Seriously: The industry itself is to blame for this. With each new step they take to "prevent copying", they get negative intention in the press, and among potential buyers.
Not only because this kind of "copy protection" is known to damage hardware, but because it prevents fair use.
When they also come down on file swapping networks as hard as they've done their share to get an eternally bad rumour for being non-polite greedy bastards.
In a world with 100 geeks who knew what MP3 was, nobody would notice. In a world where MP3 has become a commonly used verb, everybody notices.
So, instead of trying to give you less for more, perhaps the industry should try to give you more for less: I'd gladly buy a non-copy-protected CD with MP3 versions of all the tunes, but I flat out refuse to buy anything that contains Cactus Data Shield or equivalents.
While the goal of this project might be commendable, I can't possibly see it becoming more than a novelty.
The package includes some great software, that should appeal to some people, like OpenOffice. For developers, it also includes some nice tools, like Cygwin, MinGW32, Python, Apache, MySQL, VIM and XEmacs.
The problem is: most of this collection seems to be a compilation with software of little or no interest to most people, like Litestep, XBill, NetHack, Blat and the Mesa Demos.
Another problem is that some of the software doesn't really match up to it's native Windows counterparts. The GIMP may be free, but it lacks the general usability and documentation of Photoshop or even Paint Shop Pro.
To sum up: there is some good software in this compilation, there are some rotten eggs - like most of the games, and there is an general lack of direction for the compilation.
Actually, the court which Jon Johansen is to be tried in, consists of three judges. One that works professionally as a judge, and two jurors. The case is postponed because they have difficulties finding two technically competent jurors.
And: the law he is being tried under, actually concerns gaining access to data, or other equipment, without prior consent. The law views participation in this activity as an equal act, to be punished the same way.
The maximum punishment for this crime, is 6 months in jail, or two years, if damage (economic or otherwise) is found to have come as a part of the crime.
Also: I saw another comment on what is treated as a minority, and not, in the Norwegian criminal system. From the age of 15, you are responsible for your actions, and can be charged with a crime.
Moderators: the following post is not a Moz bashing, so don't score down on basis of the first few lines only
I am sorry, but both Konqueror and Opera make a mess of all the emerging markup technologies, rendering the crappiest looking pages I have seen with the definite exception of NN 4.7,
Can't talk for Konqueror, but Opera certainly does not make a mess of renderings. It's so far the only browser I've found that has a somewhat predictable rendering with respect to css2, with IE5.5 and Mozilla in a tied second place.[1]
One note about Opera though: it's not very forgiving when sloppy, or even invalid markup is used. Which it, for my purposes, should'nt be.
Besides: on Linux, if your system is aware of, and you have TrueType fonts installed, pages are going to look a lot better, since most of the authors that specify fonts do it with typical windows fonts in mind
.
Resource hog
My biggest objection to Mozilla, however does not lie in faults with the rendering engine, since that's fairly decent. It is the bloat factor of the product. The specs demands a P233MMX, and 64 MB of mem. Sure most people today have the hardware to run that, but it also means that it will slow your system down, when it's running. I did some tests (in Win2k), indicating that Mozilla, showing only the about: blank used 18,6 MB of physical memory. Opera only used about 4 (this was for O4.03. I'm not going to do a great deal of speculation as to why, only conclude that it's big, bad, and far away into IE-bloat land.
[1] I haven't had a proper chance to run 0.7 through my testbed yet, but 0.6 messed up the inheritance of positioned layers, and basically forced me to redo most of the markup template I was working on, if it was to render properly.
They claim they are trying to make you a programmer. This page describes their.page-format, as an alternative to html.
Pity they haven't understood what (proper) html is about. They've gone and created this visual, contextless (or meaningless, if you will) markup-language, which is converted to equally rotten html. They also claim for "dynamic" pages, which, as I see it is a rather poor excuse for limited, and limiting server-side scripting.
