I agree with the concern, that was what I had initially thought as well. By taking away that many keys, keyboard customization is going to be a problem (figures, they release this as soon as I find this page on mozilla.org. I think that both features could be very useful to people wanting to use the keyboard more for browsing, but they seem to conflict with each other (I haven't tested 1.2 either, but based on the feature description I agree with you).
Actually there already is a way of doing vi-like keybindings in mozilla. Here is a tip from vim.sf.net about that. I couldn't get it to work exactly the way they described it, but putting the vi keybindings into htmlBindings.xml and under the "browserBase" section worked for me. I put the basic movement keys (hjkl into it, and also bound b to page-up for less-like behavior). It has been working out really well for me. Hopefully when I have more time to look at this feature I can fix CTRL+tab/CTRL+SHIFT+tab to move between open tabs..
well, it's a technology test and so it doesn't have to look professional. If you want a nice looking splash screen wait for Netscape7. Having said that, you can download another splash screen for mozilla here. Some are very nice, although mozilla sits in turbo mode enough for me not to worry about the splash screen as I never see it.
I have to disagree, I thought that this was a good article.. however calling (mozilla) Navigator "reasonably functional, completely inflexible" is way off base IMHO. Mozilla has to be one of the most flexible browsers in existance, and certainly way more flexible than Internet Explorer.
I'm too lazy to link to it, but on themes.mozdev.org there is a skin that will make mozilla look exactly like Internet Explorer to the common user. Obviously the prefs and some of the other screens (bookmarks for example) will look a little different, but uses are going to spend 99% of their time in the main browser window anyway (stop, reload, forward, back, address bar, etc). Those widgets and buttons are all pretty universal now to computer users, a lot of people know how to operate a web browser.
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Too bad it isn't that simple.. many webservices that are being deployed around our company only work with Browser X, one company even went so far as to say the only supported browser was Internet Explorer 5.5 SP1! That's hardly portable IMHO, and basically defeats the purpose of web applications. I'm guessing.NET isn't going to help browser portability at all, another application around work actually does browser checks and returns a "please download IE" page when you visit it (written in VS.NET). Unless you want to change your useragent string you can't even try to get the app working in your browser of choice.. *sigh*
I completely agree with that, completion the way you described (used in cmd.exe and vim to name a couple) is very close to useless. I don't use command-line completion in cmd for that reason, but I do in vim a lot while in Windows. bash is much better as you can just whack tab a few times to see which files match, without having the shell just return the first match which I screw up on a regular basis by typing extra characters accidently.
The dropdown box isn't implemented very well either in most apps IMHO. The microsoft usermanager and winamp's genre selection (to name a couple) had this one right. You can type more than one character and narrow down the selection, rather than having it jump to the beginning of list, starting with the letter you just typed:P Web browers always seem to do it the bad way, which I never really thought was very helpful.
Cisco includes an installer like that with their aironet (802.11b) 300 series cards. Because of distro fragmentation, it only supports RH 7.x but still a step in the right direction.. some companies are better than others. I have no idea what the installer actually does (maybe a kernel module install?), it just worked..
LOL, quite a good post after I saw this show on THC the other day about spontaneous human combustion.. Most posts here talk about the possibility of a computer starting a real fire, but I don't actually see a post where someone has actually witnessed one.
I put a DIMM in backwards once when I wasn't paying attention. The computer didn't POST when I tried turning it back on, and it must have run for about 20 seconds before I gave up and would try to reseat the memory. So I turned the box back off and reached in to reseat the memory. It was at that point when I learned an important lesson about how damn hot those things get when seated incorrectly, ow.. There was no permanent damage to the components though and no melting:P
Aside from do the evolution which others have pointed out, they also released a DVD of their US tour to promote binaural recently. Part of this DVD was also promoted on TV several times (cable, IIRC).
I noticed that too, they should break "other" up and show at least mozilla and opera individually. I would say that they could probably take off IE4 too, it seems to be almost dead. It's surprising how many people are using IE6 actually, although it's tough to see what percentage that is. IE6 is actually a relatively minor upgrade for v5 from what I understand.. I wonder if IE's "check for updates" feature is responsible for that. I'm pretty sure that the only OS to include IE6 by default is WinXP.
Have you tried it recently, they moved to a new codebase and you can at least read the posts. It has been working for several weeks at least. I haven't actually tried to post anything for a while, but I am sure that posting works too.
