such a pathetic Justice system at the moment ("The best judges money can buy") I don't expect anything will come from it. Microsoft has the money and they will no doubt win any court case they get involved in.
Sadly, since MS dominates the browser market, I cannot consider including code to ban IE from my website without eliminating 98% of my traffic.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
You CANNOT mistake smart tags for ordinary links.
Have you ever done user support/helpdesk stuff? Never underestimate the power of stupid people. I still get calls from users telling me that Windows is giving them an error box saying "Warning, your internet connection is not optimized".
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
Office XP Developer Center -- Smart Tags
Office XP Developer Center -- Smart Tags (Russian)
'Smart Tags uitdaging voor ontwikkelaars'
All About Smart Tags
XML Cover Pages -- Microsoft Announces Smart Tag Software Development Kit with XML Support
CNET -- Smart Tags and Clever Features
CNET -- Smart Tag SDK (for Office XP)
How to Download YouTube Videos
It's easy enough to check which browser is being used to enter the site. If a significant portion of the web started refusing to allow MS Browsers to enter the site, I bet MS would change its tune in a hurry. Most of their strategy involves seeing just how far they can push people before people push back. If enough people bitch about something, they claim they didn't mean to do that and take it out.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Wanna take a guess which words in the phrase "I hereby deny Microsoft the right to add any links using their smart-tag technology" are going to be linked, right-away, to Microsofts website about how great "smart-tag technology" is?
-- "Tradition is the illusion of permanence."
They shut down on April 2, 2001.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Now they've even come up with a device that will help them to control the population.
----------------------------
-----------------------
Moderator's essentials
But it doesn't screw up people's pages. they show up the same way hyperlinks do, except with a dotted purple line\ =\=\=\
=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=
Wow, that's one of the worst pieces of FUD I've seen posted on Slashdot so far! The SmartTags are just something that allows Content Provider A to neatly package something for syndication. So, for example, Content Provider A gives stock quotes. The SmartTags feature just makes it easy for Web Site Operator B, if he's running IIS/ASP or whatever, to easily insert a stock quote from A's site. That's all.
The comment you posted makes it sound like Microsoft is going to be taking over everybody's website. Using the SmartTags requires an actual effort on the part of the webmaster; Microsoft (or any other content provider -- anyone can make Smart Tags easily) will not suddenly have editorial control over every website in the world.
You guys need to chill out. Everything that Microsoft does is not necessarily automatically evil.
- In Capitalist America, law violates YOU!
Before i get modded as a troll, let me state that I do not like this company for its software, practices, expansionist visions, or monopolistic power. I don't like/use IE, and the only MS products I use are mediaplayer6.4 and win2k (when not using Linux). Smart Tags are a direct attempt by MS to take over the web and further establish total control.
However, I see merit in smart tags; they make the web even more cross-referenced/indexed and further promote XML's ability to do these things. An open source variation of this that uses an open database that doesn't collect user info could do wonders, so long as it is controlled by an honest non-corporate organization. Think of integration with everything2.org, a dictionary, a thesaurus, an encyclopedia, a biographical dictionary, an atlas.... that would be cool.
The only forseeable problems with this kind of technology are
- A corporation/organization's power to manipulate the masses (my solution is use an open database containing the collective opinions of what is good cross-reference material, and have several of these databases competing with each other).
- The power taken away from the site's creator. The site may be making a profound statement
...and a viewer could click on a Smart Tag only to be directed to a site offering the opposite statement. For example, a site about the holocost could be linked to a neo-nazi site about preparing to create the next holocost. (Although sometimes conflicting views can be nice. Search engines aren't biased in this regard; a search for holocost would not favor one of these over the other.)
Anticypher states in his comment above, "Walter Mossberg points out that changes the editorial content so carefully designed by the website's owners. It gives M$ the power to add or alter any link it feels like, and the end users may never know they are being re-directed to M$ approved content."Hopefully, words highlighted by Smart Tags will continue to be unique in appearance; according to the linked WSJ article, "On a PC with Windows XP, when you open any Web page, squiggly purple lines instantly appear under certain types of words." I think this would be better with a toggle key or button (so they won't show up unless you're looking for them) - that helps in the editorial bit too.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Yay for freaking out for no reason!
