This seems like an overly complicated solution. At the moment, my phone in Japan has a feature where I logon to Vodafone's website (from the phone) and click through a couple of links and then it tells me where I am. I assume it gets this information by figuring out which cell the phone is dialing from. From the subsequent menus, there are various options like "find the last train to station X", "find the nearest place to catch a taxi", and so on. A few months ago it was only available in Japanese, but now they've introduced a bilingual version - hoochie mamma.
Why bother using the fancy-dancy image recognition software when cellular telephony has a built-in system that basically acts like a constantly-updated "user location" variable?
(Actually, the answer is simple - to make geeks foam at the mouth. Come on now people!! Excess ain't rebellion.)
The biggest thing that bothers me is the small changes to the interface. I honestly spent 20 minutes the other day attaching a picture to an email because I couldn't find the "OK" button, which is now tucked in an "aesthetically pleasing" location. They also moved the "Sign Off" button. Why?
Clear Channel can get a pretty good idea who's driving at any hour a day based on adding up the radio listening data... they can do supplemental surveys to subtract out at-work listeners so that they only count in-car listeners to figure out what the demographic that's going to pass their billboards at each hour of the day will be.
Dear God! They can't be allowed to control that kind of information! It's almost like those godawful bastards at Google who want to give us all a free gigabyte of e-mail storing with advanced search capabilities and minimal text-based ads in exchange for Draconian cookie-based information control.
Somebody sound the alarm! Call in the Dutch privacy zealots! This travesty cannot be allowed.
I haven't R'd TFA yet, but I actually have a gmail account.
Believe me, you're not missing much. I'd much rather hear the input of a savvy geek than the that of a pipe-smoking, tweed-wearing, Rolls Royce-driving... you get the point.
most everything seems to be done in javascript
Fuck. Does this mean I'm not going to be able to open messages in new tabs? Hotmail's recent "facelift" (which was more of a "hackjob", if you ask me) has irritated me to no end. I use my Uni's IMAP server for most of my email, but it's convenient for me to also maintain a free web-based account. I'm looking forward to using GMail (privacy concerns? I routinely drop my pants in public... I don't think I'm allowed) but I'm curious to read a review by someone more tech-oriented than the staff of Forbes.
I'm going to play devil's advocate here for a moment and tell you that although the EULA may be terrible, it's not Microsoft's responsibility to sign a good contract. If I wrote up a contract stipulating that you are required to give me 90% of your disposable income in exchange for me enlightening you, it certainly wouldn't be a fair contract. But if I were able to get you to sign, it would still be a binding contract, albeit a bad one.
I am not a lawyer but I know that Microsoft does not engage in any sort of coersion to force its users to agree to their EULA. I usually try to block Windows Installations out of my memory with binge drinking, but I'm pretty sure you are actually forced to "read" the entire EULA before the "Accept" button becomes available.
At the end of the day, bad contracts are legal. The problem is stupid assholes who don't read them before signing or agreeing to them. If you walked into the bank and your teller said "Sign this contract" wouldn't you want to read it first?
It all comes down to that great axiom of libertarianism: If you don't want to [agree to Microsoft's EULA], you don't have to. The onus is on the non-MS community to get the word out and inform people that it might be time to start reading and understanding those EULAs before clicking "Accept".
--
You said it yourself, it is a weak argument and it really has nothing to do with the discussion at hand;)
However, I see the point you're driving at and I've enjoyed discussing the matter with you. I suspect we're both playing devil's advocate for opposite sides of a question that is far less polarized than we're treating it.
Regardless of privacy issues or spam issues, I think we can both agree that it will be a relief to finally see some competition to Hotmail in the market for widely-accessible, free, web-based email accounts.
--
You raise some very good points, but none of them are remotely relevant to my primary argument - If you're not comfortable with releasing this sort of information, don't sign up for a Gmail account. If you're OK with Google but you're concerned that the company might be taken over by evil, hate-mongering, neo-nazi marketers that are less interested in "the needs of the many" than they are in "turning a profit", don't sign up for a Gmail account.
