We're fairly confident that we can work something out. MS still wants people to connect to their network. They only hurt by losing Linux users. This is not the first time we've seen such a thing. Don't worry about it until we worry about it;)
Before this ends up causing us more trouble than we need, please note that when Slashdot said we are optimistic that we can connect without a license, that is far from our plans.
As stated on the site, it may be possible for people to find a way to connect without a license in the future, but if this is something that will cause us legal problems, we will NOT do it. We will, however, look into other options, such as acquiring a license from Microsoft, depending on the requirements for a license.
If we cannot use it legally, we will likely drop support.
I just put up a page that describes the situation slightly and mentions what we can and can't do about it. Please read it before asking us on IRC. We're getting flooded with questions.
Re:I'm disappointed with their choice of OPN
on
DotGNU Meet-a-thon
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
JSeymour (the "Anonymous Coward" who posted the message I am replying to) is quite correct. As a person running one of the "for lilo" petitions, I have received some fake posts, which are rather degrading. Not towards lilo, as he didn't post it, but towards the people who posted. I then got e-mails from people who told me to take down the petition, because lilo should leave OPN.
This is a very immature attitude. If you do not like lilo or OPN, go use one of the many alternative IRC networks. Nobody is forcing anybody to be here, and nobody is forcing anybody to pay. Many of us do not mind helping out lilo, and I think it's a shame that a group of people, who disagree on IRC politics, must resort to such disgraceful tricks to try to make other people believe lilo is a bad person. Get to know him, read up on the philosophy, and understand what he's trying to do. If you still disagree, fine. He isn't going to k-line you, ban you, or quiet you for that. He will ban you or quiet you for trolling in #openprojects. And no, the people who have gone in there to express their opinions on lilo are not all trolls, but many are, and those are the ones that end up being silenced... Not k-lined.
As always, it is best to research what you're boycotting or complaining about before you start to cause a public scene. It is also important to do research before just believing the posts of a few people on a public forum.
Remember that these are people, like everybody else, and they have differing opinions. How they express them is what separates a troll from a person with an opinion. Many people left OPN peacefully, and on their own will, and have not caused any problems whatsoever. These are the people with opinions. The people who created IRC networks with the purpose of forcing a negative reputation upon lilo or the other people on the network are the trolls. These are also the people spreading such misinformation as "threatening to K-Line them from the network unless they conform with his views and contribute to his salary."
While I'm on that subject, I would also like to point out that lilo is not asking for a salary. He had asked for some donations so that he wouldn't have to live on the streets. People are telling him to shut up and get a job. Well, he has gotten a job. He is working at this, but because of past debts, contributions are helpful. Nobody has to contribute, but many people did, and it has helped him a lot. Remember that this is a community, and one is encouraged to help another, but not required. Please don't bash a person who, as even many of the trolls have admitted, has done a lot of good for open source projects.
Wow, JSeymour is lilo? Very interesting, since I've known JSeymour through the Gaim project for awhile now, and I'm very sure he is not lilo. here's the proper whois:
--- [JSeymour] (934-ident-@jimsun.linxnet.com) : JSeymour --- [JSeymour] #OpenProjects #gaim --- [JSeymour] irc.openprojects.net:http://www.openprojects.net/ --- JSeymour:is an identified user --- [JSeymour] idle 00:00:39, signon: Sat Jun 29 04:05:19 --- [JSeymour] End of WHOIS list.
If you want to prove some kind of point, do it logically, not with deceptive posts and misinformation.
I've had problems with Palms and Handsprings. About a year ago, I decided to finally buy a Palm. I went with the Palm Vx, which worked very well for a short period of time. Then the buttons stopped working correctly. They would get stuck, or they would seem to press themselves, or one button would act as another. I took it back to Office Depot (great people there, they now get most of my business) and they happily gave me a new one. That one also had similar problems, so I got another one from them. It also had the same problems.
Very annoying. I gave up on the Vx's, but decided to try the Palm IIIc. I bought one of those, and I couldn't tap on the screen very well. With brightness over about 5%, it wouldn't register taps at all, and below 5%, it was very.. wiggly. I loaded a paint program and kept the stylus at one location, and dots flew everywhere. I took it back and got another. This one wouldn't even register any activity at any brightness level.
This is where Office Depot truly stood out among the companies in town. They took it back and, at our request, gave us back the money. They didn't even try to get us to try another model, and didn't tell us we would only get in-store credit. They knew we were having the problems, as they would test some of the Palms that were returned and discovered I was telling the truth.