... and you only turn it on if you WANT the help!
Here's how the Internet Explorer Smart Tags work: On a PC with Windows XP, when you open any Web page, squiggly purple lines instantly appear under certain types of words. In the version I tested, these browser-generated underlines appear beneath the names of companies, sports teams and colleges. But other types of terms could be highlighted in future versions.
OH NO! IF I'M CURIOUS ABOUT WHAT SOMETHING IS OR WHO SOMEONE IS, IT WILL OFFER ME A HELPFUL LINK TO INFORMATION! GOD FORBID!
In addition, Microsoft says, it will provide a free bit of programming code, called a "meta tag," that site owners could use to bar any Smart Tags from appearing on their sites.
So if you DON'T want them to use it, just stick in a tag. Sounds fair, right? Okay, now read THIS:
Microsoft says the Internet Explorer Smart Tags feature, which is similar to a Smart Tag feature in the new Office XP, will be turned off by default in the final release, and that users will have to consciously choose to enable it by activating a setting buried in the browser's menus.
MS is adding a USEFUL feature which is VOLUNTARY to the user and which can be DISABLED by the creator, and you're bashing them?
... and people wonder why everyone calls Slashdot biased.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
In other words, if the "nice disclaimer" is in the form of a properly formed meta tag instructing Internet Exploder not to provide these "smart links", it will be disabled. Still, it sounds like a bad feature to me. Also, who would be surprised if there were a "bug" that prevented the meta tag from being read and conveniently went unfixed? I don't think I'll be using this new OS anyway, between this kind of garbage and the over the top, intrusive license controls. I also don't think I will derive enough value from their other software to justify the costs associated with the subscription model they will surely be moving to. If I can't use their application software, Windows will certainly have no place on my drive.
.sig: file not found
i'm guessing the md5sum would have to be public-key signed so MS couldn't just change that sum at the bottom of the page.
and if they set the browser to run jscript before they insert their links then it'd be futile.
unless you implemented it with frames, and a second, hidden frame held the md5sum for the first page and waited until a few seconds after the first page's onload() so that MS postprocessing would be finished, and then md5sum'd the resulting frame and compare ti to the good md5sum.
feels like another evolutionary game.
-f
-f
www.blackant.net
i think the point i was trying to make with my Ford analogy was more along the lines of how to be a force for change.
There is an old saying that it is folly to continue to do the same thing and expect different results. And, in that light, I would assert that it is folly to continue to buy and use Microsoft products the way we (the public) have always done and expect M$ to stop screwing us all of the sudden.
One could write and essay on the general laziness and idiocy of the (american) public in this respect. But alas, i have been screwing with Actionscript and playing counter-strike for the past 10 hours and i'm exausted.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Let's kick this story back 5 years ago and i'll give you a little something to mull over in that gray matter of yours. This whole thing reminds me of why i stopped using winders in the first place (as i type this from W2k :(
Microsoft is selling a product. That product is called WindowsXX and you have to live with the fact that if you buy said product, then there may be facets of it that you don't like (i.e. "smart tags" and all the other crap that's become bundled in with it). So here's an alternative...
USE A DIFFERENT OS! I stopped using windows because i couldn't put up with a crappy OS and bundled software that i couldn't get rid of any longer. I advise people, in this situation, to either put up or shut up....USE A DIFFERENT OS! USE A DIFFERENT BROWSER! DO SOMETHING OTHER THAN BITCH!
Let's put it this way. If 99% of the world bought Ford products, and Ford made changes to the product that no one liked, and yet, people went on buying Fords do you think Ford would give a flying fuck what people said and (gasp) change their cars.
Nope. and MS doesn't give a flying fuck either because "smart tags" or no, people are going to go on buying Winders like the lemmings they are.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
navigation is a critical part of web content - critical enough that browser companies should not tweak with it. they should let web site owners decide what type of navigation they want to put in their pages.
Not necessarily. For instance, many sites disable browsers' contextual menus to keep users from making fair use of images or to keep users from opening new windows, locking them in a frame jail. Users should have the final choice whether to allow these new links, not browser makers or webmasters.
Will I retire or break 10K?
