Slashdot Mirror
Yahoo Keeps Offering Real; Fox Now Allows Linux
Jason Shindler writes "Looks like Yahoo! is back on the "real" bandwagon -- they will continue offering Real as an option to broadcast.com customers. Slashdot earlier reported that they were switching exclusively to Windows Media Player (yuck!)" Internetnews.com story here. Another quick followup: Fox got lambasted here on Slashdot earlier this month for denying www.fox.com access to people who don't use Windows or Mac operating systems. Later they apologized and said they'd fix the problem. They have kept their word. Thanks, Fox people!
It's nice to see that The Big Guys(TM) do listen to the community once in a while.
May other corporations follow this precedent!
Well, they managed to fix their javascript to allow Netscape for Linux get in.
One more problem. I usually leave javascript off to avoid popups, which I hate. No javascript == blank page.
I just checked in Lynx and got the same thing.
Yet again, many blind and low bandwith are locked out of a site.
I hate "web designers."
Now, let's all behave like the grownups we are: everyone who sent them an harrassing email after the "fox hates linux" story, send them a very nice email now thanking them for considering our suggestions.
;)
No longer can people who obviously dont know a thing about linux or have ignored it because it seemed unimportant at the time (fox webdesigners, ahem) continue to IGNORE linux.
Fox.com never ignored Linux - right from the start they wanted to make their site accessible by every browser and every platform - they simply needed time to get to that stage (at least that's what it says in the article).
This is just one of many signals that linux is being accepted into the mainstream, EVEN if its by force.
No it isn't - as Fox said, they wanted accessibility by everyone. Linux supporters had zero impact on fox's decision since they were already going to support Linux in the first place. Nobody forced anyone to do anything.
The reason I'm having a go at you (in a friendly way ;) is that while it is great that you are an avid Linux supporter, you sound like one with a big inferiority complex.
Relax, Linux is destined to take it's place amongst the big guns of the OS marketplace - you don't do the Linux camp any favours by sounding fanatical.
Cheers.
I've noticed a lot of places that offered RealAudio streaming now converted to Windows Media Player (i.e. a local radio station), which means that I wouldn't be able to listen to it unless I use Windows (or Mac, if they do have such a port -- note they have money invested into Apple). That's why it's wrong. Plus, RealPlayer works well under NATs, which WMP could hardly stream @28.8Kbps on Cable.
I haven't seen anything about MPEG-4, but nevertheless it's an open standard and will most likely have an open source library with support for it, if there isn't one already. Lastly, the Windows Media Player Features page doesn't mention anything about MPEG-4, either.
Great. Now we're not forced into using a crappy product from the MS monopoly. Instead, we can use a crappy trojan horse from a DIFFERENT lying, contract-breaking, spamming sleazball company.
Wonderful.
As long as I've got a MS OS on any of my computers, I'll use their product. I will never let RealAnything near one of my systems again, now that they've proven to be a bunch of thieving criminals.
Anyone want to write a good, robust, multi-platform streaming audio player? I'd pay money (yes, cash!) for that.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
There are far too many "web programmers" who just graduated from a Macromedia course, just installed Frontpage 2000, or just purchased Javascript for dummies that are working on high profile sites. Sometimes I like flash and flair, but when done right it should not hinder non-graphical browsing of a site. IT CAN BE DONE - you just need to know more about text and graphic html rendering and know when to NOT add yet another spinning whirlygig and when not to use javascript or java
If the site doesn't work under lynx, there's a problem. The main page should at least properly autodetect browser type or offer different content options.
Better yet, don't use features that would require a particular browser version, or at least don't use feature that only work in the latest verison on $BROWSER with latest version of $PLUGIN
There's going to be significantly less flash, flair, and graphics on sites in the upcoming future to support mobile users using WAP on PDAs to access the internet wirelessly over low speed connections and displaying on small screens.
Render your non-portable html on that!
How to attract a whole bunch of people to your corporate web site:
;-)
1) Block Linux users, calling them "garbage".
2) Tell Slashdot you've done this.
3) Give the Slashdot readers time to stew.
4) Stop blocking Linux users.
5) Let Slashdot know of the change.
Wow! Look at all those hits!
You know, they probably copied that code piece from somewhere else. The "garbage" was someone's way of saying, "the variable hasn't been set".
This has been addressed many times before, but apparently with no result.. You don't have call every Microsoft product a piece of crap just be because it has been made by that, you know, evil company. That is one the biggest reasons that makes Linux and whole OSS community look like a bunch of hippies to many people. Going open source (even if not fully GPL compliant) is huge leap of faith to companies, why make it any harder?
