By the time the average user can run a XAML app, hopefully XUL will have been accepted as an ISO standard. Development in XUL has been rather slow so far, but hopefully it will pick up in the n+2 years before Longhorn ships. I've seen some XAML code, and it's got the expected ass-backwards MS feel.
I agree about SVG (it would be huge right now if MS hadn't yanked it out of IE6 at the last minute), and that rowser support for XSL/namespaces/etc is rather poor right now. The rest of this paragraph belongs to the domain of plugins and or bloatware.
Standards are great. I'm not saying get rid of the html 4.0 standard. I'm saying we need to create a 5.0, 6.0, etc that are much better. Standing still will cost you a lot.
Sorry, but there won't be any more versions of HTML... the W3C replaced HTML 4 in January 2000. Seems you've been standing still for 5 years.
If you want "more powerful html standards", take a look at DOM, XPATH, and XForms2.
<clue-by-4 action="hit"> The web was not designed to drive upgrade cycles and corporate profits, it was designed to freely exchange information. If Tim Berner-Lee was a greedy bastard and wanted to get rich off of the WWW, he would have patented it and held out his hand for royalty payments. </clue-by-4>
Just about everything on the web is related to XML somehow. Learn the syntax first (most of it you probably know from HTML, but the rules are stricter). Then, apply that knowledge to XHTML (plain HTML should die an unremarked death). Study the DOM, and learn how to manipulate your well-formed documents (this is where javascript comes in) adn how to make them pretty with CSS.
Up until this point, do not use Internet Explorer. You will only fall prey to its quirks and stray from the Way Of The Standard(tm). Also, try to minimize the amount you rely on things like Dreamweaver: few people learn by having their work done for them: there is a difference between a tool and a crutch. Find a text editor that you like; it will be your best friend.
Now that you have some practical experience with web pages, you can apply the knowledge to other forms of XML: SVG, RSS, RDF, etc. Then you can get into XSLT and other nifty stuff.
IMO, Flash has three uses: presentations, cartoons, and the most vile form of banner ad.
On the server side, take your pick of languages: PHP, Perl, Python (I won't get into evqangelizing them here, it's your decision what you use). While learning these you will pick up how HTTP works (request methods, cookies, redirects, etc). Then pick up some database skills with MySQL or Postgres (again, use what you like).
I moved to Vegas last year, and went to the airport to pick up a friend who was arriving for Apachecon. Outside the airport, there is a kiosk of screens showing arrivals and departures, which I checked to see what gate his flight was arriving at. Lo and behold, on one of the screens there is a windows prompt alerting passersby that some service could not be started.
The parent's title I agree with. Yes, users are uneducated. Whose fault is this? Microsoft.
Widows users are quite simply left to fend for themselves after making all the color-coded peripheral connections and pushing the power button. If there's a problem, who provides support for windows? The OEM, not MS (more likely its done by a good samaritan friend/relative). Combine this with a product whose sole design goal is to be user friendly (not secure, well architected, empowering, or sufficiently documented), and it's no wonder all these issues exist. MS has silly amounts of resources available to fix these problems ($60B cash), and yet it chooses not to.
Among the major OSes, there are three types of people:
MS has to assure ppl that SW is authentic and 'secure' as a remedy to all of the MS security problems, and then they expect others to just do the same weather they have issues or not.
Except that secure and authentic are not the same thing. Take, for instance, the Windows CD with its nice, shiny, official-looking hologram: All that code is authentic, but sure isn't secure. Getting all the [ad|spy|mal]ware authors to sign their code just won't happen, and won't do any good considering the millions of windows boxes out there that will install anything.
I read the first paragraphs of TFA, and had to stop during the dissection of the download process. Complaining about the mirror host appearing in the download prompt? PLEASE. The bigger issue with that prompt is that it asks the user if they want to "save or run the file. Aside from that, the average user won't notice that any more than they notice what's on their location bar, because they don't know what the location bar is. And the number of average users that know what MSDN (or a blog) is can be counted on one hand... his post isn't going to be read by the people it's intended to deceive.