And don't give me any of this bullshit about the "lowest common denominator" types and their seeming allergy to reading EULAs and Privacy Statements. If living abroad has taught me one thing, it's that the worst aspect of Western civilization (yes, even Canada and Europe) is its preconceived notion that all people are stupid until they prove themselves otherwise. This might seem tangential to the discussion, but I think it's really relevant - people do realize that companies like Google are bound to use the information they collect and they don't care.
As for those who aren't bright enough to realize that, I have only two words: Natural selection.
--
I'm pretty sure I was close. I think the literal meaning is a gambling term for picking the three winning "horses" (or whatever) in the correct order. That said, I think it has taken on a figurative meaning - a group of three things that are "good".
I don't see why the privacy zealots are all up in arms about this. Don't they have something better to do like bitch about the Patriot Act? Seriously!
Google has been very up-front about what they will or will not be willing to do with the cookie "trifecta" (Google-Orkut-Gmail, as mentioned in the Register article) that they are gunning for. Not only is it spelled out quite clearly in the Gmail Privacy Statment, the co-founder is going on recrod saying "Hey, that's not such a bad idea."
What's my point? If you're neurotic about your privacy and you're apprehensive about giving someone the ability to cross-reference your search info with your personal info and your mail info, turn off cookies and don't use Gmail.
Let's all repeat this slowly, just to let it sink in: If you don't want to use Gmail, you don't have to use Gmail.
If Google goes ahead with Gmail and includes 1E9 bytes of storage per user account, as it plans to, there's obviously going to have to be some sort of cost involved to offset their decision to provide an extremely valuable service. Much like Hotmails users are required to pawn their eternal soul to the Prince of Darkness, Gmail users are going to have to bite the bullet and accept that their privacy may not be so private anymore. Why is this such a big problem?
Maybe these people should stop trying to find the most insidious "integrated solution" and take a page from American Express.
Recently, the ugly stepsister of the credit card world has launched a campaign of web-only ads in which Jerry Seinfeld teams up with an amimated Superman. Link: here.
The thing is, these are indeed ads, but they have a few very unorthodox characteristics:
1. Amex lets the user decide whether they want to see the ad. As far as I know, you have to willingly point your browser to the ads before they start playing.
2. The bits are really funny and the "promotion" aspect is unobtrustive enough that it's almost incidental to the other content.
What these marketing types aren't realizing is that people are willing to watch an ad for a company as long as there's some benefit to offset the inherent negative connatations of "watching an ad for a company". This could be an online-only discount or - in the case of the Seinfeld/Superman spots - an entertaining bit of content.
One of the things that we've seen happening in Canada is that a huge corporation (ie: Monsanto) will sell its genetically modified seed to farmers and charge them an annual licensing fee. The problem arises when some of the seed blows onto neighbouring farmers' fields and starts to merge with their crops. In turn, Monsanto takes legal action against the farmers.
Basically, the issue at hand is that even before considering the ethical implications of lacing crops with drugs, we should be thinking about the leverage such enhancements will give to corporate heavyweights like Monsanto in their ongoing struggle to preserve "their" intellectual property. --
It occurs to me that both of the articles in the post are extremely light on facts. Furthermore, one of them has the rather pithy headline "Five new Windows Bagle virus variants break nasty new ground; Macintosh unaffected". Frankly, I don't care enough about the story to go hunting for news from appropriate sources like Symantec or McAffee, but it would be nice to see/. posters and/or editors go the extra mile to get out there and find information that is slightly higher than tabloid-quality.
Normally, I would bite my tongue on something like this, but it seems pretty obvious that in this case, the underlying theme of the article is "ha ha, isn't Microsoft terrible", which is pretty juvenile and meaningless. Here's a company that provided - in October - a working patch to prevent the flaw that is exploited by this virus. I'd say that's pretty reasonable, given the circumstances.
As many comments have pointed out, it also has the potential to drain huge amounts of bandwidth.
