Fixing a UI so a novice can use it without screaming because the bloody thing is so obtuse doesn't mean removing any power. It just means arranging things so that stuff people do a lot is presented in a more obvious manner, that silly dialogs are removed, and that help is accurate and written in plain english.
The control panels are a perfect example of mess. 20-30 panels with more tabs inside. Frequently used options mixed in with never used at all options. Options that control similar functionality in different panels or not there at all. GNOME is worse than KDE but both are pretty bad.
I wish a distro - ANY distro - would invest some money in usability. Linux is never going to be ready for the desktop until someone sits 100 volunteers in front of a computer and asks them to do stuff - copy text, format a disk, connect to the internet etc. and implements the findings. There is no distro or UI (KDE/GNOME) which comes even remotely close to being user friendly as OS X or XP define it. The prize for the first distro to pull it off will be huge.
While experts can find their way around existing distros, mere mortals will rightly conclude that XP or OS X is a better choice for them simply because it doesn't put up barriers at every stage. Even little things as more task orientation, hiding advanced settings in secondary dialogs and removal of needlessly jargon filled alerts can do much to simplify a UI.
Obviously you don't know much about Guinness or you wouldn't suggest such a thing. It should be poured slowly, left to settle and then drunk at leisure. You go up to the bar to order the new Guinness when the old one is about 1/5th from the bottom, to give the new one time to settle while you finish off the old one. If you keep topping it up, it will never settle properly.
As a Brit, I'll tell you the most annoying thing about bars that serve you at the table - waiters who take away the glasses before you've finished. It's like they watching you, waiting for you to get within 1cm of the bottom of the glass (a good mouthful) and then they rush up to take it away. Bastards!
I've travelled most of the world and I've never found a bar that beats an English/Irish pub. Other nationalities simply don't get it.
This simply can't work without downloading any additional software unless they know of some super sekret buffer overflows to exploit.
Without downloading anything, all they can do is open a toolbar/menuless window and fill it with a lame implementation of the regular browser but with their buttons. It would look stoopid and would be instantly dismissed by anyone with any sense.
But to actually change the browser behaviour requires some form of download. That either means a plugin or exe for NS 4.x, a control or exe for IE or chrome for Mozilla/NS 6.x. There is no other way.
And fortunately most people will be smarter than to install shit like this. May it be consigned to the lower levels of hell where it belongs with all other advertising spyware.
Who says AOL wants 1.0 out the door? AOL is more likely to judge which branch to use for their client based upon its stability and their own schedules. They may well decide that 0.9.9 (a remarkably stable release) is a better branch to use than to wait 4 months for 1.0 to prove itself.
As for that bug, it is marked mozilla1.0 & nsbeta1+ so clearly Mozilla.org WANTs it in 1.0, but I doubt they're going to hold the schedule up for it.
Part of the problem with GPG, is that there is no library version of it. If you want to stick a front-end on it you have to talk with the gpg process to do anything. That means constructing a command line string that runs gpg with the appropriate switches, processes the results and returns.
There is a wrapper library called GPGME that simplifies the process but it is still a cumbersome system.
I disagree that it's easy to get a key in OE. Yes it will ask if you want to get a key and open a browser to a start page listing some key vendors but from there one it becomes increasingly confusing. For example, click on the Verisign link and it tells you must pay $15 (yeah right) for a year long key or get a 60 day trial key (useless). Global Sign charges 16 euros or get a 30 day trial key (worse than fucking useless), BT dumps you in their order catalogue, Thawte dumps you in a sales pitch. I gave up trying with the last two after a few links.
In short none of these options makes it easy to get a key. And even assuming you want one, they'll ask for your life history and passport/social security/credit card numbers before they'll hand one over. That's too bad for anyone under 18 or in a repressive country.
And in a years time your certificate expires. And your certificate is not signed in any meaningful sense (Verisign et al disavow any knowledge of your actions) so the signature means nothing at all.
Aside from that, SMIME is just too damned slow compared to PGP/GPG which use mostly symmetric encryption and are therefore much faster than asymmetric SMIME.
So no, Outlook Express doesn't make it damned easy and SMIME just stinks anyway.
Easy to me means having something akin to PGP's Key Generation Wizard built into the mail software. When I sign and send a message without a key it should launch the wizard ask me a few simple questions, ask for a password, generate the key, ask me if I want to publish it and that is it. Mail is signed and sent. If I receive messages containing an X-pgp-ID header, my email software should be able to look up and retrieve their public key from the server.
Your taste, comprehension, and resentment are, again, all your own business. You have made a convincing argument that you don't like spam, but how does any of this make it wrong?