If proper hyperlinking of article text hadn't become the forgotten point of the Internet,
It hasn't. You just haven't been looking at the right web sites. Everything2.com is linked profusely. Try it; you might like it.
(See what I've written on E2)
Will I retire or break 10K?
What if I release my web site under a "non-free" license's that does not premit modifation by any party for any reason?
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Further evidence, if we needed it, that most posters don't RTFAs.
question: is control controlled by its need to control?
answer: yes
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
Even I, arguably the staunchest of MS supporters on /., think this is bad juju.
Perhaps if this were a standard with a publicly maintained content list, I'd be cool with this. But as it stands, it's not quite right, and technically, under the constitution, it's prior restraint (since the content is altered before it is seen by the client).
In MS's defense, my mouth is watering at the potential for this on a corporate Intranet, which is where I thought the technology was originally intended to go, with Office XP's new Intranet features. But on the Internet, it's just not right.
I'll keep using IE and all, but I think I'll avoid any of these Smart Tags on the Internet.
Well, I went to the Office XP launch and I can tell you that smart tags aren't evil at all. It's a kind of regular expression that applies to "all" content. If I'm in Word, I might have a smart tag that recognizes addresses. A little icon pops up that says "I can do stuff with this!" - and then I have choices of actions that apply to addresses, like looking them up in Outlook or mapping them in MapQuest or something.
Could I use them to redirect IE to different pages based on keywords? Sure, of course. But I don't think that's necessarily the focus - it's much more general than that.
Control the Desktop OS - check
Control the browsing platform - cHeck
Control lobyists and juges - check
Control databases and information - check
Control what people WANT - In progress...
ok they can continue on with their world domination strategy, fine with me, as long as it means one day they will control my mother in law, if that's not in the plan... I have the feeling I am being screwed somewhere....I just can't point it...
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
anyone got the 411 on this supposed meta tag? i tried searching on google and microsoft.com, no luck. funny, every page on microsoft.com that has the words disable and smart tags is turning up a 404 now.
cat
2. The plug-in download technology will only be available to Windows users. ("This Mac sucks, it doesn't have smart links")
3. M$ will no doubt turn words on a site like eBay, where I have observed many middle-class people earning part of their livelihood into links to their/their partners/their advertisers competing eCommerce sites. Prices will be much better at first. Once the competition is extinguished, well, if you think gasoline prices are out of hand now, wait until every consumer good you want to purchase undergoes the same artificial constriction of supply.
4. Wait til AOL/TW comes up with their competing answer.
cat
People don't realise this, but Microsoft is a wonderfull company. For example:
- Their products are designed to give the consumer the freedom to work in a wide range of enviroments - Windows95, Windows98, WindowsME, WindowsNT, Windows2000, WindowsXP
- The quality of their software is excelent - DOS is very stable
- Their prices are highly afordable - Windows 3.1 prices are at an all time low
In this specific case, i think putting in IE the ability to transform any work in an HTML page into a link to a Microsoft site is a way of empowering the User by allowing him/her to for example click in the name of a brand and be sent to a Microsoft endorsed site full with articles to buy and "super special promotions" and "unbiased consumer information".To everybody out there i say:
Please think twice before bashing Microsoft again!!!
Kewl
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Words in HTML pages are linked as in the M$ scheme, but I control where each link goes. Think of it as bookmarks on steroids. Furthermore, I'd want to be able to easily import published sets of "link targets" from sources I prefer. Pr0n fans could import from www.sexmeup.com, and prudes could import from www.noickystuff.org.
I could imagine a hierarchical system of link targets. First, see if I personally have specified a target for the word "foo." If not, check my imported lists, in a priority order I control. I would want these link targets to be visually different from normal links...maybe by color?
Oh, and one more thing...let me right-click on any word to look it up in the dictionary or thesaurus site of my choice.
Take a lesson from the evil empire: embrace and extend.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
Not a huge crisis:
To turn off Smart Tags
On the Tools menu, click AutoCorrect Options....
Click the Smart Tags tab.
Clear the Show Smart Tag Actions buttons check box.
Click OK.
There, all done. You can turn off the red-alert now.
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
I've never seriously considered actually blocking IE from my sites...until now. Probably time to go find that javascript and install it. Enough is quite enough.