I then went over to Handspring, and bought an Edge. This worked for a few months, and then died one day. Any screen tap would register as a tap in the lower-left corner of the screen, simulating a Menu button click. This could not be fixed with hard resets, and it turned out that several other people had the same problem.
I sent it to Handspring and they gave me a new one. This one had dead pixels (it was a black and white PDA, btw), sound problems, and other issues. I sent it back, and got a new one. Similar problems. I've gone through 6 Visor Edges so far. The latest works, but I'm so tired of it and I know I can't rely on it. It's currently sitting in a safe place, with no charge.
I had decided to buy a Sharp Zaurus (again, from Office Depot), and the thing works so beautifully. I finally feel confident with my PDA, and I can write my own software without having to work with the horrible PalmOS API.
Palm and Handspring are no longer getting my business. From now on, I think I'll buy from Sharp and other larger companies.
People are more than welcome to test it! Just keep in mind that it is not ready for daily use quite yet. It's almost there, but not quite. Feel free to join the listservs if you want to keep up on development, ask questions, or contribute to anything.
I know I'll get moderated down for saying this, but this seems to be a problem lately. Mis-information.
The article does not say that HTTP's days are numbered. They are simply saying that HTTP does not work for RPC, and they are completely correct. If I may quote from Dan Box, the.Net engineer:
"However, there is nothing wrong with HTTP per se, as its ubiquity and high dependability means it is the only way to get an a reliable end-to-end connection over the Internet"
That doesn't sound to me like he's trying to get rid of HTTP, or that it's going away.
HTTP is perfect for what it is used for, but when you get into things where you need real-time processing of data both ways, HTTP simply does not work well. This is all that Dan Box is saying.
Remember folks, just because it's Microsoft does not mean they are always wrong or evil.
A big assembly dump isn't as easy to read as nicely formatted and commented sourcecode:) However, I doubt anybody petitioning for this realized that it's all in assembly. It's not exactly common knowledge.
I suspect the drivers are specific to DESQview/X. I also kind of doubt that the drivers work in Windows 95, but I could be wrong. I've never attempted it, but I think I remember reading about failed attempts.
Oh, and to all the people who think that DESQview/X could be useful in WINE... DESQview/X never ran Windows programs. It could run Windows 3.0 or lower (or Windows 3.1 in real mode) inside a DESQview/X window, much like DESQview could. It also, I believe, had a display driver for Windows to allow Windows apps to run across the network in a DESQview/X window. However, no emulation ever took place.
My uncle, Gary Pope, was co-founder of Quarterdeck, and did development on all versions of QEMM and DESQview. Unfortunately, he does not have the sourcecode to DESQview anymore, as he gave up all rights to it when he retired. However, he has been able to share with me some of the internals of DESQview and DESQview/X. I won't get into much of them, but to all the people who are hoping to get some useful code they can copy and paste into their own programs by signing the petition, you may be disappointed.
The sourcecode to DESQview/X is (at least for the most part) in Assembly. It was the only way they could create a full X environment that could fit on a couple floppies and take so little RAM. I know previous versions used a language that Gary Pope wrote called SYMPL, which was lisp-based and provided the back-end functionality for the multitasking on 8088 processors in the original DESQ and DESQview.
So, most of the code, if it is ever released, may not be completely usable to most people. It would still be an interesting read, however, and I signed the petition almost a year ago.
Another good source of information on DESQview is the newsgroup comp.os.msdos.desqview. It seems to be pretty active, and has some good information on using DESQview.
DESQview and DESQview/X were great products. Have fun:)
Open source is great. I fully support companies opening the source to products. The only problem is, when you have a company running a large open source service such as SourceForge, which currently has 29,275 hosted projects and 291,392 users, it starts to cost money. You have to pay for hardware, electricity, bandwidth, staff, all the computers they add to the Compile Farm..
If they can sell proprietary, closed-source extensions to businesses and keep SourceForge running, I consider that acceptable. It's better than the alternative, which is to have a SourceForge that's a drain on money.
VA dropped Linux from their name, dropped their server line, and is no longer fully about open source, but at least they're keeping SourceForge running, one way or the other.
There are plenty of snapshots. Check out CVS. Many of us use E17 already. Though it's not at the moment good for every day use, it is definitely usable. I'm quite impressed with the work of the Enlightenment developers so far.
