I think what's eating a lot of Microsoft's resources on IE is their not-well-thought-out product support roadmap and their refusal to support newer versions of IE on older OS's (in order to help drive demand for the new OS). By the time IE8 comes out, Microsoft will support the following versions of IE...
IE 5.01 SP4 on W2K
IE 6.0 SP1 on W2K
IE 6.0 SP2 (32-bit) on XP/2003 (32-bit & 64-bit)
IE 6.0 SP2 (64-bit) on XP/2003 (64-bit)
IE 7 (32-bit) on XP/2003/Vista/2008 (32-bit & 64-bit)
IE 7 (64-bit) on XP/2003/Vista/2008 (64-bit)
IE 8 (32-bit) on XP/2003/Vista/2008 (32-bit & 64-bit)
IE 8 (64-bit) on XP/2003/Vista/2008 (64-bit)
This is an absurd list! Every security hole has to be researched, tested, and patched for 8 different versions of IE! This is further exacerbated by the fact that there are severe differences in the "same" version of IE between different OS's. IE 7 on XP is a very different beast than IE 7 on 2008. Mozilla has 2 versions only--and FF2 will drop off support within the next month. Microsoft should port IE7 to Windows 2000 (which is supported through June, 2010) and retire IE5 and IE6 once and for all. This will cut down the number of code-bases that they need to support.
You really do sound like a fanboi... Just because Apple says you should have it (errr, excuse me, NBC says you should have it and Apple went along) doesn't mean you should. Sorry, but there are better ways to spend money than throwing out last year's projector because it isn't HDCP compliant. Never mind that it works perfectly fine...
But ask an Apple fanboi not to run the latest & greatest and you'll get "that's so 2007!" I'll bet that there's more than one fanboi who would buy a new HDCP-compliant projector in order to not have to give up his pretty 2008 MacBook.
Other Canadian news:
-In a surprising decision by the Ontario Sandwich Authority, You may no longer split the cost of a foot long sub with somebody else and then each eat half, as it doesn't boost profits to our local sub shops...
That isn't he half of it. In the OSA's most recent regulation, since a "foot" is no longer an official measurement in Canada, "foot-long sandwiches" must now be called "3.048 decimeter-long sandwiches". This is primarily meant to get revenue from American tourists, who will be slapped with a CAD$50 fine for using "foot" as a unit of measurement to describe a sandwich. Mr. Sub has looked forward to this day, since their new sandwich will be 25% more expensive than the old sandwich. (After all, "3.048" is better than "1").
One thing that people don't realize is that when retailers declare bankruptcy, their gift cards are worthless. You're considered an unsecured creditor, which puts you in the back of the line among all other creditors. If there's anything left, you might get pennies on the dollar for what the card is worth--a few years down the road. Some companies plead their cases with the courts to allow gift card holders to use them--after all, if those people lose their card values, they won't be shopping at the now-bankrupt company, especially when the company needs those customers most...
At least Consumers Union is trying to petition the FTC to force companies to honor outstanding cards... But I can only see this happening if a retailer chooses to reorganize--forget it if they're liquidating.
So, the best advice is to use up your gift cards NOW, before the retailer goes under. Given that Linens & Things, Lilian Vernon, Sharper Image, and now Circuit City all went bankrupt in 2008, this problem will get worse FAST.
I'm curious to know if this is a problem limited to U.S. retailers... Is this an issue in Europe, Japan, etc.?
Maybe not illegal (tho, ICANN and/or the FTC would probably have a problem), but if my URL was inaccessible to all D-Link routers and instead redirected someone to a product/service sold by D-Link or, worse, redirected to my competition, you'd better believe that I'm going to sue them!!!
Well, at least they chose "Safe Mode with Networking" and now will be able to look at NTBTLOG.TXT from a distance. Of course, given that it takes up to 40 minutes for round-trip communications to happen, they had to change the default setting from 30 seconds to 2400+ seconds, otherwise the lander's would have died before loading the power monitoring service--resulting in an infinite loop.
Yup... Long filename support, easy transpose of two letters (remember Alt-left Shift?), etc. But I got bit one too many times where a file got corrupted (I believe it was due to the long filename menu system) so I went to WordPerfect 5.1 and never looked back... And it was all amber--except for the color "Leading Edge" logo.:-)
As for Wordperfect and floppy disks: yep. That's a problem in our home. We are having to migrate WP files now and then. It is not sufficient to have old computers that run the programs. I had WP on my computer (but didn't use it.) A series of glitches when upgrading to SP3 had as a side effect the corruption of WP on my computer. Whatever the problem was, I could not even re-install it. We are now down to one computer that can read it.
