Even if they put spoiler warnings all over this Slashdot article, the deluge of news on the web and through word of mouth tomorrow would have spoiled anyone who didn't see the episode when it aired tonight. It ain't the end of the world!
Well it's good to know that we all have this in common: getting shafted by phone companies. In my area in Canada there's probably at least 5 or 6 different providers, each have phones that are common across all of them. Of course owning one of those phones still forces you to go with the company you originally bought it from.
I love my MD player/recorder. I picked up a sony mz-r900 and basically use that almost exclusively for listening to music. If I buy a CD I'll cut it to MD and listen to it on thre when I'm out and about. The media's cheap, and the players are too, finally.
So what you're saying is that someone's found a way the think can make them money on the internet? This should come as no surprise. The internet's been commercialized for years now. This also includes domain registration. Does it suck? Of course. What can you do about it? Not much.
Anyone consider this may be a step towards Carnivore monitoring of @Home networks? Seems to me the first step to that would be to prohibit any secured tunneling.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm sure sick as hell about all the 'news' of the Phantom Menace 'release'. It's got to the point that I no longer care whether it's release or not -- I'm not buying it simply on principle alone. These mindgames that are being played with the consumer serve only to piss people off, not drum up suspense and anticipation for an impending release.
Here's a screenshot(bitmap) of Netscape 6 for windows. You will notice that besides being jam packed with options everywhere for every bit of frivolousness AOL can throw at you several key browser features are gone or in hiding. E.g. the home button is reduced to a line of text in the midst of other lines of text, there's no print button, it jars with the rest of the OS by looking like a glorified Java app, and no visual indicator to show if a site is secure or not. These are things I spotted after using the browser for an hour or so. After a while it got so irritating I switched back to Netscape 4.72 & IE 5.5
Where's the necessity of having the Home button emblazoned on the screen taking up real estate when it can just as well be a singe clickable word at the top of the screen? The Print function wasn't hard to find at all, being that it's in the menu like all windows apps. As for secure indicators, look at the bottom right -- you'll notice the lock icon.
As for "frivolousness", you can turn practically anything you don't like off or customize it to your own liking.
My point is and has been that the user interface is badly designed and instead of focusing on skins and themes and whatnot, the Netscape team is should be redesigning the user interface to make it as usable as possible. Change is good but if it comes at the price of sacrificing a usable piece of software then one must wonder if it is worth it.
I have to reinterate, that usability and UI design is an entirely subjective thing. Some UIs may seem like a stroke of genius to some, but hideously overcomplicated ot others. The point I've been trying to make is that I think we're witnessing a shift away from established norms of UI design, especially to fringe stylings such as those seen in Mozilla. This/could/ just be a natural evolution for browsers to change to a more oddball yet customizable appearance. Who would have thought ten years ago that we'd see fruit colored computers?
Besides, the main advantage of skinning in NS6 is that if you don't like how it looks, go download the skin (someone has already made, actually) that makes it look like 4.72. Shazam, there's your archaic UI design.:)
Yes. Ensure that your browser has an encrypted link (see that little padlock icono in the corner?).
The little yellow padlock icon alone is no guarantee of anything. It's best to check your browser to make sure you're running a 128-bit encryption version first before relying solely on the presence of a yellow icon.
I suppose it depends entirely on what the individual considers to be important functionality. If you're talking of items normally found on the browser window which have been removed, well how many times did you click on that Shopping button?
Yeah... at the moment, the default browser is pretty bloated... I dont _want_ a mail client, a news reader, Instant Messenger, blah blah in my browser.
Yeah, but at least that's not a necessary part of the install. I'd like to see that ridiculous internet installer get thrown into the bit-bucket. Also an uninstaller might be nice.:)
Of course, the ultimately cool thing about Mozilla is the component model which means that we can write our own lightweight browser just using Gecko and ignoring all the other crap; I wonder if platform specific ones will spring up after release; would be cool.
Yeah, the first time I heard the size that Gecko can be pared down to for things like handheld hardware and such, I was definitely surprised. That Gecko is damn near a work of art.
Mark my words, Netscape 6's most difficult battle will not be with the entrenched IE market but with users who cannot aclimatize(sp?) to the different (from previous browsers) and unintuitive user interface.
