I believe that Konqueror is getting support for ActiveX.
Just a note. Konqueror, if I recall correctly, will be supporting ActiveX via the WINE project.
I couldn't say what popular opinion is on this, but I personally don't agree with the goals of the WINE project. If you support the ideals of Free software, why would you create a system, the primary purpose of which is to run proprietary software?
That being said, I suppose adding support that increases web interoperability is good, but I think my personal approach will be to just live without ActiveX. I've gotten along pretty well without Java applets or Javascript. Adding another annoying (personal opinion) web technology to that list shouldn't hurt me too much.
As for WINE, while I have plenty of respect for the talent and dedication of its developers, I just can't bring myself to install it. If I want to run Windows programs, I'll run Windows.
Alan
P.S. (offtopic) How do WINE developers get away with what they are doing without having the holy hand of Microsoft come down upon them? Does anyone have any information about the legality of reimplementing the Win32 API?
Well, not that much of what MS is doing lately makes much sense to me either, but I certainly wouldn't underestimate Bill Gates' business sense and, as the SNL Presidential Bash put it, 'strategery'.
All questions of ethics and fair business practice aside, Bill Gates' is unquestionably a genius (To avoid invoking Godwin's Law, I'll refrain from comparing him to a certain other genius from history). He has had his share of "being in the right place at the right time", but building a multibillion dollar software empire and becoming the richest man on earth takes a little bit more than luck.
I don't claim to have any clue what Microsoft's plan is, and I can't predict whether it will backfire on them or not, but you can be assured that they DO have a plan that is VERY carefully thought out and reviewed. And honestly, I wouldn't be too shocked if whatever plan they have works.
I write this at the risk of "posting 'me too', like some brain-dead AOLer", but I must say I couldn't agree more.
People who can write "streamlined, fast-as-hell code" are a dying breed. I'm not saying that the new solve-any-problem-in-under-45-seconds languages don't have their place. There are certainly lots of situations where getting the program done fast is a lot more important than making the program run fast, but colleges are teaching students these languages as a substitute for low level programming, and that is just sad.
There are certainly plenty of situations where I need to have a pretty tight reign over what the processor is doing. In those situations, I don't WANT a language with garbage collection. I don't WANT a language that stores bound information with my arrays (and certainly not one that checks those bounds every time I access an element). What I want is a language that puts me just a few levels of abstraction away from the machine for the general purpose code, and lets me snuggle right up next to the hardware when I need to. Nearly everything I want is embodied in C (and to a lesser extent, C++).
That being said, I'm certainly open to many of his ideas. Importing symbol tables rather than making header files, for example, sounds to me as if it could be a significant improvement to my favorite language. I also like the strong type checking on the typedef'ed types.
Anyhow.. D, Java, C#, Visual Basic, they have their place, that place just isn't anywhere near the type of programming I do.
Personally, I had 1 of 3 IIS servers at my job vulnerable and it was 'ploited. Of course, when it the Code Red worm infected that server, the server took out one of my 2500 series Cisco routers. That was fun since it was still too early in the day to know that it was indeed the worm causing the problems. I am the only IT person here, supporting 75 users, 17 servers, 100+ workstations. I do support, net admin, and IT department management. I am currently upgrading the corporate website, doing a software audit, a hardware audit, reconfiging our routers, I have 30+ helpdesk issues in my queue and I am late on 4 projects. I also advise our development team on network related aspects and I am trying to put up a new FTP server, backup server and mail server. I have enough on my plate then to jump at every damn MS Security Bulletin. There are just so damn many of them! I am overworked as it is yet my CEO still asks "What exactly does he do again?".
And you find time to read Slashdot? Well, at least you have your priorities straight.
I'm sure everyone has seen the "futuristic" commercial about Playstation 9 (the on where the kid touches the elevator button and gets crack injected directly into his brain).
I was disappointed that they failed to mention what versions of FF run on it.
As a side note, has anybody ever found a good connecting element between all the different FF stories? I think it would be amazingly cool if Square made a FF that somehow linked the them all (or some of them, at least. It would be darn hard to come up with a decent story that connected ALL of them. They are just too different.)
strcpy() is the standard C library function. StrCpy() is a Win32 API function.
If compiler vendors choose to implement their version of strcpy() as a call to StrCpy() then you should blame them, not MS.
What? You use VC++? Well of course it is going to implement strcpy() using StrCpy(), that is almost a given. Last time I checked, VC++ was not part of a standard installation of any version of Windows, and it can quite easily be added/removed at the user's convenience (well, at least as easily as any other Windows program).