One thing that some people tend to forget is that working on a large project is a slow process. You can't just say, "Give me something I can use!" unless there's something available that you can use. In the case of Enlightenment, many of the things they've been working on have been smaller components that will be used to build E17. Many of these libraries have already been released, and don't require CVS checkouts. Imlib2 or Evas, for instance. Because of the modularity, people can use these components in their own applications. E17 isn't the only application that will result from these libraries.
I'm kind of surprised nobody has mentioned this one yet. my.userland.com has a large collection of RDF feeds. It's the only directory I use when looking for RDF feeds.
IRC has proven to be a fairly good source for news coverage the past few days. Volunteers on the #wtc-confirmed and #worldtradecenter channels on irc.openprojects.net have been watching various news channels and sites, posting the latest news regarding Tuesday's attacks and the aftermath.
There's even an
article on LinuxWorld.com about these channels.
I'm one of the volunteers in that channel. News has been fairly slow lately, but we do welcome people to sit in and listen or participate.
Wow, I was just reading a book about this called The Visionary Position (great
book, talks about the history of Virtual Reality). I haven't finished it, but
this Nomad device was originally called the VRD (Virtual Retina Display, I
believe). The concept was that of Tom Furness, the "father" of virtual
reality. He created the first VR helmet back in the 60s by accident while
working on a new design for cockpits. Tom and the HIT lab were working on the
VRD and was licensing it to Microvision, whom they hoped would someday end up
producing them themselves.
A visitor to the lab once put on one of the first versions of the VRD. This
person had one blind eye, and was able to see the images from the VRD in that
eye. They brought the VRD to a person who was fully blind and that person,
after locating the point of light, was also able to see the images. They
determined that this would only work for a very small amount of cases, and that
most blind people would not benefit from this device.
Now, I don't mean to damage Microvision's reputation in any way, but at my
current point in the book, the entire HIT lab is very concerned about their
relationship with Microvision. They thought it would never end up producing or
selling a unit. So as you can see, this is very interesting to me:)
Does anybody have any information about whether or not the HIT lab is still
working with Microvision on these things?
Scratch that. After hunting through the rpm-list listserv, I found that RPM v4.0 was released 10 days ago... hopefully without the database corruption included:)
I haven't been keeping up to date with RPM v4 as much as I'd like to, but last I knew it was beta and having problems with corrupting the RPM database. Has this changed?
http://www.rpm.org still says that the current stable version is RPM v3.0.4. Hmmm... I could have sworn that v3.0.6 was the latest in the 3.x series.
Let's sue the inventors of the HTTP protocol! There are tons of mp3s and warez and porn being accessed through it. Let's also get the inventors of the FTP protocol. What the heck, let's also get the inventors of the Internet! And VCR and tape recorder manufacturers! People can pirate videos and record conversations without permission! And what about those people who will check out a book from the library and write down the info from it? They never bought the book, and are stealing the information! We should get all those paper and pencil manufacturers. That'll put a stop to that!
Don't they see that's what they are doing? Napster is simply a protocol and a network. The users of Napster are the ones carrying the mp3s. I'd be willing to bet that any mp3 you can find on Napster would also be on a website or FTP server somewhere.
Because of mp3s and Napster, I have bought 7 CDs that I previously would not have considered even looking at. One example is Portal Theory. I still can't find them in any stores, just Amazon.com. Had they not given out 2 mp3s to listen to, I would never have heard of them.
I think these people just need to relax. The bands are getting more fans and many more potential buyers. Sure there are a few who will never buy CDs again. However, there are many of us who decide we want to listen to their music in the car or while we're walking some place. Sure there are Diamond Rios, but CDs are just easier at times.
I see so many people in here and on IRC saying that they don't want to go to XHTML because *gasp* they have to have quotes around their attribute values! People, there isn't much to change for XHTML 1.0. The true web designers always push good, proper HTML code. XHTML is now enforcing that. A few changes, and you get many benefits:
The code is easier to read and debug
Web browsers and parsers can understand it better
In the future, your XHTML code will be easily viewed on cell phones, Palm Pilots, web-enabled waffle makers, etc.
