**Consider that it was MS dos and then windows that led to the exploding PC market**
I would have to say that the invention of the browser and hypertext and cheap hardware has led to the exploding PC market, dos/windows has just gone along for the ride.
**But they were there, with the minimal functionality and ease of use to make people take a chance and buy a PC**
I believe that most people who buy computers are not informed with regrds to technology or operating systems. They buy computers because they want to take part in this whole internet thing, or maybe they want to make their own greeting cards, etc... The OS on the machine has nothing to do with people "taking a chance to buy a PC"
IMHO most consumers are sheep, you can give MS credit for realizing this and hiring brilliant marketing people.
It's been my experience that *geeks* tend to be very opinionated and combative people. However they typically choose to be intellectually (is that a word) and verbally combative instead of physically combative.
Geeks take things very personal when it comes to their intellect. If you cross some imaginary line with them then they see flaming as a perfectly "okay" response. The truth is that some of the times I've been flamed on usenet were the times I've learned the most. I don't really mind being flamed if your going to offer helpfull information as to why I'm a jerk. I'm willing to learn from anybody.
I think that the obvious thing to do is to not take anything personal when it comes from usenet or slashdot.
I think the truth of the matter is that competition is good for both Windows and Linux. Although I think it's unfortunate that many in the Linux community seem bent on "beating Windows" but I suppose that's the reality of it all.
Microsoft has made a fortune by selling software that the public has generally viewed as *good enough.* They would continue to do just that forever because of inertia and the huge market share they own. Buuuuuut... now we have Linux entering the picture. Linux may not be everything to everyone, but it does help point out some of the major flaws in Windows (security, stability, etc) that the folks in Redmond are being forced to address.
And on the other hand, the perceived *user friendly GUI* of Windows has help to accelerate the development of many point and click products(windows managers, config tools, etc) for those Linux users who feel the need to work in that type of environment.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is that competition is a win/win for both Windows and Linux. Now if only we can get the zealots to see that....:)
Okay, maybe this is over the top, but something needs to be changed.
I work for a small floundering software comapany. We are not wealthy, in fact we barely scrape by each month. My 5 years here have taught me that the general public has no respect for software licenses or software companies. They think that everything should be free. They will call on the 800 number that we pay for, talk to a paid employee and yet they can't understand why we have to charge them for our software. sheesh.
I just want to scream people call and demand a free upgrade for the software they bought 4 years ago. "Microsoft gives away free software, why don't you..."
It makes me crazy when people call and tell me that they installed one disk on all 100 machines in their office and they really don't care what the license says. "Well, the comapny paid for the disk so they should be able to install it anywhere in the office...right..."
So yeah... maybe this proposed license is over the top, but something needs to be changed.
Hmmm... seems to me that you have the cart before the horse. The Internet is the "killer app" that has spawned the PC revolution. I would wager that the majority of the people wh bought PCs the past couple of years did so to get on the "Net".
If you want to look at what has made the internet then you need to look at the standards which made it easily accessable, like TCP/IP, HTTP, etc. The OS that is connecting up to it really doesn't matter. But... the OS that was running those servers (until recently those were almost all Unix) that we dial into does matter. Bill Gates would not be the wealthy man he is today without the technology that drove the net.
IMHO the home computer revolution would not have happened without the Internet(and the online services before that) to drive it. Giving credit to Windows, Windows users, etc... is just silly to me. MS came in after the fact and simply used what had already been put in place.
****With extensive usability studies Microsoft has been able to make user interfaces, mice, keybords, joystics etc. that most people think are great, and the rest find adequate to say at least. ****
I'm not so sure that I would agree with you there. I think that the majority of people who use computers don't have a clue about interfaces. They just know that when you click on this a little window will pop up and then they can type this in this box and then click here...etc. Most computer users are just happy that they can send emails and make greeting cards... they don't know or care about the design of a GUI.
(I'm going to make a broad generalization here ->) People like what they are "used to" and if they had to use something different today they would bitch and complain about how hard it is. I remember the first time I played with a Mac, even though it was similar to windows, it was just different enough for me to have to think before I did something. I remember thinking it was "cool" but I was happy to go back to my windows box.