Furthermore, I'm not a BT expert, but I've heard murmers about huge issues regarding Windows users and hard disk fragmentation brought on by extended use of BT. I ran defrag the other day for the first time since installing BT and I did notice the fragmentation percentage was unusally high. Although it's not really any business of post-secondary network administrators, maybe they're just saving themselves from another headache. Can anyone more knowledgable comment on this?
Case in point: Although these companies may not use conventional marketing techniques, they certainly reap the same results as good marketing. A persuasive argument can be made that the *best* marketing in the world cannot save a terrible product; accordingly, shouldn't it be true that the best products are able to market themselves? After all, any marketing professional worth their salt will list "word of mouth" high on their list of desirables and generates that better than the product itself.
First of all, regarding your sig, it should be "spayed" or neutered.
More importantly (and on-topic), I think it's worth noting that a couple of weeks ago the/. boards were up in arms about "Linux Insider" being a spurious publication and a mouthpiece of SCO. Check out this article from Groklaw on March 1. About halfway down, you'll find this paragraph:
LinuxInsider, whoever they are, goes along with the charade, which is a very big giveaway that while they may be insiders, they aren't likely *Linux* insiders. I had never heard of them. SCO's is a campaign of defamation in the press, not in the courts, despite Stowell's sanctimonious hypocrisy. If SCO would stop their defamatory PR, they might have a moral leg to stand on. This interview is a verbal attack on the Linux community. If you attack someone's mom, it doesn't matter that you used a polite tone of voice.
Now, don't get me wrong - I'm not sure whether or not PJ's allegations hold water, but the first thing I thought of when I saw the original post was "Linux Insider... I've heard that before recently and not in good terms."
"It is very clear that it is going to take all of the actions to recover the monies," Prime Minister Paul Martin told reporters after a cabinet meeting. "I've met with [Defence Minister] Mr. Pratt. He's been in contact with the authorities and we will be doing everything we can."
That's the only quotation in the article attributed to PM Paul Martin. Unless I'm really missing something, it's fairly benign and not the least bit libelous.
I have two bits of advice for you, Mr. Gary:
1. Read the fucking article.
2. Realize that not every decision or assertion made in Canada is made by our PM. I'm assuming that you do realize that Canada is quite a large country - our parliament contains 301 seats that are filled by asses of people who are *constantly* searching for a way to get into the news.
I can't say that I'm an expert in iPods or mp3 commerce or anything like that. I have one and I am pretty happy ripping the songs I need from my existing CD collection. Plus I live in Canada so if I'm really hard-pressed, I can always take a day-trip South.
That said, I am pretty sure that online retailers like Amazon have native-currency retailers in countries all over the world, including France, Japan and Canada (and probably Germany). This company's overarching strategy seems to be waiting for a market to "ripen" then pluck it up - even at a premium - and take over. (Example: Remember when Amazon was basically just a book store and there was an online music retailer called CDNOW? And there there was one.)
I anticipate that if the MP3 player market continues to pick up steam, companies like Amazon will start to recognize the potential of the international market and scoop up some quasi-independant online store, assimilating them into the fold. Of course, this is all speculation, but I would say it's pretty realistic.
Heh... no problem! I think I actually found that feature by accident. I'll call it even if you can tell me how to change the key binding for "open page in new tab" from Alt+Enter to Ctrl+Enter;)
While I'm on the topic...When I right-click and hit View Source, why can't the browser open an editor and scroll to the line of code that I right-clicked on? I know Firefox & IE don't, maybe something else does already..
In Firefox, if you highlight part of the HTML document and then right click the highlighted text and select "View Selection Source", the program attempts to load the source and go to the appropriate line(s). I've found the functionality is kind of hit-and-miss, but it's definitely what you're after.
From the commenets posted here, I'm 95% sold on the idea of installing Linux for my parents. I'm running Redhat 9 at work and it's fine for all of my work-related needs, so I think I'd be comfortable getting it up and running for them.