While the rest of your post was well said, this paragraph either smacks of laziness or shows that you're not doing your homework when looking into solutions. Either way, you'll get no sympathy from me. You do have options. This being Slashdot, virtualization is a big topic around here and would probably solve your problems...
If you're talking about WPDOS, load up Dosbox and run it there--no additional software or licenses required. If you're talking about WPWin, load up Virtual PC or VMWare Server or Bochs or QEMU or Virtual Box or any other free virtualization software that supports Windows in a VM, load a copy of an older version of Windows you probably have lying around (or install a 2nd copy of XP using your existing license--I won't tell...), and run WP in the virtual machine's copy of Windows. Either solution cost you $0.00 + time. Done...
The article talks about two very distinct and different problems--hardware and file formats. The author has a point about the hardware--if the media goes bad or if there is no way to read the data, then the data is lost. However, the author is completely off-base when it comes to file formats...
The author specifically mentions WordPerfect files. Bad example! The default file format in Wordperfect X4 (released in April, 2008) is the same as what was used in WordPerfect 6--which came out in 1993 (DOS and Windows). While I can't speak for OpenOffice or Google Docs, MS-Word can read those files (and WordPerfect 5.x files) with a simple File/Open. Excel opens Lotus 1-2-3 files as well. So, Word can open popular formats in use since 1988 (WP 5.0) and Excel can open some formats in use since 1983 (1-2-3 r1a). You can also buy programs like FileMerlin to convert old documents.
Frankly, when it comes to file formats, conversion apps will exist for a LONG time. For DOS apps, you could even go so far as to create a v/m or use Dosbox, load up your obsolete word processor (I miss "Leading Edge Word Processor"!) and copy/paste the text into Word or Notepad...
Image files, sounds, & videos are no exception... GIF has been around since 1987, JPEG has been around since the early '90s (opening those on a 10Mhz 8088 was slow!), and MPEG/WMV/AVI/Quicktime videos are easily openable...
Finally, the more people that are affected by obsolete files, the more interest there is in some way to convert the data... But don't forget that a LOT of the data is junk--do you really care about your 7th grade paper you wrote on Hong Kong in 1989?
Someone posted on the original article's forum that it's 320x240. Unfortunately, in this day and age, that resolution borders on useless. Sure, for 80x25 text or for an old VGA 320x200 DOS game it would be cool. But to do anything of recent vintage, you'll end up having to pan-and-scan in zoom mode to see a webpage. Hell, I don't like browsing on my Toshiba Libretto 110CT--and that's 800x480... (And my complaints are with the screen resolution, not speed--Firefox 3 runs acceptably on it).
3.1 had support for 386 protected mode. And one of the two included games were different.
Wrong... Windows 3.0, 3.0a, 3.0 with Multimedia Extensions, 3.1, 3.11, WfW 3.10, and WfW 3.11 all had 386 Enhanced Mode--which allowed you to run multiple DOS applications simultaneously utilizing Virtual 8086 mode of all 386+ processors. All the above versions, excluding WfW 3.11, also had (286) Standard Mode...
The differences between 3.0 and 3.1 were huge... 3.1 included TrueType, better networking support (with full protected-mode support in WfW, which didn't require any DOS drivers), built-in screen savers (which killed the market for Berkeley's "After Dark" program), the ability to run in 386 Enhanced mode while running memory managers like EMM386 or QEMM, built-in basic multimedia support (3.0 with Multimedia Extensions was OEM-only), and the first GPFs & BSODs with a real attempt at error trapping--3.0 could only give "Unavoidable Application Errors" which would usually crash Windows. And only one of the games was changed--Reversi in 3.0 was replaced with Minesweeper in 3.1x. Solitaire existed in both versions...
Seriously, why doesn't Microsoft spend its considerable resources helping fix UAC for Vista? Do it as part of SP2... Since answering UAC is modal (systemwide), it's not like any user-level apps "depend" on it behaving in a specific way/at specific times, so changing its behavior should have no negative effect on those apps...
Or are they admitting defeat and preparing for the next battle (a.k.a. Windows 7)???
I personally feel the battery in every electronic device should be user-replaceable using commonly-available tools --and-- replacement batteries should be readily available. Too many people replace the item in question (and throw out/donate the old one) when the battery outlives its usefulness... But a donated iPod or cell phone with a dead battery is of no use to groups like the Salvation Army or Goodwill. So they end up getting tossed anyway... And you can put the blame squarely on the manufacturer that decided on a non-user-serviceable battery...
