Before Google, I used a metasearch script (and a GUI I wrote myself). For API references, I had the MSDN collection (with decent indexing but lousy search). Inconvenient, but hardly the end of the world.
In fact, not having a freely usable big-ass web index like Google would probably spur greater research into smarter internet search: there was some very promising research done on smart search agents done in the early nineties, and none of them have come into widespread use now. Like any other overly successful tool, Google has in a way killed innovation in search. For example, this discussion seems to be mostly about who can build a better spider, a bigger-assed index and a ranking routine that spammers haven't cracked yet.
I've actually never heard of XAML before, but according to Webopedia, it sounds like the same old crap, once again.:)
I don't think XAML as used in Longhorn (i.e., a declarative presentation language) is the same as Transaction Authority Markup Language. In fact, MS seems to be pulling a Firebird on the XAML guys.
Not to mention that you can't choose where PROGRAMFILES and COMMONFILES go. Sure, TweakUI can change those but by then the damage is already done (unless you mount a new drive as the PROGRAMFILES folder).
And when their work computers get infested with the latest virus and their kids say, "Don't worry, Dad, we don't need Norton Anti-Virus because we have a Mac," the wheels will turn some more.
If he were a smart dad, he'd wonder why it was on sale then.
LOL. I RTFA and it says India became a software outsourcing destination because of *his* policies. Heh. He had nothing to do with it. All the hard work was done by a few entrepreneurs, and Manmohan Singh's "liberalization" policies provided the fillip.
Ah well, I guess one could say the best thing Vajpayee has done for India and software is that he's kept the government out of the software biz's hair (unlike every other Indian industry that's so wound up in.gov red tape that setting up an industry in India is generally considered to be about as pleasant as a trip to hell and back).
So, assuming a world where software makers are just as liable as automobile makers, if my Redhat box's OpenSSH implementation gets infected with a worm, who do I sue? Redhat or Theo de Raadt? Note that the OpenSSH folk (Theo et al) provided a patch really quickly. Redhat was slower. So-- who is responsible?
Personally, I think legal liability will be much more disastrous for Open-Source vendors than it will be for MS or Sun who make all of their stuff in-house.
:-) anything that blocks popups in IE reliably deserves to be sainted IMO. (other options exist too, but the toolbar's the best.) And no, I do *not* use it as an address bar, though yes, I am guilty of using Windows.
Except that if you type in URLs like "www.cbc.ca" into the google toolbar, the browser goes directly to the cbc.ca website (as proved by my firewall logs), and does NOT go through google.
Or try typing "http://www.chaoszone.org/nosuchpage" into the toolbar, you'll see no referer information is passed. The google toolbar BHO asks IE to connect to the URL directly.
Give google at least a little credit for trying to do things right: using the toolbar as a 'enhanced' address bar is perfectly safe. For now, at least.
> It's time for us geeks to belly up to the bar and pay for something that we want.
Assuming that geeks do, there's still a problem -- we're a small part of the population and I'm betting that despite all the good points you raise many will use OpenOffice anyway.
There's a worse issue.
Despite this story talking about "ultra-expensive Office 2003", Microsoft has already reduced prices for Office 2003. Most slashdotters missed this (I submitted a story but it was rejected) but retailers (at least in Europe, from personal experience) are selling Office for as low as $110 to general customers. Here's a News.com story about this -- note it seems to be happening with Microsoft's active encouragement.
Given a choice between a $80 StarOffice and $110 Microsoft Office, I know which one I -- as a rational individual -- would choose.
(And business already get huge discounts on Microsoft software anyway, not to mention the fact that many get Office preloaded when they buy the PC.)
Several technical people I know would in fact not use bluebottle BECAUSE it uses TMDA.
TMDA is an intarweb-ish hack (and by that I mean it assumes that all email is sent by sentient beings to sentient beings). It stitches on a consent mechanism onto a protocol that is was not designed for that.
If you are worried about spam, there are many more ways of battling it (_and_ complying with the spirit of the RFCs) than TMDA: these include RBLs, bayesian scans at the MTA and at the MUA.
