I always figured Richard Stallman, Alan Cox, and Alan Moore should do a seminar together, if they can find enough intersection between Free Software and comic books. Or maybe magic. Sometimes source code does end up looking like arcane incantations.
If the backbone is too busy to provide the ultra-high speed service today, what about the future, when it's capable of handling more data at higher speeds?
At that point, people who already have the high-speed "last mile" connection can make full use of the new capabilities, while those who have the slower connection will have to lay new wiring.
Yes, Safari is quite capable. However, the parent post was clearly talking not about the Mozilla browser, but about Mozilla evangelism.
This is the project in which people would report websites that blocked non-IE browers, relied on IE-only technology or quirks, or made poor assumptions as to what browsers were out there (like telling a Mozilla 1.4 user to "upgrade" to Netscape 6.0). Volunteers would then contact the webmasters and encourage them to use cross-browser techniques, fix their coding errors or browser detection scripts, or whatever was necessary to get the site to work in more browsers and on more platforms than just IE6 on Windows.
Groups like Mozilla's Tech Evangelism, Opera's Open the Web, and the Web Standards Project have done quite a bit over the last few years to reduce the number of high-profile websites that only work in Internet Explorer, laying the groundwork to make Safari, Opera, and Firefox into viable alternatives for the average user.
The "hacks" referred to here aren't work-arounds for bugs or missing features, they're techniques to target specific browsers (usually so that you can deliver said work-arounds).
Things like prepending * html to a rule so that it will only apply in Internet Explorer (because technically, * html shouldn't match anything, but IE6 allows it), or using/*/*/.../* */ to hide a chunk of the stylesheet from Netscape 4.
The hacks they recommend against are those that rely on bugs in the way browsers parse or implement CSS, or on missing features. With these, there's always the chance that a future version will fix the bug that triggers the hack, but not fix the bug that you're trying to work around. With conditional comments, you can target IE or non-IE, and you can target specific versions of IE, and you know that rule will always apply only to the browsers you specify.
I believe there used to be a version of IE for Unix when I was at university
A version of IE 5 was available for HP-UX and Solaris. (Not SCO Unix, not AIX, and certainly not Linux or BSD!) I don't know whether it was closer to the Windows or Mac version, but if I were to guess, I'd say Windows.
There is no IE7 for Windows 98, ME, 2000, NT or anything but Windows XP....
True, assuming you mean XP and later (Windows Server 2003 isn't a big platform for web browsing, but IE7 is supported on it). Based on my site's stats (hardly scientific, I know), that limits them to an 81% maximum for now. This will grow as the remaining Win2k-and-older users drop off the radar. Whether enough people switch to offset that growth remains to be seen.
Apparently the current release (updated on March 20) is "layout complete" -- i.e. all the new features intended for IE7 are present -- so aside from bugs that they decide to fix, websites should appear the same in the current release as they will in the final.
Also, my understanding is that IE7 is still scheduled for sometime this year, which means it'll arrive before Vista.
I think you've hit it. IE7 is already far superior to IE6 in terms of what CSS it can handle (and how correctly it can handle it), but still far behind other browsers. If they manage to cath up with 7.5 or 8, even to where Firefox and Opera are today, then we'll have four classes of modern browsers, with the lowest common denominator finally at a level we would have liked to be able to use three years ago.
But there will still be a lot of IE6 users a year, two years, three years after IE7 is released. And that will continue to hold back web development until IE6 goes the way of Netscape 4.
As for marketshare, I suspect IE7 will get some of the people who were on the fence about switching. I don't think it'll stop or reverse the trend -- in other words, I expect few people will switch back, except under the circumstance that they get a new computer and don't want to bother migrating their settings.
I recommend checking out the IE Team Blog. They regularly post on new features, changes to the rendering engine, etc.
As for hacks specifically, a few months ago, they started recommending a shift away from using CSS hacks and toward using conditional comments. The latter can be used to target specific IE versions with intended functionality, rather than side effects.
Of course. But the Republicans have spent decades portraying themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility and enemies of big government, compared to those "tax-and-spend" Democrats who will just make government big and expensive.
So is the Federal government appreciably smaller or cheaper than it was 6 years ago?
The fact of the matter is that neither party is really in favor of small government, but only the Republicans have claimed to be. And while a few of them (McCain, for instance, based on this article) seem to mean it, most just go along with business as usual.
Not that the resolution needs to be terribly high for this particular use, but if they can make a decent camera small enough to put on a pair of glasses (as in Transmetropolitan) it could be incredibly convenient for the casual photographer.
Of course, there would be privacy implications that would have to be worked out. One solution might be the one I hear has been implemented in Japan for camera phones. As I understand it, Japan requires camera phones to make an audible, recognizable noise when they take a picture -- the idea being that you can't take pictures surreptitiously if the subject knows you're doing it.
Slashdot Mirror
Greenwich. Mean. Time.
Migrating south... for winter... in April?
Everyone knows toasters migrate north in April!
What do they teach in these schools?
I'm gonna have to start dotting my eye with a heart!
Does Unicode have a glyph for that?
Who's responsible for forcing Choo-Choo into transforming himself into a website theme? Have you no shame?
Oh, the humanity!
Unfortunately, a more accurate rendering is not "Omygawd!!!111" but "Oh. My. God."
*This theme has always been here*
No, no, no, the proper greeting is, "England Prevails!"
Hmm, it's already April 1 there. I guess in Russia, April Fools You.
I always figured Richard Stallman, Alan Cox, and Alan Moore should do a seminar together, if they can find enough intersection between Free Software and comic books. Or maybe magic. Sometimes source code does end up looking like arcane incantations.
