However if I were I would view $1000 now and say $500 a year an unbelievable value gamble. In ten years this is all of a $6000 investment. Over on top of insurance of course.
I'm not one to gamble. But I know a good bet when I see one. I suspect that those "reprogramed" cells will not be as valuable as my natural fresh from conception ones. I suspect a doctor will go. "Holy Crap you have your own stem cells with you" well this is a no brainer procedure. You child will be fine you can take him/her home in two weeks. As apposed to well we can reprogram his/her toe nail cells but there is only a 32% chance they will take properly. We will have to hold her/him for another 4 months just to be sure.
Oh by the way. I'm fairly sure that funeral costs exceed $6000. So my bet is looking better.
I read this story. Then it occurred to me that I have never ever seen a "Zune" in the wild. I didn't even know what it's catchy logo was. I mean I had a complete blank on this brand.
So I head over to the Zune.net site. I'm having a hard time believing that pathetic site is the suppose to be a hip trendy site. I'm also stunned at how UGLY that device is.
I'm no graphic/industrial artist but I'm 100% positive I could come up with a better logo and device form factor than this.
Did I mention that it's F-UGLY.
MS what were you thinking when you green lighted this thing?
Yah can it. Just admit it you stuffed this up and move on.
However in the recent years we have seen the number of processor types used in smart devices decline to a small hand full. Vendors no longer have the luxury or the capital to develop complete systems from scratch. Thus they tend to only do the add-value trick.
For example: Sigma systems chips that are used in almost all set top boxes these dats. This is an example of an architecture that is literally in everyones house and home lan. A lot of this kit runs java, web servers etc. Basically looks like a spam machine in the making.
The thing is these days you don't need to flash the bios/eram/firmware to add software to these devices.
I also add that with the list of recent hardware vendors dropping like flies as their CEO's skip town with all the venture capital.:) The number of variations of base kit is dropping much faster.
And speaking of idiot's at the helm. Thank-you George Bush. You incompetent clown.:)
Aside from the potential protections the virus may have for this.
White hats have a few extra rules to contend with. Since going into someones computer and changing stuff without there approval is illegal in most parts of the globe the white hats would be just as guilty as the virus writer.
God forbid the white hat actually makes a mistake and the cure is worse than the disease. An analogous problem occurred when Sony installed a root kit that prevented people from breaking the law. Sony thought it was protecting it's IP rites. What really happened was that Sony effectively gave complete and total access to any one who wanted to do stuff on the computer. Sony got slapped hard for this and it cost them a bundle. Many people lost there jobs and the damage to personal computers around the world was rather staggering.
So it's not as simple as someone taking over the comms with the virus and sending back clean up routine.
---- As an aside. If or when the world comes to accept that white hats are allowed to attack virus in this manor we will see an almost instant response from the virus writers.
A double payload mechanism would be very effective for example. 1. Virus infects. 2. 2nd payload is delivered and hides in stealth. 3. white hat antivirus clears first virus. As it would take time for the aggressive anti virus to be written. The 2nd payload could easily be delivered well in advance of the white hat action. 4. 2nd payload is now on the hardware with no need to talk to command and control.
That is just one possible vector change that would appear.
----
More likely is that if white hats where given the go ahead to attack. The "Bad guys" would simply move to the next soft target. I suspect the next soft target to be the vast numbers of networked devices that are multiplying all running Linux variations. Also since next to no one ever updates the firmware on these appliances once vulnerable they will remain for ever vulnerable.
---- So in the end no it's a BAD idea for the white hats to aggressively attack these things. It's an arms escalation that we simply don't need.
I actually got a letter a little over a year ago which was one of these you are in deep s$%t for downloading music. Only issue it was addressed to "Occupant". I almost wet myself laughing. In my over exuberance I tore up the letter. I will probably regret that move for many years. It is something to be framed.
The best part is. I have never ever downloaded music from the net illegally. I still like that physical quality of a CD.
Oh Nothing happened. There was ZERO follow up on the letter by the sender.
I'll rephrase. Would you expect that XP or Vista be installable on your laptop? AKA the newest versions.
