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Windows Longhorn and Internet Explorer 7

An anonymous reader writes "At Gnomedex this year, Microsoft is excited about the new RSS integration into Windows Longhorn and Internet Explorer 7. Screenshots of Internet Explorer 7 reveal how Microsoft has added a search tool to the top right of the browsing window similar to the one found in Safari/Firefox. Also, Microsoft revealed that RSS will be integrated into the heart of Longhorn."

554 comments

  1. Say no to Windows by bigwavejas · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I think I'll stick with Firefox and run http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs for my RSS feeds.

    Stop the machine.

    --
    "Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
    1. Re:Say no to Windows by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Oh my god, They're developing at an incredible rate!!!

    2. Re:Say no to Windows by TGTilde · · Score: 3, Funny

      at least when you get to a site that is only IE compatible you won't lose all your standard features...oh wait, we have to wait for Longhorn first. See: DN Forever

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      --- Bah, who needs a sig?
    3. Re:Say no to Windows by RoadkillBunny · · Score: 5, Funny

      Why though? IE7 looks exactly like Firefox.

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      Cheers,
      RoadkillBunny
    4. Re:Say no to Windows by FuzzzyLogik · · Score: 1

      more like exactly like Safari. Including the RSS viewer built in, which is damn near identical to Safari 2.0's RSS Viewer.

    5. Re:Say no to Windows by badriram · · Score: 1

      PErsonally when i started using firefox, i thought firefox looks oddly like IE. So the way everthing is organized on FF is copied from IE. When MS added the yellow pop-up bar, FF copied that too.

      I am not saying copying is bad, because, copying comething better is always good for the customer at the end. (Making is better is perferable)

    6. Re:Say no to Windows by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pretty sure Fx had the yellow pop-up bar first

    7. Re:Say no to Windows by Finuvir · · Score: 1
      Pretty sure Fx had the yellow pop-up bar first
      You're mistaken. Firefox copied the yellow information bar from Internet Explorer in the beta of XP service pack 2. That meant that Firefox builds had it before SP2 was released, but the IE team invented it.
      --
      Why is anything anything?
    8. Re:Say no to Windows by shokk · · Score: 1

      Web-based interfaces are the only way RSS should be done, unless you use one computer everywhere to access your feeds. Otherwise you're just spending time syncing your list between computers and trying to figure out which stories you read last out of each feed. When you're talking about 50+ feeds, this is a major pain. I use FeedOnFeeds for my web based reader, preferring the slim interface that FoF provides over Bloglines. You can even add a republish patch to check off select articles to instantly roll into a feed of your own.

      The point, however, is that with such an interface it doesn't matter what web browser or OS you are using, similar to when you access Gmail.

      --
      "Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
    9. Re:Say no to Windows by a137035 · · Score: 1

      Firefox had RSS viewing built in long before Safari, both as live bookmarks and as an RSS reader.

    10. Re:Say no to Windows by FuzzzyLogik · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The only RSS viewer I know of for FireFox is the LiveBookmarks and the Extension Sage. Sage acts nothing like Safari. LiveBookmarks are nice (only for del.icio.us for me however) but aren't really what I would consider an RSS reader. Thunderbird has an RSS reader, but Firefox does not. If it does, feel free to point me to it.

    11. Re:Say no to Windows by Lee+Darrow · · Score: 0

      The obvious response is to migrate as soon as possible to Linux, Unix or, when the chipset shift happens, to Mac OSX. Better security, less bloat and, frankly, less hassle from Redmond. If you want to stop the machine, meaning M$, then STOP them and go to something else. With their high-handed nonsense about SID for email (no more forwarding your email from academic accounts, students!) and their idiotic addition of RSS (the new Spam Highway if ever there was one) without a serious control set for it (at least no one's been talking about it), then it's about time that they learned that they are not the only game on the planet! Stop the machine the real way and migrate! Lee Darrow, C.H.

    12. Re:Say no to Windows by a137035 · · Score: 1

      Sage acts nothing like Safari. LiveBookmarks are nice

      Sage, Live Bookmarks, and Aggreg8 are browser-integrated RSS readers, and they predate Safari. Therefore, Apple wasn't the first to release a browser with an integrated RSS reader or integrated RSS support.

      In terms of UI, I think among the browser-integrated RSS readers, the winner is clearly Live Bookmarks: it gives the user the power of a dedicated RSS reader while staying within a paradigm and interface (bookmarks) the user already knows. Safari's RSS support is much more limited and not particularly innovative.

    13. Re:Say no to Windows by FuzzzyLogik · · Score: 1

      Ok i'm going to disregard Sage and the other extension based RSS plugins for FireFox/Mozilla. They aren't "included" and therefore aren't worth even discussing here.

      LiveBookmarks isn't very useful, for me anyway. Sure I can check headlines, but if i feel the need to read that particular item in the rss feed, i need to click the link and go to the page to view it. The idea of RSS is to read (most of the time) the story without having to open a browser or another page. LiveBookmarks are cool (when i used to use firefox daily i would use the rss feeds from del.icio.us, keeping all my bookmarks with me everywhere), however i don't view them as an RSS reader at all.

      I look at Safari as a full fledged RSS reader. You don't have to (unless the rss feed only gives a summary) goto another page to view it, and it's built into the browser. It lets you search the feeds, it lets you do a lot more than you could in sage and with livebookmarks.

      it's funny that you're arguing with me here, go look at the screen shots, then go play with Safari RSS, and tell me that they aren't damn near identical. Come back after you've done so.

    14. Re:Say no to Windows by a137035 · · Score: 1

      but if i feel the need to read that particular item in the rss feed, i need to click the link and go to the page to view it.

      Yes, that's the way it's supposed to work. That's why it's called an "RDF Site Summary".

      You don't have to (unless the rss feed only gives a summary) goto another page to view it

      You don't have to go to "another page" with Sage either. First of all, it will actually display a single page with all the stories on it, so you get the same functionality as with Safari. Secondly, you don't go to "another page", the summary is in the sidebar.

      Sites are, however, not supposed to put entire stories in RSS. If RSS were the "Ad-Free Article Markup Language", as Apple seems to mistakenly think, then it would be called the "AFAML".

      Ok i'm going to disregard Sage and the other extension based RSS plugins for FireFox/Mozilla. They aren't "included" and therefore aren't worth even discussing here.

      What you "disregard" doesn't change the fact that Apple didn't come up with this and that their implementation of it sucks.

      If Apple's junky implementation of RSS becomes accepted, then we'll all suffer, because web sites will just end up putting their ads into RSS.

    15. Re:Say no to Windows by FuzzzyLogik · · Score: 1

      too late it's already happening. I put my entire blog entries into my RSS feeds. I don't charge or have any banners on my site either. I'm not losing any money, infact it keeps my bandwidth down even further because text compresses very well.

      I happen to like Safari's RSS to be honest with you. Oh and btw, there's a "summary" tag in RSS for exactly what you describe, a summary. RSS = Really Simple Syndication as well depending on the version.

      My POINT was that Microsoft is COPYING the exact INTERFACE of SAFARI. you wanna argue all this other bullshit but avoid the original post i made. i'm not replying anymore until you actually start going back on topic. until then, cya

  2. Looks like FireFox by ryg0r · · Score: 5, Informative

    Maybe its just me. But it looks like FireFox with some Longhorn UI added. :P

    --
    Karma whoring .sigs don't work
    1. Re:Looks like FireFox by pdbaby · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yay Microsoft! King of innovation. They have the menu bar below the tablist. Truely innovation I'm sure people will pay for (in more ways than one).

      Any word on how many bugs they'll have introduced, their png and css standards compliance support?

      Good to see that RSS is integrated into the OS. That's something every kernel lacks these days ;-)

      --
      Global symbol "$deity" requires explicit package name at line 2. - If only $scripture started "use strict;"
    2. Re:Looks like FireFox by Morlark · · Score: 1

      I seem to recall reading somewhere that Microsoft does not intent to support CSS2, ever. Apparently they regard the standard as flawed. Kinda makes you wonder what Microsoft is thinking. I mean, they're called standards for a reason. To ignore them because you don't agree with them is silly at best, and sheer wrong at worst.

      --
      Santa's suicide mission go!
    3. Re:Looks like FireFox by QuaZar666 · · Score: 2, Funny

      more like Safari than Firefox I would say, the real question is does it pass Acid2? (my guess is no)

    4. Re:Looks like FireFox by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 1

      I seem to recall about 4 misleading stories on slashdot about the CSS2 situation, so perhaps that's where you like to get your misinformation.

      What they actually said was they were targetting CSS 2.1, and that no browser would probably ever completely support that standard. Reading between the lines on the IEBlog, they seem like they are working on a competitive CSS implementation, but that remains to be seen.

      --
      Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
    5. Re:Looks like FireFox by pdbaby · · Score: 2, Informative

      It would be fair enough if they had an IE-only alternative for common web problems like rounded corners on things; it strikes me that the IE team are incredibly lazy - all they've managed to do is write an RSS reader and add tabs in how many years?

      It's really odd, especially because they have stiff competition from Firefox. In Visual Studio, the competition from Eclipse and other free IDEs is showing: Visual Studio 2005 is a really smart, really well designed development environment.

      --
      Global symbol "$deity" requires explicit package name at line 2. - If only $scripture started "use strict;"
    6. Re:Looks like FireFox by mattkinabrewmindspri · · Score: 1

      +1,Funny

    7. Re:Looks like FireFox by nanoyak · · Score: 1

      I agree. It looks like firefox on first look with a Longhornish theme.

    8. Re:Looks like FireFox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Well you are not an engineer that's for sure. Engineers are responsible for everything they include in their projects. So if an engineer thinks that a standard is flawed he has the right to not include it, as it is his responsibility to ensure his product is of a certain quality. There are many standards that are bad and no longer used. Technologies and standards change.

      I would like to hear a reason as to why you think that someone should have to comply with a standard that goes against his or her professional judgment? You may be surprised but there are many ways of doing things.

      As for CSS2 I'm not really sure why they believe it's broken. In truth, I'm not surprised MS does not like W3C since W3C is trying to standardize the web, which would allow a lot of competition for IE. That's not what MS wants so they will come up with their own standard. That way people will create IE friendly pages and all the other browsers will get screwed. However, MS still has the right to reject any standard. Who knows, they might actually be right.

    9. Re:Looks like FireFox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      going anonymous so that vlad doesnt kill me but let me ask you this: MNG and Mozilla

    10. Re:Looks like FireFox by XNormal · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They have the menu bar below the tablist.

      It's not just below - it means that the menu bar is part of the tab and can change when you switch tabs. It's actually a pretty clever design. I think they will use it for plugins and web pages that add items to the menus (PDF, Office, etc.)

      --
      Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
    11. Re:Looks like FireFox by aussie_a · · Score: 0

      Maybe its just me. But it looks like FireFox with some Longhorn UI added. :P

      I don't know you added the smiley, this is 100% correct. And from what I saw, the Longhorn UI sucks. Big time. Those screenshots, are NOT the best thing to use when judging the UI, so I will reserve judgement. But from what I saw, there were less buttons out of the box (which is terrific. Well done Microsoft. You're learning). But a lot of wasted space (then again, I've customised my Firefox UI as I thought Firefox had too much wasted space ;)). I also notice an X to close part of the UI, so it's looking like Microsoft will have the UI be fairly customisable.

      I will say this for Microsoft. When they steal features, they steal the good ones.

    12. Re:Looks like FireFox by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 1

      Was that an issue of the standard being flawed? Or was it that nobody uses MNG, and the code sucked? Or all of the above?

      --
      Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
    13. Re:Looks like FireFox by BunnyClaws · · Score: 0

      Microsoft claims that I.E. 7 when integrated with Longhorn will allow for greater control over the browser with Group Policy in an Active Directory environment. This they claim will be something you cannot get with Firefox. I guess they haven't heard of http://sourceforge.net/projects/wetdog/Wetdog.

      --
      "Anything tastes good if you deep fry it."
    14. Re:Looks like FireFox by Adrilla · · Score: 1

      I guess they haven't heard of http://sourceforge.net/projects/wetdog/Wetdog

      It's hard to hear about it when you've got your fingers in your ears, screaming,
      "LALALALALALALAAAA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

      --

      "Plans are for fools! Oglethorpe, the plutonian (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
    15. Re:Looks like FireFox by Scrameustache · · Score: 0, Redundant

      They have the menu bar below the tablist.

      It's not just below - it means that the menu bar is part of the tab and can change when you switch tabs.


      Therefore eating more memory per tab.
      Wuderbar.

      Not to mention the bugs: Cross-tab button conflicts... it'll be a hoot!

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    16. Re:Looks like FireFox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I'm not sure how multiple menu bars can be called "clever." Inconsistency is the last thing you want to add in a user interface. I was using a video player and I couldn't stand the fact that the controller and the view had separate menus and keyboard shortcuts. E.g. "space" would be for play/pause when the focus was on the controller, but not when the focus was on the view window, and other idiosyncracies.

      Multiple menus just hides more things from being immediately accessible to the user, and it prevents the user from being able to predict what the menus will contain.

      Also I've noticed that they've combined the toolbar with the menubar in the IE7 screenshot. I recall that extra configurability of menus and toolbars didn't really catch on among users since it was a frivolous feature. Oooh, whoop-dee-doo! I can drag the paste button between the forward and back button! Whee! my context menu gradually fades away with alpha blending! Sharing the menubar with anything else in the same row causes undesireable crowding when the window is resized smaller.

    17. Re:Looks like FireFox by remahl · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Menus that change isn't good design.

    18. Re:Looks like FireFox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The GIF patent expired, plus Flash is being used instead more often than not. I don't really see who needs MNG.

    19. Re:Looks like FireFox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. It's dumb. It implies that it's now used just for the content area below it.

      So, does the Edit menu still let you copy/paste from the URL bar above it? Does the File menu still have commands that affect the whole window (New, Close, etc.)? Does Tools > Options only affect the current page?

      Now, I don't really think the Windows menubar-in-each-window makes perfect sense either, and having a second menubar for PDFs and such does get a little confusing (though it's still logical), but this will be even worse.

    20. Re:Looks like FireFox by DigitlDud · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      I guess you don't like Macs very much.

    21. Re:Looks like FireFox by suttree.com · · Score: 3, Funny

      Clever in that you run one instance of every toolbar per tab?

      Now that's innovation!

      When Apple said 'Redmond, start your photocopiers' I thought they were joking....

      Playaholics: Play Wolf N Swine

    22. Re:Looks like FireFox by DigitlDud · · Score: 1

      Microsoft program managers never make interface changes without usability testing. Obviously, menubars at the bottom won out over menus at the top.

    23. Re:Looks like FireFox by zecg · · Score: 1

      No, it's not clever, it's simply horrible design. If they consider the menu bar such a key tool for browsing that it has to be the most accessible, something is wrong. The menu bar is that thing you click, wait for the animation which fades thingies into view, than you read (or at least scan) to find out what to click. But I consider this whole discussion unnecessary, as the menu bar was probably dragged under the tab bar by someone who toyed with computer when the picture was taken. There is no way in hell that this topsy-turvy design is what MS intended. Also, once more, it's not clever.

      --
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    24. Re:Looks like FireFox by DigitlDud · · Score: 1

      The menubar is probably the least used element of the browser interface. It doesn't belong at the top.

    25. Re:Looks like FireFox by DigitlDud · · Score: 1

      You're seeing double. There's only one menubar.

      They combined the toolbar to prevent the tab bar from taking up more vertical space.

      As I've said a billion times, Microsoft program managers don't do anything without usability testing.

    26. Re:Looks like FireFox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Precisely because it's the least used, it does. It doesn't belong next to the content.

    27. Re:Looks like FireFox by DigitlDud · · Score: 1

      Says you. Usability tests say otherwise.

    28. Re:Looks like FireFox by man_of_mr_e · · Score: 1

      Perhaps that's because CSS2 *IS* flawed, and that's why CSS2.1 is being worked on to fix it.

    29. Re:Looks like FireFox by ikkonoishi · · Score: 1

      The usability tests should take a look at my firefox menubar which consists of only Edit, View, Bookmarks, and Tools.

      And I'm starting to look at eliminating Edit and View.

      Gestures make menus obsolete.

    30. Re:Looks like FireFox by TummyX · · Score: 1


      It's not just below - it means that the menu bar is part of the tab and can change when you switch tabs. It's actually a pretty clever design. I think they will use it for plugins and web pages that add items to the menus (PDF, Office, etc.)


      There is absolutely no technical reason why the main menu can't change anyway. It doesn't need to be part of the tab at all.

    31. Re:Looks like FireFox by WWWWolf · · Score: 1
      I think they will use it for plugins and web pages that add items to the menus (PDF, Office, etc.)

      Or innovative new ways for spyware authors to redefine the Pain, as if BHOs nowadays weren't bad enough...

    32. Re:Looks like FireFox by bheer · · Score: 1

      > Gestures make menus obsolete.

      For advanced users. Novices and people with poor motor movements (or bad mice) find gestures nightmarish.

    33. Re:Looks like FireFox by lxs · · Score: 2, Funny

      it means that the menu bar is part of the tab and can change when you switch tabs. It's actually a pretty clever design. I think they will use it for plugins and web pages that add items to the menus

      ...and for spyware installers and for phishing sites, the possibilities are truly endless.

    34. Re:Looks like FireFox by justforaday · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Please elaborate. I don't believe I've ever come across a Mac app in 10+ years where the menu items change depending on which window you have selected. Sure, some items are greyed out depending on context, but the actual menus don't change...As I said, please elaborate on your statement.

      --
      I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
    35. Re:Looks like FireFox by grazzy · · Score: 1

      As I said, please elaborate on your statement.

      Or die at the hands of thousand mac zealots!

    36. Re:Looks like FireFox by justforaday · · Score: 1, Troll

      Hey troll, please explain HOW this makes more sense from a usability perspective. I've seen two or three posts from you saying "MS program managers made the decision based on usability tests," which as far as I'm concerned means jack shit. Give us several examples of how this came about as a usability decision...Go ahead, I'm waiting...

      --
      I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
    37. Re:Looks like FireFox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or die at the hands of thousand mac zealots!

      It's not zealotry when you're right ;)

    38. Re:Looks like FireFox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bah.. If they did usability testing, they would not have your most used programs get further away from your mouse on the start menu. They'd have the more frequesntly used ones go to the bottom to limit the amount you have to move the mouse. Always has pissed me off.

    39. Re:Looks like FireFox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      mplayer

    40. Re:Looks like FireFox by joelsanda · · Score: 1

      Looks an awful lot like Safari, too. Must really suck working for a company that releasese stuff that is much later and much like other organizations - like Apple and Mozilla.

      --
      The Luddites were ahead of their time.
    41. Re:Looks like FireFox by cortana · · Score: 2, Informative

      Clarisworks/Appleworks changes menus and menuitems according to the type of the document that was focused. If no documents were open then the menu bar just had File/Edit/Help IIRC.

    42. Re:Looks like FireFox by ed.2112 · · Score: 0

      Yeah, I was just going to say it looks like Firefox and Windows XP. I mean, I have been using that shit for over a year. Nice.

    43. Re:Looks like FireFox by jhoffoss · · Score: 1

      Uh, acrobat's plugin places a menubar inside the tab where I'm viewing a PDF. If I cange tabs, that bar goes away. The only other apps that I can think of currently would do anything like this are viewing office docs in IE, which I don't do anyway except intranet stuff at work. Then you can view/lightly edit excel (and I think word and ppt) documents within the browser window. Which is kludgy. So why is this necessary?

      --
      Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
    44. Re:Looks like FireFox by oliverthered · · Score: 1

      If the menu changes by removing options that you never use/need then that's good design.
      (unless is the windows start menu, hiding applications that I would have uninstalled if I had have seen them on the menu)

      --
      thank God the internet isn't a human right.
    45. Re:Looks like FireFox by hunterx11 · · Score: 3, Funny

      If the menu changes, maybe with the extra space there will be enough room to fit the entire "Shut Do..." item.

      --
      English is easier said than done.
    46. Re:Looks like FireFox by spitzak · · Score: 1

      I believe he was referring to the fact that the menu bar is replaced by each application, rather than each having it's own menubar.

    47. Re:Looks like FireFox by dr.badass · · Score: 1

      Maybe its just me. But it looks like FireFox with some Longhorn UI added. :P

      Uh, actually, it looks like exactly Safari with some Longhorn UI added. The filter/sort/search pane on the right is a dead giveaway. The idea of using the main browser area for showing RSS feeds is not a given -- they're definitely following Apple on this one.

      --
      Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
    48. Re:Looks like FireFox by Dwonis · · Score: 1

      ... which is somewhat amusing, since having a menu bar at the top of the screen is actually better design.

    49. Re:Looks like FireFox by cyberformer · · Score: 1

      It's only good if you never use them. Unfortunately, an application can't know that you're never going to need something: It just sees that you haven't used something yet, and decides to hide it. Or even worse, it hides by default everything except the most commonly-used features.

      It's all designed to make computing simpler for newbies, of course. But a better way to do this would be to emphasize the often-used features, perhaps putting them in bold or showing an icon beside the name within the menu. That way, everything is always there, but people aren't as likely to be confused by a long list of options.

    50. Re:Looks like FireFox by mighty_xonc · · Score: 1
      ... which is somewhat amusing, since having a menu bar at the top of the screen is actually better design
      ... yeah, if you're still developing your fine motor skills.

      Menus belong in the window that owns them. If I am switching back and forth between windows in the near vertical and near horizontal center of the screen (say I'm cutting and pasting between a web browser and a terminal window), why is it better to select the text in the browser, move up to the menu bar (copy), move back down to the terminal (select it by clicking), move up to the menu bar (paste) and then back down to the terminal?

      IMNSHO, this is the ONLY aspect of the UI that Microsoft, Sun, and friends got right.

      (and yes, I'm aware of the shortcut keys, but few non-weenies use them [but what non-weenie uses a terminal, anyway?])
    51. Re:Looks like FireFox by jp10558 · · Score: 1

      Although, I still think, UI wise, there should be a clear demarkation between things that are Tab specific (address bar, zoom setting, etc) and things that are global/browser chrome.

      I think the UI should subtly help people grasp the concepts regardless of technical reasons.

      This is why I personally still like the Opera method of MDI/Tabs vs FF, and the Windows method of programs/menus vs MacOS.

      That's also why I personally prefer contained programs with a background window, vs the applications that have 5 windows up with no clear indication they all are part of the same program.

      This is just my opinion though.

      --
      Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
    52. Re:Looks like FireFox by thatguywhoiam · · Score: 1
      Menus belong in the window that owns them. If I am switching back and forth between windows in the near vertical and near horizontal center of the screen (say I'm cutting and pasting between a web browser and a terminal window), why is it better to select the text in the browser, move up to the menu bar (copy), move back down to the terminal (select it by clicking), move up to the menu bar (paste) and then back down to the terminal?

      Because, for the purpose of mousing, the top and sides of the screen are 'infinite'. Your mouse bangs up against them and goes no further even if you massively overshoot. This way you do not need to bulls-eye a menu in the X and Y, but rather just the X (in the case of these menus). With the menu on an arbitrary part of the screen (i.e Windows MDI) you have to be a lot more accurate with your mousing, which adds to wrist stress, slows you down, etc.

      IMNSHO, this is the ONLY aspect of the UI that Microsoft, Sun, and friends got right.

      Humble or not, most of the interface design gurus that make a living in this sort of thing agree that MDI is an inferior design.

      --
      If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
    53. Re:Looks like FireFox by eikonos · · Score: 1

      As I've said a billion times, Microsoft program managers don't do anything without usability testing.