Wrong is a line in a sand, drawn from our own judgement and standards for acceptable human behaviour. Someone who forces me (yes forces me) to receive and deal with stuff I do not and would never ask to see is wrong by my standards. It's akin to nuisance phone calls, or someone who follows you around and won't leave you alone
If I opt-in to junk mail then it's a different matter as long as I can opt-out again. As I said I have no sympathy for these bastards. Their behaviour is criminal and a nuisance.
Why do you have to ask why people despise spam? Isn't it enough that we do? But if you want rational reasons, here are some of mine.
Spam transfers the cost of reading their shit onto the reader. You pay for the connection, for the hit in network performance on the internet (as it processes it all), on your time as you delete it and set up filters. At least with snail mail, they are paying and you can derive some small satisfaction when you toss it in the bin. There are also mature laws covering postal mail.
Snail mail also tends to be targetted, touting for legitimate business, whereas spam is almost entirely illegitmate being randomly targetted, offensive (adult sites), sleazy (penis enlargers, viagra, pheromones, fake subjects, js popups etc.), illegal (nigerian money scams, mlms, cable descramblers etc.) or purely incomprehensible (taiwanese). Worse yet, forged headers and open relays mean you have no idea where this crap came from. I get 30 or more pieces of crap like this a day and I deeply resent having to deal with it.
Note that I consider spam to be something I never asked for and something I have no way of opting out of. I do find value in mailing lists from reputable companies as long as I can unsubscribe to them.
Anyway, enough of the rationalising. I reckon we should implement sharia law for spammers and cut their hands off for theft of service.
I don't see what the problem is in saying their business shouldn't use the AOL client.
AOL Mail is designed to be a *simple* consumer email program. AOL cut the options and kept the thing as straightforward and easy to use as possible. Most consumers are quite happy with this arrangement since it meets their needs. AOL is happy because less options means less support calls when a user screws up.
I don't see any shame in Time Warner using another solution. AOL has iPlanet and Netscape software which is more than adequate for business. The challenge is getting the topography and uptime, which is more of a tech support issue.
I don't know if they're using the AOL client or not but there should be no need for them to either. AOL owns Netscape and owns a share in iPlanet so there are plenty of "normal" email options to choose from both on client and server.
Perhaps some overzealous manager issued an edict that everyone *must* use AOL even though it's email software is next to useless in a work environment.
Those who go nuts or kill themselves, those who are conned out of every last penny, those who work for the cult in bad conditions for little or no pay, those who don't get treatment for mental/physical illnesses because the Co$ says them that drugs & psychiatrists are evil, those who are told to disconnect with "suppresive" families & friends, critics whom the cult has framed or harrassed.
BTW The Co$ isn't a religion except in the tax-exempt sense. It is a cult and a particularly nasty one at that.
Scientology expands it's membership via various "charities" and frontgroups who's sole purpose is to raise money for the "church" and recruit new members.
One example is Narconon which is little more than a scientology front designed to seperate addicts and their families from their cash while simultaneously indoctrinating them into the Co$. There have been numerous testimonials that the last thing Narconon is interested in is seeing people get better.
And of course they also hawk their ridiculous "self help" Dianetics book in informercials and flyers (never mentioning the Co$ of course) as well as the usual "personality tests" and other sleazy means they con people into visiting their premises. They'll do anything to get vulnerable, troubled and most importantly solvent people caught up into believing their lies. They even stooped so low as to do a recruitment drive for WTC victims, under the guise of offering counselling of course.
Whatever the means, the "raw meat" (the mark) gets a few "free" intensive audits, after which their reasoning faculties are sufficiently suppressed that the Co$ can start milking them for cash by selling self-improvement courses and so on. The higher up this "bridge" they get, the more money the courses cost. The Co$ doesn't like people knowing about their courses because it deprives them of money and exposes them to ridicule.
It is actually worth reading Dianetics (don't buy it though) to see how ludicrous it all is. The author L Ron Hubbard and Co$ was a nut, a criminal, a pathological liar, a sadist, a control freak and a conman. Diananetics and his other works (e.g. A History of Man) are like an attractive lure on the end of a fishing line. Promise the reader the answer to all their problems can be found in the Co$ and then reel 'em in. It's quite tragic to think how many lives this man has ruined.
AOL will likely use a subset of Mozilla similar to the existing embedding distributions that go out nightly in ftp.mozilla.org. That means it will have run with a subset of DLLs and a subset of the chrome.
Netscape/Mozilla/AOL has the equivalent of ActiveX called the Netscape Plugin API. All of the media types you cite are available as plugins. Chances are that AOL will ship with most of these too.