Sparks, please. Saying "mad scientist" in public is just asking to be turned into a smoking pile of ash&^@#sdfd(*#4rgi8gty4cgjfsg :DISCONNECT:
If the backbone is too busy to provide the ultra-high speed service today, what about the future, when it's capable of handling more data at higher speeds?
At that point, people who already have the high-speed "last mile" connection can make full use of the new capabilities, while those who have the slower connection will have to lay new wiring.
Entirely possible. And if that happened, most people here would be siding with Linux in that instance.
Patent abuse is still patent abuse, even when it's aimed at someone you dislike.
Yes, Safari is quite capable. However, the parent post was clearly talking not about the Mozilla browser, but about Mozilla evangelism .
This is the project in which people would report websites that blocked non-IE browers, relied on IE-only technology or quirks, or made poor assumptions as to what browsers were out there (like telling a Mozilla 1.4 user to "upgrade" to Netscape 6.0). Volunteers would then contact the webmasters and encourage them to use cross-browser techniques, fix their coding errors or browser detection scripts, or whatever was necessary to get the site to work in more browsers and on more platforms than just IE6 on Windows.
Opera has a similar program called Open the Web.
Groups like Mozilla's Tech Evangelism, Opera's Open the Web, and the Web Standards Project have done quite a bit over the last few years to reduce the number of high-profile websites that only work in Internet Explorer, laying the groundwork to make Safari, Opera, and Firefox into viable alternatives for the average user.
The "hacks" referred to here aren't work-arounds for bugs or missing features, they're techniques to target specific browsers (usually so that you can deliver said work-arounds).
/*/*/ ... /* */ to hide a chunk of the stylesheet from Netscape 4.
Things like prepending * html to a rule so that it will only apply in Internet Explorer (because technically, * html shouldn't match anything, but IE6 allows it), or using
The hacks they recommend against are those that rely on bugs in the way browsers parse or implement CSS, or on missing features. With these, there's always the chance that a future version will fix the bug that triggers the hack, but not fix the bug that you're trying to work around. With conditional comments, you can target IE or non-IE, and you can target specific versions of IE, and you know that rule will always apply only to the browsers you specify.
I believe there used to be a version of IE for Unix when I was at university
A version of IE 5 was available for HP-UX and Solaris. (Not SCO Unix, not AIX, and certainly not Linux or BSD!) I don't know whether it was closer to the Windows or Mac version, but if I were to guess, I'd say Windows.
It was discontinued in 2002.
There is no IE7 for Windows 98, ME, 2000, NT or anything but Windows XP....
True, assuming you mean XP and later (Windows Server 2003 isn't a big platform for web browsing, but IE7 is supported on it). Based on my site's stats (hardly scientific, I know), that limits them to an 81% maximum for now. This will grow as the remaining Win2k-and-older users drop off the radar. Whether enough people switch to offset that growth remains to be seen.
Apparently the current release (updated on March 20) is "layout complete" -- i.e. all the new features intended for IE7 are present -- so aside from bugs that they decide to fix, websites should appear the same in the current release as they will in the final.
Also, my understanding is that IE7 is still scheduled for sometime this year, which means it'll arrive before Vista.
I think you've hit it. IE7 is already far superior to IE6 in terms of what CSS it can handle (and how correctly it can handle it), but still far behind other browsers. If they manage to cath up with 7.5 or 8, even to where Firefox and Opera are today, then we'll have four classes of modern browsers, with the lowest common denominator finally at a level we would have liked to be able to use three years ago.
But there will still be a lot of IE6 users a year, two years, three years after IE7 is released. And that will continue to hold back web development until IE6 goes the way of Netscape 4.
As for marketshare, I suspect IE7 will get some of the people who were on the fence about switching. I don't think it'll stop or reverse the trend -- in other words, I expect few people will switch back, except under the circumstance that they get a new computer and don't want to bother migrating their settings.
You do know that IE doesn't run on linux, right?
Well, not natively. I've managed to install it in CrossOver Office (i.e. WINE), but it's not worth using for more than site testing.
The funniest part is the dialog box you get after installing that says, "Simulating Reboot."
I recommend checking out the IE Team Blog. They regularly post on new features, changes to the rendering engine, etc.
As for hacks specifically, a few months ago, they started recommending a shift away from using CSS hacks and toward using conditional comments. The latter can be used to target specific IE versions with intended functionality, rather than side effects.
But trust me.... You don't.
Would you care to educate the rest of us? Or would you rather just watch people spread misinformation?
You do realize that both sides do this
Of course. But the Republicans have spent decades portraying themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility and enemies of big government, compared to those "tax-and-spend" Democrats who will just make government big and expensive.
So is the Federal government appreciably smaller or cheaper than it was 6 years ago?
The fact of the matter is that neither party is really in favor of small government, but only the Republicans have claimed to be. And while a few of them (McCain, for instance, based on this article) seem to mean it, most just go along with business as usual.
Clearly, we need to get some Republicans into power so they can cut down on all this extraneous spending and balance the budget.
Oh, wait...
Not that the resolution needs to be terribly high for this particular use, but if they can make a decent camera small enough to put on a pair of glasses (as in Transmetropolitan) it could be incredibly convenient for the casual photographer.
Of course, there would be privacy implications that would have to be worked out. One solution might be the one I hear has been implemented in Japan for camera phones. As I understand it, Japan requires camera phones to make an audible, recognizable noise when they take a picture -- the idea being that you can't take pictures surreptitiously if the subject knows you're doing it.
Having that many people in an enclosed room is an awesome way to spread colds and flus.
Hmm, I think I saw that movie.
There you have it: Go to the theater, risk your town getting firebombed.