I have @home service and it rocks. (I managed to get a static IP too. Nice personal staging setup for my hobby projects! But forget trying to get support from them. The first question in their script is to review DHCP settings. Sheesh.)
When I tried contacting their support to see if they could recommend a firewall or other protection, I was told they have no recommendations. Not that they were protecting me. Not that DHCP was the cat's meow. Nope. Not even an assurance that all was well. Just an emphatic, we have no recommendations for you.
So I did some searching and reading and I found a firewall on my own. But it baffles me that they explicitly choose not to help their customers secure their machines. Dumb, head in the sand policy.
Filtering content will never adequately address the fact that the handheld device is different and requires different UE, different structuring of the content,... I'm not going to read the Atlantic Monthly on my cell phone no matter how you filter it. Nor is Datek's streamer the way I want to see stock quotes on my phone. For stuff you want on a mobile device, you need to redesign how it is delivered to suit the features and limitations of the mobile device.
As for the foolishness of doing much with layout on a mobile device -- that is, in a sense, one motivation for subletting CSS for mobile devices. The idea of CSS is to separate the formatting from the content. There is still formatting that has to be applied to content aimed at a mobile device, CSSMP is an attempt to describe what is possible and appropriate.
Sooner or later WAP will be rendered obsolete by changes in the wireless networks. But WML and WMLScript will probably endure longer than WAP just because cruft never dies, and this is useful cruft. I think the W3C is right to look forward to a post WAP mobile era where variations of familiar standards, such as XHTML Basic and maybe CSSMP, will integrate mobile devices into the web more cleanly than WAP.
No, we won't be generating an atmosphere for Mars in 100 years. Read the article:
One hundred greenhouse gas factories, each with the power of a nuclear power plant, could transform the Martian climate into something resembling Canada's in 100 years, she estimated.
So if we fire these gas generating nukes up tomorrow, then maybe in 100 years we'll have some vague chance of having a warmer climate there. I'm not holding my breath, unless I'm forced to live near a PFC belching nuke.
I see a few posts noting that the loss claimed as a deduction by the company is a gain to some option grantee that yields income tax. My question is when?
Does the company claim the loss when the options vest? Or when they are exercised? I'd be a bit surprised if MS were able to fully offset income with losses from exercised options.
Assuming the loss is taken when the option vests, what price is used for this computation? Is this adjusted later on when the options if finally exercised? (Or not exercised, in some cases?)
If the loss is booked when the options are exercised, then the taxes-are-paid argument makes some sense. But if it is based on the vesting schedule, then the argument holds a lot less water. Anyone know the answer?
I fail to see the difference between Schneier's 3rd wave network attacks and old fashioned, vanilla fraud. And in that sense, it's beem around at least as long as the first two waves.
What is new is the way in which the web has insinuated its way into the core of various endeavours -- like the stock market, or news. As people rely on the network more and more fraud via the web will be more of a threat. In this view, the growth of B2B markets should be limited by the potential for fraudulent manipulations. Come to think of it, maybe consumers are smarter than their given credit for by shunning on-line commerce in favor of more trusted, face to face transactions.
So, if you are already paying royalties, I assume there is a regular ASCAP/BMI mechanism for collecting and dsitributing these royalties -- one that is applicable to web broadcasting.
So why should RIAA want to, or be allowed to, insert themselves into this picture? Are you relatively unique in paying royalties? Even if you are, why is another collection/distribution system needed?
The aspect of the article that struck me wsa that RIAA is trying to differentiate webcasting from traditiional broadcasting. I just don't see why that is valid.
You're comparing apples and oranges when you compare the price of a CD to the potential subscription rate for a Napster service.
My MP3 collection is huge (~16Gig), but it is not nearly as convenient as my CD collection, nor is the quality the same. Add to that the fact that it takes considerable time and effort to collect from Napster and I'd argue that purchased CD's have a greater intrinsic value than Napster downloads.
That may change as time goes by and we have more products that make MP3 collections more useful. But for now the value of MP3s is somewhat limited. My MP3s give me exposure to music that I would not generally buy, and allows me to screen my CD purchases so I never buy a CD I don't love. That is valuable to me, but I'm not sure if I would go for monthly flat rates, or what dollar value I would go for. I'd have to ponder that.
Much of Katz's narrative resonates, but I object to the net
centric view. To me it is economic globalism that is undermining
nationalism and local sovereignty. The web is a bit player in
that act. The web does not, by itself, trump local authority.