I agree with you about programmers writing stuff for other programmers. This is generally not a good way to please the masses. But hey, I'm a big fan of tons of configurations and tweaks ( I love gnome and kde ) and scripts and the power of the cl etc...so I'm not the guy to make statements on what the public wants or needs.
I'm sure that Intuit is probably watching Linux pretty closely, but honostly I don't think that the actual *home market* for Linux is big enough for them to make a big return on their investment.
Linux for the home desktop is growing, and there might be more people who are playing with it at home, but it's a long way from making a dent in the Windows/Mac world.
For a company like Intuit it's a numbers game, if the Linux numbers get big enough then they might make a move.
Well... I'm pleasantly surprised to see an article by Katz that isn't totally reactionary and jumping on the bandwagon of some horrible incident:) anyways...
This is fascinating stuff but I'm not sure that we really need to worry about the *if it's right or wrong* issue. There is no way to stop technology and it's been on a major roll these days.
I have to wonder about the "soul" of these new genetic beings that we are going to create. I know it's not something that can be scientificly measured, but I believe we all have them. (souls that is..well... most of us have them...:) So what happens to the soul of these *creatures* ?
Agreed. Let the punishment fit the crime. This is a noble statement that probably any sane person would agree with.
Now... If the puishment for going 10 MPH over the speed limit was 10 years in jail I would say that is totaly unfair. However if I choose to go 10 MPH over the speed limit then I had better be prepared to serve that sentence. In fact I would have to be some kind of a complete moron to exceed the speed limit by 10 MPH knowing that I'm gonna give up 10 years of my life.
To summarize my point: Yes the punishment should fit the crime; so don't commit the crime. It's really not that difficult.
First, yes MS has been putting some major resources into their W2K push, however I don't feel that relates directly with the palm market. MS has such enormous resources I really can't believe that they are limiting efforts in one area due to any other area.
Second, I don't think MS wants to *just* have a market presence in any market, they want to dominate. (As any company would)
Third, I think that MS misjudged (thus far) what the palm market wants. They probably assumed that the standard marketing methods combined with their powerfull distribution channels and the Microsoft/Windows brand would allow them to win by default.
Fourth, If they learned anything from their early (lack of) internet strategies it was that you shouldn't underestimate the potential of any given market. The palm/wireless market might be small potatoes today but it is poised to explode over the next few years. I really don't think they want to miss this boat.
My broker calls this the old "Pump and dump." People start rumors to inflate the stock then unload after it peaks. The internet has been a great tool for that. Remember the big run on Iomega a few years ago. The whole motley fool crowd had fun with that and a bunch of people lost money; while a bunch of the early adopters made a ton. Be very very carefull when you hear rumors like this with no foudation.
Duh... don't you keep up with the times... Elvis bought the rights to the Amiga a couple years ago. There have been tons of rumors about his plans. I'm betting that he's gonna release the new model in conjunction with a world tour. That will set the world on its tail, you can be sure.
I've heard he's gonna tour with Jim Morrison sometime in Q1 of 2000, so look for the new Amiga around then. That is of course unless he gets abducted by aliens before he can finish putting the final touches on that bad boy computer that just friggin refuses to die:)
I guess I've just about heard it all now. Somewhere, somehow, somebody is going to figure out how to completely destroy the things that have made the internet great. We will be telling our grandkids about the good old days when the net was like the wild west. Yep... if it's not the politicians or the save-the-whales crowd, it'll be someone. It's just a matter of time.
I say we just fork the whole thing off right now. How hard could it be to do that. All we need are phone lines... maybe some new protocols.. it could be done. We could call it "The Undernet" The slashdot community has the knowledge and resources to get it started too.
Can you elaborate a little on how I will be able to "use the engine" for my own browser. Is this something like an API or libraries that I can call from a c program? I'm just a little fuzzy here.
Sometimes I have to wonder why the OS wars turn into such an emotional debate. Just what is it exactly with this issue that causes people to get "all riled up" (I'm not talking about the Linux zealots and the MS shills who blindly repeat their favorite MS marketing mantra.) I'm wondering about the people who are very grounded and rational, yet who will get into these heated debates which just seem to end up repeating the same old stuff with nothing ever really getting resolved. Benchmarks get quoted, twisted, and sliced and diced. Anecdotes get quoted, documented and debated. But to what end? Has anyone ever changed their opinion after sifting through all of this stuff? Do we ever accomplish anything?