From my point of view, they've tried reinvent the wheel as a square. For instance, from theirwebsite
Pliant programs always run in the compiler itself, which compiles on the fly. Thus, a program can ask to compile another piece of code at any time (equivalent to the 'eval' instruction in many interpreters), or free some compiled code (a compile function is a data). All of this gives great flexibility.
Ain't this just a poor way of saying "A Just-in-Time-compiler is about the only thing we'll let you work with"?
Just my NKr. 02
... but I found this part of their contract as a rather good contract clause:
3. Upon even your first Spam offense your
account will be terminated and a maintenance fee of $1000 will be billed to your
payment method used upon sign up.
If just every company could have that kind of spam policy, I would feel rather happy
The idea of linking to anywhere from anyplace, isn't really new. Vannevar Bush introduced the concept of hypertext already in the 1945 article"As We May Think". This is recommended reading for anyone interested in hypertext as a concept.
The impression I got from BrowseUp is that it is supposed to implement some of his ideas. Whether they are successful or not, I cannot answer. Their idea however, is in no way new or radical
I know there aren't even tables in the spec, but it'd be a great way to "page" your friends.
But there are tables in the spec. The ordinary, much abused set of table elements aren't all available. Just a few common-sense table-elements for small-screen devices. IMHO, they're making tables what it was supposed to be: for tabular data
Amiga:
Personally, I think Amiga failed for one basic reason: speed. The early Amigas had some amazing potential, but for day-to-day office use, for example, they could be very cumbersome. Unfortunately, by the time the hardware speed caught up with what they were trying to do, other manufacturers had competitive formats for graphics, sound, etc.
No - the Amiga was in no way cumbersome. Not even compared to the Mac. There was however some large problems which in the end both killed the Amiga, and Commodore
Anyone remember the rather crappy PCs C
Apple could survive without clones, since they had jumped on the bandwagon earlier than the Amiga, but when Commodore released the Amiga, the PC clones were gaining popularity
And one more thing: The Amiga was, whether people liked it or not geared toward games. In other words, it was geared toward a market rather unwilling to pay for software. If the market is unwilling to pay for software, it's not going to get them the software that could have made it a viable alternative for anything but the hobbyists, and users with special needs
If anybody wonders: I did indeed love the Amiga, and I still think it's a wonderful piece of hardware. It has a wonderful OS, and some truly remarkable software. Regrettably though, it never made it to the deep end of the business market
For the first time in my life, I do not think adware = spyware. I had my serious doubts.
On the opera newsgroups, you can always read comments from some of the Opera employees. They have also (as someone already have pointed out) documented the advertising model.
Opera's main advantage is the bloat factor. It's virtually non-existent, both downloadwise (without Java support it's just 2MB.
Memory footprint is another, just check these numbers on a win2k pro installation:
netscp6.exe
Mem usage : 18680K
Peak mem usage : 24404K
VM Size : 23260K
The same numbers from Opera 4.02 are:
opera.exe
Mem usage : 3736K
Peak mem usage : 3864K
VM Size : 1412K
These are with just the browser up, and no pages yet loaded for any of them.
Opera claims that this latest version is even better, when memory footprint is regarded. However, I haven't had the time to check out the mem-footprint for O5 yet.
I think I'll live with Opera for a long time still.
So far - Opera is the only stable browser I know of that selectively lets me disregard cookies, both based on cookie usage, and server filters.
The only problem I can see with Opera, from a developers perspective, is the DOM and Javascript implementation, which I have found little documentation on yet
"If you make a copy, that is theft - pure and simple - you have taken something which is not yours."
This is true in many cases, but is not a given. If I make a tape from a CD which I've purchased, so I can listen to it in the car, it is not theft. If I make a compilation of all the songs Martha Wainright has recorded (on the McGarrigles' CD, on Dan Bern's CD, and on her own), and I own all of the CDs I'm copying from, it is not theft. The artists, the RIAA, and the legal system all agree on this.
