Amen to that! I bought the Wine version of CorelDraw but it was useless: Slow, bugged and always crashed after approximately 10 minutes usage. I'd love to see a native Linux version of that one. Without the crashes, of course.
Zdnet.au mention a bidding round for the new kernel name. Seems it'll land on "Wallaby". Being a little foreign and all, I looked the word up on Google - to see a picture of such an animal. And wouldn't you know... one of the first to turn up was this snoopy fellow.
I'm pretty sure it proves something!
Few are unbiased when it comes to Microsoft..
But regardless: Gartners opinion on Symbian are hardly uninteresting to *Nokia*.
And might just be a further inclination to go shopping.
..cept for one fact: There is no such thing as the "growth of the Symbian platform". Owners are selling out. (Motorola) Or starting to produce Microsoft phones. (Samsung)
"Give the devil your little finger and he tears your arm off.."
To have Symbian controlled by Nokia may be their only viable alternative to survive. It would give them the cute opportunity of pulling some "MS stunts" back at MS.. How about incompatability with MS phones... "Mmmmm.... incompatible.."
There are more potential renegades than Motorola in their the Sybian ranks.
Samsung are about to announce their first Mobile Windows device.
A week ago, InfoSync ran a piece on the upcoming Microsofts Mobile Windows features. Interesting reading.
Sure. And money grow on trees. The A760 retails for US$ 800. The MPx200 retails for $300. China's GDP per capita is approx $4000. Please repeat who's buying WHAT?
Regardless - the point remains the same:
There is every reason to believe that Motorola had already abandoned any further thoughts of producing Linux phones, even at the time the A760 was released.
The best thing about this horrible thread is that time will prove me right.. wait and see.
And Symbian is not off-topic because it's the clear market-leader.
Symbian is off topic for *that very reason*.
Of course they're the market leader. Everybody KNOWS that. It's utterly irrelevant here.
This is about Linux/Windows and which direction the multinational company Motorola are taking. *AFTER* they sold their Symbian shares some two months ago.
EXIT Symbian.
Why did they release a Linux-cellphone in the first place, then?
And that is an interesting question.
The Slashdot punchline was a reference to an outdated press release, interpreted by Slashdot as "Eventually Motorola plans to use Linux in most of its phones."
Here some more indications Motorola may already have dropped Linux.
The A760 was announced already in February 2003.
From then and untill the phone was reality took 9 months.
The MPx200 was announced on September 15th 2003
and was in the shops only 5 weeks later.
The MPx200 was actually in stock BEFORE the A760, and primarily targeting the home markets in US and Europe, not Asia. (Btw, Orance covers most of Europe and also Tailand, Hongkong, India, Israel and more)
That doesn't mean a 5 week turnaround on phone development. It means a lot of work was done "backstage", before officially announcing the new strategy - and phone.
So why the need for secrecy? Well.. obviously due to the upcoming sellout of Symbian.
Motorolas life "after Symbian" could take three directions. They could continue using Symbian, without ownership. They could use Linux. Or mobile Windows. Or all three, for that matter, but that would mean messy development..
Here is another indication that Linux to Motorola was an intended sidetrack:
Searching the Motorla press release site, you will find there are 26 Motorola press releases mentioning the A760. Over a timespan of the 10 months: From the announcement and to the phone was in the shops.
Search for MPx200 and the story is anotherl. In the mere 5 weeks from they announced their mobile Windows plans, no less than 1269 Motorola press releases mention the MPx200.
So back to your question..
Motorola have cancelled phones before. They could have cancelled A760 as well. I think they released in Asia because...
1: The phone was cheap to produce
2: the Asian market is huge - chances of breaking even with a Linux phone is better there than in the more saturated markets of US and Europe.
But last and not least..3: Dealing with Microsoft is dealing with the devil. In particular for a company in the red. A Linux joker up Motorolas sleeve was likely an argument providing financial benefits versus MS.
Around half a year ago it became known that Microsoft salesmen carte blanche offer huge rebates to companies who otherwise would have chosen Linux solutions.