It only does so with the corporation and participation of
global economic entities (corporations).
I'm somewhat agnostic about the merits of this phenomenon.
Economic globalism is both good and bad. But the focus of
this debate should rightly be on globalism and not the net, IMO.
As others have noted, there is nothing particularly newsworthy about this.
It has been done in all forms of retail forever. In some extremes it is
pernicious and illegal. In other cases it is smart retailing. And.com retailers are getting more and more sophisticated about doing this
as the industry matures and as tools are developed to support it.
It's sometimes called beha vioural
marketing. It's also called knowing your customer. Supporting
this kind of marketing is a burgeoning business for a lot of web companies.
The idea is that you track what happens on your site via web, db, phone
logs. You segment your visitors according to criteria you make up
or you discern from your logs. Aand you devise promotions and marketing
programs to attract and retain the customers you really want, and help
them get beyond shopping to buying. Duh.
Amazon is not alone in pursuing this strategy. And the article
offers almost devoid of factual data on the particulars of Amazon's program.
If you want to boycott Amazon, go ahead. They won't care - unless you spend
lots of time browsing but never buying. But doing it as a result of this
non-information is pretty foolish.
I read the press release. I don't see that your quote contradicts the idea that purveyors of IP content would join their network and serve their content off of big servers. The server scalability is the "member"'s concern and not AppleSoup's. I was not suggesting that AppleSoup would run those servers, just that they might end up sporting features that would make the arrangement work better than it currrently does on Napster.
First, we know next to nothing about AppleSoup, what it will distribute, what IP protections they will ofer, or what their revenue model will be. I bet they haven't nailed much of this down yet either.
But one thing is pretty clear. If they are distributing media files that are larger than MP3 they will not rely on Joe Consumer to serve up the files.
If Napster did offer IP protection, industry distributors would log into the Napster network with big honkin servers that could serve up quality MP3s at optimal bandwidth. These servers would be advertised; they would be on-line at all times. We would all learn to keep them on our hotlist and use them in preference to Joe Bloe's random PC. (And Napster would undoubtedly enhance their support for hotlist to make it all work well.)
I don't have any answer to the physical problems of sharing multi-gig files. But do not assume that Napster is the end all, be all of peer to peer networks. Once the legal issues are settled, service will improve and the distribution model will be more valuable.
As you've noted, Urban Heat Islands are pretty well understood, and searches will produce lots of links. I'm a bit surprised to see that no.gov links show anymore. I believe NASA hosted a Heat Island site a few years back. Perhaps there are political dimensions to this science?
An acquaintance that spent a summer in the mountains of Guatemala told me that every little village seemed to have an internet cafe. Apparently it is heavily used to communicate by email and IM services with Norteno relatives -- who are the backbone of the economies of theese poor villages. To me this is similar to the way that cell phones are taking root in Central America -- email, IM, and cell phones are simply the most cost effective way to build out the communication infrastructure in some third world communities.
Will access to the net change the economies of these communities? I would not be to breathless about that. Maybe, but it will take time. And it will depend on a lot of problematic contributing factors such as political stability, freedom, and yes, basic resources like food and water. Web access may help spur education and help resourceful individuals. But it is no panacea. More like the party line phone that was once ubiquitous in our rural (and poor) communities many decades ago. Part of the infrastructure. Something that binds communities together and to the outside world. Good to have. But not a salvation.
I find it very intersting that they say WAP is failing in the U.K. and Germany. This is where there ought to be the greatest demand for the services since cell devices are more ubiquitous and there has been strong industry support for it.
Everyone wants to wail about the patents and the proprietary cloning of web protocols -- which is valid. But the larger issue is the corporate cultural disonnect between telcos and web ventures. Telcos want control over everything on their networks. WAP pretty much gives it to them -- witness the limited service that they complain about in Australia. Also note that some french carrier recently lost a suit related to their attempt to limit web access to "approved" URLs! Clearly the telcos do not get it.
Except for NTT DoCoMo. They built out their network to support TCP and true web delivery. And it has been a complete, stunning success.
DoCoMo, and the relative lack of success of WAP services, underscore the severe limitations of serving web content to a cell phone. To me, the mobile web will have to wait for better cell nets, and for better mobile devices. (Go EPOC + Bluetooth!) Most of us will simply never need the web on our phones. In that respect, the freeprotocol.org folks have it right about the relative merit of simple messaging technologies in lieo of web services. The kinds of things that work in WAP can be done better with lighter weight messaging protocols -- as in Blackberry devices.
