It seems to me, from my experience with Mozilla, that after 4 years and starting from scratch, it has nearly reached the quality and usability of Netscape 4.7x. I have yet to see any really major feature enhancements (besides tabbed browsing and support for multiple mixed - IMAP, POP3 - email accounts) that would prompt me to replace IE with it as my or my company's default browser or replace Netscape 4.7x as our default email client. And it is still too darn slow!
I've had IE5, Netscape 4.7x and Mozilla on my desktop for almost two years now. IE is our corporate standard, so I only use it when forced by certain web pages. Until the middle of this year, Netscape was my day-to-day browser. I would load a Mozilla nightly or milestone on a regular basis, but found that it was a bit too buggy and unstable to meet my needs. I was waiting for the day when Mozilla was ready.
That day came in early August with the release of 0.9.3. Ever since, I've been using a version of Mozilla as my default browser, with no problems. Sites that are "optimized" for IE load just fine, and I grit my teeth when I have to go back to Netscape (regression testing, dont' you know). In fact, I've been so damn pleased that I decided to skip 0.9.5, wait for 0.9.6 (downloading right now) and continue running a nightly instead (20010928-09-trunk, to be exact). Sure, there were bug fixes, feature enahancements and performance imporvements that I didn't get, but what I'm running right now worked great. When you skip an application upgrade because you don't see the need, then you have a good appliction on your hands.
Mozilla is a good application that I'm going to push as our new corporate standard.
The name change thing was sort of a joke. See, I don't remember the airhead's name, so I just refer to her with a different airhead-ish name each time.
Well, not mine, really. A friend's story, but I always had a bit more respect for the man after hearing this...
Many years ago, like nine or ten years ago, my friend Kristen and I were working at the Renassiance Pleasure Faire in Novato, California. One weekend, we were totaly rained out, but the faire was not cancelled until the morning, so the camping area was packed with tents full of surly ren geeks.
There is a terrifying intersect of the Ren Faire and Star Trek Geeks. I remember one evening where a whole slew of Ren Geeks were gathered around a big screen TV in front of a booth, watching the season premire of TNG. Keep in mind that they had to cart in their own power and satelite to make this happen.
Anyways, Kristen is sleeping off the previous night's debauch, when she is awoken by some little blond thing with the name of Cyndi or something like that. Kimmi is breathlessly repeating "Wil Wheaton's here!" with an odd squeak every time she says Wheaton. After a few moments of this, Candi manages to get out, "come meet him!" Kristen, a rare faire geek in that she does not like ST, still manges to drag her hung over butt out of the tent and starts her Wil Wheaton quest.
After a bit of walking, they come to a grey van that Wil is shaking. One gathers it is to wake the occupents (perhaps to go into town for breakfast?). Candi blurts out "Wil this is my friend Kristen." Wil turns to the duo, says "Hi," Kristen responds "Hi." and then Wil goes back to shaking the van. Kristen returns to bed.
My respect for Wil Wheaton shot through the roof after the hearing that story. The reasons:
1: Many actors who worked faire have tried their best to distance themselves from faire. Those of us who act at the event take pride in what we do, and are bit annoyed by those who try to hide from that bit of their acting past. The fact that Wil not only visited the faire, but appeard to come back as a participant makes him a first class guy in my book.
2: I don't know what he said to Misty when she meet him, but it was something that made her feel that she could approach him again. Nice attitude for the fans, particulary when he did not appear to be at his best.
3: He didn't seem to take offense at the fact that Kristen was underwhelmed to meet him. When he says that he does not consider himself a celeb, I beleive him.
Wil Wheaton is alright, and someone I would enjoy acting with.
Eric
former puritan, RPFS and RPFN
current master of the revels, RPFN
Won't happen. From my experience, most of the folks on Slashdot tend to have a Libratarian slant to their polictics: no unions, business is good, goverment bad. That sort of thing.
The problem is that most of the real world allies for a DMCA fight tend to be progressive in politics, with the ACLU being the most obvious example.
Seems to me that FedEx and UPS are already in violation of this statute. I would guess that the reason that no one has attempted to take on first class mail service has more to do with profit margins then anything else.