      Well that does not explain the "Shut Do" button on the Longhorn Start Panel, or the fact that they've put a scroll bar inside the Start Panel. When you use the Start Panel it's the only thing on the screen -- it doesn't take a genius to just make it bigger.
      Now I don't know whether they're doing usability testing or not, but I can tell you that it is not working.

    54. Re:Looks like FireFox by DigitlDud · · Score: 1

      That's an old screenshot. It doesn't look anything like that anymore. That's all I can say.

    55. Re:Looks like FireFox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And mplayer is a good example of very un-maclike design.

    56. Re:Looks like FireFox by IchBinEinPenguin · · Score: 1

      Good to see that RSS is integrated into the OS. That's something every kernel lacks these days ;-)

      Please remember what that Microsoft's idea of an "Operating System":
      Microsoft Operating System: Whatever we can bundle together without too much anti-trust trouble
      You're probably using the old definition:
      Operating System: the kernel, a boot loader, maybe a few drivers

    57. Re:Looks like FireFox by G-funk · · Score: 1

      Gestures make menus obsolete.

      Anybody caught uttering a statement like this should be banned from even using the word usability.

      --
      Send lawyers, guns, and money!
    58. Re:Looks like FireFox by spitzak · · Score: 1

      "MDI" means nested windows. Ie if you edit more than one document in your word processor, there is a single outer window with a menubar, and two, possibly overlapping, "inner" windows inside that. Basically it is like a mac desktop embedded into a windows/x style desktop. Everybody agrees it is a really bad design, as it combines the problems of both styles of menubar, plus wastes screen space. "MDI" was done by Microsoft so the orignal versions of Windows could avoid swapping in the unused programs to draw exposed areas, unfortunatly in typical Microsoft-brainwashing, people actually were convinced this was a good idea and, for a short while, they actually requested "MDI" as a user interface requirement!

      More recently people have confused MDI with "tiled" windows. These are completely different, they replace the overlapping toolbars of programs like Photoshop with a single window where the document is a large area and the toolbars are arranged around it. I think the debate is still going on here, personally I think overlapping can work but it is being seriously botched by window systems that insist on raising windows on clicks, making it impossible to share toolbars between multiple documents, however I think I am in the minority opinion. Please don't confuse or call tiled windows "MDI".

      In any case neither definition of "MDI" is really what the Macintosh does. Though I personally do not like the Mac menubar (or the many copies on X or Windows with "panels"), the arguments against MDI do not apply to these.

    59. Re:Looks like FireFox by oliverthered · · Score: 1

      'It's only good if you never use them.'
      Please elaborate, have you any experamental data to back up you findings, or are you using the 'feed a man patatoes' argument?

      BTW, I prefer the hidden (or even funkier reording menus) but if you like 'But a better way to do this would be to emphasize the often-used features', please add some comments to my kde-app proposal that starts to facilitate what you are asking for

      The entries aren't removed there only 'hidden' and as soon as you use them they will become visiable next time.

      What's the time and thought process difference between mixing all the menu entries up so they wrap three time round the screen, or only displaying the three entries you ever used, with the option of displaying every entry available.

      Well, my bookmarks looks like the first option (I have a few thousand) and I wish it'd look like the second.

      --
      thank God the internet isn't a human right.
    60. Re:Looks like FireFox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope, they suck donkey ass.

  3. What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is a good move by MSFT, but their lack of respect for web developers is ridiculous.

    Markus Mielke, quite possibly the most braindead member of humanity ever to use a computer, seems to think that separating content from presentation is wrong. See here for details. Even worse, the article he links says the reason is that CSS3 is not ready. This is despite the fact that the IE team won't even support CSS 2.1 fully in IE7! Yes, they might have fixed Peekaboo and Guillotine, but how about :hover for all elements? Or any semblance of support for floating elements? And they simply seem incapable of giving a straight answer!

    Dave Massy, senior program manager and all round idiot, in comments to this article, says that support for MathML and SVG should be left to 'experts', never answering the very pertinent query about why Microsoft isn't an expert in web technologies.

    Why not go over to the IEBlog and let them have a piece of your mind?

    1. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by MrDomino · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You're assuming, in calling these people idiots, that what they're doing is unintentional.

      If web coding were easily doable by hand with a text editor, would they get much in the way of sales for FrontPage? If web applications were ubiquitous thanks to a fully functional browser, do you think people would continue to fork over such obscene amounts of cash for MS Office?

      Is this crazy? Over-the-top? Probably. But for a company that has so many brilliant researchers among its ranks, isn't it odd that their web browser is so shoddy, yet they still continue to pour money and development time into it rather than let someone else take over?

    2. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you're wrong about Dave Massy, he seems quite nice if incredibly naive at times. His spelling is possibly the worst on the planet though!

      The best of the IE bunch seems to be Eric Lawrence, who developed the genuinely useful Fiddler tool - it's lightyears ahead of Firefox's LiveHTTPHeaders. There seem to be lots of other genuinely humble developers - Vishu Gupta is one example.

      The one person I absolutely can't stand is Bruce Morgan. He is an arrogant, smug jumped-up jerk, who should be removed as far away from any possible human contact as possible.

      I also agree with you that Markus Mielke is stupid not to have predicted this, and deserves all the derision he gets.

      I generally find that the better the Microsofties are, the more reasonable and personable they appear.

      As for leadership, Dean Hachamovitch seems to be a slick and oily liar, but that's only to be expected from a PHB. He promises to blog about things and then "forgets". But being in charge for so many years, especially through the awful security situation IE has had? He should have been fired long ago.

    3. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by jd · · Score: 1
      I am a little concerned over Microsoft not supporting standards. Only a little, simply because they've never supported standards before, so why spoil a time-honored tradition?

      Microsoft are not web experts, because they're not spiders. They're fire ants.

      As for the RSS support, this is Microsoft Extended RSS, guys! The odds are extremely high that they'll try to push the "standard" RSS off the field - the same stunt they pulled with all of their extensions to HTML, Java, Kerberos, yada yada yada.

      (Actually, I'd be willing to bet that if someone did produce a standard called "yada yada yada", Microsoft would extend it to "yada yada yada yada", because they can and because it breaks everyone else's stuff.)

      No, I don't trust this latest update to their browser. It is far too close to all of their other attempts to usurp control from the community and from standards organizations. Unfortunately, RSS is too informal a standard to do the same thing Sun did over Microsoft's Java look-unalike.

      HOWEVER, there may be good news in all of this. The EU is still undecided over software patents and is still smarting over the fact that Microsoft managed to meet their demands AND do nothing to re-balance competition, all at the same time.

      I urge those in Europe to draw their Euro MPs attention to a very obvious attempt by Microsoft at further anti-competitive practices, and the threat they pose to the software industry as a whole by co-opting standards and then patenting or otherwise protecting the extensions they then make mandatory.

      It might not sway many, but it doesn't need to. We're talking a threat to jobs (because Microsoft will be the only company left, at this rate) and jobs often mean votes. No elected official likes to lose votes, even if they don't believe in the cause.

      As for web developers - add hypertext links to LaTeX, the one document standard Microsoft hasn't corrupted (yet) and you'll be fine.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    4. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by 0racle · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry, i mention this every time someone says this, but while you have a point with MS extending HTML and Java to the point of almost changing them entirely, but

      What 'stunt' have they pulled with Kerberos?

      --
      "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
    5. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Except that 5 years ago, Internet Explorer was a light-year ahead of the competition in client-side functionality. Despite Andreessen's hype, Microsoft did far more to legitimize web-based applications than Nutscrape ever did.

      Don't forget that Microsoft is (at heart) a development tool vendor, and I'm sure they're fully aware that web application development is where the coding market is. And they've finally seemed to re-understand that browser features are critical to that market. Things like XHTML and CSS2 allow Microsoft to sell much effective web development tools (Visual Studio/ASP.NET), and that's a real revenue stream for them.

      People romanticize the "Browser Wars", but it's really a big battle over nothing -- a bunch of almost zero-revenue eyeballs using a free product. The strategic value is what people build on top of the browser technologies.

      As great of a browser as Firefox is, I don't believe that Mozilla.org still got the lessons of the last war. They spent a lot of time and money to build an enormous amount of developer technology, but have never seriously packaged and marketed it. You have to assume that Microsoft is not just trying to build a browser, but looking at this "holistically" (client/tools/server); while Mozilla isn't.

      --
      Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
    6. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tony Schreiner seems quite cool, he actually answers questions occasionally!

    7. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 1

      As for the RSS support, this is Microsoft Extended RSS, guys!

      RSS is an extremely simple pseudo-standard, that's been extended by dozens of people already. Unlike Kerberos, which is linked to your OS's authorization protocols, any change to RSS that is made by anyone can easily be accomodated.

      --
      Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
    8. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    9. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by pizero · · Score: 1

      "If web coding were easily doable by hand with a text editor, would they get much in the way of sales for FrontPage?"

      If FrontPage produced even remotely standards-compliant code, then your comment would be much more convincing.

      As it is, I am constantly amazed that a company as rich as Microsoft (that can afford brilliant researchers) has so much kludge as product.

    10. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by 0racle · · Score: 1

      Sorry, but no. Windows 2000 will happily authenticate against non-AD kerberos realms.

      You can also use PAM-Kerberos and PAM-LDAP to auth *nix against the AD. Microsoft made some extentions but they did not break the standard. Its there and it works in a standard way for clients that only understand that, and has more functionality if the client can understand that.

      --
      "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
    11. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by TLLOTS · · Score: 1

      Why should they want it standards compliant? So long as it's IE compliant I would assume Microsoft would be happy. Infact I would suspect they would be happier that way than they would be if it did produce nice standards compliant code.

    12. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "I don't believe that Mozilla.org still got the lessons of the last war. They spent a lot of time and money to build an enormous amount of developer technology, but have never seriously packaged and marketed it."

      Hmm. Do you not understand what Open Source Software is? You see, there's no need to package and market it. It's not really a "product". However it does present a choice to users of IE, which happens to be a free, and rather good choice at that. It's also not tied to one Operating System. It's also constantly upgraded and very configurable. Mozilla is simply trying to build a great, free, secure browser. They have nothing to gain from strategically declining support for web standards, and I'd say Microsofts decision not to support standards will only make their browser less attractive compared to browsers that do "care" about standards implementations.

    13. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by BoneOfconTroll · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Don't forget that Microsoft is (at heart) a development tool vendor

      Lion's share of Microsoft's revenue is from consumers buying Windows and Office. They began with developer tools (Basic, way before MSDOS), and they still make some, but it's not what they are about.

      --
      I don't want to sell you death sticks.
    14. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by Wieland · · Score: 1
    15. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Do you not understand what Open Source Software is? You see, there's no need to package and market it.

      Firefox is one big packaging and marketing exercise, and a pretty good one at that. Mozilla tried the "base" thing for years and it never caught on, even with AOL/Netscape marketing.

      Also, I'm not talking about declining web standards, my point is that you can actually do much more with web standards than "just a brower" lets you do.

      --
      Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
    16. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by Tim+Browse · · Score: 1

      Where's that (-1, User Friendly) mod when you need it?

      Also, looks like Illiad needs to have a chat with Bob the Angry Flower about apostrophes.

    17. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How soon we forget the lessons imparted unto us by MonkeyBoy. The cornerstone of MS's business has always been strong developer support and integration points. In the case of a free web browser, that's even more important. (Netscape used to understand this.)

      --
      Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
    18. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by XO · · Score: 1

      and people spend all their time just making Mozilla get the features that Opera has had for years.

      --
      "Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
    19. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by XO · · Score: 1

      Web coding IS easily doable by hand, with a text editor. It's the WYSIWYG editors that are leaving us with these gigantic monoliths of crap that they call websites out there.

      --
      "Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
    20. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by XO · · Score: 1

      I'd be willing to bet that LaTeX hasn't been 'corrupted' by Microsoft, because it's not worth corrupting. Tons of other things have been created in the time since Tex was the shiznit.

      --
      "Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
    21. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by shobadobs · · Score: 1
      People romanticize the "Browser Wars", but it's really a big battle over nothing -- a bunch of almost zero-revenue eyeballs using a free product. The strategic value is what people build on top of the browser technologies.

      Exactly! Which why we must fight against the Mozilla organization, for it distributes a "gateway OSS", which leads users down the path towards more powerful OSS, such as perl and emacs, which can be downright dangerous, leading to all sorts of permanent afflictions such as repetitive stress syndrome (featured in the well-known film, "Ctrlfinger"), as well as a gluttonous addiction to loosely typed programming languages. Over time, they tend to turn into "hackers," exploiting and even distributing OSS from their basements. This is just the first stage.

      In Stage II, they join nefarious communities, with alien names such as "comp.theory," even wasting weeks and weeks to learn foreign languages just to communicate in locations such as "ruby-dev". They also begin typing in tongues. Just the other day, at our clinic, I walked across one addict with a window open, or I think it was a window -- the screen was all weird with footprints and insignia all over it, and in it he was writing material which looked like text yet did not read like text. It looked like he was trying to express something with a violent combination of chomps and chops and splices!

      At Stage III, they begin idol-worship -- of demons and penguins, displaying their idols in public with stickers on their laptops. They begin to find pleasure in strange, alien activities, like changing their keyboard layouts around so that nobody else can use them, and buying calculators that read in input in some backwards order, with no equals key, and then they become fanatics who insist that everybody should learn this backwards method! If you ever see somebody lend out a calculator and then smirk when a borrower innocently walks away, you know they have reached Stage III.

      At Stage IV, they wonder how to emulate their freshly bought calculator on their computer, in one of the tongues that they have learned. Those who have spent weeks of using the powerful and addictive OSS called perl begin to write "rpn.pl" in progressively smaller scripts, using that violent abortion of chops and slices. First, they make one that works in twelve lines, which is unhealthily short already. Then they naturally levitate towards three lines, two lines, one and a half lines, exhibiting some obsession towards achieving their goal in less than 80 characters. Some succeed, but only after several nervous breakdowns and complete distachment from spouse and family. Some begin their ramblings with references to primates, as seen in one quotation I've seen,
      perl -ape
      'eval((q[push@s,$_],"\$s[-2]$_=pop\@s"
      )[/^ [-+*\/]$/])for(@F);$_="$s[-1]\n"'
      If they succeed, this usually means that Stage V has been reached. It is believed that they begin to realize that they are seriously damaged, because they rather suddenly start mumbling about the "brainfuck" they're enduring. This realization dies away quickly, as they type out long meaningless random strings.

      Occasionally, they manage to come out from their mental ruts, but only for short periods of time. These spells give our researchers a rare glimpse at what happens to their minds, as they make repeated references to things that don't exist, except perhaps in their hallucinations. They still have connections to their dreamworld. For example, I mentioned to one patient about how my niece got an A++ on a recent examination in school. And the patient replied, "She got a B? Well, better luck next time." He must have misheard, or so I thought, so I answered, "No, she got an A++," enunciating the A + + slowly. And the patient smiled knowingly, responding: "Exactly. I hope she gets an A next time." I gave up on that conversation.

      There are further stages of this terrible affliction, but they would be too graphic to list here. My point is, this "Firefox" isn't just a harmless OSS that causes minor but and temporary impairment; it is the first step of a path towards destruction, and we must fight its spread with all our resources.
    22. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by MemoryDragon · · Score: 1

      Well, this guy obviously has a problem, if he ever said that, he basically ignores every research paper regarding MVC which has been written for the last 30 years, he also ignores the original intention of html being the a markup language, and he also ignores the mess the microsoft office division has pushed itself into with their doc format, by not doing markup-presentation splitting.

    23. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by wheany · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I see User Friendly is still painfully unfunny.

    24. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by Floody · · Score: 1

      Sorry, but no. Windows 2000 will happily authenticate against non-AD kerberos realms.

      Let's try that again, shall we? You cannot have a 2k workstation authenticate against a kerberos realm while simultaneously being a "member" of an AD domain. You cannot delegate ticket-granting or authorization within an AD domain to non-Microsoft kerberos implementations. The closest you can get is via an inter-realm trust, which is highly unappealing for the purposes of central sign-on/management and downright unworkable in a large distributed environment.

      You cannot deploy fully interoperable technologies in a distributed environment that includes any sizable microsoft base, period. Just going "one way" (authing from a *nix workstation to "AD") is exactly the problem, because in the majority of large infrastructures the desire is much more likely to be towards using heterogenous server-side products while worrying much much less about end-user workstations.

      Additionally, and this is the real kicker, Microsoft's design choice of integrating Active Directory with DNS was purposefully and maliciously intended to damage networking interoperability and force companies to choose between Microsoft or "whatever isn't Microsoft." They implemented just enough of dynamic dns to be able to claim technical compatibility, but then wrapped it all up in their own proprietary cryptography in order to ensure that those implementing heterogenous solutions would be unable to use "best practices" (thus, in their eyes, making Microsoft more attactive). This is almost exactly what they did with Kerberos as well. "Sure, you can use this technology in a mixed enviornment, as long as you don't try to scale it the way it was intended.." They are plainly attempting to leverage their installed base against alternative, and often superior (in one way or another), technologies.

    25. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by bheer · · Score: 1

      Have you used Frontpage 2003? It's HTML generation is quite clean. It even has a pretty visible Profiles system that lets you switch off (or on) VML, Office-specific styles -- heck, even the META GENERATOR=FrontPage tags.

    26. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and people spend all their time just making Mozilla get the features that Opera has had for years.

      Uh, no. Opera is months ahead of Mozilla, but not years ahead. With extensions, Firefox generally gets any new Opera features within a very short time - in fact, some cool new features like user scripting (new in the latest version of Opera, available for Firefox with GreaseMonkey) are now appearing in both browsers at pretty much the same time.

    27. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, you spend alot of time reading the blogs of idiots. Is that where you learned to write things like "very pertinent query"?

    28. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by Mr.+Underbridge · · Score: 1
      Except that 5 years ago, Internet Explorer was a light-year ahead of the competition in client-side functionality. Despite Andreessen's hype, Microsoft did far more to legitimize web-based applications than Nutscrape ever did.

      Given your username, I'm going to assume you're a little less than objective about this one. Netscape was a dead horse by the time you picked that name.

    29. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by zmotula · · Score: 1

      > You're assuming, in calling these people idiots, that what they're doing is unintentional.

      If they do it intentionally then certainly the word 'idiot' is too weak.

    30. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except that 5 years ago, Internet Explorer was a light-year ahead of the competition in client-side functionality. Despite Andreessen's hype, Microsoft did far more to legitimize web-based applications than Nutscrape ever did.

      Don't forget that Microsoft is (at heart) a development tool vendor, and I'm sure they're fully aware that web application development is where the coding market is. And they've finally seemed to re-understand that browser features are critical to that market. Things like XHTML and CSS2 allow Microsoft to sell much effective web development tools (Visual Studio/ASP.NET), and that's a real revenue stream for them.


      No, microsoft, at heart, is a platform vendor. They currently sell two major ones, the windows platform and the office platform. Everything they do is focused around strengthening these platforms and decreasing opportunity for competing platforms to gain traction in the marketplace. Why MS is so gung-ho about developers is because MS realize that if you have all developers writing code for your platform, they're not writing code for the other guy's platform. It's why they essentially give away their stuff to schools. If you get programmer's hooked young, they won't go researching alternatives.

      The dramatic improvements come in these MS-owned platforms. The open platforms see only enough improvement to keep the competition at bay.

      This extends to the browser wars. Netscape intention with version 3 and onwards was to move to a web-based platform that was hardware- and OS-independent. This was a major threat to windows. The main reason web developers had such a tough time during the browser wars was because microsoft and netscape each were building their own incompatible platforms to win hearts and minds. It was the pressure from the web development community to adopt web standards, or else, that led to IE5 and IE6 dramatically improving the IE standards support, because MS knew developers would go where the standards were, being sick and tired of having to develop stuff for every individual browser.

      Ofcourse, after netscape died, there was no more motivation to improve standards support, or the browser platform. After all, the better the browser becomes (with cross-platform support), the less apps get written for windows, the weaker the windows platform gets. The only reason MS is building IE7 at all is because, again, there is a competing platform rising, namely firefox, whose improved standards support already lets you build better web apps, and which by adding native SVG support in version 1.1 will dramatically raise the bar of what is possible on a webpage. However, firefox is gaining traction not because of improved standards support (which is mostly useless given that web developers have to write for IE anyways so can't use that extra stuff yet), but because it is a better browser application. Logically to keep the firefox platform irrelevant, MS has to take away the reason users switch to firefox. That's why IE7 has tabs, improved security, built-in RSS support, and a few other GUI improvements, but NOT dramatically improved standards support.

      I guarantee you MS will only add standards support to IE just as much as is necessary to assure that no one else gets a platform out there.

      I do believe they're forgetting one player though, macromedia. They've been building and distributing the flash platform. Pretty soon version 7 will run on everything from mobile phones to linux desktops. And version 7 is a quite nice environment to build rich web apps in. I've made a web-based CAD environment in it, with visual floorplan editing. It's almost like writing regular desktop software, albeit performance is a bit worse, and the form design functionality and core API's aren't quite there yet. In time though, flash could become a credible threat to windows, and if/when that happens, expect to see microsoft raising an all-hands to create a flash competitor and destroy flash's potential as a platform.

    31. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 1

      Hilarious! You should first post this on another story.

      --
      Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
    32. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by Ride-My-Rocket · · Score: 1

      First of all, calling people idiots isn't going to help prove your point. If anything, it's going to make people discount it. Be mature or be quiet.

      That aside, I don't think developers really care what IE implements in IE7. Adoption of Windows desktop operating systems beyond Windows 2000 (XP, 2003) is nowhere near what Microsoft has been hoping for. And they've already said that IE7 will not be made available to users of Windows 2000 and below. So long as they enforce that policy, Firefox's worldwide market share will only grow.

      Bear with me... I'm about to get to the point. Firefox already does an outstanding job of supporting the W3C's CSS2.1 specification. Firefox has proven that you don't need to release a new version of a browser to upgrade the core functionality (i.e. XHTML, CSS support). Which means that Firefox has a huge advantage is being able to offer baseline CSS3 support for whatever W3C recommendations are, and then changing / updating them once the final specifications are release.

      It's great that Microsoft claims to be all about developers, but they're losing traction in a serious way on the client-side. I should know, because I'm a Microsoft web developer, and I'm back to developing for client-side W3C standards, after a 5-year hiatus that began with the demise of Netscape Navigator. Firefox is single-handedly responsible for my new interest in CSS and XHTML, and I only use IE6 now when I need to check compatibility with some of my company's webapps (they support both IE / FF).

    33. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by azbrdhntr · · Score: 0

      im an newbie html scripting ect and i do it with a text editor i hate WYSIWYGs.

      --
      I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
    34. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      pwned!!!11lol

    35. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by pallmall1 · · Score: 1

      I don't know about Nutscrape. I use Oprah!

      --
      3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
    36. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 1

      Nope, when I picked this UID, Nutscrape 4 had 20% marketshare and was still required for most projects. Someday I'll get around to picking a new product to hate on.

      But feel free to make an argument if you have one.

      --
      Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
    37. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Give me a break. The most hand-editable Web markup language is HTML with a low version number. XHTML and CSS are almost pure gnarl, handing the Web over to graphic designers and programmers. The days of novices writing Web pages in Notepad are coming to a close -- you'll need Google Blogger or, yes, FrontPage.

    38. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Markus Mielke, quite possibly the most braindead member of humanity ever to use a computer ...
      ... Dave Massy, senior program manager and all round idiot

      Flame-fugging-bait! Markus Mielke wrote an article about ROUNDED TABLE CORNERS, for Chrissake! Get a grip. You care WAY too much about the anal-retentive over-engineered world of CSS.

      How the heck was this modded 5 Insightful?