In space, no one can hear you moo.
BTW here is how the article looks in the Dialectizer:
Whar Does Microsof' Want Yo' t'Git Today?
Posted by michael on Thursday June 07, @07:49AM fum th' subliminal-message-har depp. blennerkin' sent in this hyar Wall Street Journal sto'y about Microsof''s noo "Smart Tags" - auty-linkin' t'Microsof' websites in enny web page yo' visit. "Fum th' article: "In effeck, Microsof' will be able, through th' browser, t're-edit ennybody's site, wifout th' owny's smarts o' permisshun, in a way thet tempps users t'leave an' hoof it to a Microsof'-chosen site -- whether o' not thet site offers better info'mashun." Mah web site is about margarita recipes....whut is Microsof' a-gonna does...offer a visito' t'mah site a better recipe on their site?" T'other reader sent in a CNET article on th' same subjeck.
I know you were mostly joking, AC... but for those who really hate the feature, that is the obvious way to break it.
If you don't want MS filling your page with smart links, spoof a bunch of them right on your page, all going to useless and/or really gross sites. If enough people do that, people will start to avoid following those damned things at all.
Besides, while it was the way people once thought HTML would someday be used, nobody but us geeks ever follow contextual web links anyway. Regular users go to the sites they know, and only find other sites through Yahoo, "links" pages, or their favorite commercial portal. Most of them only revisit the same 5 pages 90% of the time, and seldom "browse" in the mid-90's sense of the word.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Ah, but: nothing in that case is being copied in a form which the user can access. A web page is being published across the web and the user actually has the result in a form that they can save to disk and access at will.
I think a good lawyer could give it a go.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Some peole have suggested that since it is just a question of display there is no more grounds to attack than if you don't like the fonts the browser uses but I think that it could be argued that the meaning of an HTML-work is changed when the links are changed and that this takes it into the realm of a derived work.
For example, if I put up a page giving company x's products a negative review and your browser links 'company x' to their advertising then the meaning of my page has at least been confused (why am I advertising a product I'm saying I don't like?) and at worse totaly reversed, depending on the context.
Personally, I think I'll just block IE6 or whatever version has this with a redirect to www.opera.com.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
From the article:
--
Is it okay to cry "Movie!" in a crowded firehouse? --Steve Martin
> Smart tags can be easily turned off by the end
> user. There is a BUTTON ON THE TOOLBAR to do
> this.
Helps, although it'd be better if they were off
by default. 90% of people never change their
defaults; most have no clue how to, even if there
is a button on the toolbar. If nobody tells
them to push the button on the toolbar, they
won't.
> Smart tags can be easily turned off by a page
> author. There is a META tag that does this.
Better; the fact that page authors can prevent
Microsoft from modifying their pages is a good
thing.
> Smart tags look nothing like ordinary links.
> They are purple dotted lines uder the word.
> When you mouse-over them, an (i) info symbol
> appears. You CANNOT mistake smart tags for
> ordinary links.
You've never worked a help desk, have you?
Chris Mattern
Actually, I don't have to update all the thousands of pages contained by all my web sites.
I then suggest (understand : "Vehemently sustain") that the webmasters who'd want to be smart-tagged should put a Meta Tag in their pages.
They have to be explicitely authorized, not the contrary or nothing will prevent them (or anybody else) in the future to play such a game (with such a reduced press-coverage) before whining it's the user-that-had-not-put-a-Meta-Tag's fault.
--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
This is blatant copy of the post #43 , which made me laugh and was not moderated funny.
On the serious part: I don't like the idea because, without context, a word can mean very different things. Look at censoring software: I used the words "sexy gal" on my personal webpage somewhere and, at a bank where I worked, the censoring software blocked it because it was "pr0n"...The page blocked was showing old pictures of my family.
This feature will have the same effects: I use "sexy gal" and it could link to http://www.lolitagirls.com or so....Not my idea, when the context doesn't indicate porgnography at all.
But then, probably I'm wrong?