I don't consider Linux doomed. I just don't see any signs Motorola will persuit embedded Linux in their cellphones.
If you had actually read the original story you would realize that Symbian is off topic in this context. The point is Motorolas commitment to Linux - or lack of such. Seems to me they put Linux cold on ice, in benefit of MS.
As for design, that's far from pointless. Design is very much what sells the plethora of more or less identically featured phones. Thus, it is indeed relevant that the A760 looks aged or cheaper compared to MPx200. Another sample of that is the external antenna: The more stylish looking MPx200 have an internal antenna.
To an end-user, A760's major strenght over MPx200 is its display size; 240x320px vs 176x220. Let's hope that is enough to raise demands in the western hemisphere as well.
Yeah, sure. That's why you called the Linux phone doomed because it's a clamshell, yet you think the MS-phone (which is also a clamshell) is going to set the world on fire.
I didn't call the Linux phone doomed. But it's poorly designed. I called it a half hearted clamshell design, implying that I consider it "left hand work", designed in a hurry. The lid - unlike on "real" clamshell phones - has no function! It doesn't contain the display. It's just wasted surface - a lid with some glass or plastic. Weird design. Or brave, if you like. But unprecedented, and very unlike other current clamshell phones.
The Windows phone is simply better looking. So - it's unfair competition: A weird looking Linux phone versus a good looking Windows phone. Why they chose those particular designs is beyond me.
Perhaps they wanted the MS phone to succeed more than they wanted the Linux phone to succeed.
I personally would have preferred the MPx200 look with the Linux content and features.
You are either a compulsive pessimist or a MS-fan/shareholder/employee/supporter posing as a MS-critic.
You don't find it ironic if you type that line in a story about a REAL EXISTING **LINUX** smartphone while there is nothing but hot air and vapor about MS-smartphones from Motorola?
They lack support - again because everybody (rightly) believes that MS-smartphones are dead. It's a self-fullfilling prophecy. No support -> Everybody believes it's dead -> even less support -> It is dead.
Wrong again. MS mobile efforts was set back with over a year because Sendo dropped them in the last minute. An affair amusingly resemblant of what MS themself once did to IBM when they dropped developmenet of the 32-bit OS later known as OS/2.
The comparision stops there, however. To think MS lost mobile momentum for good would be very silly.
(BTW: I'm no MS fan.)
/. link "Motorola plans to use Linux in most of its phones" on/. in the heading of this story is sadly outdated (February 12th)
And Motorola hardly pulled the press release I mentioned, only mis-linked it.
Believing the MS's mobile initiative to be dead is dangerous and way wrong. Microsofts problem has partly been their technology - now polished - but more problematic was their lack of support amongst mobile tech producers. They surely welcome the brekup of the Symbian brotherhood. A well reputed company like Motorola turning to Windows is exactly what they needed. And Motorola's competitive situation easily explain their "renegade" move: Their phone sales are down - numbers likely run in the blood red nowadays.
Gartner's first look at the MPx200 spawned comments like "definately better than what is earlyer seen of Windows based mobile phones, both in performance as well as design". (Translated from http://digi.no/php/art.php?id=93165&f=katnav )
More muscles behind the MPx200 include Orange and AT&T, and also a Hongkong company.
As interesting as the A760 might be, Linux is a complete outsider in mobile technology. And the design is a half hearted clamshell lookalike. Telling it own silent story, doesn't it..
No wonder Motorola loudly bet on the safest horse. Lets hope recent internal turmoil doesn't imply they already forgot the A760 joker up their sleeve: It sure would be interesting to know why CEO Christopher Galvin suddenly left Motorola, after almost a lifetime in the "family company".
I tried to point to this Register-story earlyer: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/68/ 31962.html
Motorola have had the A760 cooking for a long time. Any release in US or Europe is yet undecided. And only two weeks after they recently sold their share in Symbian, a Microsoft phone - MPx200 - was announced.