    39. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by Mr.+Underbridge · · Score: 1
      Nope, when I picked this UID, Nutscrape 4 had 20% marketshare and was still required for most projects.

      Uh huh. I'd call that a dead horse, since the derivative of it's marketshare at that time was quite negative. Go for "InterNutExploderSucks," more timely.

    40. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by jp10558 · · Score: 1

      Any particular reason they only support 2 browsers? One would think the entire reason for coding to standards would be to allow all browsers that implement those standards to use the application. So you'd probably be able to add two more rendering engines right away to that, KHTML(Safari, Konquerer) and Presto(Opera).

      --
      Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
    41. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      dev tools is DEFINITELY what they are all about, office and windows make the profit but it is the dev tools that create that market. There dev tools have always been as good or better than anyone elses in the market and they give devs a lot of love, this turns into office and windows revenue.

    42. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I disagree strongly.

      CSS allows one to make far more attractive web sites by hand than is possible with older versions of HTML. Mouse-overs, for example, used to require images and extensive Java Script; now they can be done with a simple a:hover. Having a table with an attractive border required extensive tweaking of a table inside a table before CSS; now it just needs a single "border:" keyword. And so on...

    43. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by bbtom · · Score: 1

      Dude, you've just written the readme.txt for the new VideoNasties.xpi extension I'm writing for Firefox. It's a fairly simple extension that starts adding nerdy words subliminally in to your web browsing experience, ramping it up over time so that eventually you'll become an über-nerd.

      --
      catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
    44. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by jd · · Score: 1
      On the other hand, LaTeX is still by far the best markup language for documents, and metafonts are still vastly superior to most of the font systems out there.


      I would like to see OOo and the web support LaTeX because it is a relatively basic markup system, yet supports everything used by typesetters and desktop publishers.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    45. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by BoneOfconTroll · · Score: 1
      > There dev tools have always been as good or better than anyone elses

      I guess developers make their platform valuable... that's very true for Windows, but (it seems) less so for Office... although VB apparently was really good. Can anyone point me to some things they've done to help developers*?

      If true, maybe MS deserve their great success? * apart from Ballmer's "developers developers developers".

      --
      I don't want to sell you death sticks.
  4. What's better than screen shots? by HyperChicken · · Score: 5, Informative
    --
    Free of Flash! Free of Flash!
    1. Re:What's better than screen shots? by spectre_240sx · · Score: 1

      Did this video annoy the crap out of anyone else? "Here's the cool thing. When IE is on a page with an RSS Feed... This button lights up!" Wow, I've never seen anything like that before... And the other guy saying he has no idea what it means when people ask if Microsoft is taking control of the standard... These guys are total ass-monkeys.

    2. Re:What's better than screen shots? by kneeless · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Funny, there are actually IE-fanboys there at that thread. Didn't know those existed.

      What really amazes me is the fact that they're saying that "RSS is going to be so much broader because MS is putting the work they are doing into the platform." RSS has been around for years, and now RSS is amazing because IE integrates it? IE is so far behind that technologies aren't realized until years later. Ridiculous.

    3. Re:What's better than screen shots? by kneeless · · Score: 1

      One more thing: at 30:10, one of the developers tries to do something with RSS Bandit and oops! It doesn't work. :) "Looks like a bug in RSS Bandit"

    4. Re:What's better than screen shots? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    5. Re:What's better than screen shots? by astrosmash · · Score: 1, Troll

      It's quite ridiculous. They've taken a technology (RSS) that was invented 8 years ago and has been in common use since at least 2002, shamelessly ripped the UI from Apple (again), and it's still a year and a half away!

      It's one thing for the marketing driods to try and hype something like this, but developers? Who the hell do they think their audience is?

      --
      ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
    6. Re:What's better than screen shots? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah. I mean it's not like Firefox ever had a bug, right?

    7. Re:What's better than screen shots? by kneeless · · Score: 1

      The Firefox Dev Team didn't video tape themselves showing off their bugs.

    8. Re:What's better than screen shots? by tzuriel · · Score: 1
      Guess they don't like us very much...
      Lets hope everyone waits a day or two before someone submits this to /. and Channel 9 goes down again.

      Yeah, SlashFUD always posts old news anyhow... I figure it will take them a week to find this.

    9. Re:What's better than screen shots? by XO · · Score: 2, Interesting

      But, for now, the actual usefulness of RSS is completely and totally questionable. So far, I've found absolutely no use whatsoever for it, and I've been doing this stuff as long as it's been around.

      --
      "Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
    10. Re:What's better than screen shots? by I'm+Don+Giovanni · · Score: 1

      The Firefox team never showed a video tape of themselves or their products, period.

      Besides, RSS Bandit isn't an official Microsoft product. It's an open source project that was originally started as an MSDN article app on building a .NET RSS reader. It's on sourceforge today. But I guess all those eyes that look over OSS code didn't catch each and every last bug.

      --
      -- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
    11. Re:What's better than screen shots? by lxs · · Score: 1

      Better than screenshots? I've been watching it now for about 15 minutes and for now I prefer the screenshots to the hot air being spouted in that video.

      Crap like:
      "first thing we'we doing is building a baseline set of experiences"

      And after that he's waxing lyrical about their planned "extentions":

      "Taking over the RSS format? I don't even know what that means."

      Embrace and extinguish... eh extend indeed!

    12. Re:What's better than screen shots? by Ilgaz · · Score: 1

      Can you tell those guys to post it in at least official Microsoft windows player for OS X compatible format?

      Not trolling here, video does not show in MS Windows Media player for OS X (latest)

      That is the exact reason why people are paranoid about MS, their own player does not work on OS X as it should.

    13. Re:What's better than screen shots? by stuntpope · · Score: 1

      What's more funny than the fawning posts on that site by people who think MS invented RSS, is the picture accompanying PimpDaddy's post (2nd page). Looks like what he's pimping is similar to what MS pimps - bloated, ugly, wouldn't want to touch it!

      And yes, the video is extremely horrible.

    14. Re:What's better than screen shots? by ozbird · · Score: 1

      I was going to say it's a great way to check for new content on a site without visiting it, but it appears the Slashdot RSS feed hasn't updated for a day or so... Oh well.

    15. Re:What's better than screen shots? by bigbigbison · · Score: 1

      except they are using a special build that was made just to show off their new rss stuff and not a regualr build of the program. So they didn't have "all those eyes" looking at the code. Moreover, when it screws up he instantly says that it is rss bandit's fault, which seemed suspicious to me that he was so sure that it wasn't longhorn's fault.

      --
      http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
    16. Re:What's better than screen shots? by jp10558 · · Score: 1

      What I don't understand is why people wouldn't want to visit a site to get the new content. Like, I have Opera, so presumeably can do RSS right now, though I don't have it enabled. I just don't get the point.

      What does it give me that simply going to the site doesn't? Does it take an especially long time to go to a site now?

      --
      Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
    17. Re:What's better than screen shots? by Yakman · · Score: 1

      What I don't understand is why people wouldn't want to visit a site to get the new content. Like, I have Opera, so presumeably can do RSS right now, though I don't have it enabled. I just don't get the point.

      I'll use a practical example, I like to read about 20 development related websites. These sites don't all necessarily update daily or at a particular time. With an RSS reader I can come in to work, grab my morning coffee and have a list of all the new posts on these sites since yesterday. I don't have to go to 20 different sites in the browser "just in case" they've updated. Even with "Open all bookmarks in tabs" you'd still need to look at each site and manually determine whether the top story is one you've seen or not.

      So for people with similar habits to mine, RSS is very useful. It doesn't apply to every kind of site, if you read a site regularly you may as well just visit it (eg. Slashdot or a newspaper site).

  5. its sad by ericdano · · Score: 3, Insightful
    It's sad how Microsoft is so far behind the curve, yet they get excited cause THEY have figured something out. They are their own Hype machine.

    It's sad.

    --
    It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
    I moderate therefore I rule!
    --
    1. Re:its sad by piglicker · · Score: 1

      I agree totally.

      I watched that video over at http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=8053 3 and was just annoyed at their excitement (excrement?) over their great new innovation!

      When's Bill gonna line up the drones for their cool aide, all Jim Jones style? These people won't hesitate.

      ... creepy freaks.

    2. Re:its sad by suttree.com · · Score: 1

      So true, and the same goes for the poeple who take them too seriously. At my last job I was threatened with 'action' if I continued to use, develop and test with Firefox.

      When I wasn't laughing up my sleeve I was actually quite shocked about the ignorance of the wider web and blind faith some people have.

      Needless to say, I moved on since them :)

      Playaholics : Play Wolf N Swine!

    3. Re:its sad by Tim+C · · Score: 1

      It's marketing.

      Show me one major company who routinely stands up with a new product and says "Yeah, we were beaten to it, we're just playing catch-up, but hey, it'll be great anyway!"

      There won't have been a single person there who didn't know that MS didn't invent the new features, but they'll all have been forbidden (explicitly or implicitly) from giving that impression.

  6. Similar to FireFox? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Didn't the Google Toolbar do this first?

    If you're going to claim IE7 is ripping off Firefox, at least acknowledge that Firefox ripped off Google.

  7. copying Apple by phalse+phace · · Score: 0, Troll

    here come all the posts about how Microsoft are copying Apple again...

    1. Re:copying Apple by Deitheres · · Score: 1

      In soviet russia, apple copies microsoft^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h you!

      Seriously though, Microsoft has been taking their sweet time for OS development. They are a hulking bohemoth. When was the last major update to the OS? All of these features that they are touting for their new software have already been implemented. Tabbed browsing in IE7. Big deal. That's so Opera and Firefox. Instantaneous indexed searching. Yawn, hey that's just like Spotlight.

      Microsoft really needs to pick up the ball. So when the only other primary consumer competitor you have has an OS development cycle that is ~1-1.5 years between updates, and yours is twice that (not to mention MS's oft ridiculed delays in release), I don't think you can really claim any type of innovation or something.

      --
      Just like driving a car:
      (D) to go forward
      (R) to go backward

    2. Re:copying Apple by eyegee88 · · Score: 1

      why do they need to pick up the ball ? Longhorn will likely have a the majority percentage of used choice OS. They managed to do it with all their OS's, regardless of the critique. It wont change, just be glad your firefox's has a chance to run on it. :) What you describe is ms's way of handling and it has always been successful with it, after all, do they have not the biggest piece of the cake untill now ? :) MS is doing well, and their assimilation is successful. Like it or not.

  8. At Microsoft's rate... by LoverOfJoy · · Score: 1

    Available in late 2007.

    1. Re:At Microsoft's rate... by Hugh+Lilly · · Score: 1

      I'm sure that's planned though... for some neat slogan like "IE 7 in '07"

  9. Possible Google lawsuit? by RootsLINUX · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well now I'm almost positive that the search engine integrated into IE is MSN's own. And since IE is embedded into Windows, this has a good chance of reducing traffic for Google, Yahoo, and other search engines. So can we expect to see a possible lawsuit for these unfair business practices, which Microsoft is infamous for?

    --
    Hero of Allacrost, a FOSS RPG for *NIX/*BSD/OS X/Win
    1. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by LoverOfJoy · · Score: 1

      How long until someone figures a way to make it point to Google's search engine?

    2. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      MSN Search is already integrated into Windows and has been for a long time.

    3. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by LoverOfJoy · · Score: 1

      Now that I think about it, they'd be smart to make it a drop down menu so you can have it search ebay or dictionary.com or ... etc.

    4. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by arch_avaj · · Score: 1

      Well MSN search is already integrated into IE. If you just click the search button on the toolbar it will search with MSN. Been like that for a while (probably since before Google became big). Might be hard for Google to make a case on this. I do know that you can adjust IE's search page though. Some spyware already does that.

    5. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      So can we expect to see a possible lawsuit for these unfair business practices, which Microsoft is infamous for?

      No, we'll just get asshats like you making comments that sound like they could come from the very end of an old Batman episode.

      Will our heroes escape more excessive litigation?!?!?!!11one
    6. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by jrockway · · Score: 1

      I just did. /etc/hosts:
      216.239.57.99 search.msn.com

      --
      My other car is first.
    7. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by eeg3 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Unfair business practices are ridiculous lawsuits. It's Microsofts code and software... they should have the freedom to with it as they like.

      Freedom isn't just for you. Microsoft should have the freedom to do what they want with their software, plain and simple. How would you like it if someone sued Debian and said they couldn't include apt because it's unfair to other package managers?

    8. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by poopdeville · · Score: 1

      Uh, that's retarded. Google's URL syntax is very different from google's. Try reading http://www.google.com/results.aspx?q=test&srch_typ e=0&FORM=QBHP.

      --
      After all, I am strangely colored.
    9. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "And since IE is embedded into Windows, this has a good chance of reducing traffic for Google, Yahoo, and other search engines. So can we expect to see a possible lawsuit for these unfair business practices, which Microsoft is infamous for?"

      Ugh.

      If I recall correctly (and I'm 100% sure I am), the default homepage for FireFox is a FireFox branded Google search page. Should Microsoft be taking Mozilla to court?

      You're so stupid it makes me cringe. Please stop posting.

    10. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by AlphaFreak · · Score: 1

      This has been explained a zillion times before, but here we go again.

      A normal company can do anything it wants to its products. But Microsoft is not a normal company. It's a convicted monopolyst. And a monopoly has restrictions in respect to what can it do, specially when what it does is to use its monopoly in a certain product line (for instance, desktop operating system) to extend it to another product line (for instance, web searches).

    11. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The US Supreme Court ruled that MS was a monopoly, and that they were illegally leveraging it to gain market share in other areas of computing.

      We hate MS because they've repeatedly broken the law, and hate Windows because it plain and simply sucks, and is a security nightmare.

      Communism has nothing to do with it. MS is bad for the computer business - hell both the EU and the US Courts have stated this (about as capatilist of countries as you can get). You'd have to have your head pretty far up your ass to be such an MS shill. Hopefully they pay you pretty well to shill for them, as I wouldn't think that the view is very nice.

    12. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by poopdeville · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      The meaning of the message is clear, even if the presentation suffered because of my multi-tasking. Only an autist would read that and not get the point. If you have anything else to say to me, put your karma on the line. Dipshit.

      --
      After all, I am strangely colored.
    13. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by eeg3 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      The Supreme Court that consists of nine 70~ year old men and women that have about as much computer experience as my grandfather? Or is that the Supreme Court that just ruled that the government can take any private property and replace it with a strip mall if it wants? Both? Okay. I don't know how THEY could be wrong.

      Also, does Windows have code in the kernel like Linux that reads /* Does this go here? */ ?

    14. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by glitch0 · · Score: 1

      As much as I hate Microsoft, he's right.

      Capitalism at it's finest...

      --
      -Glitch "We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." - Linus Torvalds
    15. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by j79 · · Score: 0, Troll

      This definition of Monopoly is better:

      In economics, a monopoly (from the Greek monos, one + polein, to sell) is defined as a persistent market situation where there is only one provider of a kind of product or service. Monopolies are characterized by a lack of economic competition for the good or service that they provide, a lack of viable substitute goods, as well as high barriers to entry for potential competitors on the market.

      Your statement, "Just because everyoen prefers Windows doesn't make it a monopoly", should say:
      "Just because Microsoft has made it nearly impossible for anyone to choose an alternative to Windows, doesn't mean there aren't alternatives."
      We know there are alternatives. How many consumers do you think nows anything besides Windows?
      Hell, people won't buy anything besides Intel for the same reason they won't buy anything other than Windows. It's all they know - mainly because of Intel/Microsofts control. While not true for Intel, in the past, the combination of Microsoft/Intel made int nearly impossible for anyone to actually enter the field.

      And I'm willing to bet that many people do not PREFER windows. They use Windows, because they HAVE to.

      Remember, Microsoft was convicted of using their monopoly in a criminal way. Regardless of how you want to spin it (by listing various OSes), it is known that of the consumer desktop, 95% are running some form of Microsoft software. From Windows 3.1 to Windows XP, Microsoft has control.

      So when a company like Microsoft decides that manufacturers like HP carry only Windows (or lose their right to license their OS), what do you think HP will do?

      Or, what happens when 95% of the desktop users suddenly have a free browser bundled, right into the OS? Why, consumers use it, instead of going with the alternative (which, at one time, was Netscape) - hell, why download and pay for something, when you have a free version right there.

      So you can see how suddenly, when a search engine by Microsoft is included into a browser which is built into the OS, some of us will look twice. /Sorry for grammar, spelling, rambling - too tired to think clearly.

    16. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by eeg3 · · Score: 1

      Is it Microsofts responsibility to advertise for Linux? Is it not Microsofts choice as owner of code to decide who can license it, under any circumstance? Just because you don't like it doesn't mean Microsoft shouldn't have the FREEDOM to do what it wants with its software. FREEDOM is nice... I like it... I think everyone should be FREE to do what they want with their property... INCLUDING MICROSOFT.

    17. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You fail to see the difference between moz en ms, ms is a monopoly.

    18. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by St.+Arbirix · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry Grandma, but Microsoft doesn't want you using Google anymore. Yes, yes, I know. They are, aren't they. Well, you could always buy a Mac...

      --
      Direct away from face when opening.
    19. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by drsmithy · · Score: 1
      In economics, a monopoly (from the Greek monos, one + polein, to sell) is defined as a persistent market situation where there is only one provider of a kind of product or service.

      So what is this "product or service" that only Microsoft provide ?

      Server Operating Systems ? Nope, plenty of them to pick from.

      Desktop Operating Systems ? At least one fully functional alternative, and several if you listen to the Linux community.

      Office Suites ? Nope, several of them as well.

      Development environment ? Of course not.

      "Just because Microsoft has made it nearly impossible for anyone to choose an alternative to Windows, doesn't mean there aren't alternatives."

      It is - and always has been - trivial to choose an alternative to Windows.

      Hell, people won't buy anything besides Intel for the same reason they won't buy anything other than Windows. It's all they know - mainly because of Intel/Microsofts control.

      You mean poor marketing, products and services from their competitors ?

      While not true for Intel, in the past, the combination of Microsoft/Intel made int nearly impossible for anyone to actually enter the field.

      AMD has been "in the field" since the early 80s. Other processor manufacturers have come (and gone, usually because their product sucked) as well.

      Or, what happens when 95% of the desktop users suddenly have a free browser bundled, right into the OS? Why, consumers use it, instead of going with the alternative (which, at one time, was Netscape) - hell, why download and pay for something, when you have a free version right there.

      Except when IE destroyed Navigator's marketshare, it _wasn't_ bundled with Windows.

      This argument gets pretty tired and its stupidity is exposed as soon as you start substituting "browser" with "TCP/IP Stack", "internet dialler", "calculator", "text editor", "paint program", "GUI", or any of the other myriad pieces of software that *used* to be third-party addons but are now packaged as part of the OS - because customers demanded them.

    20. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by toddestan · · Score: 1

      How long until someone figures a way to make it point to Google's search engine?

      It'll probably be a while. Anyone who would care enough to hack IE7 to use Google is already using another browser.

    21. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by Per+Wigren · · Score: 1

      If one person uses his freedom to limit the freedom of two persons, the end result is less freedom.

      --
      My other account has a 3-digit UID.
    22. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by ubernostrum · · Score: 1

      Just because you don't like it doesn't mean Microsoft shouldn't have the FREEDOM to do what it wants with its software.

      Actually, Microsoft signed a consent decree abotu ten years ago which said that they would not bundle their other products or services into their OS. It was the violation of this consent decree which really killed them in the antitrust trial over IE's integration, and which would likely kill them again if they integrated their own search service into the OS.

      So Microsoft have, in theory, agreed to this limitation, and I would argue that such limitations have a positive effect on a market.

    23. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by ubernostrum · · Score: 1

      Except when IE destroyed Navigator's marketshare, it _wasn't_ bundled with Windows.

      Internet Explorer has been bundled with Windows since version 2.0 on Windows NT and since version 3.0 on Windows 95 and its descendants. The tide in the browser war turned some time after the release of IE 4.0, and complete dominance didn't come until the release of IE 5.0.

      So I think you need to check your history.

    24. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by KarmaMB84 · · Score: 1

      Probably when Microsoft says: "Here's the registry key and here's the format for the registry value so IE will fill in the search terms etc etc etc". You can already make IE use Google for searches from the address bar. It'll probably be the exact same registry key.

    25. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by KarmaMB84 · · Score: 1

      They settled the lawsuit with the government. Moving the search functionality out of the address bar and into a new search field would only be seen as a violation of the settlement by a complete retard. It's been possible to search from the IE address bar for years AND it's been possible to change it in the registry for just as long.

    26. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by KarmaMB84 · · Score: 1

      If it weren't for Microsoft destroying Netscape with a superior product, Netscape would probably still be charging for a product based off the Netscape 4.0x (and not even the 4.5+ series) codebase now. God bless Microsoft for forcing Netscape to actually compete instead of wallowing in their web browser monopoly.

    27. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by jrockway · · Score: 1

      OK, set it to 127.0.0.1 and change requests reading:

      results.aspx?q=test

      to

      search?q=test

      i.e. s/results\.aspx/search/

      Apache's ReWrite modules would be happy to do this for you.

      The point of my original comment was that this will be REALLY REALLY easy to "hack".

      --
      My other car is first.
    28. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by eeg3 · · Score: 1

      Your being lazy and not installing another OS on your own is Microsoft's fault? Interesting logic.

    29. Re:Possible Google lawsuit? by Antitorgo · · Score: 1

      Well, for the MSN Desktop search (which IMO is better than Google, features like pausing indexing, and the results pane on the desktop search is so much more usable) allows you to reconfigure the web search service really easy in the options menu. It took me all of 2 seconds to change it to search Google instead of MSN search.

      It is even on the "General" tab in the options, so it is the first thing you see when you set up the options.

  10. I'm Shocked... Get Me The Booze... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Microsoft is adding technology into Longhorn? For a moment, I thought it was another announcement of yet another technology being pulled from the house of cards called Longhorn. The next thing that they will be announcing is a Mactel version.

    1. Re:I'm Shocked... Get Me The Booze... by JudgeFurious · · Score: 5, Funny

      The only reason they're adding this to Longhorn is that the PURE EVIL that's also fully integrated into the OS turned out to be smaller than expected. It seems obvious now but at the time nobody at Microsoft knew that pure evil is concentrated and takes up less space than the "mostly evil" they'd been using. The end result being that there was room for this.

      Otherwise they'd have left it out.

      --
      Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
    2. Re:I'm Shocked... Get Me The Booze... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      I'm sure Gates and his minions will be bending Jar Jar over the alter to drain his blood and burn his heart for Longhorn. Hmmm... that might be a feature. :P

    3. Re:I'm Shocked... Get Me The Booze... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      No, this is PURE EVIL ever created!

    4. Re:I'm Shocked... Get Me The Booze... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And why would they make a Mactel version? we already have an operating system that has RSS and search windows in our browser..... and oh yeah, ours works.

      someone at a computer store today tried to explain some crap to me about something I wasnt interested in that he was trying to sell me, he likened XP to a 3 legged cow, and excitedly pointed out that Longhorn would be a 4 legged cow.....

      he was floored when I responded "yeah, but itll still be a big bloated cow....I wonder if a cow, whether it be 3 legged or 4 legged, would get along well with Panthers and Tigers?

      keep up the innovation Microsoft, perhaps you'll blunder your way into more market share for linux and Apple, maybe it will wake you up and make you innovative.....what a concept

    5. Re:I'm Shocked... Get Me The Booze... by StrawberryFrog · · Score: 1

      Microsoft is adding technology into Longhorn?

      Yes, but RSS support in the browser is actually so far from "the heart of Longhorn" that it can be added without the OS kernel team knowing or caring.

      the house of cards called Longhorn.

