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New Documents Shed Light on Microsoft's Tactics
Tigen writes "As the NY Times reports, even as MS prepares to face penalties from the European Union, testimony during the second week of trial in the consumer class-action lawsuit in Minnesota has revealed some embarrassing internal documents from Microsoft which were not disclosed in the 1997 federal antitrust lawsuit. Items include a 1990 letter from Bill Gates to Andy Grove, and Microsoft's illegal tactics against the Go Corporation, a Silicon Valley startup."
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
Microsoft has actually been a bad big corp? Tell me it isn't so...
OK it's so, let the "Exchange server ate my email" excuse begin!
This space is not for rent.
Sounds eeriely like a movie script minus Erin Brockovich..
I've contended for years that computing in general has been held back by Microsoft, not pushed forward, and this is an example of just how that has been the case.
...
... and most of them do.
There are a lot of 'high order' dreams in the computing science. The CS holy grail of pocket, portable computing is only now coming to fruition (thank you Palm), but has been on the cards since at least the 60's as a design reference/specification. Go could've given us this in the late 1980's, early 90's. Microsofts' machinations, however, prevented that from happening.
I understand now, why the Palm founders adopted their 'found and leave' strategy for PalmOS. In the light of Go, Inc's demise it makes sense to light 4 or 5 small fires that the enemy can't put -all- out, rather than making a very large target, like Go and Motorola did
I stopped using Microsoft products in 1998. They'll not get one penny of $ from this consumer, and not one item of code from this programmer. I tell all my Microsoft-using friends to fuck off with their self-made problems, too, and get real operating systems, from real software companies
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Consider the author and the source of the article. First, the NYTimes now has a history of embellishing and a keeping lying journalist n the payroll. Second, Markoff is the cat who made up stories about Mitnik breaking into NASA and other cracks and phreaks that Mitnik whole heartedly denies. Plus the jackass sold his soul to a book on Mitnik (a poorly written book at that). Now though many of you hate MS, consider the source to this story and take it with a grain of salt.
Back then in June 1990 (as the date of the letter), Microsoft wasn't a monopoly yet, right? So, the anti-trust trial cannot use this as an evidence against them....
I would say that this may lead to anti-competitive lawsuit... (btw, is such lawsuit allowable in the USA?) And of course, as usual, IANAL...
--
Error 500: Internal sig error
We've found one dead body, the criminal is in jail.
... nah ... its 'not needed'.
... only ... possible in the alternative /. universe ... in my head.
We don't need to find any more. Even if they are out there, somewhere in the ditch, buried
You should be marked "-1 Ignorant Buffoon", but alas thats
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
... after all it's a Markoff article.
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
If GO Penpoint software was open-sourced 14 years ago... as an attempt to counter Windows H agression...
I wonder what would the landscape of mobile computing be like today?
Hey, that's my password you are typing
If this is not anti-competitive, then what is?
Microsoft violated a signed secrecy agreement with Go and showed that Microsoft possessed technical documents from Go that it should not have had access to.
Industrial Espionage.
Microsoft violated nondisclosure agreements with Go, and then used that information to build PenWindows, a competitor to Go's PenPoint operating system.
GO has loyalty rights for PenWindows. GO should sue PenWindows licensee's individually. This is what Microsoft is trying to do to Linux users through SCO. GO has more legal grounds to stand on that SCO.
Shortly after the letter was written, Intel reduced its planned investment in Go from $10 million to $2 million
Intel was held to ransom, and they paid it.
The advice read in part that the focus should be shifted from "killing the competitor" to "providing a better solution to the customer's problems."
So they did believe in Killing Competition. A tiger never changes its stripes.
I think some of these allegations could ammount to criminal offences. I do hope Mr. Gates does a time in a cell with No Windows
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Nothing to see here
I was going to point to the Google link of the story, as I'm some people will do.
But also remember the login/pass: slashdot1234/slashdot1234 to quickly log into a slashdot NY Times acct, which beats searching google for the other...
Maybe it's a bit before my time, but does anyone remember anything about PenWindows at all?
Was it renamed Windows CE in a later life?
Or was it just another MS experiment?
Typical slashbot FUD.
Please explain how pocket, portable computing would have been possible even ten years ago. The hardware was the limiting factor. Microsoft had nothing to do with it - the state of the semiconductor industry did. We didn't have CPUs that worked withotu sucking *lots* of juice. NMOS CPUs were very power hungry.
Today we have calculators with 75 MHz processors, powered off AAA batteries. Would that have been possible 10 years ago? perhaps, but the price would have been insane.
Companies are always free to develop their own embedded OS; some do. Back then the hardware wasn't available. So quit the microsoft bashing.
Typical slashdot groupthink
Well, Mr. Obvious, would you be as kind as to point us to some references to these kidnappings?
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
Microsoft would not leak so many embarrassing documents if they never wrote anything down. But, I hear you say, surely people will just record what they say and leak the recordings. Well, not if they conduct all their business in mime. So that is my suggestion. Microsoft should do everything by mime.
-
apt-get install deathstar && deathstar alderaan && echo "You're far too trusting"
I tell all my Microsoft-using friends to fuck off with their self-made problems, too..
Surely there's a way you can express your displeasure with MS products to your friends with a little more tact?
-- jimmycarter
If this is embarrassing then what does bill gates think of the scene in pirates of silicon valley when he gets high and steals a steamroller.
Yeah, and I heard that ObviousGuy can't orgasm unless he kills a dog.
Of course, that's just what I heard.
It is too bad that the Go Penpoint OS never made it. In my opinion it was a very nice system and well designed. The Apple Newton came close, but not quite.
I read the book "The Power of Penpoint"
by Robert Carr, Dan Shafer but never had one of their computers myself (they are pretty rare in Europe). I nearly bought one on ebay recently though.
Some images: http://www.ojisan.com/penpoint/index.shtml
True...I'm a Palm advocate and I had my first handheld back when the first one came out in 1996. It was the PalmPilot Personal/Professional, I believe. But he was close though, saying it was 10 years ago. But I'm sure 1994 they already had some of the ideas and design for a PDA. It's just that the hardware technology hasn't caught up yet.
http://www.palmzone.net
A decision was made, but a lot of people believe that decision was just so much tepid crap. Courts have been overturned in the past; perhaps if enough new evidence comes to light, the case can be reopened.