You actually reaffirmed my statement on laptop support! But you continue to rebuff the my statement? Curious.
Ubuntu is != Linux. Ubuntu is simply a distro. And no they have not been around that long. Release 4.10 was the first release of it. That's stands for Oct 2004. Also they don't actually support people for free. The community does. As you said given sufficient demand that laptop in question would probably have been supported. Clearly demand for your variant is not sufficient.
You see by your very own logic. It should also mean that recent versions of Windows should also install without fault. I don't think they would. Vista won't that's for sure:)
-----------
Please note I did some research for you. Your particular laptop has some serious bios issues. With patches released as late as 2005.
A notable issue which sounds like it might be related to your problem is: Version 1.70 08-01-2001
In order to support 1GHz CPU this BIOS incorporates changes to address temperature control.
Corrected a problem that, when the computer goes into S4/S5 state (S4+Hibernation, S5=Power Off) the CMOS data would get corrupted.
Corrected a problem that caused the computer to take an extended amount of time to shut down after going into Hibernation
OK, let me get this straight. You are complaining that some odd case of laptop hardware configuration has stopped a couple of variants of an operating system to install! And this shakes your your confidence in it?
Does any recall VISTA when it first came out. I basically had a 50/50 chance of installing on anything. Due to driver support. That would have shaked me more. ( It did btw )
How many other OS variations have had issues with installation over the recent few years. Well in short all of them. MacOS X included. Even OS's for phones had issues.
I would leap to the conclusion that because you didn't get what you want / expected instantly you are now jaded with everything you see associated with your expectation.
Here is some advice to anyone trying to install any operating system on a machine. 1. Grab the latest version of OS appropriate for your hardware type. x86 vs 64 for example. 2. Find out all the major devices used in your hardware. EG disk controller, chipset, network, etc. Do some googling and see if they need special treatment during installation. If so acquire the appropriate drivers etc. if possible. 3. Google your machine & OS in question and hunt for those show stopper issues. Spend some time reading.
Now it is entirely possible that your desired OS variant is not compatible with the target hardware. That's life. It sucks but hey you move on and adapt.
In your case you found older versions of windows work not the newer ones. You also found a Linux variant that works. Great. It's just that newer distro's of both Linux and Windows fail to work. Basically it sounds like some portion of your laptop hardware no longer has hardware supported by all current OS vendors.
I would also like to point out that older laptops often have very very poor support for newer OS variations. Windows included. Why? Well the hardware makers took a ton of shortcuts in the early days. And had to create really really dodgy custom drivers just to get things like windows running.
PS. A black screen is not spectacular. Sparks fire and flying parts is spectacular.
Like others have mentioned. eSATA is the annoying spec.
1. eSATA is just like SATA. The OS does like to treat devices as removable. Often resulting is a manual reboot of OS to free drive. 2. The eSATA spec didn't have power on the connector! What were they thinking? 3. The physical connector format is not as robust as the usb. Highly prone to just plain wearing out.
When I first heard about eSATA I was very excited. As firewire already had it's gravestone made. Finally a method of transferring huge files fast from a portal device. Only to find out that it was a pointless useless spec.
When I was a young lad in the 60's this was still one of the coolest things out there. I used to love going to grans as a small child and cranking up the piano. ( Yep hand crank version ).
The death of Nintendo Game cube or equiv gadget of the day will never compare to the death of something that lasted over 100 years.
This device saved 10's of thousands of families around the globe from uncle Bob's horrible Xmas piano playing. It will be missed.
Sorry but there is no way that the US government in the current climate is going to allow private citizen's to make UBER ICBM's based off of Saturn rocket designs.
Just ain't going to happen.
The launch vehicle is going to have to be something entirely different.
Good point about specialty apps. No argument there. By specialty app you mean something that is very specific to a particular function? I'm not including the likes of Photoshop. As their are alternatives.
Specialty users are probably another catagory. Those users that are so highly skilled at what they do their is still only one app/OS combo.
As for my arguments weak. Well as stated above they are. No room for detail on each point. As each point is probably a white paper in it self. So I stuck with a basic style argument method.
Please define "secret knowledge" I read that a few ways.