Of course, companies like Apple would fight such a law tooth-and-nail since someone might decide it's economically more logical to keep the old item and replace the battery than buy a new one. And what's good for Apple is good for America! (and China...)
I call bullshit--unless he's doing some serious work for spyware companies and sending e-mails peddling "Vla*g-ra" -and/or- has a serious hard drive or memory problem. Let's see, Win95 required a 386DX with 4MB RAM--although that setup was painfully slow. Win95 recommended a 486 with 8MB RAM. So, unless you are running a lot of startup apps, Win95 (including Win95B) should boot with 8MB RAM and have a WIN386.SWP of 0 bytes. So, even if he has a PIII/450 with 64MB RAM (even then most laptops came with 128MB RAM), you've got a PC that's easily 50x more powerful than Win95's minimum requirements and 20x more powerful than the recommended requirements...
Back in college, I was researching something and saw an ad in Newsweek for a 1985 Ford Escort diesel (U.S., not the European Escort) that claimed ~50MPG. Most of the Big 3 did it before but they got burned by noisy, polluting, and rough-riding diesel engines of the time...
it should be against the law to not hire someone for non-obvious medical conditions, such as someone with a history of cancer, or to fire someone because they've had a heart attack or are being treated for a mental disorder.
You can't fire someone for medical reasons, it's part of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990). Someone who has/had cancer or a heart attack is just as much protected as someone who is blind or in a wheelchair. There's case law to back this up where people have sued their (former) employers under ADA for mental & physical illnesses...
Q. Who is protected from employment discrimination?
A. Employment discrimination is prohibited against "qualified individuals with disabilities." This includes applicants for employment and employees. An individual is considered to have a "disability" if s/he has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, has a record of such an impairment, or is regarded as having such an impairment. Persons discriminated against because they have a known association or relationship with an individual with a disability also are protected.
The first part of the definition makes clear that the ADA applies to persons who have impairments and that these must substantially limit major life activities such as seeing, hearing, speaking, walking, breathing, performing manual tasks, learning, caring for oneself, and working. An individual with epilepsy, paralysis, HIV infection, AIDS, a substantial hearing or visual impairment, mental retardation, or a specific learning disability is covered, but an individual with a minor, nonchronic condition of short duration, such as a sprain, broken limb, or the flu, generally would not be covered.
The second part of the definition protecting individuals with a record of a disability would cover, for example, a person who has recovered from cancer or mental illness.
The third part of the definition protects individuals who are regarded as having a substantially limiting impairment, even though they may not have such an impairment. For example, this provision would protect a qualified individual with a severe facial disfigurement from being denied employment because an employer feared the "negative reactions" of customers or co-workers.
5) Go private. Consider setting your profile to "private," so only designated friends can view it.
I don't see how this is helpful... Private profiles still show up on Google, proving you have one, so any hiring manager with half a brain would just require you to make them a friend as a condition of employment (or part of their background check)...
Best advice--don't create a profile in the first place. Given how difficult it is to get rid of profiles (didn't someone sue Myspace because they weren't willing to shut down that person's profile?), it's best not to open that pandora's box in the first place... Frankly I would love to have a profile, chat with people I haven't seen in years, and use the "really cool" aspects of social networking. But I don't want it to bite me in the ass--and this article proves that it happens...
Now, what would be really interesting is if Myspace, Facebook, etc. put a requirement in their TOS stating that profiles couldn't be used for employment purposes. If they actively sued anyone who broke that rule, then that site would get an influx of new customers...
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This is an absurd list! Every security hole has to be researched, tested, and patched for 8 different versions of IE! This is further exacerbated by the fact that there are severe differences in the "same" version of IE between different OS's. IE 7 on XP is a very different beast than IE 7 on 2008. Mozilla has 2 versions only--and FF2 will drop off support within the next month. Microsoft should port IE7 to Windows 2000 (which is supported through June, 2010) and retire IE5 and IE6 once and for all. This will cut down the number of code-bases that they need to support.
But that would be too logical for Microsoft...
You really do sound like a fanboi... Just because Apple says you should have it (errr, excuse me, NBC says you should have it and Apple went along) doesn't mean you should. Sorry, but there are better ways to spend money than throwing out last year's projector because it isn't HDCP compliant. Never mind that it works perfectly fine...
Keep drinking that expensive Kool-Aid.
It would be worse if that statement was spoken with Steve Jobs' voice...
But ask an Apple fanboi not to run the latest & greatest and you'll get "that's so 2007!" I'll bet that there's more than one fanboi who would buy a new HDCP-compliant projector in order to not have to give up his pretty 2008 MacBook.
Seriously, that looks worse than GeoWorks!