It's almost like we tend to see our choice of our favorite OS as an extension of ourselves, therefore we take up arms and are ready to do battle at any moment. But why? Where does this come from?
Ah well... perhaps I'm feeling a bit to introspective today and I really should get to work. Opps... I just noticed my NT machine has been up for 3 hours... time to reboot it to freshen up the memory a bit:)
I think your missing the point. It's not a matter of whats *fair* or whats right... The government wants to make a statement of "You hack our websites and you will get more than a little slap on the wrist" And I'm all for it.
Your analogy of changing the electric sign in a store doesn't fit here because we are not talking about him hacking some department store website, he hacked the White House website. Try making a series of obscene phone calls to Jane Doe and then do it to the WhiteHouse. Would you expect to receive a harsher penalty for the former or the latter? Lets face it, hacking the White House is not the act of a well centered, mentally balanced individual.
I think if you are stupid enough to hack the White House website then you deserve whatever you get. If you don't want to get fined and go to jail then act like a responsible human. It's really not that hard to do.
You bring up a very valid point. While develpoment teams can have some good ideas on graphics and UI, if you want a polished, professional *slick* look you should have *real* graphic artists doing the art work.
But first and foremost it must work. My experience with gnome/E was so bad with the version that shipped with RH6.0 that, even though I loved the way it looked, I probably won't try it again for quite a while. At this point in my life I don't don't want to spend hours tweaking my desktop or cleaning up core dumps that are spewed all over the place. I want a desktop that works. period. I want it to look good too, but functionality comes first.
After all, that's what drove me to Linux in the first place, functionality.
Mine (M11) seems to load the pages pretty quick, but I got 3 Dr. Watsons in about 10 minutes. Ahhh.. the joys of alpha software. My biggest beef is the "My Panels" box which seems to come up by defailt. First, how do I kill it? I want it gone, dead...bye bye. I don't want to slide it over to the left, I want it gone gone gone.
Second, why does this "real estate hogging intrusion of my space" come up by default? (Insert-> I'm turning into an old fart disclaimer) Whatever happened to designing a clean interface??? Why why why can't you give me a nice clean interface. I just wanna plug in a url and go to a website. I just want a nice big box for that page to load up in. I don't want panels, I don't want channels, (Insert-> cryptic Dr. Seuss reference for other old farts) I don't want green eggs and ham. Can somebody, for the love of God please help me.
I tried the latest version of Emacs/W3 a couple weeks ago with Emacs ( I'm not a big fan of XEmacs either) and (Insert-> I might be a moron disclaimer here) unless I did something wrong I found it to be the most horrible browser that I've ever seen. You should have seen the hatchet job it did while rendering slashdot. Again... I just did a simple configure, make, make install and then fired it up, I didn't try to look for a.rc file or anything to configure it, but it was nasty. Butt slow and nasty.
Someone mentioned the browser that ships with Star Office too. I would recommend that they use it for a couple weeks before they even mention it as a possibilty for anyone else. I tried to live with it for a couple days(just for fun) and found it to be pretty sad. Bloated slow and sad.
AP Newswire - 11/16/1999 - Microsoft purchases the rights to Pokemon
In what can only be described as a bizarre transaction today Microsoft announced they have purchased the rights to Pokemon, which will be renamed to microsoft-e-mon. A very happy Bill Gates had this to say about the announcement: "We are thrilled to own the rights to Pokemon. We have been looking for a way to help children to learn about Microsoft at a very early age and we feel this will be a terrific avenue for them. At Microsoft we have always focused on our customers and innovated to meet there needs, this acquisition fits well with our strategy. God Bless America !"