I agree, all hardware support is going to be rough for a while.. not just printers. Microsoft has enough power and market share to get hardware manufactures to support their operating systems. Linux-based systems do not have the same power, and I would imagine that most hardware manufactures are having a difficult time justifying the cost of developing for that platform. Drivers and software may be available free on the Internet from third parties, but it isn't the same. At the very least, hardware developers need to reserve a special spot in their documentation that contains links to places where the user could download software for "unsupported" platforms, even if the company doesn't actually write it.
I know that at least mylex and USR have done this for a while, but I'm not so sure about digital cameras and scanners.
mozilla on Windows actually works very well. I use it on NT4 and 98 and rendering performance and initial load time is very good. If you want quick load times, you have to use mozilla's turbo feature to load the libraries into memory. IE does the same, so it isn't fair to compare initial load times between mozilla and IE w/o using turbo mode.
I don't think that you can prove that rendering performance is any better in IE vs. mozilla, I think the consensus is that both are basically about the same, and you can't tell the different from a user POV. If your system has a decent amount of memory, mozilla performs very well on any platform.
I think that you missed the biggest reason why people use IE vs. mozilla or opera. They use IE because it comes with their computer or they use it because the IT guys put a shortcut to Internet Explorer on their desktop. Internet explorer isn't a bad product, so there is no good reason to switch.
Netscape4 and mozilla aren't bad products either. Around work, I would say that 90% of the users use Netscape4. The reason is that it is advocated and that I put shortcuts on the desktop. IE is still there (not desktop, the Programs menu), but only a few people actually use it on a regular basis. It all goes back to the M$ monopoly. If mozilla were available and displayed on computers, more people would use it. I don't really know what the answer to the problem is though.. one one hand I understand that users don't want to choose between three different browers. They just want to "browse" and are confused by choices. On the other though, I think that it is unfair for microsoft to include only Internet Explorer with Windows, because it allows them to control such a huge portion of the market.
Nobody is going to test their software to see whether or not it works under WINE. If they are concerned with linux compatibility, they should release native binaries. Redhat has a much better chance of success than Lindows IMHO, lindows is going the emulation route which will eventually lead to problems, user frustration, etc. Redhat distributes WINE as well, but it doesn't make a big deal about it as the compatibily with big Windows applications (Access, Photoshop, IE, OE, etc) isn't very good.
I haven't had a chance to use Lindows or see a good review of this walmart PC yet, but I'm guessing that IE's performance under Lindows isn't very good. You would be better off running something like mozilla or galeon. Walmart took a step in the right direction going with a linux-based operating system, but I think they should have gone one step further and gone with Redhat...
A self extracting zip file IS tar.gz, right? I don't use KDE or GNOME, but I imagine that if you go into their filemanager they are tar and and gzip "aware". What happens when you double-click on a gzipped archive from that?
The problem is actually Windows, in that most versions do not know what a zip file is. I think that only recently there is unzip software included in Windows and tied to explorer. That makes the self-extracting zipfile offer no more functionality over a conventional zip file.
I think that the software developer has succeeded from a usability POV if the enduser does not have to read the manual in order to operate the software. Most software, however, requires documentation in order to operate as it isn't very standard or is complex. Most people who have used computers now can operate a web-browser for example w/o reading the manual. Photoshop, on the other hand, needs documentation for the advanced features, and most of the basic features for new users unless there is some kind of guru that user could talk to, in order to learn the software.
I think the article is correct though that manuals just seem to be very boring in general. Third-party books tend to be much better and more enjoyable to read. Honestly, I like manuals the way that they are, which is basically pure information and no "fun stuff". I would buy a book on the software package if I wanted something that was fun to read. Most of the time, however, I use manuals for reference, and not reading material..
As much as I would like to see rendering performance benchmark comparisons between browsers, this doesn't seem to be one. I have no idea what kind of benchmarks those are.. do those test the guy's connection to the Internet, rendering performance, caching, CPU speed, or RAM? I think that if one were to test a BROWSER's performance, the webpages need to be stored on a fast hard drive, the memory and disc caches need to be disabled, and you need to use a really fast machine in general. Then, the only problem would be getting some kind of _accurate_ rendering time..
I'm guessing that none of these were actually done with this set of benchmarks. I mean, 8 seconds to render and download a page, where opera takes 3 second?? I tested the website on my relatively underpowered machine using IE4 and it only took a few seconds to display on a cable modem.
And correct me if I am wrong.. but don't you have to be training in something like locksmithing even to be able to use something like a lockpick set? What would be the purpose of a lock if normal people could get their hands on special hardware to be able to open most locks without special training? Isn't the purpose of the lock to keep people out of the room?