That isn't he half of it. In the OSA's most recent regulation, since a "foot" is no longer an official measurement in Canada, "foot-long sandwiches" must now be called "3.048 decimeter-long sandwiches". This is primarily meant to get revenue from American tourists, who will be slapped with a CAD$50 fine for using "foot" as a unit of measurement to describe a sandwich. Mr. Sub has looked forward to this day, since their new sandwich will be 25% more expensive than the old sandwich. (After all, "3.048" is better than "1").
One thing that people don't realize is that when retailers declare bankruptcy, their gift cards are worthless. You're considered an unsecured creditor, which puts you in the back of the line among all other creditors. If there's anything left, you might get pennies on the dollar for what the card is worth--a few years down the road. Some companies plead their cases with the courts to allow gift card holders to use them--after all, if those people lose their card values, they won't be shopping at the now-bankrupt company, especially when the company needs those customers most...
At least Consumers Union is trying to petition the FTC to force companies to honor outstanding cards... But I can only see this happening if a retailer chooses to reorganize--forget it if they're liquidating.
So, the best advice is to use up your gift cards NOW , before the retailer goes under. Given that Linens & Things, Lilian Vernon, Sharper Image, and now Circuit City all went bankrupt in 2008, this problem will get worse FAST.
I'm curious to know if this is a problem limited to U.S. retailers... Is this an issue in Europe, Japan, etc.?
Maybe not illegal (tho, ICANN and/or the FTC would probably have a problem), but if my URL was inaccessible to all D-Link routers and instead redirected someone to a product/service sold by D-Link or, worse, redirected to my competition, you'd better believe that I'm going to sue them!!!
Well, at least they chose "Safe Mode with Networking" and now will be able to look at NTBTLOG.TXT from a distance. Of course, given that it takes up to 40 minutes for round-trip communications to happen, they had to change the default setting from 30 seconds to 2400+ seconds, otherwise the lander's would have died before loading the power monitoring service--resulting in an infinite loop.
Yup... Long filename support, easy transpose of two letters (remember Alt-left Shift?), etc. But I got bit one too many times where a file got corrupted (I believe it was due to the long filename menu system) so I went to WordPerfect 5.1 and never looked back... And it was all amber--except for the color "Leading Edge" logo. :-)
While the rest of your post was well said, this paragraph either smacks of laziness or shows that you're not doing your homework when looking into solutions. Either way, you'll get no sympathy from me. You do have options. This being Slashdot, virtualization is a big topic around here and would probably solve your problems...
If you're talking about WPDOS, load up Dosbox and run it there--no additional software or licenses required. If you're talking about WPWin, load up Virtual PC or VMWare Server or Bochs or QEMU or Virtual Box or any other free virtualization software that supports Windows in a VM, load a copy of an older version of Windows you probably have lying around (or install a 2nd copy of XP using your existing license--I won't tell...), and run WP in the virtual machine's copy of Windows. Either solution cost you $0.00 + time. Done...
The article talks about two very distinct and different problems--hardware and file formats. The author has a point about the hardware--if the media goes bad or if there is no way to read the data, then the data is lost. However, the author is completely off-base when it comes to file formats...
The author specifically mentions WordPerfect files. Bad example! The default file format in Wordperfect X4 (released in April, 2008) is the same as what was used in WordPerfect 6--which came out in 1993 (DOS and Windows). While I can't speak for OpenOffice or Google Docs, MS-Word can read those files (and WordPerfect 5.x files) with a simple File/Open. Excel opens Lotus 1-2-3 files as well. So, Word can open popular formats in use since 1988 (WP 5.0) and Excel can open some formats in use since 1983 (1-2-3 r1a). You can also buy programs like FileMerlin to convert old documents.
Frankly, when it comes to file formats, conversion apps will exist for a LONG time. For DOS apps, you could even go so far as to create a v/m or use Dosbox, load up your obsolete word processor (I miss "Leading Edge Word Processor"!) and copy/paste the text into Word or Notepad...
Image files, sounds, & videos are no exception... GIF has been around since 1987, JPEG has been around since the early '90s (opening those on a 10Mhz 8088 was slow!), and MPEG/WMV/AVI/Quicktime videos are easily openable...
Finally, the more people that are affected by obsolete files, the more interest there is in some way to convert the data... But don't forget that a LOT of the data is junk--do you really care about your 7th grade paper you wrote on Hong Kong in 1989?
You're right... I forgot that even CGA's 80x25 text was actually 640x200. So, DOS 40x25 text. This thing really is useless!