'There is no good evidence that most uses of computers significantly improve teaching and learning, yet school districts are cutting programs-- music, art, physical education-- that enrich children's lives to make room for this dubious nostrum, and the Clinton Administration has embraced the goal of "computers in every classroom" with credulous and costly enthusiasm.'
Oppenheimer's article goes into much greater depth on the subject. It is the best exposition on the subject that I have found. Note that both Oppenhiemer and the nzoom articles are talking about young kids, like K-5 grades. Obviously computers and the web have a place in higher education. The point is that computers are not appropriate for younger kids.
I've wrestled with this a lot w.r.t. my kids. They both have had access to computers and the web growing up. I buy them "educational" software that they enjoy and use. But I do not think these programs are a substitute for hands-on tactile learning with adult teachers and mentors. Not at all. They are ever so slightly better than watching T.V. but not much better. Not as good as a really big mud puddle, or an any hill in the back yard, or a game of 'go fish' played with a friend...
The adults in their lives, especially the parents and teachers, are what matters. Just like it always has been. I'd much rather have my kids' school spend money to lower the teacher/student ratio than to invest in more computer hardware. No contest.
AutoCAD used to ship with something like 25lbs of stuff in the box. As I recall there were 6 bound books in the box -- and the box was a two piece slash box that customers happily kept on their bookshelves. I still have some holding papers on my shelf. They are useful. (And the reference manual used to have a very high calibre cloth binding.)
All that ended when COGS considerations were given the upper hand after R12. The weight of printed material intially was cut in half and has by now gone down to zero. The books, if you pay for them, are small format with cheap-o binding and printing popularized by MS. The slash boxes are replaced by the standard perishable cardboard waste. (Meanwhile the reduced costs were not passed onto the VAR or the consumer. Duh.)
Why do I bring this up? Because there used to be a real need for boxes. Customers developed expectations about software coming to them in boxes -- the bigger the better.
This is a silly issue altogether. The packaging waste is trivial compared to the paper wasted in most offices -- including in software shops. And the fuel wasted in distributing boxed CDs compared to on-line downloads is arguably more significant.
More recently, Autodesk chose to ship the actual CD;s in a nice biodegradable cardboard case instead of a jewel box. Customers revolted. They hated it. They forced them to change back to jewel cases. In public newwgroups Adesk folks were ridculed, no, excoriated for pointing out the virtues of the cardboard cases. Oh well.
As one who used to make my living building new versions of AutoCAD, I think I have something to say about this. Even if the/. attention span has moved onto more immediate stimuli.
By now we know that both the DWG and DOC format have been reverse engineered. We also know that it really does not matter. Autodesk/MS control the data formats. Their rendering of the data is the reference implementation -- and they both change the format at will. They both exploit run-time and new version peculiarities in their rendering of the data.
When it comes time for a company to decide which product to invest in, when it's time to choose if they want to use the proprietary product or some wannabe cheap-o competitor, the answer is alway the same. Go with the standard bearer. And that really is the correct answer. The price differential is completely and totally irrelevant. Corporations invenst a lot more in labor and data than they invest in any one version of a software product. The "open source" factor is -- if not irrelevant -- not appreciated. It is secondary at best.
Look at IntelliCAD. They attempted to commoditize R12 AutoCAD. Supposedly nobody wanted any of the features crammed into post-R12, post-multiplatform AutoCAD. R13 was a bitter pill for AutoCAD customers and loyalists. Supposedly IntelliCAD would allow drafter/designers to draw basic 2D engineering drawing just as well as R13++ for half the price. More importantly, they thought they had given companies that had huge investments in DWG data a viable alternative -- a way out. They could jump from the ship they were supposedly dissatisfied with and seek alternatives.
But you know what? Nobody took the offer. Not before IntelliCAD was "open source" and not after.
It turns out that Autodesk was able to pull off R14 and salvage their reputation Turns out customers were not all that dissatisfied with Autodesk -- which they correctly saw as a well entrenched, healthy (==rich) partner, committed to investing in both AutoCAD and other forward looking design products and technologies. Turns out AutoCAD is very capable of getting the drafting job done. Besides, IntelliCAD was for shit. Still is. And when Visio sacked the original ItelliCAD development team - a very idealistic and motivated group -- because ICAD was released prematurely with bugs and feature gaps -- any idealism or customer loyalty went out the window. ICAD was exposed for what it had become -- a cheap knock off with no future. The so-called open sourcing of IntelliCAD was just window dressing. The fact was that Visio had interred it's mistake in preparation for acquisition by MS. (It also parted ways with the folks that had inspired IntellCAD, FWIW.)