It's obvious that MS is grasping at straws for how to *gasp* deal with competition (that they can't buy out), and really can't match until 2006 or later.
It appears more and more that AOL is hell bent on destroying every aspect of Netscape.
The single biggest advantage of non-IE browsers is that they don't use the IE rendering engine (activeX, jpeg exploits, (d)com exploits, etc all boil down to this).
This version of Netscape is DOA. To compound the problems web developers face, this browser probably doesn't alter its UA string as part of the engine swap.
Way to go, AOL. You should buy SCO and begin gathering all the stupid IT companies under one corporate umbrella.
As I stated to your telemarketing rep who called me last week, I have DSL and no need for your "value added" content and/or advertising. Also, let me repeat what I said to her to close the conversation: AOL, aside from SCO, is the laughing stock of the IT industry. Every decision you make is simply stupid.
These comments are a result of my being offended by your "Help us make the internet better" ad campaign, which caters to your notoriously unsavvy user base. Here is how you can accomplish this:
Use your assets against your enemies, instead of using their assets against yourself. What sense is there in basing your browser on a competitor's? You own Netscape: Make it grand again.
Speaking of Netscape, stop trashing it. Netscape means browser, not web portal, not cheap ISP, not kitchen sink.
Realize why users are leaving in droves: Broadband is killing dialup; your users, as they graduate from internet preschool, don't need your handholding anymore; your pricing model is several years out of date, outrageously high.
The only sensible thing you have done in the past 5 years is seed the Mozilla Foundation. Somehow you managed not to stifle the entire project.
the Microsoft way is to wait for customers to decide what they want, then make something just like it.
Slight correction here. The Microsoft Way is to either:
Wait for a 3rd party to develop something, then buy them and assimilate their product.
Wait for a 3rd party to develop something, then develop a crappier version of it in house while suing them into the ground
Develop something in-house with security as priority > 1, most likely with a semi-intuitive interface at best, and features which are more useless than useful.
Another bullet in the chest of the term "RPG"
on
Everquest 2 Launches
·
· Score: 1
That games like Evercrack are called RPG's is simply a misnomer, unless the R stands for "roll" or "rand()". These games are devoid of the concept of "Role".
...this license is referenced in the EULA for the next version of Windows, whether XP2 or Longhorn (or sooner in the next versions of various network enabled products, like MSN messenger). End user and PHB ignorance is they only way this scheme can work, and MS knows it.
Microsoft is essentially trying to do to the internet what SCO is trying to do to linux.
This license basically amounts to intent to defraud.
Xaraya is a fork of PostNuke, written by the people who forked PostNuke from PHPNuke (and who left the project en masse in August 2002, including myself).
Xaraya shares no code and little architecture with any CMS in the nuke family... it is somewhere between CMS and application framework.
I went to RTFA, and got a nice fake javascript prompt (XP-looking, of course) in the middle of the window telling me mozilla had successfully blocked a popup.
Thanks for telling me, now I'll never visit that site again.
TSR originally published D&D. In the early to mid 90's TSR was publishing a lot of support material (modules, sourcebooks, settings) to keep sales up. As time went on, the quality and sales of this material went way down. TSR eventually owed $30 million to various debtors, primarily their printers. In 1997, WOTC bought TSR with the profits from Magic: The Gathering. Then Pokemon happened. In 1999, a struggling Hasbro bought WOTC to get the Pokemon cash cow. D&D Third Edition was released in 2000, after a year delay, under the d20 license. In 2003, D&D 3.5 was released.
WOTC had an understanding of RPGs, because the founders actually played them. Hasbro, on the other hand, seems to only understand board games for kids. Pokemon dried up, and they paniced. this is the big reason for 3.5, not "fixing things".
Not long after 3.5 came out, rumors began circulating that work had already begun on 4th Edition, and that it would not inherit the d20 license. If true, this would cripple all the companies that take advantage of the d20 license. The d20 license, by the way, is not granted in perpetuity, and can be altered at will according to the licensor's whim (look up the Book of Erotic Fantasy for proof).
Obviously, what Hasbro doesn't get is that RPG core books have a quite lengthy product cycle, but their scramble for income forces them to ignore it.