Motorola state in a press release that a row of MS based phones are planned, and that the two companies are cooperating closely within development and strategic marketing. The english version of the release seems to have vanished, but one in swedish is available, dated today: http://sverige.motorola.com/newsview.asp?i temid=52 0
I think it's safe to consider the A760 an "asian experiment". There are currently no indication further plans for those devices. There are, however, very explicit plans for further development of MS-based devices.
Commercial addons exist. They may be sponsor-ware for all I know - I haven't tested any of them - I'm blessed with Mozilla. Here a link to some, found after 5 seconds of googling:
A short week earlyer "Microsoft wins Motorola" (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/68/31962.htm l).
According to a story in digi.no (http://www.digi.no/php/art.php?id=92532) rumours are that Motorola and Microsoft are getting closer. The digi.no headline translates "The front against Microsoft is cracking up". And Motorola recently sold their share in Symbian.
That said.. I'd love to own an A760:)) As far as Nokia are concerned they head for disaster. Simply due to their lack of clamshell design phones. Larger displays will scratch too easily. The way things are heading, the future killer gadget is a combined PDA/GSM/WiFi/3G phone. Motorola, Samsung, LG, Nec and the rest simly LOOK so darn much better. Check the polls at Gsmarena and the likes. People love the clamshell design. So sell now and thank me later.
The fonts were deliberatly withdrawn the day LinuxWorld Expo opened. I assume the date was carfully picked - giving "a finger" to the Linux community as a whole, as well as to expo participants from Codeweavers, in an attempt to make their Crossover Office demo look bad.
I didn't know about this till now but that day i couldn't get through to slashdot. I had just signed up at a new ISP where the busy signal is a plague there and the modempool now and then allows itself to change protocol in the midst of a connection (to something expecting IPv6 to be enabled here so i get disconnected modprobing for net-pf-10 or with illegal LCP call errors) Well: In the midst of preparing a complaint i saved the nslookup, ping and traceroute versus slashdot:
here's nslookup from that day: nslookup www.slashdot.org Non-authoritative answer: Name: slashdot.org Addresses: 64.28.67.64, 64.28.67.61, 64.28.67.62, 64.28.67.63 Aliases: www.slashdot.org
Here's what the ping looked like: ping www.slashdot.org PING slashdot.org (64.28.67.62) from 212.242.56.150 : 56 data bytes From msx-osl-15.ppp.cybercity.no (212.242.48.37): Source Quench From msx-osl-15.ppp.cybercity.no (212.242.48.37): Source Quench 64 bytes from 64.28.67.62: icmp_seq=1 ttl=241 time=2644.7 ms wrong data byte #8 should be 0xb1 but was 0xaf af 4f 1d 39 b3 6f 4 0 8 9 a b c d e f 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1a 1b 1c 1d 1e 1f 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 2a 2b 2c 2d 2e 2f 64 bytes from 64.28.67.62: icmp_seq=3 ttl=241 time=1200.0 ms wrong data byte #8 should be 0xb2 but was 0xb1 b1 4f 1d 39 6f 70 4 0 8 9 a b c d e f 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1a 1b 1c 1d 1e 1f 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 2a 2b 2c 2d 2e 2f 64 bytes from 64.28.67.62: icmp_seq=4 ttl=241 time=940.2 ms 64 bytes from 64.28.67.62: icmp_seq=5 ttl=241 time=1520.4 ms wrong data byte #8 should be 0xb4 but was 0xb3 b3 4f 1d 39 ba 6f 4 0 8 9 a b c d e f 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1a 1b 1c 1d 1e 1f 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 2a 2b 2c 2d 2e 2f From msx-osl-15.ppp.cybercity.no (212.242.48.37): Source Quench
--- slashdot.org ping statistics --- 8 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 50% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max = 940.2/1576.3/2644.7 ms