So what does this have to do with.DOC?
You could come out with a.DOC compatible word processor without a super-human effort. But wihtout the VBA, without the quirky rendering, without all the nuances and endless litany of features of Word it would be nothing more than a knock-off. It would have to beat Word on functional terms in order to be attractive. That would be a very tall order. Like it or not, Word and AutoCAD are very mature products. Maybe they attempt to do too much. Maybe they are bloated with features that any one customer does not want or need. But a whole lot of customers are well served by these products. They get the job done for a broad spectrum of customers.
They are both going to be very, very hard to disslodge. It's their game to loose. Beating them on the merits will be damned hard, and possibly not enough.
And, just to goad anyone still reading, being "open source" or not has nothing to do with it.
If open source is a strategic advantage, it will hvae to do with stamina and longevity. Eventually MS/Autodesk will find it hard to keep milking their cash cows. Eventually they will find it harder and harder to justify continued investment in these products. Eventually the WinX platforms both producst are married to will fade. At that point, when Word and AutoCAD stagnate, they may be vulnerable to an open source comminity that can run endlessly on no cash, that can build bridges to newer, more current technologies.
I'm not holding my breath.
In fact, I've changed jobs to get out of the CAD industry. The action is elsewhere. I may not live long enough to see AutoCAD take a fall. It may never happen.
PS: In the CAD space, the most intersting open source activity is not IntelliCAD. The Matra folks have a more interesting offering. IntelliCAD is a corpse. OpenDWG may prove useful if and when the action moves beyond AutoCAD. If that future is to involve open source, it will more likely be centered on Matra than OpenDWG.
RIAA does not get it. Looks like Fanning and Parker had terrible aim. But I have some hope that CEO/Lawyer Barry may be able to salvage the gig.
Napster will not kill the CD market, it will revive it. It's already doing this.
I've amassed a 400-piece MP3 jazz collection that I share on Napster and other Napigator servers. Most of the collection came from Usenet and Napster. I do not consider myself a pirate, and I'm not in the least ashamed of my collecting. I've learned a whole lot about MP3 sharing that many readers have learned. Napster is very, very cool. I want Napster in my life. It saves me from the industrialized, pasteurized, homogenized pop sterility of the kind of music foisted on the public by the companies fronted by the RIAA.
Both the RIAA and Fanning & Parker are wrong about the threat to CD music distribution. Napster is a means of sampling low quality copies of selected songs. It enables me to buy only CD's I know I like. This means I'm happier with my CD spending and less reluctant to make purchases. I always spent a fair chunk of change on music, and since I've been collecting with Napster I've continued to spend - probably a little more than before.
The other neglected fact is that Napster collecting is not free. It takes lots and lots of time and effort. It is not a convenient way to listen to music, nor is it a convenient way to collect music. The choices are limited. Downloading fails as often as it works. On my 56K line it is *slow*... For music I know I will like and listen to, I just by the CD. Napster is for sampling and browsing and expanding your musical horizons.
The Pew study deserves attention. It's not just college kids. It's me, the 40-something music collector too. It's anyone that is not being served by the current industrial radio, pop music machine. Napster and its offspring will be a means of empowering consumers and liberating individuals to seek their own true musical tastes.
All of this is disruptive. The RIAA position is no surprise. Nor is it a surprise to see the Napster founders' original intentions in print. But none of this changes the fact that law abiding music consumers from all walks of life are drawn to Napster because if serves a useful purpose. CEO Barry gets it. I sure hope he finds a way to derail the litigation and get on with the negotiating and partnering that must come about sooner or later.
Interesting to note that the entire appeals cout will hear the case instead of the usual three judge panel. Does anyone have more info on why, or how unusual this migth be?
The Yahoo piece suggests it was a coup for MS to get it in front of the appeals court instead of going directly to the Supreme cout. I'm not so sure. To me it looks like Judge Jackson wins since his refusal to stay the conduct rememdies seems to have light a fire under M$'s arse.
I've been testing Opera's beta4 on WinNT and I can tell you that V4 is a major re-write aimed at improving both standards compliance and portability. In that sense it is comparable to the tranformation from NS4.x to Mozilla.