Yes, it does serve a purpose. It serves to dig up more facts and evidence should someone in the judiciary ever get wise and reevaluate that case.
Even if the trial never reopens, the Court of Public Opinion is always open. The more people learn what kinds of jiggery-pokery Microsoft has been up to, the more likely Microsoft will gets its just desserts sooner or later, and the less likely anyone else will ever pull such stunts again.
Honestly. I'm trying to figure out your attitude. "Microsoft did it, they got away with it, and that's good enough for me!" Are you always this doggedly complacent?
Need something burned down in a big hurry? Then come on down to the Flamebait Market, for all your pyromaniac needs!
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
Every time Microsoft goes on about piracy hurting them damaging innovation etc they should be reminded of this that they are IP thieves themselves and if SCO can ask for $1million from IBM then what can the former executives of Go sue Microsoft for? All hypothetical of course the documents have yet to prove this is the case.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
For those of you wondering about the refernce:
2 -23
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2004-0
tbdean
"What now? does dragging this stuff up accomplishe anything more? It's just for microsoft bashing."
One man's flamebait is another man's insightfu.
"Derp de derp."
Im submitting this from my gitmo cage right now! It's not so bad really, though this tablet PC is just junk. I mean seriously! Damn thing only gets 12 fps on counterstrike.
From the article:
A Microsoft spokeswoman said that many of these newly disclosed documents were not relevant to the trial, which focuses on Microsoft pricing actions.
Oh, of course, sorry. Yes, these documents aren't relevant for the current trial, so we should just ignore them completely and pretend they don't exist.
"These are not the documents you are looking for..."
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
but what monopoly? i see macs, i see red hats, i see real players and firebirds they are dominant, but in what way am I even inconvienienced for avoiding ms? not that ms isnt culpible for its crimes, but thanks to creative and intelligent and bored middle class programmers, we finally are able to overcome and avoide monopolies.... or im just a moron
I used to work at a start-up specialising in pen computers in the early '90s (my first job
after leaving university) and PenPoint was actually a pretty good system IIRC.
The primary development language was 'C' with an OO facade used to build the windowing libraries -
rather like GTK in that respect in fact.
There were also tools enabling development in ObjectiveC instead of 'GO' C if you preferred. (though
I think these were from a third party (Slate?))
All in all if my hazy memory serves 10 years later, it was a pretty damn good mobile computing
solution.
If you want the whole story of GO, read Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure by Jerry Kaplan. It's a great book. And it shows just how evil Microsoft really is!
IF it is true then it just goes once again to show how fucking rotten the legal system is. Tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth eh? So will these be grounds for a new case? Wasn't Martha Stewart found guilty of lying to an officer instead of insider dealing? Can they get MS on withholding evidence? Perhaps even going after people who can be jailed? I personally don't believe for a second that this could be accidental (IF of course it is real)
Some posts seem to mention that attempting to create or abuse a monopoly is a felony. Doesn't this mean that MS is a criminal? So how exactly is it still allowed to do business as usual? Companies seem to want all the perks of being treated a real people but none of the bad stuff like oh say being punished for committing crimes.
Oh well at least we can snigger at all the microsoft apologist trying to wriggle out of this one. This must be one of their worst weeks. Embarrising papers, being fined and if you look at groklaw yet more hypocrasy by claiming that the EU has no right to tell it how to behave while MS itself is asking the EU to tell Lindows how to behave.
I almost pity the MS fans. Almost.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
"All of Microsoft's conduct was designed to acquire and hang on to their monopoly,'' said Eugene Crew, a lawyer at Townsend, Townsend & Crew, based in San Francisco.
Many companies would desire to maintain a monopoly. The problem here is that after so many years of knowing that Microsoft has this attitude, nobody has done anything effective to stop it.
People can complain about the EU being anti-American in its anti-trust case, but personally I feel that the US should have imposed far more restrictions on Microsoft than it has thus far. Microsoft continually gets away with anti-competitive practices, everybody knows this - although some Microsoft apologists vehemently deny/excuse it.
"Consumers were harmed by being deprived of choice. The greatest harm out of the Go story was the suppression of innovation and new technology by Microsoft."
The extent of consumer harm can't really be known. People seem to be relatively happy with Windows. Then again, people just accepted that computers needed regular rebooting after running Windows 95, it just goes to show how most people just accept things without question. I guess we'll never know how far things could have progressed if it wasn't for Microsoft preventing competition by abusing its position.
Consumers are harmed, so are competing businesses.
Look how things are flying now because Microsoft has a bit of competition from Linux/Open Source. Of course, Microsoft can say, "Hey, we're doing this because we love you all, not because we're scared of Linux", but why does Microsoft care now when it obviously didn't give a damn for years (judging by the poor quality of Windows up until now)? If there's no competition then you work at your own pace, and as long as it appears that there's progress, people seem to be satisfied.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
...can be seen here: Link
Perhaps if companys where less like Microsoft and Enron Etc. and the senior managers actually punished when do act like that then you wouldn't see so many go down in flames.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
The trial exhibits (including the documents mentioned in the NY Times article) are being posted on the court's website.
SO.... for all ye programmers... // what they must have coded //should read
if($partner) $access = 1;
switch($partner){
case 'google':
$access = 1;
break;
case 'slashdot':
$access = 1;
break;
default:
$access = 0;
break;
}
Oh i dunno, never been to an MSCE camp have we?
How in the HELL was that insightful? We had *PICTURES* of Guantanamo bay detainees, we had released prisoners talking about it, the fucking US government admitted that they were there (perhaps not thousands, but cetrainly hundreds). It is fucking THERE.It's not that people aren't asking for proof ... they've already seen it!
I have (personally) NOT seen proof of Andy Grove keeping IBM employees in a cellar, and I would damn well like some evidence of it if I'm expected to take that seriously.