You can include other types of XML in your document
And all you have to do is:
Include a DTD
Put quotes around attribute values
Lowercase your tags
Self-close some tags like <img/>
That's not that bad. Though no current browsers understand a XHTML document as XHTML (besides Amaya and I guess Mozilla?), you can still use XML parsers that understand it. It's a good way to get a feel for things. My parser (Mino, at http://mino.portaldesign.net) understands XHTML and will indent it nicely when outputting to the browser. It'll have tags for SQL and XSLT soon. If you want a brief overview of the changes in XHTML, visit Gelicon.com's XML section. It should help you get started.
I agree that too much work is being done on software that has already been developed. However, I have not yet found a XML parser that does what I've needed it to do. Most of the parsers out there are written in Java, which won't work on all servers. They also are built to handle specific types of XML only. My parser can handle as many types of XML as you want in one file using namespaces. It is also written in C++, so it should work on any *nix system.
I'm not saying everybody has to use this program, or that it will be the #1 XML parser. I'm just saying it's something useful I'm developing, which is also helping me learn a great many things about XML development.
XML is useful for many things. In fact, the next version of HTML (called XHTML) will be based off XML.
One use for XML is that you can develop entire sites using your own tag set instead of HTML. For example, if you want to represent a list of books in HTML, you would probably setup a list of items. In XML, you can do:
Which is much easier to understand. Using XSL (a stylesheet language for XML) or a parser built specifically for your tag set, that <book> tag and its subtags will actually mean something.
Writing your entire site in XML has other advantages. For example, let's say you have 100 pages on your site, all written in HTML. Now you want to change the layout of the entire site. You would have to modify the HTML of all 100 pages. If all those pages were written in XML, however, you would have to modify only one file, the XSL stylesheet.
XML also has support for namespaces. A namespace (in XML) is a group of tags. Each namespace has a URI. For example, the upcoming XHTML 1.0 namespace is http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml (that link does not actually exist though). Namespaces are very useful. If you were writing a document in XHTML and wanted to include tags from your own tagset, you would call in your namespace, and you would suddenly be able to use your own tags.
My parser will have XSL support soon. For now, you can write the modules in C/C++ and the parser will load them automagically using the namespaces and parse the XML.
I have a few articles/tutorials I've written over at gelicon.com on XHTML, XML, DTDs, and namespaces. Hopefully they will offer a better understanding.
Slashdot Mirror
We're fairly confident that we can work something out. MS still wants people to connect to their network. They only hurt by losing Linux users. This is not the first time we've seen such a thing. Don't worry about it until we worry about it ;)
Please don't spread FUD.
We will be contacting them for a license. Did you actually read what we posted?
"They still encourage clients to connect to their network, so with any luck, we can work something out."
Don't comment on how we're doing things wrongly until you find out what we're doing.
Before this ends up causing us more trouble than we need, please note that when Slashdot said we are optimistic that we can connect without a license, that is far from our plans.
As stated on the site, it may be possible for people to find a way to connect without a license in the future, but if this is something that will cause us legal problems, we will NOT do it. We will, however, look into other options, such as acquiring a license from Microsoft, depending on the requirements for a license.
If we cannot use it legally, we will likely drop support.
Thank you.
I just put up a page that describes the situation slightly and mentions what we can and can't do about it. Please read it before asking us on IRC. We're getting flooded with questions.
We'll see... Don't decide our fate until we do ;)
JSeymour (the "Anonymous Coward" who posted the message I am replying to) is quite correct. As a person running one of the "for lilo" petitions, I have received some fake posts, which are rather degrading. Not towards lilo, as he didn't post it, but towards the people who posted. I then got e-mails from people who told me to take down the petition, because lilo should leave OPN.
This is a very immature attitude. If you do not like lilo or OPN, go use one of the many alternative IRC networks. Nobody is forcing anybody to be here, and nobody is forcing anybody to pay. Many of us do not mind helping out lilo, and I think it's a shame that a group of people, who disagree on IRC politics, must resort to such disgraceful tricks to try to make other people believe lilo is a bad person. Get to know him, read up on the philosophy, and understand what he's trying to do. If you still disagree, fine. He isn't going to k-line you, ban you, or quiet you for that. He will ban you or quiet you for trolling in #openprojects. And no, the people who have gone in there to express their opinions on lilo are not all trolls, but many are, and those are the ones that end up being silenced... Not k-lined.
As always, it is best to research what you're boycotting or complaining about before you start to cause a public scene. It is also important to do research before just believing the posts of a few people on a public forum.