Current v4 betas are still very rough. DO NOT DOWNLOAD the Win beta5!! B5 suffers from a licensing SNAFU. They are in the midst of a major restructuring their Java support. Scripting is half baked and unusable after a tear down / rebuild. CSS is very good but not finished. V4 is a work in progress that I'm pretty hopeful about.
My take on Opera is that they are positioning themselves for non-PC devices and platforms. Linux and EPOC ports, as well as their XML and WAP support are evidence of this strategy. It's an interesting strategy.
The W3C recently decided to hire a "conformance manager" who will help ensure that their standards are adopted cleanly. I heard about this at XMLHack: "Towards better conformance". I don't see any mention of this on the W3C site.
As noted in the XMLHack piece, conformance is typically monitored by external organizations like The Web Standards Project, or XML.COM.
MS has been extremely effective with their logo certification program. My prior employer would jump through any hoop, do anything at all without regard to process, resources, etc. in order to get the MS logo compliance. I almost wish that IETF or W3C would try such heavy handed stuff.
The key question is how can the internet help emerging artists garner publicity and promote their work.
The answer is definitely not Napster. Napster reilies almost exclusively on the user having prior knowledge of the work and seeking it out by artist or song title. The result is that the Napster community ends up a hostage to record company, and radio industry, promotions. Lars sees this as an ongoing role for the record company. I don't see that as being the best answer for artists.
For me, the real breakdown in the music industry lies in the complete commerical corruption and industrialization of radio. Radio today sucks. Completely homogenized pop crap. All choices are the same. Non-mainstream formats and styles are completely out in the cold. Complete loss of control by artists to the industrial pursuit of profit. There is no art, no alternative visions, no creativity in radio programming. Just ads and marketing. Music is not a creative work. It's just a product, a vehicle for selling ads.
In this view the answer lies in creation of a viable, low entry barrior, popular internet radio. It is almost there. But it is not sufficiently differentiated from broadcast radio to effectively complete with and displace FM radio.
A Napster-like trading community could also work on a fee basis. But without some vehicle for promotions, web based music is incomplete and remains hostage to the apparatus that is dominated and corrupted by the record companies.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you're right. But silence could also be construed to be negligent too.
When I tried contacting their support to see if they could recommend a firewall or other protection, I was told they have no recommendations. Not that they were protecting me. Not that DHCP was the cat's meow. Nope. Not even an assurance that all was well. Just an emphatic, we have no recommendations for you.
So I did some searching and reading and I found a firewall on my own. But it baffles me that they explicitly choose not to help their customers secure their machines. Dumb, head in the sand policy.
As for the foolishness of doing much with layout on a mobile device -- that is, in a sense, one motivation for subletting CSS for mobile devices. The idea of CSS is to separate the formatting from the content. There is still formatting that has to be applied to content aimed at a mobile device, CSSMP is an attempt to describe what is possible and appropriate.
Sooner or later WAP will be rendered obsolete by changes in the wireless networks. But WML and WMLScript will probably endure longer than WAP just because cruft never dies, and this is useful cruft. I think the W3C is right to look forward to a post WAP mobile era where variations of familiar standards, such as XHTML Basic and maybe CSSMP, will integrate mobile devices into the web more cleanly than WAP.
Does the company claim the loss when the options vest? Or when they are exercised? I'd be a bit surprised if MS were able to fully offset income with losses from exercised options.
Assuming the loss is taken when the option vests, what price is used for this computation? Is this adjusted later on when the options if finally exercised? (Or not exercised, in some cases?)
If the loss is booked when the options are exercised, then the taxes-are-paid argument makes some sense. But if it is based on the vesting schedule, then the argument holds a lot less water. Anyone know the answer?
What is new is the way in which the web has insinuated its way into the core of various endeavours -- like the stock market, or news. As people rely on the network more and more fraud via the web will be more of a threat. In this view, the growth of B2B markets should be limited by the potential for fraudulent manipulations. Come to think of it, maybe consumers are smarter than their given credit for by shunning on-line commerce in favor of more trusted, face to face transactions.
More coverage of this issue is found in the Salon article, "Designer babies?"
So why should RIAA want to, or be allowed to, insert themselves into this picture? Are you relatively unique in paying royalties? Even if you are, why is another collection/distribution system needed?
The aspect of the article that struck me wsa that RIAA is trying to differentiate webcasting from traditiional broadcasting. I just don't see why that is valid.
