IE 9 is not perfect but wouldn't you agree its better than IE 8 and certainly IE 6?
IE 10 will probably rival it. Its javascript is the most conformant of any one according to tests with the lastest. It is not going away and it would be nice if corporations used a somewhat standard compliant browser. For the little amount of code I have made I found only one issue with IE 9 compared to a half a dozen things or quirks IE 8 had. Windows used to suck for developers too 20 years ago. Now it is actually good.
I am just hoping with standard compliant code that intranet and corporate web apps can move to different browsers. These corporations still have not learned from IE 6 and after bashing Firefox for the release cycle particularly *asked* for IE 8 only code. Sigh
Next year when the CEO gets his shiny Ipad the decision maker folks are going to have to answer why it wont work and why its not fancy and pretty in html 5 goodness. Ooops now you are stuck with IE 8.... wait we paid how much last year to upgrade it?!
A standard compliant IE will not have this problem. Webmasters such as yourself wont have to support IE so much either
Have you read about the latest java exploit? Slashdot was hosting it in a malware ad last weekend.
Java is bad and IT should have put the java in the intranet zone only in IE. That is a benefit of IE as well over other browsers for things of that nature
Sounds like the bean counters at your employer had a ball and went overboard.
Hire more people and buy some stickers and scannable asset tags for each monitor and desktop. If you have thousands over many locations now without them, then do it next upgrade cycle. You can scan them into Excel fairly unexpensively too and you just type in the name.
Hire some temps/consultants to help next cycle. You can get a few people for a month or two to do it. If your employer makes hundreds of millions the lose of productivity from a virus or people not getting their word done far outweighs the hassle and cost to migrate.
Keep in mind www.html5test.com test things not even in the proposed w3c spec. It just what some people in mass emailings would think would be cool and what the authors would like to see.
With that in mind IE 9 was made in 2010 where it rivals Firefox 3.6 and my Andriod 2.2 browser with a score of 141. Not too bad, but behind FF and Chrome of 2012.
IE 10 consumer preview scored 370 if I recall which places IE above FF and just below Chrome. Not too shaby considering it was a HUGE PIECE OF CRAP in versions 6 & 7. Microsoft is switching to a yearly release of IE to keep it up and is such the opposite of the days of IE 6. IE 10 will be automatically updated so no stale versions of IE exist outside of work.
CIOs are going to have to get used to updating the browser far more frequently and need to stop freezing their browser and requiring an app for a particular version every 7 years. That just is not going to work anymore in this new series of browser wars.
IE is up to speed as a good browser again and IE 10 will be quite competitive and is already in beta. Great news for webmasters indeed
SQL injections, *root*kits, and php vulnurabilities all target Linux or the LAMP stack. Linux hosts the servers with the fast pipes and the sensitive credit card data. The Windows PCs serve as the bots to launch the attacks
Rootkit can be installed by an exploit. The whole oh just do not be root and click on shit is 1990s security. All you need to do is exploit php or your sql database and I can get your server to run my code and then install the rootkit to hide it.
Its that out of date attitude I am talking about. Windows Server become popular because of security over Unix believe it or not. Until W2k came and discovered it had the same problems because it was also written in C. The same attitude how those Linux servers were comprimised as the admins never updated their servers as they read slashdot comments saying Linux is a magic bullet and can never be hacked.
Of course I do admit this flaw is 1990s common sense security practice not to click on something and run it so it is the fault of the user regardless of the OS.
Do not click on stuff, keep your pc updated, stop using XP and IE 6/7, and run anti virus software and you are pretty secure.
I am sick and tired of this MS FUD.... why do I keep coming here?
Your bias is based on 10 to 15 year old facts on depreciated or nearly depreciated kernels and apis. I think it is a sign of insecurity to blindly follow something when facts are contrary.
Last week a slashdotter said in a straight face that he is waiting for the first ever unix virus as they do not exist and was gloating. I kindly reminded him where did the term root*kit came from? Root sounds like a Linux account if you ask me.