and here a traceroute: /usr/sbin/traceroute www.slashdot.org traceroute: Warning: www.slashdot.org has multiple addresses; using 64.28.67.61 traceroute to slashdot.org (64.28.67.61), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets 1 msx-osl-15.ppp.cybercity.no (212.242.48.37) 127.059 ms 117.442 ms 598.169 ms 2 pop-osl-de1.cybercity.no (212.242.48.33) 135.448 ms 127.659 ms 118.734 ms 3 ro-osl-feth0.cybercity.no (212.242.48.25) 115.117 ms 118.309 ms 198.244 ms 4 Serial10-1-1.GW2.OSL1.ALTER.NET (146.188.35.221) 184.727 ms 177.547 ms 178.205 ms 5 422.ATM6-0-0.CR1.OSL1.Alter.Net (146.188.9.210) 954.049 ms 879.173 ms 898.407 ms 6 499.ATM3-0.BR1.NYC5.Alter.Net (146.188.14.254) 1015.430 ms 1060.149 ms 1038.496 ms 7 331.ATM3-0.GW1.NYC5.ALTER.NET (137.39.30.105) 1272.030 ms 1194.124 ms 1158.176 ms 8 151.ATM2-0.XR1.NYC1.ALTER.NET (146.188.177.226) 1159.550 ms 1237.909 ms 1098.529 ms 9 295.ATM6-0.XR1.EWR1.ALTER.NET (146.188.176.105) 975.240 ms 1076.418 ms 1097.999 ms 10 193.ATM8-0-0.GW4.EWR1.ALTER.NET (146.188.179.177) 1481.877 ms 1017.935 ms 1105.325 ms 11 exodus-ewr1-oc3.customer.ALTER.NET (157.130.15.194) 1087.343 ms 899.820 ms 891.461 ms 12 bbr01-g4-0.jrcy01.exodus.net (209.67.45.253) 868.639 ms 1157.474 ms 1259.498 ms 13 bbr02-p5-0.wlhm01.exodus.net (216.32.132.50) 1395.570 ms 1417.646 ms 1440.750 ms 14 dcr03-g2-0.wlhm01.exodus.net (64.14.70.65) 955.337 ms 937.974 ms 934.676 ms 15 64.14.80.154 (64.14.80.154) 995.027 ms 1082.273 ms 1133.553 ms 16 64.28.66.203 (64.28.66.203) 1455.196 ms 1940.193 ms 1440.243 ms 17 64.28.67.61 (64.28.67.61) 739.961 ms 1072.558 ms 779.768 ms
--- when i saw all this i thought it either was my ISP being fucked up beyond recognition, or some insane DNS error regarding the new Slashdot server.
No idea if this is of any value, and haven't time to read all the replies - perhaps someone has already posted the same observation. And perhaps it was all a result of how you all tried to defend yourself against real attacs. It's only that i see you have another IP today and that "Multiple IP's" thing has vanished, so thought i'd mention this since i happened to save the output.
Well. Too tired to think - tagging me redundant and to bed.
Kristin. (hmm and if there's spaces between lines in this posting, thank Mozilla.)
What if the Mozilla crew made a feature to block sites with dirty words..politically controversial sites..religious sites.. What if they introduced a feature to block flesh colored images..and then..o' horror... REMOVED it! What would be the reaction then?
A webpage is an entity - a presentation of images and textual content usually part of an intended design. It's kind of arrogant to filter any of it really, and noone force me to actually study a banner even if it's there. I see commercials as part of "life on the web" and in effect contemporary art as well as a consumers thermometer. A browser should focus on presenting ALL content as fast and correct as it can, and leave censorship to 3rd hand applications and personal taste and need. If what you *really* need every now and then is quick browsing due to low bandwidth, the tiny banners aren't the bottleneck - and there's always the option to turn off all images from loading. What's this angst for commercials? I submit myself to all kinds of impressions daily - contradicting at large - that's partly the basis for making up my mind about any subject - if an opinion is called for at all. That's LIFE.
I vote for the smallest footprint browser with the best browsing abilities. Those who wish to live in some kind of purist dreamworld can always use any of the plethora of filters available. I really don't need feature overkills - i'm quite happy facing facts and the web as it was created.
Slashdot Mirror
so the url is really THIS
NORMAN make antivirus software for Linux.