Whether or not you agree with the Department of Justice, their accusations only pertain to desktop computing, not servers. There's absolutely no way that anyone could accuse Microsoft of having a server monopoly.
The hypocrisy around here about Microsoft's bundling things with NT/2000 Server is pretty astounding. One minute, Slashdotters are telling us that NT Server is a horrible value. The next minute, they bitch whenever Microsoft adds something to increase the value of NT Server. Make up your minds, please.
Just as Sun can decide to add anything they want to their operating systems, so can Microsoft with NT/2000 Server. If they want, they can make it so that it has zero compatibility with any Unix out there. If the customer or developer decides they don't like it, they can pick a different OS to use or develop for. In case anyone hasn't noticed, Microsoft has a pretty good track record of getting people to choose theirs.
Ya know, for telling everyone that GNU/Linux is going to dominate the world, an awful lot of you sure seem concerned whenever Microsoft gives away something to its customers. I guess only the holy apostles of the GNU movement are supposed to ever get anything for free.
Stop the presses and call in the DoJ!!
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail
They too are sucking very badly, ie:
"To experience Britannica.com, you'll need a more recent version (version 4.0 or higher) of your Web browser."
And the code they use:
What *INSANE* person wrote this? Basically it says that whatever browser you have, if it reports version two or three, then it's not good enough! I'm running Opera and it works just fine, when one disables scripting or hack the executable to present itself as version '4'.
Another way around this is to query their database 'directly', something like this:
<form method="get" action="http://search.britannica.com/bcom/search/r esults/1,5843,,00.html" name="BasicSearch" onsubmit="return submitBasicSearch()"> <input type="hidden" name="chooseSearch" value="0"></input> Encyclopæda Britannica: <input type="text" name="p_query0" size="35"></input> <input type=submit value="Find"></input> </form>
Belief is the currency of delusion.
--
That was before I realised I was trapped in the past. In the past, the HTML was just a markup language and the Internet merely a big library of text documents ... sorry, documents with hyperlinks.
Most things evolve over time and that is what has happened with the Internet. Sure, non-graphical browser compatible pages have a place, but for entertainment sites (that is the business fox is in), plain non-graphic sites are about as entertaining as ... well ... as plain text documents.
So if a site doesn't render properly in a text browser - who cares?!? Times have moved on - the Internet isn't about text anymore, it is about entertainment, aesthetics, convenience and ease of use. To the common person, text is (for the most part) the exact opposite of these values.
I also disagree with your point about WAP on PDA's. They will be no less flash or flair when WAP takes off (and it will take off). I predict that most sites will optimise certain sections of their sites for WAP and leave the rest with all the gee-wiz graphic/Javascript stuff.
For example, a movie site will have a sections which contains the movie sessions times and is optimised for WAP. The rest of the site with movie trailers, reviews etc. will be the same as it is now.
Let's take a reality check: If I wanted to watch Seinfeld, I wouldn't choose to watch it on a small portable handheld TV if I could watch it on a 20" TV. Similary, most people would prefer to surf the Net on a computer/TV screen rather than a 3" by 4" Palm V screen - people will choose the most appropriate tool for the application.
Anyway, to get to the end of my long-winded spiel, my point is that to design a purely 'flash and flair' site is no crime. It is simply catering to what the markets wants and making use of the technology in it's current evolved state.
Those that complain that sites should be viewable in a text browser all the time simply show that they haven't understood the transformation that the Internet has undergone since it first went 'public' (and I mean that in the nicest possible way :)!
Cheers.
I'll say that RealNetworks dodged a major bullet over this one.
If Yahoo! Broadcast.com had dropped RealPlayer support, that could have been a deadly blow against Real. That's because by far, it is the most popular site for streaming media on the Internet, and losing the support of Broadcast.com would have dramatically reduced the demand for Real's products.
Why do I have this feeling that RealNetworks cut a very sweetheart deal for streaming media servers that supports the Real G2 format?
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
"I was working at my box and listening to CNN. A subordinate clause spoken there indicated that Microsoft intends to push Windows Media Player over mp3 because of the copyright protections it affords. I tried to find a press release on microsoft.com, but found very little. What I did find were claims to compression superiority over mp3 and general references to pay-per-view media formats and the like. The compressi on stats were based on conversions of WAV's and PCM's to both formats with Microsoft claiming 50% greater compression at the same quality level. The pay-per-view idea reminds me of RMS's 'Right to Read' essay. Regardless of what happens with Yahoo! and Real Networks, if an open source competitor doesn't appear, this could threaten the viability of free software in the desktop market."