I have seen financial institutions SuSE Enterprise Servers hacked with a rootkit installed running a Russian Phishing scheme. The admins said We use UNIX ITS SECURE bla bla. Sigh.
Back to the topic, Windows 7 supports ASLR, DEP, sandboxing, privilege separation, and other many improvements that I do not see in Linux.
If you know the ram address of a particular.SO in linux you can get it through a buffer overflow. In Windows Vista and higher you can't as the ram address is randomized. Windows has anti virus scanners that actually block malware and shield. Linux does not.
This blind zeolotry reminds me of those who hate evolution so much they make all sorts of crazy theories like people walking with dinosaurs 5,000 years ago and global warming is a hoax etc. This is because they feel threatened their religion and beliefs are somehow under attack by anyone who is not a (R) or evangelical. It is harmful for those in IT who will refuse to take precaution to secure their linux systems.
I have seen malware in ads written in javascript that exploit the flash/java/browser and will run fine under Linux because the exploit is multiplatform. I hope your anti virus is up to date. Oh, thats right Linux which is written in C just like Windows could not possible suffer from buffer overflows, stack smashing, and other things
I do laugh at Linux desktop users who think they are running a more stable, better quality, and desktop friendly OS when they run an update and their video drivers are toasted. The desktop distros are not that great as a single update can hose your system and not work with everything. Which is why Joe Six pack prefers IOS.... however server ones are much morestable and cheaper than Windows. Redhat is one of those that is industrial enterprise tested. It is made for servers and not desktop users. Think racks of servers at ISPs for customers who need a cheap hosting solution with free development tools and great uptime?
Redhat is an enterprise player and is growing very nicely. Apple's growth is coming to an end as all the rich people have their expensive products and the rest can't afford them or already have one.
It will become more relevant in the coming years as desktop apps turn into HTML 5 apps. You need to host the data somewhere. I use WIndows 7 as my primary OS now but run php through a VM. Much less hassle than playing with databases and IIS on my desktop machine.
True if all you do is Java swing apps and.net winforms it is not needed. Those days are coming to an end. Linux is a much better alternative to Windows on the server. I do admit it sucks goatballs on the desktop, but let the ishiny things of IOS take care of that market instead.
Many and I mean many Solaris shops are fuming with steam coming out of their ears with the outrageous licensing and requirements for Oracle Database when all they need is to run some servers and not their crappy RDBMS.
Add to the fact that Oracle is scaring HP customers with Itanium away threatening to cancel support with the whole lawsuit there is making Redhat an attractive alternative to HP-UX.
Sure some Oracle shops maybe using it. But many more who are former Sun shops and even HP shops feel more comfortable with Redhat. Some are switching to Windows but the dumb PHBs already migrated a decade ago and the smart ones know it does not fit the bill for every situation.
Solaris and HP UX are being run into the ground with customers scared of Itanium, and upset that you need a $$$$ Oracle Database license to run Solaris.
Linux is a much easier platform to migrate too.
If it were not for Linux many organizations would be in a pickle over this. Actually if it were not for RedHat as an enteprise tested and supported platform is essential in these envrionments.
I would think Xp embedded and the new Windows Mobile is the prefered platform from MS. CE is or in the process of being depreciated. No sense installing it for new devices as it is being retired.
When people bash Windows they talk about 10 to 15 year old technology and browsers based on their biased hatred. Thats what I am talking about. XP and IE 6 do suck ass in terms of security yet cios think they are just as secure because they receive updates and it feeds the rapid anti ms trolls who are forced to support it. I am saying Windows 7,IE 9, and office 2010 are current and have these feautures. Aslr is experimental and jails are not quite the same thing in BSD land but nice to isolate things. Ms is not crap anymore
I do not know what world you live on but where do you think the term "root"kit came from?
If you guess the account root and its associated Unix then you are correct.
Linux servers are heavily targeted. I met someone who worked at a bank and all their Suse servers were rootkitted with a virus for the sole purpose of hosting a phishing scheme and stolen credit card database. Sure more viruses target windows to steal the information but where do you think they store the stolen information Linux servers.
