What it does do: block off valid.exe attachments, which would be a major PITA at my place of work.
What aspect of your work flow requires you to send and receive raw Windows executables?
What it doesn't do: scan for zipped virusses
Current e-mail viruses don't zip themselves.
Word macro virusses
Why would one send a.doc to another user? Sending RTF (Microsoft Rich Text Format, a textual encoding of.doc) is safer, as RTF cannot carry macros and thus cannot carry macro viruses.
AVI is a container format. It does not actually define a compression method for audio or video (except perhaps raw PCM). Various companies make various codecs. What makes you expect Microsoft to make every existing codec available on the Windows installation disc?
GIF--color depth not important, crisp lines important, compression important. JPEG--color depth important, crisp lines not important, compression important. PNG--color depth and crisp lines both important, compression not as important (or the image just happens to compress well with PNG).
Also: GIF--animation within web browser important. PNG--alternative to still GIF in all cases.
Even Mozilla, the only browser which ever supported MNG, has removed it.
Mozilla removed MNG support from the trunk because it lacked a maintainer. According to bug 18574 (http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18574 ), Glenn Randers-Pehrson is willing to maintain Mozilla's MNG support.
Combine this with the fact that JPEG (the current de facto standard for wallpapers) has an inexplicable and yet undeniable hatred for the color red
The problem with red is that your quality setting is set too low. JPEG has three channels (Y lightness, Cr red chroma, Cb blue chroma), and it stores most of the red information in the Cr channel. Tell your encoder to allocate more bits to Cr, and JPEG will handle red better. (No, I don't specifically know how to do this with the IJG JPEG code. It has something to do with custom -qtables and -qslots, but I don't know from there.) If the problem is that red-black or red-green edges seem to be made of 2x2 pixel blocks, you're seeing the effect of the default 2:1 chroma downsampling, which can be disabled (at the cost of increased file size) in most encoders. (In IJG's cjpeg, use -sample 2x2,2x2,2x1 for more red resolution or -sample 2x2,2x1,1x1 for more blue resolution and a lot more red resolution.)
The PNG spec does not support layers, effects, type, and vector data (but that is what Fireworks thinks).
Fireworks thinks this just up until you Export... the images.
I wish they had come up with extension like.FWK or something.
That is, unless.fwk is already in use. There are only about 17,000 three-letter strings, and the FAT file system of Windows 9x cannot always be depended on to store file name extensions longer than three letters.
banner ads that are animated always get better CTR than the same banner not animated
Relevant text ads reportedly get even more clicks than animated graphics because they look more like content and thus (for now) do not trigger "banner blindness" in readers.
Actually without transparency, it doesn't work well at all because interface elements (e.g. the tabs, GANTT view) become confusing without transparency.
Do they work without semi-transparency? Microsoft Internet Explorer has correctly handled binary transparency in indexed PNG images since at least version 4.
I will address the issues of disabled users, mobile users and non English speakers after, and only after - I have satisfied the needs of the majority of users.
Working accessibility and internationalization into your design at early stages is easier than working them in at later stages. It appears that by publicly defining your API and data stream format, you have taken some steps toward this goal. Now all you need to do is get somebody else to implement an alternate interface (like your option 1, but without the delay).
I know people who don't use a graphical interface, for example. I'm not going to spend time pleasing them when I could be adding new features that would improve the lot of >95% of other users.
Even when you are barred from getting a contract with the U.S. government because you are not compliant with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act?
Wrong. It's either the DirectDraw hack, or don't use alpha-transparent PNG. Since IE 4, binary transparency in indexed images has worked for PNG just as well as for GIF.
I just don't see anything in the constitution about losing your right to free speech if you fail to exercise your right to vote.
The right to "freedom of speech" guaranteed by the first article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States does not necessarily imply a right to have one's speech heard. AOL Time Warner, Viacom, Disney, Clear Channel, and other companies that own television and radio networks control that right. Not everybody lives on the Internet like some Slashdot readers do.
You assume that everybody is eligible. "No person shall be elected to $OFFICE who has not attained to the age of $BIGNUM years..." People who graduate from high school "on time" and are on track to complete a bachelor's or master's degree "on time" are too young to run for public office while still in school.
Besides, without using the services of AOL Time Warner, Viacom, and Disney, who own the television networks, how can a candidate convince the TV-watching public to vote for him or her?