That said, I have one reservation: Media support. Even with Windows installed, I get regular phone calls from my Mom asking "how do I open a dot [blah] attachment". Basically, I want her to be able to one-click open audio and video files from her friends as well as online stuff like online radio broadcasts. Like I said, I'm not really a "home user" of Linux, so I've never bothered to install any of these amenities. Can anyone in the geek community give me some hints toward a working solution?
In my experience, Fido is quite similar. My girlfriend and I drove to Banff for a weekend away from Calgary (it's a one-hour drive for those of you not familiar with the locale) and her cell was totally useless. On the other hand, I've had no problems with my provider (Telus) and I've used it all over North America.
I do think this Internet thing sounds like a decent idea and (unlike most readers here) I don't think the bandwidth limit is a big deal. My only question is as follows: Didn't Telus buy Fido just a few years ago?
First of all, I think this software is great. After 5 years of reluctantly using IE (one reason - speed), I have finally been able to make a comfortable switch.
I have but one small beef: In Mozilla 1.6.x, hitting CTRL+Enter in the address bar caused the typed URL to open in a new tab. In the Phoenix/Fire* series of browsers, this feature has been inexplicably removed. I'm probably just missing some switch in the Preferences that I've been too lazy to toggle, but let's be serious - it's a good, simple feature and 90% of end users probably never open their Preferences except to clear cache after browsing for porn.
(Also, it would be nice if they could settle on a name.)
There's a saying that goes: "If you are 20 and you aren't a communist you have no heart.", but it continues "if you are 30 and you still are a communist, you lack rationality".
It may be a translation issue, but the version I've always heard (and regurgitated) is: "If you're not a socialist at 20, you don't have a heart. If you're still a socialist at 30, you don't have a brain." As far as I know, this statement is attributed to Sir Winston Churchill (the KING of the clever soundbyte -- see sig), but I can't back that up with any sort of documentation because I'm really, really lazy.
It will be great to finally see an alternative to Yahoo! and Hotmail for free web-based email addresses. My hope is that Google implements a system to dowload messages from POP3 (and possibly IMAP) servers, just like the old-school Hotmail accounts.
Slashdot Mirror
This seems like an overly complicated solution. At the moment, my phone in Japan has a feature where I logon to Vodafone's website (from the phone) and click through a couple of links and then it tells me where I am. I assume it gets this information by figuring out which cell the phone is dialing from. From the subsequent menus, there are various options like "find the last train to station X", "find the nearest place to catch a taxi", and so on. A few months ago it was only available in Japanese, but now they've introduced a bilingual version - hoochie mamma.
Why bother using the fancy-dancy image recognition software when cellular telephony has a built-in system that basically acts like a constantly-updated "user location" variable?
(Actually, the answer is simple - to make geeks foam at the mouth. Come on now people!! Excess ain't rebellion.)
--
The biggest thing that bothers me is the small changes to the interface. I honestly spent 20 minutes the other day attaching a picture to an email because I couldn't find the "OK" button, which is now tucked in an "aesthetically pleasing" location. They also moved the "Sign Off" button. Why?
--
Clear Channel can get a pretty good idea who's driving at any hour a day based on adding up the radio listening data... they can do supplemental surveys to subtract out at-work listeners so that they only count in-car listeners to figure out what the demographic that's going to pass their billboards at each hour of the day will be.
Dear God! They can't be allowed to control that kind of information! It's almost like those godawful bastards at Google who want to give us all a free gigabyte of e-mail storing with advanced search capabilities and minimal text-based ads in exchange for Draconian cookie-based information control.
Somebody sound the alarm! Call in the Dutch privacy zealots! This travesty cannot be allowed.
--
I haven't R'd TFA yet, but I actually have a gmail account.
Believe me, you're not missing much. I'd much rather hear the input of a savvy geek than the that of a pipe-smoking, tweed-wearing, Rolls Royce-driving... you get the point.
most everything seems to be done in javascript
Fuck. Does this mean I'm not going to be able to open messages in new tabs? Hotmail's recent "facelift" (which was more of a "hackjob", if you ask me) has irritated me to no end. I use my Uni's IMAP server for most of my email, but it's convenient for me to also maintain a free web-based account. I'm looking forward to using GMail (privacy concerns? I routinely drop my pants in public... I don't think I'm allowed) but I'm curious to read a review by someone more tech-oriented than the staff of Forbes.