There are plenty of viruses for Unix operating systems
Please stop this anti MS and how Windows and anything MS is sooo insecure crap. Its getting old.
Windows has been fairly secure for awhile now. Vista/Windows 7 has DEP, ASLR, sandboxing, process and privilege separation, and a very active security team. I do not see these things in other operating systems except maybe VMS.
If you keep seeing infections then please update your 10 year old XP kernel and stop using old versions of java and flash and install an anti virus package. That is how the vast majority of exploits get installed.
So there is an exploit. They are everywhere in this day and age.
If they charge too much they lose money on unsold tickets they purchased. So the market responds.
In an ideal situation no scalpers will exist if the price is right in the first place. They will be enough seats for those who need to go the most. Yes, important people need those seats for Google IO first and a price tag is a great thing for both parties. As software companies should get first priority and its a relief for them that they have a guaranteed seat. Just not for you. That is how economics works.
Australia today is similiar to the US back in the 1990s. Low prices for homes, great economy, low value jobs compensate more with less competition from outsiders etc.
I worked for state governments as well as my ex. We were fine when the crisis hit at first but with no tax revenue we got axed and destitute and never fully recovered. We got divorced as a result with each other blaming the other for spending and not making enough money etc.
It can happen anywhere and if the bond crisis is bad for Australian banks your country will go through something similiar to due to simple economics. Its a pita but life..
I would be starting a Metro/HTML 5 AJAX gui front end of your app soon. This summer at latest.
Your customers directors, managers, CIOs, and others will be using Windows 8 tablets, Iphones, and Andriod devices to view their web apps and to get work done. If you are not ready you will be left behind by a competitor. If you must insist on win32 at least try to Metrosize it. Whether we like it or not explorer.exe is going away for Metro. Your costs to your employer will be sunk as you will be working on a dead project. Windows 7 will probably be used for many years in the enterprise but the trend is towards HTML 5 and it will only accelerate.
In terms of supporting 10 year old operating systems and browsers...
XP is not going to be around forever and it is astounding it still is being used in corporate America today. It is dying fast and the acceleration is going up. 2011 saw a doubling of marketshare and many are enteprise users. g.statcounter.com has interesting statistics if you look in USA on a day to day basis of operating system usage. XP spikes during the weekday as does IE. These users are already switching to Windows 7 or in the early planning and implementation stages.
Your customers are leaving XP as I type this in record numbers. A year from now the last clients will be putting the nails in the coffin and I doubt if VS 2012 can even run on XP??
What will you do with that old code?
CIOS are tired of old decade old stuff that can't be upgraded as evident with being stuck with IE 6. They wont make the same mistake again. Trust me. A html 5 standards app or METRO wont have that issue and can be more easily ported to IOS or Andriod.
The owners would sell tickets at a much lower price long before the game. Then right before the game starts they would jerk up the rates and sometimes refuse to broadcast a game on TV until more people would come to the game to pay for an inflated ticket.
Scalpers ended this abuse by buying them when they are cheap and when the owners jerked up the prices the scalpers would sell the same tickets for cheaper. More seats were filled too which meant more consumers were able to watch the game rather than the owners trying to be greedy. A win for them.
Remember if scalpers charge too much no one will buy them and everyone loses.
Forgot a *not* in the internet was not a big deal like it is today.
Most people still used dial up prodigy, AOL, and MSN to connect and the world wide web looked like craigslist and mindspring.
IE 9 is an ok browser. IE 10 will be very competitive against Chrome and FF. The latest consumer preview of Windows 8 shows its html5test.com score between Chrome and FF 11. Not too shabby, not to mention its javascript is the most compliant of any browser according to javascript conformance test.
IE 6 was a great and standards compliant browser... in 2001.
IE 6 meant you could use CSS, integrate it with AD/IIS for things like employee logins, had fast graphics, etc. It is just very old and silly to use today. If you go under hall of fame on slashdot and read the most popular stories of all time someone asked "What is keeping you on Windows?"