The Whole point of Go was to create the software and hardware together remember that IBM and Intel where involved. Microsoft persuaded Intel to reduce its contribution to the project which they did which killed the hardware side resulting in the failure of the software side. Once this happened neither IBM nor Intel would have wanted to work with Microsoft thus no hardware for PenWindows either.
Back then the hardware wasn't available. So quit the Microsoft bashing.
Again the point was to develop the hardware Microsoft stopped Intel from helping. It would only be Microsoft bashing if it was untrue. Quit the knee jerk response and find the facts.
extra note ran this through the spell checker and PenWindows is in there it even corrected the capitals
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
Eat up Martha.
He posts under other names too - not recently though. I'm guessing 50 accounts that have been karma whored, each one used to mod up his daily spam posts.
If you log in and 'disrespect' him, he adds you as a friend. I feel honoured, I honestly do.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
Let's see, $613 million to the EU and being forced to make their server APIs open (WOO HOO!), maybe $1.5 billion to Minnesota.
That MCSE of your's is starting to look a bit less useful, eh?
1. Dominate OS market.
2. Profit.
3. Get fined by EU.
4. Ham
I know it is offtopic and random, but that is kind of the point.
At times I wonder if people have become so desensitized to people in positions of power lying to them that they no longer care. People have to accept wrong behaviour from politicians, businessmen, the media and everybody else. It does not matter if George Bush lies, or Bill Gates bullies his way through or Wall Street analysts pump up a stock - this type of behaviour does not shock or surprise - it is expected of them.
I just read pengwindows. Now there's a nice tux reference for you...
Let's just call the next OS windows manager penguindows.
At least they can't call out for a copyrighted 'windows' in there.
(or really call it PenGwindows, where G stands for Gnu?)
anyway. useless brainbabble.
Their innovation continues to exist in Symbian Devices.
:)
I own a SonyEricsson P800 UIQ based Mobile Phone. Based on the Symbian 7.0 platform, you can still see the Psion/Epoc influence underneath.
The result, a sold stable computing platform, which arguebly crashes FAR less than equivelent MS Smartphones. (this is from personal experience amongst me and my collegues)
A MultiTasking/Multithreading operating system that is easy enough to use (MAC/Palm style), yet DOES allow you access the filesystem (C drive, ddrive, etc), and other system details via freely downloadable software shoudl you wish to tinker.
Its Handwritign recognition is exemplar, and far better and more "user friendly" than Palm's old Graffiti system which was very good for what it was.
I use it as an Ogg player (who needs an MP3 player, its sound quality is excellent), a PDA (it synchs with Outlook contacts/mail/tasks/diary/notes, and has dynamic contact spaces (it dynamically adds new fields even when they are not provided in the main set of fields, try that with palm its its infuriating 5 max fields for numbers/fax/email/web and one address field)
For those not wishing to submit to Outlook, it also has excellent vCard and SyncML support. You can back up the contacts by selecting "send all" and pointign the Infrared or bluetooth at any computer (Win/Mac/Linux) and selecting send. it will create a standard vCard file with all contact details stored in it. and to send it back to the phone, just send the single file. Even outlook on the PC cannot handle a vCard with numerous contacts so simply and elegantly, heaven help Mobile Outlook users!
it is simply the best PDA i have ever had, and does follow to some extent Jerry Kaplan's original vision...
Oh and i forgot to mention, its a damn good phone too!
Have a nice day!
What do you mean "We've found one dead body, the criminal is in jail." in reference to Microsoft? Microsoft has been found to be an illegal monopoly (a felony) by both the US and the EU. The US has done virtually nothing about it and Microsoft is squirming trying to get out of any sanctions by the EU. In this case the criminal is not in jail, and the convicted criminal seems to be quite adept at buying it's way out of jail after each conviction.
In both the US Fed. and EC cases the fine/penalty/remedy is not really the big economic point.
Once a company has a gulty verdict against it in a federal anti-trust case the door is open for all kinds of civil cases.
Realistically, materially punitive federal judgements would hardly fly even in the EC, let alone the US (where an amazing majority of people actually like the applications that MS produces and a highly vocal segment figure if they're so successful they must be 'good' both technically and in customer service).
So really this kind of suit could sink MS, and in fairness to the feds (even the shamefully inept way the Bush administration runs the show) There is a case to be made that letting the market take care of itself is more efficient in the long run.
As the 'market' has access to the courts MS can look forward to more of these.
Coupled with the likelihood that more and more of their products will become materially irrelevant due to opensourcing of better alternatives I think MS's future isn't as gold plated as it surely looked before the whole anti-trust thing started.
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD
this is business 101 and it is revered in the corporate world.
there are no morals in the corporate world it is just me, myself, and I.
Microsoft sucks and I will never buy another one of their products again (windows nt was the last one I bought). I am forced to use it at work but yet I risk my job by putting linux on my laptop. I just can't go into a place everyday and use microsoft. It just sucks. Use to be an mcse also but I am not taking four tests just to renew my certification. I'll go get a unix one if I have to do that - it would also be more respected by my peers than a mcse.
fsck off Microsoft and SCO.
after many cases and revealations like these. how could you? how could any reasonable person not feel that they were and are getting the short end of the stick becuase of M$ business practices?
linux, BSD, or any other OSS/FS is not your only choice if u don't want to mess with M$. You have Apple and some others. but people who have a love for M$ should really look at why the like them, what they have been doing to the industry, and whether or not M$ business practices benefits you and your friends in the long term.
i know, that seem like just too much for really busy people to think about. but like politics, it may not be fun, but ignoring it will get you and idiot for a leader. as for M$, it will limit your choice if they get thier way, u probably won't have Linux, BSD, Apple, BeOS (which kind of don't exist thanks to them), etc.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Huh? Um, in case you haven't noticed, MS is engaged in at least a dozen legal battles right now. This isn't a case of "digging stuff up", this is evidence as submitted in a current legal proceeding, hardly irrelevant. Furthermore, there is still some question as to whether or not MS has, in fact, stuck to the agreements made in the recent DOJ case. They've certainly broken prior consent decrees. And finally, wouldn't you, as an employee of MS (as your post seems to indicate) want to know if your employer has a history of unethical or illegal behavior? Or do you subscribe to the see-no-evil philosophy?