In all honesty I rarely see a site that compells me to run IE to see it. Most work fine right now with Mozilla. Consider, how many businesses are that profitable that they can turn away customers simply because "this site is optimized for Internet Explorer"?
The answer is not very many. Netscape and other browsers probably account for 15% of the market, so e-tailers would have to be nuts to shun that business when it could make all the difference.
So what about non-commercial sites? Well fortunately most of them work just fine as well. I can see AOL having trouble with a handful of IE-only ActiveX/DHTML/VBScript jerks but you can bet that within 6 months of switching to Gecko, most sites will render properly in any browser. Boo hoo for the jerks who stick with VBScript.
Evangelism is the key here. This beta program is giving advanced notice to websites that 34 million people are going to be using an standards compliant browser very soon and site owners damned well better ensure their site works in a standards compliant manner.
MSIE for Windows and the Mac are totally seperate products. The Mac version is a reasonably standards compliant browser and isn't tainted by the proprietary crap that goes into the Windows version.
Besides, AOL also produce various set top boxes, PC appliances including one based around Linux & Gecko which no doubt their partners are also required to support.
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Fixing a UI so a novice can use it without screaming because the bloody thing is so obtuse doesn't mean removing any power. It just means arranging things so that stuff people do a lot is presented in a more obvious manner, that silly dialogs are removed, and that help is accurate and written in plain english.
The control panels are a perfect example of mess. 20-30 panels with more tabs inside. Frequently used options mixed in with never used at all options. Options that control similar functionality in different panels or not there at all. GNOME is worse than KDE but both are pretty bad.
While experts can find their way around existing distros, mere mortals will rightly conclude that XP or OS X is a better choice for them simply because it doesn't put up barriers at every stage. Even little things as more task orientation, hiding advanced settings in secondary dialogs and removal of needlessly jargon filled alerts can do much to simplify a UI.
Personally I drink Murphy's which is nicer.
I've travelled most of the world and I've never found a bar that beats an English/Irish pub. Other nationalities simply don't get it.
Without downloading anything, all they can do is open a toolbar/menuless window and fill it with a lame implementation of the regular browser but with their buttons. It would look stoopid and would be instantly dismissed by anyone with any sense.
But to actually change the browser behaviour requires some form of download. That either means a plugin or exe for NS 4.x, a control or exe for IE or chrome for Mozilla/NS 6.x. There is no other way.
And fortunately most people will be smarter than to install shit like this. May it be consigned to the lower levels of hell where it belongs with all other advertising spyware.
The eBook software is still available. Obviously you shouldn't click on the links or you might accidentally download it.
As for that bug, it is marked mozilla1.0 & nsbeta1+ so clearly Mozilla.org WANTs it in 1.0, but I doubt they're going to hold the schedule up for it.
There is a wrapper library called GPGME that simplifies the process but it is still a cumbersome system.
In short none of these options makes it easy to get a key. And even assuming you want one, they'll ask for your life history and passport/social security/credit card numbers before they'll hand one over. That's too bad for anyone under 18 or in a repressive country.
And in a years time your certificate expires. And your certificate is not signed in any meaningful sense (Verisign et al disavow any knowledge of your actions) so the signature means nothing at all.
Aside from that, SMIME is just too damned slow compared to PGP/GPG which use mostly symmetric encryption and are therefore much faster than asymmetric SMIME.
So no, Outlook Express doesn't make it damned easy and SMIME just stinks anyway.
Easy to me means having something akin to PGP's Key Generation Wizard built into the mail software. When I sign and send a message without a key it should launch the wizard ask me a few simple questions, ask for a password, generate the key, ask me if I want to publish it and that is it. Mail is signed and sent. If I receive messages containing an X-pgp-ID header, my email software should be able to look up and retrieve their public key from the server.
Now that would be easy.
Wrong is a line in a sand, drawn from our own judgement and standards for acceptable human behaviour. Someone who forces me (yes forces me) to receive and deal with stuff I do not and would never ask to see is wrong by my standards. It's akin to nuisance phone calls, or someone who follows you around and won't leave you alone
If I opt-in to junk mail then it's a different matter as long as I can opt-out again. As I said I have no sympathy for these bastards. Their behaviour is criminal and a nuisance.
Spam transfers the cost of reading their shit onto the reader. You pay for the connection, for the hit in network performance on the internet (as it processes it all), on your time as you delete it and set up filters. At least with snail mail, they are paying and you can derive some small satisfaction when you toss it in the bin. There are also mature laws covering postal mail.