And/why not/ acclimatize to a new design? The very spirit of the computer industry (and that of the web, for that matter) is change. Change is a good thing. There will be things about the new design of the Netscape browser which some people will like, and things others will not like. For some that will be the design as a whole, and for those people there will be IE. I believe that if Mozilla had gone with the same old design, Netscape would be criticized for/that/ instead.
Doesn't work perfectly (menu options are messed), but at least it gives a more pleasant view than the ridiculously ugly default Mozilla skin (doesn't Netscape have a single decent graphic designer in the entire company?)
Well, my opinion on the design is that what looks good in an entirely subjective thing (maybe that's at the root of the discussion as a whole). While Mozilla may not be as graphically enticing as some people may have liked, I (personally) don't mind it, and I know that if I do ever get sick of it I can always look for some skins out there or design my own. It's definitely nice to have the option.
Regarding the suck article, I agree to some extent about not having to use skins. In this case though, I think that performance has suffered as a result of implementing that support; XUL has quite a large runtime overhead. Afaik, NS6PR1 doesn't have a lot of debugging code in it, so we won't see any tremendous speed increases on final release. I'd trade the skins support for a small, fast, stable browser any day.
I'll agree with you there. I tried it on my pathetically slow PC at home, and it crawled. But I'm optimistic that there'll be a significant speed increase between now and release. I'm sure they've already received enough user feedback to realize that most users are like yourself -- they'd rather sacrifice some nice features to have a faster, more stable browser.
I have to agree that all this chrome is fragmenting the market and confusing potential newbies.... But then, hey, what is Linux|BSD|whatever) about?
Personally, I feel that if a newbie is going to get confused when using a computer solely over a user interface design, then they shouldn't be touching a computer in the first place.
Articles like the one on Suck.com I usually ignore, because they essentially are going on a rant for nothing. They forget a primary notion about skins -- you don't/have/ to use the damn things.
The article mentions Netscape 6 as an example of skin usage gone bad. Exactly how do people form opinions on an option that isn't even implemented yet? Until the article writer actually uses the skins option (which isn't available in PR1), I wouldn't put too much faith in it. On a discussin of interface design, stagnation is never a good thing. Ok, sure Netscape 6 is a huge divergence away from standard browser design, but my personal opinion is that this is not a bad thing at all. In fact I actually find the design less cluttered and therefor more usable than before. You can use or not use entire sections of the window as you see fit, and remove them if you don't want to. Again, there's choice involved here.
Netscape needs to desperately put in some time in terms of usability improvements. Trying to find setup menus, configuration preferences, etc. is just a mess in Netscape 6 PR1 compared to IE 5.01
I think it should be clear at this point that Netscape is distancing itself, UI-wise, from all other products out there. If they wanted to be IE, they'd be IE. As a long-time Netscape AND IE user, I've had no problems finding the Preferences menu item to configure the browser and its components. Also, I've had no problems with the interface as it is now -- things seem to be logically layed out, and as a Netcenter user as well I find the integration to that to be a solid improvement.
Of course there's always room for improvement, as there was in the older versions of Netscape and in Internet Explorer as well. But this IS a preview release, and as such they/are/ accepting feedback on the product. Click Help>Feedback Center. As I've stated before, people should reserve their final judgements until the final release version, and until then provid constructive criticism as opposed to wanton flaming (not referring to your post, but to others).
As for the end-users, well they have to make their own choices based on what they like to use. There are people I work with who use IE, others who will be sticking to NS 4.7x when 6 is released. I've been using 6 for the last couple of days now, and it's grown on my considerably in that time. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's definitely innovative.
That's an unbelievably good book to start with. I learned an awful lot from that when I first started getting interested in crypto. What's nifty about that book is how Bruce Schnier (spelling?) explains complex mathematical concepts so well, almost in layman's terms. Great book for beginners and experts alike.
It's a beta version, man. Find me a beta that wasn't a resource hog or full of bugs and incompleted functionality.
As for page rendering, the reason it renders differently than other browsers (even earlier versions of Netscape) is because it renders them properly, according the standards. If a document doens't render properly it's probably because that document used some browser-specific code syntax, tag, or property.