      They said the same thing about Windows 2000, and while it had it's faults it didn't exactly put MS out of business.

      --

      My Karma: ran over your Dogma
      StrawberryFrog

    6. Re:I'm Shocked... Get Me The Booze... by CausticPuppy · · Score: 1

      Microsoft is adding technology into Longhorn? For a moment, I thought it was another announcement of yet another technology being pulled from the house of cards called Longhorn. The next thing that they will be announcing is a Mactel version.

      They were running out of technologies to drop from Longhorn. It only makes sense that they'd have to add in some new technologies in order to drop them later.

      --
      -CausticPuppy "Of all the people I know, you're certainly one of them." -Somebody I don't know
  11. In other words... by Mensa+Babe · · Score: 1

    Great news for Micro$oft, terrible news for The People. Hardly surprising if you ask me. I wonder what about the EU marker, for it seems that only Europeans have any balls these days. Hopefully they will ban this "integration" scam. Of course the US customers are boned like always.

    --
    Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
    1. Re:In other words... by tempest69 · · Score: 1
      Micro$oft isnt worried about Europe, once they get a taste of American genetically modified foods they will become docile Wal-Mart loving sheep. And the balls will fall of all on their own. Heck buy up some their news companies and they'll take anything that corporate Europe throws their way.

      Even if Europe bans this addition to Longhorn, Microsoft will just re-use the whole Windows-XP-N edition(sans media player) scam, where they sell it for the same price, that no-one will purchase.

      Storm

    2. Re:In other words... by bmgoau · · Score: 1

      So you dont wnat RSS intergrated into windows and future ie version (ignoring firefox for a second)?

      I'm sorry, i dont like MS's business tactics, but im not such a blind hater that i cant see good developement when it is made, abiet slowly compared to other browsers.

      For the sake of us all, hate ms as much as you like, call them slow, but dont discredit progress that offers features for consumers abroad.

  12. Shameless Copying by drewfuss · · Score: 0, Troll

    They are shamelessly copying us.

    1. Re:Shameless Copying by HyperChicken · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And "us" keeps shamelessly copying them. GAIM, OpenOffice, XMMS, and even Linux itself.

      Don't hold Microsoft to a double-standard.

      --
      Free of Flash! Free of Flash!
    2. Re:Shameless Copying by RealityThreek · · Score: 1
      1. GAIM is copying AIM made by AOL. (and even they didn't invent that idea)
      2. To say OpenOffice is copying MS Office is possible, assuming you also think MS invented office suites. (HAHA)
      3. XMMS copies WinAmp. Which is made by Nullsoft, who incidently is also owned by AOL.
      4. Linux is copying Unix. Which I am pretty sure MS hasn't gotten around to buying yet.
      I would point out that none of these cases was meant as direct competition. MS is copying Firefox for competitive reasons. Not saying it's wrong. Just debunking your shoddy double-standard allegation.
      --
      :wq
    3. Re:Shameless Copying by HyperChicken · · Score: 1

      Just debunking your shoddy double-standard allegation.

      You did a shoddy job at that. You more or less reaffirmed my point.

      --
      Free of Flash! Free of Flash!
    4. Re:Shameless Copying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So what? Sorry but I don't see anything wrong with making a program do the same thing as another, using totally different code. You must never play video games, or maybe you get upset when you see games that play similar to one another. Maybe you get upset when you drive different cars or watch movies that are similar to one another?

      Well cry if you will but courts have ruled that "similarity", "look and feel", and most design ideas are not enforcable by copyright law. That's why you're precious M$ has made friends at the patent office. Open Source is like Robin Hood. "Steals" (by your standards) from the rich, and gives to the poor!

    5. Re:Shameless Copying by IANAAC · · Score: 1
      And "us" keeps shamelessly copying them. GAIM, OpenOffice, XMMS, and even Linux itself.

      You mean like MSN copying AIM? MS Word copying Wordperfect? Windows Media Player copying WinAmp?

      Yes, that happens a lot. Fact of the matter is that everybody's guilty of copying good features from good programs developed elsewhere. Linux copies some pretty good UNIX features, and even expands on them in some cases.

      So, take the best of what you need and quit whining. Because cross-pollination happens everywhere in this industry.

    6. Re:Shameless Copying by HyperChicken · · Score: 1

      I'm not saying what open source is does is wrong nor am I saying it is right; It is beside the point at the moment.

      My problem is that the open source community brings up that Microsoft "stole" even though most open source software is "stolen". It is completely hypocritical. You cannot say "Stealing is wrong!" and then turn around and steal yourself.

      --
      Free of Flash! Free of Flash!
    7. Re:Shameless Copying by HyperChicken · · Score: 1

      That is my point exactly.

      --
      Free of Flash! Free of Flash!
    8. Re:Shameless Copying by NanoGator · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Don't hold Microsoft to a double-standard."

      I find it funny that everybody talks about switching to Mozilla/Firefox because of things IE doesn't support, but when MS finally gets around to updating IE it's bitch bitch bitch.

      The Slashdot group-think has a grudge against Microsoft. That, in and of itself, I don't have a problem with. We're all human. We all have our opinions. (I certainly shouldn't be casting any stones.) But what really irks me is that nobody is willing to admit it. All these "It's stupid because it comes from Microsoft" rants are paraded around with a flag of 'Insightful', 'Informative', and 'Intesting'. Microsoft's proud of its work, that's twisted into false hype citing other browsers that have that functionality. (Never mind that only about 10 million or so people on the net are using browsers with that functionality and that MS is introducing it into a much broader market.) Microsoft adds new features with a few additions of their own, that's twisted into predictions of insecurity and buggery. (Possible, but I'm talking elaborate works of fiction here.) Microsoft doesn't announce a particular feature or adherence to a standard (not to be confused announcing that it WON'T do either), it's twisted into more Microsoft arrogance and some Dr. Evil'ish plot to monopolize the internet.

      It's very difficult to take any story about Microsoft here seriously. They're not 'news for nerds', they're pitchfork-waving parties. Hardly more respectable than an epic Babylon 5 vs. Star Trek debate.

      I expect this comment to be modded down. Fine, no prob. Please, at least do me the courtesy of reflecting on some of the behaviour around here and attempt to see where I'm coming from. I'm not pro-Microsoft, I'm anti-hypocrite.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    9. Re:Shameless Copying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fucking A-Men, seriously its getting beyond a joke.

    10. Re:Shameless Copying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "It is completely hypocritical. You cannot say "Stealing is wrong!" and then turn around and steal yourself."

      Yeah except that Open Source doesn't have a billion dollar monopoly to sit on, or loads of patents used to thwart competitors. If Microsoft takes ideas from someone, they increase profits. If Open Source takes a cue from Microsoft, who gets paid? I think the stealing bit comes from the fact that M$ makes money when they use other peoples ideas. M$ also hates the Open Source movement and seems to believe freedom is wrong.

      In any case t'is is a moot point because making something that's similar but not exactly the same as another product is not considered "stealing" by U.S. copyright law. It's been to the Supreme Court a few times if you want to do some research. It's why you can buy 100 different types of the same thing. Look at bottled water. How many brands are there? Is their water much different? Are they all "stealing" from each other?

    11. Re:Shameless Copying by kiddygrinder · · Score: 1

      Eh, people just want ie to piss off at the moment, if ms hadn't dragged their feet for so long on improving the browser it wouldn't have gotten to the point where there's all this bad blood towards it and you wouldn't be getting these rants.
      Yes, people want ie to support standards, but only if it feels the need to annoy people by continuing to exist.
      Also i think you are understating what their lack of adherance to standards means to a lot of people and also technologies. There's a lot of stuff web devs just can't do exclusively because ie continues to exist and suck. I don't think you have to 'twist' that one too hard to make it look bad.

      --
      This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
  13. Speaking of sad... by bersl2 · · Score: 1

    Also, Microsoft revealed that RSS will be integrated into the heart of Longhorn.

    It may just be the way the submitter wrote it, but this reeks of hype and buzzwordism as well, as though marketing pulled it out of their ass during a presentation or something.

    1. Re:Speaking of sad... by ericdano · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Seriously. It sounds like they are saying that this is a FIRST or something. Isn't Internet Explorer the LAST browser to support RSS feeds?

      --
      It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
      I moderate therefore I rule!
      --
    2. Re:Speaking of sad... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed. By the time Micro$haft manages to copy all of the cool features already available in Firefox (RSS integration, extensions, themes, tabbed browsing, actual security...the list goes on and on), Firefox will have already gotten another 10 paces ahead of it.

      Long live the glory that is open source.

    3. Re:Speaking of sad... by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 1

      Hmm -- My suspicion that Firefox is primarily optimizing and refining features that were funded and developed by AOL several years ago, or have been in progress forever (like SVG). While it's true that IE is playing catch-up now, it remains to be seen if a loosely-knit open source project can match a concerted development effort from Microsoft.

      --
      Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
    4. Re:Speaking of sad... by hdparm · · Score: 1
      it remains to be seen if a loosely-knit open source project can match a concerted development effort from Microsoft

      Thus far, the only concentrated effort from Microsoft that somewhat slowed open-source product addoption was the effort of their FUD Department with a generous help from few well known sattelites. They simply cannot win on a merrit of quality because their products lack quality.

    5. Re:Speaking of sad... by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 1

      So, you believe that the limited adoption of Desktop Linux, OpenOffice, and even Firefox is entirely due to FUD? I suppose that's the most convenient answer.

      I thought it was somewhat interesting that Mozilla.org did a pretty minor overhaul with Firefox, and their previously stagnant marketshare instantly went up 500%. Which leads credence to the argument that open source products generally lack refinement, or "quality", and if they could rectify that, people would actually use their stuff.

      --
      Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
    6. Re:Speaking of sad... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You live in a hugely isolated and narrow world.

      That "instant 500%" increase was at least as much due to the news media finally figuring out that, "Blame Microsoft" for IE's crap security was a news story with wings.

      Meanwhile, OF COURSE the slow adoption of linux on the desktop is due ENTIRELY to FUD! What kind of idiot do you think I am? It has NOTHING to do with inertia, proprietary file formats, anti-competitive bundling requirements or the process of gradual refinement!! Duh!

    7. Re:Speaking of sad... by advocate_one · · Score: 1
      Seriously. It sounds like they are saying that this is a FIRST or something. Isn't Internet Explorer the LAST browser to support RSS feeds?

      yes, but for the vast majority of Windows users out there, RSS will be something new for them, they've never used any other browser, so they won't know that it really isn't...

      They're well late for the RSS party, but Microsoft are claiming that it's only just starting now

      --
      Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
    8. Re:Speaking of sad... by hdparm · · Score: 1
      So, you believe that the limited adoption of Desktop Linux, OpenOffice, and even Firefox is entirely due to FUD?

      Not entirely, there's a fair bit of locking into proprietary code/formats and sanctioned (for years and years) monopolistic practices.

      Since 1995, Windows and Linux desktops were never on a level playing field. Yet, try to compare level of innovation and improvement between Win95 --> XP on one and RH 2.1 --> Fedora 4 on the other side. It is staggering to see how much more efficient loosely-knit community is than mammoth-like corporation. This comparison clearly shows which group had got priorities right (quality) and which one hadn't ($$$). It'll bite their fat ass in not so distant future.

    9. Re:Speaking of sad... by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It is staggering to see how much more efficient loosely-knit community is than mammoth-like corporation.

      I think you missed my point. Products like Mozilla Firefox and OpenOffice exist because of big one-time-only investments from large coporations. They were not developed by a loose-knit community. The question is whether Firefox can remain competitive without that backing.

      --
      Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
    10. Re:Speaking of sad... by XO · · Score: 1

      Now, I'm a total Linux user, but..

      Please defend yourself.

      What, in the 'innovative' category, has RH/Fedora done? Anything?

      --
      "Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
    11. Re:Speaking of sad... by hdparm · · Score: 1

      That just happens to be the disro (as a collection of open-source software made everywhere) I'm using. I didn't compare Microsoft and Red Hat Inc and their products, rather MS and open source community as a whole.

    12. Re:Speaking of sad... by hdparm · · Score: 1

      That is partly correct. However, most improvements to those products happened only after they've been released to world.

    13. Re:Speaking of sad... by XO · · Score: 1

      I can't think of one thing that I can do in my entire Debian system that is improved upon, or easier, than any other OS I've ever used.

      The last innovative thing I can recall is OS/2's Workplace Shell, which so far everyone's working on making piss poor clones of.

      --
      "Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
    14. Re:Speaking of sad... by marcosdumay · · Score: 1

      What you don't seem to understand is that free software is not just about a comunity of hippies writting software. Free software is about colaboration, it doesn't matter if it is colaboration of people or companies.

    15. Re:Speaking of sad... by JahToasted · · Score: 1
      The question is whether Firefox can remain competitive without that backing.

      I'm sure companies that make all their money off the web *cough* google *cough* will invest in improving firefox. Even if most people still use IE, improvements in firefox eventually make their way into IE. The cathedral can't ignore the bazaar.

    16. Re:Speaking of sad... by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 1

      free software is not just about a comunity of hippies writting software. Free software is about colaboration, it doesn't matter if it is colaboration of people or companies.

      I've made it clear that I'm aware of that. Virtually all important OSS dev is corporate supported now days. The hippie-basement-hacker thing is a myth that Open Source community propagates about itself.

      Again, the point is that there isn't a huge team of Mozilla engineers anymore.

      --
      Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
    17. Re:Speaking of sad... by loconet · · Score: 1
      No kidding. Check this comment on the RSS/Longorn Video.

      "I know that I have a huge bias here, but I really think that MS is doing a really great thing when it comes to RSS. The beautiful part of it is that amount of work that an application developer no longer has to do. I think that RSS is going to be so much broader because MS is putting the work they are doing into the platform. The nice part is that this is not novel work... soon you'll see these kind of platform investments in every platform. The surprising part is that any one else could have done the work first, but MS did. I think this may be the first time in a long time that MS has done something big that other people will emulate. Because knowing what RSS is and parsing XML for a dev is absolutely useless. It's like knowing how to handle a TCP/IP packet. It's the start of a brand new world. And when you can synch your databases, web directories, book marks, photos, calendars, reports, contacts, sales pipelines and everything else you can think of over RSS, you can have announcements like this to thank for kicking it off."
      --
      [alk]
  14. Innovation right there dude by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Man, thats some hot innovation right there. Maybe Microsoft can add this fabled "Tabbed browsing" that I have heard so much about.

    1. Re:Innovation right there dude by Hugh+Lilly · · Score: 1

      Yes, and what's this I keep hearing about something called RSS?

    2. Re:Innovation right there dude by Bayleaf · · Score: 1

      In Microsoft's case, I read RSS as Repetitive Strain Syndrome.

      --
      I might not be a wit, but at least I am more than half way there.
  15. hmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I was a DIE HARD IE fan for years then switched to Firefox. It will take a lot to make me switch back to IE but I will def. give it a try.

    1. Re:hmmm by pembo13 · · Score: 1

      You don't really have a choice now do you.

      --
      "Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
  16. Firefox 1.1.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did microsoft just go in and steal the stuff for the next major firefox release, put their GUI on it and call it IE 7, cause thats what it looks like.

    1. Re:Firefox 1.1.... by RoadkillBunny · · Score: 1

      put their GUI on it and call it IE 7

      I don't think they even did that.

      --
      Cheers,
      RoadkillBunny
  17. Golly Gee... by Rekrapt · · Score: 3, Funny

    Can't we just all get along? ---

    1. Re:Golly Gee... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, now fuck off and die you conservatard rethuglican with two wives (BOTH UNAMERICAN!!)

  18. Re:Wow by sidepocket · · Score: 0

    Screw tabs. It's all about the text-search capabilities. Real-time and highlight Find is awesome and should be implemented everywhere.

  19. How will this effect Google? by entrigant · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm fairly certain that search bar uses msn search :). Do you think IE users will start using that instead of going to google first?

    1. Re:How will this effect Google? by nigham · · Score: 1

      I doubt that will happen. MSN search is quite bad compared to Yahoo and Google, both of which have toolbars which integrate into IE quite easily (and which a lot of people already use).

      --
      I don't want to read /. I want to go home and re-think my life.
    2. Re:How will this effect Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It may use MSN search by default but you can add custom entries to it. Mine has a search for google, msdn, and ebay on it.

    3. Re:How will this effect Google? by benna · · Score: 1

      I doubt it. I use firefox and I have the google search box in the toolbar but I don't use it. I always just click the google bookmark and search on the site. I'm not actually sure why I do it though.

      --
      "It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
    4. Re:How will this effect Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, so naiive...

      All they have to do is make MSN search "good enough", and ensure that it either becomes more hassle than most users feel it is "worth" to switch, or become ubiquitous enough that most users aren't aware that anything else exists...

  20. Re:Wow by PoitNarf · · Score: 2, Informative

    Perhaps if you only have 3 or 4 IE windows open at the same time I would agree with you. But when I do online shopping or something where I'm going to be looking at multiple pages on the same site, or perhaps I always want a tab with Slashdot open in it, tabs become much more convenient. Once you get used to them they are far easier to manage. I prefer a single instance in my taskbar with 10+ tabs open rather than 10+ instances in my taskar.

    --

    "0101100101? It's just jibberish. *looks in mirror, gasps* 1010011010@!? AHHHHHH!!"
  21. And they'll claim credit for it all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Tabbed browsing? Didn't exist before IE7 folks, really! A search field next to the URL field? That was us too.

    And you know that RSS thing we invented? How cool is that, huh? We totally rock!

  22. Microfox? by PrivateDonut · · Score: 1

    Has Microsoft resorted to stealing other peoples ideas again?

    1. Re:Microfox? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the open source community stole more ideas from companies than the other way around.
      Look at all the clones and emulators etc etc. Firefox stole the tabbed brwosing idea from opera

    2. Re:Microfox? by EnsilZah · · Score: 1

      Is it really that much of a surprise?
      Using other people's ideas was pretty much the company strategy since it was founded.

    3. Re:Microfox? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let me guess, you think the open source software is completly based on original ideas?

    4. Re:Microfox? by EnsilZah · · Score: 1

      Not at all.

      I'm not some blind-faithed OSS zealot.
      I'm writing this from a WinXP box even.

      I'm just saying that MS has not had much of a history of originality.
      And concidering the size and stage of the company's development you can't really expect it be anything other than reactive.

    5. Re:Microfox? by Hugh+Lilly · · Score: 1

      Obligatory Simpsons quote:

      Myers: Okay, maybe my dad did steal Itchy, but so what? Animation is built on plagiarism! If it weren't for someone plagiarizing the Honeymooners, we wouldn't have the Flintstones. If someone hadn't ripped off Sgt. Bilko, they'd be no Top Cat. Huckleberry Hound, Chief Wiggum, Yogi Bear? Hah! Andy Griffith, Edward G. Robinson, Art Carney.
      Myers: Your honor, you take away our right to steal ideas, where are they gonna come from? Her? [points at Marge]
      Marge: Uh... Hmm... How about... Ghostmutt?

    6. Re:Microfox? by Boltronics · · Score: 1

      Woah there! I'll give you the "[GNU/]Linux is a clone of UNIX", but the Gaim and OpenOffice.org teams are reverse-engineering only for compatibility. It's not because ICQ/AOL/Yahoo's protocol or MS's .doc format is better and we should have done things that way.

      --
      It's GNU/Linux dammit!
    7. Re:Microfox? by Tape_Werm · · Score: 1
      Typical zealot thinking. Microsoft can do nothing right.

      Fact: You'd be shitting on IE7 if it didn't include these features.
      Fact: You'd shit on IE7 for including these features.

      You know what? You can't have your cake and eat it too. If microsoft were to actually make something revolutionary and groundbreaking (and no, I certainly don't think they've done anything like this yet), you'd still shit on them because they're Microsoft.
      Time for a reality check you zealot, your line of thinking is bordering on being retarded. Someone mod this fuckhead down please.

      --
      Linux sucks. And you're fat. Take a shower hippy.
    8. Re:Microfox? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fact: yes, Id shit on IE if it didnt include these features.....

      Fact: Im not shitting on them, nor have I read about everyone or anyone else shitting on them for including these features.

      The only shitting being done is the new web browser coming out of Bill Gates Asshole.....

      what ingenuity, FIRE UP THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE BOYS!!!!!! no one else will be excited about this browser that were integrating features into that everyone elses already has, so we'll have to hype it up ourselves!!!!!

      I think thats what everyones making fun of.

      Microsoft is a big beached whale, dying on the sands of its own sucess.....

    9. Re:Microfox? by PrivateDonut · · Score: 1

      Wow that was relevent. If you look at my userpage, you would see that this is one of the first times I have shat on Microsoft for doing anything, and thats because this time they have deserved it. I personally don't mind microsoft, only their business practises.

      You on the other hand seem to be the typical anti-microsoft-zealot zealot. You instantly jumped at the opportunity to release your rage at me, because no-one else will listen to your whingeing. Now I admit that I havn't bothered to look at your profile, but I think that you have taken your zealot-ism a bit too far. If you want to defend Microsoft this isn't the place.

      BTW, Freelancer (by Microsoft) was a kick-ass game, and a great implementation of space orientated gameplay.

  23. KDE start your photoKopiers ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    nt

  24. I got a bad feeling about this by john_is_war · · Score: 1
    "RSS will be integrated into the heart of Longhorn."
    Am I the only one that has a feeling that it will be a crappy product full of security holes that is impossible to get off the system, a la IE in Win 2k/XP?
    --
    Live life to the fullest. It's not that life is short, but that you are dead for so long.
    1. Re:I got a bad feeling about this by TLLOTS · · Score: 1

      Given Microsofts security record that's a pretty valid concern; I'd be lying if I said I didn't share your uneasiness regarding it.

      More troubling however is Microsofts constant need to integrate various things such as their browser and now RSS into their operating system as tightly as possible. Keeping everything nice and modular would be much better; but I guess Microsoft see's some value in this approach despite the inherent security risks and stability issues.

  25. Re:Wow by Seumas · · Score: 1

    You sound like JWZ.

    Yes, if you read his "blog", he actually says how stupid and awful tabs are.

    I bet he hates wireless stuff and modems without baud rates, too.

  26. Re:Wow by Thieflar · · Score: 1

    Tabs make things easier because they help you organize what you're browsing and what you're doing locally. If I'm photoshopping an image, chatting on AIM, and browsing the internet, having one Firefox window for everything you're browsing just simplifies things. I know that if I want to edit my images, I go down to the taskbar. If I want to hit Google real fast, bring up Firefox. Also, dragging the taskbar to the top of the screen means an extra couple of inches I have to go with my mouse to cycle through the webpages I'm reading. It's just inconvenient. IMHO, tabs are nice. Tabs are our friends.

  27. integrated into the heart by Frank+Grimes · · Score: 5, Funny

    "RSS will be integrated into the heart of Longhorn." Oh my god! Someone get on the phone to Linus Torvalds and tell him to integrate RSS into the Linux kernel as fast as possible!

    --
    CfkRAp1041vYQVbFY1aIwA== RV/hBCLKKcSTP5UFK3kqsg==
    1. Re:integrated into the heart by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In all seriousness, does anybody want this? The internet is known to evolve in a staggering rate. By the time Longhorn hits to shelves RSS is going to be a distant memory, perhaps Atom is going to take over. The 'core' of an OS should be small stable and not subject to such technologies as RSS. In comparison, Linux uses different layers of applications to make any evolution in those layers easier and less of a pain. Xorg should never feature RSS, neither should the Linux kernel. Firefox and other things that work ontop of the kernel should use these features. If they want to take RSS to the 'core' of Longhorn, they should 'invent' (or steal) some technology that does not implement one specific kind of Syndication, but something that is more wide, something that will encompass Syndication of many kinds, something that won't need a kernel update after the RSS standard gets updated. Though apparently I overestimate their ability to adapt, think ahead and be innovative in even the slightest of manners.