TMDA is no better fundamentally than Verisign's brain-dead act of not sending a NXDOMAIN for nonexistent addresses just so that users can see a freaking *search page*. If hotmail, or yahoo, or any other large email provider switched to TMDA tomorrow, I would expect their userbase to drop in droves.
I think it has something to do with the fact that telnet can be used for a lot of things. I mean you can telnet to an HTTP server, SMTP server, etc
You're confusing telnet-the-app and telnet-the-protocol. When companies block telnet, they usually block telnet-the-protocol. You can still use the app to connect to arbitary port 80s. If you can't, it means http has been blocked as well.
I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this would have not help dialup users at all. They're already using hardware data compression in the modem.
I might be wrong as well, but-- if a 100k page is gzipped to 30k *by the http daemon*, that's less data that travels over the wire, reducing total end-to-end transfer time (adjusted for slight increases at the daemon to gzip and at the browser to gunzip).
OTOH, when using hardware compression, the compression only exists between the modem and the PPP host it connects to (set up during handshaking), so the full 100k of data travels over the wire to the PPP host, and then is compressed and sent to the modem. This is assuming of course that the hardware compression algorithm did not *expand* already compressed files, as was a problem with (IIRC) MNP5 and V.42bis.
On the inter-city routes, most are served by a single track, but they use a physical token passing system to control who is allowed to be on any particular section of track at any given point in time.
Cool. I saw a program on Discovery on Indian Rail, and they use physical tokens too, on some of the older lines and slower trains. I suspect though that physical tokens would be a problem for long-distance passenger trains, which run distances like 2000km in under 28 hours or so -- that doesn't sound very fast, but keep in mind that tracks here are very poor by world standards, and the system isn't much automated -- e.g., train staff IIRC don't even have 2-way radio.
and the built in limits meant to encourage home users to upgrade to their $4000 enterprise edition, which gives you comparable functionality to Linux and other free operating systems.
Windows isn't a utility like water or electricity, intended for all; it's a software product designed with several assumptions and target audiences in mind.
XP Pro is intended for SOHO/business users, XP Home is intended for 'pure' home users. Both have limitations on numbers of CPUs and simultaneous console logins. Neither can do load balancing and clustering on your home PCs, or run MS' directory services, etc.
The thing is, if you need to all this on your home PCs or business desktop, you no longer fit the profile of users for who Windows Home/Pro was designed, and you'd be better off running something else, such as Linux.
Inkwell
Rendezvous Expose The Darwin core (and kernel) have both been udpated. Built-in faxing in every application Quartz Extreme
Those are all *pure* OS improvements [...]
Uh, no, not quite.
Inkwell - this can actually be done a third party app, but lets call it an OS-core feature (what the hell, MS calls an instant messenger an OS-core feature, so why should Apple be any less moronic?)
Rendezvous - Shipping stacks for PC/CE hardware, especially in today's fluid market, is hardly OS-core. Even MS added Bluetooth support to XP in an service pack, one didn't have to go out and pay. Windows 2000 has excellent stacks available as well.
Darwin core - and why (putting my user hat on) do I care? You mean to say this OS which I bought for $100 last year, the one which God^[dw Jobs said was the latest and greatest, wasn't really as great as advertised??
Built-in faxing - LOL. Windows 3.1 had this. OS-core? Well, yeah, if OS X's printer subsystem was borked 'til now.
Quartz Extreme - conceded.
> Name *one* of the two paid upgrades, 10.2 or 10.3, that you don't think was "worth it".
Both were, if they were priced at ~$50. Paying $120 every year or so for this level of functionality is not worth worth it (IMO). Windows actually works out cheaper, amazingly enough, and they only assault you with upgrades every 2-3 years or so (if you're on the NT side of things).
Other points:
>Most users don't use Inkwell or a Journaled FS (yet), they still are important additions.
At least those are features which users CAN benefit from, if they use it or even turn it on. Recompiling with gcc 3.1 is behind-the-curtains for users, and means nothing to them apart from the fact that the company which gouges them at each transaction is too cheap to design a compiler for their architecture that can actually deliver good code before the third public release.
>X11 is also highly significant as part of the OS.
Actually, it isn't. Unless you're among the small fraction that uses X apps, in which case a Unix workstation, such as x86 Linux box, would have worked as well for you.