My MP3 collection is huge (~16Gig), but it is not nearly as convenient as my CD collection, nor is the quality the same. Add to that the fact that it takes considerable time and effort to collect from Napster and I'd argue that purchased CD's have a greater intrinsic value than Napster downloads.
That may change as time goes by and we have more products that make MP3 collections more useful. But for now the value of MP3s is somewhat limited. My MP3s give me exposure to music that I would not generally buy, and allows me to screen my CD purchases so I never buy a CD I don't love. That is valuable to me, but I'm not sure if I would go for monthly flat rates, or what dollar value I would go for. I'd have to ponder that.
I'm somewhat agnostic about the merits of this phenomenon. Economic globalism is both good and bad. But the focus of this debate should rightly be on globalism and not the net, IMO.
It's sometimes called beha vioural marketing. It's also called knowing your customer. Supporting this kind of marketing is a burgeoning business for a lot of web companies. The idea is that you track what happens on your site via web, db, phone logs. You segment your visitors according to criteria you make up or you discern from your logs. Aand you devise promotions and marketing programs to attract and retain the customers you really want, and help them get beyond shopping to buying. Duh.
Amazon is not alone in pursuing this strategy. And the article offers almost devoid of factual data on the particulars of Amazon's program. If you want to boycott Amazon, go ahead. They won't care - unless you spend lots of time browsing but never buying. But doing it as a result of this non-information is pretty foolish.
I read the press release. I don't see that your quote contradicts the idea that purveyors of IP content would join their network and serve their content off of big servers. The server scalability is the "member"'s concern and not AppleSoup's. I was not suggesting that AppleSoup would run those servers, just that they might end up sporting features that would make the arrangement work better than it currrently does on Napster.
But one thing is pretty clear. If they are distributing media files that are larger than MP3 they will not rely on Joe Consumer to serve up the files.
If Napster did offer IP protection, industry distributors would log into the Napster network with big honkin servers that could serve up quality MP3s at optimal bandwidth. These servers would be advertised; they would be on-line at all times. We would all learn to keep them on our hotlist and use them in preference to Joe Bloe's random PC. (And Napster would undoubtedly enhance their support for hotlist to make it all work well.)
I don't have any answer to the physical problems of sharing multi-gig files. But do not assume that Napster is the end all, be all of peer to peer networks. Once the legal issues are settled, service will improve and the distribution model will be more valuable.
Anway, here are some links:
Will access to the net change the economies of these communities? I would not be to breathless about that. Maybe, but it will take time. And it will depend on a lot of problematic contributing factors such as political stability, freedom, and yes, basic resources like food and water. Web access may help spur education and help resourceful individuals. But it is no panacea. More like the party line phone that was once ubiquitous in our rural (and poor) communities many decades ago. Part of the infrastructure. Something that binds communities together and to the outside world. Good to have. But not a salvation.
I find it very intersting that they say WAP is failing in the U.K. and Germany. This is where there ought to be the greatest demand for the services since cell devices are more ubiquitous and there has been strong industry support for it.
Everyone wants to wail about the patents and the proprietary cloning of web protocols -- which is valid. But the larger issue is the corporate cultural disonnect between telcos and web ventures. Telcos want control over everything on their networks. WAP pretty much gives it to them -- witness the limited service that they complain about in Australia. Also note that some french carrier recently lost a suit related to their attempt to limit web access to "approved" URLs! Clearly the telcos do not get it.
Except for NTT DoCoMo. They built out their network to support TCP and true web delivery. And it has been a complete, stunning success.
DoCoMo, and the relative lack of success of WAP services, underscore the severe limitations of serving web content to a cell phone. To me, the mobile web will have to wait for better cell nets, and for better mobile devices. (Go EPOC + Bluetooth!) Most of us will simply never need the web on our phones. In that respect, the freeprotocol.org folks have it right about the relative merit of simple messaging technologies in lieo of web services. The kinds of things that work in WAP can be done better with lighter weight messaging protocols -- as in Blackberry devices.
I've wrestled with this a lot w.r.t. my kids. They both have had access to computers and the web growing up. I buy them "educational" software that they enjoy and use. But I do not think these programs are a substitute for hands-on tactile learning with adult teachers and mentors. Not at all. They are ever so slightly better than watching T.V. but not much better. Not as good as a really big mud puddle, or an any hill in the back yard, or a game of 'go fish' played with a friend...
The adults in their lives, especially the parents and teachers, are what matters. Just like it always has been. I'd much rather have my kids' school spend money to lower the teacher/student ratio than to invest in more computer hardware. No contest.