It has already been tried to produce digital systems that permitted first-generation copies (SCMS on CDs for instance), but that has already failed
The problem is rather that most people will never pay for what they can get for free. Other people with the same attitude will produce mechanisms to break this "protection"
Even though I may not agree with the pricing of music, The Artists still have a right to receive payment for their work, just as a professional programmer has a right to receive payment for his job. Surely noone can disagree with that?
Even though I also think that part of the problem is caused by the Music Industry themselves with a pricing structure that is totally off the scale (In Norway, where I post from, the normal retail price for an album is equivalent to $15 - $20). If the prices were let's say halved I think more people would buy music, and not bother with long download times.
I knew China had started the New Years Eve celebration one day earlier than normal, but I didn't know the had decided on doing April fools day already in January.
Face it. Sony is a company with many feet to stand on, and have been on the leading edge of consumer electronics since I-can't-remember-when. Does anybody think they would risk going totally overboard over just one of several hundredproducts.
This makes me think that Sony also has something else, real big, up their sleeve that the general public is not aware of yet. What that could be? No idea whatsoever.
The PS2, being the dvd-player, game console, webtop box reinvented into one box will for sure have it's impact, but cannot possibly alone be responsible for this move
When I got my hands on an Amiga 500 back in 1987 (has it been that long?) the machine was incredibly powerful compared to anything else I had ever tried.
Finally, I abandoned the Amiga in 1994 for educational purposes, even though I viewed the Amiga as a more powerful and user friendly platform.
Today however: I don't think there is room for Amiga hardware even loosely based on the original technology. There are numerous reasons for this
Price: Back in the eighties computer equipment was so expensive and unstandarized that it was possible (but maybe not smart) to sell good technology cheaper than the (even then) outdated PC technology. If you are going to make something today, you have to be able to use more generic hardware, like standard graphics and sound boards. And: how charming would an Amiga be without the Denise, (Fat) Agnus and Paula?
Performance: If one were to base the Amiga on the original technology, I'm afraid it would be so seriously outperformed it would have no value to the power user.
Compability: Back when the Amiga was launched there were considerably fewer powerful computers among common people, and Microsoft was nowhere near having the de-facto monopol they have in the home-user market. People need to be able to copy or download software for it to have value. What does the Amiga have of software now? Almost 10 year old games (of which many still are very good, I'll admit - but I don't think that will attract new users)
Historical appeal: what user base shall the new Amiga have? In order to attract it's old users it also needs to be backwards compatible. In order to satisfy new users it needs to be able to run new (windows) software. That is hardly possible without making it just another PC.
To sum it all up: I don't really think there is room for a new Amiga. If there will be a new Amiga I mainly think it's going to be an entirely new computer, with some ideas and behavior preserved from the old one. I hardly think it will attract the original Amiga owners.
Not being able to check out the Linux version, I can only speak for the windows version 3.61. That some pages are looking butchered is not actually Opera Software's fault, since their emphasis is on supporting standards. No support for Netscape and Micro$ofts proprietary tags is promised. Thus Operas support for CSS Level 1 is the best around. So if a page looks weird in Opera, the webmaster should be blamed, not the browser.
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously: The industry itself is to blame for this. With each new step they take to "prevent copying", they get negative intention in the press, and among potential buyers.
Not only because this kind of "copy protection" is known to damage hardware, but because it prevents fair use.
When they also come down on file swapping networks as hard as they've done their share to get an eternally bad rumour for being non-polite greedy bastards.
In a world with 100 geeks who knew what MP3 was, nobody would notice. In a world where MP3 has become a commonly used verb, everybody notices.
So, instead of trying to give you less for more, perhaps the industry should try to give you more for less: I'd gladly buy a non-copy-protected CD with MP3 versions of all the tunes, but I flat out refuse to buy anything that contains Cactus Data Shield or equivalents.
While the goal of this project might be commendable, I can't possibly see it becoming more than a novelty.
The package includes some great software, that should appeal to some people, like OpenOffice. For developers, it also includes some nice tools, like Cygwin, MinGW32, Python, Apache, MySQL, VIM and XEmacs.