Someone posted on the original article's forum that it's 320x240. Unfortunately, in this day and age, that resolution borders on useless. Sure, for 80x25 text or for an old VGA 320x200 DOS game it would be cool. But to do anything of recent vintage, you'll end up having to pan-and-scan in zoom mode to see a webpage. Hell, I don't like browsing on my Toshiba Libretto 110CT--and that's 800x480... (And my complaints are with the screen resolution, not speed--Firefox 3 runs acceptably on it).
Netware 3.12 - 5174 days, 21 hours, 48 minutes, 19 seconds
Go 486DX2/66, go!
Wrong... Windows 3.0, 3.0a, 3.0 with Multimedia Extensions, 3.1, 3.11, WfW 3.10, and WfW 3.11 all had 386 Enhanced Mode--which allowed you to run multiple DOS applications simultaneously utilizing Virtual 8086 mode of all 386+ processors. All the above versions, excluding WfW 3.11, also had (286) Standard Mode...
The differences between 3.0 and 3.1 were huge... 3.1 included TrueType, better networking support (with full protected-mode support in WfW, which didn't require any DOS drivers), built-in screen savers (which killed the market for Berkeley's "After Dark" program), the ability to run in 386 Enhanced mode while running memory managers like EMM386 or QEMM, built-in basic multimedia support (3.0 with Multimedia Extensions was OEM-only), and the first GPFs & BSODs with a real attempt at error trapping--3.0 could only give "Unavoidable Application Errors" which would usually crash Windows. And only one of the games was changed--Reversi in 3.0 was replaced with Minesweeper in 3.1x. Solitaire existed in both versions...
Seriously, why doesn't Microsoft spend its considerable resources helping fix UAC for Vista? Do it as part of SP2... Since answering UAC is modal (systemwide), it's not like any user-level apps "depend" on it behaving in a specific way/at specific times, so changing its behavior should have no negative effect on those apps...
Or are they admitting defeat and preparing for the next battle (a.k.a. Windows 7)???
I personally feel the battery in every electronic device should be user-replaceable using commonly-available tools --and-- replacement batteries should be readily available. Too many people replace the item in question (and throw out/donate the old one) when the battery outlives its usefulness... But a donated iPod or cell phone with a dead battery is of no use to groups like the Salvation Army or Goodwill. So they end up getting tossed anyway... And you can put the blame squarely on the manufacturer that decided on a non-user-serviceable battery...
Of course, companies like Apple would fight such a law tooth-and-nail since someone might decide it's economically more logical to keep the old item and replace the battery than buy a new one. And what's good for Apple is good for America! (and China...)
I call bullshit--unless he's doing some serious work for spyware companies and sending e-mails peddling "Vla*g-ra" -and/or- has a serious hard drive or memory problem. Let's see, Win95 required a 386DX with 4MB RAM--although that setup was painfully slow. Win95 recommended a 486 with 8MB RAM. So, unless you are running a lot of startup apps, Win95 (including Win95B) should boot with 8MB RAM and have a WIN386.SWP of 0 bytes. So, even if he has a PIII/450 with 64MB RAM (even then most laptops came with 128MB RAM), you've got a PC that's easily 50x more powerful than Win95's minimum requirements and 20x more powerful than the recommended requirements...
Do him a favor... Install Win95B, Win98, or W2K.
"The quality checking will be happening as optional."
What, they're not there yet? Damn slacking software pirates...
Back in college, I was researching something and saw an ad in Newsweek for a 1985 Ford Escort diesel (U.S., not the European Escort) that claimed ~50MPG. Most of the Big 3 did it before but they got burned by noisy, polluting, and rough-riding diesel engines of the time...
You can't fire someone for medical reasons, it's part of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990). Someone who has/had cancer or a heart attack is just as much protected as someone who is blind or in a wheelchair. There's case law to back this up where people have sued their (former) employers under ADA for mental & physical illnesses...
From the ADA Q&A site...
Simple & powerful enough...
I don't see how this is helpful... Private profiles still show up on Google, proving you have one, so any hiring manager with half a brain would just require you to make them a friend as a condition of employment (or part of their background check)...
Best advice--don't create a profile in the first place. Given how difficult it is to get rid of profiles (didn't someone sue Myspace because they weren't willing to shut down that person's profile?), it's best not to open that pandora's box in the first place... Frankly I would love to have a profile, chat with people I haven't seen in years, and use the "really cool" aspects of social networking. But I don't want it to bite me in the ass--and this article proves that it happens...
Now, what would be really interesting is if Myspace, Facebook, etc. put a requirement in their TOS stating that profiles couldn't be used for employment purposes. If they actively sued anyone who broke that rule, then that site would get an influx of new customers...