You realise that you've just described a web browser right?
Not at all there are many way of displaying text files in an interactive manner that are in no way related to web browsing (debian info pages spring to mind). If you had said:
An application that renders specific HTML files loaded from the internet, with a nice GUI, and can link to other resources on the internet?
then you would be close, but you would also include: 1)Any html capable email client 2)Most media players 3)All help centres i know of (including microsofts) 4)All news aggregates 5)Most torrent programs 6)Internet television applications (miro, joost, etc) 7)Many other tools (suck as Wireshark), that present part/all of their interface as html pages
What renders the HTML is a rendering engine (webkit, gecko, trident, presto, etc), one of those can easily be put into a separate app (the entire thing shouldn't be more than 30 LOC) to render the ballot page you want, without favouring IE by installing it already! And don't pretend 30 LOC is a lot of work once you include testing, ect, because you are only testing the functionality of the page (which will need to be done anyway) as the rendering engine is already tested and the web-page itself will probably be require more code & testing than the trivial 1 function app to render it!
I manage a lot of Windows computers at work and the last thing I want is an automatic update suddenly presenting my users with the invitation to choose a new browser
This only happens on new installs I do think your point about corporate enviroments is valid, however i think that is something MS worry about and unless you leave users with default windows installs i don't think having 1 extra command/config option/program to set it will be an excessive workload.
The point of the legislation is to but all browser on an evil footing, by doing this all in IE, MS are not doing that so IMO the complaint is valid. It's not being jaded it's simply wanting MS to actually comply with the spirit of the law not just the letter. The way MS have implemented this is clearly a "fuck off" to the EU regulation, they haven't just used the IE-engine to get the results displayed they have deliberately put it in IE so that the user will just re-enter the address in the address bar, i wouldn't be surprised if they made the ballot look like a normal home page and even bundled bing with it!
The functionality is in trident, If i MS used IE to render web pages in WMP/outlook/help, they would be thoroughly retarded, fortunately they are not they use the engine to do the rendering in a GUI suited to the needs of the user. IE has a lot of functionality, but you would be an idiot for suggesting all windows interfaces are done using it.
Don't think i fell for you troll I just worry others may.
interesting my ass, why do MS have to use fully blown IE (with interface and all) to render a single webpage at a fixed location? This is the kind of thing a simple tool (vb could do it!)+an XML file is suited to. If they didn't want to go to all that effort, then why not use a plane window (no adressbar/no controls) and trident to render the webpage. This isn't about following the intent of the law (offering competing browsers) its just following the letter of the law, that's cool but next time anybody wants MS to do anything on the basis of competition laws they should demand access to windows source code and do it themselves (seriously a 13y/o kid could offer multiple buttons that download browsers without requiring IE).
You really need to think your troll/ridiculously stupid posts through. It would be trivial to have an MSXML/text/MSSQL file contain a list of browsers,icons,download locations and then have an app show that list (in a nice GUI with icons and all), complete with misleading warnings.
or to put it another way "I'd create a GUI interface using visual basic to see if I can install the browser people want"
I was bitching about the shear number of crap post, even giving you credit for a some sort of content in your post (as a reply completely OT though) out of 209 there are still less than a dozen posts with any content the rest are just going on about drm/not a monopoly/how much they love steam.
In reply to your points,
The issue is that monopolies are only bad when customers wind up with a sub-par product,
I do agree however I feel it would be better if steam/valve split before they did anything to make them bad. For example without any external regulation, most of the hedge funds in London voluntarily setup a code of practice to prevent stuff like conflics of interest. My point is that you don't need to be forced to do something good for customers companies can and do make changes themselves. In this case i think steam can and should be rolled off before any conflicts of interest arises and before they are a monopoly in any legal sense (let alone real sense)
people can just make another one. Don't have the cash for massive servers? Use bittorrent or similar.
It's not hard to set-up a web advertising (text adverts are low bw), search engine (there are many), webmail (there are just as many) and source code hosting (if you don't have the bandwidth use git or bittorrent) company, however that doesn't stop google being classed as a monopoly and being under the magnifying glass.
[citation needed] This isn't like os X and apple, where customers would be much better of if ox X were not tied to apple hw, however apple would probably die and os X wouldn't make the cash to keep going. Steam is making money, valve's games are making money, so why would spinning steam of into a seperate compnay hurt prices? administrative overhead? With the profits they're making a slight overhead is negligible. steam having to charge valve games? Steam already gets it's cut of game sales, if they split it would just be done formally and it would be the same rate other companies get.