Trying to intimidate the guy who would kidnap misbehaving Intel employees and keep them locked in his cellar in Oregon for weeks on end?
I really think that it shows the resiliency of the human spirit the way that those employees were able to tunnel out 30 feet to freedom using nothing but a broken glass shard from a bottle of Dom Perignon 1959 (that was a good year).
That is another story in itself. But I think it shows why Intel is able to produce a quality product that keeps up with Moore's law year after year.
Some call it intimidation, I call it innovation.
Microsoft obviously doen't intimidate^H^H^H^H^Hinnovate enough, as their product is still crap.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
They would probably use the sign language, then create proprietary (read ununderstandable or usually used to say something else) extensions to it, then try to force all deaf persons to stop using it with fud and other bullying tactics, or to buy a microsoft Hand(TM) license to have the right to use it.
Of course, watching anyone using it or merely waving your hand without a licence would soon be illegal, since a patent is on its way:
"a method to communicate by signs in order to, eh!, say something, without actually, uh!, say something".
Yes, there *were* processors of a suitable kind ten years ago. Take the various ARM processors as an example.
And even then, there's lots of other processors from around that time that would have given sufficent processing power _and_ the needed power-efficiency.
Just because most machines contain baroque tech from the 60s (the x86 series), doesn't mean everything works so badly.
I don't like trolls and mod against me if you like, but I'd prefer if you'd reply.
You. Completely. Missed. The. Point.
The point is, the original poster said "we already know they're criminals, we don't need to look at any more evidence".
Well, duh. A crime is a crime, whether its a stiff-in-the-ditch or a battle-order-from-the-boss. Just because one crime has been discovered, doesn't mean we should stop looking for more...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Who needs the ARM6? Even the ARM2, ARM250, and ARM3 would have been more than sufficient.
If I remember correctly, Acorn built a Tablet PC in the early 90s running RISC OS, and powered by the ARM. It was damned good (saw a demo), but, as with so many Acorn-related things (ARM being the exception that proves the rule), they didn't have the capital investment to mass produce it.
Oh well, there's always Psion...
I don't like trolls and mod against me if you like, but I'd prefer if you'd reply.
most ordinary users think, that it's perfectly normal, that your computer crashes few times a day. they just let it go as "well, that happens" not knowing, not expecting and not caring for any particular reason.
this only single fact gives "excuse" for millions of lines poorly written code, (who cares, it happens anyway) and keeps thousands of "hacky" programs and viruses alive, while most of those crashes may be their "natural" side-effect, not nessecerily something, that would "normally" happen with healthy system..
In 1991, the hardware for portable computing just wasn't there. It.. just... WASN'T. I mean, where did PenWindows go? Yep, right into the dumpster.
Here's a loose quote (I don't remember it exactly) from Marlin Eller's book referenced at the end of the article: "This wasn't about 'grow the market,' it was about 'block that kick.' Go Corp spent $(millions) creating their product, we spent $4 million shooting them down. They'll never sell their shit again." That's not the exact quote, but it's pretty close. I remember it so clearly because I was completely shocked to read such a thing.
IIRC, this was said in response to Eller expressing his opinion that Pen Windows was a failure because it didn't take off, and the person who spoke the words above explained that Pen Windows was a success because all it was supposed to do was cock-block Go Corp from building a presence in the market.
~Philly
Microsoft has already paid $1.6 billion in its efforts to settle consumer antitrust claims filed in 10 states
Paid $1.6 billion? In cash? Somehow this doesn't ring true to me.
Didn't Microsoft "pay" for their sins in credits for Microsoft software? Anyone know for sure?
Ruby on Rails Screencast
There are two ways to view mircosoft. There is the traditinal Slashdot Micro$oft is evil and sucks opinion, and my view that Microsoft is evil and is really cool. Think about it. The mobsters in The Godfather movies, and the Sopranos are evil, but they don't suck. Admit it, you Love playing GTA Vice City. Its not always easy being so evil. You have to admit Microsoft does a very good job ( at being very evil) and in my book that makes them the coolest company in the world.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
for removing the shameless hype about Go Corp from the IT press.
During a few months you couldn't open a computer magazine without Go Corp being hyped in every article.
Every article during that time had Go Corp hyped in every paragraph.
I got so fed up of reading about Go Corp in every paragraph in every article in every computer magazine that I cancelled a few subscriptions.
Then good enough access to the internet came along, and I didn't need those subscriptions anymore, and Go Corp was but a vague memory.
Can we stop bringing up daemons from the past, and leave Go Corp for once and for all behind us ?
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
Many companies would desire to maintain a monopoly.
All companies would, because all people would like to have a job in which a) they can never be fired, b) they can change the price of their sold goods/services with impunity, c) customer opinion is irrelevent, and d) the wealth you make is limited merely by your sense of pity.
And we need the government to protect us from people like this, right? Well, guess again! The government supports people like this in many, many ways!
Case in point: I am in the process of opening a restaurant in Georgia. (This process has earned me a fresh, new hatred for all things government as they are rackets that "skim off the top" of the efforts of people who are believed to have money, and I dare anyone to point out to me the "government services" that these looting taxes are allegedly providing me.) If you want to buy Budweiser in Georgia (for resale, that is), then you will buy it from one distributor. Every institution in Georgia that sells Budweiser to consumers has bought that beer from one distributor. Just take a guess at what his margins are.
Oh, why can't we buy from another? Because the law forces us to buy Budweiser from one distributor. That's right, the law. The alleged arbiter of fairness and justice.
The reason that the law can exist in this state is because I live in a state that is replete with conservative Christians who believe (or pretend) that alcohol is "sinful" and thus those who trade in it deserve to be persecuted by the state.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
These things ran DOS and were actually quite sturdy. I developed some very nice CLIPPER apps (a dBase descendant) for these for use in manufacturing environments. They were quite nice. The batteries really did last a week under heavy use, or two weeks under light use. I wish I still had one.
See my blog at Who's Who
AmiPro was the best WYSIWYG word processor there will ever be, at least it was when Samna owned it, by the time Lotus bought it, 'updated' it to look like other Lotus apps, and crammed it into their 'office suite', it was well and truly lobotomised.