  28. Opera had it first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If someone is going to claim anything is ripping off Firefox, they're an idiot. Firefox is completely lacking in original features, and like most open source software simply apes commercial products.

  29. Say "NO" to Bloatware by reporter · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I am sitting here, pondering the future of Windows, as I watch the operating system slowly boot up and struggle along. I suspect that operating systems and web clients have now reached the point where they offer much more features than I need and actually use.

    Has anyone suggested that Microsoft create 2 parallel operating systems: slimware version and bloatware version? I want a slimmed down version of Windows that includes just a little more than a true pre-emptively multi-tasked kernel I also want a slimmed down web client that lacks support for ActiveX and anything else that is not strictly necessary for accessing the secure website run by my bank.

    I need little more. I suspect that this barebones configuration meets the need of most Americans, who are not tech savy.

    1. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by pdbaby · · Score: 5, Interesting

      But that's not in microsoft's best interests. They're a company, after all. They're in a perfect position: they can make their operating system require a faster processor and more memory. Do you think Intel, AMD and the various memory makers aren't "very grateful" of the extra business they get from the dizzyingly high requirements of Windows nowadays?

      --
      Global symbol "$deity" requires explicit package name at line 2. - If only $scripture started "use strict;"
    2. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Look up xplite. It's what I used, trimmed the windows partition down to 700mb (you can go lower, but I kept in stuff like media player and IE)

    3. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Anti_Climax · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well, they'll probably never give it to you, but you can definitely have it.

      http://www.nliteos.com/nlite.html allows you to pull unwanted components from your windows install cd's, including media player, messenger and internet explorer. If you're so inclined I highly recommend making your own personalized install.

      It also comes in particularly handy when you want to keep people from using IE after their machine gets hosed by malware.

      As an aside, I find it much easier to just write the new install files into my CD image rather than burn a new one from folders on the disk and as a bonus the CD is typically smaller that way as well.

      --
      Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
    4. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Rolken · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "I suspect that this barebones configuration meets the need of most Americans, who are not tech savy."

      Are you serious? Did you not see the article on Windows 'N' being a remarkable failure? People want their computers to be able to, shock of shocks, do things out of the box, especially those who aren't tech savvy.

      But hey, who needs facts and reality when you have Slashdot dogma.

    5. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Eric+Pierce · · Score: 1

      You're a bit off topic, but it sounds like Linux might be up your alley.

      It comes in all sizes (and then some).

    6. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Customers want bloat. Why, it saves them money and time if the OS can do everything they want (i.e. they don't have to find or buy anything else).

      A better solution is to make one OS that is so modular you can easily take pieces of it out. Make the media player/picture organizers/web viewer/email separate applications you can take out completely. OS X is a more modular then Windows with respect to the bundled applications I listed, but OS X also contains harder to remove pieces (Finder/Dock)

    7. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by fermion · · Score: 1
      I think that is pretty much what the US wanted to do after MS was convicted in a court of law, under the rule of law, of being a monopoly. But then the the frat boy got elected and decided that all that legal stuff was just too complicated, and MS was realy just a group of good old boys never meanin' no harm.

      Likewise, it is what the EU is trying to do with Windows N. However they did not back it up with enough force, i.e. opening of standards and opening of contracts, so no vendor really feels confortable installing it. Unless futher legal changes are made, it is probably still fatal to get on MS bad side.

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    8. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by TLLOTS · · Score: 1

      Tell me something. How many regular people (by which I mean the less computer savy among us) do you think are even aware of Windows N? Why would they after all, very few people wanted to see any success out of such a thing, and Microsoft is not included in that small party.

    9. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by RzUpAnmsCwrds · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Do you think Intel, AMD and the various memory makers aren't "very grateful" of the extra business they get from the dizzyingly high requirements of Windows nowadays?"

      Because, as we all know, GNOME runs *great* with 128MB of memory. And of course, Mac OS X is absolutely smooth on 128MB as well.

      With 256M of memory, Windows is as nippy as any other fully-featured desktop environment.

    10. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by quarkscat · · Score: 5, Informative

      "Has anyone suggested that Microsoft create 2 parallel operating systems: slimware version and bloatware version?"

      Well, yes actually. Microsoft now offers the following "flavors" of Windows:

      (1) Windows XP Home
      (2) Windows XP Pro
      (3) Windows XP Embedded
      (4) Windows XP "Lite"
      (5) Windows XP "Thin"
      (6) Windows XP Home Theatre Edition
      (7) Windows XP 64-bit Edition
      (8) Windows XP N
      (9) Windows CE

      Pray tell, just which other version of Windows were you actually looking for, that MSFT doesn't already offer (except "Windows XP Secure")?
      There are already more versions than you can shake a proverbial stick at, and all with varying levels of bloatware and also vulnerabilities. Pick your poison, and prepare to be "owned".

    11. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Cross-Threaded · · Score: 2, Interesting
      .

      Nlite looks pretty cool. I would have used it if I had found it 2 months ago. Instead, I spent 3+/- days learning how to do it all the hard way, and I burned a lot of coasters in the process.

      When I finally got done, I had a pretty, slick up-to-date*, restoration cd that I could insert in the box, walk away for about an hour, come back and login. My normal apps (including virus scanner) install automatically, too. And yes, the very first thing the box does when it connects to the internet is go get the latest virus defs.

      * Obsolete the following Tuesday.

      I am currently working on one that XP will be as stripped down as I can make it, and will use F/OSS applications only. I am continually amazed at the darn decent F/OSS software that is available, (Thank you sourceforge folks!).

      I admit it, I make my living supporting Windows. However, I have done several Gentoo systems, and did go through the pain of LFS 5 (twice*). I want to make the switch to Linux, but I haven't found the setup/apps/configs I would like, so I keep switching distro's, never spending enough time to get used to them. (Typical Windows User, Don't know what I want...)

      * FYI - Shell scripting LFS is a bugger! Compiled and Installed by hand the first time, then wanted to try for a Gentoo-style install.

      --
      They call us sheeple, I wonder why?
    12. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by TruckerTom · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If you want a slimmed-down, security conscious version of Windows I'd suggest Windows 2003 Server.

      Otherwise, be careful about what you install. Turn off Active X if you don't like it or want it on. Avoid downloading and installing everything you find for "free" on the Internet. "Free" software is not free, because it's usually poorly-written and leaves digital droppings all over your hard drive.

    13. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      RSS should never be part of the 'operating system' - it should be an add on service. I guess MS gets to spit on the EU's 'settlement' by demonstrating that they integrate all they want, whereas Apple makes no pretences. Security will suffer too, as any new component brings with it risks, and virus scanners will have to work overtime scanning 'indexes'.

    14. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by XO · · Score: 1

      Windows runs a hell of a lot better in 128MB than does Linux kernel 2.6 + X.org + (GNOME || KDE).

      Now, using XFCE and ROX, I've probably got about the same performance as Winders. I can't compare it specifically, because Windows doesn't actually support my SCSI card, and Linux does. (weird, eh?)

      --
      "Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
    15. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by DigitlDud · · Score: 1

      One of the main goals behind Longhorn is have equivalent system requirements to Windows XP with limited exceptions. Although, Longhorn will drive support for new types of hardware like hybrid hard drives, microphone arrays, ambient light sensors and auxilary displays in laptops, etc.

    16. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Daxx_61 · · Score: 1

      I have 1 Gig of memory here... it still takes about 5 minutes to start up, and even loading firefox takes a good 40 seconds. I'm sick of waiting - sometimes I just go make myself some coffee whilst waiting for the thing to start up.

      --
      Quoth the server, "404."
    17. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by quarkscat · · Score: 1

      "... I'd suggest Windows 2003 Server."

      Of course you are right, except that Win2K3 Server
      is overkill as a desktop OS replacement for WinXP.
      I don't know how much a 2-user or 5-user version
      of the server OS costs, but I am reasonably
      certain that it is far more than the $200 USD that
      WinXP Pro SP2 costs.

      Instead of "turning off" Active X, a better choice
      would be for an easy method to remove it and IE
      from the OS completely. But then, that's just me.

    18. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by silverkniveshotmail. · · Score: 1

      i do find from personal experience that OS X is easier on the memory usage than Windows, but the default 256MB of ram that my powerbook came with left it a little sluggish. When i'd use photoshop and switch to firefox it'd hesitate and i could hear the hard drive churn. this wasn't too big of a deal, but it wouldn't run battlefield 1942 worth a damn unless i turned down the graphics to a not very prety level. (this could have something to do with it being ported)
      i'm sure it's usable with 128MB, but in order for some multitasking to go on well. i think it probably requires at least 512MB (i've got 1280MB now) .
      Doesn't more ram also save some battery power for notebooks by reducing the amount of disk access required?

    19. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With 256M of memory, Windows is as nippy as any other fully-featured desktop environment.

      Straight after installation, yes. A few months after install, absolutely not. 256MB is the bare minimum for Windows, and it'll thrash away at the hard drive quite vicously with only that much memory. A Linux desktop environment isn't exactly memory-efficient, but to say it's worse than Windows means you've either been smoking crack or configured it completely wrong somehow.

    20. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by drsmithy · · Score: 1
      Has anyone suggested that Microsoft create 2 parallel operating systems: slimware version and bloatware version?

      Almost certainly. The problem is, one man's bloat is another man's essential feature, so how do they choose what goes and what stays ?

      OTOH, WTF kind of computer are you running XP on that it's "struggling along" ? I sit in front of a ca. 1999 dual P3 all day running Windows and it's more than fast enough.

    21. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by oddfox · · Score: 2, Informative

      A gig of RAM but what are the other specs if your system is -that- slow? From the sounds of things it's a sub-500MHz box, maybe even worse. This goes for whether you're talking about Windows XP or any Linux distribution worth beans.

      --
      "We invented personal computing." - Bill Gates
    22. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by westlake · · Score: 1
      I suspect that this barebones configuration meets the need of most Americans, who are not tech savy

      Here is a Geek meme harder to kill than a cockroach: the web appliance, the network PC, as a mass market success. Bet real money on this and you will be living out of grandma's basement.

    23. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by nathanh · · Score: 1
      Because, as we all know, GNOME runs *great* with 128MB of memory.

      GNOME does run great with 128MB of memory. I'm sitting at a GNOME 2.11 desktop with a few apps open, and my current memory consumption is...

      -/+ buffers/cache
      used: 124220
      free: 390572

      124MB for a recent GNOME, the kernel, several apps and all the supporting daemons. Not bad.

    24. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by hector_uk · · Score: 1

      "Windows runs a hell of a lot better in 128MB than does Linux kernel 2.6 + X.org + (GNOME || KDE)." that is a blatent lie, i have run OS X and various distros of linux on my ibook when i only had 128MB ram and it was not too bad, however i boot windows XP on my freinds PC and it crawls it takes about 15 seconds to boot IE (albeit to download firefox with) i'd rather train monkeys to do my work for me than run windows XP on 128MB ram.

    25. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I am sitting here, pondering the future of Windows, as I watch the operating system slowly boot up and struggle along.

      Honestly, perceived response times with Windows have always seemed much superior to those of alternatives. What kind of system do you have? Secondly, this post is likely skewed towards an anti-Windows sentiment. Have you reinstalled your system in the last decade? Which VERSION of Windows are you running?

      You leave so much information to be desired in your post, and yet still the zealots leap to swallow your anti-Windows sermon hook line and sinker.

      I see no difference in a post as boldly uninformative as your own and:

      "HAY GUYS LINUX IS KOOL WINDOWS IS FOR LUSERS LAST TIME I USED WINDOWS IT TOOK LIKE 6 BILLION YEARS TO OPEN INTERNET EXPLORER LOL AM I RITE OR WHAT GUYS?"

    26. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've got a gig of ram here too, but XP boots faster than Ubuntu. One of Ubuntu's stated goals for Breezy is to boot faster than XP, even they acknowledge XP isn't slow, why can't you?

    27. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by m50d · · Score: 1

      Can't speak for those but KDE is fine in 128mb. Takes a moment to load up when you log in, but once it's running it's as smooth as anything.

      --
      I am trolling
    28. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by cgrand · · Score: 1

      The computing power race is merely over -- not that we can't put more power to good use but for actual casual use any processor suffices. The criteria that governs the choice of a processor are shifting from raw computing power to computing power per watt. Hence even if software's demand for computing power stalls there's room for processor innovation in slimmer, smaller computers.

    29. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you don't like the bloat of Winders, get Linux. It's free.

    30. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Diamon · · Score: 1

      You forgot Windows XP TabletPC edition

    31. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Magic5Ball · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "[T]hat is a blatent lie,"

      Yes, because without knowing exactly what hardware the both of you are using, your datapoints ABOUT OSX and experience are somehow more correct than his ABOUT WINDOWS AND LINUX, always.

      But instead of pointing out that with almost all Linux distributions, most components can be stripped out by the end user with relative ease to save memory and CPU cycles, or that the Windows and Linux memory managers might show different performance optima depending on the amount of installed memory, you've resorted to a failed attempt at feigning zealotism.

      hector_uk, I invite you do show me, with any arbitrary computing task of your choice, how trained monkeys might perform better than you using a computer running XP and 128 MB of RAM. If your the duties of your vocation can be performed with trained monkeys, you might also consider a more meaningful line of work.

      --
      There are 1.1... kinds of people.
    32. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, he tells an anecdote, and he's a liar. You tell one and we should all believe you? Guess what, everyone has different experiences. And you didn't even compare things running on the same architecture.

    33. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, you used MSFT and "owned" in the same message. So you get 6 points. But it's not quite enough.

      Try harder next time, use some M$ and type in all caps, you'll get a perfect score.

    34. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by fwarren · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Have you ever read the "leaked" Whitepaper Microsoft did on the conversion of HotMail from FreeBDS/Apache to Win2000/IIS?

      One of the things they specifically mention is the fact you can build a VERY SMALL minimal *nix system because you can cut all of the cruft. It is humanly possible to figure out the mininum dependancies, libraries, etc.

      Whereas with Microsoft, who was doing this as a matter of pride, would not create a striped down version of Windows for themselves. And even stated that you could not strip down a build of windows because there are to many unknown interactions.

      It would take a lot of work to figure out what you can remove. More work than Microsoft was even willing to do as a matter of pride on a project they were throwing millions of dollars at and took several years to complete.

      I don't think we will see a striped down "core" version of Windows anytime soon.

      --
      vi + /etc over regedit any day of the week.
    35. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by jZnat · · Score: 1

      I suspect that operating systems and web clients have now reached the point where they offer much more features than I need and actually use.

      I agree about the OS part, but for web browsers, I think that Firefox is a bit too slim for my taste. In fact, I have at least 40 extensions for Firefox with no actual slowdown.

      Then, of course, there are custom builds available that also take a load off via SSE/2 instruction sets.

      --
      'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
    36. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by fwarren · · Score: 1

      Have you ever read the "leaked" Whitepaper Microsoft did on the conversion of HotMail from FreeBDS/Apache to Win2000/IIS? One of the things they specifically mention is the fact you can build a VERY SMALL minimal *nix system because you can cut all of the cruft. It is humanly possible to figure out the mininum dependancies, libraries, etc. Whereas with Microsoft, who was doing this as a matter of pride, would not create a striped down version of Windows for themselves. And even stated that you could not strip down a build of windows because there are to many unknown interactions. It would take a lot of work to figure out what you can remove. More work than Microsoft was even willing to do as a matter of pride on a project they were throwing millions of dollars at and took several years to complete. I don't think we will see a striped down "core" version of Windows anytime soon.

      --
      vi + /etc over regedit any day of the week.
    37. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (1) Windows XP Home - Bloated
      (2) Windows XP Pro - Bloated
      (3) Windows XP Embedded - This is a version of XP?
      (4) Windows XP "Lite" - crippleware
      (5) Windows XP "Thin" - for servers
      (6) Windows XP Home Theatre Edition - Not suitable for the desktop
      (7) Windows XP 64-bit Edition - Bloatware, just a recompiled XP
      (8) Windows XP N - the same XP, except without media player. Also, Microsoft was forced into releasing this.
      (9) Windows CE - not suitable for the desktop

      There are choices here?

    38. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      have you DMA activated on your hard disk?

    39. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by jacksonj04 · · Score: 1

      I have 1gb and boot Windows in 1 min 47 seconds, and firefox in about 6. What are the other specs on your system, and have you considered running a good spyware scan?

      --
      How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
    40. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by toddestan · · Score: 1

      Windows XP runs ok in 128MB of ram, if it's just the base system and you only run 1-2 applications at a time. But install something like a virus scanner, and the poor machine will start grinding like crazy. That's my experience.

    41. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by toddestan · · Score: 1

      Is it a Dell, by chance?

    42. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      (3) Windows XP Embedded - This is a version of XP?

      Um, yes it is. http://msdn.microsoft.com/embedded/windowsxpembedd ed/default.aspx

      You can strip it down to just a kernel if you want, which is what the original poster wants.

      Windows CE - not suitable for the desktop

      Why not? It has everything you would need for the desktop (IE, Office "Lite", media player, etc)

      Really, I don't think anything would satisfy the complainers around here.

    43. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by HermanAB · · Score: 1

      You missed Windows XP Tablet Edition...

      Windows is very fragmented - far too many distributions - users don't know what to do with all the choices. MS is trying to emulate Linux in more ways than one...

      --
      Oh well, what the hell...
    44. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      Huh? I've run X.org and KDE on a 266mhz machine with 128mb of RAM just fine. What are you talking about? Where do guys like you get your information? Do you just make it up?

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    45. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It seems that most linux distros are now suffering from a bloatware problem also. As someone who has been trying to get Linux to run with a GUI on a couple of older computers (486 / Pentium1, 16 MB RAM), and haven't been successful (while Win95 works fine on these), I can't agree that this is a Microsoft only problem.

      FYI, before you assume I'm a newbie who doesn't know anything about Linux - I use linux on all my newer computers, and have tried a number of smaller distros for the old computers, including minislack, featherlinux, ...

    46. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      For another data point, I used to run 10.3.x on a 400MHz G3 Powerbook with 192MB of RAM. It was a bit sluggish - particularly when switching between apps - but certainly usable for routine things like listening to music, email, web surfing, IM...

      Battery life wasn't great, admittedly... no doubt the disk access issue you alluded to.

    47. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

      Try the "lite" series of programs and roll your own.I've never really given the 2k-xp version a spin,But the 98lite can make older machines into excellent game toasters without the IE bloat!

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    48. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by ZombieChiefExecutive · · Score: 1

      Microsoft... how do you want to be 0wned today?

      --
      James Buchanan
      Zombie Chief Executive/15th President of the USA
    49. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by jp10558 · · Score: 1

      Ehh, it takes forever for Windows XP SP2 to start up on my PC, but I run all sorts of stuff, like my own mail server, FTP server + I have to start up Sygate, and wait for NOD32 to finish the boot scan. Plus my startup programs like KeyWallet, Trillian, Proxomitron, Asus Probe, Getright, and TeaTimer.

      About 5 minutes here too, hence why I try not to reboot if I can avoid it.

      I also have 1GB PC3200 RAM, A64 3400+ (754 though), ATA133 Boot drive so not so fast.

      --
      Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
    50. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Khuffie · · Score: 1

      Uhh. Isn't Windows Server 2003 a stripped down version of Windows primarily to be used as a server?

    51. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Khuffie · · Score: 1

      Hmm. Any idea if there's a software that not only allows you to strip down components, but add ones for install (ie, Opera/Firefox/Trillian and so on?). That would be great...

    52. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by LordoftheWoods · · Score: 1

      O_O

      stripped down!?

    53. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by The_Dougster · · Score: 1
      Yeah, my wife's computer is a PII 333 with something like 128Mb RAM, I compiled Gentoo with the full gnome-desktop package and OpenOffice and it runs pretty well (I compiled it using distcc and my fast machine doing the work). It's not overly speedy but its bearable.

      She also has WinXP installed on it and thats what she normally uses. Its pretty sluggish from the times I have used it, but also bearable.

      I do have to laugh at all the crap that is installed on most new PC windows systems. Fifteen "Click here to install the Doofus Network" etc. All these stubs which prompt you to purchase something. I usually delete all that crap when I set up a PC. Heaven forbid they just sell you a damn operating system. No, they have to load it up with more ads than the Sunday paper. Disgusting.

      --
      Clickety Click ...
    54. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by The_Dougster · · Score: 1

      Almost identical here. I get a login prompt in about 58s, first desktop in 1m7s, completely loaded up systray in 1m49s. Thats Win2k on an AthlonXP 2400+ with 1GB. My system is pretty lean and mean, but it still loads an antivirus, steam, and OpenOffice quicklauncher.

      --
      Clickety Click ...
    55. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by SuperTails92 · · Score: 1
      Uhh. Isn't Windows Server 2003 a stripped down version of Windows primarily to be used as a server?

      It has the freaking media player bundled, so no, it's not "stripped" in any way (except for the lack of Luna).

    56. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by shywolf9982 · · Score: 1

      That's mainly because GNOME and KDe are following Windows. Anyway, I don't think the point was that.
      The point isn't "GNOME is so fucking better". The point is: I do really need all this stuff? Look at Looking Glass and Avalon. Ohhh, they're so amazing to look at.
      But honestly, if I had to use Looking Glass at work my productivity would drop dramatically, cause I'd spent half of my time spinning windows around instead of working. The same with 70% of the features of modern desktops environments.
      PS: How you got the idea that the previous poster was hinting that GNOME was better?

      --
      nbody2002:If you can read this you may be addicted to the internet
    57. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Khuffie · · Score: 1

      ever heard of WMV streaming?

    58. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have 1 gb of pc3200 ram and a Athlon XP, and Firefox starts instantly and windows loads in about 30 seconds. Ive turned off a lot of useless services to speed up startup and general use also.

    59. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by dcam · · Score: 1

      Because, as we all know, GNOME runs *great* with 128MB of memory. And of course, Mac OS X is absolutely smooth on 128MB as well.

      You don't *have* to run gnome as your window manager for Linux. There are other, lighter weight window managers (icewm, xfce, blackbox to name a few). With windows, you don't really have a choice.

      --
      meh
    60. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by cbiltcliffe · · Score: 1
      With windows, you don't really have a choice.


      Litestep. Google for it. Kinda cool.
      --
      "City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
    61. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 1

      If your the duties of your vocation can be performed with trained monkeys, you might also consider a more meaningful line of work.

      That is a blatant lie. It would take at least two dozen trained monkeys to replace hector_uk, and it's a lot more expensive to house, feed and care for two dozen monkeys than it is to pay hector_uk. His job is completely secure. At least, until they start offshoring to Africa.

      --
      -1 Uncomfortable Truth
    62. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Anti_Climax · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure about programs, but you can install drivers. I'm sure some enterprising individual will come up with some scripting system to make it happen... hopefully

      --
      Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
    63. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by TG1 · · Score: 0

      I have 128mb ram and a duron 750. Windows boots up in less than a minute and firefox in under 30 seconds. you should have your system seen to, it doesn't sound too healthy.

    64. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by adamgolding · · Score: 1

      let's not forget Windows XP Tablet PC Edition...

    65. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      10. Windows XP Tablet PC Edition.

      I can still count all the flavors of Windows XP with my fingers.

  30. TARGET=_TAB by klaasb · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That is all I need

    --
    if your pants fit well, it's not only because of the pants ...
    1. Re:TARGET=_TAB by Cynshard · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'd much rather stick with TARGET=_NEW and let the browser handle where to open the link.