--
That EULA is an abomination.
I'm going to play devil's advocate here for a moment and tell you that although the EULA may be terrible, it's not Microsoft's responsibility to sign a good contract. If I wrote up a contract stipulating that you are required to give me 90% of your disposable income in exchange for me enlightening you, it certainly wouldn't be a fair contract. But if I were able to get you to sign, it would still be a binding contract, albeit a bad one.
I am not a lawyer but I know that Microsoft does not engage in any sort of coersion to force its users to agree to their EULA. I usually try to block Windows Installations out of my memory with binge drinking, but I'm pretty sure you are actually forced to "read" the entire EULA before the "Accept" button becomes available.
At the end of the day, bad contracts are legal. The problem is stupid assholes who don't read them before signing or agreeing to them. If you walked into the bank and your teller said "Sign this contract" wouldn't you want to read it first?
It all comes down to that great axiom of libertarianism: If you don't want to [agree to Microsoft's EULA], you don't have to. The onus is on the non-MS community to get the word out and inform people that it might be time to start reading and understanding those EULAs before clicking "Accept".
--
You said it yourself, it is a weak argument and it really has nothing to do with the discussion at hand ;)
However, I see the point you're driving at and I've enjoyed discussing the matter with you. I suspect we're both playing devil's advocate for opposite sides of a question that is far less polarized than we're treating it.
Regardless of privacy issues or spam issues, I think we can both agree that it will be a relief to finally see some competition to Hotmail in the market for widely-accessible, free, web-based email accounts.
--
You raise some very good points, but none of them are remotely relevant to my primary argument - If you're not comfortable with releasing this sort of information, don't sign up for a Gmail account. If you're OK with Google but you're concerned that the company might be taken over by evil, hate-mongering, neo-nazi marketers that are less interested in "the needs of the many" than they are in "turning a profit", don't sign up for a Gmail account.
And don't give me any of this bullshit about the "lowest common denominator" types and their seeming allergy to reading EULAs and Privacy Statements. If living abroad has taught me one thing, it's that the worst aspect of Western civilization (yes, even Canada and Europe) is its preconceived notion that all people are stupid until they prove themselves otherwise. This might seem tangential to the discussion, but I think it's really relevant - people do realize that companies like Google are bound to use the information they collect and they don't care.
As for those who aren't bright enough to realize that, I have only two words: Natural selection.
--
I'm pretty sure I was close. I think the literal meaning is a gambling term for picking the three winning "horses" (or whatever) in the correct order. That said, I think it has taken on a figurative meaning - a group of three things that are "good".
That said, you are technically correct. :-P
--
I don't see why the privacy zealots are all up in arms about this. Don't they have something better to do like bitch about the Patriot Act? Seriously!
Google has been very up-front about what they will or will not be willing to do with the cookie "trifecta" (Google-Orkut-Gmail, as mentioned in the Register article) that they are gunning for. Not only is it spelled out quite clearly in the Gmail Privacy Statment, the co-founder is going on recrod saying "Hey, that's not such a bad idea."
What's my point? If you're neurotic about your privacy and you're apprehensive about giving someone the ability to cross-reference your search info with your personal info and your mail info, turn off cookies and don't use Gmail.
Let's all repeat this slowly, just to let it sink in: If you don't want to use Gmail, you don't have to use Gmail.
If Google goes ahead with Gmail and includes 1E9 bytes of storage per user account, as it plans to, there's obviously going to have to be some sort of cost involved to offset their decision to provide an extremely valuable service. Much like Hotmails users are required to pawn their eternal soul to the Prince of Darkness, Gmail users are going to have to bite the bullet and accept that their privacy may not be so private anymore. Why is this such a big problem?
[END rant]
--
Maybe these people should stop trying to find the most insidious "integrated solution" and take a page from American Express.