U.S. copyright law defines "the owner of a copy" in such a way that if I go to a Best Buy store, pick up a box marked "Microsoft Office", hand a $530 check to the cashier, and walk out with the box, I am "the owner of a copy". In order for Microsoft to stop this, it has to place a magic word "rental" or "lease" on the outer packaging.
you would think that would come with M$'s own Windows Media Player.
Microsoft does not know the details of every video compression method used on the face of the earth. It is up to the inventor of the video compression method to deliver a publicly available decoder.
the M$ avi file format which Windows Media Player treats as audio, displaying an "ambience" instead of your digicam's movie.
This means only that you have a decoder for the audio but not for the video. Install a decoder for your digicam's video format and everything will work fine.
BMF may have better compression performance than PNG, but 1. the web site is in Russian (and gives Babel Fish problems) and 2. there's no indication on the translation of the web site that the author is willing to allow reading and writing of BMF images in free software.
What you're seeing is probably gamma correction. Try saving the PNG image without a gamma chunk (GIMP's Save As... dialog can do this), and your image's #660000 will match your page's #660000.
If it's not gamma, then it's probably differences in dithering. In high-color mode, some web browsers use different dithering algorithms on flat rectangles (e.g. backgrounds) vs. images. If this is your problem, the problem should show up with GIF images as well. Here, the best policy is to use a binary-transparent PNG, masking out what touches the edges and matches the background. (IE supports binary transparency in indexed images, just not alpha.)
Slashdot Mirror
Xanim seems to [include every AVI codec]
Can the complete Xanim distribution be distributed in the United States without infringing a patent?
save the document in a format that doesn't retain all of your information
Other than macros, what does RTF lose?
We should be finding ways to enable the communication
Do viruses enable the communication?
What it does do: block off valid .exe attachments, which would be a major PITA at my place of work.
What aspect of your work flow requires you to send and receive raw Windows executables?
What it doesn't do: scan for zipped virusses
Current e-mail viruses don't zip themselves.
Word macro virusses
Why would one send a .doc to another user? Sending RTF (Microsoft Rich Text Format, a textual encoding of .doc) is safer, as RTF cannot carry macros and thus cannot carry macro viruses.
MSFT can aquire a company and *not* integrate it into windows
When has that been the case?
AVI is a M$ format
AVI is a container format. It does not actually define a compression method for audio or video (except perhaps raw PCM). Various companies make various codecs. What makes you expect Microsoft to make every existing codec available on the Windows installation disc?
or -sample 2x2,2x1,1x1 for more blue resolution and a lot more red resolution.
Correction: This should have been
GIF--color depth not important, crisp lines important, compression important. JPEG--color depth important, crisp lines not important, compression important. PNG--color depth and crisp lines both important, compression not as important (or the image just happens to compress well with PNG).
Also: GIF--animation within web browser important. PNG--alternative to still GIF in all cases.
Even Mozilla, the only browser which ever supported MNG, has removed it.
Mozilla removed MNG support from the trunk because it lacked a maintainer. According to bug 18574 (http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18574 ), Glenn Randers-Pehrson is willing to maintain Mozilla's MNG support.
Combine this with the fact that JPEG (the current de facto standard for wallpapers) has an inexplicable and yet undeniable hatred for the color red
The problem with red is that your quality setting is set too low. JPEG has three channels (Y lightness, Cr red chroma, Cb blue chroma), and it stores most of the red information in the Cr channel. Tell your encoder to allocate more bits to Cr, and JPEG will handle red better. (No, I don't specifically know how to do this with the IJG JPEG code. It has something to do with custom -qtables and -qslots, but I don't know from there.) If the problem is that red-black or red-green edges seem to be made of 2x2 pixel blocks, you're seeing the effect of the default 2:1 chroma downsampling, which can be disabled (at the cost of increased file size) in most encoders. (In IJG's cjpeg, use -sample 2x2,2x2,2x1 for more red resolution or -sample 2x2,2x1,1x1 for more blue resolution and a lot more red resolution.)
The PNG spec does not support layers, effects, type, and vector data (but that is what Fireworks thinks).
Fireworks thinks this just up until you Export... the images.
I wish they had come up with extension like .FWK or something.