    2. Re:TARGET=_TAB by rebug · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'd much rather stick with not specifying a target and letting the user handle where to open the link

      --

      there's more than one way to do me.
    3. Re:TARGET=_TAB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      burn!

    4. Re:TARGET=_TAB by HG2 · · Score: 2, Funny

      I much rather jump off a cliff than hear you guys argue.

    5. Re:TARGET=_TAB by sgt-at-arms · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'd much rather - as a user - be able to CTRL+Click a button and have the form submit to a new tab (or window).

      --
      I can see how dictators do it, it's so easy. - Easy2RememberNick
    6. Re:TARGET=_TAB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd much rather - as a user - be able to CTRL+Click a button and have the form submit to a new tab (or window).

      Try Safari.

  31. Opera by Cyno01 · · Score: 1

    Every version of opera ive ever used has this. Default is google, theres also amazon, ebay, download.com, dealtime. You can add others too.

    --
    "Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
    1. Re:Opera by Hugh+Lilly · · Score: 1

      Ditto Firefox, and possibly Netscape and Mozilla, too.

    2. Re:Opera by hkmwbz · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but as the saying goes: Opera Had It First(TM)

      --
      Clever signature text goes here.
    3. Re:Opera by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And as the other saying goes: Opera sucks butt.

      Idoit.

    4. Re:Opera by LoverOfJoy · · Score: 1

      If you add others to Opera, be prepared to have troubles when you update it. I can't seem to get my new ones back now.

  32. theme by God'sDuck · · Score: 1

    "Windows Longhorn: 'The Vapor Tiger' or 'Like Tiger...on Paper'...NEXT on Geral^H^H^H^H^HSlashdot's Origami OS News!"

    sorry. it's late and i'm tired.

    1. Re:theme by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are not sorry. If you were sorry you would of never pressed submit in the first place.

      We don't need a commentary of your life as an apology!

  33. Re:Wow by FatBobSmith · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The beauty of tabbed browsing becomes apparent when you have a bookmarks folder full of your favorite sites in firefox and you right click and select 'open in tabs' and 20+ of your favorite sites open in a single window for you to peruse while you drink your morning coffee.

  34. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Try Opera 8. Then you will appreciate tabs found in Firefox, and the ability to manage them. In Opera, you have a "New Page" _button_? to the left of your present page's tab. When you click on it, you get a new tab and page. Works, but not as simple as Firefox, as they call it a "New page", when it's just a new tab. Also, if you register Opera, there is just a big blank area where the advertisement was. All the buttons are crowded over to the left. For what they charge, we ought to get a better layout for the registered Opera.

  35. Gnomedex!? by Recovering+Hater · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Am I the only one confused as to why M$ would call the gathering Gnomedex? I though it was going to have something to do with the Gnome desktop and M$ for second. Wierd.

    --
    My humor is probably your flamebait
    1. Re:Gnomedex!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    2. Re:Gnomedex!? by mellonhead · · Score: 1
      Am I the only one confused as to why M$ would call the gathering Gnomedex? I though it was going to have something to do with the Gnome desktop and M$ for second. Wierd.

      Gnomedex & Lockergnome = Chris Pirillo

    3. Re:Gnomedex!? by jalefkowit · · Score: 1

      It's called "Gnomedex" because it's organized by Chris Perillo of Lockergnome.com. It's not a Microsoft event; Microsoft is just sponsoring it this year.

  36. Yes it's a copy of Safari RSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Christ. you are right. I didn't notice. It's a straight lift of Safari's RSS reader in every detail.

    Nasty, but then Apple you reap what you sow....let us not forget Konfabulator

    1. Re:Yes it's a copy of Safari RSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ....let us not forget Konfabulator ...or Desk Accessories for that matter.

  37. Ooooooooo by kakashiryo · · Score: 0

    That's nice, but I think I've had IE7 for a few months now...

    http://maxthon.com/

    1. Re:Ooooooooo by ian+rogers · · Score: 1

      They link to http://maxthon.com/images_screens/full.png as a screenshot.

      Too bad if you're using IE, you won't be able to see it, because IE can't handle PNGs.

      I really hope IE7 adds better PNG support. I got used to using PNGs after using Firefox and Safair for so long, I totally forgot about IE not knowing how to handle them.

      Instead of being able to just throw a bunch of PNGs in a directory and link to them, I ended up making a bunch of html pages that consisted of a single img src tag, because I guess IE knows how to handle embedded PNGs, but not those which are standalone.

      Anyways, that's it for the rant, your link just made me think of IE's shitty PNG support.

    2. Re:Ooooooooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That screenshot works here standalone in IE6

  38. What's sad about this is.... by WMD_88 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When IE 7 comes out and all the Joe Average people start using it (via auto updating, or the new computer they bought, or whatever), they're gonna see the finally-added features and think, "Wow, look at these new things Microsoft created! They're amazing!" because they've never used anything but IE. Microsoft thus gains mindshare for nothing.

    1. Re:What's sad about this is.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you thanking NetCaptor on a daily basis for your tabbed browser? Or Microsoft for providing the libraries that NetCaptor used to build the browser in the first place? Or do you assume that Mozilla or FireFox did it first because that's where you saw it first?

    2. Re:What's sad about this is.... by cahiha · · Score: 1

      Are you thanking NetCaptor on a daily basis for your tabbed browser?

      NetCaptor didn't invent the technology either. Tab-like browsing mechanisms first came out of the academic community.

      Or Microsoft for providing the libraries that NetCaptor used to build the browser in the first place?

      Microsoft did not invent tab-like mechanisms or GUI toolkits.

    3. Re:What's sad about this is.... by St.+Arbirix · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why do you think Mac people are always showing off our computers? We're not pugnacious pricks, we're trying to help the *nix community so that when MS finally pushes what OSX and Linux have been doing for years people will actually believe us when we offhandedly say it's been done before and they're being held back by Windows.

      We take so much ridicule for you guys. :)

      --
      Direct away from face when opening.
    4. Re:What's sad about this is.... by drsmithy · · Score: 1
      "Wow, look at these new things Microsoft created! They're amazing!" because they've never used anything but IE.

      Of course, this is no different from Linux or OS X getting something that's been around for years and having all their respective fanboys running around going "look how cool $OUR_OS is, it's got $FEATURE".

    5. Re:What's sad about this is.... by bad-badtz-maru · · Score: 2, Insightful


      I don't think that Joe Average is going to give a shit about the new features, personally... I think Joe Average views the computer as an irritating device that unreliably provides interesting functionality.

    6. Re:What's sad about this is.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Why do you think Mac people are always showing off our computers? We're not pugnacious pricks
      Speak for yourself.

      Love,

      Steve Jobs
    7. Re:What's sad about this is.... by St.+Arbirix · · Score: 1

      I'm kinda curious as to where that comes from. Everyone on Slashdot refers to Jobs as kind of an ass yet I've never heard it anywhere else nor have I read anything about him that would lead me to that conclusion.

      --
      Direct away from face when opening.
  39. What Lawrence Lessig thinks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  40. Re:Wow by corsec67 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Sometimes I have so many tabs open in Mozilla that I need to open new windows for more tabs. I open a new window when all of the tabs are just the icon without any text, which is 20-30 tabs on my computer at work running at 1600x1200. It is kind of amazing that I can keep track of anything when I have 40-60 tabs open at one time on a single computer, with many other programs running at the same time.

    Right now, I only have 8 tabs open in one window, and I think that is too few, in that I can see more of the title for each page than I normally do.

    Keeping track of 60+ windows on a task bar? I would need a separate monitor just for the task bar.

    --
    If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
  41. Re:Wow by the_demiurge · · Score: 1

    I use and enjoy tabbed browsing daily.

    What I don't ever use is a taskbar at the top of the screen. What's the big fuss about dragging your taskbar all around?

  42. Can it get any bigger or uglier? by Jackie_Chan_Fan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Microsoft really needs to hire some real UI artists one of these days.

    Personally, i dont need the windows title bar, address bar, etc taking of a chunk of the screen like that. It must be a low res shot but still...

    MS likes to make these big screen eating UI's with things that most people never use.

    1. Re:Can it get any bigger or uglier? by cmallinson · · Score: 1
      Microsoft really needs to hire some real UI artists one of these days.
      Personally, i dont need the windows title bar, address bar, etc taking of a chunk of the screen like that. It must be a low res shot but still...
      MS likes to make these big screen eating UI's with things that most people never use.

      Um, I use Firefox, but IE is just as customizable in that respect. Try F-11 for starters.

    2. Re:Can it get any bigger or uglier? by AaronBrethorst · · Score: 1
      Which part of it would you find yourself unlikely to use?

      On top we have the window titlebar,

      which is followed by Back/Forward buttons, address field and search field on one line,

      Which are followed by the tab bar

      And finally the menu bar, coupled with other buttons.

      Realistically, it's using the same number of rows as Safari is on my iBook right now, where I have:

      Titlebar

      Buttons, address field, and search field

      quick links

      Tabs

      And you can certainly toggle the size of the oversized toolbar buttons on IE anyway. They're probably only zoomed up to make it clear what's being clicked on.

      --
      No, but I used to work for Microsoft.
    3. Re:Can it get any bigger or uglier? by Jackie_Chan_Fan · · Score: 1

      things i generally do not use is ALL of window's XP's silly web intergrated ui components. I couldnt even tell you what they are, since i turn them all off.

      And of course you can hide parts of IE etc... thats not quite my point. The general screen space taken up by XP's default theme is ridiculous. How big must a title bar be?! How big must a "X" icon be for closing a window?

      MS just seems to have this big bold UI mentality. In your face, big, lots of silly integrated web link like "tools" which are useless. Its just not thought out well at all. Hell, opening the file explorer is basically a hidden feature! One of the most important things is burried deep in the start menu/all programs/accessories/windows explorer. (Or right click explore all users on start menu)

      MS considers the windows file explorer to be an "Accessory" And yet it is one of the MOST important aspects to an os.

      Its just like MS's media player. Its so poorly thought out, its as if no one uses it at Microsoft. Media Player Classic is far better.

      IE? Wont even touch it.

    4. Re:Can it get any bigger or uglier? by BravoFourEcho · · Score: 1

      Sure you don't just need to adjust your screen resolution?

      j/k

      --

      What good is a double standard if you can't enforce it?
    5. Re:Can it get any bigger or uglier? by AaronBrethorst · · Score: 1
      We are working on improving this company-wide. Overall user experience is increasingly becoming a priority for everyone I know and work with at MS. This kind of thing takes time to change, though. Also, I think that you and I may have very different usage habits for Media Player. I have it running for 6-8 hours a day when I'm working in my office in order to listen to music. WMP 6.4 didn't have the music organization capabilities that WMP 10 does today, and there's no way I could use it nearly as effectively.

      I'm still not certain about what exactly you don't want to see enabled by default, though, however it bears mentioning that if you really don't like the size of window titlebars in XP you can crank down the size through the Display control panel. Personally, I try to leave everything on the defaults. The only thing I truly can't stand, though, is that Details is not the default view in Explorer.

      --
      No, but I used to work for Microsoft.
    6. Re:Can it get any bigger or uglier? by Jackie_Chan_Fan · · Score: 1

      yeah details needs to be the default view in explorer.

      The windows explorer needs an overall too. I would like to see more functionality to it. It should be faster to do some things. I find myself constantly switching folders to detail view. Slideview is terrible. I know you can default all folders to open up in a specific listing format but it then makes it hard to have those few that you want in thumbnail view.

      As a 3d artist, i use alias maya, softimage xsi, and 3dsmax on a daily basis. I've even worked on the developement of them. There are workflow things that could be borrowed from them. I would love a nice marking menu ui system in windows. Mouse gesturing etc.

      I cant tell you how many times i try to mouse guesture a "back" command in the file explorer now that i'm so used to using mouse guestures in firefox.

      I Would like the "run" command to be more upfront on the task bar. I'd like not only a run dialogue input box on the start bar, but also a small icon that opens up a dos box, that remembers input commands etc from last time opening. 3d programs make great use of this in their scripting interface.

      I'd like the file explorer easily accessable from anywhere in windows by a simple mouse guesture.

      I'd like to map mouse gestures that will launch apps. Lets say i commonly use firefox or thunderbird.. How about a middle mouse click drag diagonal and boom up pops firefox.

      How about mouse gesture window tabbing?

      multiple virtuald esktops and a GOOD desktop manager should be in XP already. The powertoys thing stinks.

      There are some things that could be done to improve the ui of course. Frankly Windows is of course very easy to use generally, but the flow of it at times is very frustrating. It seems to get in the way of truly flowing. Perhaps mouse gestures, marking menus etc would help some.

    7. Re:Can it get any bigger or uglier? by Jackie_Chan_Fan · · Score: 1

      I should clarify the dos box comment. I know the run command on the start menu remembers commmands. What i meant was that the dos box would remember the inputs as well as have a scroll back buffer that shows the output result from the dos window.

      In a sense it would be a dos box that never closes. Of course you could unload it behind the scenes when the user closes it, but when he/she opens it again, have it reload the dosbox and display the scrollback buffer.

  43. The Firefox ressemblance isn't really a point.. by gipsy+boy · · Score: 1

    ..since Safari (2.0) 'stole' just as much from Firefox' layout as IE. I wonder why so many complain about it.
    Either way, it seems like their RSS engine is still lagging behind in terms of functionality; there doesn't seem to be an option to make each synopsis shorter/longer, for instance. Maybe in the full version there will be though..

    And I wonder where the hell the menubar is located in those pictures.. If this is how Longhorn going to look (has it any relevance to Longhorn's GUI style?), I'm severely worried (/excited/bemused) by the incompetence of MS' staff.
    I suppose there *is* an end to everything..

    1. Re:The Firefox ressemblance isn't really a point.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What did Safari steal from Firefox (that was an original development)?

    2. Re:The Firefox ressemblance isn't really a point.. by gipsy+boy · · Score: 1

      That was original? I don't know for sure but I thought the Search function on the top-right (with different places to search in) was invented by the Firefox designers. But, my only point was that everything is blatantly stolen from something else, in the browser-world, it's nothing to throw at MS now..
      I still wonder about that menu-bar..sheesh.

    3. Re:The Firefox ressemblance isn't really a point.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, since the inspiration for the FireFox project was a "Camino-like" browser that used XUL and Camino's original project head was Dave Hyatt (Now the only/lead programmer on Safari), so it's only natural that they share many interface ideas.

    4. Re:The Firefox ressemblance isn't really a point.. by js3 · · Score: 1

      This is slashdot. Everything was invented by firefox. Frankly I find the corner dropdown search engine thing cumbersome and stupid to use. I prefer the googletoolbar over the puny little thing that comes default in firefox anyday.

      --
      did you forget to take your meds?
    5. Re:The Firefox ressemblance isn't really a point.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The top-right search bar was in Opera long before it was in Firefox, and then Safari. Perhaps it was even in Camino as well.

  44. still two years behind by fermion · · Score: 2, Informative
    It would seem that after 10 years the richest software developer in the world would have caught up with the state of the art. I mean a search box? Is that the best they can do. I mean for those of us that have been browsing the internet for all that time, and a bit more, IE has always been the laughing stock. It is a very good application front end, a terminal really, but a horrible browser.

    Which is realy not the fault fo the devolopers. I am sure they are very good. But when the goal is get and keep clients, and force is an option, one has a hard time justifing a customer centered approach to development. I mean it is kind of a waste of time to sweet talk a victim if you are just going to knock him out and take his money.

    --
    "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    1. Re:still two years behind by dedazo · · Score: 1
      That's nice. You've been having a "rich" browsing experience with little search boxes for no more than 4 years, on average. Unless I missed a browser that had these (and a lot of other) features in 1999.

      Microsoft is behind because they entered their dreaded "zafe zone" where they become compliant because they're so far ahead of everyone else or simply have no competition (Netscape anyone).

      Still, let's not get into these "OMFG TEH MS r TEH 20 yEArz BEHIND!!!!" collective-selective amnesia deals. Firefox and Safari are relatively new. That does not justify Microsoft's shortsightedness, it makes it all the more apparent. I've seen these types of comments elsewhere regarding FF for example - "OMFG TeH IE SUxx No CSS2!!! HAHAHA!!!" from people whose CSS-compliant experience is all of one year old. C'mon now.

      --
      Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
    2. Re:still two years behind by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Except we are not just talking about search boxes and safari and firefox. We are talking about mosaic, when MS did not even know what a browser was. We are talking about Netscape, which worked until MS injected poison pills into frontpage.

      It is common for the IE apologist to find a straw man in order to make a valid statement seem silly. MS is behind because they have never been willing to create a consumer oriented browser. A browser that would allow the consumer to find and use contenet as he or she wished. Everyhting was geared toward using the desktop monopoly to create an internet monopoly. They have no competition because they illigally, as defined by US courts, leveraged the monopoly.

      IE never worked as well for me, overall, as other browsers. It worked better on specific sites that were developed specifically for IE, but did not work on generic sites. There was a time when IE worked almost as well, but then it became worthless because one had to spend half the time patching it and defending against attacks.

      Objectively they have a good product. Objectively they are behind, and will continue to be behind, becuase MS does not proactively develop products. They respond to market conditions and then develop. There is nothing wrong with this. it works very well for them, but it does result in a delta of one to two years, at which point the other products have stability, the MS prodcut is in beta.. look at the GUI. Look at IE. Look at virtualization.

      In fact you are the one looking a short time spans to justify the quality of MS products. over the long haul, MS has had a hard time keeping up, which, since the mid 90's hasn't mattered since they created a monopoly, as defined by the US courts.

    3. Re:still two years behind by XO · · Score: 1

      Apparently you've missed Opera.
      I think IBM WebExplorer MIGHT have had that back in '95, I don't recall it's specifics. I do know that it had the most expansive and advanced "history" of anything yet made.

      --
      "Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
  45. MOD PARENT FUNNY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Common. Actually it was some what insightful too if you look past the humor.

  46. Re:Wow by eeg3 · · Score: 1

    Opening seperate explorer.exe's instead of tabs takes a lot more system resources than opening another tab. It's alot easier on your system to have 20 tabs open instead of 20 IE windows.

  47. a little tip for you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Spelling it "Micro$oft" instantly disqualifies you from intelligent discourse.

    I didn't read anything in your post past the first word, but I'll bet your encore is calling Bill Gates a stupidhead.

    1. Re:a little tip for you by tempest69 · · Score: 1
      Actually it was calling Jim Allchin a stupidhead....

      And this is slashdot, when did intelligent discourse become a requirement for posting, I've always considered slashdot a humor site.

      Cheers

      Storm

  48. Pinstripe? by Emperor+Tiberius · · Score: 1

    Is it just me, or does that screenshot look surprisingly like the Pinstripe theme from Firefox?

  49. hmmm by smash · · Score: 1
    So... its got tabs, and a search box.

    Yay. Where did the other 4 years of development go?

    smash.

    --
    I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
  50. Agreed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Indeed, why do people always assume that revolution is the best way to proceed for a large company?

    Perhaps Microsoft is always held to account that since it is the biggest it should be the one to lead, it should be the one instigate the complete new "paradigm".

    Revolution rarely comes from one large company, in any industry, though more noticeable in such a young industry as computing.

    This is simply due to the fact that no matter how large a company is, it will never be bigger than the populace that use the technology in question, thus will never have the scale of idea factory in comparison to every other living person.

    And yet, still, every "revolutionary" thing is built upon old ideas, standing on the shoulders of giants. There will always be a backbone to progress, there will always be people that have led the way, that have used ideas from a previous generation.

    Revolution is rarely succesful in nature, so why do people expect it in software/technology development?

  51. Re:Wow by bmgoau · · Score: 1

    Windows has the handy ability to group similar programs in the taskbar, alot of people put this function down, but i find it invaluable to be able to manage large groups of windows at the same time. Its like tabs, inside tabs, abeit in the task bar.

  52. Brushed Metal & Firefox? by marcushe · · Score: 1

    Is it just me, or is the toolbar Brushed Metal from OS X, and the icons from FireFox...?

    1. Re:Brushed Metal & Firefox? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      no, those icons have been ie standard for a few versions now.

    2. Re:Brushed Metal & Firefox? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is it just me, or is the toolbar Brushed Metal from OS X, and the icons from FireFox...?

      It's just you.

  53. What about getting the first 80% right? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    A new standard is not necesarrily worth supporting just because it is an approved standard.

    Otherwise, all of those C programmers would never have continued to use C once C++ was an ansi/iso standard.

    WWW standards are notoriously transitory and need to have a 7 year or longer cycle between new adopted standards. A 3 or 4 year cycle means that most software vendors/open source teams will be one or more old standards back.

  54. Re:Wow by AddressException · · Score: 1

    Sounds like you need Exposé!

    http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/expose/

  55. One problem.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Windows doesn't have a heart!

    1. Re:One problem.. by neuro.slug · · Score: 1

      Yes it does. The Heart of Gold.

      "Windows turned my computer into a bowl of petunias!"

  56. Cool! by sammyo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    >RSS will be integrated into the heart of Longhorn

    Maybe there will be a scripting extension so I can add some dynamic content to my blog.
    Hey how about automatic forwarding?

  57. gnome? by anagama · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    What the hell is IE doing in gnome? That has to be a form of desecration.

    --
    What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
  58. bring yourself down to their level by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    call linux "linsux" or "lunix".

    when you get modded down for doing so, point out the hypocrisy of anti-MS criticism getting modded up all the time.

  59. On the second screenshot, by Eradicator2k3 · · Score: 0

    Chris Pirillo gives us the lyrics to the much anticipated Gnomedex song:

    "Gnomedex: Ponzi casts a hex, Gnomedex: balance and checks,
    Gnomedex: Hundreds of techs, Gnomedex: total blog-o-plex,
    Gnomedex: PowerPoint decks, Gnomedex: many rubbernecks,
    Gnomedex: special effects, Gnomedex: y equals x,
    Gnomedex: truly respects, Gnomedexspirit reflects,
    Gnomedex: geeky execs, Gnomedex: nerdannosaurus rex,
    Gnomedex: nothing..."


    So Chris, before making your plea for someone to write music to accompany your *brilliant* lyrics, how's about you come up with lyrics that don't totally suck ass?

    --
    Mr. T pitied this fool on 27 July 1992.
  60. Staring at the embers by LS · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Seeing this news item really awakened me to the lack of innovation with Internet software these days. Embedding RSS into IE is mundane to the extreme. This pales in comparison to the rate at which ideas were pouring out 5-7 years ago. I suppose the browser is a mature market, but is it really? Perhaps we need to go back and look at some of the older ideas that were ahead of their time now that the Internet infrastructure is more mature. It just feels like we are still staring at the embers of a long-dead bonfire.

    LS

    --
    There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
    1. Re:Staring at the embers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      You might want to check out some Firefox extensions. There's some truly cool things happening there.

      https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/?application =firefox

    2. Re:Staring at the embers by JasonStiletto · · Score: 1

      with the stuff coming out of WHATWG canvas, forms2.0, css and SVG, I'd say the browser market is getting interesting again. the interface is kinda unimportant, back, forward, stop, all the rest is just window dressing anyway.

    3. Re:Staring at the embers by marcosdumay · · Score: 1

      The browser market is not even near mature, but MS is holding it stable since the last bowser wars.

  61. things and stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    okay...its time to realize that firefox is a piece of bloated shitware. If we are going to nitpick about browsers, at least compare against a real browser like Opera. Given the choice, I would take IE over firefox. I have a new game, lets destroy the reputation of anything that MS ever makes because we are too fucking stupid to actually take an objective look at the situation.