Could someone take a stab at comparing and contrasting this effort with what WorkSpot is offering?
All that ended when COGS considerations were given the upper hand after R12. The weight of printed material intially was cut in half and has by now gone down to zero. The books, if you pay for them, are small format with cheap-o binding and printing popularized by MS. The slash boxes are replaced by the standard perishable cardboard waste. (Meanwhile the reduced costs were not passed onto the VAR or the consumer. Duh.)
Why do I bring this up? Because there used to be a real need for boxes. Customers developed expectations about software coming to them in boxes -- the bigger the better.
This is a silly issue altogether. The packaging waste is trivial compared to the paper wasted in most offices -- including in software shops. And the fuel wasted in distributing boxed CDs compared to on-line downloads is arguably more significant.
More recently, Autodesk chose to ship the actual CD;s in a nice biodegradable cardboard case instead of a jewel box. Customers revolted. They hated it. They forced them to change back to jewel cases. In public newwgroups Adesk folks were ridculed, no, excoriated for pointing out the virtues of the cardboard cases. Oh well.
By now we know that both the DWG and DOC format have been reverse engineered. We also know that it really does not matter. Autodesk/MS control the data formats. Their rendering of the data is the reference implementation -- and they both change the format at will. They both exploit run-time and new version peculiarities in their rendering of the data.
When it comes time for a company to decide which product to invest in, when it's time to choose if they want to use the proprietary product or some wannabe cheap-o competitor, the answer is alway the same. Go with the standard bearer. And that really is the correct answer. The price differential is completely and totally irrelevant. Corporations invenst a lot more in labor and data than they invest in any one version of a software product. The "open source" factor is -- if not irrelevant -- not appreciated. It is secondary at best.
Look at IntelliCAD. They attempted to commoditize R12 AutoCAD. Supposedly nobody wanted any of the features crammed into post-R12, post-multiplatform AutoCAD. R13 was a bitter pill for AutoCAD customers and loyalists. Supposedly IntelliCAD would allow drafter/designers to draw basic 2D engineering drawing just as well as R13++ for half the price. More importantly, they thought they had given companies that had huge investments in DWG data a viable alternative -- a way out. They could jump from the ship they were supposedly dissatisfied with and seek alternatives.
But you know what? Nobody took the offer.
Not before IntelliCAD was "open source" and not after.
It turns out that Autodesk was able to pull off R14 and salvage their reputation Turns out customers were not all that dissatisfied with Autodesk -- which they correctly saw as a well entrenched, healthy (==rich) partner, committed to investing in both AutoCAD and other forward looking design products and technologies. Turns out AutoCAD is very capable of getting the drafting job done. Besides, IntelliCAD was for shit. Still is. And when Visio sacked the original ItelliCAD development team - a very idealistic and motivated group -- because ICAD was released prematurely with bugs and feature gaps -- any idealism or customer loyalty went out the window. ICAD was exposed for what it had become -- a cheap knock off with no future. The so-called open sourcing of IntelliCAD was just window dressing. The fact was that Visio had interred it's mistake in preparation for acquisition by MS. (It also parted ways with the folks that had inspired IntellCAD, FWIW.)
So what does this have to do with .DOC?
You could come out with a .DOC compatible word processor without a super-human effort. But wihtout the VBA, without the quirky rendering, without all the nuances and endless litany of features of Word it would be nothing more than a knock-off. It would have to beat Word on functional terms in order to be attractive. That would be a very tall order. Like it or not, Word and AutoCAD are very mature products. Maybe they attempt to do too much. Maybe they are bloated with features that any one customer does not want or need. But a whole lot of customers are well served by these products. They get the job done for a broad spectrum of customers.
They are both going to be very, very hard to disslodge.
It's their game to loose.
Beating them on the merits will be damned hard, and possibly not enough.
And, just to goad anyone still reading, being "open source" or not has nothing to do with it.
If open source is a strategic advantage, it will hvae to do with stamina and longevity. Eventually MS/Autodesk will find it hard to keep milking their cash cows. Eventually they will find it harder and harder to justify continued investment in these products. Eventually the WinX platforms both producst are married to will fade. At that point, when Word and AutoCAD stagnate, they may be vulnerable to an open source comminity that can run endlessly on no cash, that can build bridges to newer, more current technologies.
I'm not holding my breath.
In fact, I've changed jobs to get out of the CAD industry. The action is elsewhere. I may not live long enough to see AutoCAD take a fall. It may never happen.