An official spokesperson for Microsoft talked further about Microsoft's strategy for microsoft-e-mon. "All microsoft-e-mon toy figures will now be bundled with the state of the art browser IE5. We have always felt that children of all ages could benefit from our internet innovations, we look forward to being an integral part of the formative years of all children." The spokesman continued, "In an effort to teach children to be responsible and innovative we will also be charging a $5 per month licensing fee for all microsoft-e-mon toys. This nominal fee will help kids to learn about part time jobs and making monthly payments, skills which will benefit them as they become adults. At Microsoft we love children and are thrilled to finally be able to help them. God Bless America"
I would guess that this move is aimed at addressing the need for stronger, more experienced management at the top. No offense to Mr.Young, but perhaps he doesn't have the skills needed to sit at the top of a company with a market cap of 7.24 billion $$. Of course this is pure speculation on my part.
These are crucial times for Redhat. I'm glad to see they are using the newfound $$$ to address the needs that many Fortune 500 Co.'s see as important for a commercial server.
I am currently reading a book called "Insanely Great" by Steven Levy. The book takes a look at Apple in the early days, and the development of the Macintosh. One of the issues it talks about is the changes Apple went through after they went public.
Many suits and professional manegement types were brought in to deal with the needs of a rapidly growing company. This of course clashed with the free-flowing free-spirit atmosphere that Apple started with. Creativity doesn't always mix well with Suits and endless meetings and paperwork. (One could make the point this was part of the downward slide of Netscape.)
IMHO this is probably something RedHat is dealing with now. I would be interested in hearing from some employees at RedHat about how this transition is going. What is the atmosphere like ?
Scotty: "Well Captain... My screen is telling me that I've got a problem and Dr. Watson is making a log file for me... but I don't know where the file is... "
Cpt. Kirk: "Dammit Scotty... just reboot the damn thing."
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmm... I repectfully disagree with you.
**Consider that it was MS dos and then windows that led to the exploding PC market**
I would have to say that the invention of the browser and hypertext and cheap hardware has led to the exploding PC market, dos/windows has just gone along for the ride.
**But they were there, with the minimal functionality and ease of use to make people take a chance and buy a PC**
I believe that most people who buy computers are not informed with regrds to technology or operating systems. They buy computers because they want to take part in this whole internet thing, or maybe they want to make their own greeting cards, etc... The OS on the machine has nothing to do with people "taking a chance to buy a PC"
IMHO most consumers are sheep, you can give MS credit for realizing this and hiring brilliant marketing people.
It's been my experience that *geeks* tend to be very opinionated and combative people. However they typically choose to be intellectually (is that a word) and verbally combative instead of physically combative.
Geeks take things very personal when it comes to their intellect. If you cross some imaginary line with them then they see flaming as a perfectly "okay" response. The truth is that some of the times I've been flamed on usenet were the times I've learned the most. I don't really mind being flamed if your going to offer helpfull information as to why I'm a jerk. I'm willing to learn from anybody.
I think that the obvious thing to do is to not take anything personal when it comes from usenet or slashdot.
I think the truth of the matter is that competition is good for both Windows and Linux. Although I think it's unfortunate that many in the Linux community seem bent on "beating Windows" but I suppose that's the reality of it all.
Microsoft has made a fortune by selling software that the public has generally viewed as *good enough.* They would continue to do just that forever because of inertia and the huge market share they own. Buuuuuut... now we have Linux entering the picture. Linux may not be everything to everyone, but it does help point out some of the major flaws in Windows (security, stability, etc) that the folks in Redmond are being forced to address.
And on the other hand, the perceived *user friendly GUI* of Windows has help to accelerate the development of many point and click products(windows managers, config tools, etc) for those Linux users who feel the need to work in that type of environment.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is that competition is a win/win for both Windows and Linux. Now if only we can get the zealots to see that....:)
Okay, maybe this is over the top, but something needs to be changed.
I work for a small floundering software comapany.
We are not wealthy, in fact we barely scrape by each month. My 5 years here have taught me that the general public has no respect for software licenses or software companies. They think that everything should be free. They will call on the 800 number that we pay for, talk to a paid employee and yet they can't understand why we have to charge them for our software. sheesh.
I just want to scream people call and demand a free upgrade for the software they bought 4 years ago. "Microsoft gives away free software, why don't you..."
It makes me crazy when people call and tell me that they installed one disk on all 100 machines in their office and they really don't care what the license says. "Well, the comapny paid for the disk so they should be able to install it anywhere in the office...right..."