You are quite free to choose a different compiler that implements library functions the way you would like them implemented. There is no lack of competetion here, and many great Win32 compilers are even free (beer, not speech)!
If you can't find a compiler that implements strcpy(), or most of the other library functions for that matter, in the manner you prefer, then write your own version of those functions. It doesn't take a highly skilled programmer to move a block of null-terminated memory from one location to another.
Additionally, VC++'s header files contain furious amounts of #ifdef's dealing with versioning. Chances are that the dependency on IE you found in the particular application you mentioned was due to its vendor incorrectly compiling (or misjudging their audience).
Herein lies the problem. There are people who actually DO "look at their crap." Granted, it may be a staggeringly small percentage, but you said yourself the cost for sending the emails was next to nothing. If you sent out 1,000,000 emails, and only 1% percent of those emails make it as far as actually being opened, and only 1% of those that are opened actually produce an effect similar to the one you intended, thats :
1000000 *.01 *.01 = 100
So there you have one hundred people to whom you have successfully advertised with a one time cost of not much more than a PC and an Internet connection.
Now your second time around, you already have the hardware, so your costs are even more insignificant. And why limit this to a million people? Why not make it ten million, or a hundred million?
Spammers continue to send spam because it works. If you want to effectively combat spam, don't go after the advertisers, go after that small percentage of people that still read spam and buy the advertised products.
One of the many possible futures that cloud my brain (though probably not one of the most likely) is that as negative opinion of spam continues its growing trend, actions such as buying a product or service in a spam advertisement will become such a societal feau paux that people will quit just to protect their image, at which point spamming might be reduced to ineffectiveness, and it will stop.
A more likely future is that the U.S. government somehow comes to the conclusion that it has the right to tax email, and starts charging us postage, one of the very few benefits of which would be a reduction of junk email.
Well you obviously haven't been keeping up with technology. Microsoft Pad of Paper 2000 (scheduled for release in late 2004) is going to come with full instructions for drawing spreadsheets and drop down menus and paperclips with EYES! It is even rumored to support hardware that implements the erase functionality.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe that Konqueror is getting support for ActiveX.
Just a note. Konqueror, if I recall correctly, will be supporting ActiveX via the WINE project.
I couldn't say what popular opinion is on this, but I personally don't agree with the goals of the WINE project. If you support the ideals of Free software, why would you create a system, the primary purpose of which is to run proprietary software?
That being said, I suppose adding support that increases web interoperability is good, but I think my personal approach will be to just live without ActiveX. I've gotten along pretty well without Java applets or Javascript. Adding another annoying (personal opinion) web technology to that list shouldn't hurt me too much.
As for WINE, while I have plenty of respect for the talent and dedication of its developers, I just can't bring myself to install it. If I want to run Windows programs, I'll run Windows.
Alan
P.S. (offtopic) How do WINE developers get away with what they are doing without having the holy hand of Microsoft come down upon them? Does anyone have any information about the legality of reimplementing the Win32 API?
Well, not that much of what MS is doing lately makes much sense to me either, but I certainly wouldn't underestimate Bill Gates' business sense and, as the SNL Presidential Bash put it, 'strategery'.
All questions of ethics and fair business practice aside, Bill Gates' is unquestionably a genius (To avoid invoking Godwin's Law, I'll refrain from comparing him to a certain other genius from history). He has had his share of "being in the right place at the right time", but building a multibillion dollar software empire and becoming the richest man on earth takes a little bit more than luck.
I don't claim to have any clue what Microsoft's plan is, and I can't predict whether it will backfire on them or not, but you can be assured that they DO have a plan that is VERY carefully thought out and reviewed. And honestly, I wouldn't be too shocked if whatever plan they have works.
Alan
I write this at the risk of "posting 'me too', like some brain-dead AOLer", but I must say I couldn't agree more.
People who can write "streamlined, fast-as-hell code" are a dying breed. I'm not saying that the new solve-any-problem-in-under-45-seconds languages don't have their place. There are certainly lots of situations where getting the program done fast is a lot more important than making the program run fast, but colleges are teaching students these languages as a substitute for low level programming, and that is just sad.