You have placed your trust in the government. However which one?
Most governments would with the best of intentions try to do the right thing. However some would not. Some would down right look at this as a cash cow. It would be ripe for the picking of corruption and miss use. With next to no legal recourse.
So who governs the government?
I would contend that this belongs in the hands of grander body. The UN or blocks of countries, the EU, NAFTA, African Union, G8,9,10,11(What ever it is now). etc. At least this way there is an established forum for discussion, sanction, policy standardization.
You are correct on the other hand that companies are not the right bodies to govern the safety of web commerce. This is just begging for greed, non-disclosure and abuse.
1. It's not free. You still have to train people and migrate data. Response: But you don't have to pay for the upgrade, more licenses and still have the data migration issue.
2. There is no technical support. Response: Actually the technical support is far better. Multiple forums exist for most FOSS applications. They usually have the answers too. Have you ever tried to get and answer to a problem with Notes, Tivoli?
3. Not as feature rich. Response: Do you actually use those weirdo features in MS word? Have you used Firefox lately? Linux almost installs on everything including my fridge! Does Windows?
4. FOSS applications are not as stable. Response: Certainly some FOSS apps pretty much crash 3 seconds after they launch. However the majority of FOSS applications that we use every day are rock solid. For example the most widely used web server is apache and it's variants.
5. FOSS applications are insecure. Response: IE is the most hacked browser out there. Enough said.
6. The unspoken argument. Who do I sue when the applications wrecks my business? Response: To be honest if your business is wrecked by software then you are probably incompetent. Yah there is always a risk. That's what insurance is for. But it doesn't really matter what is in the contract. If your business goes under as a result of IT systems. Well it's under, a law suite won't fix it.
7. If I contribute to FOSS then I will ultimately loose! As my competition gets a free ride. Response: If you're an IT shop developing the next wonder product this may actually be the case. However if you are an IT shop and you want to off load some of the development of the required peripheral software that enables your wonder product it makes sense to support FOSS. If your Bob's Music and Flower emporium and you have a wizz-kid in the back that is contributing both to the company and the FOSS. The long term benefits are greater. As that software this kid made is now being supported and developed by many many people that you could never have a hope of paying for.
Comment: I know I've locked the barn door and soaked the building in gas. Flame away if you wish.
When it comes to buying IBM or from someone else. The bean counters always choose,..... IBM. This boggles the mind. The most expensive vendor out there. The flood the shop with consultants and usually fail to deliver anything remotely like what you wanted.
And your right no one ever gets fired for buying IBM. But they do get fired for buying anything else. Can't wrap my head around this one. But I've seen it happen more times than I can count.
Since almost every medium to large enterprise shop goes this way it's hard to avoid the situation of "It's probably not a job you want".
I didn't explain myself all to clearly. What you're pointing out is the time line in my statements.
Definitely IE was at one point the de-facto standard. What I stated was "in order to stay in that position". IE has not met that list in order to stay in it's position over time. The statement was not about being ubiquitous it was to stay ubiquitous.
So my statement was not a contradiction it wasn't overtly clear.
Ubiquity simply means that so product is used so widely and by so much of the consumer population that it is the de-facto standard. Again I was just pointing out that to stay in this position you must maintain that list of properties. Or you will be dethroned or discarded all together. IE has had an almost 10 year run. A darn good feat, but it's reign is just about up.
Lets look at the history of ubiquity in the IT world. From the MS perspective.
MS office. ( expensive, copied, Google Apps, Open Office ) Windows. ( expensive, copied, OSX, Linux, Both UNIX varients ) IE. ( buggy, secutiry nightmare, Loosing ground fast to alternatives. ) ActiveX ( Attempt at ubiquity, buggy, security nightmare. Not copied )
A de-facto, ubiquitous standard has to maintain certain properties in order to stay in that postition. 1. Cost little to nothing 2. Be reliable 3. Be safe 4. Stay ahead of the competition in form and function
All of these points are in direct odds with MS style of doing business. Cash flow from any and all sources.