Amen to that! I bought the Wine version of CorelDraw but it was useless: Slow, bugged and always crashed after approximately 10 minutes usage. I'd love to see a native Linux version of that one. Without the crashes, of course.
Zdnet.au mention a bidding round for the new kernel name. Seems it'll land on "Wallaby". Being a little foreign and all, I looked the word up on Google - to see a picture of such an animal. And wouldn't you know... one of the first to turn up was this snoopy fellow.
I'm pretty sure it proves something!
Few are unbiased when it comes to Microsoft..
But regardless: Gartners opinion on Symbian are hardly uninteresting to *Nokia*.
And might just be a further inclination to go shopping.
link[07-11-2003]
Well put. Mod parent up and clueless grandparent down to 0
"Give the devil your little finger and he tears your arm off.."
To have Symbian controlled by Nokia may be their only viable alternative to survive. It would give them the cute opportunity of pulling some "MS stunts" back at MS.. How about incompatability with MS phones... "Mmmmm.... incompatible.."
There are more potential renegades than Motorola in their the Sybian ranks.
Samsung are about to announce their first Mobile Windows device.
A week ago, InfoSync ran a piece on the upcoming Microsofts Mobile Windows features.
Interesting reading.
Doesn't it sound a whole lot like ssh's passphrase?
Sure. And money grow on trees. The A760 retails for US$ 800. The MPx200 retails for $300. China's GDP per capita is approx $4000. Please repeat who's buying WHAT?
Regardless - the point remains the same:
There is every reason to believe that Motorola had already abandoned any further thoughts of producing Linux phones, even at the time the A760 was released.
The best thing about this horrible thread is that time will prove me right.. wait and see.
The translation sounds a little weird. Is it taino for "tube" or "pipe"? To smoke a pipe makes perfect sense also in english.
Symbian is off topic for *that very reason*. Of course they're the market leader. Everybody KNOWS that. It's utterly irrelevant here.
This is about Linux/Windows and which direction the multinational company Motorola are taking. *AFTER* they sold their Symbian shares some two months ago.
EXIT Symbian.
Why did they release a Linux-cellphone in the first place, then?
And that is an interesting question.
The Slashdot punchline was a reference to an outdated press release, interpreted by Slashdot as "Eventually Motorola plans to use Linux in most of its phones."
Here some more indications Motorola may already have dropped Linux.
The A760 was announced already in February 2003. From then and untill the phone was reality took 9 months.
The MPx200 was announced on September 15th 2003 and was in the shops only 5 weeks later.
The MPx200 was actually in stock BEFORE the A760, and primarily targeting the home markets in US and Europe, not Asia. (Btw, Orance covers most of Europe and also Tailand, Hongkong, India, Israel and more)
That doesn't mean a 5 week turnaround on phone development. It means a lot of work was done "backstage", before officially announcing the new strategy - and phone.
So why the need for secrecy? Well.. obviously due to the upcoming sellout of Symbian.
Motorolas life "after Symbian" could take three directions. They could continue using Symbian, without ownership. They could use Linux. Or mobile Windows. Or all three, for that matter, but that would mean messy development..
Here is another indication that Linux to Motorola was an intended sidetrack:
Searching the Motorla press release site, you will find there are 26 Motorola press releases mentioning the A760. Over a timespan of the 10 months: From the announcement and to the phone was in the shops.
Search for MPx200 and the story is anotherl. In the mere 5 weeks from they announced their mobile Windows plans, no less than 1269 Motorola press releases mention the MPx200.
So back to your question..
Motorola have cancelled phones before. They could have cancelled A760 as well. I think they released in Asia because...
1: The phone was cheap to produce
2: the Asian market is huge - chances of breaking even with a Linux phone is better there than in the more saturated markets of US and Europe.
But last and not least..3: Dealing with Microsoft is dealing with the devil. In particular for a company in the red. A Linux joker up Motorolas sleeve was likely an argument providing financial benefits versus MS.
Around half a year ago it became known that Microsoft salesmen carte blanche offer huge rebates to companies who otherwise would have chosen Linux solutions.