Remember, the main goal of the USPS is to deliver the mail, not to turn a major profit. I imagine that FedEx and UPS have looked at the economics of taking on first class service, and determined that there is not enough money to be made.
While I appluad Rob's efforts, he still faces an uphill battle to get smaller news sites the recognition they deserve. The biggest roadblock is not the large fee, but rather the judges and screeners. The Judges from last year:
Tom Goldstein, dean, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism (co-chair)
Rich Jaroslovsky, president, Online News Association & managing editor, The Wall Street Journal Online (co-chair)
Kurt Andersen, co-founder and contributor, Inside.com and Inside Magazine
Merrill Brown, editor-in-chief, MSNBC.com
Red Burns, chair, Interactive Telecommunications Program at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University
Bill Kovach, chairman, Committee of Concerned Journalists
David Laventhol, publisher, Columbia Journalism Review
Jacqueline Leo, vice president and editorial director, Meredith Interactive
Walt Mossberg, personal technology columnist, The Wall Street Journal
Stephen Shepard, editor-in-chief, Business Week
E.R. Shipp, Columbia journalism professor and columnist, the New York Daily News
Six of the the judges are from large media outlets. This large media bias becomes more pronounced when you look at the list of screeners. These are the folks who select the web sites for consideration by the judges. ABC News, AOL-Time-Warner, Knigh-Ridder, NBC and Microsoft owned media appear to have the largest reresentation. In addition, there are the other big media usual suspects: Fox, Bloomberg, NY Times, LA Times, CBS, Hearst, etc. You get the idea.
Given big media's open hostility to on-line and independent journalism, why should we expect this collection of judges and screeners to be receptive to news sources that raise questions about the relevance and supremecy of the media conglomerates?
I find it real hard to have sympathy for someone who thought the money would flow forever. How come a person making $100,000 a year did not save enough money to live without a job for three months? Take home pay for such a person is about $5k a month. Assuming that they are paying the $2k in Bay Area rent, what the hell did they do with the other $3k?
eric
Re:Well, I see the usual anti-union bushwah
on
IT Unions?
·
· Score: 1
Who the fuck would want to buy stock in a company that has a union?
A smart investor? Some of the most profitable companies in the world have union workforces.
And here we see the point: most people don't understand what the hell they are talking about. Federal tax brackets are designed to tax portions of your income at vaious levels. So, some of your income is not taxed, some is taxed at 15%, etc. As an example, I am in the top tax bracket, but only paid 22% of my income in federal taxes. Also, that sales tax is on goods purchased. As you make more money, sales tax represents a smaller percentage of your overall tax burden.
Thus the hack: it is an attempt to give people the opprotunity to learn more about the world around them and how various corporations operate.
it's about the 'Main Street' retailers not being able to maintain their profit margins on items
No, it is about them not being able to compete with the on-line retailers. Local booksellers don't get the deep discount that Amazon or B&N pry's from publishers. So, US$100 worth of books will cost US$70 - US$80 on line. Tack on the US$9 in taxes for the local store, and the price difference becomes dramatic, even with the cost of shipping added. Forcing on-line retailers to collect sales taxes allows the local retailer to compete again.
If this passes, the computer and internet industries will follow Nasdaq
Ummm... the computer and internet industries ARE Nasdaq.
As a person who has far-left opinions (read: progressive) I would say that the majority on/. is anything but far-left. But this does re-enforce the idea that this poster is making: how do you moderate opinion? Since confilicting views are necessary to have a productive dialogue, this is something that should be addressed.
My experience on/. is that a certain slant will start to appear in a discussion, be it liberal or conservaitve, then this slant is made more pronounced by the moderation system. Opposing views never get moderated up enough. The impact is two fold: those with opposing views stop posting; and moderators stop using their moderating points on the conflicting posts, since they have litte chance of moderating a post to visiblity.
I've never visited half-empty before, but I'm looking forward to see how they solve the problems. Hopefully, some of the ideas can be used on/.
It fits on Slashdot, but look at the graphic from King. They call it "Breaking News." This is breaking news?
Breaking news should be big. Something that matters. A 9 foot hunk of steel being moved to an island is not big.
You'd think with all that cash floating around up there, they could afford some real reporters.