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Some days ago I saw the first commercials on TV here in Europe (on german TV) for Office XP. Yup... I didn't know it shipped yet by the way, so it could be pre-order or so. Of course I said, oh, crap! Liars! But then I guess that there are more secretaries (or managers) watching TV swallowing those lies, than halfway informed geeks. I don't remember the slogans, but "making things easier" was definately one of them.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Ozymandias" (1818)
Still a pain, but at least they're recognizing some Web sites might not want this "feature". The best part is that with modern template-generated Web sites, you only need to add the META tag in one place to de-Smart Tag your entire site.
Actually this has already sort of happened
I can remember back in '98 I was playing with Beta 1 of "Windows NT Workstation 5" back before it became Windows "Profesional" (Though what "professional" would willingly use windows I don't know.)
In any event I was going about configuring it, and since it only had IE 3, I decided to go and install Netscape Communicator since I prefer it. So I faithfully typed "http://www.netscape.com" into IE and low and behold IE displayed an HTTP error I'd never seen before which was something to the effect of
which translated is: Needless to say, I thought this was just a little bit offensive, and probably stupid considering the DoJ was right in the middle of the antitrust investigation.I managed finally to get Netscape (by installing it from a cd distributed by my school) on the machine, and surprisingly "NT5b1" allowed it to run. I guess the IE division of Microsoft has more of a "sense of humor" than the OS department.
BTW The beta sucked...
credo quia absurdum
If proper hyperlinking of article text hadn't become the forgotten point of the Internet, perhaps M$ wouldn't feel that this service would add value to surfing...
Boy I'm glad everyone says the browser war is over. Clearly, the better company won.
In other news: Al Sharpton's "Peckish Strike"
- Smart tags can be easily turned off by the end user. There is a BUTTON ON THE TOOLBAR to do this.
- Smart tags can be easily turned off by a page author. There is a META tag that does this.
- The default smart tags look for any reference to any company in MoneyCentral, and a few US universities. You click on them, and you get info.
- Smart tags look nothing like ordinary links. They are purple dotted lines uder the word. When you mouse-over them, an (i) info symbol appears. You CANNOT mistake smart tags for ordinary links.
- IMO, they are a pain, but easily disabled.
Nothing to see here. Move along....what Microsoft would do with these pages.
My web site is about margarita recipes....what is Microsoft going to do...offer a visitor to my site a better recipe on their site?
You never know, it may contain sodium pentathol. Just drink up, smile and don't worry about a thing, ol' Bill will look after your best interests.
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
And if i write a nice disclaimer somewhere on my site which explicitly disallows this, are they still allowed to "change my site"?
Oh, i am sure MS has a horde of lawyers...
J.
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earthbound misfit, I.
Are some people still using MIcrosoft?
This is not a case of MS inventing some new, crazy way to controll the minds of the world. This is just a case of thier so called "innovation" (read: taking someones idea and pretending it was theirs). flyswat was doing this exact same thing years ago. Its not that scary, it is more annoying than anything else. I guess some people like it though.
Its not changing the page or anything like that, it just adds its own links to conent from it's own database. Thats it. If you don't like it, don't use it.
This article is completely blowing it out of proportion. As if hate groups could make you see their content. How? You would have to knowingly install their add-ins.
This article is is just FUD. Its anti-MS FUD, so many of you out there may forgive the author. But FUD is FUD, and this article does not even attempt to look at the issue even handedly.
--
"Me and my girl named bimbo . . . limbo . . . spam" - Captain Beefheart.
javascript alert: You have been found browsing unofficial media while under the influence of anti-social neuronal activity.
Fatal OE exception caught in room101.vxd:
Your brave new world may be corrupt or inoperable. Please reinstall from your original windows84 media.
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
It seems like this is a copyright infringement.
It seems as though you're right - the makers of the web site retain their exclusive rights, and they don't usually give them up. This includes the right to make derivative works. There's an implied license in deploying a web site - that it will be copied into memory and displayed in a browser.
Of course, what if this is just Microsoft's method of "display?" And then, what about proxies like Proxomitron, that can alter a page to remove unwanted Javascript? It all gets so weird...
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
If I create a web page, and "snag" content dynamically from another site (without permission), I'm violating copyright. By them modifying my page, they're effectively using my content to display their own page with my content.