So I agree, AmiPro as it appeared in Lotus SmartSuite was crap, but it wasn't that AmiPro started out that way, it was the morons at Lotus that turned it into crap.
I'm sure that same was true of Word before microsoft got their grubby little hands on it.
Sigh. The whole point here is that they destroyed innovation by wielding their influence as a major player in the industry to starve potentially competitive emerging technologies of support by threatening companies (like Intel in this case) that were otherwise inclined to support it.
You can't "destroy innovation with subpar crap." You can certainly flood the market with crap, but that has relatively little effect on someone else's ability to create something better. Market dominance can certainly make it more difficult for someone to overtake you, but it's not impossible.
The point many of us make is that Microsoft has, in fact, done relatively little to "advance us." (Exactly what has it done, by the way?) Instead, it has abused its relationships with other companies to obfuscate and intimidate, stifling emerging technologies until they (MSFT) can move into the space. Every time it is successful at this, it gains even more power to throw around the next time.
Take a closer look at Go. They chose to build a new platform in part because they judged that they could create a more effective pen-based experience by starting from scratch around a new design center. Rather than tolerate an emerging new platform, Microsoft intimidated potential partners and, according to the emerging evidence, made and violated agreements with Go to take their ideas for Pen Windows. Now, years later, people will point to pen computing as one of the many things Microsoft supposedly did "to advance us."
Microsoft created nothing here; they just bullied and destroyed.
Microsoft is a classic example of this. One would be pressed to think of a single innovation from Redmond.
"First you get the Linux, then you get the power, THEN you get the women"
if there weren't people looking for it. It would have remained the realm of academia, research papers in shitty fonts on plain gray backgrounds. Content appearing on the web went hand in hand with people on the web looking for content. What kind of mental deficient puts up a billboard (or builds a library) on a country trail in the middle of nowhere where 6 cars a day pass by?
Didn't we just set a bunch of foreign nationals free because they were wrongly imprisoned? I think they also had some young children imprisoned. This report indicates 88 of the 100 people transfered out of Getmo were released to be freed (the other 12 remaining in detention in their home nations).
It would be one thing if these were prisoners of war being held until the war ended, as per the Geneva Convention, but this is an ongoing 'war against terror' (except Iraq, the terrorists followed us there) basically giving Bush the ability to hold these people indefinitely. Besides 'Mission Accomplished' has already been declared in Iraq and there are plenty of Iraqis in the camps.
Now, it would be one thing if there was any accuracy at all in the determination that the detained people are terrorists or terrorist supporting individuals. And noone is asking to 'open the floodgates' and let em all run free and noone would be complaining if all of these people were dangerous. But we've already seen plenty of cases where people were improperly detained and without any representation at all bad things happen to good people... 88 of them so far and counting.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
The Greek Empire started deteriorating when the gods became fallible and human, and the people had nothing to aspire toward.
I'm curious as to this Greek Empire of which you speak - the only Greek Empire I can think of was that forged by Alexander, and that fragmented due chiefly (and shortly after) to the death of Alexander himself, lasting barely a decade or two as an empire. Do you mean the Byzantine Empire - which was of course Roman in origin, rather than Greek?
-Chris
1. Having the power to fix prices.
2. Having the power to exclude competition.
For once, the legal definition is better than the ones you find in the dictionary. It focuses right on the essance of what a monopoly is. Market share doesn't define a monopoly, but being able to exclude competition or fix prices does. That's the control that matters, that's the kind of dominance that's at issue.
A company can have 100% of the market, but if they can't fix prices or exclude competition, then they don't have a monopoly. If they can fix prices or exclude competition then they have a monopoly even if they don't have anywhere near 100% market share.
Clear Channel has been doing this kind of crap and worse to their competition for years. Oddly enough, nobody ever seems to go after them. Think radio sucks nowadays? It does, and you can blame it on the ugly monopoly that has gone pretty much unchecked in that industry.
It served 80 concurrent users quiet nicely and probably had the processing power, which would put a Gameboy to shame nowadays.
No snazzy videos, no doom and no music playback, though, but a development environment, which was a true pleasure to work with.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
And if that/NYT Al-Quaeda partner link gets as much traffic as I expect, everyone who reads Slashdot will be on a Department of Justice suspected terrorist list.
Notify your family that you will soon be arrested and held incommunicado for a few months or years.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
Two years later, Marlin Eller, a former Microsoft programmer who was part of the PenWindows project, wrote in "Barbarians Led by Bill Gates" (Owl Books) that the intent of the PenWindows project had been primarily to undermine Go.
In the same book he describes how they put together a presentation for their PenWindows for a computer fair (Comdex?) to show that they could do the same stuff as Go. When in fact they had absolutely nothing. It was all smoke and mirrors.
I always remember that story when watching another cool Longhorn presentation. And I wish others would too, especially journalists ...
that Win95 OSR2 put a web browser into the hands of the masses with every computer they bought. It drove the demand for content.
I wish I still had points to give ya.
Companies compete aggresively to squish their competitors, anybody surprised? (not me)
Monopoly control laws try to prevent abuse when a company is too large. Before that, aggressive competition is more or less regular business.
1990 is the time of DOS 4 and the launching of Windows 3.0. There was a considerable variety of machines and operating systems (Macs, Amigas, DR-DOS, IBM's "home-remade" PC-DOS4, Coherent, etc). Microsoft was large but I honestly don't think that they were a monopoly back then.
Shouldn't that be incriminating? It isn't like forgetting someones name or something. This is serious and shouldn't be taken so lightly.
After reading this debate all I have to say is: prepare to live the rest of your lives as virgins.
and Microsoft's illegal tactics against the Go Corporation
Bill: Go stop Go
Lackie: What?
Bill: Stop the Go company
Lackie: Oh, go and stop a company, but which one?
Bill: THE Go company
Lackie: Oh! Go!
Bill: Yeah, now go!
Lackie: You mean they renamed it from something else?
Bill: No, I mean you. You go.
Lackie: Okay, I'll go and stop Go
Bill: Stop it!