Besides, a slight price hit (not that i accept there would be one), is reasonable price to pay for the benefit of not having a large digital distributor tied to a single game company.
I'm not suggesting we force them to split up (well until they break the law anyway), Do you think it would hurt competition to have steam/valve untied? I don't know about stardock, but I definetly think if xbox360 was not tied to windows we would be in a better situation (the same for tying xbox live to the xbox and the software not allowing 3rd party wireless controllers via bluetooth, etc)
Now that isn't to say we should force a break up of MS, there are no grounds to attack the xbox division AFAIK. However valve are in a position where they have 2 thriving pretty independent businesses and it would be great if they split off steam to avoid any potential conflict of interest (also cheaper than having to buy a few judges when the court rules you have to).
We would all (correctly) think your a douche for trying to patent hard drives.
I claim a data storage device comprising a magnetic platter containing a plurality of magnetic bits, each bit configured to have two states, wherein each state represents alternately a 0 or a 9" rule no1, of patent obfusation, always make your system sound more complex than it has to!
I'm not a marketing guru so i wouldn't recommend using my slogans or going on an attack campaign, I just think that a lot of advertising, to make people aware that the alternatives to the iPhone are better than it (in some/many ways), would help. While I'm a geek and understanding "norms" is tricky I do think advertising competitors as giving you control of your phone would appeal to "norms", if done right. Perhaps just an anti-hype advert to nock iPhone hype down a notch would help (like an advert for tesco mobile(uk) that rips into marketing), but as I said I'm no marketing guru, I just think that a 3 pronged attack is needed as compared to just having better hardware/software.
Wow it looks like if a company is not MS or google then nobody should even question the conflict of interests they have here on slashdot!? The guy has some good points, agree/disagree but give me a break on all the "they have competitors"/"build your own nobody is stopping you!" posts, I mean most of those posts are just repeating previous ones, of 109 posts (most of them "they have competitors",etc) only 1 has any real analysis/content!
As a guy who reads, trusts and respects slashdot and the community here,
That is where you are going wrong, we are in fact 90% self righteous troll, fortunately I'm part of the 10% that responds to logic and completely agree that it would be better for everybody involved if steam/valve split. If they do not they will have to take great care to not end up running afoul of anti-trust laws as they are a major part of several markets distribution,PC FPS (particularly at a pro level),engine licensor.
Monopoly in the antitrust sense just requires a certain market share, I think steam probably have that market share, OFC now they need to abuse it to get this prize
Phone companies want to compete with the iPhone, android is just a tool that allows them to do that. I think the fact you have 2 companies 1 working on software to beat apple's, and 1 working on hardware to beat apple's is a strength not a weakness. What they need to add is a 3rd company to bitchslap apple's marketing into line. a TV campaign along the lines: "Because we don't arbitrary reject apps our app store is growing faster than any other leading smartphone's" "By putting unlocked devices in the hands of developers, our apps are fixed in days not months, allowing you to get back to work" "When you buy a * phones, It's yours and you can run programs from or us, the choice is your"
Most cheats for Xbox live games are fairly low tech. Purposefully inducing lag spikes, crap like that.
This is the stuff that would make an interesting article, can they do any other kind of cheating? They can play copied discs but can they modify the discs to contain aimbots/wall hax/etc (AFAIK they can't)?
I was pretty disappointed, I see xbox-live as a very interesting attack vector, but now if you google "xbox live security details" all you get is this story going on about phising! It would be interesting to find out what sort of encryption, authentication, etc xbox-live uses, the information must be out there as the xbox1 os has been thoroughly dissected. It seams that xbox-live would be particularly susceptible to cheating because of the lack of dedicated game servers/communities doing proper verification (ofc i the verification may still exist that is another IMO interesting question) and untrustworth "servers" (e.g the l4d attacks).
tl;dr xbox-live security is interesting, phising is not!
You need to know the version you get before seeing if it is hackable, chances are a new xbox will have a kernel > 4548. However if by some miracle you hack it, your best bet is to then install a minimal ubuntu/debian install with mythTV or something related as your GUI.
Yeah its not like giving them opportunity works and as a result we have a lower re-offending rate than America (harsher prisons) but higher than Sweden (nicer prisons), but fuck it, I'm having a hard time finding a job so all spending should be cut even if it makes everybody less safe and effect wastes more money (1 "expensive" stay vs 10+ cheap stays).
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I take it you are not including yourself in that statement because that would be a tall task indeed!
You realise that you've just described a web browser right?