Not exactly, actually support should be easier if the fault is with a non-issued cable modem. If the tech isolates the problem to the cable modem, they just throw the problem back to the customer, as it is the customer's responsibility to fix it or replace it. It's the same deal with my NIC that I purchased (although, I do lease my cable modem). If my NIC dies, I am not going to call insight@home to replace it.
I think that tiers might be the way to go too. It seems to me that if the ISP is going to charge people who use more bandwidth than normal higher rates, then they should lower the rates of people who use less than normal. So, right there we have three tiers, and many dial-up providers have used those for a while. Instead of purchasing bandwidth, however, you would purchase blocks of hours or an unlimited usage plan..
For somebody that just wants to use email and view a few web-pages a day, $45.00 per month is way too high for broadband. I think that cable companies would get more subscribers if they shifted some of that $45/month that the low volume users pay over to the high-volume users. I would be in favor of raising rates to high bandwidth users (assuming that the ISPs definition of "high bandwidth" was fair) if they lowered the rates of "low bandwidth" users.
I agree that something similar to alt+tab is needed for tabbed interfaces. I used to use multiple windows for Internet browing, and switching between windows was always pretty painless with alt+tab. The downside, as you mention, is the additional clutter which can actually slow you down when you have too many windows open. The clutter slows me down, and so I switched to tabbed browsing/mozilla a while ago. I don't think that tabbed interfaces are perfect, but they are a step in the right direction.
One reason why Microsoft decided to go with the consolidated taskbar buttons in XP (KDE uses it too) is that when you had 5 Netscape windows open on a Win98 computer, for example, the taskbar buttons were useless because the buttons got so small that you couldn't tell which button went to which page. Moving those buttons into the application helps because you shift some of the screen space into a logical area (the application itself) and gain a little more space in the process. The consolidated taskbar objects help solve that somewhat, but the downside is that you can no long tell at a glance what documents or pages you have open.
I agree, they really should have considered ctrl+tab and ctrl+shift+tab. I know that mozilla runs on a lot of platforms, but I think that Microsoft got this one right. CTRL+PAGEUP / PAGEDOWN are bad from a usability POV because of the reason you mentioned. It's easier to just use the mouse in most cases...
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I agree with the concern, that was what I had initially thought as well. By taking away that many keys, keyboard customization is going to be a problem (figures, they release this as soon as I find this page on mozilla.org. I think that both features could be very useful to people wanting to use the keyboard more for browsing, but they seem to conflict with each other (I haven't tested 1.2 either, but based on the feature description I agree with you).
Actually there already is a way of doing vi-like keybindings in mozilla. Here is a tip from vim.sf.net about that. I couldn't get it to work exactly the way they described it, but putting the vi keybindings into htmlBindings.xml and under the "browserBase" section worked for me. I put the basic movement keys (hjkl into it, and also bound b to page-up for less-like behavior). It has been working out really well for me. Hopefully when I have more time to look at this feature I can fix CTRL+tab/CTRL+SHIFT+tab to move between open tabs..
well, it's a technology test and so it doesn't have to look professional. If you want a nice looking splash screen wait for Netscape7. Having said that, you can download another splash screen for mozilla here. Some are very nice, although mozilla sits in turbo mode enough for me not to worry about the splash screen as I never see it.
I have to disagree, I thought that this was a good article.. however calling (mozilla) Navigator "reasonably functional, completely inflexible" is way off base IMHO. Mozilla has to be one of the most flexible browsers in existance, and certainly way more flexible than Internet Explorer.
I'm too lazy to link to it, but on themes.mozdev.org there is a skin that will make mozilla look exactly like Internet Explorer to the common user. Obviously the prefs and some of the other screens (bookmarks for example) will look a little different, but uses are going to spend 99% of their time in the main browser window anyway (stop, reload, forward, back, address bar, etc). Those widgets and buttons are all pretty universal now to computer users, a lot of people know how to operate a web browser.
Too bad it isn't that simple.. many webservices that are being deployed around our company only work with Browser X, one company even went so far as to say the only supported browser was Internet Explorer 5.5 SP1! That's hardly portable IMHO, and basically defeats the purpose of web applications. I'm guessing .NET isn't going to help browser portability at all, another application around work actually does browser checks and returns a "please download IE" page when you visit it (written in VS.NET). Unless you want to change your useragent string you can't even try to get the app working in your browser of choice.. *sigh*
I completely agree with that, completion the way you described (used in cmd.exe and vim to name a couple) is very close to useless. I don't use command-line completion in cmd for that reason, but I do in vim a lot while in Windows. bash is much better as you can just whack tab a few times to see which files match, without having the shell just return the first match which I screw up on a regular basis by typing extra characters accidently.