So yeah... maybe this proposed license is over the top, but something needs to be changed.
Hmmm... seems to me that you have the cart before the horse. The Internet is the "killer app" that has spawned the PC revolution. I would wager that the majority of the people wh bought PCs the past couple of years did so to get on the "Net".
If you want to look at what has made the internet then you need to look at the standards which made it easily accessable, like TCP/IP, HTTP, etc. The OS that is connecting up to it really doesn't matter. But... the OS that was running those servers (until recently those were almost all Unix) that we dial into does matter. Bill Gates would not be the wealthy man he is today without the technology that drove the net.
IMHO the home computer revolution would not have happened without the Internet(and the online services before that) to drive it. Giving credit to Windows, Windows users, etc... is just silly to me. MS came in after the fact and simply used what had already been put in place.
****With extensive usability studies Microsoft has been able to make user interfaces, mice, keybords, joystics etc. that most people think are great, and the rest find adequate to say at least. ****
I'm not so sure that I would agree with you there. I think that the majority of people who use computers don't have a clue about interfaces. They just know that when you click on this a little window will pop up and then they can type this in this box and then click here...etc. Most computer users are just happy that they can send emails and make greeting cards... they don't know or care about the design of a GUI.
(I'm going to make a broad generalization here ->) People like what they are "used to" and if they had to use something different today they would bitch and complain about how hard it is. I remember the first time I played with a Mac, even though it was similar to windows, it was just different enough for me to have to think before I did something. I remember thinking it was "cool" but I was happy to go back to my windows box.
I agree with you about programmers writing stuff for other programmers. This is generally not a good way to please the masses. But hey, I'm a big fan of tons of configurations and tweaks ( I love gnome and kde ) and scripts and the power of the cl etc...so I'm not the guy to make statements on what the public wants or needs.
I'm sure that Intuit is probably watching Linux pretty closely, but honostly I don't think that the actual *home market* for Linux is big enough for them to make a big return on their investment.
Linux for the home desktop is growing, and there might be more people who are playing with it at home, but it's a long way from making a dent in the Windows/Mac world.
For a company like Intuit it's a numbers game, if the Linux numbers get big enough then they might make a move.
Wow... I'm still sad about his death. I never heard how he ( Richard Stevens ) passed away. Does anybody know what the cause of death was?
Well... I'm pleasantly surprised to see an article by Katz that isn't totally reactionary and jumping on the bandwagon of some horrible incident :) anyways...
This is fascinating stuff but I'm not sure that we really need to worry about the *if it's right or wrong* issue. There is no way to stop technology and it's been on a major roll these days.
I have to wonder about the "soul" of these new genetic beings that we are going to create. I know it's not something that can be scientificly measured, but I believe we all have them. (souls that is..well... most of us have them...:) So what happens to the soul of these *creatures* ?
Agreed. Let the punishment fit the crime. This is a noble statement that probably any sane person would agree with.
Now... If the puishment for going 10 MPH over the speed limit was 10 years in jail I would say that is totaly unfair. However if I choose to go 10 MPH over the speed limit then I had better be prepared to serve that sentence. In fact I would have to be some kind of a complete moron to exceed the speed limit by 10 MPH knowing that I'm gonna give up 10 years of my life.
To summarize my point: Yes the punishment should fit the crime; so don't commit the crime. It's really not that difficult.
I respectfully disagree with you.
First, yes MS has been putting some major resources into their W2K push, however I don't feel that relates directly with the palm market. MS has such enormous resources I really can't believe that they are limiting efforts in one area due to any other area.
Second, I don't think MS wants to *just* have a market presence in any market, they want to dominate. (As any company would)
Third, I think that MS misjudged (thus far) what the palm market wants. They probably assumed that the standard marketing methods combined with their powerfull distribution channels and the Microsoft/Windows brand would allow them to win by default.
Fourth, If they learned anything from their early (lack of) internet strategies it was that you shouldn't underestimate the potential of any given market. The palm/wireless market might be small potatoes today but it is poised to explode over the next few years. I really don't think they want to miss this boat.