I don't see the difference, personally.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
Shouldn't they make a meta-tag that ENABLES this feature instead? MS should get explicit permission to do this to someone's website through an opt-in tag, rather than an opt-out tag that I have to spend time and money inserting into every single one of my pages.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
I don't think it's a problem. You don't need to click a word that has a smart tag - only if you want to. That's what Microsoft has been good at all the time: do what the users ask for.
my other sig is a 500 page novel
And neither can you in smart tags.
--
Two witches watch two watches.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
They *aren't* part of the page.
You can click on a word and it will give you a list of options, but it's *clearly* not part of the page.
Frex, if you click on the word Microsoft, you can choose if to view their stock, go to their home page, read recent press releases, etc.
The same happens with Apple, CompaQ, as well as a host of other companies.
--
Two witches watch two watches.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
But the general idea is clear. Every time I stop seeing me with my own eyes, and look at myself through MS eyes, I see myself like a fat cow, only waiting to be milked away of her last drop of... money.
I have only one thing to say, and it's that if we (hackers, other computer companies, government, general public) let them get away with it, well, we will deserve to pay MS along till end of time. The strategy is clearly written, nobody is fooled, and alternative ways can be developed. If they are not, it's a proof that MS is a de-facto-standard-creating-machine, and all the rest, only a loud bickering lot of noise.
--
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
War was beginning.
CEO: What happen ? ....
Webmaster: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Sysadmin: We get signal.
CEO: What !
Sysadmin: Main screen turn on.
CEO: It's You !!
Gates: How are you gentlemen !!
Gates: All your link are belong to us.
Gates: You are on the way to destruction.
CEO: What you say !!
Gates: You have no chance to survive make your time.
Gates: HA HA HA HA
CEO: Take off every 'zig' !!
CEO: You know what you doing.
CEO: Move 'zig'.
CEO: For great justice.
Note: Presumably 'zig' is a code name for Windows XP.
--
Security and monopolistic activities aside, how many people actually want these features? How many people will actually use them? 90 percent of the features in Excel and Word go unused as it is and the last thing I want is stuff popping up whenever I type someone's name. I think this will make using computers more complex and confusing for everyone. As soon as you start integrating stuff and having things happen automatically and forcing users to choose what websites to visit people get upset. For those Linux developers out there developing software for Linux on the desktop keep things simple, integration minimal and don't make any assumptions on what the user wants and do it automatically.
Everyone keeps asking if a web page author can write a disclaimer forbidding MS smart linking. RTFA, people! From the article:
Clearly there's a (META NAME="Smart Tags" CONTENT="Block"> , or some such, that Smart Tags will scan for first. (WSJ refers to this as "programming code," but whatever.) This of course is analogous to spammers using an "opt-out" model, assuming you're OK w/ being violated unless you say otherwise. It should be "opt-in" instead, more like (META NAME="Smart Tags" CONTENT="Allow" > , not touching your page unless that's there. But who ever expected MS to be respectful of authors or anybody for that matter?
Fight for your right to read books!
"Maybe the mozilla developers can implement something like this into their project."
Isn't Mozilla already instable enough? (Not a flamebait, just an attempt to point out a practical problem. If there are bugs in the existing featureset, adding newer features before fixing essential ones seems unwise.)
I'm the stranger...posting to
It sounds great on paper for the Internet to be more integrated with an OS desktop - anything that lets you get your data more quickly is a good thing, although the fact that MS will only use their tech for sites that pay them is troublesome.
My real concern, however, is the security of Smart Tags. M$ says they just download static data, and I believe them - but I still worry about the limited power these tags will have. For example, will these tags be able to take control of your browser like conventional HTML? If so, it would be easy for them to send you to a site with, say, a Java applet or ActiveX control that really could breach system security. For that matter, could these tags "redirect" your word processor?
My other concern is that even if the smart tags are little more than text files, with no ability to directly control a computer, clueless users may be fooled by data presented by a tag. It a tag advised them, for example, to buy a certain product or visit a certain website, they might do it thinking it was some sort of "official" advice from Microsoft, and therefor good. In other words, I worry about the same sort of mentality that makes users open email attachments without thinking even though they're told again and again and again not to do that, because the attachment either seems to be from someone they know, or a picture of a hot tennis player.