1. MS is learning that charging huge sums of cash for something is not working. 2. Reliability has always been a teer two priority for MS. Cash is first. Case in point IE, Vista. 3. Because of the market dominance it has always been the target of attack simply because of the huge install base thus high return on attack. And again for too long MS put money first then security and it's been regretting that ever since. 4. Why invest money in something to make it better when we have the market share. Case in point IE 4-5. But effectively stopping development they left the barn doors open.
It's all about the money. This has been the MS mantra for decades. Unfortunately they have completely missed so many opportunities for new cash flow streams. As they sat on the piles of money in their offices. Web search and advertising is the prime example.
Have they had any successes lately. Arguably the Xbox was a decent one. But that was a copy of competitors, so not their idea. Zune, copy again and a bad one. Who puts in a Jan 2009 bug? How the hell does something that dumb find it's way into the code base. IE 8, well this is a Firefox rip off. I don't think this will live long. IE 9 will be out shortly after. In the same way that Windows 7 is out shortly after Vista.
So MS is miles behind in the new de-facto, ubiquity race. It's not that FOSS is copying it's now leading in the standards front. Even Apple is using FOSS, (webkit).
Oh I'll add. That most new employment for new graduates these days is through an contract organization. Thus the end customer rarely actually sees your resume/CV.
The customer could care less what school you came from. They only care that the contract organization delivers on the contract. The contractor in typical fashion only wants to make sure they have a man/woman in the chair for billable hours.
So you use these contract organizations to help you create a network of contacts in the customer base. Then when you have matured as worker you can move to direct employment easier.
I've poached many a good employee out of the contractor pool.
Slashdot Mirror
That makes more sense cause ASP env's just don't scale :)
I will duck now since this is /. home of the anti-Java.
Actually it's the home of anti M$. So you should be ducking on the mention of ASP not Java.
Clearly you are not a parent. Neither am I.
However if I were I would view $1000 now and say $500 a year an unbelievable value gamble. In ten years this is all of a $6000 investment. Over on top of insurance of course.
I'm not one to gamble. But I know a good bet when I see one. I suspect that those "reprogramed" cells will not be as valuable as my natural fresh from conception ones. I suspect a doctor will go. "Holy Crap you have your own stem cells with you" well this is a no brainer procedure. You child will be fine you can take him/her home in two weeks. As apposed to well we can reprogram his/her toe nail cells but there is only a 32% chance they will take properly. We will have to hold her/him for another 4 months just to be sure.
Oh by the way. I'm fairly sure that funeral costs exceed $6000. So my bet is looking better.
With stunned disbelief in what I just saw I have suffered serious injury.
It appears my jaw has become unhinged and smacked the tilled floor in my flat.
I am grateful for this tragic injury as it is now impossible for me to even be forced to use this product.
I like it!
I read this story. Then it occurred to me that I have never ever seen a "Zune" in the wild. I didn't even know what it's catchy logo was. I mean I had a complete blank on this brand.
So I head over to the Zune.net site. I'm having a hard time believing that pathetic site is the suppose to be a hip trendy site. I'm also stunned at how UGLY that device is.
I'm no graphic/industrial artist but I'm 100% positive I could come up with a better logo and device form factor than this.
Did I mention that it's F-UGLY.
MS what were you thinking when you green lighted this thing?
Yah can it. Just admit it you stuffed this up and move on.
I 98% agree with your arguments.
However in the recent years we have seen the number of processor types used in smart devices decline to a small hand full. Vendors no longer have the luxury or the capital to develop complete systems from scratch. Thus they tend to only do the add-value trick.
For example: Sigma systems chips that are used in almost all set top boxes these dats. This is an example of an architecture that is literally in everyones house and home lan. A lot of this kit runs java, web servers etc. Basically looks like a spam machine in the making.
The thing is these days you don't need to flash the bios/eram/firmware to add software to these devices.
I also add that with the list of recent hardware vendors dropping like flies as their CEO's skip town with all the venture capital. :) The number of variations of base kit is dropping much faster.
And speaking of idiot's at the helm. Thank-you George Bush. You incompetent clown. :)
Aside from the potential protections the virus may have for this.