Recently, the ugly stepsister of the credit card world has launched a campaign of web-only ads in which Jerry Seinfeld teams up with an amimated Superman. Link: here.
The thing is, these are indeed ads, but they have a few very unorthodox characteristics:
1. Amex lets the user decide whether they want to see the ad. As far as I know, you have to willingly point your browser to the ads before they start playing.
2. The bits are really funny and the "promotion" aspect is unobtrustive enough that it's almost incidental to the other content.
What these marketing types aren't realizing is that people are willing to watch an ad for a company as long as there's some benefit to offset the inherent negative connatations of "watching an ad for a company". This could be an online-only discount or - in the case of the Seinfeld/Superman spots - an entertaining bit of content.
One of the things that we've seen happening in Canada is that a huge corporation (ie: Monsanto) will sell its genetically modified seed to farmers and charge them an annual licensing fee. The problem arises when some of the seed blows onto neighbouring farmers' fields and starts to merge with their crops. In turn, Monsanto takes legal action against the farmers.
Here's a link to a good, comprehensive story.
Basically, the issue at hand is that even before considering the ethical implications of lacing crops with drugs, we should be thinking about the leverage such enhancements will give to corporate heavyweights like Monsanto in their ongoing struggle to preserve "their" intellectual property.
--
It occurs to me that both of the articles in the post are extremely light on facts. Furthermore, one of them has the rather pithy headline "Five new Windows Bagle virus variants break nasty new ground; Macintosh unaffected". Frankly, I don't care enough about the story to go hunting for news from appropriate sources like Symantec or McAffee, but it would be nice to see /. posters and/or editors go the extra mile to get out there and find information that is slightly higher than tabloid-quality.
Normally, I would bite my tongue on something like this, but it seems pretty obvious that in this case, the underlying theme of the article is "ha ha, isn't Microsoft terrible", which is pretty juvenile and meaningless. Here's a company that provided - in October - a working patch to prevent the flaw that is exploited by this virus. I'd say that's pretty reasonable, given the circumstances.
[Cue flames.]
As many comments have pointed out, it also has the potential to drain huge amounts of bandwidth.
Furthermore, I'm not a BT expert, but I've heard murmers about huge issues regarding Windows users and hard disk fragmentation brought on by extended use of BT. I ran defrag the other day for the first time since installing BT and I did notice the fragmentation percentage was unusally high. Although it's not really any business of post-secondary network administrators, maybe they're just saving themselves from another headache. Can anyone more knowledgable comment on this?
Case in point: Although these companies may not use conventional marketing techniques, they certainly reap the same results as good marketing. A persuasive argument can be made that the *best* marketing in the world cannot save a terrible product; accordingly, shouldn't it be true that the best products are able to market themselves? After all, any marketing professional worth their salt will list "word of mouth" high on their list of desirables and generates that better than the product itself.
Food for thought.
Curses, forgot the link: Check out this article from Groklaw on March 1
First of all, regarding your sig, it should be "spayed" or neutered.
More importantly (and on-topic), I think it's worth noting that a couple of weeks ago the /. boards were up in arms about "Linux Insider" being a spurious publication and a mouthpiece of SCO. Check out this article from Groklaw on March 1. About halfway down, you'll find this paragraph:
LinuxInsider, whoever they are, goes along with the charade, which is a very big giveaway that while they may be insiders, they aren't likely *Linux* insiders. I had never heard of them. SCO's is a campaign of defamation in the press, not in the courts, despite Stowell's sanctimonious hypocrisy. If SCO would stop their defamatory PR, they might have a moral leg to stand on. This interview is a verbal attack on the Linux community. If you attack someone's mom, it doesn't matter that you used a polite tone of voice.
Now, don't get me wrong - I'm not sure whether or not PJ's allegations hold water, but the first thing I thought of when I saw the original post was "Linux Insider... I've heard that before recently and not in good terms."
Food for thought, I suppose.
"It is very clear that it is going to take all of the actions to recover the monies," Prime Minister Paul Martin told reporters after a cabinet meeting. "I've met with [Defence Minister] Mr. Pratt. He's been in contact with the authorities and we will be doing everything we can."