The problem is: most of this collection seems to be a compilation with software of little or no interest to most people, like Litestep, XBill, NetHack, Blat and the Mesa Demos.
Another problem is that some of the software doesn't really match up to it's native Windows counterparts. The GIMP may be free, but it lacks the general usability and documentation of Photoshop or even Paint Shop Pro.
To sum up: there is some good software in this compilation, there are some rotten eggs - like most of the games, and there is an general lack of direction for the compilation.
Actually, the court which Jon Johansen is to be tried in, consists of three judges. One that works professionally as a judge, and two jurors. The case is postponed because they have difficulties finding two technically competent jurors.
And: the law he is being tried under, actually concerns gaining access to data, or other equipment, without prior consent. The law views participation in this activity as an equal act, to be punished the same way.
The maximum punishment for this crime, is 6 months in jail, or two years, if damage (economic or otherwise) is found to have come as a part of the crime.
Also: I saw another comment on what is treated as a minority, and not, in the Norwegian criminal system. From the age of 15, you are responsible for your actions, and can be charged with a crime.
Moderators: the following post is not a Moz bashing, so don't score down on basis of the first few lines only
I am sorry, but both Konqueror and Opera make a mess of all the emerging markup technologies, rendering the crappiest looking pages I have seen with the definite exception of NN 4.7,
Can't talk for Konqueror, but Opera certainly does not make a mess of renderings. It's so far the only browser I've found that has a somewhat predictable rendering with respect to css2, with IE5.5 and Mozilla in a tied second place.[1]
One note about Opera though: it's not very forgiving when sloppy, or even invalid markup is used. Which it, for my purposes, should'nt be.
Besides: on Linux, if your system is aware of, and you have TrueType fonts installed, pages are going to look a lot better, since most of the authors that specify fonts do it with typical windows fonts in mind
.Resource hog
My biggest objection to Mozilla, however does not lie in faults with the rendering engine, since that's fairly decent. It is the bloat factor of the product. The specs demands a P233MMX, and 64 MB of mem. Sure most people today have the hardware to run that, but it also means that it will slow your system down, when it's running. I did some tests (in Win2k), indicating that Mozilla, showing only the about: blank used 18,6 MB of physical memory. Opera only used about 4 (this was for O4.03. I'm not going to do a great deal of speculation as to why, only conclude that it's big, bad, and far away into IE-bloat land.
[1] I haven't had a proper chance to run 0.7 through my testbed yet, but 0.6 messed up the inheritance of positioned layers, and basically forced me to redo most of the markup template I was working on, if it was to render properly.
They claim they are trying to make you a programmer. This page describes their .page-format, as an alternative to html.
Pity they haven't understood what (proper) html is about. They've gone and created this visual, contextless (or meaningless, if you will) markup-language, which is converted to equally rotten html. They also claim for "dynamic" pages, which, as I see it is a rather poor excuse for limited, and limiting server-side scripting.
From my point of view, they've tried reinvent the wheel as a square. For instance, from theirwebsite
Ain't this just a poor way of saying "A Just-in-Time-compiler is about the only thing we'll let you work with"? Just my NKr. 02
... but I found this part of their contract as a rather good contract clause:
If just every company could have that kind of spam policy, I would feel rather happy
The idea of linking to anywhere from anyplace, isn't really new. Vannevar Bush introduced the concept of hypertext already in the 1945 article"As We May Think". This is recommended reading for anyone interested in hypertext as a concept.