Check out the books website for lots of little snippets from the book
Programming Pearls
Ha! The voice of reason finally shines through.
My broker calls this the old "Pump and dump." People start rumors to inflate the stock then unload after it peaks. The internet has been a great tool for that. Remember the big run on Iomega a few years ago. The whole motley fool crowd had fun with that and a bunch of people lost money; while a bunch of the early adopters made a ton. Be very very carefull when you hear rumors like this with no foudation.
Duh... don't you keep up with the times... Elvis bought the rights to the Amiga a couple years ago. There have been tons of rumors about his plans. I'm betting that he's gonna release the new model in conjunction with a world tour. That will set the world on its tail, you can be sure.
:)
I've heard he's gonna tour with Jim Morrison sometime in Q1 of 2000, so look for the new Amiga around then. That is of course unless he gets abducted by aliens before he can finish putting the final touches on that bad boy computer that just friggin refuses to die
I guess I've just about heard it all now. Somewhere, somehow, somebody is going to figure out how to completely destroy the things that have made the internet great. We will be telling our grandkids about the good old days when the net was like the wild west. Yep... if it's not the politicians or the save-the-whales crowd, it'll be someone. It's just a matter of time.
I say we just fork the whole thing off right now. How hard could it be to do that. All we need are phone lines... maybe some new protocols.. it could be done. We could call it "The Undernet" The slashdot community has the knowledge and resources to get it started too.
Can you elaborate a little on how I will be able to "use the engine" for my own browser. Is this something like an API or libraries that I can call from a c program? I'm just a little fuzzy here.
Sometimes I have to wonder why the OS wars turn into such an emotional debate. Just what is it exactly with this issue that causes people to get "all riled up" (I'm not talking about the Linux zealots and the MS shills who blindly repeat their favorite MS marketing mantra.) I'm wondering about the people who are very grounded and rational, yet who will get into these heated debates which just seem to end up repeating the same old stuff with nothing ever really getting resolved. Benchmarks get quoted, twisted, and sliced and diced. Anecdotes get quoted, documented and debated. But to what end? Has anyone ever changed their opinion after sifting through all of this stuff? Do we ever accomplish anything?
:)
It's almost like we tend to see our choice of our favorite OS as an extension of ourselves, therefore we take up arms and are ready to do battle at any moment. But why? Where does this come from?
Ah well... perhaps I'm feeling a bit to introspective today and I really should get to work. Opps... I just noticed my NT machine has been up for 3 hours... time to reboot it to freshen up the memory a bit
I think your missing the point. It's not a matter of whats *fair* or whats right... The government wants to make a statement of "You hack our websites and you will get more than a little slap on the wrist" And I'm all for it.
Your analogy of changing the electric sign in a store doesn't fit here because we are not talking about him hacking some department store website, he hacked the White House website. Try making a series of obscene phone calls to Jane Doe and then do it to the WhiteHouse. Would you expect to receive a harsher penalty for the former or the latter? Lets face it, hacking the White House is not the act of a well centered, mentally balanced individual.
I think if you are stupid enough to hack the White House website then you deserve whatever you get. If you don't want to get fined and go to jail then act like a responsible human. It's really not that hard to do.
You bring up a very valid point. While develpoment teams can have some good ideas on graphics and UI, if you want a polished, professional *slick* look you should have *real* graphic artists doing the art work.
But first and foremost it must work. My experience with gnome/E was so bad with the version that shipped with RH6.0 that, even though I loved the way it looked, I probably won't try it again for quite a while. At this point in my life I don't don't want to spend hours tweaking my desktop or cleaning up core dumps that are spewed all over the place. I want a desktop that works. period. I want it to look good too, but functionality comes first.
After all, that's what drove me to Linux in the first place, functionality.
Mine (M11) seems to load the pages pretty quick, but I got 3 Dr. Watsons in about 10 minutes. Ahhh.. the joys of alpha software. My biggest beef is the "My Panels" box which seems to come up by defailt. First, how do I kill it? I want it gone, dead...bye bye. I don't want to slide it over to the left, I want it gone gone gone.