IE 6 was one of the most common answers and how it was such a great browser. Netscape was terrible and so was Mozilla (before Firefox) if you ever think IE 6 was buggy. People tend to remember the good things about the past like their high paying jobs, good economy, IT being respected vs a cost center, and the birth of the.com.
What they do not remember was all the websites looking like shit similiar to craigslist. Go google Yahoo from 2000 screenshots? Looks like mindspring of old.
IE 6 bugs were introduced because it was rushed and many of the developers did not like CSS on the IE team as they viewed it as a threat to MSN. Back in those days the internet was a big deal like today as people prefered AOL and online communities. It was not the same as today. CSS was partially implemented and it did have less bugs than Netscape. MS needed it finished to kill Netscape and have a browser ready for XP.
MS did not have the intention to be evil with it. They wanted client win32 apps instead and feared the web and AOL. Anyway those days are long gone.
This and the parents post shows that any corporation is good and evil. Anyone including even Google can be evil when they gain too much power and will be good when they have to compete. Apple was such a good company that fought for the ideals of opensource and for the good of the user at one time. Today they are assholes once they got handed the keys. MS was less evil at the time than Apple is today. Google is making Chrome proprietary with dart, SPDY, and javascript extensions. Remember that post a year ago here on that band playing with advanced video effects on HTML 5? Oops it only ran on Chrome. Hmm why is that?
I wish C# was more cross platform. But it is so tied into Windows because thats what it was developed for. If the DOJ split MS up in an alternative universe I would bet VS would be available for Mac and Linux as well.
The best thing to do is let the free market take care of this.
For a software company like Zyanga who wants to port games to ChromeStore and Android a $800 ticket for each employee would be a godsend and would not be resented at all. The price is worth it to guarantee its place and well worth the ROI.
True the college kid looking for his free phone might be pissed. But who should gain that valuable limited resource? Someone who is going to make money, provide a service, and create jobs, or the kid who wants a free phone and play with some code for his phone for fun?
Scalpers correct the free market. Baseball and NFL owners tried to sell a small amount of tickets at first and then sky rocket the rates when seats become crowded. Scalpers quickly corrected this inefficiency to better the consumer.
My college level economics textbook had a figure about ticket scalpers.
They are the free market response. Baseball and football owners tried to distort the free market will on the consumers to their own benefit with limiting tickets on purpose then release them right before the game for a MUCH higher price when seats were limited.
Scalpers caught on and cheated them at their own game. It is a win for the consumer agaisn't this practice. The free market worked in their favor agaisnt the owners. In this case the opposite happened and Google charged too little and gave away free shit. It is not fair for the important people read *people like Zyanga* or some other software company who a $600 ticket is well investment vs a college kid who went to get a free phone etc. It would not be fair for the company to miss out on the limited resource
For a filtering mechanism and another way to weed out candidates.
First facebook logins and now this. Sigh
Basically if the candidate looks down he is either lying or not confident. If it is a woman if she doesn't move her lips that much when answering a question she is lying or irritated. Another way to drop a candidate out. etc.
They annoy me as you can hire people who big smiles and huge personalities, but are all ego maniacs and might now know their job that well. It is bullshit.
FYI a little hint is if you smile and stair into the camera and do not move and sell yourself you can ace these interviews easily. Just do not act naturally. This is another reason besides facebook checking, IQ tests, insuring currently employed only, and psychological profiling is just a waste of time for HR powerfreaks.
The US government did not, but the Chinese government cracked corporate laptops and infected them with malware at customs. Today they have a no laptop policy when traveling out of the country as the hacking did not start with even their termostats and printers using Chinese IP addresses until one of their executives flew to China for a conference.
If I were doing business in China, I would buy my routers here and fly them and use only US contractors to install them as I would assume it would be rootkitted. Same with servers etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Anybody who gets this upset about a browser has got serious issues. Really man, breath.....
Apparently you never had to write code for IE 6.
