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Microsoft Launches IT Superhero Comic
willdavid writes "Paul McDougall reports in InformationWeek on Microsoft's new online comic. The Heroes Happen Here comic strips are being created by Jordan Gorfinkel, a former DC Comics editor who helped revitalize the Batman series. 'Tech workers who in the middle of the night fix a downed server or take on a computer virus don't really have extraordinary powers. It just seems that way. But a new comic book has debuted in which IT pros literally are superheroes. The daily Web comic, called Heroes Happen Here, features tech savvy crime fighters like Lord Firewall, who "stands between chaos and order" and says things like "begone vermin!"'" And because it's never easy, in order to read the archives of the comic you're going to need to install Microsoft's Silverlight.
I try to view the comic archives. Then it seems that it requires Silverlight, so I click the 'get silverlight' thing. Then eventually I'm imformed that my operating system/browser (Windows 2000/Firefox) combination is not supported. How about that.
Real geeks have XKCD, Dilbert and BOFH to amuse them among other things.
Actually, I've got the same system (Slack 12, Firefox 2.0.x) and if you click on the RSS feeds, it shows them all just fine. I don't have any random addons, either.
Who sould have thunk?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_(runtime)
(Silverlight for unix-like env.)
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/nbbw.cgi?Gw=wanted+comic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanted_(comic_book)
A Wikipedia search came up with this...
With Vista, Windows Update is a separate program, no longer done through IE.
Now if only there were an open scalable vector graphics [w3.org] format that they could have used instead... if only...
So actually it is as dumb as it sounds then.
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
http://blogs.technet.com/hhh_comic/default.aspx
They just have some stupid browser sniffing in place to serve you the 'right' license agreement depending on your OS (or more precisely depending on the OS advertised by your User Agent).
As a linux user, i just get a blank page (not even an error message).
A diff between the Windows and OSX licenses doesn't show any difference though (only the name of the product in the title differs).
Looks like static jpgs to me
http://www.microsoft.com/heroeshappenhere/comicviewer/Images/Week1_Day1_full.jpg
Come as you are, do what you must, be who you will.
You must have read the license with a PC. I'm using FireFox on a Mac - when I clicked the link to read the license agreement, I was directed to a page with "MICROSOFT SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS FOR FIREFOX 1.5+ AND SAFARI ON MACINTOSH OSX 10.4+". See http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/license-mac.aspx
/K
...Apparently i have reached a point where I literally have too much time on my hands. I know this becuase I took enough time to take a look at the new comic strip (being a fan of Batman), hoping Jordan Gorfinkel might actually deliver some creativity. Um, looks like the same crew that dreamed up Windows ME (now known as Vista) are the (ahem) talent responsible for the story line.
Hands down the absolute worst abuse of a noble medium I have ever witnessed in my 39 years, and 2 min of my life that would have been better spent reading U.S. tax code from 1977.
It is so absolutely stereotypically / artificially 'geeked out' that it completely fails to generate any humor amid contrived situations riddled with tech jargon -- ha ha ha, tech people can understand the terms so they MUST find it funny, right? Yawn.
Ok, ok, sorry for the ramble, but it was literally SO bad I just had to say something.
The drawing is nicely done, the colors are just right. But heck. this thing is not funny, is not even vaguely interesting enough to be read.
Your ad could be here!
You don't need silverlight, silverlight just shows static jpg images that are also on the website:
http://www.microsoft.com/heroeshappenhere/comicviewer/Images/Week1_Day1_full.jpg
http://www.microsoft.com/heroeshappenhere/comicviewer/Images/Week1_Day2_full.jpg
http://www.microsoft.com/heroeshappenhere/comicviewer/Images/Week1_Day3_full.jpg
Your argument assumes Moonlight competes with Silverlight, but is appears false.: Microsoft engineers have collaborated with those from Novell to improve Moonlight, and Microsoft has officially recognized Moonlight. Such a thing would of course never happen with Wine or Google Docs, because those in fact are competition.