That is, unless .fwk is already in use. There are only about 17,000 three-letter strings, and the FAT file system of Windows 9x cannot always be depended on to store file name extensions longer than three letters.
banner ads that are animated always get better CTR than the same banner not animated
Relevant text ads reportedly get even more clicks than animated graphics because they look more like content and thus (for now) do not trigger "banner blindness" in readers.
the scalable vector graphics format is set to replace Flash as well as PDF.
How does SVG support animation? Is it through the DOM? And how can a vector graphics format support synchronized sound?
Then who pays the songwriters?
If the artists (claim to) write their own songs, who checks the songs to make sure that the artists did not accidentally infringe a copyright like George Harrison did on his solo debut album?
Actually without transparency, it doesn't work well at all because interface elements (e.g. the tabs, GANTT view) become confusing without transparency.
Do they work without semi-transparency? Microsoft Internet Explorer has correctly handled binary transparency in indexed PNG images since at least version 4.
I will address the issues of disabled users, mobile users and non English speakers after, and only after - I have satisfied the needs of the majority of users.
Working accessibility and internationalization into your design at early stages is easier than working them in at later stages. It appears that by publicly defining your API and data stream format, you have taken some steps toward this goal. Now all you need to do is get somebody else to implement an alternate interface (like your option 1, but without the delay).
I know people who don't use a graphical interface, for example. I'm not going to spend time pleasing them when I could be adding new features that would improve the lot of >95% of other users.
Even when you are barred from getting a contract with the U.S. government because you are not compliant with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act?
It's either that, or don't use PNG.
Wrong. It's either the DirectDraw hack, or don't use alpha-transparent PNG. Since IE 4, binary transparency in indexed images has worked for PNG just as well as for GIF.
When was the last time a politician asked what you thought
Provided you live in the USA: Right now.
I just don't see anything in the constitution about losing your right to free speech if you fail to exercise your right to vote.
The right to "freedom of speech" guaranteed by the first article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States does not necessarily imply a right to have one's speech heard. AOL Time Warner, Viacom, Disney, Clear Channel, and other companies that own television and radio networks control that right. Not everybody lives on the Internet like some Slashdot readers do.
Then run for office.
You assume that everybody is eligible. "No person shall be elected to $OFFICE who has not attained to the age of $BIGNUM years..." People who graduate from high school "on time" and are on track to complete a bachelor's or master's degree "on time" are too young to run for public office while still in school.
Besides, without using the services of AOL Time Warner, Viacom, and Disney, who own the television networks, how can a candidate convince the TV-watching public to vote for him or her?
you can resell software, but you don't own it.
U.S. copyright law defines "the owner of a copy" in such a way that if I go to a Best Buy store, pick up a box marked "Microsoft Office", hand a $530 check to the cashier, and walk out with the box, I am "the owner of a copy". In order for Microsoft to stop this, it has to place a magic word "rental" or "lease" on the outer packaging.
you would think that would come with M$'s own Windows Media Player.
Microsoft does not know the details of every video compression method used on the face of the earth. It is up to the inventor of the video compression method to deliver a publicly available decoder.
the M$ avi file format which Windows Media Player treats as audio, displaying an "ambience" instead of your digicam's movie.
This means only that you have a decoder for the audio but not for the video. Install a decoder for your digicam's video format and everything will work fine.
BMF may have better compression performance than PNG, but 1. the web site is in Russian (and gives Babel Fish problems) and 2. there's no indication on the translation of the web site that the author is willing to allow reading and writing of BMF images in free software.
Well, then you just use MNG if you need animation.
What? Should I tell all users of IE not to visit the site until they have the appropriate plug-in to view the advertisements?
What you're seeing is probably gamma correction. Try saving the PNG image without a gamma chunk (GIMP's Save As... dialog can do this), and your image's #660000 will match your page's #660000.
If it's not gamma, then it's probably differences in dithering. In high-color mode, some web browsers use different dithering algorithms on flat rectangles (e.g. backgrounds) vs. images. If this is your problem, the problem should show up with GIF images as well. Here, the best policy is to use a binary-transparent PNG, masking out what touches the edges and matches the background. (IE supports binary transparency in indexed images, just not alpha.)
Reasonably modern versions of IE do not support png.
Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows has displayed PNG images since 4.x.
IE does not support most transparent versions of PNG, except for the binary-transparent version that directly replicates the features of still GIF.