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Apple's Bonjour Available for Windows

inblosam writes "Apple's Bonjour ('also known as zero-configuration networking, enables automatic discovery of computers, devices, and services on IP networks') is now available for Windows! A Bonjour icon shows up in Internet Explorer to enable Bonjour browsing, along with the Bonjour Printer Wizard. Developers can download the Bonjour SDK. The benefits would appear to be for Apple customers (more Bonjouring with more networks) and to gain Apple switchers by enticing Windows customers."

23 of 550 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Bonjour? by torpor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the fact you can't see it and don't know much about it means that its doing its job.

    zeroconf (the IEEE name for bonjour, which is just an implementation of the standard, Apple-extended...) means zero configuration. the user doesn't need to know how to connect to a device, she just uses it.

    this is one of those technology's which, if used properly, won't get much notice. its not supposed to.

    --
    ; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
  2. RAMpage by apache+guevara · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Great! More apple apps on Windows along the lines of quicktime and itunes. Longhorn is coming along in bytes and pieces (if we take Gates' word for it).

    Am gonna put my last pennies to good use by buying shares of RAM manufactures. Mark my words, with all the ppl rushing to upgrade, there's explosive growth there!

  3. Say.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful


    Say that I'm a windows user, used to (or obliged to use) ie and windows explorer..

    Say that I'm already in a network, since I`m downloading Bonjour and browsing this trashy website..

    Say that at some point there is another PC in the network that I need to find..

    Say that the other computer is also a windows PC, as 90% of all PC`s are..

    Then what is the point?

  4. WTF? An "MSIE" plug-in? by WIAKywbfatw · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Apple does know that there are other browsers on Windows platforms other than MSIE, right?

    I'm sure it probably works fine with Opera, Firefox, etc, but why talk about "the Internet Explorer plugin"?

    And if by some chance it doesn't work with non-Microsoft browsers then what the hell is Apple thinking about? Surely further tying users to Microsoft and Microsoft's way of thinking is contrary to Apple's long-term goals?

    --

    "Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
    1. Re:WTF? An "MSIE" plug-in? by wsapplegate · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > Opera and Mozilla are not file managers, thus they do not need a plugin to browse available printers etc on the LAN

      But, wouldn't they benefit from a plugin for something like this (from TFWebsite) ?

      "Safari, Apple's turbo-charged web browser, uses Bonjour to find any web addresses on your local network - for printer, router or webcam setup and administration, for instance."

      If that is what I think it is, it seems very cool, no more remembering that the CUPS control panel is on http;//172.18.124.49:681/ for instance...

      --
      Xenu brings order!
    2. Re:WTF? An "MSIE" plug-in? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      A fifth reason- there are NO applications for OS X on X86. Do you really see Adobe porting Photoshop?

  5. Nice MacOS X advert... by troon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    From TFA:

    Now anyone using a Windows PC can take advantage of the effortlessness of Bonjour for free. The Bonjour Setup Wizard makes setting up a printer under Windows as easy as Mac OS X (we can't make it as beautiful, unfortunately).

    Cool.

    --
    Ydco co ,df C erb-y go. a Ekrpat t.fxrapev
    1. Re:Nice MacOS X advert... by Jugalator · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's good to see them acknowledging that their app design on Windows sucks. They're often trying to give them an Aqua-style GUI (see also QuickTime, iTunes) and failing miserably when it's not... well, an OS using Aqua.

      I'd rather have them use standard Windows design guidelines. At least the XP UI is skinnable with visual styles, so if they stick to the native UI, they'd deliver skinnable apps that are uniform with the others instead of forcing on their own crap on us.

      Heck, then even those of the Windows users that wished to give it an Aqua look could. And others could give it another look, if they're really into these things and care for it.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    2. Re:Nice MacOS X advert... by CapnGib · · Score: 2, Insightful

      its called branding. they want you to
      1) be able to identify "apple" apps at a glance
      2) become familiar with and appreciate their design, so as to entice you to try other apple products (ipod, os)

      --
      Beauty is truly in the eye of the tiger
  6. Re:Um.. okay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "totally generic french words can be held as being relatively strong trademarks in the US."

    It has nothing to do with them being French -- consider the trademark on "Windows", for instance.

    French is hip?

  7. Re:Bonjour? by Motherfucking+Shit · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Why the hell would they change the excellent name "Rendezvous" to the crappy "Bonjour".
    Same reason that the excellent name "Lindows" was changed to the crappy "Linspire." We are a litigious society.