:P Web browers always seem to do it the bad way, which I never really thought was very helpful.
The dropdown box isn't implemented very well either in most apps IMHO. The microsoft usermanager and winamp's genre selection (to name a couple) had this one right. You can type more than one character and narrow down the selection, rather than having it jump to the beginning of list, starting with the letter you just typed
Cisco includes an installer like that with their aironet (802.11b) 300 series cards. Because of distro fragmentation, it only supports RH 7.x but still a step in the right direction.. some companies are better than others. I have no idea what the installer actually does (maybe a kernel module install?), it just worked..
LOL, quite a good post after I saw this show on THC the other day about spontaneous human combustion.. Most posts here talk about the possibility of a computer starting a real fire, but I don't actually see a post where someone has actually witnessed one.
I put a DIMM in backwards once when I wasn't paying attention. The computer didn't POST when I tried turning it back on, and it must have run for about 20 seconds before I gave up and would try to reseat the memory. So I turned the box back off and reached in to reseat the memory. It was at that point when I learned an important lesson about how damn hot those things get when seated incorrectly, ow.. There was no permanent damage to the components though and no melting :P
Aside from do the evolution which others have pointed out, they also released a DVD of their US tour to promote binaural recently. Part of this DVD was also promoted on TV several times (cable, IIRC).
I noticed that too, they should break "other" up and show at least mozilla and opera individually. I would say that they could probably take off IE4 too, it seems to be almost dead. It's surprising how many people are using IE6 actually, although it's tough to see what percentage that is. IE6 is actually a relatively minor upgrade for v5 from what I understand.. I wonder if IE's "check for updates" feature is responsible for that. I'm pretty sure that the only OS to include IE6 by default is WinXP.
> I think that if Google shutdown... I would be utterly lost and helpless
:)
uh, there is always yahoo
Have you tried it recently, they moved to a new codebase and you can at least read the posts. It has been working for several weeks at least. I haven't actually tried to post anything for a while, but I am sure that posting works too.
I agree, all hardware support is going to be rough for a while.. not just printers. Microsoft has enough power and market share to get hardware manufactures to support their operating systems. Linux-based systems do not have the same power, and I would imagine that most hardware manufactures are having a difficult time justifying the cost of developing for that platform. Drivers and software may be available free on the Internet from third parties, but it isn't the same. At the very least, hardware developers need to reserve a special spot in their documentation that contains links to places where the user could download software for "unsupported" platforms, even if the company doesn't actually write it.
I know that at least mylex and USR have done this for a while, but I'm not so sure about digital cameras and scanners.
mozilla on Windows actually works very well. I use it on NT4 and 98 and rendering performance and initial load time is very good. If you want quick load times, you have to use mozilla's turbo feature to load the libraries into memory. IE does the same, so it isn't fair to compare initial load times between mozilla and IE w/o using turbo mode.
I don't think that you can prove that rendering performance is any better in IE vs. mozilla, I think the consensus is that both are basically about the same, and you can't tell the different from a user POV. If your system has a decent amount of memory, mozilla performs very well on any platform.
I think that you missed the biggest reason why people use IE vs. mozilla or opera. They use IE because it comes with their computer or they use it because the IT guys put a shortcut to Internet Explorer on their desktop. Internet explorer isn't a bad product, so there is no good reason to switch.
Netscape4 and mozilla aren't bad products either. Around work, I would say that 90% of the users use Netscape4. The reason is that it is advocated and that I put shortcuts on the desktop. IE is still there (not desktop, the Programs menu), but only a few people actually use it on a regular basis. It all goes back to the M$ monopoly. If mozilla were available and displayed on computers, more people would use it. I don't really know what the answer to the problem is though.. one one hand I understand that users don't want to choose between three different browers. They just want to "browse" and are confused by choices. On the other though, I think that it is unfair for microsoft to include only Internet Explorer with Windows, because it allows them to control such a huge portion of the market.
Nobody is going to test their software to see whether or not it works under WINE. If they are concerned with linux compatibility, they should release native binaries. Redhat has a much better chance of success than Lindows IMHO, lindows is going the emulation route which will eventually lead to problems, user frustration, etc. Redhat distributes WINE as well, but it doesn't make a big deal about it as the compatibily with big Windows applications (Access, Photoshop, IE, OE, etc) isn't very good.