If you do not have serious issues before hand you will very quickly
IE 9 is not perfect but wouldn't you agree its better than IE 8 and certainly IE 6?
IE 10 will probably rival it. Its javascript is the most conformant of any one according to tests with the lastest. It is not going away and it would be nice if corporations used a somewhat standard compliant browser. For the little amount of code I have made I found only one issue with IE 9 compared to a half a dozen things or quirks IE 8 had. Windows used to suck for developers too 20 years ago. Now it is actually good.
I am just hoping with standard compliant code that intranet and corporate web apps can move to different browsers. These corporations still have not learned from IE 6 and after bashing Firefox for the release cycle particularly *asked* for IE 8 only code. Sigh
Next year when the CEO gets his shiny Ipad the decision maker folks are going to have to answer why it wont work and why its not fancy and pretty in html 5 goodness. Ooops now you are stuck with IE 8 .... wait we paid how much last year to upgrade it?!
A standard compliant IE will not have this problem. Webmasters such as yourself wont have to support IE so much either
Have you read about the latest java exploit? Slashdot was hosting it in a malware ad last weekend.
Java is bad and IT should have put the java in the intranet zone only in IE. That is a benefit of IE as well over other browsers for things of that nature
Sounds like the bean counters at your employer had a ball and went overboard.
Hire more people and buy some stickers and scannable asset tags for each monitor and desktop. If you have thousands over many locations now without them, then do it next upgrade cycle. You can scan them into Excel fairly unexpensively too and you just type in the name.
Hire some temps/consultants to help next cycle. You can get a few people for a month or two to do it. If your employer makes hundreds of millions the lose of productivity from a virus or people not getting their word done far outweighs the hassle and cost to migrate.
Keep in mind www.html5test.com test things not even in the proposed w3c spec. It just what some people in mass emailings would think would be cool and what the authors would like to see.
With that in mind IE 9 was made in 2010 where it rivals Firefox 3.6 and my Andriod 2.2 browser with a score of 141. Not too bad, but behind FF and Chrome of 2012.
IE 10 consumer preview scored 370 if I recall which places IE above FF and just below Chrome. Not too shaby considering it was a HUGE PIECE OF CRAP in versions 6 & 7. Microsoft is switching to a yearly release of IE to keep it up and is such the opposite of the days of IE 6. IE 10 will be automatically updated so no stale versions of IE exist outside of work.
CIOs are going to have to get used to updating the browser far more frequently and need to stop freezing their browser and requiring an app for a particular version every 7 years. That just is not going to work anymore in this new series of browser wars.
IE is up to speed as a good browser again and IE 10 will be quite competitive and is already in beta. Great news for webmasters indeed
Tons of malware target Linux.
SQL injections, *root*kits, and php vulnurabilities all target Linux or the LAMP stack. Linux hosts the servers with the fast pipes and the sensitive credit card data. The Windows PCs serve as the bots to launch the attacks
Rootkit can be installed by an exploit. The whole oh just do not be root and click on shit is 1990s security. All you need to do is exploit php or your sql database and I can get your server to run my code and then install the rootkit to hide it.
Its that out of date attitude I am talking about. Windows Server become popular because of security over Unix believe it or not. Until W2k came and discovered it had the same problems because it was also written in C. The same attitude how those Linux servers were comprimised as the admins never updated their servers as they read slashdot comments saying Linux is a magic bullet and can never be hacked.
Of course I do admit this flaw is 1990s common sense security practice not to click on something and run it so it is the fault of the user regardless of the OS.
Do not click on stuff, keep your pc updated, stop using XP and IE 6/7, and run anti virus software and you are pretty secure.
I am sick and tired of this MS FUD. ... why do I keep coming here?
Your bias is based on 10 to 15 year old facts on depreciated or nearly depreciated kernels and apis. I think it is a sign of insecurity to blindly follow something when facts are contrary.
Last week a slashdotter said in a straight face that he is waiting for the first ever unix virus as they do not exist and was gloating. I kindly reminded him where did the term root*kit came from? Root sounds like a Linux account if you ask me.