    Bon soir (hey, it's night for me),
    --
    "BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
  8. Re:psychological warfare? by kid+zeus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A) Apple wants Bonjour to be a widely used standard that will be supported by the majority of hardware manufacturers. For this reason, it's in their best interest for as many Windows users as possible to adopt it. B) It's in Apple's interests to make it insanely easy for people to add Macs to their existing Windows networks. If you can do it in a zeroconf manner, you've just eliminated a hell of a lot of arguments against buying a Mac to put in your Win network. Good for sales, good for mindshare. C) Adding Exposé would only serve to give one OS X's very best usability features to their competitor and would lessen the reason for anyone to buy Tiger.

  9. Why don't they work on somthing useful... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    They should concentrate on makeing their software more compatable with AD. I just spent the greater part of last week configuring an xserve to play nicely on a Windows network. PITA - you have to jump through hoops (Kerberos setup using command tools) for single sign on, Windows clients on xserve shares, etc. Next time I am buying another Windows 2000 server! I can have that running in hours, not days.

  10. Howl by pridkett · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Seems to me that this technology has been available on Windows, Linux, FreeBSD for quite some time now in the form of Howl. It's an opensource library that supports Rendezvous/Zero Conf. I've used it for a while now to do all sorts of fun stuff. In fact, the responder portion of it even runs on the WRT54G boxes.

    The only difference here is that this is the blessed client by Apple.

    --
    My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...
    1. Re:Howl by NineNine · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The only difference here is that this is the blessed client by Apple.

      Actually, the more important difference is that Apple is spending some money to let people know that this product exists. How many people have heard of "Howl" before your post? 5?

  11. Re:Okay by mattyrobinson69 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    afaik its zeroconf support is available (or in development) as part of kde (as a kio-slave). its unfortunate that KIO-Slaves aren't more low level so more apps can use them (the tk[??], GTK[vmware] and non-kde specific QT apps [opera] that i use). ah well.

  12. Single-word comments by FunWithHeadlines · · Score: 1, Insightful
    "How the hell is the single-word comment "cool" insightful?"

    Why not? Sometimes the right word is just what you need to jog your thinking process in a new (insightful) way. Sometimes just writing a single number can give you insight into life, the universe, and everything:

    42

  13. Re:How is this going to cause someone to switch? by omega9 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is only very indirectly about "switch". There's nothing specific to Bonjour that will cause anyone to cross over to Mac, but it's a service that makes network interopperation between all machines potentially easier and better, and "all machines" includes Macs.

    Besides: Microsoft invents some services and keeps it to themselves and theyr're called selfish a$$holes. Mac comes up with a new service, release it to new platforms, and you give them a different, but equal amount of flack. Go figure.

    --
    I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
  14. There is a java version JmDNS by pUNX.h · · Score: 1, Insightful

    There has been a Java version for a while now?
    jmdns.sourceforge.net/

    Why is a windows version a big deal?

  15. Re:Innovative by trans_err · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This program is almost enough to switch alone. The few mac fanboys in the CS department here use SubEtha to code collaboratively all the time-- really neat to watch.

  16. Re:Obligatory Snopes reference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Snopes needs Snopesing in this case.

    "he did receive a call from Alastair Campbell, Blair's director of communications and strategy. "I can tell you that the prime minister never heard George Bush say that"

    So, Alastair Campbell, Blair's spinmeister, protector of the Special Relationship, claims that Blair didn't say that, and Shirley Williams claims that he did. This isn't something that needs "debunking" by Snopes, this is one person's word against another, and Snopes are not in a position to judge the truth or falsehood of Shirely Williams' claim. In any case, Alastair Campbell is a known liar whereas Shirely Williams has an unimpeachable political reputation - so I know who I believe. That, and it's also just the kind of thing Bush is likely to have said. Just because people like pointing it out doesn't mean that he isn't a moron.

  17. Re:UPnP by wchanley · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Oh, please.

    Rendezvous/Bonjour makes TCP/IP as automatic as AppleTalk was; that's what they "copied," if anything. Mac users were used to automatic service discovery, printer sharing and so on, without worrying about whether or not TCP/IP was manually configured, using DHCP, and so on... (and on...)

    Bonjour does for TCP/IP what AppleTalk did for Mac networking years ago.

  18. Re:What about Windows for PowerPC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    If by eventually, you mean never. Take a deep breath and let it go.