Microsoft has been so into copy protection and such recently, I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to get into the advertising buisiness. There are all sorts of evil things they could put into IE to force-feed us advertising, like ads in the button bar, audio streaming commercials, etc. A lot of this sort of thing is possible with Javascript, but built into the browser it could be a lot worse.
No, the client program would do this....All they have to do is write a new client which does this checking and change the protocol a little bit to force everone to download the new client.
Don't MP3's have the name and title of the track encoded inside them? I've never created an MP3, but I guess this is something that the user can put in. They will probably start using that for filtering too.
If there is one thing Microsoft understands is how to promote and get people to use their platform... They know it's in their best interest to get as many titles as possible written for their system. It's hard to compete based soley on hardware, so they really need the next "killer app", or in this case, killer game. So the easier it is for developers to release games the better. High license fees and a closed API will slow developement. Hell, if I could write a game with a free Windows based development kit, then burn a CD and sell it, I'd write games for the X-Box.
No, smartass, I have a cable modem, which makes the delay more obvious. The delay is caused by the overloaded and slow ad server, not my connection speed. After the 3 second delay caused by the ad server, the rest of the page loads almost instantly.
Another good reason to disable HTML in email... Too bad both major browsers in Windows default to sending email in HTML format.
I need to look into reconfiguring me firewall... I've always been more concerned with incomming packets, not thinking about web bugs and unauthorized outgoing packets. Blocking all those web-bug sites listed in the report sounds like a good idea to me.
They slow down your surfing... If you go to a fast web site, there is a delay while the bug loads from the slow 3rd party ad server.. same deal with banner ads. And of course, these load first before any content is shown, so you have nothing to do but wait for those few seconds.
Me too.. the @home proxy seemed unreliable and slow at times, so I don't use it. Junkbuster and Squid run locally do a better job anyway (I know it creates more network traffic, but it runs faster at my end -- that's all the counts!;-) ). I also reference the news and mail server by IP address, since the DNS sometimes doesn't return an address for "news" and "mail".
The next big step will surely be developement tools. Right now creating software is so complicated, very few people can do it well. This may be a good thing for us/.'ers, but very bad for everyone else. I think this is why VB is popular.. The slightly above average user can create macros and stuff in Excel and MS Access, and create applications that only a skilled coder could create using standard tools. I can see that this trend will continue, and in 10 years anyone with half a brain will be able to create software by linking together little software units... kinda like the way OOP is headed already.
No, but my dad cleaned out his basement and made me take back all my old relics, including an Atari ST, Commodore 64 (with 300 baud modem and actual 5.25" disk, the tape drive was lost long ago)... Actually, I was flipping through my old disks and got a wave of nostalgia. I may fire up those machines one of these days!
Yes, I've often wondered what would make the perfect OS. Anyone have experiences with other non-Unix/non-ms OS's which have good features or concepts? For instance, there are many neat features in OS/400 (IBM's OS for AS/400 systems). Many people have a love/hate relationship with OS/400, but it has some nice ideas, like everything is an object, which can have permissions, properties, etc. And the interface is actually quite good despite being text-only -- you enter a command, and if you can't remember the switches and options, just hit F4 and they are all listed for you, and you can tab through them and change the ones you want. This would be a cool feature in Bash!!
Not always the case... older versions ran quite nicely on a 486 or worse. I'm sure some of the other light-weight browsers such as Opera might also be usable.
Agreed.. 486's can make very inexpensive workstations when configured to be dumb x-terminals. All you need is a half decent video card, monitor and a network card and your set. Compiling and all the other good stuff will be quick if the host machine is good. This would be great for a small business or school, even for games at a LAN party! (Well, maybe not for Quake, but less graphic intensive turn based games might work).
Besides, could you imagine a Beuowolf cluster of these things??;-)
They can't copyright the word Diablo, but if they are planning on making a movie in the same theme as the game, and they have announced it publicly, they have a good chance of winning this case.
Slashdot Mirror
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However, I wonder if this will lead to a software V-Chip in Windows?
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The sad thing is that my pointy haired boss would go for that.
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Sheesh. Why do we let people post anonymously??
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I need to look into reconfiguring me firewall ... I've always been more concerned with incomming packets, not thinking about web bugs and unauthorized outgoing packets. Blocking all those web-bug sites listed in the report sounds like a good idea to me.
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Yep, hacking C64 Basic .. those were the days!
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Besides, could you imagine a Beuowolf cluster of these things?? ;-)
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