I guess what I'm saying is that integrating the internet is all well and good, but I don't trust people who might try to pull pranks with smart tags, and I don't trust the average user. I've seem my high school lan go down too many times because of user cluelessness with email viruses that only work because an MS email client has such control of the OS.
I'm the stranger...posting to
Sounds kinda like what some TV networks have done/are doing with stuff like baseball games and the 2000 New Year's Eve thing: editing over billboards and other posted advertising shown on screen (even on live TV) and replacing them with fake billboards for their own network and other advertisers. I don't remember how much of an uproar there was when that happened; I wonder how much this will get.
--
#/usr/bin/perl
require 6.0;
sed 's/In Soviet Russia/In NSA America/g' < yakov-smirnoff-jokes.txt
Just prevent IE users from visiting your site until after they've read your anti-IE popup message. (Get a script to do this for you at http://www.angelfire.com/ms/AntiIE/IEjava.html)Thi s doesn't prevent their use of your site, it's just a gentle reminder that they're being led around by the nose thanks to M$.
Individual people aren't stupid, but the masses are. Microsoft is counting on the masses to remain uneducated about their practices and continue to be spoon-fed the latest feature that Micro$oft has decided is the standard. If we can educated the individuals to the alternatives, perhaps they'll join us.
Think back, didn't you use Windoze before you realized you didn't have to?
couldn't you instert some javascript to prevent ie identified browsers from displaying your page? or maybe to display a 'browser not supported' notice? i think ill do that if possible. fucking MS.
Your webserver serves whatever you want, then it is parsed by the browser, which adds links that microsoft wants to add to the page. You put text criticizing Company A, Microsoft adds a link to company A. You mention the Opera or Konqueror browser, and Microsoft turns the word browser into a link for IE6.
blenderking sent in this Wall Street Journal story about
_ _
Microsoft's new "Smart Tags" - auto linking to Microsoft
websites in any web page you visit.
...This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. If the problem persists, please contact the program vendor for resolution.
____________________________________
______________________________________
Ever notice how fast Windows runs? Neither did I...
It seems like this is a copyright infringement. Microsoft is taking something they do not own, and exploiting it for commercial processes.
Also, newspaper editors and such take great care to make sure that what they print is accurate. If an accurate story suddenly has links to inaccurate information, who is at fault?
In Office XP, Word and Excel can load smart tag DLLs (SDK here).These DLLs implement two COM classes: ISmartTagRecognizer and ISmartTagAction. The recognizer scans text for patterns specified by the developer. For example, I wrote one that recognizes FedEx package tracking numbers. You can write a recognizer to recognize anything you can code, using pattern matching, database lookup, or whatever kind of heuristic you like.
When your smart tag recognizer recognizes something, it calls the CommitSmartTag method. All that does is stamp some XML into the source document, indicating the schema name for the smart tag type you just recognized. When you save the document, the XML gets saved with it.
Actions specify which XML schemas they're interested in. If a recognizer tags something with schemas-smarttagworld-com/zip#zip, then any action that wants to offer actions for that data type (like "look up this zip code", "find FedEx boxes in this zip code", etc) can do so. That means that anyone can write an action that overloads the smart tag types that MS supports in Office.
So, what about IE? Remember the XML? You can tag pages yourself by including the XML in the page (see this article and and actions, without any whiff of Office XP nearby. He missed some key points, though:
- Smart tags are marked by a dotted purple line (example). When you hover over the link, you get a little icon that expands into a pulldown. There's no automatic linking or redirection, period.
- There's no content substitution. You can write smart tags whose actions change content in a Word or Excel document, but the actions have to be triggered by the user. So, don't worry about MS making a tag that does s/Linux/Windows/.
- Anyone who can figure out VB or VC++ (and probably C#, but who cares) can write smart tags. UPS, OAG, and a bunch of other companies are already doing so (partial list). Everyone's invited to the party.
- Users have to turn on smart tags. They're off by default so that MS doesn't get inundated with millions of calls asking what that little purple line is for.
- There's a META tag that turns off the recognizer/action combo in IE6, so you can add that tag to your pages so that no smart tags will be active therein. Perfect for paranoid penguins.
HTH.