It is obvious that you are done with this company. Making counter threats does nothing for you except piss off management even more. Your best solution is to see if you can do the job on an interim basis. Then during that time, find another job. Now, your bosses are happy. You can take the time to find your next dream job. Also, you might be able to work with managemnt to make your current job more palatable.
I run it on a P200 at home. It is far from painful. Indeed, I do most of my browsing with the Lizard.
Try grabbing a recent nightly build and gave it a try.
I like this roadmap. While it will not please the nay-sayers who want something out right now, it does show that they have thought about what they are doing. Quaterly releases are perfect: the product is updated in a manner that keeps it on everyone's radar, without forcing them to rush stuff out the door.
How long before Slashdot gets shutdown becasue the editors don't do any fact checking? I don't think it would be out of line for Compaq to go after Slashdot because of damage to their good name. Further, Slashdot is also indirectly the cause of any abuse that Compaq employees may have recieved. Also, it is appearant that folks are not taking Slashdot seriously, which is making the signal to noise ratio worse. Throw in the fact that Slashdot is owned by VA Linux (right, that will not impact the editoral content) and the whole thing looks like it has little life left.
The sad thing is, there is no excuse. The principal editors are rich, and work full time on the site. VA Linux has more then a few dollars lying around. Both the time and the money exist to do a little fact checking. Yet they don't. I, for one, am puzzled by this.
I used to be happy to point people to Slashdot. Now, I'm embarassed. Slashdot is becoming a laughing stock. If the editors of Slashdot don't take the site seriously, who will?
B&N's web site does not benefit from CA services in any way
It doesn't? I suppose the books just magicly appear after the sale is completed.
The B&N web site does benefit from California services. They utilize the road system that is paid with state and local taxes. Without this state funded system, they would find it difficult to conduct business in the state of California. It is not unreasonable to expect to pay for this service.
When I send a paper letter to you, does your company have people who review every letter which is received or sent?
No, I'm certain the paper mail is simply delivered to your desk.
Not at my company. We are heavily regulated by the goverement, so most paper mail that goes in and out of the compnay is scrutinzed very closely.
The responsibility with paper mail is with the individuals.
Why change things for electronic mail?
Because, unlike paper mail, electronic mail can last forever. It is very easy for me to write a letter by hand, then send it away with instructions to be destroyed by the recepient. The only copy is gone, with no record that it ever existed.
Email is different. All those bits get backed up on a regualt basis, and then can be used in a court of law. I offer Microsoft as an example of this. What might seem like a personal message, could have significance in a harssment or wrongful termination case.
I read a wonderful book (the author's name escapes me) where he suggested that there will never be more then one planet in the galaxy that is capable of acheiveing near relativistic speeds. The reason is that the species would destroy any other species in a pre-emptive defensive strike. Destroy the other species before they destroy you with a relativistic attack.
Take a big rock, about the size of a bus. Accelerate it to near relativistic speed. Point it at a planet. Watch the pretty light show. Throw ten of these rocks, a couple of hours apart, and destroy all life on the planet.
The nasty thing aobut this attack, is there is no defense. Since the rock is moving almost as fast as it's own image, it arrives when it is first detected.
The reason we have never been contacted is because we have not acheived the ablity to push things real fast. If it looks like we are able to do that, then our first contact may be our last.
I noticed in the article that part of the research was done at amazon. The researcher conducted a search based on "productivity applications" and a list was returned with totaled some 8,000 apps. Not to defend Microsoft, but that does exclude the large number of applications that are targeted for other users: games, music, general entertainment, educational, graphics, communications, etc. While I don't think that this comes anywhere near 70,000 apps, that has got to take the total well past 10,000.
If there is a genre that has taken a big hit in quality, it is the sports sim. the best baseball sim ever published was Earl Weaver Baseball. Sure, it had horrible graphics, but it did a damn fine job of simulating individual games and full seasons. The stats and game play were realisitic.
Now, like every other genre, the focus is on high end graphics and killer sounds. Someone hits 100 home runs? Who cares! The player looks great doing it. Game after game after game without a single foul ball? No problem, I've great sound cranking out of my speakers.
Blah!
The mass market sucks the life out of everything. The only good game on the market is from an independent publisher/designer. Which is fine. I just keeping wishing that the big boys would spend some money on a qaulity sim engine, and not just the graphics.