I have seen financial institutions SuSE Enterprise Servers hacked with a rootkit installed running a Russian Phishing scheme. The admins said We use UNIX ITS SECURE bla bla. Sigh.
Back to the topic, Windows 7 supports ASLR, DEP, sandboxing, privilege separation, and other many improvements that I do not see in Linux.
If you know the ram address of a particular .SO in linux you can get it through a buffer overflow. In Windows Vista and higher you can't as the ram address is randomized. Windows has anti virus scanners that actually block malware and shield. Linux does not.
This blind zeolotry reminds me of those who hate evolution so much they make all sorts of crazy theories like people walking with dinosaurs 5,000 years ago and global warming is a hoax etc. This is because they feel threatened their religion and beliefs are somehow under attack by anyone who is not a (R) or evangelical. It is harmful for those in IT who will refuse to take precaution to secure their linux systems.
I have seen malware in ads written in javascript that exploit the flash/java/browser and will run fine under Linux because the exploit is multiplatform. I hope your anti virus is up to date. Oh, thats right Linux which is written in C just like Windows could not possible suffer from buffer overflows, stack smashing, and other things
This isn't Ubuntu.
I do laugh at Linux desktop users who think they are running a more stable, better quality, and desktop friendly OS when they run an update and their video drivers are toasted. The desktop distros are not that great as a single update can hose your system and not work with everything. Which is why Joe Six pack prefers IOS. ... however server ones are much morestable and cheaper than Windows. Redhat is one of those that is industrial enterprise tested. It is made for servers and not desktop users. Think racks of servers at ISPs for customers who need a cheap hosting solution with free development tools and great uptime?
Redhat is an enterprise player and is growing very nicely. Apple's growth is coming to an end as all the rich people have their expensive products and the rest can't afford them or already have one.
I use Linux as a software developer platform.
It will become more relevant in the coming years as desktop apps turn into HTML 5 apps. You need to host the data somewhere. I use WIndows 7 as my primary OS now but run php through a VM. Much less hassle than playing with databases and IIS on my desktop machine.
True if all you do is Java swing apps and .net winforms it is not needed. Those days are coming to an end. Linux is a much better alternative to Windows on the server. I do admit it sucks goatballs on the desktop, but let the ishiny things of IOS take care of that market instead.
Many and I mean many Solaris shops are fuming with steam coming out of their ears with the outrageous licensing and requirements for Oracle Database when all they need is to run some servers and not their crappy RDBMS.
Add to the fact that Oracle is scaring HP customers with Itanium away threatening to cancel support with the whole lawsuit there is making Redhat an attractive alternative to HP-UX.
Sure some Oracle shops maybe using it. But many more who are former Sun shops and even HP shops feel more comfortable with Redhat. Some are switching to Windows but the dumb PHBs already migrated a decade ago and the smart ones know it does not fit the bill for every situation.
Solaris and HP UX are being run into the ground with customers scared of Itanium, and upset that you need a $$$$ Oracle Database license to run Solaris.
Linux is a much easier platform to migrate too.
If it were not for Linux many organizations would be in a pickle over this. Actually if it were not for RedHat as an enteprise tested and supported platform is essential in these envrionments.
I would think Xp embedded and the new Windows Mobile is the prefered platform from MS. CE is or in the process of being depreciated. No sense installing it for new devices as it is being retired.
No.
When people bash Windows they talk about 10 to 15 year old technology and browsers based on their biased hatred. Thats what I am talking about. XP and IE 6 do suck ass in terms of security yet cios think they are just as secure because they receive updates and it feeds the rapid anti ms trolls who are forced to support it. I am saying Windows 7,IE 9, and office 2010 are current and have these feautures. Aslr is experimental and jails are not quite the same thing in BSD land but nice to isolate things. Ms is not crap anymore
I do not know what world you live on but where do you think the term "root"kit came from?
If you guess the account root and its associated Unix then you are correct.
