Even aside from the IE issue and "carpet bombing", silently downloading things to the desktop makes it very easy to create a hack such as a fake "My Computer.exe" icon.
It really is bad UI behavior (on both Mac and Windows).
Why oh why oh why does message composition for new accounts default to HTML instead of plain text? To answer the question, Netscape more-or-less invented HTML Mail, and Netscape/Mozilla's mail clients have always defaulted to HTML (at least on Windows).
I never played "Original D&D" (the little pamphlets that came in a box), but I remember my older relatives complaining about how they were being "forced" to buy expansion books and what a "rip off" it was.
At some point you have to accept that they're in the publication business, and they need to sell books. Eventually all the expansions make the rules too unwieldily, so they hit the reset button to put out a new edition and sell more books.
Bottom line is that it's a niche market and the only way D&D survives is squeezing blood out of the same turnip over and over.
Yup, and Comcast was largely fine with all of that when it was a once-in-a-while thing.
However within the last year or so, the average joe can now use internet video as a replacement for cable television. As a result bandwidth demands have gone up and television revenues have gone down.
Its really a dinosaur business model, as long as you're getting Internet from someone in the TV business, you're going to be a second-class customer.
The pricing of these streaming services is also heavily discounted compared to purchasing a DVD. Most people will find the limitiations of streaming/DRM acceptable under these circumstances; they don't _want_ to keep a episode of The Office forever and ever on their hard drive.
Not necessarily, because (non-hacked) OS X is keyed to the TPM or whatever it's called now. So Apple could charge an per-machine license fee for "OS X capable" PCs, while regular PCs would still require hacks.
(Not that it would happen, just thinking it through.)
There's a reason it's called "capitalism" and not "middle managementism". And I'll leave it at that, because it's been 10 years and you still don't seem to get it.
Yup, the vast majority of dotcom jobs were marketing- or customer support-related. This follows because most dotcoms were "me too" organizations. If someone's goal was to "become the next Amazon" that's mostly a marketing problem.
Not to say there weren't a lot of HTML-tards around too. (A lot of sites went online with very primitive backends, no content-management, etc., opening a lot of entry-level tech jobs.)
One of the conditions for getting OEM pricing on Win 3.1 was adding "WIN" to the autoexec.bat, so that was quite common.
Also Windows 3.1 and Window 95 were almost identical in architecture, so it's a common misconception that 95 was a "real OS" while 3.1 wasn't. The only difference was that "WIN" was automatically executed on Windows 95 and it came with a better selection of protected mode device drivers.
Yes, but Windows 2000 would have never been successful if it wasn't for Windows 95.
NT, OS/2, UNIX and other "better" OSes had always been around, but users were unwilling to give up their hardware and DOS legacy support. It wasn't until Win95 encouraged a smooth transition to 32-bit software that it was even feasible for most people to run a NT-based OS.
Simply not true. Macs 'enjoyed' roughly the same market share (around 5%) from the early 90s all the way until their recent increases (no doubt due to the same reasons they never were mainstream in the 90s...Intel architecture). This is might be roughly true on-average, but if you looked at the quarterly numbers Apple swung anywhere from 15% to 2% marketshare..
Mac shipments nosedived in 1996 leading to a huge financial crisis.They later bumped up in 1998 with the iMac, and then declined again until the Intel era.
But once your visit is logged at the server, the site owner can share that data with whoever the heck they feel like. The data in HTTP server logs...
Technically true, but as a practical matter it never happens.
At least I've never heard of an advertising or analytics service that would accept (easily faked) HTTP logs and actually do something useful with them.
The other problem is that WinFS would be pretty much useless by itself. Everyone (including MS) would have to rewrite the applications to use the WinFS datastore. And that means there would always be a functionality gap between 'regular' and 'WinFS' apps. People using cross-platform apps like iTunes or Thunderbird wouldn't seen any benefit.
First of all nobody claimed Win95 had any form of local security.
The Win95 password was used as the key to encrypt the user's network password database, so it wasn't entirely useless. You couldn't access any server resources if you escaped past the logon screen.
Now thank me, because you have been befuddled by basic Win95 knowledge for like 13 years now, and I have finally solved one of the great mysteries in your life.
If you want unrestricted access forever, it would be a better idea to install a (rootkitted) service or an autorun program rather than dicking around with the accessibility shit.
Another example would be Lotus Notes, which was/is sort of a network-based HyperCardish thing. It probably did not have a lot of direct influence on the academic thinking, but it was widely deployed because it was the only thing corporations had for informal databasing.
HyperCard did not bring application development to the masses by any means. I've programmed extensively in HyperCard back in the day when it was still relevant so I know what it offered. I remember trying to whip up something in HyperCard on my Mac SE and quickly ran into the "can't do it, go write a C function" issue. Never managed anything more a simple "card" application.
Also at one point a Mac magazine had a feature on how to write a client-server form application in HyperCard and TBPH VisualBasic just put it to shame.
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The download manager stays in the background and does nothing to notify the user, so it is effectively silent.
And yes the "Open/Save Dance" is exactly what is supposed to happen before files are saved to the disk.