PS: In the CAD space, the most intersting open source activity is not IntelliCAD. The Matra folks have a more interesting offering. IntelliCAD is a corpse. OpenDWG may prove useful if and when the action moves beyond AutoCAD. If that future is to involve open source, it will more likely be centered on Matra than OpenDWG.
Napster will not kill the CD market, it will revive it. It's already doing this.
I've amassed a 400-piece MP3 jazz collection that I share on Napster and other Napigator servers. Most of the collection came from Usenet and Napster. I do not consider myself a pirate, and I'm not in the least ashamed of my collecting. I've learned a whole lot about MP3 sharing that many readers have learned. Napster is very, very cool. I want Napster in my life. It saves me from the industrialized, pasteurized, homogenized pop sterility of the kind of music foisted on the public by the companies fronted by the RIAA.
Both the RIAA and Fanning & Parker are wrong about the threat to CD music distribution. Napster is a means of sampling low quality copies of selected songs. It enables me to buy only CD's I know I like. This means I'm happier with my CD spending and less reluctant to make purchases. I always spent a fair chunk of change on music, and since I've been collecting with Napster I've continued to spend - probably a little more than before.
The other neglected fact is that Napster collecting is not free. It takes lots and lots of time and effort. It is not a convenient way to listen to music, nor is it a convenient way to collect music. The choices are limited. Downloading fails as often as it works. On my 56K line it is *slow*... For music I know I will like and listen to, I just by the CD. Napster is for sampling and browsing and expanding your musical horizons.
The Pew study deserves attention. It's not just college kids. It's me, the 40-something music collector too. It's anyone that is not being served by the current industrial radio, pop music machine. Napster and its offspring will be a means of empowering consumers and liberating individuals to seek their own true musical tastes.
All of this is disruptive. The RIAA position is no surprise. Nor is it a surprise to see the Napster founders' original intentions in print. But none of this changes the fact that law abiding music consumers from all walks of life are drawn to Napster because if serves a useful purpose. CEO Barry gets it. I sure hope he finds a way to derail the litigation and get on with the negotiating and partnering that must come about sooner or later.
Interesting to note that the entire appeals cout will hear the case instead of the usual three judge panel. Does anyone have more info on why, or how unusual this migth be?
The Yahoo piece suggests it was a coup for MS to get it in front of the appeals court instead of going directly to the Supreme cout. I'm not so sure. To me it looks like Judge Jackson wins since his refusal to stay the conduct rememdies seems to have light a fire under M$'s arse.
Current v4 betas are still very rough. DO NOT DOWNLOAD the Win beta5!! B5 suffers from a licensing SNAFU. They are in the midst of a major restructuring their Java support. Scripting is half baked and unusable after a tear down / rebuild. CSS is very good but not finished. V4 is a work in progress that I'm pretty hopeful about.
My take on Opera is that they are positioning themselves for non-PC devices and platforms. Linux and EPOC ports, as well as their XML and WAP support are evidence of this strategy. It's an interesting strategy.
As noted in the XMLHack piece, conformance is typically monitored by external organizations like The Web Standards Project, or XML.COM.
MS has been extremely effective with their logo certification program. My prior employer would jump through any hoop, do anything at all without regard to process, resources, etc. in order to get the MS logo compliance. I almost wish that IETF or W3C would try such heavy handed stuff.
The answer is definitely not Napster. Napster reilies almost exclusively on the user having prior knowledge of the work and seeking it out by artist or song title. The result is that the Napster community ends up a hostage to record company, and radio industry, promotions. Lars sees this as an ongoing role for the record company. I don't see that as being the best answer for artists.
For me, the real breakdown in the music industry lies in the complete commerical corruption and industrialization of radio. Radio today sucks. Completely homogenized pop crap. All choices are the same. Non-mainstream formats and styles are completely out in the cold. Complete loss of control by artists to the industrial pursuit of profit. There is no art, no alternative visions, no creativity in radio programming. Just ads and marketing. Music is not a creative work. It's just a product, a vehicle for selling ads.
In this view the answer lies in creation of a viable, low entry barrior, popular internet radio. It is almost there. But it is not sufficiently differentiated from broadcast radio to effectively complete with and displace FM radio.
A Napster-like trading community could also work on a fee basis. But without some vehicle for promotions, web based music is incomplete and remains hostage to the apparatus that is dominated and corrupted by the record companies.