There is also a big impact here for Mozilla. Although there was no mention made in the articles, I think it is safe to say that Mozilla will be a big part of this package. Mozilla/Gecko has a shot at some serious market share in a very short time. And, if it is the default browser in AOL 6...
I really wish slashdot folks would make up their mind about how they feel about Suck. Suck is loved or hated depending upon whose sacred cow is being gored.
Slashdot Mirror
Sophos may have a better product, but they don't sell to the consumer market. Symantec and McAfee have that market pretty locked up, don't they?
If you are a home user you have two choices: accept the fact that you are not protected from this Trojan, or do without virus protection altogether.
Great choice, no?
It seems to me, from my experience with Mozilla, that after 4 years and starting from scratch, it has nearly reached the quality and usability of Netscape 4.7x. I have yet to see any really major feature enhancements (besides tabbed browsing and support for multiple mixed - IMAP, POP3 - email accounts) that would prompt me to replace IE with it as my or my company's default browser or replace Netscape 4.7x as our default email client. And it is still too darn slow!
I've had IE5, Netscape 4.7x and Mozilla on my desktop for almost two years now. IE is our corporate standard, so I only use it when forced by certain web pages. Until the middle of this year, Netscape was my day-to-day browser. I would load a Mozilla nightly or milestone on a regular basis, but found that it was a bit too buggy and unstable to meet my needs. I was waiting for the day when Mozilla was ready.
That day came in early August with the release of 0.9.3. Ever since, I've been using a version of Mozilla as my default browser, with no problems. Sites that are "optimized" for IE load just fine, and I grit my teeth when I have to go back to Netscape (regression testing, dont' you know). In fact, I've been so damn pleased that I decided to skip 0.9.5, wait for 0.9.6 (downloading right now) and continue running a nightly instead (20010928-09-trunk, to be exact). Sure, there were bug fixes, feature enahancements and performance imporvements that I didn't get, but what I'm running right now worked great. When you skip an application upgrade because you don't see the need, then you have a good appliction on your hands.
Mozilla is a good application that I'm going to push as our new corporate standard.
eric
The name change thing was sort of a joke. See, I don't remember the airhead's name, so I just refer to her with a different airhead-ish name each time.
I suppose I shouldn't have done that.
eric
Well, not mine, really. A friend's story, but I always had a bit more respect for the man after hearing this...
Many years ago, like nine or ten years ago, my friend Kristen and I were working at the Renassiance Pleasure Faire in Novato, California. One weekend, we were totaly rained out, but the faire was not cancelled until the morning, so the camping area was packed with tents full of surly ren geeks.
There is a terrifying intersect of the Ren Faire and Star Trek Geeks. I remember one evening where a whole slew of Ren Geeks were gathered around a big screen TV in front of a booth, watching the season premire of TNG. Keep in mind that they had to cart in their own power and satelite to make this happen.
Anyways, Kristen is sleeping off the previous night's debauch, when she is awoken by some little blond thing with the name of Cyndi or something like that. Kimmi is breathlessly repeating "Wil Wheaton's here!" with an odd squeak every time she says Wheaton. After a few moments of this, Candi manages to get out, "come meet him!" Kristen, a rare faire geek in that she does not like ST, still manges to drag her hung over butt out of the tent and starts her Wil Wheaton quest.
After a bit of walking, they come to a grey van that Wil is shaking. One gathers it is to wake the occupents (perhaps to go into town for breakfast?). Candi blurts out "Wil this is my friend Kristen." Wil turns to the duo, says "Hi," Kristen responds "Hi." and then Wil goes back to shaking the van. Kristen returns to bed.
My respect for Wil Wheaton shot through the roof after the hearing that story. The reasons:
1: Many actors who worked faire have tried their best to distance themselves from faire. Those of us who act at the event take pride in what we do, and are bit annoyed by those who try to hide from that bit of their acting past. The fact that Wil not only visited the faire, but appeard to come back as a participant makes him a first class guy in my book.
2: I don't know what he said to Misty when she meet him, but it was something that made her feel that she could approach him again. Nice attitude for the fans, particulary when he did not appear to be at his best.
3: He didn't seem to take offense at the fact that Kristen was underwhelmed to meet him. When he says that he does not consider himself a celeb, I beleive him.