I haven't had a chance to use Lindows or see a good review of this walmart PC yet, but I'm guessing that IE's performance under Lindows isn't very good. You would be better off running something like mozilla or galeon. Walmart took a step in the right direction going with a linux-based operating system, but I think they should have gone one step further and gone with Redhat...
A self extracting zip file IS tar.gz, right? I don't use KDE or GNOME, but I imagine that if you go into their filemanager they are tar and and gzip "aware". What happens when you double-click on a gzipped archive from that?
The problem is actually Windows, in that most versions do not know what a zip file is. I think that only recently there is unzip software included in Windows and tied to explorer. That makes the self-extracting zipfile offer no more functionality over a conventional zip file.
I think that the software developer has succeeded from a usability POV if the enduser does not have to read the manual in order to operate the software. Most software, however, requires documentation in order to operate as it isn't very standard or is complex. Most people who have used computers now can operate a web-browser for example w/o reading the manual. Photoshop, on the other hand, needs documentation for the advanced features, and most of the basic features for new users unless there is some kind of guru that user could talk to, in order to learn the software.
I think the article is correct though that manuals just seem to be very boring in general. Third-party books tend to be much better and more enjoyable to read. Honestly, I like manuals the way that they are, which is basically pure information and no "fun stuff". I would buy a book on the software package if I wanted something that was fun to read. Most of the time, however, I use manuals for reference, and not reading material..
As much as I would like to see rendering performance benchmark comparisons between browsers, this doesn't seem to be one. I have no idea what kind of benchmarks those are.. do those test the guy's connection to the Internet, rendering performance, caching, CPU speed, or RAM? I think that if one were to test a BROWSER's performance, the webpages need to be stored on a fast hard drive, the memory and disc caches need to be disabled, and you need to use a really fast machine in general. Then, the only problem would be getting some kind of _accurate_ rendering time..
I'm guessing that none of these were actually done with this set of benchmarks. I mean, 8 seconds to render and download a page, where opera takes 3 second?? I tested the website on my relatively underpowered machine using IE4 and it only took a few seconds to display on a cable modem.
And correct me if I am wrong.. but don't you have to be training in something like locksmithing even to be able to use something like a lockpick set? What would be the purpose of a lock if normal people could get their hands on special hardware to be able to open most locks without special training? Isn't the purpose of the lock to keep people out of the room?
Not exactly, actually support should be easier if the fault is with a non-issued cable modem. If the tech isolates the problem to the cable modem, they just throw the problem back to the customer, as it is the customer's responsibility to fix it or replace it. It's the same deal with my NIC that I purchased (although, I do lease my cable modem). If my NIC dies, I am not going to call insight@home to replace it.
I think that tiers might be the way to go too. It seems to me that if the ISP is going to charge people who use more bandwidth than normal higher rates, then they should lower the rates of people who use less than normal. So, right there we have three tiers, and many dial-up providers have used those for a while. Instead of purchasing bandwidth, however, you would purchase blocks of hours or an unlimited usage plan..
For somebody that just wants to use email and view a few web-pages a day, $45.00 per month is way too high for broadband. I think that cable companies would get more subscribers if they shifted some of that $45/month that the low volume users pay over to the high-volume users. I would be in favor of raising rates to high bandwidth users (assuming that the ISPs definition of "high bandwidth" was fair) if they lowered the rates of "low bandwidth" users.
I agree that something similar to alt+tab is needed for tabbed interfaces. I used to use multiple windows for Internet browing, and switching between windows was always pretty painless with alt+tab. The downside, as you mention, is the additional clutter which can actually slow you down when you have too many windows open. The clutter slows me down, and so I switched to tabbed browsing/mozilla a while ago. I don't think that tabbed interfaces are perfect, but they are a step in the right direction.
One reason why Microsoft decided to go with the consolidated taskbar buttons in XP (KDE uses it too) is that when you had 5 Netscape windows open on a Win98 computer, for example, the taskbar buttons were useless because the buttons got so small that you couldn't tell which button went to which page. Moving those buttons into the application helps because you shift some of the screen space into a logical area (the application itself) and gain a little more space in the process. The consolidated taskbar objects help solve that somewhat, but the downside is that you can no long tell at a glance what documents or pages you have open.
I agree, they really should have considered ctrl+tab and ctrl+shift+tab. I know that mozilla runs on a lot of platforms, but I think that Microsoft got this one right. CTRL+PAGEUP / PAGEDOWN are bad from a usability POV because of the reason you mentioned. It's easier to just use the mouse in most cases...