White hats have a few extra rules to contend with. Since going into someones computer and changing stuff without there approval is illegal in most parts of the globe the white hats would be just as guilty as the virus writer.
God forbid the white hat actually makes a mistake and the cure is worse than the disease. An analogous problem occurred when Sony installed a root kit that prevented people from breaking the law. Sony thought it was protecting it's IP rites. What really happened was that Sony effectively gave complete and total access to any one who wanted to do stuff on the computer. Sony got slapped hard for this and it cost them a bundle. Many people lost there jobs and the damage to personal computers around the world was rather staggering.
So it's not as simple as someone taking over the comms with the virus and sending back clean up routine.
----
As an aside. If or when the world comes to accept that white hats are allowed to attack virus in this manor we will see an almost instant response from the virus writers.
A double payload mechanism would be very effective for example.
1. Virus infects.
2. 2nd payload is delivered and hides in stealth.
3. white hat antivirus clears first virus. As it would take time for the aggressive anti virus to be written. The 2nd payload could easily be delivered well in advance of the white hat action.
4. 2nd payload is now on the hardware with no need to talk to command and control.
That is just one possible vector change that would appear.
----
More likely is that if white hats where given the go ahead to attack. The "Bad guys" would simply move to the next soft target. I suspect the next soft target to be the vast numbers of networked devices that are multiplying all running Linux variations. Also since next to no one ever updates the firmware on these appliances once vulnerable they will remain for ever vulnerable.
----
So in the end no it's a BAD idea for the white hats to aggressively attack these things. It's an arms escalation that we simply don't need.
I second that statement.
I actually got a letter a little over a year ago which was one of these you are in deep s$%t for downloading music. Only issue it was addressed to "Occupant". I almost wet myself laughing. In my over exuberance I tore up the letter. I will probably regret that move for many years. It is something to be framed.
The best part is. I have never ever downloaded music from the net illegally. I still like that physical quality of a CD.
Oh Nothing happened. There was ZERO follow up on the letter by the sender.
I'll rephrase. Would you expect that XP or Vista be installable on your laptop? AKA the newest versions.
You actually reaffirmed my statement on laptop support! But you continue to rebuff the my statement? Curious.
Ubuntu is != Linux. Ubuntu is simply a distro. And no they have not been around that long. Release 4.10 was the first release of it. That's stands for Oct 2004. Also they don't actually support people for free. The community does. As you said given sufficient demand that laptop in question would probably have been supported. Clearly demand for your variant is not sufficient.
You see by your very own logic. It should also mean that recent versions of Windows should also install without fault. I don't think they would. Vista won't that's for sure :)
-----------
Please note I did some research for you. Your particular laptop has some serious bios issues. With patches released as late as 2005.
A notable issue which sounds like it might be related to your problem is:
Version 1.70 08-01-2001
In order to support 1GHz CPU this BIOS incorporates changes to address temperature control.
Corrected a problem that, when the computer goes into S4/S5 state (S4+Hibernation, S5=Power Off) the CMOS data would get corrupted.
Corrected a problem that caused the computer to take an extended amount of time to shut down after going into Hibernation
OK, let me get this straight. You are complaining that some odd case of laptop hardware configuration has stopped a couple of variants of an operating system to install! And this shakes your your confidence in it?
Does any recall VISTA when it first came out. I basically had a 50/50 chance of installing on anything. Due to driver support. That would have shaked me more. ( It did btw )
How many other OS variations have had issues with installation over the recent few years. Well in short all of them. MacOS X included. Even OS's for phones had issues.
I would leap to the conclusion that because you didn't get what you want / expected instantly you are now jaded with everything you see associated with your expectation.
Here is some advice to anyone trying to install any operating system on a machine.
1. Grab the latest version of OS appropriate for your hardware type. x86 vs 64 for example.
2. Find out all the major devices used in your hardware. EG disk controller, chipset, network, etc. Do some googling and see if they need special treatment during installation. If so acquire the appropriate drivers etc. if possible.
3. Google your machine & OS in question and hunt for those show stopper issues. Spend some time reading.
Now it is entirely possible that your desired OS variant is not compatible with the target hardware. That's life. It sucks but hey you move on and adapt.