Not at all there are many way of displaying text files in an interactive manner that are in no way related to web browsing (debian info pages spring to mind). If you had said:
An application that renders specific HTML files loaded from the internet, with a nice GUI, and can link to other resources on the internet?
then you would be close, but you would also include:
1)Any html capable email client
2)Most media players
3)All help centres i know of (including microsofts)
4)All news aggregates
5)Most torrent programs
6)Internet television applications (miro, joost, etc)
7)Many other tools (suck as Wireshark), that present part/all of their interface as html pages
What renders the HTML is a rendering engine (webkit, gecko, trident, presto, etc), one of those can easily be put into a separate app (the entire thing shouldn't be more than 30 LOC) to render the ballot page you want, without favouring IE by installing it already! And don't pretend 30 LOC is a lot of work once you include testing, ect, because you are only testing the functionality of the page (which will need to be done anyway) as the rendering engine is already tested and the web-page itself will probably be require more code & testing than the trivial 1 function app to render it!
I manage a lot of Windows computers at work and the last thing I want is an automatic update suddenly presenting my users with the invitation to choose a new browser
This only happens on new installs I do think your point about corporate enviroments is valid, however i think that is something MS worry about and unless you leave users with default windows installs i don't think having 1 extra command/config option/program to set it will be an excessive workload.
chrome will default to you IE search engine (often bing)...your point?
The point of the legislation is to but all browser on an evil footing, by doing this all in IE, MS are not doing that so IMO the complaint is valid. It's not being jaded it's simply wanting MS to actually comply with the spirit of the law not just the letter. The way MS have implemented this is clearly a "fuck off" to the EU regulation, they haven't just used the IE-engine to get the results displayed they have deliberately put it in IE so that the user will just re-enter the address in the address bar, i wouldn't be surprised if they made the ballot look like a normal home page and even bundled bing with it!
The functionality is in trident, If i MS used IE to render web pages in WMP/outlook/help, they would be thoroughly retarded, fortunately they are not they use the engine to do the rendering in a GUI suited to the needs of the user. IE has a lot of functionality, but you would be an idiot for suggesting all windows interfaces are done using it.
Don't think i fell for you troll I just worry others may.
interesting my ass, why do MS have to use fully blown IE (with interface and all) to render a single webpage at a fixed location? This is the kind of thing a simple tool (vb could do it!)+an XML file is suited to. If they didn't want to go to all that effort, then why not use a plane window (no adressbar/no controls) and trident to render the webpage. This isn't about following the intent of the law (offering competing browsers) its just following the letter of the law, that's cool but next time anybody wants MS to do anything on the basis of competition laws they should demand access to windows source code and do it themselves (seriously a 13y/o kid could offer multiple buttons that download browsers without requiring IE).
You really need to think your troll/ridiculously stupid posts through. It would be trivial to have an MSXML/text/MSSQL file contain a list of browsers,icons,download locations and then have an app show that list (in a nice GUI with icons and all), complete with misleading warnings.
or to put it another way "I'd create a GUI interface using visual basic to see if I can install the browser people want"
I was bitching about the shear number of crap post, even giving you credit for a some sort of content in your post (as a reply completely OT though) out of 209 there are still less than a dozen posts with any content the rest are just going on about drm/not a monopoly/how much they love steam.
In reply to your points,
The issue is that monopolies are only bad when customers wind up with a sub-par product,
I do agree however I feel it would be better if steam/valve split before they did anything to make them bad. For example without any external regulation, most of the hedge funds in London voluntarily setup a code of practice to prevent stuff like conflics of interest. My point is that you don't need to be forced to do something good for customers companies can and do make changes themselves. In this case i think steam can and should be rolled off before any conflicts of interest arises and before they are a monopoly in any legal sense (let alone real sense)
people can just make another one. Don't have the cash for massive servers? Use bittorrent or similar.
It's not hard to set-up a web advertising (text adverts are low bw), search engine (there are many), webmail (there are just as many) and source code hosting (if you don't have the bandwidth use git or bittorrent) company, however that doesn't stop google being classed as a monopoly and being under the magnifying glass.
[citation needed] This isn't like os X and apple, where customers would be much better of if ox X were not tied to apple hw, however apple would probably die and os X wouldn't make the cash to keep going. Steam is making money, valve's games are making money, so why would spinning steam of into a seperate compnay hurt prices?
administrative overhead? With the profits they're making a slight overhead is negligible.
steam having to charge valve games? Steam already gets it's cut of game sales, if they split it would just be done formally and it would be the same rate other companies get.
Besides, a slight price hit (not that i accept there would be one), is reasonable price to pay for the benefit of not having a large digital distributor tied to a single game company.