Soooo.. You tell me. Why was the A760 released?
I don't consider Linux doomed. I just don't see any signs Motorola will persuit embedded Linux in their cellphones.
If you had actually read the original story you would realize that Symbian is off topic in this context. The point is Motorolas commitment to Linux - or lack of such. Seems to me they put Linux cold on ice, in benefit of MS.
As for design, that's far from pointless. Design is very much what sells the plethora of more or less identically featured phones. Thus, it is indeed relevant that the A760 looks aged or cheaper compared to MPx200. Another sample of that is the external antenna: The more stylish looking MPx200 have an internal antenna.
To an end-user, A760's major strenght over MPx200 is its display size; 240x320px vs 176x220. Let's hope that is enough to raise demands in the western hemisphere as well.
I didn't call the Linux phone doomed. But it's poorly designed. I called it a half hearted clamshell design, implying that I consider it "left hand work", designed in a hurry. The lid - unlike on "real" clamshell phones - has no function! It doesn't contain the display. It's just wasted surface - a lid with some glass or plastic. Weird design. Or brave, if you like. But unprecedented, and very unlike other current clamshell phones.
The Windows phone is simply better looking. So - it's unfair competition: A weird looking Linux phone versus a good looking Windows phone. Why they chose those particular designs is beyond me. Perhaps they wanted the MS phone to succeed more than they wanted the Linux phone to succeed. I personally would have preferred the MPx200 look with the Linux content and features.
You are either a compulsive pessimist or a MS-fan/shareholder/employee/supporter posing as a MS-critic.
You are either stupid or trolling.
You don't find it ironic if you type that line in a story about a REAL EXISTING **LINUX** smartphone while there is nothing but hot air and vapor about MS-smartphones from Motorola?
No. If anyone blow hot air here, it's you. The MPx200 was announced available nationwide on Oct. 21st this year, and can be purchased from for instance AT&T.
They lack support - again because everybody (rightly) believes that MS-smartphones are dead. It's a self-fullfilling prophecy. No support -> Everybody believes it's dead -> even less support -> It is dead.
Wrong again. MS mobile efforts was set back with over a year because Sendo dropped them in the last minute. An affair amusingly resemblant of what MS themself once did to IBM when they dropped developmenet of the 32-bit OS later known as OS/2. The comparision stops there, however. To think MS lost mobile momentum for good would be very silly. (BTW: I'm no MS fan.)
/. link "Motorola plans to use Linux in most of its phones" on /. in the heading of this story is sadly outdated (February 12th)
And Motorola hardly pulled the press release I mentioned, only mis-linked it.
Believing the MS's mobile initiative to be dead is dangerous and way wrong. Microsofts problem has partly been their technology - now polished - but more problematic was their lack of support amongst mobile tech producers. They surely welcome the brekup of the Symbian brotherhood. A well reputed company like Motorola turning to Windows is exactly what they needed. And Motorola's competitive situation easily explain their "renegade" move: Their phone sales are down - numbers likely run in the blood red nowadays.
Gartner's first look at the MPx200 spawned comments like "definately better than what is earlyer seen of Windows based mobile phones, both in performance as well as design".
(Translated from http://digi.no/php/art.php?id=93165&f=katnav )
More muscles behind the MPx200 include Orange and AT&T, and also a Hongkong company.
As interesting as the A760 might be, Linux is a complete outsider in mobile technology. And the design is a half hearted clamshell lookalike. Telling it own silent story, doesn't it..
No wonder Motorola loudly bet on the safest horse. Lets hope recent internal turmoil doesn't imply they already forgot the A760 joker up their sleeve: It sure would be interesting to know why CEO Christopher Galvin suddenly left Motorola, after almost a lifetime in the "family company".
broken URL - trying again: Link to press release in Swedish
I tried to point to this Register-story earlyer:/ 31962.html
i temid=52 0
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/68
Motorola have had the A760 cooking for a long time. Any release in US or Europe is yet undecided. And only two weeks after they recently sold their share in Symbian, a Microsoft phone - MPx200 - was announced.