That's the only quotation in the article attributed to PM Paul Martin. Unless I'm really missing something, it's fairly benign and not the least bit libelous.
I have two bits of advice for you, Mr. Gary:
1. Read the fucking article.
2. Realize that not every decision or assertion made in Canada is made by our PM. I'm assuming that you do realize that Canada is quite a large country - our parliament contains 301 seats that are filled by asses of people who are *constantly* searching for a way to get into the news.
I can't say that I'm an expert in iPods or mp3 commerce or anything like that. I have one and I am pretty happy ripping the songs I need from my existing CD collection. Plus I live in Canada so if I'm really hard-pressed, I can always take a day-trip South.
That said, I am pretty sure that online retailers like Amazon have native-currency retailers in countries all over the world, including France, Japan and Canada (and probably Germany). This company's overarching strategy seems to be waiting for a market to "ripen" then pluck it up - even at a premium - and take over. (Example: Remember when Amazon was basically just a book store and there was an online music retailer called CDNOW? And there there was one.)
I anticipate that if the MP3 player market continues to pick up steam, companies like Amazon will start to recognize the potential of the international market and scoop up some quasi-independant online store, assimilating them into the fold. Of course, this is all speculation, but I would say it's pretty realistic.
Heh... no problem! I think I actually found that feature by accident. I'll call it even if you can tell me how to change the key binding for "open page in new tab" from Alt+Enter to Ctrl+Enter ;)
While I'm on the topic...When I right-click and hit View Source, why can't the browser open an editor and scroll to the line of code that I right-clicked on? I know Firefox & IE don't, maybe something else does already..
In Firefox, if you highlight part of the HTML document and then right click the highlighted text and select "View Selection Source", the program attempts to load the source and go to the appropriate line(s). I've found the functionality is kind of hit-and-miss, but it's definitely what you're after.
From the commenets posted here, I'm 95% sold on the idea of installing Linux for my parents. I'm running Redhat 9 at work and it's fine for all of my work-related needs, so I think I'd be comfortable getting it up and running for them.
That said, I have one reservation: Media support. Even with Windows installed, I get regular phone calls from my Mom asking "how do I open a dot [blah] attachment". Basically, I want her to be able to one-click open audio and video files from her friends as well as online stuff like online radio broadcasts. Like I said, I'm not really a "home user" of Linux, so I've never bothered to install any of these amenities. Can anyone in the geek community give me some hints toward a working solution?
Cheers!
I do think this Internet thing sounds like a decent idea and (unlike most readers here) I don't think the bandwidth limit is a big deal. My only question is as follows: Didn't Telus buy Fido just a few years ago?
First of all, I think this software is great. After 5 years of reluctantly using IE (one reason - speed), I have finally been able to make a comfortable switch.
I have but one small beef: In Mozilla 1.6.x, hitting CTRL+Enter in the address bar caused the typed URL to open in a new tab. In the Phoenix/Fire* series of browsers, this feature has been inexplicably removed. I'm probably just missing some switch in the Preferences that I've been too lazy to toggle, but let's be serious - it's a good, simple feature and 90% of end users probably never open their Preferences except to clear cache after browsing for porn.
(Also, it would be nice if they could settle on a name.)
There's a saying that goes: "If you are 20 and you aren't a communist you have no heart.", but it continues "if you are 30 and you still are a communist, you lack rationality".
It may be a translation issue, but the version I've always heard (and regurgitated) is: "If you're not a socialist at 20, you don't have a heart. If you're still a socialist at 30, you don't have a brain." As far as I know, this statement is attributed to Sir Winston Churchill (the KING of the clever soundbyte -- see sig), but I can't back that up with any sort of documentation because I'm really, really lazy.
It will be great to finally see an alternative to Yahoo! and Hotmail for free web-based email addresses. My hope is that Google implements a system to dowload messages from POP3 (and possibly IMAP) servers, just like the old-school Hotmail accounts.