I'm not suggesting we force them to split up (well until they break the law anyway), Do you think it would hurt competition to have steam/valve untied?
I don't know about stardock, but I definetly think if xbox360 was not tied to windows we would be in a better situation (the same for tying xbox live to the xbox and the software not allowing 3rd party wireless controllers via bluetooth, etc)
Now that isn't to say we should force a break up of MS, there are no grounds to attack the xbox division AFAIK. However valve are in a position where they have 2 thriving pretty independent businesses and it would be great if they split off steam to avoid any potential conflict of interest (also cheaper than having to buy a few judges when the court rules you have to).
Nope just AT&T flexing their congressmen again.
We would all (correctly) think your a douche for trying to patent hard drives.
I claim a data storage device comprising a magnetic platter containing a plurality of magnetic bits, each bit configured to have two states, wherein each state represents alternately a 0 or a 9"
rule no1, of patent obfusation, always make your system sound more complex than it has to!
I'm not a marketing guru so i wouldn't recommend using my slogans or going on an attack campaign, I just think that a lot of advertising, to make people aware that the alternatives to the iPhone are better than it (in some/many ways), would help. While I'm a geek and understanding "norms" is tricky I do think advertising competitors as giving you control of your phone would appeal to "norms", if done right. Perhaps just an anti-hype advert to nock iPhone hype down a notch would help (like an advert for tesco mobile(uk) that rips into marketing), but as I said I'm no marketing guru, I just think that a 3 pronged attack is needed as compared to just having better hardware/software.
Wow it looks like if a company is not MS or google then nobody should even question the conflict of interests they have here on slashdot!? The guy has some good points, agree/disagree but give me a break on all the "they have competitors"/"build your own nobody is stopping you!" posts, I mean most of those posts are just repeating previous ones, of 109 posts (most of them "they have competitors",etc) only 1 has any real analysis/content!
As a guy who reads, trusts and respects slashdot and the community here,
That is where you are going wrong, we are in fact 90% self righteous troll, fortunately I'm part of the 10% that responds to logic and completely agree that it would be better for everybody involved if steam/valve split. If they do not they will have to take great care to not end up running afoul of anti-trust laws as they are a major part of several markets distribution,PC FPS (particularly at a pro level),engine licensor.
Monopoly in the antitrust sense just requires a certain market share, I think steam probably have that market share, OFC now they need to abuse it to get this prize
Phone companies want to compete with the iPhone, android is just a tool that allows them to do that. I think the fact you have 2 companies 1 working on software to beat apple's, and 1 working on hardware to beat apple's is a strength not a weakness. What they need to add is a 3rd company to bitchslap apple's marketing into line. a TV campaign along the lines:
"Because we don't arbitrary reject apps our app store is growing faster than any other leading smartphone's"
"By putting unlocked devices in the hands of developers, our apps are fixed in days not months, allowing you to get back to work"
"When you buy a * phones, It's yours and you can run programs from or us, the choice is your"
Actually I don't, but just because you get fucked by the cable companies, doesn't mean you should let the game companies screw you!
The advertising in I Robot was far too subtle, they should have just made buy Jupiter into a film!
Most cheats for Xbox live games are fairly low tech. Purposefully inducing lag spikes, crap like that.
This is the stuff that would make an interesting article, can they do any other kind of cheating? They can play copied discs but can they modify the discs to contain aimbots/wall hax/etc (AFAIK they can't)?
I was pretty disappointed, I see xbox-live as a very interesting attack vector, but now if you google "xbox live security details" all you get is this story going on about phising!
It would be interesting to find out what sort of encryption, authentication, etc xbox-live uses, the information must be out there as the xbox1 os has been thoroughly dissected. It seams that xbox-live would be particularly susceptible to cheating because of the lack of dedicated game servers/communities doing proper verification (ofc i the verification may still exist that is another IMO interesting question) and untrustworth "servers" (e.g the l4d attacks).
tl;dr xbox-live security is interesting, phising is not!
Who the fuck mentioned linux? sounds like your the paranoid one with the inferiority complex!
You need to know the version you get before seeing if it is hackable, chances are a new xbox will have a kernel > 4548. However if by some miracle you hack it, your best bet is to then install a minimal ubuntu/debian install with mythTV or something related as your GUI.
Yeah its not like giving them opportunity works and as a result we have a lower re-offending rate than America (harsher prisons) but higher than Sweden (nicer prisons), but fuck it, I'm having a hard time finding a job so all spending should be cut even if it makes everybody less safe and effect wastes more money (1 "expensive" stay vs 10+ cheap stays).