When I asked the general manager of my local game store what he though of the 4th edition rumors, the first thing he said was "I'm not going to buy it." (He was already annoyed at the existence of 3.5). Of course, he'd put it on his store shelves, he just won't personally own it.
A friend of mine, who still plays M:TG, has a conspiracy theory based on Hasbro realizing their mistake in buying WOTC and making the best of it. He believes Hasbro is quietly moving all of their debt into WOTC, and eventually plan to spin it off into its own entity or try to sell it. Good for Hasbro, but would be the end of D&D. I don't completely buy it, but the way big business is run nowadays, it wouldn't surprise me.
Outgoing officials take these positions to maintain a grasp on the power they once held, changing their role from negotiating corporate agendas to selling a corporate agenda. With the changes I posted, the power simply passes on to the to next office holder. Corporate agendas are nullified because the corporations don't control which candidate gets the money (which would be divided up based on citizen's party declarations).
As far as pensioning elected officials, I don't know if that's a good idea for federal or state posts, but maybe at the county/city level.
Since American politicians seem to have forgotten that the people (indirectly) elect them, but big business funds their campaigns, here's what we do:
Impose a campaign tax of 2% on all businesses with a net worth of $10B or more
This money gets used to fund campaigns at all levels of government
Outlaw corporate campaign contributions (including contibutions to independent groups with political agendas *cough*swift boat vets*cough*)
Outlaw elected officals receiving perks or gifts from corporations, similar to NCAA recruiting rules)
Presto, entities that can't vote don't influence the election process, and the citizens aren't reduced to making contributions they can't afford anyway. While we're at it, require campaigns to say only why their candidate is the better choice at least 85% of the time. Elected officials can then concentrate on their jobs (serving the people) instead of on what deals they have to make to get that next $20k check from Screw the Consumers, Inc.
I'm no [insert anything here]ogist, but something tells me no society had boats capable of open ocean travel 12000 years ago.
It's also been claimed that Chinese or Japanese seafarers settled all over the pacific coast between California and Chile between 1500 and 1000 years ago, which from a technology standopint is far more believeable. There is evidence to suggest that these people sailed all the way around South America and back northward, reaching most of the Brazilian coastline (to map the movements of the stars, no less, proving that the Earth revolved around the sun).
Slashdot Mirror
By the time the average user can run a XAML app, hopefully XUL will have been accepted as an ISO standard. Development in XUL has been rather slow so far, but hopefully it will pick up in the n+2 years before Longhorn ships. I've seen some XAML code, and it's got the expected ass-backwards MS feel.
I agree about SVG (it would be huge right now if MS hadn't yanked it out of IE6 at the last minute), and that rowser support for XSL/namespaces/etc is rather poor right now. The rest of this paragraph belongs to the domain of plugins and or bloatware.
Sorry, but there won't be any more versions of HTML... the W3C replaced HTML 4 in January 2000. Seems you've been standing still for 5 years.
If you want "more powerful html standards", take a look at DOM, XPATH, and XForms2.
<clue-by-4 action="hit">
The web was not designed to drive upgrade cycles and corporate profits, it was designed to freely exchange information. If Tim Berner-Lee was a greedy bastard and wanted to get rich off of the WWW, he would have patented it and held out his hand for royalty payments.
</clue-by-4>
I'm surprised it took them so long to become a player in it, not just the progenitor.
Just about everything on the web is related to XML somehow. Learn the syntax first (most of it you probably know from HTML, but the rules are stricter). Then, apply that knowledge to XHTML (plain HTML should die an unremarked death). Study the DOM, and learn how to manipulate your well-formed documents (this is where javascript comes in) adn how to make them pretty with CSS.
Up until this point, do not use Internet Explorer. You will only fall prey to its quirks and stray from the Way Of The Standard(tm). Also, try to minimize the amount you rely on things like Dreamweaver: few people learn by having their work done for them: there is a difference between a tool and a crutch. Find a text editor that you like; it will be your best friend.