Motorola state in a press release that a row of MS based phones are planned, and that the two companies are cooperating closely within development and strategic marketing. The english version of the release seems to have vanished, but one in swedish is available, dated today:
http://sverige.motorola.com/newsview.asp?
I think it's safe to consider the A760 an "asian experiment". There are currently no indication further plans for those devices. There are, however, very explicit plans for further development of MS-based devices.
Commercial addons exist. They may be sponsor-ware for all I know - I haven't tested any of them - I'm blessed with Mozilla. Here a link to some, found after 5 seconds of googling:
l
http://www.bykeyword.com/pages/popup_killer.htm
Seems I added an erronous space - try: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/68/31962.html
A short week earlyer "Microsoft wins Motorola" (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/68/31962.htm l).
:))
According to a story in digi.no (http://www.digi.no/php/art.php?id=92532) rumours are that Motorola and Microsoft are getting closer. The digi.no headline translates "The front against Microsoft is cracking up". And Motorola recently sold their share in Symbian.
That said.. I'd love to own an A760
As far as Nokia are concerned they head for disaster. Simply due to their lack of clamshell design phones.
Larger displays will scratch too easily. The way things are heading, the future killer gadget is a combined PDA/GSM/WiFi/3G phone. Motorola, Samsung, LG, Nec and the rest simly LOOK so darn much better. Check the polls at Gsmarena and the likes. People love the clamshell design. So sell now and thank me later.
The fonts were deliberatly withdrawn the day LinuxWorld Expo opened. I assume the date was carfully picked - giving "a finger" to the Linux community as a whole, as well as to expo participants from Codeweavers, in an attempt to make their Crossover Office demo look bad.
I didn't know about this till now but that day i couldn't get through to slashdot.
I had just signed up at a new ISP where the busy signal is a plague there and the modempool now and then allows itself to change protocol in the midst of a connection (to something expecting IPv6 to be enabled here so i get disconnected modprobing for net-pf-10 or with illegal LCP call errors)
Well: In the midst of preparing a complaint i saved the nslookup, ping and traceroute versus slashdot:
here's nslookup from that day:
nslookup www.slashdot.org
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: slashdot.org
Addresses: 64.28.67.64, 64.28.67.61, 64.28.67.62, 64.28.67.63
Aliases: www.slashdot.org
Here's what the ping looked like:
ping www.slashdot.org
PING slashdot.org (64.28.67.62) from 212.242.56.150 : 56 data bytes
From msx-osl-15.ppp.cybercity.no (212.242.48.37): Source Quench
From msx-osl-15.ppp.cybercity.no (212.242.48.37): Source Quench
64 bytes from 64.28.67.62: icmp_seq=1 ttl=241 time=2644.7 ms
wrong data byte #8 should be 0xb1 but was 0xaf
af 4f 1d 39 b3 6f 4 0 8 9 a b c d e f 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1a 1b 1c 1d 1e 1f
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 2a 2b 2c 2d 2e 2f
64 bytes from 64.28.67.62: icmp_seq=3 ttl=241 time=1200.0 ms
wrong data byte #8 should be 0xb2 but was 0xb1
b1 4f 1d 39 6f 70 4 0 8 9 a b c d e f 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1a 1b 1c 1d 1e 1f
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 2a 2b 2c 2d 2e 2f
64 bytes from 64.28.67.62: icmp_seq=4 ttl=241 time=940.2 ms
64 bytes from 64.28.67.62: icmp_seq=5 ttl=241 time=1520.4 ms
wrong data byte #8 should be 0xb4 but was 0xb3
b3 4f 1d 39 ba 6f 4 0 8 9 a b c d e f 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1a 1b 1c 1d 1e 1f