The impression I got from BrowseUp is that it is supposed to implement some of his ideas. Whether they are successful or not, I cannot answer. Their idea however, is in no way new or radical
But there are tables in the spec. The ordinary, much abused set of table elements aren't all available. Just a few common-sense table-elements for small-screen devices. IMHO, they're making tables what it was supposed to be: for tabular data
No - the Amiga was in no way cumbersome. Not even compared to the Mac. There was however some large problems which in the end both killed the Amiga, and Commodore
Anyone remember the rather crappy PCs C
Apple could survive without clones, since they had jumped on the bandwagon earlier than the Amiga, but when Commodore released the Amiga, the PC clones were gaining popularity
And one more thing: The Amiga was, whether people liked it or not geared toward games. In other words, it was geared toward a market rather unwilling to pay for software. If the market is unwilling to pay for software, it's not going to get them the software that could have made it a viable alternative for anything but the hobbyists, and users with special needs
If anybody wonders: I did indeed love the Amiga, and I still think it's a wonderful piece of hardware. It has a wonderful OS, and some truly remarkable software. Regrettably though, it never made it to the deep end of the business market
For the first time in my life, I do not think adware = spyware. I had my serious doubts.
On the opera newsgroups, you can always read comments from some of the Opera employees. They have also (as someone already have pointed out) documented the advertising model.
Opera's main advantage is the bloat factor. It's virtually non-existent, both downloadwise (without Java support it's just 2MB.
Memory footprint is another, just check these numbers on a win2k pro installation: netscp6.exe
Mem usage : 18680K
Peak mem usage : 24404K
VM Size : 23260K
The same numbers from Opera 4.02 are:
opera.exeMem usage : 3736K
Peak mem usage : 3864K
VM Size : 1412K
These are with just the browser up, and no pages yet loaded for any of them.
Opera claims that this latest version is even better, when memory footprint is regarded. However, I haven't had the time to check out the mem-footprint for O5 yet.
I think I'll live with Opera for a long time still.
So far - Opera is the only stable browser I know of that selectively lets me disregard cookies, both based on cookie usage, and server filters.
The only problem I can see with Opera, from a developers perspective, is the DOM and Javascript implementation, which I have found little documentation on yet
It has already been tried to produce digital systems that permitted first-generation copies (SCMS on CDs for instance), but that has already failed
The problem is rather that most people will never pay for what they can get for free. Other people with the same attitude will produce mechanisms to break this "protection"
Even though I may not agree with the pricing of music, The Artists still have a right to receive payment for their work, just as a professional programmer has a right to receive payment for his job. Surely noone can disagree with that?
Even though I also think that part of the problem is caused by the Music Industry themselves with a pricing structure that is totally off the scale (In Norway, where I post from, the normal retail price for an album is equivalent to $15 - $20). If the prices were let's say halved I think more people would buy music, and not bother with long download times.
I knew China had started the New Years Eve celebration one day earlier than normal, but I didn't know the had decided on doing April fools day already in January.
Face it. Sony is a company with many feet to stand on, and have been on the leading edge of consumer electronics since I-can't-remember-when. Does anybody think they would risk going totally overboard over just one of several hundredproducts.
This makes me think that Sony also has something else, real big, up their sleeve that the general public is not aware of yet. What that could be? No idea whatsoever.
The PS2, being the dvd-player, game console, webtop box reinvented into one box will for sure have it's impact, but cannot possibly alone be responsible for this move
Just my $.02When I got my hands on an Amiga 500 back in 1987 (has it been that long?) the machine was incredibly powerful compared to anything else I had ever tried.
Finally, I abandoned the Amiga in 1994 for educational purposes, even though I viewed the Amiga as a more powerful and user friendly platform.
Today however: I don't think there is room for Amiga hardware even loosely based on the original technology. There are numerous reasons for this
To sum it all up: I don't really think there is room for a new Amiga. If there will be a new Amiga I mainly think it's going to be an entirely new computer, with some ideas and behavior preserved from the old one. I hardly think it will attract the original Amiga owners.
Not being able to check out the Linux version, I can only speak for the windows version 3.61. That some pages are looking butchered is not actually Opera Software's fault, since their emphasis is on supporting standards. No support for Netscape and Micro$ofts proprietary tags is promised. Thus Operas support for CSS Level 1 is the best around. So if a page looks weird in Opera, the webmaster should be blamed, not the browser.