Now that you have some practical experience with web pages, you can apply the knowledge to other forms of XML: SVG, RSS, RDF, etc. Then you can get into XSLT and other nifty stuff.
IMO, Flash has three uses: presentations, cartoons, and the most vile form of banner ad.
On the server side, take your pick of languages: PHP, Perl, Python (I won't get into evqangelizing them here, it's your decision what you use). While learning these you will pick up how HTTP works (request methods, cookies, redirects, etc). Then pick up some database skills with MySQL or Postgres (again, use what you like).
I moved to Vegas last year, and went to the airport to pick up a friend who was arriving for Apachecon. Outside the airport, there is a kiosk of screens showing arrivals and departures, which I checked to see what gate his flight was arriving at. Lo and behold, on one of the screens there is a windows prompt alerting passersby that some service could not be started.
The parent's title I agree with. Yes, users are uneducated. Whose fault is this? Microsoft.
Widows users are quite simply left to fend for themselves after making all the color-coded peripheral connections and pushing the power button. If there's a problem, who provides support for windows? The OEM, not MS (more likely its done by a good samaritan friend/relative). Combine this with a product whose sole design goal is to be user friendly (not secure, well architected, empowering, or sufficiently documented), and it's no wonder all these issues exist. MS has silly amounts of resources available to fix these problems ($60B cash), and yet it chooses not to.
Among the major OSes, there are three types of people:
When will we be able to write XUL apps in PHP, like can be done with Perl, Python, and Ruby?
Except that secure and authentic are not the same thing. Take, for instance, the Windows CD with its nice, shiny, official-looking hologram: All that code is authentic, but sure isn't secure. Getting all the [ad|spy|mal]ware authors to sign their code just won't happen, and won't do any good considering the millions of windows boxes out there that will install anything.
I read the first paragraphs of TFA, and had to stop during the dissection of the download process. Complaining about the mirror host appearing in the download prompt? PLEASE. The bigger issue with that prompt is that it asks the user if they want to "save or run the file. Aside from that, the average user won't notice that any more than they notice what's on their location bar, because they don't know what the location bar is. And the number of average users that know what MSDN (or a blog) is can be counted on one hand... his post isn't going to be read by the people it's intended to deceive.
It's obvious that MS is grasping at straws for how to *gasp* deal with competition (that they can't buy out), and really can't match until 2006 or later.
FCC Regulations.
It appears more and more that AOL is hell bent on destroying every aspect of Netscape.
The single biggest advantage of non-IE browsers is that they don't use the IE rendering engine (activeX, jpeg exploits, (d)com exploits, etc all boil down to this).
This version of Netscape is DOA. To compound the problems web developers face, this browser probably doesn't alter its UA string as part of the engine swap.
Way to go, AOL. You should buy SCO and begin gathering all the stupid IT companies under one corporate umbrella.
Composer is actually being worked on by Daniel Glazman as a standalone product called Nvu.
Dear AOL,
As I stated to your telemarketing rep who called me last week, I have DSL and no need for your "value added" content and/or advertising. Also, let me repeat what I said to her to close the conversation: AOL, aside from SCO, is the laughing stock of the IT industry. Every decision you make is simply stupid.
These comments are a result of my being offended by your "Help us make the internet better" ad campaign, which caters to your notoriously unsavvy user base. Here is how you can accomplish this:
The only sensible thing you have done in the past 5 years is seed the Mozilla Foundation. Somehow you managed not to stifle the entire project.
Slight correction here. The Microsoft Way is to either:
That games like Evercrack are called RPG's is simply a misnomer, unless the R stands for "roll" or "rand()". These games are devoid of the concept of "Role".
...this license is referenced in the EULA for the next version of Windows, whether XP2 or Longhorn (or sooner in the next versions of various network enabled products, like MSN messenger). End user and PHB ignorance is they only way this scheme can work, and MS knows it.
Microsoft is essentially trying to do to the internet what SCO is trying to do to linux.
This license basically amounts to intent to defraud.
Yep, mapping to 0.0.0.0 is the trick. I did this to *.doubleclick.net and 18,000+ other crapservers.
Anybody want me to post my hosts file online?
