Seriously, if Microsoft is prepared to hold up an update of this sort and then modify the procedure to kludge their way around the problem for their own software but would just release the patch if it was someone else's application, then this seems extremely dubious to my non-expert mind.
After all, doesn't this give their applications the unusual, and unfair, advantage that they might work with Windows both before and after a major update?
You beat me to it...
Actually, seriously, one really serious omission from HTML and other "generic" markups which can be read widely is proper support for rendering of mathematical equations. It would be very useful for a lot of us if there was native HTML support for at least some of the more basic mathematical language that's contained in everything which gets written from day to day.
The structure based nature of TeX and its variants seems self-evidently superior to that provided by HTML even with the various enhancements which have been retrofitted in recent incarnations and add-ons. Whilst TeX equally clearly isn't the right answer for generic web based content (and, indeed, it would be preferable not to have a standard which requires multiple parses to render anything useful) it seems that HTML really isn't what is needed and the more variations and versions that get implemented the more confusion there will be -- and the more deviation from these standards.
That HTML is already ubiquitous doesn't seem a sufficiently good reason to insist that every new markup language should be a direct superset with ever more variations and multiple ways of achieving the same end. To start with, there's no future in a structure-based approach which makes it so easy to directly change the appearance of content -- think hold much easier it is to write in bold in HTML than it is to indicate that emphasis is required....
What I think is needed, and surely must emerge sooner or later, is a no markup language based more on TeX and professional typesetting approaches than HTML which actually does things properly....
Beyond the slashdot effect...
on
Storm Worm Rising
·
· Score: 2, Informative
From the article:
> For spam, a million-strong botnet might be overkill.
> But botnets can do much more - like launching denial-of-service attacks.
> These attacks aim to overwhelm a Web site or Internet server by sending
> it a constant stream of garbage data at a particular Web site or Internet server.
A few years back there was a spate of DDOS attacks on root servers, for example:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jh tml?articleID=197004237
which were described at the time as "possibly featuring millions of computers".
So, is this really such an enormous number? There seems to be a precedent for botnets of this scale....
Microsoft must realise that Works has a very limited life expectancy. Whatever you think of the various alternatives to Microsoft Office, it's difficult to argue that almost all of them aren't superior to it. The fact that it's so crippled and limited that free alternatives are better makes it essentially impossible to sell, and it's probably going to be difficult to give it away for much longer... the OEM prices have always been very low, so $40 is a gross overestimate for what's really being paid for bundled copies, I suspect.
What, then, is the real point of this move? It seems as though it could be a convenient environment in which to test a business model which provides a whole new revenue stream. If there isn't any sort of backlash here, then will we be seeing that the next version of Office, and maybe Windows, also come with Adware installed? Perhaps with the exception of the over-priced "business" editions? If so, I very much doubt it will make things cheaper for the consumer...
It's all about pushing the envelope: how hard can you squeeze your customers and expect them to keep coming back?
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously, if Microsoft is prepared to hold up an update of this sort and then modify the procedure to kludge their way around the problem for their own software but would just release the patch if it was someone else's application, then this seems extremely dubious to my non-expert mind. After all, doesn't this give their applications the unusual, and unfair, advantage that they might work with Windows both before and after a major update?
You beat me to it...
Actually, seriously, one really serious omission from HTML and other "generic" markups which can be read widely is proper support for rendering of mathematical equations. It would be very useful for a lot of us if there was native HTML support for at least some of the more basic mathematical language that's contained in everything which gets written from day to day.
The structure based nature of TeX and its variants seems self-evidently superior to that provided by HTML even with the various enhancements which have been retrofitted in recent incarnations and add-ons. Whilst TeX equally clearly isn't the right answer for generic web based content (and, indeed, it would be preferable not to have a standard which requires multiple parses to render anything useful) it seems that HTML really isn't what is needed and the more variations and versions that get implemented the more confusion there will be -- and the more deviation from these standards.
That HTML is already ubiquitous doesn't seem a sufficiently good reason to insist that every new markup language should be a direct superset with ever more variations and multiple ways of achieving the same end. To start with, there's no future in a structure-based approach which makes it so easy to directly change the appearance of content -- think hold much easier it is to write in bold in HTML than it is to indicate that emphasis is required....
What I think is needed, and surely must emerge sooner or later, is a no markup language based more on TeX and professional typesetting approaches than HTML which actually does things properly....
From the article: > For spam, a million-strong botnet might be overkill. > But botnets can do much more - like launching denial-of-service attacks. > These attacks aim to overwhelm a Web site or Internet server by sending > it a constant stream of garbage data at a particular Web site or Internet server.h tml?articleID=197004237
which were described at the time as "possibly featuring millions of computers".
A few years back there was a spate of DDOS attacks on root servers, for example: http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.j
So, is this really such an enormous number? There seems to be a precedent for botnets of this scale....
Alt-F4 gets rid of it much more quickly, and doesn't rely on a Japanese website not having been /.ed.
Microsoft must realise that Works has a very limited life expectancy. Whatever you think of the various alternatives to Microsoft Office, it's difficult to argue that almost all of them aren't superior to it. The fact that it's so crippled and limited that free alternatives are better makes it essentially impossible to sell, and it's probably going to be difficult to give it away for much longer... the OEM prices have always been very low, so $40 is a gross overestimate for what's really being paid for bundled copies, I suspect. What, then, is the real point of this move? It seems as though it could be a convenient environment in which to test a business model which provides a whole new revenue stream. If there isn't any sort of backlash here, then will we be seeing that the next version of Office, and maybe Windows, also come with Adware installed? Perhaps with the exception of the over-priced "business" editions? If so, I very much doubt it will make things cheaper for the consumer... It's all about pushing the envelope: how hard can you squeeze your customers and expect them to keep coming back?