I'm not saying it's absolutely PERFECT, but I do find it to be an innovative step in design of a web browser. I'd say wait for the actual release versions before passing final judgement on how it works.
FYI: Way down at the bottom of the list of sections in the Preferences dialog box is a section called Debug. Click on that, and you'll notice that disk caching is turned off for the pre-release version. So unless it's in memory, it's going to load the documents again.
You can turn the disk cache back on in that section, as well.
If you find it buggy or have features you'd like to request, then click on Help and select Feedback Center. It's a site Netscape's put up specifically to collection feedback and suggestions about the new browesr. After all, this is just a pre-release, and I'm sure they're open to new suggestions as to how the browser should be.
Personally, I find it a bold new direction for browsers in general, with an interface which seperates it nicely from older versiona of itself and Internet Explorer. I think it's innovative in a good way, and a very usable, nifty design. At first I was a little taken aback by the design chosen, but after using it for several hours I've grown to like it.
How about if we make them refund all the money they took from their customers, close all their online stores, shoot the managers, and declare bankruptcy. Then would you be happy?
That's an interesting thought, actually. Lets break it down:
1) Refunding money: Why not? They overcharge anyways. 2) Close online stores: Why should they be allowed to operate online if thye act the way they do in the first place? 3) Shoot the managers: It was probably their idea to sue in the first place. I say we go with your idea, in the spirit of Darwinism. 4) Declare bankruptcy: I'm sure they're making way too much money as it is off of their bloated ticket prices that this step is unnecessary.
Slashdot Mirror
Even if they put spoiler warnings all over this Slashdot article, the deluge of news on the web and through word of mouth tomorrow would have spoiled anyone who didn't see the episode when it aired tonight. It ain't the end of the world!
Well it's good to know that we all have this in common: getting shafted by phone companies. In my area in Canada there's probably at least 5 or 6 different providers, each have phones that are common across all of them. Of course owning one of those phones still forces you to go with the company you originally bought it from.
I love my MD player/recorder. I picked up a sony mz-r900 and basically use that almost exclusively for listening to music. If I buy a CD I'll cut it to MD and listen to it on thre when I'm out and about. The media's cheap, and the players are too, finally.
So what you're saying is that someone's found a way the think can make them money on the internet? This should come as no surprise. The internet's been commercialized for years now. This also includes domain registration. Does it suck? Of course. What can you do about it? Not much.
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Where's the necessity of having the Home button emblazoned on the screen taking up real estate when it can just as well be a singe clickable word at the top of the screen? The Print function wasn't hard to find at all, being that it's in the menu like all windows apps. As for secure indicators, look at the bottom right -- you'll notice the lock icon.
As for "frivolousness", you can turn practically anything you don't like off or customize it to your own liking.
My point is and has been that the user interface is badly designed and instead of focusing on skins and themes and whatnot, the Netscape team is should be redesigning the user interface to make it as usable as possible. Change is good but if it comes at the price of sacrificing a usable piece of software then one must wonder if it is worth it.
I have to reinterate, that usability and UI design is an entirely subjective thing. Some UIs may seem like a stroke of genius to some, but hideously overcomplicated ot others. The point I've been trying to make is that I think we're witnessing a shift away from established norms of UI design, especially to fringe stylings such as those seen in Mozilla. This /could/ just be a natural evolution for browsers to change to a more oddball yet customizable appearance. Who would have thought ten years ago that we'd see fruit colored computers?
Besides, the main advantage of skinning in NS6 is that if you don't like how it looks, go download the skin (someone has already made, actually) that makes it look like 4.72. Shazam, there's your archaic UI design. :)
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The little yellow padlock icon alone is no guarantee of anything. It's best to check your browser to make sure you're running a 128-bit encryption version first before relying solely on the presence of a yellow icon.
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Yeah, but at least that's not a necessary part of the install. I'd like to see that ridiculous internet installer get thrown into the bit-bucket. Also an uninstaller might be nice. :)
Of course, the ultimately cool thing about Mozilla is the component model which means that we can write our own lightweight browser just using Gecko and ignoring all the other crap; I wonder if platform specific ones will spring up after release; would be cool.