In your case you found older versions of windows work not the newer ones. You also found a Linux variant that works. Great. It's just that newer distro's of both Linux and Windows fail to work. Basically it sounds like some portion of your laptop hardware no longer has hardware supported by all current OS vendors.
I would also like to point out that older laptops often have very very poor support for newer OS variations. Windows included. Why? Well the hardware makers took a ton of shortcuts in the early days. And had to create really really dodgy custom drivers just to get things like windows running.
PS. A black screen is not spectacular. Sparks fire and flying parts is spectacular.
Actually two betting Pools.
How Long before all the data is on torrent?
Which country will have the offending sloppy official?
I grew up in this town.
It's winter there now. And it's F&#$%#$@'n Cold.
http://www.leaderpost.com/story_print.html?id=1145659&sponsor=
Like others have mentioned. eSATA is the annoying spec.
1. eSATA is just like SATA. The OS does like to treat devices as removable. Often resulting is a manual reboot of OS to free drive.
2. The eSATA spec didn't have power on the connector! What were they thinking?
3. The physical connector format is not as robust as the usb. Highly prone to just plain wearing out.
When I first heard about eSATA I was very excited. As firewire already had it's gravestone made. Finally a method of transferring huge files fast from a portal device. Only to find out that it was a pointless useless spec.
I can safely say that I will actually miss this.
When I was a young lad in the 60's this was still one of the coolest things out there. I used to love going to grans as a small child and cranking up the piano. ( Yep hand crank version ).
The death of Nintendo Game cube or equiv gadget of the day will never compare to the death of something that lasted over 100 years.
This device saved 10's of thousands of families around the globe from uncle Bob's horrible Xmas piano playing. It will be missed.
Sorry but there is no way that the US government in the current climate is going to allow private citizen's to make UBER ICBM's based off of Saturn rocket designs.
Just ain't going to happen.
The launch vehicle is going to have to be something entirely different.
Good point about specialty apps. No argument there. By specialty app you mean something that is very specific to a particular function? I'm not including the likes of Photoshop. As their are alternatives.
Specialty users are probably another catagory. Those users that are so highly skilled at what they do their is still only one app/OS combo.
As for my arguments weak. Well as stated above they are. No room for detail on each point. As each point is probably a white paper in it self. So I stuck with a basic style argument method.
Please define "secret knowledge" I read that a few ways.
You have placed your trust in the government. However which one?
Most governments would with the best of intentions try to do the right thing. However some would not. Some would down right look at this as a cash cow. It would be ripe for the picking of corruption and miss use. With next to no legal recourse.
So who governs the government?
I would contend that this belongs in the hands of grander body. The UN or blocks of countries, the EU, NAFTA, African Union, G8,9,10,11(What ever it is now). etc. At least this way there is an established forum for discussion, sanction, policy standardization.
You are correct on the other hand that companies are not the right bodies to govern the safety of web commerce. This is just begging for greed, non-disclosure and abuse.
Some of the classic arguments against FOSS are:
1. It's not free. You still have to train people and migrate data.
Response: But you don't have to pay for the upgrade, more licenses and still have the data migration issue.
2. There is no technical support.
Response: Actually the technical support is far better. Multiple forums exist for most FOSS applications. They usually have the answers too. Have you ever tried to get and answer to a problem with Notes, Tivoli?
3. Not as feature rich.
Response: Do you actually use those weirdo features in MS word? Have you used Firefox lately? Linux almost installs on everything including my fridge! Does Windows?
4. FOSS applications are not as stable.
Response: Certainly some FOSS apps pretty much crash 3 seconds after they launch. However the majority of FOSS applications that we use every day are rock solid. For example the most widely used web server is apache and it's variants.
5. FOSS applications are insecure.
Response: IE is the most hacked browser out there. Enough said.
6. The unspoken argument. Who do I sue when the applications wrecks my business?
Response: To be honest if your business is wrecked by software then you are probably incompetent. Yah there is always a risk. That's what insurance is for. But it doesn't really matter what is in the contract. If your business goes under as a result of IT systems. Well it's under, a law suite won't fix it.