Xaraya is a fork of PostNuke, written by the people who forked PostNuke from PHPNuke (and who left the project en masse in August 2002, including myself).
Xaraya shares no code and little architecture with any CMS in the nuke family... it is somewhere between CMS and application framework.
I went to RTFA, and got a nice fake javascript prompt (XP-looking, of course) in the middle of the window telling me mozilla had successfully blocked a popup.
Thanks for telling me, now I'll never visit that site again.
First, some history.
TSR originally published D&D. In the early to mid 90's TSR was publishing a lot of support material (modules, sourcebooks, settings) to keep sales up. As time went on, the quality and sales of this material went way down. TSR eventually owed $30 million to various debtors, primarily their printers. In 1997, WOTC bought TSR with the profits from Magic: The Gathering. Then Pokemon happened. In 1999, a struggling Hasbro bought WOTC to get the Pokemon cash cow. D&D Third Edition was released in 2000, after a year delay, under the d20 license. In 2003, D&D 3.5 was released.
WOTC had an understanding of RPGs, because the founders actually played them. Hasbro, on the other hand, seems to only understand board games for kids. Pokemon dried up, and they paniced. this is the big reason for 3.5, not "fixing things".
Not long after 3.5 came out, rumors began circulating that work had already begun on 4th Edition, and that it would not inherit the d20 license. If true, this would cripple all the companies that take advantage of the d20 license. The d20 license, by the way, is not granted in perpetuity, and can be altered at will according to the licensor's whim (look up the Book of Erotic Fantasy for proof).
Obviously, what Hasbro doesn't get is that RPG core books have a quite lengthy product cycle, but their scramble for income forces them to ignore it.
When I asked the general manager of my local game store what he though of the 4th edition rumors, the first thing he said was "I'm not going to buy it." (He was already annoyed at the existence of 3.5). Of course, he'd put it on his store shelves, he just won't personally own it.
A friend of mine, who still plays M:TG, has a conspiracy theory based on Hasbro realizing their mistake in buying WOTC and making the best of it. He believes Hasbro is quietly moving all of their debt into WOTC, and eventually plan to spin it off into its own entity or try to sell it. Good for Hasbro, but would be the end of D&D. I don't completely buy it, but the way big business is run nowadays, it wouldn't surprise me.
Outgoing officials take these positions to maintain a grasp on the power they once held, changing their role from negotiating corporate agendas to selling a corporate agenda. With the changes I posted, the power simply passes on to the to next office holder. Corporate agendas are nullified because the corporations don't control which candidate gets the money (which would be divided up based on citizen's party declarations).
As far as pensioning elected officials, I don't know if that's a good idea for federal or state posts, but maybe at the county/city level.
Since American politicians seem to have forgotten that the people (indirectly) elect them, but big business funds their campaigns, here's what we do:
Presto, entities that can't vote don't influence the election process, and the citizens aren't reduced to making contributions they can't afford anyway. While we're at it, require campaigns to say only why their candidate is the better choice at least 85% of the time. Elected officials can then concentrate on their jobs (serving the people) instead of on what deals they have to make to get that next $20k check from Screw the Consumers, Inc.
Every OS has a different culture.
Ok, Google gets "Goo", Gnome gets "Gno", and some can insist that they both use "GNU/" instead.
Note that the report linked to was from May 28, before the June crop of IE security advisories that caused many people to migrate to better browsers.
Also, if you read all of OnesSat's reports, you see that IE has been losing market share for at least a year.
Their browser usage reports are more or less quarterly... OneStat is overdue for the next one.
Time to hack a jpg on msn and hotmail to trigger downloads of Firefox and Thunderbird.
I'm no [insert anything here]ogist, but something tells me no society had boats capable of open ocean travel 12000 years ago.
It's also been claimed that Chinese or Japanese seafarers settled all over the pacific coast between California and Chile between 1500 and 1000 years ago, which from a technology standopint is far more believeable. There is evidence to suggest that these people sailed all the way around South America and back northward, reaching most of the Brazilian coastline (to map the movements of the stars, no less, proving that the Earth revolved around the sun).