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 2a 2b 2c 2d 2e 2f
From msx-osl-15.ppp.cybercity.no (212.242.48.37): Source Quench
--- slashdot.org ping statistics ---
8 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 50% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 940.2/1576.3/2644.7 ms
and here a traceroute:
/usr/sbin/traceroute www.slashdot.org
traceroute: Warning: www.slashdot.org has multiple addresses; using 64.28.67.61
traceroute to slashdot.org (64.28.67.61), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 msx-osl-15.ppp.cybercity.no (212.242.48.37) 127.059 ms 117.442 ms 598.169 ms
2 pop-osl-de1.cybercity.no (212.242.48.33) 135.448 ms 127.659 ms 118.734 ms
3 ro-osl-feth0.cybercity.no (212.242.48.25) 115.117 ms 118.309 ms 198.244 ms
4 Serial10-1-1.GW2.OSL1.ALTER.NET (146.188.35.221) 184.727 ms 177.547 ms 178.205 ms
5 422.ATM6-0-0.CR1.OSL1.Alter.Net (146.188.9.210) 954.049 ms 879.173 ms 898.407 ms
6 499.ATM3-0.BR1.NYC5.Alter.Net (146.188.14.254) 1015.430 ms 1060.149 ms 1038.496 ms
7 331.ATM3-0.GW1.NYC5.ALTER.NET (137.39.30.105) 1272.030 ms 1194.124 ms 1158.176 ms
8 151.ATM2-0.XR1.NYC1.ALTER.NET (146.188.177.226) 1159.550 ms 1237.909 ms 1098.529 ms
9 295.ATM6-0.XR1.EWR1.ALTER.NET (146.188.176.105) 975.240 ms 1076.418 ms 1097.999 ms
10 193.ATM8-0-0.GW4.EWR1.ALTER.NET (146.188.179.177) 1481.877 ms 1017.935 ms 1105.325 ms
11 exodus-ewr1-oc3.customer.ALTER.NET (157.130.15.194) 1087.343 ms 899.820 ms 891.461 ms
12 bbr01-g4-0.jrcy01.exodus.net (209.67.45.253) 868.639 ms 1157.474 ms 1259.498 ms
13 bbr02-p5-0.wlhm01.exodus.net (216.32.132.50) 1395.570 ms 1417.646 ms 1440.750 ms
14 dcr03-g2-0.wlhm01.exodus.net (64.14.70.65) 955.337 ms 937.974 ms 934.676 ms
15 64.14.80.154 (64.14.80.154) 995.027 ms 1082.273 ms 1133.553 ms
16 64.28.66.203 (64.28.66.203) 1455.196 ms 1940.193 ms 1440.243 ms
17 64.28.67.61 (64.28.67.61) 739.961 ms 1072.558 ms 779.768 ms
---
when i saw all this i thought it either was my ISP being fucked up beyond recognition, or some insane DNS error regarding the new Slashdot server.
No idea if this is of any value, and haven't time to read all the replies - perhaps someone has already posted the same observation. And perhaps it was all a result of how you all tried to defend yourself against real attacs. It's only that i see you have another IP today and that "Multiple IP's" thing has vanished, so thought i'd mention this since i happened to save the output.
Well. Too tired to think - tagging me redundant and to bed.
Kristin.
(hmm and if there's spaces between lines in this posting, thank Mozilla.)
A webpage is an entity - a presentation of images and textual content usually part of an intended design. It's kind of arrogant to filter any of it really, and noone force me to actually study a banner even if it's there. I see commercials as part of "life on the web" and in effect contemporary art as well as a consumers thermometer. A browser should focus on presenting ALL content as fast and correct as it can, and leave censorship to 3rd hand applications and personal taste and need. If what you *really* need every now and then is quick browsing due to low bandwidth, the tiny banners aren't the bottleneck - and there's always the option to turn off all images from loading.
What's this angst for commercials? I submit myself to all kinds of impressions daily - contradicting at large - that's partly the basis for making up my mind about any subject - if an opinion is called for at all. That's LIFE.
I vote for the smallest footprint browser with the best browsing abilities. Those who wish to live in some kind of purist dreamworld can always use any of the plethora of filters available. I really don't need feature overkills - i'm quite happy facing facts and the web as it was created.
Ars Longa, Vita Brevis.