  62. Looks pretty good by melted · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Gotta admit, they have some smart people there. Yes, firefox is a superior browser, technologically. Yes, it's open source. Yes, it supports CSS2 a little better and yes, it supports alpha channel in PNGs. Does any of this matter as far as Joe Sixpack is concerned? Not a bit!

    What does matter then? The stuff they're emphasizing - tabbed browsing, design, and integration. You can spend hours explaining what's better to a layman, and in the end they'll use the browser that looks better and is more comfortable. Plus, if they approach security of IE7 with the same rigor we've seen in IIS6 (which I doubt highly, considering such a short product cycle), security will not be a problem.

    It is time for Firefox/Mozilla devs to pile on the goodies. Get us some SVG and CSS3, get web devs (at least some of them) to use these cool technologies, and make Microsoft play catch-up again.

    Ain't competition grand?

    1. Re:Looks pretty good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      "It is time for Firefox/Mozilla devs to pile on the goodies. Get us some SVG and CSS3, get web devs (at least some of them) to use these cool technologies, and make Microsoft play catch-up again."

      Here you go: New Web Developer Features in Deer Park Alpha 1

    2. Re:Looks pretty good by DigitlDud · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      IE7 has full support for PNGs because it was a very popular request. Again, Microsoft won't support any of the new CSS (2.1 and 3.0) recommendations because they're not finalized. CSS 2.0 is, but its full of errata, thus CSS 2.1. If the W3C would get their act together you'd see more support in Internet Explorer.

    3. Re:Looks pretty good by nathanh · · Score: 0
      Ain't competition grand?

      In this case, competition is crap. Competition is what led to the incompatibility fiasco of the late 90s, with completely different DOM and JS implementations from Netscape and Microsoft and Opera. Microsoft had different implementations even within the same version of IE, depending on whether you used Windows or a Mac.

      What is desperately needed is COOPERATION, not competition. Standards are the direct result of cooperation. Standards makes web developers happy because they can spend more time writing useful code, instead of working around incompatibilities and differences. Standards allow development of web libraries that can be built upon, instead of having to write applications from scratch every time.

      Sadly the ten tonne gorilla - that would be Microsoft - apparently has no desire to cooperate. They're quite happy to snub their noses at CSS. They seem to agree with you, that competition is grand. Unfortunately the rest of us suffer because of their hubris.

    4. Re:Looks pretty good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft already has a form of vector graphics built into internet explorer IIRC it's called VML. I'd think that some SVG support would be quite doable if they wanted to.

    5. Re:Looks pretty good by TrentL · · Score: 1

      Gotta admit, they have some smart people there. Yes, firefox is a superior browser, technologically. Yes, it's open source. Yes, it supports CSS2 a little better and yes, it supports alpha channel in PNGs. Does any of this matter as far as Joe Sixpack is concerned? Not a bit!
      But Joe Sixpack isn't an early adopter. The early adopters (i.e. web developers) DO care about CSS2, the PNG alpha channel, and (maybe) open source.

    6. Re:Looks pretty good by handslikesnakes · · Score: 1

      That's such bullshit. What errata are preventing MS from impementing position: fixed or display: table or attribute selectors? Or how about properly supporting CSS 1 like background-position: fixed ?

      Microsoft doesn't care and will implement exactly what suits them. The W3C deserves no blame here.
    7. Re:Looks pretty good by handslikesnakes · · Score: 1

      And no, they shouldn't do anything with 3.0 until it's a lot further along that it is now. It's damned obvious, because things aren't finalised. This isn't the case with 2.1, which is in last call and has been a candidate recommendation for over a year.

    8. Re:Looks pretty good by DigitlDud · · Score: 1

      Please see: http://www.w3.org/Style/css2-updates/REC-CSS2-1998 0512-errata.html

      IE7 fixes rendering bugs in CSS styles. It also supports some additional features of CSS2.1. I won't talk about specifics.

    9. Re:Looks pretty good by neutralstone · · Score: 1

      > ...Does any of this matter as far as Joe Sixpack is concerned?
      > Not a bit!
      >
      > What does matter then? The stuff they're emphasizing - tabbed
      > browsing, design, and integration. You can spend hours explaining
      > what's better to a layman, and in the end they'll use the browser
      > that looks better and is more comfortable.

      Very often, Joe and Jane Sixpack use the phrase "The Internet" to refer to the web browsing program that came bundled with their PC, which is usually a Microsoft Windows machine. Therefore, they are acclimated to bad (or outdated) design. Do you really expect people like that to /choose/ a better web browser? We're talking about people who have neither the awareness that such things exist nor the motivation to find or learn to use them.

      Firefox's boosted popularity notwithstanding, I see no reason to expect this situation to change in the coming years.

      But perhaps you refer to another family -- within the widely dispersed Sixpack clan -- with whom I have not yet had the privilege of being acquainted.

    10. Re:Looks pretty good by handslikesnakes · · Score: 1

      Heh. I'm not exactly holding my breath.

  63. just me? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is it just me or do the screenshots of IE's RSS viewer look like they were stolen exactly from Apple's conception of it in Safari? I mean, integrating RSS into the browser isn't really that big a deal (sort of a logical next step) but fercrissake MS, come up with your own idea of how to handle the user interface. Does it seems even remotely strange the world's biggest, most powerful software company can't even put in the time to come up with an original idea or even an original way to present an otherwise copied idea? So lame and uninspiring.

  64. Future History by Nova+Express · · Score: 2, Funny
    April 29, 2007: Microsoft Releases Longhorn with Integrated RSS

    April 30, 2007: First RSS-Related Security Hole Exploit Announced

    --
    Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)

    http://www.lawrenceperson.com/

  65. Re:Wow by dojobi · · Score: 1

    The big thing about tabs is that you can background load with them. e.g. I am browsing a news page and as I go down the page, I ctrl-click all the links that interest me. Then all the stuff you want to see is loaded in tabs in the background. With IE, I don't have to do open in new window and then alt-tab back to the original page before continuing.

  66. Speed by dedazo · · Score: 1
    Microsoft probably can and will produce a browser that is as good as Firefox in most respects (except probably extensions - Adblock is the only thing that keeps me on FF for the moment). It's too hard to create browser objects with C++ for IE. Creating extensions for FF is a pleasure.

    But even ignoring integration with the OS, what most users will go for is speed. Speed. Loading speed. The speed with which new windows open. Firefox SUCKS there. Even the optimized Moox builds are really not that fast. Compared to IE, FF is so slow it's not even funny.

    So since 99% of computer users could care less about "open source" or whether or not the browser passes ACID2, speed is going to be the killer factor for FF. They have an impressive cross-platform product, but Windows users don't care about cross platform either. And that's ultimately FF's achilles heel, I think.

    --
    Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
    1. Re:Speed by evenflow4nr · · Score: 1

      I dont know which universe U R in, but i am broke (ie I'm stuck on DUN) and the whole reason I useFF IS Speed!

      --
      Anger is like a little dog, you either let it out, or it pisses on your soul
  67. Re:How will this affect Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please do not confuse Effect with Affect. It is very irritating to the non affect/effect illiterate.

  68. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  69. Already complained to some AG's by Bruha · · Score: 1

    I've emailed some AG's that were part of the original antitrust lawsuits about this latest move by MicroSoft.

    It seems that it was not enough to use this same method of introducing new methods into html to make NetScape not work with all websites. And it seems that Microsoft is repeating the process with RSS.

    The only glimmer of hope here is that iTunes RSS support for podcasts and other web tech may be too entrenched this time to give Microsoft the ability to pull the same trick twice.

    People need to talk to their elected officials immediately and point out the similarities here. They also need to pressure web developers to stick to standards and not adopt disruptive changes unless they want to end up in a single browser world again.

    1. Re:Already complained to some AG's by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 1

      method of introducing new methods into html to make NetScape not work with all websites.

      Oh god, nobody can be this stupid, so you have to be kidding. If not, please do some research on JSSS and Layers.

      --
      Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
    2. Re:Already complained to some AG's by soulhuntre · · Score: 1

      Oh god, nobody can be this stupid, so you have to be kidding. If not, please do some research on JSSS and Layers.

      Step 1: Check the url

      Step 2: Notice the "slashdot"

      Step 3: ????

      Step 4: Decide that yes, they can.

      Heres what we need, another round of people whining to the AG. Heres a thought - how about you actually just compete instead of running home to momma anytime you get into trouble.

      --
      --> Fight tyranny and repression.... read /. at -1!
  70. "Media" in RSS by bhunachchicken · · Score: 1

    Why do I get the feeling that Microsoft will extends RSS in Longhorn to allow for all kinds of new "streaming media" to be fed directly into the OS, a move that will almost certainly only pave for way for a hideous new wave for viruses...

    1. Re:"Media" in RSS by IANAAC · · Score: 1
      That was my thought. If you watched the video, they used the word "encased" a lot for embedded media. So what's the difference between an "encased" graphic file and and embedded hidden executable with a .gif/.jpg/.bmp/.tif extension?

      Any way to currently tell? Any way that Longhorn will be able to tell the difference? I doubt it.

  71. Gnomedex?? by utopicillusion · · Score: 1

    Did anyone else wonder why it's is MS unveiling something as important as IE7 multi-tabbed and RSS feeds in a browser at something called "GNOMEdex".

    What's Ballmer going to do now? What new slogans is he gonna come up with...

    I can't wait...

  72. Who is this mysterious end-user? by Georules · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I hear all of this interesting talk about RSS, the video posted above is especially interesting. The interesting thing I find however, is not what it could do or who did what first, but who this is being worked on for. I don't have a single friend or relative who knows what RSS is or will have any clue what it means when a little colored square that says RSS on it means. Why aren't developers making this concept understandable and functional to PEOPLE, not just programmers and the tech-savvy? What steps would we have to take?

  73. heart by jeriqo · · Score: 1

    "Also, Microsoft revealed that RSS will be integrated into the heart of Longhorn."

    Or into the heart of Internet Explorer which is into the heart of Longhorn.

    --
    Alexis 'jeriqo' BRET
  74. alittle slow? by tymellon · · Score: 2, Funny

    slashdot = osnews + 5 hour delay.

    1. Re:alittle slow? by Georules · · Score: 0

      Your RSS feed probably isn't updating on a timly manner.

  75. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would rather the taskbar be for seperating windows of applications, and the applications seperating their own diffing sections. It's more organised, in my eyes anyways.

  76. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I use Internet Explorer, right now I have nine windows open and I see only one iexplore.exe in the task manager. What are you going on about?

  77. Re:Wow by Trepalium · · Score: 1
    It gets in my way, especially when using a program that uses different icons for different windows. For example, in Outlook, you might be looking for a window that has an envelope icon, but can't find it because it got collapsed into the outlook icon group. I also find it moderately disorientating when the state of the taskbar changes drastically because a new systray icon appeared, or window opened.

    Frankly, the default implementation is broken in Windows. Either the feature should be always enabled, or always disabled, not suddenly turn on when certain arbitrary conditions are fulfilled. I realize the behaviour of the grouping can be controlled via registry hacks or via tweak programs, but it's still poor UI design to have these "modes", especially when the computer decides to switch modes on you.

    --
    I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
  78. M$ by Xierox · · Score: 0

    New Longhorn Slogan announced, too:
    "Microsoft: The Reason the World Needs Software Patents."

    --
    Xierox
  79. Fools gold by zappepcs · · Score: 1

    It seems to me that while MS is finally matching up to its new competitors... this is as it should be, but IE7 is not even supported on all MS platforms/OSs... holy latency batman! It should be news that after everyone else had done something, finally MS decides to do something?

    To me, if your supplier is 2-3 years behind its competition, you get a new supplier. The IE7 thing not supporting old OS versions, and the vaporware that is Avalanche just shows how far behind Redmond is....

    What is the news here? That MS is behind, or that MS intentd to monopolize any market it can?

    I'm simply amazed at how MS makes the news for doing things or claiming they will do things that have been done by others for years?

    I don't mean to hate MS simply because, but this is a real reason to not like the Redmond engineers.... geez

  80. Re:Wow by Adrilla · · Score: 1

    I use the group similar functions in windows, but I still prefer to keep tabs in Firefox. First, I like to have multiple pages open when I startup firefox each in their own tab (main homepage, slashdot, my two web email accounts.) I also like to have tabs for /. as well, I keep the front page open, A tab for each story I'm following, My user page, to keep track of if someone replies to one of my comments. Plus, as someone mentioned, for comparison shopping, it's invaluable. Plus with tabs I get to see the page name and logo onscreen in the tabs. In grouped windows, all I get to see is how many pages I have open (especially since I autohide my taskbar, which is irrelevant here) My opinion is that, tabs are infinitely better than taskbar groups when it comes to web browsing, and the more web pages open the better tabs become.

    --

    "Plans are for fools! Oglethorpe, the plutonian (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
  81. Troll, shut the FUCK up. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If I want to hear any more shit from you, I'll SQUEEZE it out of your head.

  82. Is it too much to ask... by Bad+to+the+Ben · · Score: 1

    to get some pictures that aren't taken from a skewed perspective? Is this supposed to make me trip out or something?

    Also, by this "RSS integrated into the heart of Longhorn" thing, I assume this was a typo and meant to say IE 7? Why would I want RSS being built into the operating system? MS gets enough flak for building IE in, now they're repeating their mistakes?

    It'd be interesting to read Longhorn RSS headlines though:
    "14 New Critical Updates Available..."
    "2 Hacking Attempts Blocked!"
    "967 Hacking Attempts Succeeded!"
    "Estimated time to next BSOD: 3 hours 16 minutes"
    "Windows Piracy is Wrong!"
    The only thing that could make it worse is if it used Clippy.

    1. Re:Is it too much to ask... by Biomechanical · · Score: 1

      Some pictures from a non-skewed perspective?

      Imagining the scene:

      Bruce "The Hacker" Hackett gets up from his seat in the right rows of the auditorium, walks to the centre, takes pictures.

      Man from Microsoft says,

      "No pictures please! We cannot allow photos to be taken of these new and cutting-edge features."

      In a fit of uncontrollable laughter Bruce drops his camera and has a heart-attack from an overdose of humour.

      No, straight pictures are too dangerous.

      ---

      Hmm, not as funny as the picture in my mind.

      --
      His name is Robert Paulsen...
    2. Re:Is it too much to ask... by omry_y · · Score: 5, Funny

      why, its very useful to have RSS in the heart of the system.
      imagine the possiblities:

      * RSS system log:
      whenever a line is added to the log, you will be able to see it in your IE 7 Browser!

      * RSS memory monitor:
      you will have an RSS feed of your memory status in the last 24 hours! you will be able to tell how much memory your computer used, all from your IE 7 Browser!

      * RSS file system:
      Saving files is too boring?
      now you can save them as RSS entries, and watch them from your IE 7 Browser!

      * RSS buttons, checkboxes and tabs:
      instead of the silly outdated over-rated gui widgets we have today, we will have RSS widgets, which will allow you to know which buttons of an application was pressed, when, and why - all from your IE 7 Browser!

      now, tell me you are not excited!
      Microsoft, inovates the future

      --
      Omry.
    3. Re:Is it too much to ask... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You forgot

      *RSS System Information Logs
      MicroSoft can find out what you've been doing on that computer of yours. Is this licenced or not, have you changed your 4 pieces of hardware, and is it time to fleece you for more ca$h.

    4. Re:Is it too much to ask... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      back to the good old days.....

      From CLI to GUI and back again.

  83. Web-apps platform: Windows killer by BoneOfconTroll · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Of course MrDomino is right - the long-time fear of the web as an OS/app platform, so Windows wouldn't matter, and Office wouldn't matter.

    Your explanation is simple and explains a lot -it's almost certainly right.

    What better way to sabotage the web as OS and web-apps, than to control the browser? Make it *just* good enough for enough people to accept; but not good enough to make web-apps great - which they definitely could be.

    Evil. Brilliant. Very Microsoft.

    --
    I don't want to sell you death sticks.
  84. Re:Wow by Seumas · · Score: 1

    It probably got lost in between all the stuff he posts from Engadget/BoingBoing/Gizmodo about octo-dogs and fire-bots.

  85. Web-apps platform: Windows Killer by BoneOfconTroll · · Score: 1
    Can this explantion predict IE7? What improvements would retain IE's browser-share, while minimizing improvements to web-apps, so they don't threaten MSFT?

    It's a fine line: if it's *too* crap for existing web-apps, it will fuel popularity of other browsers...

    Or, instead of defending, could MSFT use this offensively, to create a new platform that they can own? I don't think it's possible because of the nature of the web (a very open playing field), but maybe it is?

    What if MFST made a browser that was fantastically effective for web-apps - but that was so difficult to use, that MSFT apps were the best on it? The problem for MSFT is they couldn't charge for the platform, and harder to charge for the apps - the Google business model seems to be the way to go.

    They say the way companies die is when they fail to adjust to a different revenue model. It's hard. (innovator's dilemma).

    This also suggests how to beat MSFT Windows and Office:
    make a great web-apps platform
    ...perhaps incompatible with IE, so they can't embrace and extend).

    --
    I don't want to sell you death sticks.
    1. Re:Web-apps platform: Windows Killer by jp10558 · · Score: 1

      Except, why do consumers want web apps? I see WebMail - barely - because it's convienient to take around with you to other PC's and when you are travelling.

      But does any user *want* Office as a web app? I personally hate the online help of 2k3, hello, I have a laptop, and wireless is far from ubiquitous.

      Plus the security issues seem really really big to me. Even better than a web app, do you really want to try and run it via SSL on most networks? Talk about slow - let's just save money and get out our C64's again to wait for the menu to load from the floppy disk!

      The web is a great thing, and it enables lots of stuff, but I still don't think it will replace a local OS + Native Apps. Maybe in 10 more years when wireless and broadband are near 100% penetration (I hope anyway).

      --
      Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
  86. Microsoft innovating again by hkb · · Score: 1

    Jesus Christ, they could've not so blatantly ripped off Firefox with the toolbars and Safari RSS for the RSS feeds. It's like they don't even give a shit anymore.

    --
    /* Moderating all non-anonymous trolls up since 2004 */
  87. Search.Msn.Com - what a strange coincidence by SiGiN · · Score: 1

    This whole thing reminds me of something - didn't MS want to beat Google on SE market?

    I don't see any ways of how MS can directly profit from releasing better browser, but I sure can predict that search tool will be set to Search.Msn, and while it will be possible to change it to something else, those settings are going to be well well hidden.

    1. Re:Search.Msn.Com - what a strange coincidence by picz · · Score: 1

      Yes indeed.

      MS will use their monopoly on the desktop to destroy Google and create new monopoly for search enginges. They did the same thing with Netscape, when they embedded MSIE in Windows 95.

      And this has perfect justification. They are only making a better MSIE with easy search feature for the masses. The masses don't care what their search engine's name is. If it will work "out of the box", people will use it and not ask questions. /picz

      --
      ------- Look mum! I have posted another Slashdot comment! --------
    2. Re:Search.Msn.Com - what a strange coincidence by SiGiN · · Score: 1

      Thats exactly, what I thought.

      While competition at SE field isn't bad thing at all, and I'd really like to see someone challenging Google... In fair manner.
      However, experience tells a story about "fair" victory of IE over NS.

  88. Linux Fanbois!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    w00T m$ SUCKS!!!!

    Why??

    Becuase all the linux fucking fanbois said so!!!!

    Heres a tip for you : Get a Girlfriend!!! I mean a real one

    Fucking Assholes

  89. Return of IE by JChung2006 · · Score: 1

    The important thing is not that Internet Explorer 7.0 will support RSS but that Microsoft is resuming Internet Explorer development. That has more significant implications for Web users and developers than RSS. Internet Explorer's RSS support is just Microsoft's latest attempt at providing the Web syndication functionality that they tried to introduce and failed to popularize in Internet Explorer 4.0 a decade ago.

    1. Re:Return of IE by pe1chl · · Score: 1

      But that is not news!
      The most significant implication is that they won't release IE7 for anything before XPSP2.
      That means they will either fail, or they will split the web into have's and have-not's.

  90. Best slashdot comment ever! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  91. Why bother? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think that it would be more simple if Microsoft would stop wasting their time and buy firefox from Mozilla instead of copying-and-pasting their code.

    Then again, we'd have no good web browser, especially for any other OS.

  92. PNG support in IE by Admiral+Burrito · · Score: 1

    Should work fine in IE. IE 5.5 and up can handle PNGs, as long as they don't contain any translucent pixels. All pixels must be completely solid or completely transparent, like GIFs (but with 24-bit color). Translucency can be made to work too, but requires a kludge.

    PNG support in IE sucks, but it does exist.

  93. Microsoft's motto should be... by Stormwatch · · Score: 5, Funny

    ..."The technologies of today --- TOMORROW!"

    1. Re:Microsoft's motto should be... by omry_y · · Score: 1

      or was it, "The technologies of yesterday --- TOMORROW!" ?

      --
      Omry.
  94. Search tool? Please... by st0rmshad0w · · Score: 1

    Opera has one as well, as do many other browsers and any browser capable of using the Google toolbar.

    Wow, I simply have to have this great new innovation! /sarcasm

  95. Re:Wow by GraemeDonaldson · · Score: 1

    Or when you accidentally select open in tabs with a rss feed containing 100+ links (del.icio.us' popular feed). Oh no wait, that wasn't beauty, that was pain. On the plus side, at least my PC didn't crash. I'm sure IE would've.

    --
    I think, therefore I am. I think?
  96. Looks like a really butt ugly version of Safari. by zwilliams07 · · Score: 1

    Microsoft's innovation is taking beautiful things, and making them butt ugly.

  97. Re:Wow by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 1

    Depends on how you do it. If you press Ctrl-N, it spawns a thread. Click on the IE icon, and it spawns a new process. Depending on your settings and how much free memory you have.

    I wish I could find a way to run more than one Firefox process (Damn Adobe plugin).

    --
    Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
  98. Oh boy! by ztwilight · · Score: 1

    So in a year and a half, IE 7 will have a feature (RSS) which Safari has right now in Tiger, and another feature (embedded search bar) which Safari has had since late 2003? Way to go, Microsoft!

    --
    Who moved my sig?
    1. Re:Oh boy! by wheany · · Score: 1

      Would it be better if it didn't have them?

  99. How far have they fallen by codemachine · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Longhorn loses its next generation shell and filesystems, both of which are pretty core OS functionality.

    Now they make up for it by adding RSS to their browser? At this rate Longhorn isn't going to be much more than Windows XP plus IE 7 (and yet still delivered late?). And IE hardly counts as OS functionality.

    Maybe if they spent their time building an operating system, and let application developers build the applications for it, they'd be able to build an OS that has some really innovative technologies in it. Instead they spend all this time trying to "own the web", as well as compete with 3rd party software vendors like Adobe.

    From a technology perspective, I think this strategy sucks. Time will tell whether this is a good business strategy or not.

    1. Re:How far have they fallen by moranar · · Score: 1

      Note it's not adding RSS to the browser but to the "OS", in an IE-is-part-of-the-os way.
      Perhaps they mean they'll add some karamba or gdesklets style thing to the OS with RSS capability. Which is still non-innovative but hey, that hasn't stopped them before.

      --
      "I think it would be a good idea!"
      Gandhi, about Internet Security
    2. Re:How far have they fallen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now they make up for it by adding RSS to their browser? At this rate Longhorn isn't going to be much more than Windows XP plus IE 7

      Actually, Internet Explorer 7.0 is going to be available for Windows XP with service pack 2 installed. It hasn't been Longhorn-only for almost a year. A beta is due out for XP this summer.

  100. rss is great - how about updating slashdot's by Silvrmane · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    mine's been showing the same set of stories for 2 days now...

    1. Re:rss is great - how about updating slashdot's by omry_y · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      something is broken.
      its not just "yours".