Lackie: Yeah, stop Go.
Bill: No, I mean stop repeating me.
Lackie: Maybe I should go.
Bill: Okay, but don't forget to stop Go.
Lackie: Got it! I will stop It.
Bill: It's Go, not it.
Lackie: Me or the company?
Bill: Nevermind, I'll do it myself, now GET THE HELL OUT!
Table-ized A.I.
Yes, this is business. Not to be confused with highway robbery.
Business: Microsoft was supposed to build their own competing product, follow all legal and ethical guidelines, and fairly compete with Go. Hopefully if they both have good business plans and a good product, they both make a profit. The good natured rivalry between the two causes each to put for their best effort to make their product better. Their customers have a choice of who to give their money to, and high quality products from which to choose from. Everyone benefits.
Highway-robbery: Microsoft violated a non-disclosure agreement (a contract). They took Go's technology and used it to compete with Go. They used their monopoly and bullying tactics to try to frighten investors away from Go. Regardless of the fate of the Newton, this was breach of contract, and potentially a violation of antitrust laws (IANAL). In short, Microsoft's actions were unethical, and possibly illegal.
Btw, Apple canceled the Newton in order to streamline their product line so they could concentrate on OS X (and staying afloat). The Newton still has users today.
"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world.
And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it."
Miyasaka, "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
Most Minnesotans (the ones who think for themselves, anyway) pretty much think like this. If Bill wants to argue, I'll slap him with a rather large muskie/walleye/northern.
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
I've yet to see my Windows XP box crash ONCE or catch any virus, or cause me any other headache. Yes, Win 9x and SE were crap, but let's give the credit where it's due - W2K and WXP are solid, robust products that just let me do my job and don't get in the way much.
Look I was all impressed with Microsoft's XP Tablet Edition when it came out recently until I one day came across the IBM ThinkPad 360P, 360PE and 750P laptops.
...the systems even seem to have support for pressure sensitivity but apparently that was never added into the full driver support because sometime around when Microsoft "decided" that pen computing was dead, everyone inlcluding IBM quit developing the format. It just makes me see red to think that this technology had to sit and stagnate for 10 years until Microsoft got off their ass and decided that *THEY* should be working on it again... and they shut down everyone else in the meantime. Man, I am so sick of this crap.
Holy shit these were 486SX and 468DX touchscreen systems where the screen flipped over on top of the keyboard making the laptop a thick tablet computer.
Running OS/2 Warp 4 with full pen functionality enabled, these systems are absolutely amazing. I never use the keyboard, even from a DOS window as the handwriting recognition is pretty darn good all across the OS (even with Win-OS/2 aps, etc...).
Why did I stop moderating? Why did I do that?
Because I *simply* had to respond to this.
If I had to bet on it, I would wager that 90% of the devoted Microsoft bashers that infest Slashdot are either devout liberals or aspiring socialists.
Not this particular M$ basher.
Actually, I'm mostly a Libertarian. I am a fiscal conservative but a social liberal. I wish to see as little government meddling in free enterprise as possible, because it almost always backfires. As an example, I'm quite convinced that the government Corporate Average Fuel Economy regulations which killed the full-size station wagon are, in fact, the very reason why we now have full-size station wagons built on even thirstier (CAFE-exempt) 4x4 pickup truck chassis choking our streets.
But I make an exception for Microsoft. Without government intervention, there'd be nothing to stop monopolistic behaviors. Linux is an aberration unique to computers: if one car company had more than 97% of the market and was abusing its monopoly, there wouldn't be open-source cars because the product is not intangible and easily duplicated. Normally, the free market will work things out on its own. But Microsoft lucked its way into a position of power initially, and has ruthlessly used that power to squash anything which could become a threat.
Micrsoft, it seems, has become a symbol for "corporate greed", "bullying", etc, etc and bashing it serves as a substitute for bashing capitalism - the real target of their enmity.
Microsoft is a symbol for corporate greed and bullying. If they're not, I can't imagine what they'd have to do to get that name. Maybe Bill and Paul would be abducting competitors' children in a non-descript white van.
As for capitalism, yeah, it sucks. Some people starve while others get rich. But it's also a lot better than anything else anyone has come up with. I do hate capitalism. But I hate socialism and communism even more.
Indeed, bashing capitalism is considerably less "fashionable" than bashing MS (or Wal-Mart, or any other large and successful company), so why not use MS as a proxy?
I love Wal*Mart. Usually, after I've been shopping there, I compare prices with their competition (key point, that) and determine that I've saved a couple of bucks with each shopping trip. Case in point: was going to buy a small level, checked out Home Depot. Found a level that I liked for $19.95, which seemed a little steep. Went to Wal*Mart, found exactly the same make and model of level for $4.99. I do not begrudge Wal*Mart their success, because unlike Microsoft, it seems they've actually done something to achieve it. The very first thing Wal*Mart has done is somehow create a discount department store that I'm not embarrassed to go into. The next thing is almost always having what you want in stock, and usually at the same price or a little better than the competition.
So, all you MS bashers out there, why not just admit that you are, at the very least, liberal Democrats and voting for Bush would be as inimical to your creed as using Windows?
A vote for Bush is evil, pure and simple.
Al Gore was no better. His liberal fiscal policies would have punished me for my financial success rather than enticing me to expand my business and hire more employees. His pro-union stance drives up the cost of labor artificially to a point where a person who makes brake pistons all day gets $25/hr while a McDonalds employee whose job requires far more intelligence and skill gets minimum wage. But, on the other hand, at least Gore was intelligent and secure enough with his masculinity to know that gay people aren't going to hurt him.
Furthermore, why not just say that capitali
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Remember when people asked Microsoft why they had $50 billion of cash reserves? One of the reasons that they gave was to pay off lawsuits. They aren't afraid of paying off lawsuits. They have already budgeted for it. They are afraid of being forced to change their business practices as a result and of losing their effective monopoly on desktop computing.