Linux servers are heavily targeted. I met someone who worked at a bank and all their Suse servers were rootkitted with a virus for the sole purpose of hosting a phishing scheme and stolen credit card database. Sure more viruses target windows to steal the information but where do you think they store the stolen information Linux servers.
There are plenty of viruses for Unix operating systems
Please stop this anti MS and how Windows and anything MS is sooo insecure crap. Its getting old.
Windows has been fairly secure for awhile now. Vista/Windows 7 has DEP, ASLR, sandboxing, process and privilege separation, and a very active security team. I do not see these things in other operating systems except maybe VMS.
If you keep seeing infections then please update your 10 year old XP kernel and stop using old versions of java and flash and install an anti virus package. That is how the vast majority of exploits get installed.
So there is an exploit. They are everywhere in this day and age.
If they charge too much they lose money on unsold tickets they purchased. So the market responds.
In an ideal situation no scalpers will exist if the price is right in the first place. They will be enough seats for those who need to go the most. Yes, important people need those seats for Google IO first and a price tag is a great thing for both parties. As software companies should get first priority and its a relief for them that they have a guaranteed seat. Just not for you. That is how economics works.
Australia today is similiar to the US back in the 1990s. Low prices for homes, great economy, low value jobs compensate more with less competition from outsiders etc.
I worked for state governments as well as my ex. We were fine when the crisis hit at first but with no tax revenue we got axed and destitute and never fully recovered. We got divorced as a result with each other blaming the other for spending and not making enough money etc.
It can happen anywhere and if the bond crisis is bad for Australian banks your country will go through something similiar to due to simple economics. Its a pita but life..
I would be starting a Metro/HTML 5 AJAX gui front end of your app soon. This summer at latest.
Your customers directors, managers, CIOs, and others will be using Windows 8 tablets, Iphones, and Andriod devices to view their web apps and to get work done. If you are not ready you will be left behind by a competitor. If you must insist on win32 at least try to Metrosize it. Whether we like it or not explorer.exe is going away for Metro. Your costs to your employer will be sunk as you will be working on a dead project. Windows 7 will probably be used for many years in the enterprise but the trend is towards HTML 5 and it will only accelerate.
In terms of supporting 10 year old operating systems and browsers ...
XP is not going to be around forever and it is astounding it still is being used in corporate America today. It is dying fast and the acceleration is going up. 2011 saw a doubling of marketshare and many are enteprise users. g.statcounter.com has interesting statistics if you look in USA on a day to day basis of operating system usage. XP spikes during the weekday as does IE. These users are already switching to Windows 7 or in the early planning and implementation stages.
Your customers are leaving XP as I type this in record numbers. A year from now the last clients will be putting the nails in the coffin and I doubt if VS 2012 can even run on XP??
What will you do with that old code?
CIOS are tired of old decade old stuff that can't be upgraded as evident with being stuck with IE 6. They wont make the same mistake again. Trust me. A html 5 standards app or METRO wont have that issue and can be more easily ported to IOS or Andriod.
The owners would sell tickets at a much lower price long before the game. Then right before the game starts they would jerk up the rates and sometimes refuse to broadcast a game on TV until more people would come to the game to pay for an inflated ticket.
Scalpers ended this abuse by buying them when they are cheap and when the owners jerked up the prices the scalpers would sell the same tickets for cheaper. More seats were filled too which meant more consumers were able to watch the game rather than the owners trying to be greedy. A win for them.
Remember if scalpers charge too much no one will buy them and everyone loses.
Forgot a *not* in the internet was not a big deal like it is today.
Most people still used dial up prodigy, AOL, and MSN to connect and the world wide web looked like craigslist and mindspring.
IE 9 is an ok browser. IE 10 will be very competitive against Chrome and FF. The latest consumer preview of Windows 8 shows its html5test.com score between Chrome and FF 11. Not too shabby, not to mention its javascript is the most compliant of any browser according to javascript conformance test.
IE 6 was a great and standards compliant browser ... in 2001.