Btw, for the record, I think Macs are great machines -- and OSX is a design marvel: a Unix desktop done right. What I am cribbing about is the cost of the upgrade treadmill -- which IMO is the worst among all platforms today.
Slashdot Mirror
Before Google, I used a metasearch script (and a GUI I wrote myself). For API references, I had the MSDN collection (with decent indexing but lousy search). Inconvenient, but hardly the end of the world.
In fact, not having a freely usable big-ass web index like Google would probably spur greater research into smarter internet search: there was some very promising research done on smart search agents done in the early nineties, and none of them have come into widespread use now. Like any other overly successful tool, Google has in a way killed innovation in search. For example, this discussion seems to be mostly about who can build a better spider, a bigger-assed index and a ranking routine that spammers haven't cracked yet.
I've actually never heard of XAML before, but according to Webopedia, it sounds like the same old crap, once again. :)
I don't think XAML as used in Longhorn (i.e., a declarative presentation language) is the same as Transaction Authority Markup Language. In fact, MS seems to be pulling a Firebird on the XAML guys.
Not to mention that you can't choose where PROGRAMFILES and COMMONFILES go. Sure, TweakUI can change those but by then the damage is already done (unless you mount a new drive as the PROGRAMFILES folder).
And when their work computers get infested with the latest virus and their kids say, "Don't worry, Dad, we don't need Norton Anti-Virus because we have a Mac," the wheels will turn some more.
If he were a smart dad, he'd wonder why it was on sale then.
No, because Windows Update uses an OCX to present much of its UI.
Example: www.466453.com.
Odd. I use plink, Putty's port-forwarding tool, and never had a problem.
plink -L 80:box.tld:80 user@box.tld should forward HTTP just fine.
LOL. I RTFA and it says India became a software outsourcing destination because of *his* policies. Heh. He had nothing to do with it. All the hard work was done by a few entrepreneurs, and Manmohan Singh's "liberalization" policies provided the fillip.
.gov red tape that setting up an industry in India is generally considered to be about as pleasant as a trip to hell and back).
Ah well, I guess one could say the best thing Vajpayee has done for India and software is that he's kept the government out of the software biz's hair (unlike every other Indian industry that's so wound up in
...is number 8 because he's prime minister of India? How did he even contribute to making India a software destination worth considering??
So, assuming a world where software makers are just as liable as automobile makers, if my Redhat box's OpenSSH implementation gets infected with a worm, who do I sue? Redhat or Theo de Raadt? Note that the OpenSSH folk (Theo et al) provided a patch really quickly. Redhat was slower. So-- who is responsible?
Personally, I think legal liability will be much more disastrous for Open-Source vendors than it will be for MS or Sun who make all of their stuff in-house.
Except that if you type in URLs like "www.cbc.ca" into the google toolbar, the browser goes directly to the cbc.ca website (as proved by my firewall logs), and does NOT go through google.
Or try typing "http://www.chaoszone.org/nosuchpage" into the toolbar, you'll see no referer information is passed. The google toolbar BHO asks IE to connect to the URL directly.
Give google at least a little credit for trying to do things right: using the toolbar as a 'enhanced' address bar is perfectly safe. For now, at least.
> It's time for us geeks to belly up to the bar and pay for something that we want.
Assuming that geeks do, there's still a problem -- we're a small part of the population and I'm betting that despite all the good points you raise many will use OpenOffice anyway.
There's a worse issue.
Despite this story talking about "ultra-expensive Office 2003", Microsoft has already reduced prices for Office 2003. Most slashdotters missed this (I submitted a story but it was rejected) but retailers (at least in Europe, from personal experience) are selling Office for as low as $110 to general customers. Here's a News.com story about this -- note it seems to be happening with Microsoft's active encouragement.
Given a choice between a $80 StarOffice and $110 Microsoft Office, I know which one I -- as a rational individual -- would choose.
(And business already get huge discounts on Microsoft software anyway, not to mention the fact that many get Office preloaded when they buy the PC.)
> Learn to search www.google.com
I agree, but the users who need help *the most* don't even know what to search for.
This post should be modded up, it's living proof that a low slashdot uid doesn't stop you from hammering out gibberish.
Several technical people I know would in fact not use bluebottle BECAUSE it uses TMDA.