Microsoft doesn't care about the money that much. Even if they paid both fines (EU and Minnesota) in the same quarter, it would only take them from ridiculously profitable to break even point *for that quarter* (even if the Minnesota fine is the full $1.5 billion). Their big worry is that they might lose the ability to make $2 billion profits in a quarter. In that respect, the EU case is far more dangerous than the Minnesota case. The EU case involves actual changes in business practices (Media Player bundling and secret APIs). The Minnesota case is just money. They'll probably just have to pay in software vouchers again anyway.
"we certainly don't need to see MIcrosoft need to lay off anybody"
... Enron Wind. Same people; same jobs; new name.
Yes, India would be devastated. Seeing as how that's where Microsoft is moving its (always outsourced) development now.
If a competitive market developed, this would increase jobs. With Microsoft, they only work on one system. What if there were two competitive systems? Twice as many jobs. Maybe more, as Microsoft would have to try to innovate rather than obstruct.
Jobs don't necessarily disappear when companies do. Some friends and I were kicking around the idea of starting a windmill farm, so I did some product research. One of the main products was from GE Wind, which used to be
If the market really exists, they will continue to build products, which requires employees. If it does not exist, better to know now than later. Get those people moved out of the tech sector and into a more appropriate employment.
Where do I start?
DR-DOS did a lot of things right that MS-DOS didn't. All of their command options were consistent in a way that MS-DOS only dreamed about. The help messages were actually informative.
The diskcopy program could use a file as a source or target. Single-disk copies actually used all available memory instead of a fixed chunk and force the user to swap. All of the command-line utilties could draw on all of available memory (not just the first 640kB) at will. FIND was actually useful (not by any stretch of the imagination a grep clone, but still way more useful than MS-DOS's FIND). You could do useful things with disk labels. XCOPY (remember that?) had twice as many options. The batch language, while still .BAT compatible, was streets ahead. The multi-user (TaskMax) and printing stuff worked more smoothly and reliably. If you installed Windows 3.11 under MS-DOS then overwrote it with DR-DOS everything sped up and it crashed less often. Most of the command would recurse. A real disk cache. A CURSOR program to do cursesy things from batches. Twice the debugger (SID). Undelete (DELWATCH). A better editor (certainly crapped all over EDLIN, anyway). A laplinky thingy (FILELINK). Semi-serious disk fiddling (mirroring etc): DISKMAP. A directory renamer. A SORT that was actually useful. A clever extended deleter (much more useful than DELTREE) called XDEL. And so on...
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Crappy software is the reason for this, not bad users.
If a computer gives the user a way to destroy there computer, or get virus, through an easy, friendly means that looks like it's what your suppoe to do, it is the softwares fault, not the user.
If you put a button on a blender that started flashing and said 'push me' and when someone did, it exploded into a thousand pieces, it is NOT the users fault, it is the products fault.
I am convinced that if there where real competition in the GUI level, we could all open any attachment without worry, because they would open in there own sandbox, and be unable to effect any other program or file on the system.
People want the convience of opening an attachment without jumping through hoops, and they should be able to do so. Microsoft gave them that, but didn't bother to build any safty features.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Speaking of the Newton: Did Microsoft's monopolistic policies actually hurt our national security? Are there Al-Qaeda / Redmond links? Did Microsoft weaken our anti-terrorist defenses enough to allow 9/11?
Ummm... prob'ly not. But if the idea of a bunch of grunts with Newtons intrigues you, you might find these interesting:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/hunter- warrior.htm
This one's PDF, takes a while to load:www.cadrc.calpoly.edu/pdf/feat4_brochure.pdf
The Dalai Llama
I got your Sea Dragon right here...
My sig could be your sig!
there is nothing wrong with a Monopoly, Only how you wield it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Well, we saw how long that corporate strategy lasted...
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
10 years ago I had an Amstrad PC with Dos and GEM as a GUI...
now I've got WinXP...but I don't remember GEM ever asking me every 5 minutes if I wanted to send an error report...
Sometimes I wonder...did we ever innovate, or did we just move to one provider.
Which leads us to another question...if a word is not recognized by Microsoft's spellchecker, is it really a word?Have you looked to see if monopoly is a word in the Microsoft spell check lately?
Did anyone just hear that tree fall in the forest?Reading all the image files it just makes it totally clear that the US was bought and sold in the original trial.
People who voted for Murray, a sock puppet for washington state, should feel so proud.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You can easily get all the scanned documents. Site is even very fast. Just go one dir up on the link and you will find a simple dir listing. Download, make sure you rememeber to tell wget not to travel up and read and be horrified.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
My opinion:
DOS killed the competitors because Microsoft allowed illegal copies of DOS to be sold and circulated. Back then, it was DOS for a considerable payment, or DOS for free.
At that time, there were at least 6 computer distributors in the Portland, Oregon area that were selling illegal copies of DOS.
All governments are untrustworthy.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
Around the same time I remember working on many a NeXT. Couldn't justify the price (ie: afford one). Fortunately today I can afford a Mac. OS.X, well, smokes anything I've ever seen Windows able to do (and all at the *same time* mind you :).
Of course having a couple of computing degrees and starting out on AT&T SysVr4 I know not what I am speaking about when I say, "Windows? Mickey-mouse platform."
This is ridiculous. Nobody held a gun to people's heads and forced them not to make their own ventures into personal computing. Nobody held a gun to Netscape's head when they put out crap browsers that allowed IE to take over.
I'm sick of this victimhood mentality. "Microsoft is a monopoly, therefore nobody is allowed to attempt anything!!" Uh, yes they are, and if their product is better, people will switch.
Underloved Movies and Pub Quiz: donotquestionme.org
The thing is, anyone can make a screw to a standard. They know what the standard is. MS is the only one that knows what the standards they create actually are, which makes them a monopoly, which in turn lessens their ability to 'innovate'
Of course, this is a troll. Had it been a real post, the AC's head should have imploded by now because of the vacuum between their ears.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Case in point: was going to buy a small level, checked out Home Depot. Found a level that I liked for $19.95, which seemed a little steep. Went to Wal*Mart, found exactly the same make and model of level for $4.99.