There are certainly plenty of situations where I need to have a pretty tight reign over what the processor is doing. In those situations, I don't WANT a language with garbage collection. I don't WANT a language that stores bound information with my arrays (and certainly not one that checks those bounds every time I access an element). What I want is a language that puts me just a few levels of abstraction away from the machine for the general purpose code, and lets me snuggle right up next to the hardware when I need to. Nearly everything I want is embodied in C (and to a lesser extent, C++).
That being said, I'm certainly open to many of his ideas. Importing symbol tables rather than making header files, for example, sounds to me as if it could be a significant improvement to my favorite language. I also like the strong type checking on the typedef'ed types.
Anyhow.. D, Java, C#, Visual Basic, they have their place, that place just isn't anywhere near the type of programming I do.
Alan
Once you've implemented it in hardware (such as an x86 processor), wouldn't it just be a "machine", rather than a "virtual machine"?
Alan
I'm sure everyone has seen the "futuristic" commercial about Playstation 9 (the on where the kid touches the elevator button and gets crack injected directly into his brain).
I was disappointed that they failed to mention what versions of FF run on it.
As a side note, has anybody ever found a good connecting element between all the different FF stories? I think it would be amazingly cool if Square made a FF that somehow linked the them all (or some of them, at least. It would be darn hard to come up with a decent story that connected ALL of them. They are just too different.)
You CAN use these integrated functions. They are part of the MSHTML library of components. See this category in the MSDN for information on how. Alan
strcpy() is the standard C library function. StrCpy() is a Win32 API function.
If compiler vendors choose to implement their version of strcpy() as a call to StrCpy() then you should blame them, not MS.
What? You use VC++? Well of course it is going to implement strcpy() using StrCpy(), that is almost a given. Last time I checked, VC++ was not part of a standard installation of any version of Windows, and it can quite easily be added/removed at the user's convenience (well, at least as easily as any other Windows program).
You are quite free to choose a different compiler that implements library functions the way you would like them implemented. There is no lack of competetion here, and many great Win32 compilers are even free (beer, not speech)!
If you can't find a compiler that implements strcpy(), or most of the other library functions for that matter, in the manner you prefer, then write your own version of those functions. It doesn't take a highly skilled programmer to move a block of null-terminated memory from one location to another.
Additionally, VC++'s header files contain furious amounts of #ifdef's dealing with versioning. Chances are that the dependency on IE you found in the particular application you mentioned was due to its vendor incorrectly compiling (or misjudging their audience).
Alan
Under the fair use policy, can I make a backup of my car in case the original gets trashed?
>
Is that the new MS Enhanced syntax?
Alan
Haha. "Where'd you get your CPU, in a box of cracker jacks?"
I am called by roughly one telemarketer per day (usually not even that). I receive roughly 50 emails a day that I consider to be spam.
Therefore, by your math, spam is 5 times the annoyance to me that telemarketing is.
Herein lies the problem. There are people who actually DO "look at their crap." Granted, it may be a staggeringly small percentage, but you said yourself the cost for sending the emails was next to nothing. If you sent out 1,000,000 emails, and only 1% percent of those emails make it as far as actually being opened, and only 1% of those that are opened actually produce an effect similar to the one you intended, thats :
.01 * .01 = 100
1000000 *
So there you have one hundred people to whom you have successfully advertised with a one time cost of not much more than a PC and an Internet connection.
Now your second time around, you already have the hardware, so your costs are even more insignificant. And why limit this to a million people? Why not make it ten million, or a hundred million?
Spammers continue to send spam because it works. If you want to effectively combat spam, don't go after the advertisers, go after that small percentage of people that still read spam and buy the advertised products.
One of the many possible futures that cloud my brain (though probably not one of the most likely) is that as negative opinion of spam continues its growing trend, actions such as buying a product or service in a spam advertisement will become such a societal feau paux that people will quit just to protect their image, at which point spamming might be reduced to ineffectiveness, and it will stop.
A more likely future is that the U.S. government somehow comes to the conclusion that it has the right to tax email, and starts charging us postage, one of the very few benefits of which would be a reduction of junk email.
Well you obviously haven't been keeping up with technology. Microsoft Pad of Paper 2000 (scheduled for release in late 2004) is going to come with full instructions for drawing spreadsheets and drop down menus and paperclips with EYES! It is even rumored to support hardware that implements the erase functionality.
>They print EVERYTHING.
And as soon as they are done printing it, they forward it to me.
::grumble::
alanwj
"Windows is dial-up, and Linux is broadband" Heh. There is the analogy to which I was referring. It didn't go through the first time.
> I must say that is an excellent analogy.