Even aside from the IE issue and "carpet bombing", silently downloading things to the desktop makes it very easy to create a hack such as a fake "My Computer.exe" icon.
It really is bad UI behavior (on both Mac and Windows).
You lost this battle in 1996, sorry.
I never played "Original D&D" (the little pamphlets that came in a box), but I remember my older relatives complaining about how they were being "forced" to buy expansion books and what a "rip off" it was.
At some point you have to accept that they're in the publication business, and they need to sell books. Eventually all the expansions make the rules too unwieldily, so they hit the reset button to put out a new edition and sell more books.
Bottom line is that it's a niche market and the only way D&D survives is squeezing blood out of the same turnip over and over.
You just rephrased what he said more eloquently. :)
Yup, and Comcast was largely fine with all of that when it was a once-in-a-while thing.
However within the last year or so, the average joe can now use internet video as a replacement for cable television. As a result bandwidth demands have gone up and television revenues have gone down.
Its really a dinosaur business model, as long as you're getting Internet from someone in the TV business, you're going to be a second-class customer.
The pricing of these streaming services is also heavily discounted compared to purchasing a DVD. Most people will find the limitiations of streaming/DRM acceptable under these circumstances; they don't _want_ to keep a episode of The Office forever and ever on their hard drive.
Not necessarily, because (non-hacked) OS X is keyed to the TPM or whatever it's called now. So Apple could charge an per-machine license fee for "OS X capable" PCs, while regular PCs would still require hacks.
(Not that it would happen, just thinking it through.)
My guess is that the IE7 crowd will quickly upgrade, while the IE6 people will bitterly hold out for as long as possible.
At least for B2B stuff, I don't expect IE6 usage to drop off the cliff any time soon.
Yes, you don't get it because the investors ended up doing great. VC quite openly admits they're only shooting for a 10% success rate.
NYTimes has had some stories about the rating agencies. Basically bad information + poor models for a boom market + payola.
There's a reason it's called "capitalism" and not "middle managementism". And I'll leave it at that, because it's been 10 years and you still don't seem to get it.
I'm sorry but that business plan is classic "2. ??? 3. Profit".
My guess is that the real plan was to wait for the Linux Desktop to explode in popularity and then sell the people to RedHat or someone.
Yup, the vast majority of dotcom jobs were marketing- or customer support-related. This follows because most dotcoms were "me too" organizations. If someone's goal was to "become the next Amazon" that's mostly a marketing problem.
Not to say there weren't a lot of HTML-tards around too. (A lot of sites went online with very primitive backends, no content-management, etc., opening a lot of entry-level tech jobs.)
If someone gave you $50M and said "go spend it", would you take the money or would you whine about "wasting it"? Seems like a no-brainer to me.
One of the conditions for getting OEM pricing on Win 3.1 was adding "WIN" to the autoexec.bat, so that was quite common.
Also Windows 3.1 and Window 95 were almost identical in architecture, so it's a common misconception that 95 was a "real OS" while 3.1 wasn't. The only difference was that "WIN" was automatically executed on Windows 95 and it came with a better selection of protected mode device drivers.
Yes, but Windows 2000 would have never been successful if it wasn't for Windows 95.
NT, OS/2, UNIX and other "better" OSes had always been around, but users were unwilling to give up their hardware and DOS legacy support. It wasn't until Win95 encouraged a smooth transition to 32-bit software that it was even feasible for most people to run a NT-based OS.
Mac shipments nosedived in 1996 leading to a huge financial crisis.They later bumped up in 1998 with the iMac, and then declined again until the Intel era.
Note that when Firefox says "Waiting for x.com...", it is rarely accurate.
But once your visit is logged at the server, the site owner can share that data with whoever the heck they feel like. The data in HTTP server logs ...
Technically true, but as a practical matter it never happens.
At least I've never heard of an advertising or analytics service that would accept (easily faked) HTTP logs and actually do something useful with them.
The other problem is that WinFS would be pretty much useless by itself. Everyone (including MS) would have to rewrite the applications to use the WinFS datastore. And that means there would always be a functionality gap between 'regular' and 'WinFS' apps. People using cross-platform apps like iTunes or Thunderbird wouldn't seen any benefit.
First of all nobody claimed Win95 had any form of local security.
The Win95 password was used as the key to encrypt the user's network password database, so it wasn't entirely useless. You couldn't access any server resources if you escaped past the logon screen.
Now thank me, because you have been befuddled by basic Win95 knowledge for like 13 years now, and I have finally solved one of the great mysteries in your life.
If you want unrestricted access forever, it would be a better idea to install a (rootkitted) service or an autorun program rather than dicking around with the accessibility shit.
And of course there's always Xanadu....
Another example would be Lotus Notes, which was/is sort of a network-based HyperCardish thing. It probably did not have a lot of direct influence on the academic thinking, but it was widely deployed because it was the only thing corporations had for informal databasing.
Also at one point a Mac magazine had a feature on how to write a client-server form application in HyperCard and TBPH VisualBasic just put it to shame.