Remember that these are people, like everybody else, and they have differing opinions. How they express them is what separates a troll from a person with an opinion. Many people left OPN peacefully, and on their own will, and have not caused any problems whatsoever. These are the people with opinions. The people who created IRC networks with the purpose of forcing a negative reputation upon lilo or the other people on the network are the trolls. These are also the people spreading such misinformation as "threatening to K-Line them from the network unless they conform with his views and contribute to his salary."
While I'm on that subject, I would also like to point out that lilo is not asking for a salary. He had asked for some donations so that he wouldn't have to live on the streets. People are telling him to shut up and get a job. Well, he has gotten a job. He is working at this, but because of past debts, contributions are helpful. Nobody has to contribute, but many people did, and it has helped him a lot. Remember that this is a community, and one is encouraged to help another, but not required. Please don't bash a person who, as even many of the trolls have admitted, has done a lot of good for open source projects.
That is all I have to say. Thank you.
Wow, JSeymour is lilo? Very interesting, since I've known JSeymour through the Gaim project for awhile now, and I'm very sure he is not lilo. here's the proper whois:
:http://www.openprojects.net/ :is an identified user
--- [JSeymour] (934-ident-@jimsun.linxnet.com) : JSeymour
--- [JSeymour] #OpenProjects #gaim
--- [JSeymour] irc.openprojects.net
--- JSeymour
--- [JSeymour] idle 00:00:39, signon: Sat Jun 29 04:05:19
--- [JSeymour] End of WHOIS list.
If you want to prove some kind of point, do it logically, not with deceptive posts and misinformation.
I've had problems with Palms and Handsprings. About a year ago, I decided to finally buy a Palm. I went with the Palm Vx, which worked very well for a short period of time. Then the buttons stopped working correctly. They would get stuck, or they would seem to press themselves, or one button would act as another. I took it back to Office Depot (great people there, they now get most of my business) and they happily gave me a new one. That one also had similar problems, so I got another one from them. It also had the same problems.
Very annoying. I gave up on the Vx's, but decided to try the Palm IIIc. I bought one of those, and I couldn't tap on the screen very well. With brightness over about 5%, it wouldn't register taps at all, and below 5%, it was very.. wiggly. I loaded a paint program and kept the stylus at one location, and dots flew everywhere. I took it back and got another. This one wouldn't even register any activity at any brightness level.
This is where Office Depot truly stood out among the companies in town. They took it back and, at our request, gave us back the money. They didn't even try to get us to try another model, and didn't tell us we would only get in-store credit. They knew we were having the problems, as they would test some of the Palms that were returned and discovered I was telling the truth.
I then went over to Handspring, and bought an Edge. This worked for a few months, and then died one day. Any screen tap would register as a tap in the lower-left corner of the screen, simulating a Menu button click. This could not be fixed with hard resets, and it turned out that several other people had the same problem.
I sent it to Handspring and they gave me a new one. This one had dead pixels (it was a black and white PDA, btw), sound problems, and other issues. I sent it back, and got a new one. Similar problems. I've gone through 6 Visor Edges so far. The latest works, but I'm so tired of it and I know I can't rely on it. It's currently sitting in a safe place, with no charge.
I had decided to buy a Sharp Zaurus (again, from Office Depot), and the thing works so beautifully. I finally feel confident with my PDA, and I can write my own software without having to work with the horrible PalmOS API.
Palm and Handspring are no longer getting my business. From now on, I think I'll buy from Sharp and other larger companies.
People are more than welcome to test it! Just keep in mind that it is not ready for daily use quite yet. It's almost there, but not quite. Feel free to join the listservs if you want to keep up on development, ask questions, or contribute to anything.
I know I'll get moderated down for saying this, but this seems to be a problem lately. Mis-information.
.Net engineer:
The article does not say that HTTP's days are numbered. They are simply saying that HTTP does not work for RPC, and they are completely correct. If I may quote from Dan Box, the
"However, there is nothing wrong with HTTP per se, as its ubiquity and high dependability means it is the only way to get an a reliable end-to-end connection over the Internet"
That doesn't sound to me like he's trying to get rid of HTTP, or that it's going away.
HTTP is perfect for what it is used for, but when you get into things where you need real-time processing of data both ways, HTTP simply does not work well. This is all that Dan Box is saying.
Remember folks, just because it's Microsoft does not mean they are always wrong or evil.
A big assembly dump isn't as easy to read as nicely formatted and commented sourcecode :) However, I doubt anybody petitioning for this realized that it's all in assembly. It's not exactly common knowledge.