:) That's one of the reasons many dedicated hardware stores have higher prices (yes, I'm aware of exceptions)
Great post, but I have to comment here, being in the DIY biz;
Walmart has great prices on a lot of stuff, but just try finding an employee who not only knows how to *use* that level/tool but can teach you some of the finer points WRT to how you're going to use it
Great post in any case BBM
SB (not card carrying but libertarian nevertheless )
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Start Up: A silicon valley adventure by Jerry Kaplan, published by Warner Books (ISBN: 0751517135). Warning: This is the UK edition of the book.
Apologies if this is redudant; I have to pop out now and don't have time to check if this has already been mentioned.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
The Newton still has users today. You've obviously never had to pry a cold dead Newton from the fingers of a distraught Newton user to send it off for repairs. The Newton doesn't have users, it has addicts.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
I am guessing it would be the heaven you had in mind. Multiple forks, feuding camps, a veritable holy-war, which the Linux Newbie PenPoint customers do not understand, and are only left with questions and no answers.
but I'm a bit remiss as to how that's flamebait. I mean c'mon, socratic irony n stuff
If I were NYTimes, I would consider giving a partner status to slashdot so that they can find out where hits are occuring. Right now, I suspect that we skew the google linkage by quite a bit.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
We love you Libertarian fiscal conservative/social liberals. You guys are so cute: "I do hate capitalism. But I hate socialism and communism even more." That is SO close to how we think, if you can ever get us to admit it ;-)
Let's get over this whole label thing. Let's focus on the 90% of things we agree on. Find yourself in a tizzy over what some 'idiot' in the 'opposite camp' thinks? CALM DOWN! Move on. Find something you agree on. If you are both thoughtful people there will be something.
I think social programs do some good. I think corporate regulations work more often than they fail. Okay, we disagree on those things. So what? I bet you and I agree that corporate welfare sucks, that people should be able to do what they want with their own bodies and with consenting adults, and that divisive punks obsessed with labels and ad-hominem attacks need a good talking to.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Joe Clueless downloads a program for his linux distro called pammypussyfuck. He launches the program. The program says "I need your root password to run, otherwise I can't access the screen". What Joe Clueless does in response to this? That's fucking right, enters the root password! So if users are clueless, how exactly is Linux more secure than Windows, anyway?
people just accepted that computers needed regular rebooting after running Windows 95
:)
Don't look at me, I used OS/2 Warp until I got a copy of win95 OSR2 in '97. It wasn't until 99 or 2k when I got a copy of 98SE that I switched to that. Now I'm using 2k, and will be until I see if longhorn is worth the effort. If it isn't, I'll be upgrading late to yet another Microsoft OS to avoid the hassles.
It's been a long time.
It makes you wonder how Microsoft continues to get away with these things. And then, yesterday the U.S. government says that it thinks it did enough to Microsoft and that the EU should not be levying such a high fine! Who the heck are they kidding?
But Officer, I DID read the f**king article!
Netscape didn't innovate anything. They just assumed they were entitled to money for nothing.
Netscape invented multi-threaded browsing, didn't they? I thought that was the whole point of "mozilla..." it was mosaic, only bigger, and capable of doing more at once.
By your reasoning, Linux should be illegal, because Microsoft is entitled since they got there first with a commercial product. Yeah, doesn't sound so reasonable when your logic is applied there does it?
Er, no, that's not my logic at all. I'm not even sure how to begin explaining why, since it bears no resemblance to what I said. "Linux" is not a huge company with a domination over a given market, pouring lots of money into trying to shut down Microsoft. The Sherman Act has absolutely nothing to say about Linux. There's a lot more to it all than "One is free, the other costs money."
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
IIRC the only difference between Navigator and Navigator gold was the HTML editing tools of the latter. IE has never had such tools and I'm pretty sure Microsoft have never distributed any such tools for "free".
Not true. MS bundled FrontPage Express into win98 along with other little IE tools. Personal Web Server, Web Publishing Wizard, Web-Based Enterprise Mgmt...
Most (if not all) of the "bundled" applications in Windows are basic and don't provide advanced functionality. Microsoft can't win, of course - they either get blasted for leaving out functionality (no tabbed browsing ! no popup blocking !) or they get blasted for putting it in (anti competitive ! abusing monopoly power !)
They should be blasted for both. MS only bundles MS products and locks out other vendors at the OEM level, and almost every other level.
Another thing MS bundled was DOS and Windows into win95 to block DRDOS and kill the DOS competition.
Given the sheer crappiness of Real's product, I'm amazed anyone could even try to say their death might be Microsoft's fault, with a straight face.
Easily. MS can be a factor independent of the quality. Your excuse seems to be "All of those products deserved to die," blame on others, and denial that MS is even a factor.
What would it take for you to be convinced that MS was a monopoly or has committed crimes? Is there any scenario that MS would be doing something as charged, and can you please describe it to me? As far as I can tell, there is absolutely nothing that would convince you. This would help all of us in determining if it's worth arguing with you at length.
I've never met anyone - even amongst clueless newbies - who actually enjoys using Real's player, or uses it for any reason except absolute necessity.
Yes, the windows-bundling effect on a product is interesting. It increases the market share of a product even when it's crap. Just like with AOL. The cost for this bundling was that AOL had to drop Netscape and use IE as their browser. What was the cost to Real? I forget.
Try The Eyre Affair , a quite fun read wherein you could just about sell your soul to a book... or at least to the characters in it, be they written in or only visiting...
Cheers
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
I believe the type of code used in any online system has to be balanced against ease of use, extensibility and speed. When you really have to pay attention is when you've got the traffic Slashdot has... That's when every nanosecond counts, not on some blog site that gets 800 hits a day. :-)
:-)
So for me, I code for quick neutral-coder interpretation, ease, and portability. I don't use switches that much, as I prefer if/elseif/else combos, as they are easier to manage and they take less of a hit than switches. Another thing I like doing, is finding alternate methods to using if statements; for example I had a page that checked the values to rule out hack attempts. It was growing to a large size of checks that I became concerned of the length of the whole if-loop. It hit me that due to the nature of the data, running in_array and stuffing the accepted values into an array ($this[]= 'value54443';$this[]= 'value54444';) sped things up significantly, with the added benefit of being easy to add accepted values. Liberal use of Unset() also helps.