TMDA is an intarweb-ish hack (and by that I mean it assumes that all email is sent by sentient beings to sentient beings). It stitches on a consent mechanism onto a protocol that is was not designed for that.
If you are worried about spam, there are many more ways of battling it (_and_ complying with the spirit of the RFCs) than TMDA: these include RBLs, bayesian scans at the MTA and at the MUA.
TMDA is no better fundamentally than Verisign's brain-dead act of not sending a NXDOMAIN for nonexistent addresses just so that users can see a freaking *search page*. If hotmail, or yahoo, or any other large email provider switched to TMDA tomorrow, I would expect their userbase to drop in droves.
> http://www.amazon.com/exe .../inertishomepa-20
Good luck to your Amazon Associates account too.
Which of you moderators modded that ad up as Informative??
I think it has something to do with the fact that telnet can be used for a lot of things. I mean you can telnet to an HTTP server, SMTP server, etc
You're confusing telnet-the-app and telnet-the-protocol. When companies block telnet, they usually block telnet-the-protocol. You can still use the app to connect to arbitary port 80s. If you can't, it means http has been blocked as well.
Perhaps they didn't want traffic they couldn't sniff through their network?
> With the way things are going, the whole damn Internet will be running over HTTP soon.
Hell yeah -- you can even tunnel SSH over HTTP these days.
Long live the Intarweb.
OTOH, when using hardware compression, the compression only exists between the modem and the PPP host it connects to (set up during handshaking), so the full 100k of data travels over the wire to the PPP host, and then is compressed and sent to the modem. This is assuming of course that the hardware compression algorithm did not *expand* already compressed files, as was a problem with (IIRC) MNP5 and V.42bis.
If anyone allows clients to access Exchange over the public Net they're asking for it. Outlook Web Access is the way to go for that.
(Or IIRC Exchange 2003+Outlook 2003, which works fully over HTTP without needing OWA.)
XP Pro is intended for SOHO/business users, XP Home is intended for 'pure' home users. Both have limitations on numbers of CPUs and simultaneous console logins. Neither can do load balancing and clustering on your home PCs, or run MS' directory services, etc.
The thing is, if you need to all this on your home PCs or business desktop, you no longer fit the profile of users for who Windows Home/Pro was designed, and you'd be better off running something else, such as Linux.
Inkwell - this can actually be done a third party app, but lets call it an OS-core feature (what the hell, MS calls an instant messenger an OS-core feature, so why should Apple be any less moronic?)
Rendezvous - Shipping stacks for PC/CE hardware, especially in today's fluid market, is hardly OS-core. Even MS added Bluetooth support to XP in an service pack, one didn't have to go out and pay. Windows 2000 has excellent stacks available as well.
Darwin core - and why (putting my user hat on) do I care? You mean to say this OS which I bought for $100 last year, the one which God^[dw Jobs said was the latest and greatest, wasn't really as great as advertised??
Built-in faxing - LOL. Windows 3.1 had this. OS-core? Well, yeah, if OS X's printer subsystem was borked 'til now.
Quartz Extreme - conceded.
> Name *one* of the two paid upgrades, 10.2 or 10.3, that you don't think was "worth it".
Both were, if they were priced at ~$50. Paying $120 every year or so for this level of functionality is not worth worth it (IMO). Windows actually works out cheaper, amazingly enough, and they only assault you with upgrades every 2-3 years or so (if you're on the NT side of things).
Other points:
>Most users don't use Inkwell or a Journaled FS (yet), they still are important additions.
At least those are features which users CAN benefit from, if they use it or even turn it on. Recompiling with gcc 3.1 is behind-the-curtains for users, and means nothing to them apart from the fact that the company which gouges them at each transaction is too cheap to design a compiler for their architecture that can actually deliver good code before the third public release.
>X11 is also highly significant as part of the OS.
Actually, it isn't. Unless you're among the small fraction that uses X apps, in which case a Unix workstation, such as x86 Linux box, would have worked as well for you.
Btw, for the record, I think Macs are great machines -- and OSX is a design marvel: a Unix desktop done right. What I am cribbing about is the cost of the upgrade treadmill -- which IMO is the worst among all platforms today.