7. If I contribute to FOSS then I will ultimately loose! As my competition gets a free ride.
Response: If you're an IT shop developing the next wonder product this may actually be the case. However if you are an IT shop and you want to off load some of the development of the required peripheral software that enables your wonder product it makes sense to support FOSS. If your Bob's Music and Flower emporium and you have a wizz-kid in the back that is contributing both to the company and the FOSS. The long term benefits are greater. As that software this kid made is now being supported and developed by many many people that you could never have a hope of paying for.
Comment:
I know I've locked the barn door and soaked the building in gas. Flame away if you wish.
When it comes to buying IBM or from someone else. The bean counters always choose, ..... IBM. This boggles the mind. The most expensive vendor out there. The flood the shop with consultants and usually fail to deliver anything remotely like what you wanted.
And your right no one ever gets fired for buying IBM. But they do get fired for buying anything else. Can't wrap my head around this one. But I've seen it happen more times than I can count.
Since almost every medium to large enterprise shop goes this way it's hard to avoid the situation of "It's probably not a job you want".
People use Symphony?
The cult reference is about APPLE not linux kit.
Far comment.
I didn't explain myself all to clearly. What you're pointing out is the time line in my statements.
Definitely IE was at one point the de-facto standard. What I stated was "in order to stay in that position". IE has not met that list in order to stay in it's position over time. The statement was not about being ubiquitous it was to stay ubiquitous.
So my statement was not a contradiction it wasn't overtly clear.
Ubiquity simply means that so product is used so widely and by so much of the consumer population that it is the de-facto standard. Again I was just pointing out that to stay in this position you must maintain that list of properties. Or you will be dethroned or discarded all together. IE has had an almost 10 year run. A darn good feat, but it's reign is just about up.
I don't mean to be mean but that makes no sense.
By de-facto standard you mean ubiquity.
Lets look at the history of ubiquity in the IT world. From the MS perspective.
MS office. ( expensive, copied, Google Apps, Open Office )
Windows. ( expensive, copied, OSX, Linux, Both UNIX varients )
IE. ( buggy, secutiry nightmare, Loosing ground fast to alternatives. )
ActiveX ( Attempt at ubiquity, buggy, security nightmare. Not copied )
A de-facto, ubiquitous standard has to maintain certain properties in order to stay in that postition.
1. Cost little to nothing
2. Be reliable
3. Be safe
4. Stay ahead of the competition in form and function
All of these points are in direct odds with MS style of doing business. Cash flow from any and all sources.
1. MS is learning that charging huge sums of cash for something is not working.
2. Reliability has always been a teer two priority for MS. Cash is first. Case in point IE, Vista.
3. Because of the market dominance it has always been the target of attack simply because of the huge install base thus high return on attack. And again for too long MS put money first then security and it's been regretting that ever since.
4. Why invest money in something to make it better when we have the market share. Case in point IE 4-5. But effectively stopping development they left the barn doors open.
It's all about the money. This has been the MS mantra for decades. Unfortunately they have completely missed so many opportunities for new cash flow streams. As they sat on the piles of money in their offices. Web search and advertising is the prime example.
Have they had any successes lately. Arguably the Xbox was a decent one. But that was a copy of competitors, so not their idea. Zune, copy again and a bad one. Who puts in a Jan 2009 bug? How the hell does something that dumb find it's way into the code base. IE 8, well this is a Firefox rip off. I don't think this will live long. IE 9 will be out shortly after. In the same way that Windows 7 is out shortly after Vista.
So MS is miles behind in the new de-facto, ubiquity race. It's not that FOSS is copying it's now leading in the standards front. Even Apple is using FOSS, (webkit).
Oh I'll add. That most new employment for new graduates these days is through an contract organization. Thus the end customer rarely actually sees your resume/CV.
The customer could care less what school you came from. They only care that the contract organization delivers on the contract. The contractor in typical fashion only wants to make sure they have a man/woman in the chair for billable hours.
So you use these contract organizations to help you create a network of contacts in the customer base. Then when you have matured as worker you can move to direct employment easier.
I've poached many a good employee out of the contractor pool.