Wil Wheaton is alright, and someone I would enjoy acting with.
Eric
former puritan, RPFS and RPFN
current master of the revels, RPFN
Won't happen. From my experience, most of the folks on Slashdot tend to have a Libratarian slant to their polictics: no unions, business is good, goverment bad. That sort of thing.
The problem is that most of the real world allies for a DMCA fight tend to be progressive in politics, with the ACLU being the most obvious example.
Seems to me that FedEx and UPS are already in violation of this statute. I would guess that the reason that no one has attempted to take on first class mail service has more to do with profit margins then anything else.
Remember, the main goal of the USPS is to deliver the mail, not to turn a major profit. I imagine that FedEx and UPS have looked at the economics of taking on first class service, and determined that there is not enough money to be made.
eric
While I appluad Rob's efforts, he still faces an uphill battle to get smaller news sites the recognition they deserve. The biggest roadblock is not the large fee, but rather the judges and screeners. The Judges from last year:
Six of the the judges are from large media outlets. This large media bias becomes more pronounced when you look at the list of screeners. These are the folks who select the web sites for consideration by the judges. ABC News, AOL-Time-Warner, Knigh-Ridder, NBC and Microsoft owned media appear to have the largest reresentation. In addition, there are the other big media usual suspects: Fox, Bloomberg, NY Times, LA Times, CBS, Hearst, etc. You get the idea.
Given big media's open hostility to on-line and independent journalism, why should we expect this collection of judges and screeners to be receptive to news sources that raise questions about the relevance and supremecy of the media conglomerates?
I find it real hard to have sympathy for someone who thought the money would flow forever. How come a person making $100,000 a year did not save enough money to live without a job for three months? Take home pay for such a person is about $5k a month. Assuming that they are paying the $2k in Bay Area rent, what the hell did they do with the other $3k? eric
Who the fuck would want to buy stock in a company that has a union? A smart investor? Some of the most profitable companies in the world have union workforces.
And here we see the point: most people don't understand what the hell they are talking about. Federal tax brackets are designed to tax portions of your income at vaious levels. So, some of your income is not taxed, some is taxed at 15%, etc. As an example, I am in the top tax bracket, but only paid 22% of my income in federal taxes. Also, that sales tax is on goods purchased. As you make more money, sales tax represents a smaller percentage of your overall tax burden.
Thus the hack: it is an attempt to give people the opprotunity to learn more about the world around them and how various corporations operate.
eric
it's about the 'Main Street' retailers not being able to maintain their profit margins on items
No, it is about them not being able to compete with the on-line retailers. Local booksellers don't get the deep discount that Amazon or B&N pry's from publishers. So, US$100 worth of books will cost US$70 - US$80 on line. Tack on the US$9 in taxes for the local store, and the price difference becomes dramatic, even with the cost of shipping added. Forcing on-line retailers to collect sales taxes allows the local retailer to compete again.
If this passes, the computer and internet industries will follow Nasdaq
Ummm... the computer and internet industries ARE Nasdaq.
My experience on /. is that a certain slant will start to appear in a discussion, be it liberal or conservaitve, then this slant is made more pronounced by the moderation system. Opposing views never get moderated up enough. The impact is two fold: those with opposing views stop posting; and moderators stop using their moderating points on the conflicting posts, since they have litte chance of moderating a post to visiblity.
I've never visited half-empty before, but I'm looking forward to see how they solve the problems. Hopefully, some of the ideas can be used on /.
eric
It fits on Slashdot, but look at the graphic from King. They call it "Breaking News." This is breaking news? Breaking news should be big. Something that matters. A 9 foot hunk of steel being moved to an island is not big. You'd think with all that cash floating around up there, they could afford some real reporters.
It is obvious that you are done with this company. Making counter threats does nothing for you except piss off management even more. Your best solution is to see if you can do the job on an interim basis. Then during that time, find another job. Now, your bosses are happy. You can take the time to find your next dream job. Also, you might be able to work with managemnt to make your current job more palatable.
I run it on a P200 at home. It is far from painful. Indeed, I do most of my browsing with the Lizard. Try grabbing a recent nightly build and gave it a try.