      --
      Omry.
  101. looks like... by XO · · Score: 1

    looks like someone made something in photoshop, then viewed it in Mozilla, and then took a picture of hte screen.

    --
    "Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
  102. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    zOMG because EVERYTHING NEW IS AN IMPROVEMENT!

    Tabs are overrated. I don't know if JWZ's arguments are correct, but they're definitely on the short list for "most useless overhyped piece of tech for the past three years".

    (Why three? No special reason, that's just about how far my memory of overhyped things goes)

  103. In Future News by William-Ely · · Score: 1
    (looks into crystal ball)

    A virus that exploits a critical flaw in MS-RSS causes world wide security panic. Patch due to be released next Tuesday.

    That's the best funny I could come up with. Need sleep now.

    --
    Mod me down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
  104. New virii entrance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sweet! Now I can get infected through RSS too! YAY!

  105. Mod down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Troll

  106. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not seeing it, sorry.

    (Perhaps not a pointful comment, but not a troll--I've done this, and the "single window" thing not only doesn't add anything but actually detracts from the experience. Then again, I use OS X so my browser windows are grouped already)

  107. Re:oh yeah firefox invented top right search uh hu by XO · · Score: 1

    You're quite right on that. Tons of Firefox extensions exist only to add features that take up double the memory and are half the quickness of things that Opera has built in.

    And Opera is rather mindbogglingly extensible.. it'd be nice if it were all documented somewhere. (but then there's Firefox's documentation... Use the Source, Luke)

    --
    "Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
  108. Re:Wow by XO · · Score: 1

    that's crazy. You must have an insane amount of resources. My 128mb system can barely handle having 4-5 documents open in Firefox without being totally choked off. (On the other hand, I can open 95 documents in Opera, and still be fairly useful...)

    --
    "Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
  109. excitement by cahiha · · Score: 1

    Microsoft is also getting excited about XML-based GUIs, database file systems, "managed code", desktop search, garbage collection, etc., all ideas that have been around for a long time. The company behaves like a smart computer science freshman, who thinks that because he is thinking one week ahead of his intro CS class, he is inventing things nobody else ever thought of. And, like a freshman, they lack the taste to separate the good from the bad ideas.

  110. Gnome trademark? by cahiha · · Score: 1

    Why is this event called "Gnomedex"? I find it rather disturbing that Microsoft has started sponsoring and (in effect) marketing under the Gnome name. How did this happen? Isn't Gnome protected by a trademark?

  111. Opera to the people! by talornin · · Score: 1

    IE is showing its new browser of like it was this huge new fantastic thing!

    Everyone and his mothers cousin on /. keeps yelling that they stole from FF or Safari! TABS! INTEGRATED RSS!! OMG OMG!

    Peronaly I discovered Opera five years ago, complete with tabs and everything. Thats when I stopped worrying about browsers. So when FF came with tabs and everybody was extatic I thought "Umm...ive been using this for some years now...."

    Opera to the people!

    --
    When in danger, whewn in doubt! Run in circles, scream and shout!
    1. Re:Opera to the people! by nagora · · Score: 1
      I discovered Opera five years ago, complete with tabs and everything.

      And, indeed, a search box, although I always just use the URL search prefix instead.

      TWW

      --
      "Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
  112. it's called "Gnomedex"... by jhcarnelian · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Those screenshots looks increasingly like Gnome and Firefox. So, I guess it's called "Gnomedex" because Microsoft is cloning the Gnome desktop for their next release of Windows?

    1. Re:it's called "Gnomedex"... by cqnn · · Score: 1

      Gnomedex was started as an offshoot from the
      http://www.lockergnome.com/ web site created
      by Chris Pirillo.

      IIRC, it was originally started as an attempt to draw interest in technology industries to Iowa and the midwest.

      http://www.gnomedex.com/history.phtml

  113. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Quit with the FUD. You can customize or remove the button (make it just an icon if the words bother you). And your second point is just plain not true: the layout is fine with the ad gone, and extremely customizable as well.

  114. RSS feeds for SPYWARE! by Festering+Leper · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Now your spyware and Browser Helper Objects can automatically keep themselves up to date based on RSS feeds!

    --
    if you want people to think you know what you are talking about, just put ".com" at the end of everything you say.com
  115. Gee, look at those icons by crusher-1 · · Score: 1

    Is it me? Or, does anyone else think the icons from the screenshot of IE7 looks alot like KDE Icons?

    Look at the home icon - stock KDE imho.

    Seems M$ is doing to Linux what they did with Apple. Apple came out with something cool - M$ ripped it of, branded it - and will swear up and down that it's their own "original" idea - hmmm! I smell another patent - something obscure, like a icon rendering protocol or two. lol.

  116. Wow look at the innovation! by gilesjuk · · Score: 1

    Widgets like MacOS and a browser bar like Firefox. Thank god we have Microsoft to bring us such innovation.

  117. Re:Wow by drsquare · · Score: 1

    When your browser crashes, and you open it again, if it uses tabs it can open all your pages again. It's as if it never went away. You can't do that with IE.

  118. a must by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I, for one, welcome our new IE 7 overlord!

  119. wow, this sucks. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Could this open some eyes and increase interest in alternative (Linux, Mac) offerings?

  120. Blatant rip-off by Mwongozi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So IE7's RSS support looks virtually identical to Safari's RSS support

    Why am I not surprised?

  121. Re:oh yeah firefox invented top right search uh hu by pmsyyz · · Score: 1

    i love opera, i recommend it to everyone, but i myself run NetCaptor and i hate when it doesnt get the recognition it deserves. most of the amazing features in opera were developed by NetCaptor first (tabbed browsing being the most significant)

    --
    Phillip
  122. Re:oh yeah firefox invented top right search uh hu by oSand · · Score: 2, Informative

    Actually, tabbed browsing was first appeared in Booklink's InternetWorks.

  123. yeah but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Could this open some eyes and increase interest in alternative (Linux, Mac) offerings??

  124. Why wait for Longhorn? by hermank · · Score: 2, Informative

    I am not talking to the release date of Longhorn. I am talking on the performance of applications on Longhorn.

    I am working on a computational intensive problem. With linux I can install ONLY the functions I need. I can even stop and uninstall all server to free memory and diskspace and make my program run faster.

    I really dont want to wait for my program fighting for getting more resources against some funny kernel extension like web access and RSS, which cannot be stopped.

    Maybe Microsoft have no interest on scientific arena, but, as the OS getting
    more bulky and inflexable, I serious doubt if Windows platform can survive apart from desktop and gamming.

  125. Compare and Contrast by Rosyna · · Score: 1

    I think it looks a lot more like Safari.

    IE7: http://www.flexbeta.net/gsurface/ie7/ie72.jpg

    Safari: http://www.unsanity.org/rosyna/imgs/safarirss.png

    Pretty much identical. Actually looks like MS is trying to figure out how to organize the right area so it doesn't look like such a blatant ripoff.

  126. And this is a new browser?! by mindmaster064 · · Score: 1

    RSS feeds, search within the browser, tabs? Why don't they just start bundling Firefox with Longhorn? :)

    Honestly, why bother coming out with a new product when your product does nothing new? More importantly what reason would Firefox users have to switch back to IE? A lot of people I've worked with have ditched IE completely mostly because they cannot control what software is installed into the browser and they also cannot use software that requires the amount of maintenance that you would expect only in caring for a newborn baby.

    Longhorn is really doing nothing that isn't available to users of W2K other than use more memory, and disk. When is the OS doing it's job well enough than most people are spending time improving other things? These are questions I ask when purchasing things and I am sure these are things others are thinking about as well.

    People are much more savvy about computing than they were a few years and just telling them they need a new OS without there being a real need for one may send a clear message to Microsoft, one that they aren't going to like and one their stockholders REALLY won't care for either.

    It all comes down to a simple point. Do I really need "Longhorn" or do you simply just think I need it? Currently, it doesn't do a damn thing that W2K, WinXP or even Linux couldn't do _right now_.

    So why bother? Most people aren't doing high performance computing, they don't need to squeek an extra 32 bits out of their 64 bit cpu. Even then, Windows Bloatware running on at 64 native will probably still run like Win95 on a 386. There just isn't really a point now is there?

    - Mindmaster

  127. Ah, finally catching up to Opera. by lisany · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Screenshots of Internet Explorer 7 reveal how Microsoft has added a search tool to the top right of the browsing window similar to the one found in Safari/Firefox.

    Opera has had that for years and predates firefox.
    Opera also has integrated RSS

    But that's okay, submitter. Opera is commrecial and not open source. ;)

  128. Microsoft wins game over. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Honestly they are taking the lead in many areas. Sorry but its the plain truth. No sarcasm in this comment whatsoever.

  129. There is already a slimmed version and a bloated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They are called Windows 2000 and Windows XP

  130. Magic! by courtarro · · Score: 1

    "Microsoft is also excited to introduce the magic RSS button, which disappears when clicked."

  131. Its from same company doing this right now by Ilgaz · · Score: 1

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8004316/

    http://video.msn.com/video/req/req.aspx?t=1&p=Sour ce_Nightly%20News&i=b94552bd-146d-4b44-8200-930e52 1ee6c5&rq=32&rf=

    At appears on OS X Tiger. Yes, the OS they kind of support, e.g. there is a official media player.

    As I have Omniweb (guys THEY are the ones invented RSS in browser), I kinda smiled and changed identity for MSNBC to Netscape 4.8 (windows), guess what? No!

    It wants IE 6 on Windows and actually ONLY compatible with it.

    So, RSS board or anything, time for an urgent meeting and declaration. Ask for declaration from them. That company can do ANYTHING, don't trust to RSS'es openness.

    They would ship it with total standard compliant RSS, keep a hole open on purpose and allow it to be haxored by virus/spyware than they would have a excellent excuse of raping the RFC.

    BTW , semi OT about windows media player. Just imagine the company you "hate" , aka Real networks really went out of business. Just think about it.

  132. RSS will be integrated into the heart of Longhorn by binkzz · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Is anyone else scared by this?

    How do you integrate RSS into the heart of your OS?

    Or more importantly, why?

    --
    'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
  133. Konq too by nurb432 · · Score: 1

    Konqueror has the 'integrated search bar' too ya know...

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  134. For the record, Apple didn't invent RSS in browser by Ilgaz · · Score: 1

    Its not a post against Apple or Safari. Just look at that movie:

    http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omniweb/gall ery/movies/07_rss.html (quicktime embedded of course)

    And this is screenshot

    http://www.omnigroup.com/images/images-5/features/ newsfeed.png

    What Apple did is, to take that feauture and really extend it, making a OS framework level RSS renderer (or whatever) that any coder, newbie, dashboard guy can use.

    Also Omniweb is a professionally coded, shareware browser, Safari is "free". Omni group is a legendary NeXT company and they don't tell anything against it. Lots of other developers use their documented frameworks which are free (for non pro use I guess)

    I wrote all above since its hugely different from Konfabulator thing, against misunderstanding. I still think Apple owes a "thank you" to those guys, as an Apple owner.

    What Microsoft does is, literally STEALING or, more politely "COPYING". I know Apple kinda jokes about Longhorn and believe Apple and MS does not "hate" each other but at least on RSS part, Microsoft stole it without shame.

    Also don't forget Apple does whatever they can to help opensource.

  135. Re:Wow by corsec67 · · Score: 1

    Yes, that computer has 1 GB of ram. And yet, I still get the "you are low on memory" message when I am testing my programs.

    --
    If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
  136. Longhorn is just a code name... by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 2, Funny

    When it is officially released, they're going to call it Windows Me 2... which will of course be pronounced "Windows, Me too!"

    --
    You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
  137. Re:oh yeah firefox invented top right search uh hu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Doesn't opera do that to itself by advertising itself as IE?

  138. Re:oh yeah firefox invented top right search uh hu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Opera suffers self inflicted wounds by claiming to be IE *all the time* to get around stupid web design instead of adding something an extra "bug" button to get around stupid web page but it is a shame to see cluess Firefox fanboys making stupid claims about innovation when Opera and others had the same features longer before Firefox.

  139. Great news for Firefox! by salesgeek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Microsoft didn't get it: the reason Firefox is so damn good is that it's a better browser than IE. I think MS marketing looked at the eyecandy (search box, tabs, Live Bookmarks) and thought that this FireFox was more like some of the customized versions of IE that are out there. They totally missed out the power that Gecko, XUL and the amazingly simple extension system bring.

    Firefox renders correctly, it's simple to use and extensions are just plain fun and useful. The user has more control and is literally safer than with IE. Sure there are exploits found, but they are generally fixed quickly and users are alerted to upgrade.

    Then there's that whole extensible user interface...

    --
    -- $G
    1. Re:Great news for Firefox! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Firefox renders correctly"

      No offense, but as nice as Firefox is, its rendering engine still blows copared to IE, which is one of IE's strengths.

    2. Re:Great news for Firefox! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This may be true. While I use FF daily as my browser, I couldn't sell my sister on it because apparently some sites 23.98she frequents don't render correctly (she says). This is after I cleaned >300 spyware and a trojan off her PC. I also explained how those sites may not be following web standards. Of course she doesn't care about "security", or standards. She still uses IE.

    3. Re:Great news for Firefox! by Maian · · Score: 1
      No offense, but as nice as Firefox is, its rendering engine still blows copared to IE, which is one of IE's strengths.
      No offense, but IE doesn't even render standard sites properly. How the heck is that a good rendering engine?

      Do you realize how many hacks it takes just to get an advanced site design to work in IE?
  140. Re:oh yeah firefox invented top right search uh hu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Tons of Firefox extensions exist only to add features that take up double the memory and are half the quickness of things that Opera has built in.

    Double the memory, half the speed, and an infinitely lower price.

    People don't use Firefox instead of Opera because it's better. They use it because it's free. And no, as far as most people are concerned, adware != free.

    Hey, if Opera wants to waste their money acting as a professional browser research wing for Mozilla, well, I'm not complaining... ;)

  141. More like borrowed from Opera. by MtViewGuy · · Score: 1

    If you look at Firefox, the Maxthon and Avant Browser shell programs for Internet Explorer, and now Internet Explorer 7.0, they all share one thing in common: they all borrowed Opera's combination of address and search bars at the top of the browser.

  142. When they say "screenshots"... by aaamr · · Score: 1

    ... they really mean screenshots! When was the last time you saw a screenshot that was literally a digital photograph of someone's monitor? :-)

    1. Re:When they say "screenshots"... by supertoad · · Score: 1

      it's not a monitor. somebody took pics of the wall they were projecting the image onto

  143. the kitchen sink? by schuster · · Score: 1

    so what features aren't planned for longhorn?

    --
    --- Don't ever trust a woman until she's dead- B.B. King
  144. No! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Those aren't IE7 screenshots, what kind of FUD and disinformation is this on this site?

  145. Horseshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We're talking screenshots (not even a demo) of a non-existant product running on a non-existant product.

    C'mon guys, if this was about a "Phantom game console" you'd be all over it...

  146. Re:oh yeah firefox invented top right search uh hu by benpharr · · Score: 1

    Yes, but Firefox popularized it. Opera is a good browser, but it isn't as popular as Firefox.

    Ben

  147. Butthead once told Beavis... by Ill_At_Ease · · Score: 1

    "Ya know Beavis, you can't polish a terd."

  148. extending should be easy for the masters by sgt+scrub · · Score: 1

    The most difficult part of creating software is finding the bugs. The most difficult part of extending a piece of software is incorporating all of the things that people wanted without creating new bugs. With Microsofts extensive experience with extending software they might be able to do it correctly this time.

    --
    Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
  149. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  150. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 0

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  151. Silly really by jav1231 · · Score: 1

    This is smart. By delaying the release of both Longhorn and IE7 they'e been able to incorperate technology that we've all been using for months or a year. What it will give them is time to bastardize it, which they will no doubt do. This is why stories like this are somewhat important, so other companies can have some idea of what they are up to and not be blindsided by M$ "innovation."
    Frankly, I give about as much of a $hit about Longhorn as I do my next defication and less about IE7. What's sad is people will lap this up like thirsty dogs when it's released.

  152. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  153. Over a Year too Late by 00+Agent+Kid · · Score: 1

    I see that Internet Explorer is slowly catching up to other browsers such as Firefox and Opera. The problem is that I'm using Firefox now, and will continue to use it for the next year at least. And then Microsoft is going to release their new browser after I've used Firefox for (at that time it will be) two years. I won't see any reason to switch after using a browser with the same features for that long.

    --
    INACTIVE ACCOUNT
  154. Hm ... Safari for Windows? by Durandal64 · · Score: 1

    I'd need better screenshots to really say, but the new IE looks a hell of a lot like Safari, right down to the RSS interface. The window style looks like a combination of iTunes for Windows and Safari. And why the hell is the menubar below the tab bar?

  155. All MS needs to do to pass Firefox/Mozilla ... by Qbertino · · Score: 1

    ... in 5 days is activate "Show tabs all the time" and "Open in background in a new tab upon middle click" by default in IE 7.
    Because the Mozilla / Firefox people are to slowpoky/conservative to do this, MS has a chance here.
    But with the default settings of Outlook being nearly even more crappy than outlook itself I actually don't expect them to be that innovative.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
  156. Re:oh yeah firefox invented top right search uh hu by KarmaMB84 · · Score: 1

    Microsoft has had a top-right search bar (for help) in Office for a while now. Visual Studio has been capable of tabbed browsing (why would a dev tool have this?) for a while too. Perhaps the IE team is actually stealing ideas from the Office and Visual Studio teams!

  157. what by suezz · · Score: 1

    innovation - I can't believe they are coming out with this - I am so glad I am going to switch today.
    oh wait it's not out yet - guess I have to stick firefox and use their rss feeds - hey wait why was switching in the first place - Oh ya I remember I was hoping they would also have drm that only the riaa would be proud of.

  158. Re:Wow by Seumas · · Score: 1

    If you say so. Tabs aren't "overhyped". They're just highly-praised. There's a big difference. See, if you sit someone down at a computer with a browser that does tabbed browsing and don't say a word to them, they will quickly become enamoured with the utility of them and eventually come to hate browsing without them. No hyping. No brain-washing. No shoving it in their face. Just give them a browser that does it.

    Maybe windows are great for simple minds, but I tend to have a good dozen tabs open for work stuff, another dozen for my personal stuff (server/site/webmail/etc) and maybe a half dozen for various surfings throughout the day. Would I rather have one or two windows with a couple dozen tabs total? Or would I rather have 30 windows open?

    I guess when you write code, you have a seperate IDE open for every file you're working on. And when you're using your email, you just have 1500 windows open instead of folders to hold your mail into some sort of cohesive space. And when you are chatting, you have 12 windows open to chat to 12 different people.

    Tabs are merely the progression of ordered working spaces that you have and use (and always have) in every other environment and aspect of computing and surfing before, except now it's in the browser.

    The first time I heard about tabbed browsing, I didn't even have to think about it or try it or listen to hype. I just saw a small screenshot and my brain said "Oh, yeah. Duh - that makes so much sense!".

    Anyway, I wasn't bemoaning JWZ. I don't dislike the guy and have actually started visiting his site since he started covering Apple stuff the same week I bought my new 17" Powerbook and my 30" ACD. I just think that saying tabs are the worst idea ever (or whatever) is really absurd. The fact that so many people (on every browser platform) use them and wouldn't trade them for anything speaks to their functionality.

    Oh. I can think of far more over-hyped things that are far bigger pieces of crap. Flickr, Livejournal, Blogging, cell phones .MAC accounts, .xxx/.info/.biz/.home TLD and podcasting for starters.

    Ooh. Actually, this would make a great Ask Slashdot. I'd like to see what everyone lists as the most overhyped items of the last year or so is. :)

  159. You know, for Open Source fans.... by Donniedarkness · · Score: 1

    we sure do pay a lot of attention to Microsoft... As a matter of fact, I'm pretty excited to see this.

    --
    Earn a % of cash back from Newegg, Tiger Direct, Walmart.com, and more: http://www.mrrebates.com?refid=458505
  160. RSS almost as useful as ADBLOCK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If MS wanted to copy the best feature of FF, then they would copy the ADBLOCK extension to FireFox.

    Adblock gives me such a wonderful experience on the web, with so many ads, spurious frames, unnecessary javascripts blocked, that I can focus on the content I seek, rather than the webtrash that comes along for the ride.

    As long as MS doesn't steal the ADBLOCK technology, they haven't grabbed the killer App from FireFox.

  161. Re:oh yeah firefox invented top right search uh hu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    oh no! Microsoft stealing ideas!

  162. Disk speeds by tylernt · · Score: 1

    Load time isn't just dependant on RAM and CPU speed. The bottleneck is the disk! I would contend that an IDE machine with 1GHz/256MB/RAID-1 or RAID-0 will outperform a 2GHz/512MB/single drive system, as far as boot and load times are concerned. Especially if we are using 7,200rpm drives.

    --
    DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
  163. Re:oh yeah firefox invented top right search uh hu by pmsyyz · · Score: 1

    compare the text of my reply to the parent. It's a joke.

    --
    Phillip
  164. Windows nippy at 256M? NOT. by Werrismys · · Score: 1
    If it's not networked, if it has no service packs installed, If it has no anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-whatever installed - then yes it's faster than your typical gnomebloatware linuz desktop.

    In real environment that kind of winblows platform would be nearly unusable.

    --
    'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
  165. Why people do not use shortcuts by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    yes, I'm aware of the shortcut keys, but few non-weenies use them [but what non-weenie uses a terminal, anyway?

    The reason Windows owners do not use shortcuts a lot of the time is because they don't work everywhere, so they learn quickly they cannot rely on them - I find it funny that Ctrl+Insert and Shift+Insert work more often than Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V on Windows (like dialog boxes)!!! People get REAL excited when I tell them about the other keys that mostly work - even a lot of non-weenies.

    I would say a majority of Mac users actually use the copy keys because they are more likley to work. In fact I can't think of a single Mac user I know who does not use them, including a mix of non-weenies - one of the great myths is that only geeks prefer keyboard shortcuts, that simply is not the case. If there is a faster way to get something done most people are plenty happy to take advantage of it when the find out.

    Personally I dislike menus in Windows because even if they are closer, it's just easier to flick the mouse to the top of the screen instead of an exact location on a window.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  166. feeds... by null-sRc · · Score: 1

    porn feeds?

    this is the same old internet

    --
    -judging another only defines yourself
  167. ....It's not a copy, it's a feature! by Lord+Turbine · · Score: 1

    ....dude.... it's.... FIREFOX. Look at it! It's Firefox for poor people and Bill Gates worshippers! Oh my God! LOLlerskates! Somebody's breaking some type of patent... or copyright.... or something! And it's got a worse looking interface than IE 5 for the Mac! AAAAAAHHHHH!

    --
    Monkeys... own..... ASCII Slashdot: |/.|
  168. MS had to add RSS because by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    RSS is in Safari. RSS is now a checkbox item in comparison to OS X. It looks to me like MS is rightfully concerned about companies _really_ comparing OS X to Windows by the time Longhorn is released.

  169. Re:oh yeah firefox invented top right search uh hu by whitehatlurker · · Score: 1
    Oh no, Microsoft will popularise it. Firefox is a good browser, but isn't as popular as Microsoft Internet Explorer.

    What other browsers (non-IE) do / have done don't matter to the unwashed masses of internet abusers.

    And yes, I am an Opera fan.

    --
    .. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
  170. Re:oh yeah firefox invented top right search uh hu by Durinthal · · Score: 1

    Okay, with only two extensions installed (adblock and noscript), one Firefox window open with 18 tabs takes up a third of the memory (~69MB) that my Opera window with 7 tabs does (~207MB). So I guess I could afford to install a few more memory-hogging extensions then.