:)
Second, why does this "real estate hogging intrusion of my space" come up by default? (Insert-> I'm turning into an old fart disclaimer) Whatever happened to designing a clean interface??? Why why why can't you give me a nice clean interface. I just wanna plug in a url and go to a website. I just want a nice big box for that page to load up in. I don't want panels, I don't want channels, (Insert-> cryptic Dr. Seuss reference for other old farts) I don't want green eggs and ham. Can somebody, for the love of God please help me.
Otherwise it is starting to look pretty good
I tried the latest version of Emacs/W3 a couple weeks ago with Emacs ( I'm not a big fan of XEmacs either) and (Insert-> I might be a moron disclaimer here) unless I did something wrong I found it to be the most horrible browser that I've ever seen. You should have seen the hatchet job it did while rendering slashdot. Again... I just did a simple configure, make, make install and then fired it up, I didn't try to look for a .rc file or anything to configure it, but it was nasty. Butt slow and nasty.
Someone mentioned the browser that ships with Star Office too. I would recommend that they use it for a couple weeks before they even mention it as a possibilty for anyone else. I tried to live with it for a couple days(just for fun) and found it to be pretty sad. Bloated slow and sad.
AP Newswire - 11/16/1999 - Microsoft purchases the rights to Pokemon
In what can only be described as a bizarre transaction today Microsoft announced they have purchased the rights to Pokemon, which will be renamed to microsoft-e-mon.
A very happy Bill Gates had this to say about the announcement: "We are thrilled to own the rights to Pokemon. We have been looking for a way to help children to learn about Microsoft at a very early age and we feel this will be a terrific avenue for them. At Microsoft we have always focused on our customers and innovated to meet there needs, this acquisition fits well with our strategy. God Bless America !"
An official spokesperson for Microsoft talked further about Microsoft's strategy for microsoft-e-mon. "All microsoft-e-mon toy figures will now be bundled with the state of the art browser IE5. We have always felt that children of all ages could benefit from our internet innovations, we look forward to being an integral part of the formative years of all children." The spokesman continued, "In an effort to teach children to be responsible and innovative we will also be charging a $5 per month licensing fee for all microsoft-e-mon toys. This nominal fee will help kids to learn about part time jobs and making monthly payments, skills which will benefit them as they become adults. At Microsoft we love children and are thrilled to finally be able to help them. God Bless America"
I would guess that this move is aimed at addressing the need for stronger, more experienced management at the top. No offense to Mr.Young, but perhaps he doesn't have the skills needed to sit at the top of a company with a market cap of 7.24 billion $$. Of course this is pure speculation on my part.
These are crucial times for Redhat. I'm glad to see they are using the newfound $$$ to address the needs that many Fortune 500 Co.'s see as important for a commercial server.
I am currently reading a book called "Insanely Great" by Steven Levy. The book takes a look at Apple in the early days, and the development of the Macintosh. One of the issues it talks about is the changes Apple went through after they went public.
Many suits and professional manegement types were brought in to deal with the needs of a rapidly growing company. This of course clashed with the free-flowing free-spirit atmosphere that Apple started with. Creativity doesn't always mix well with Suits and endless meetings and paperwork. (One could make the point this was part of the downward slide of Netscape.)
IMHO this is probably something RedHat is dealing with now. I would be interested in hearing from some employees at RedHat about how this transition is going. What is the atmosphere like ?
Cpt. Kirk: "Scotty...we've got... to have... *more*.. power"
... power"
... I'm not sure...uh..who's Dr. Watson?"
Scotty: "Aye Captain... just one moment while I turn the power up on the engines"
--a short pause followed by several loud whirring noises... then loss of speed
Cpt. Kirk: "Scotty... we're losing speed ! we've got... to have... *more*
Scotty: "..uh (several mumbling sounds) Captain... we've got a problem..."
Cpt. Kirk "Quick Scotty..what's the problem ?"
Scotty: "Well
Cpt. Kirk: "Dr. Watson ???? Scoty... *what* are you... *talking*... about?"
Scotty: "Well Captain... My screen is telling me that I've got a problem and Dr. Watson is making a log file for me... but I don't know where the file is... "
Cpt. Kirk: "Dammit Scotty... just reboot the damn thing."
--fade to darkness