When I cut, pasted and previewed just now, I found errors in what was displayed. Such as the failure to acknowledge the closing tag at 'claims'. I kluged it for this post. There was also a stray caret-M which MS uses for EOL. I wonder why we haven't seen recent sources for slashdot.
Back before most people had even heard of the Internet (and before the web was widely known) I was doing a lot more than text on it. Such as playing chess in real time, and playing a (now defunct) Mac game called bolo.
Of course there was a huge text focus, think Usenet, but it has not been strictly text for a very long time.
Regards,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Besides the all the errors with thinking the web is the internet, you also forgot that someone who is blind or uses some kind of audio "reader" to browse web pages needs a certin amount of text in the page.
Here is another news flash, a page can contain all the flashy, tastless, macromedia crap you want, and still have text support.
And you are wrong on the point about FOX catering to the needs of their customers. Appearently they recieved enough complaints that they decided to change the accessibility of their site so that everyone can view it. Same rational you gave, with the opposite result.
Finkployd
I never said that all text should be removed from a web page - I was merely commenting that the argument that web pages should be just as accessible for text browsers is bunk.
A balance is needed in everything and a site purely composed of "Macromedia crap" as you put would indeed be just that ... crap.
But just like a blind person may listen to the TV and glean some information from the shows, they still miss the whole experience. Yet no-one complains that all TV shows should be fully 'backward' compatible so that blind people don't miss out.
And you are wrong on the point about FOX catering to the needs of their customers. Appearently they recieved enough complaints that they decided to change the accessibility of their site so that everyone can view it.
If you read the article, Fox.com always intended to make their site accessible by any browser on any platform. It was simply that they had time constraints and so released the site initially with only IE and Netscape support. So fox.com changed nothing as a result of the complaints.
Cheers.
The problem might be Netscape. Netscape doesn't recognize stylesheets unless JavaScript is turned on. It's the number one problem as far as I'm concerned.
Good question about the CD's. Why do they have to mix the data and software?
On a related note, I keep wondering what kind of crap Gates is going to pull with Corbis. Who ever heard of such a thing as exclusive rights to digital reproductions of great works of art? Talk about claiming to own things you didn't create, hmph!
I'm not advocating this; it's just something people need to think about, because it's starting to happen. Lynx compliance is the wave of the future. You can still do your fancy stuff; but you had better supply "equivalent" content that can be viewed in lynx.
1. They didn't allow us into the site.
/. community" and other such things.
2. We complained.
3. They promised a fix.
4. A fix was mad.
5. People are complaining about this being a wa to "use the
This last part sucks big time. Sure it's probably true but you need to be responsible. If you make a threat of force with accompanying demands then once those demands are met the argument has essentially ended.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Is Linux 50% of the market? Of course not, but it is positively absurd to try to claim that it is less than a quarter percent.
I think it's funny that the 'flash and flair' stuff is somehow interpreted as being more modern "technology" than HTML.
All this plugin stuff is really just a web programmer's way of executing code on your machine. Of course, no one really wants to download and execute binaries, so there's pressure to settle on a relatively small number on binary libraries (plugins), and higher-level ways of calling them, like scripting languages. (And then there's the Microsoft camp with ActiveX who actually does want to just send you binary code.) But what it comes down to is that they want to run a "demo" type program on your computer.
That isn't "technology in it's current evolved state" -- it's retro! You could (and people did) do that back in the 80s BBS scene. Just zmodem the program down to your machine and run it. If Fox wanted to do their current "web site" with 1988-level technology, they easily could (except for bandwidth issues). Just tell people the Fox BBS phone number instead of the URL, and then have them download specialized binaries that play X-Files animations or whatever.
The technological breakthrough was that someone realized that we didn't need to do things like that anymore. Users just need one binary that can serve as a viewer for content that is stored in a universal and standardized form. The power and benefits of this approach (performance, security, platform independence, etc) turned out to be immense.
I see the stereotypical Macromedia "web programmers" as luddites who have rejected this level of technology, because they just couldn't figure out a way to make it work for them. They think back to how cool the Amiga "EuroDemoes" of the 80s were, and want to recreate the phenomenon. Their web sites are actually quite sparse and boring places, whose purpose is really just to give people a place to download their demo from.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
They'd always planned to have their site accessible to all browsers & platforms, they just hadn't finished the entrance page yet.
I don't know why people think that Fox gave in to the 'pressure' from the community, unless, maybe, people haven't been reading the articles.
The other bit about realplayer/windows media might be another case, but having not read those articles I know I'm not in a position to comment.
--Parity
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.