Snail mail also tends to be targetted, touting for legitimate business, whereas spam is almost entirely illegitmate being randomly targetted, offensive (adult sites), sleazy (penis enlargers, viagra, pheromones, fake subjects, js popups etc.), illegal (nigerian money scams, mlms, cable descramblers etc.) or purely incomprehensible (taiwanese). Worse yet, forged headers and open relays mean you have no idea where this crap came from. I get 30 or more pieces of crap like this a day and I deeply resent having to deal with it.
Note that I consider spam to be something I never asked for and something I have no way of opting out of. I do find value in mailing lists from reputable companies as long as I can unsubscribe to them.
Anyway, enough of the rationalising. I reckon we should implement sharia law for spammers and cut their hands off for theft of service.
AOL Mail is designed to be a *simple* consumer email program. AOL cut the options and kept the thing as straightforward and easy to use as possible. Most consumers are quite happy with this arrangement since it meets their needs. AOL is happy because less options means less support calls when a user screws up.
I don't see any shame in Time Warner using another solution. AOL has iPlanet and Netscape software which is more than adequate for business. The challenge is getting the topography and uptime, which is more of a tech support issue.
So this is all bullshit.
Stop being hole-picking conspiratorial prick and say something useful or say nothing at all.
Perhaps some overzealous manager issued an edict that everyone *must* use AOL even though it's email software is next to useless in a work environment.
Those who go nuts or kill themselves, those who are conned out of every last penny, those who work for the cult in bad conditions for little or no pay, those who don't get treatment for mental/physical illnesses because the Co$ says them that drugs & psychiatrists are evil, those who are told to disconnect with "suppresive" families & friends, critics whom the cult has framed or harrassed.
BTW The Co$ isn't a religion except in the tax-exempt sense. It is a cult and a particularly nasty one at that.
We're talking about a bullying, sociopathic mind control cult using the DCMA to censor free speech and fair comment by its critics.
Shame on Google for kowtowing like this.
One example is Narconon which is little more than a scientology front designed to seperate addicts and their families from their cash while simultaneously indoctrinating them into the Co$. There have been numerous testimonials that the last thing Narconon is interested in is seeing people get better.
And of course they also hawk their ridiculous "self help" Dianetics book in informercials and flyers (never mentioning the Co$ of course) as well as the usual "personality tests" and other sleazy means they con people into visiting their premises. They'll do anything to get vulnerable, troubled and most importantly solvent people caught up into believing their lies. They even stooped so low as to do a recruitment drive for WTC victims, under the guise of offering counselling of course.
Whatever the means, the "raw meat" (the mark) gets a few "free" intensive audits, after which their reasoning faculties are sufficiently suppressed that the Co$ can start milking them for cash by selling self-improvement courses and so on. The higher up this "bridge" they get, the more money the courses cost. The Co$ doesn't like people knowing about their courses because it deprives them of money and exposes them to ridicule.
It is actually worth reading Dianetics (don't buy it though) to see how ludicrous it all is. The author L Ron Hubbard and Co$ was a nut, a criminal, a pathological liar, a sadist, a control freak and a conman. Diananetics and his other works (e.g. A History of Man) are like an attractive lure on the end of a fishing line. Promise the reader the answer to all their problems can be found in the Co$ and then reel 'em in. It's quite tragic to think how many lives this man has ruined.
Actually you should type regsvr32 mozctlx.dll.
The control is part of the Mozilla distributable but it's also available in the Win32 embedding distribution which is about a 4Mb download.
AOL will likely use a subset of Mozilla similar to the existing embedding distributions that go out nightly in ftp.mozilla.org. That means it will have run with a subset of DLLs and a subset of the chrome.
Netscape/Mozilla/AOL has the equivalent of ActiveX called the Netscape Plugin API. All of the media types you cite are available as plugins. Chances are that AOL will ship with most of these too.
The answer is not very many. Netscape and other browsers probably account for 15% of the market, so e-tailers would have to be nuts to shun that business when it could make all the difference.
So what about non-commercial sites? Well fortunately most of them work just fine as well. I can see AOL having trouble with a handful of IE-only ActiveX/DHTML/VBScript jerks but you can bet that within 6 months of switching to Gecko, most sites will render properly in any browser. Boo hoo for the jerks who stick with VBScript.
Evangelism is the key here. This beta program is giving advanced notice to websites that 34 million people are going to be using an standards compliant browser very soon and site owners damned well better ensure their site works in a standards compliant manner.
I hate to burst your bubble, but AOL is the group that have been funding Mozilla all of this time.
Besides, AOL also produce various set top boxes, PC appliances including one based around Linux & Gecko which no doubt their partners are also required to support.