IE 6 meant you could use CSS, integrate it with AD/IIS for things like employee logins, had fast graphics, etc. It is just very old and silly to use today. If you go under hall of fame on slashdot and read the most popular stories of all time someone asked "What is keeping you on Windows?"
IE 6 was one of the most common answers and how it was such a great browser. Netscape was terrible and so was Mozilla (before Firefox) if you ever think IE 6 was buggy. People tend to remember the good things about the past like their high paying jobs, good economy, IT being respected vs a cost center, and the birth of the .com.
What they do not remember was all the websites looking like shit similiar to craigslist. Go google Yahoo from 2000 screenshots? Looks like mindspring of old.
IE 6 bugs were introduced because it was rushed and many of the developers did not like CSS on the IE team as they viewed it as a threat to MSN. Back in those days the internet was a big deal like today as people prefered AOL and online communities. It was not the same as today. CSS was partially implemented and it did have less bugs than Netscape. MS needed it finished to kill Netscape and have a browser ready for XP.
MS did not have the intention to be evil with it. They wanted client win32 apps instead and feared the web and AOL. Anyway those days are long gone.
This and the parents post shows that any corporation is good and evil. Anyone including even Google can be evil when they gain too much power and will be good when they have to compete. Apple was such a good company that fought for the ideals of opensource and for the good of the user at one time. Today they are assholes once they got handed the keys. MS was less evil at the time than Apple is today. Google is making Chrome proprietary with dart, SPDY, and javascript extensions. Remember that post a year ago here on that band playing with advanced video effects on HTML 5? Oops it only ran on Chrome. Hmm why is that?
I wish C# was more cross platform. But it is so tied into Windows because thats what it was developed for. If the DOJ split MS up in an alternative universe I would bet VS would be available for Mac and Linux as well.
The best thing to do is let the free market take care of this.
For a software company like Zyanga who wants to port games to ChromeStore and Android a $800 ticket for each employee would be a godsend and would not be resented at all. The price is worth it to guarantee its place and well worth the ROI.
True the college kid looking for his free phone might be pissed. But who should gain that valuable limited resource? Someone who is going to make money, provide a service, and create jobs, or the kid who wants a free phone and play with some code for his phone for fun?
Scalpers correct the free market. Baseball and NFL owners tried to sell a small amount of tickets at first and then sky rocket the rates when seats become crowded. Scalpers quickly corrected this inefficiency to better the consumer.
My college level economics textbook had a figure about ticket scalpers.
They are the free market response. Baseball and football owners tried to distort the free market will on the consumers to their own benefit with limiting tickets on purpose then release them right before the game for a MUCH higher price when seats were limited.
Scalpers caught on and cheated them at their own game. It is a win for the consumer agaisn't this practice. The free market worked in their favor agaisnt the owners. In this case the opposite happened and Google charged too little and gave away free shit. It is not fair for the important people read *people like Zyanga* or some other software company who a $600 ticket is well investment vs a college kid who went to get a free phone etc. It would not be fair for the company to miss out on the limited resource
For a filtering mechanism and another way to weed out candidates.
First facebook logins and now this. Sigh
Basically if the candidate looks down he is either lying or not confident. If it is a woman if she doesn't move her lips that much when answering a question she is lying or irritated. Another way to drop a candidate out. etc.
They annoy me as you can hire people who big smiles and huge personalities, but are all ego maniacs and might now know their job that well. It is bullshit.
FYI a little hint is if you smile and stair into the camera and do not move and sell yourself you can ace these interviews easily. Just do not act naturally. This is another reason besides facebook checking, IQ tests, insuring currently employed only, and psychological profiling is just a waste of time for HR powerfreaks.
In truth go Google Department of Commerce hacked?
The US government did not, but the Chinese government cracked corporate laptops and infected them with malware at customs. Today they have a no laptop policy when traveling out of the country as the hacking did not start with even their termostats and printers using Chinese IP addresses until one of their executives flew to China for a conference.
If I were doing business in China, I would buy my routers here and fly them and use only US contractors to install them as I would assume it would be rootkitted. Same with servers etc.
It is insane