I like this roadmap. While it will not please the nay-sayers who want something out right now, it does show that they have thought about what they are doing. Quaterly releases are perfect: the product is updated in a manner that keeps it on everyone's radar, without forcing them to rush stuff out the door.
How long before Slashdot gets shutdown becasue the editors don't do any fact checking? I don't think it would be out of line for Compaq to go after Slashdot because of damage to their good name. Further, Slashdot is also indirectly the cause of any abuse that Compaq employees may have recieved. Also, it is appearant that folks are not taking Slashdot seriously, which is making the signal to noise ratio worse. Throw in the fact that Slashdot is owned by VA Linux (right, that will not impact the editoral content) and the whole thing looks like it has little life left.
The sad thing is, there is no excuse. The principal editors are rich, and work full time on the site. VA Linux has more then a few dollars lying around. Both the time and the money exist to do a little fact checking. Yet they don't. I, for one, am puzzled by this.
I used to be happy to point people to Slashdot. Now, I'm embarassed. Slashdot is becoming a laughing stock. If the editors of Slashdot don't take the site seriously, who will?
It doesn't? I suppose the books just magicly appear after the sale is completed.
The B&N web site does benefit from California services. They utilize the road system that is paid with state and local taxes. Without this state funded system, they would find it difficult to conduct business in the state of California. It is not unreasonable to expect to pay for this service.
No, I'm certain the paper mail is simply delivered to your desk.
Not at my company. We are heavily regulated by the goverement, so most paper mail that goes in and out of the compnay is scrutinzed very closely.
The responsibility with paper mail is with the individuals.
Why change things for electronic mail?
Because, unlike paper mail, electronic mail can last forever. It is very easy for me to write a letter by hand, then send it away with instructions to be destroyed by the recepient. The only copy is gone, with no record that it ever existed.
Email is different. All those bits get backed up on a regualt basis, and then can be used in a court of law. I offer Microsoft as an example of this. What might seem like a personal message, could have significance in a harssment or wrongful termination case.
I read a wonderful book (the author's name escapes me) where he suggested that there will never be more then one planet in the galaxy that is capable of acheiveing near relativistic speeds. The reason is that the species would destroy any other species in a pre-emptive defensive strike. Destroy the other species before they destroy you with a relativistic attack.
Take a big rock, about the size of a bus. Accelerate it to near relativistic speed. Point it at a planet. Watch the pretty light show. Throw ten of these rocks, a couple of hours apart, and destroy all life on the planet.
The nasty thing aobut this attack, is there is no defense. Since the rock is moving almost as fast as it's own image, it arrives when it is first detected.
The reason we have never been contacted is because we have not acheived the ablity to push things real fast. If it looks like we are able to do that, then our first contact may be our last.
I noticed in the article that part of the research was done at amazon. The researcher conducted a search based on "productivity applications" and a list was returned with totaled some 8,000 apps. Not to defend Microsoft, but that does exclude the large number of applications that are targeted for other users: games, music, general entertainment, educational, graphics, communications, etc. While I don't think that this comes anywhere near 70,000 apps, that has got to take the total well past 10,000.
If there is a genre that has taken a big hit in quality, it is the sports sim. the best baseball sim ever published was Earl Weaver Baseball. Sure, it had horrible graphics, but it did a damn fine job of simulating individual games and full seasons. The stats and game play were realisitic.
Now, like every other genre, the focus is on high end graphics and killer sounds. Someone hits 100 home runs? Who cares! The player looks great doing it. Game after game after game without a single foul ball? No problem, I've great sound cranking out of my speakers.
Blah!
The mass market sucks the life out of everything. The only good game on the market is from an independent publisher/designer. Which is fine. I just keeping wishing that the big boys would spend some money on a qaulity sim engine, and not just the graphics.
There is also a big impact here for Mozilla. Although there was no mention made in the articles, I think it is safe to say that Mozilla will be a big part of this package. Mozilla/Gecko has a shot at some serious market share in a very short time. And, if it is the default browser in AOL 6...
I really wish slashdot folks would make up their mind about how they feel about Suck. Suck is loved or hated depending upon whose sacred cow is being gored.
Also, on many games, including D2, most of the development staff get royalties: producers, programmers, designers, artists, musicians.