Yeah, the first time I heard the size that Gecko can be pared down to for things like handheld hardware and such, I was definitely surprised. That Gecko is damn near a work of art.
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And /why not/ acclimatize to a new design? The very spirit of the computer industry (and that of the web, for that matter) is change. Change is a good thing. There will be things about the new design of the Netscape browser which some people will like, and things others will not like. For some that will be the design as a whole, and for those people there will be IE. I believe that if Mozilla had gone with the same old design, Netscape would be criticized for /that/ instead.
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Well, my opinion on the design is that what looks good in an entirely subjective thing (maybe that's at the root of the discussion as a whole). While Mozilla may not be as graphically enticing as some people may have liked, I (personally) don't mind it, and I know that if I do ever get sick of it I can always look for some skins out there or design my own. It's definitely nice to have the option.
Regarding the suck article, I agree to some extent about not having to use skins. In this case though, I think that performance has suffered as a result of implementing that support; XUL has quite a large runtime overhead. Afaik, NS6PR1 doesn't have a lot of debugging code in it, so we won't see any tremendous speed increases on final release. I'd trade the skins support for a small, fast, stable browser any day.
I'll agree with you there. I tried it on my pathetically slow PC at home, and it crawled. But I'm optimistic that there'll be a significant speed increase between now and release. I'm sure they've already received enough user feedback to realize that most users are like yourself -- they'd rather sacrifice some nice features to have a faster, more stable browser.
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Personally, I feel that if a newbie is going to get confused when using a computer solely over a user interface design, then they shouldn't be touching a computer in the first place.
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The article mentions Netscape 6 as an example of skin usage gone bad. Exactly how do people form opinions on an option that isn't even implemented yet? Until the article writer actually uses the skins option (which isn't available in PR1), I wouldn't put too much faith in it. On a discussin of interface design, stagnation is never a good thing. Ok, sure Netscape 6 is a huge divergence away from standard browser design, but my personal opinion is that this is not a bad thing at all. In fact I actually find the design less cluttered and therefor more usable than before. You can use or not use entire sections of the window as you see fit, and remove them if you don't want to. Again, there's choice involved here.
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I think it should be clear at this point that Netscape is distancing itself, UI-wise, from all other products out there. If they wanted to be IE, they'd be IE. As a long-time Netscape AND IE user, I've had no problems finding the Preferences menu item to configure the browser and its components. Also, I've had no problems with the interface as it is now -- things seem to be logically layed out, and as a Netcenter user as well I find the integration to that to be a solid improvement.
Of course there's always room for improvement, as there was in the older versions of Netscape and in Internet Explorer as well. But this IS a preview release, and as such they /are/ accepting feedback on the product. Click Help>Feedback Center. As I've stated before, people should reserve their final judgements until the final release version, and until then provid constructive criticism as opposed to wanton flaming (not referring to your post, but to others).
As for the end-users, well they have to make their own choices based on what they like to use. There are people I work with who use IE, others who will be sticking to NS 4.7x when 6 is released. I've been using 6 for the last couple of days now, and it's grown on my considerably in that time. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's definitely innovative.
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As for page rendering, the reason it renders differently than other browsers (even earlier versions of Netscape) is because it renders them properly, according the standards. If a document doens't render properly it's probably because that document used some browser-specific code syntax, tag, or property.
I'm not saying it's absolutely PERFECT, but I do find it to be an innovative step in design of a web browser. I'd say wait for the actual release versions before passing final judgement on how it works.
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You can turn the disk cache back on in that section, as well.
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Personally, I find it a bold new direction for browsers in general, with an interface which seperates it nicely from older versiona of itself and Internet Explorer. I think it's innovative in a good way, and a very usable, nifty design. At first I was a little taken aback by the design chosen, but after using it for several hours I've grown to like it.
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That's an interesting thought, actually. Lets break it down:
1) Refunding money: Why not? They overcharge anyways.
2) Close online stores: Why should they be allowed to operate online if thye act the way they do in the first place?
3) Shoot the managers: It was probably their idea to sue in the first place. I say we go with your idea, in the spirit of Darwinism.
4) Declare bankruptcy: I'm sure they're making way too much money as it is off of their bloated ticket prices that this step is unnecessary.
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