I suspect the drivers are specific to DESQview/X. I also kind of doubt that the drivers work in Windows 95, but I could be wrong. I've never attempted it, but I think I remember reading about failed attempts.
Oh, and to all the people who think that DESQview/X could be useful in WINE... DESQview/X never ran Windows programs. It could run Windows 3.0 or lower (or Windows 3.1 in real mode) inside a DESQview/X window, much like DESQview could. It also, I believe, had a display driver for Windows to allow Windows apps to run across the network in a DESQview/X window. However, no emulation ever took place.
My uncle, Gary Pope, was co-founder of Quarterdeck, and did development on all versions of QEMM and DESQview. Unfortunately, he does not have the sourcecode to DESQview anymore, as he gave up all rights to it when he retired. However, he has been able to share with me some of the internals of DESQview and DESQview/X. I won't get into much of them, but to all the people who are hoping to get some useful code they can copy and paste into their own programs by signing the petition, you may be disappointed.
:)
The sourcecode to DESQview/X is (at least for the most part) in Assembly. It was the only way they could create a full X environment that could fit on a couple floppies and take so little RAM. I know previous versions used a language that Gary Pope wrote called SYMPL, which was lisp-based and provided the back-end functionality for the multitasking on 8088 processors in the original DESQ and DESQview.
So, most of the code, if it is ever released, may not be completely usable to most people. It would still be an interesting read, however, and I signed the petition almost a year ago.
Another good source of information on DESQview is the newsgroup comp.os.msdos.desqview. It seems to be pretty active, and has some good information on using DESQview.
DESQview and DESQview/X were great products. Have fun
Open source is great. I fully support companies opening the source to products. The only problem is, when you have a company running a large open source service such as SourceForge, which currently has 29,275 hosted projects and 291,392 users, it starts to cost money. You have to pay for hardware, electricity, bandwidth, staff, all the computers they add to the Compile Farm..
If they can sell proprietary, closed-source extensions to businesses and keep SourceForge running, I consider that acceptable. It's better than the alternative, which is to have a SourceForge that's a drain on money.
VA dropped Linux from their name, dropped their server line, and is no longer fully about open source, but at least they're keeping SourceForge running, one way or the other.
There are plenty of snapshots. Check out CVS. Many of us use E17 already. Though it's not at the moment good for every day use, it is definitely usable. I'm quite impressed with the work of the Enlightenment developers so far.
One thing that some people tend to forget is that working on a large project is a slow process. You can't just say, "Give me something I can use!" unless there's something available that you can use. In the case of Enlightenment, many of the things they've been working on have been smaller components that will be used to build E17. Many of these libraries have already been released, and don't require CVS checkouts. Imlib2 or Evas, for instance. Because of the modularity, people can use these components in their own applications. E17 isn't the only application that will result from these libraries.
Rome wasn't built in a day...
I'm kind of surprised nobody has mentioned this one yet. my.userland.com has a large collection of RDF feeds. It's the only directory I use when looking for RDF feeds.
IRC has proven to be a fairly good source for news coverage the past few days. Volunteers on the #wtc-confirmed and #worldtradecenter channels on irc.openprojects.net have been watching various news channels and sites, posting the latest news regarding Tuesday's attacks and the aftermath.
There's even an article on LinuxWorld.com about these channels.
I'm one of the volunteers in that channel. News has been fairly slow lately, but we do welcome people to sit in and listen or participate.
Wow, I was just reading a book about this called The Visionary Position (great
:)
book, talks about the history of Virtual Reality). I haven't finished it, but
this Nomad device was originally called the VRD (Virtual Retina Display, I
believe). The concept was that of Tom Furness, the "father" of virtual
reality. He created the first VR helmet back in the 60s by accident while
working on a new design for cockpits. Tom and the HIT lab were working on the
VRD and was licensing it to Microvision, whom they hoped would someday end up
producing them themselves.
A visitor to the lab once put on one of the first versions of the VRD. This
person had one blind eye, and was able to see the images from the VRD in that
eye. They brought the VRD to a person who was fully blind and that person,
after locating the point of light, was also able to see the images. They
determined that this would only work for a very small amount of cases, and that
most blind people would not benefit from this device.
Now, I don't mean to damage Microvision's reputation in any way, but at my
current point in the book, the entire HIT lab is very concerned about their
relationship with Microvision. They thought it would never end up producing or
selling a unit. So as you can see, this is very interesting to me
Does anybody have any information about whether or not the HIT lab is still
working with Microvision on these things?
Scratch that. After hunting through the rpm-list listserv, I found that RPM v4.0 was released 10 days ago... hopefully without the database corruption included :)
I haven't been keeping up to date with RPM v4 as much as I'd like to, but last I knew it was beta and having problems with corrupting the RPM database. Has this changed?
http://www.rpm.org still says that the current stable version is RPM v3.0.4. Hmmm... I could have sworn that v3.0.6 was the latest in the 3.x series.
Let's sue the inventors of the HTTP protocol! There are tons of mp3s and warez and porn being accessed through it. Let's also get the inventors of the FTP protocol. What the heck, let's also get the inventors of the Internet! And VCR and tape recorder manufacturers! People can pirate videos and record conversations without permission! And what about those people who will check out a book from the library and write down the info from it? They never bought the book, and are stealing the information! We should get all those paper and pencil manufacturers. That'll put a stop to that!
Don't they see that's what they are doing? Napster is simply a protocol and a network. The users of Napster are the ones carrying the mp3s. I'd be willing to bet that any mp3 you can find on Napster would also be on a website or FTP server somewhere.
Because of mp3s and Napster, I have bought 7 CDs that I previously would not have considered even looking at. One example is Portal Theory. I still can't find them in any stores, just Amazon.com. Had they not given out 2 mp3s to listen to, I would never have heard of them.
I think these people just need to relax. The bands are getting more fans and many more potential buyers. Sure there are a few who will never buy CDs again. However, there are many of us who decide we want to listen to their music in the car or while we're walking some place. Sure there are Diamond Rios, but CDs are just easier at times.
- The code is easier to read and debug
- Web browsers and parsers can understand it better
- In the future, your XHTML code will be easily viewed on cell phones, Palm Pilots, web-enabled waffle makers, etc.
- You can include other types of XML in your document
And all you have to do is:- Include a DTD
- Put quotes around attribute values
- Lowercase your tags
- Self-close some tags like <img/>
That's not that bad. Though no current browsers understand a XHTML document as XHTML (besides Amaya and I guess Mozilla?), you can still use XML parsers that understand it. It's a good way to get a feel for things. My parser (Mino, at http://mino.portaldesign.net) understands XHTML and will indent it nicely when outputting to the browser. It'll have tags for SQL and XSLT soon. If you want a brief overview of the changes in XHTML, visit Gelicon.com's XML section. It should help you get started.I agree that too much work is being done on software that has already been developed. However, I have not yet found a XML parser that does what I've needed it to do. Most of the parsers out there are written in Java, which won't work on all servers. They also are built to handle specific types of XML only. My parser can handle as many types of XML as you want in one file using namespaces. It is also written in C++, so it should work on any *nix system.
:)
I'm not saying everybody has to use this program, or that it will be the #1 XML parser. I'm just saying it's something useful I'm developing, which is also helping me learn a great many things about XML development.
Besides, it gives me something to do
XML is useful for many things. In fact, the next version of HTML (called XHTML) will be based off XML.
One use for XML is that you can develop entire sites using your own tag set instead of HTML. For example, if you want to represent a list of books in HTML, you would probably setup a list of items. In XML, you can do:
<book>
<name>Some Book</name>
<author>Some Author</author>
</book>
...
Which is much easier to understand. Using XSL (a stylesheet language for XML) or a parser built specifically for your tag set, that <book> tag and its subtags will actually mean something.
Writing your entire site in XML has other advantages. For example, let's say you have 100 pages on your site, all written in HTML. Now you want to change the layout of the entire site. You would have to modify the HTML of all 100 pages. If all those pages were written in XML, however, you would have to modify only one file, the XSL stylesheet.
XML also has support for namespaces. A namespace (in XML) is a group of tags. Each namespace has a URI. For example, the upcoming XHTML 1.0 namespace is http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml (that link does not actually exist though). Namespaces are very useful. If you were writing a document in XHTML and wanted to include tags from your own tagset, you would call in your namespace, and you would suddenly be able to use your own tags.
My parser will have XSL support soon. For now, you can write the modules in C/C++ and the parser will load them automagically using the namespaces and parse the XML.
I have a few articles/tutorials I've written over at gelicon.com on XHTML, XML, DTDs, and namespaces. Hopefully they will offer a better understanding.