The fun bit about updating subscriptions is that they have to fight past the permissions granted to the user.
Suppose I download the latest version. In order to install it, I need write permissions to the directory: something that I can restrict to the net-browser user or to network users. Therefore the app does not work properly.
Alternately, it may use secret passwords, and install despite the permissions.
Just imagine the mayhem that network administrators would have as assorted copies of WinWart and Exasp start expiring around the office. Oh the joys of it. *NOT*
Even if the user never fires up a terminal session, the command line interface is important. This is because a GUI is objects that one sends commands to.
The simplest is a program launcher, where one creates a command "$1" in. In a drag and drop, one drags $2 onto $1, and runs the command "$1 $2". One can also have the context drag, where one drags $2 onto $1, and gets a popup menu that $1 and $2 interact in defined ways.
Of course, one can use context menus for the drag and click. The Windows start and send to menus are nothing more than desktop objects used differently. You can actually put shaddows of these (c:\windows\start menu, and c:\windows\sendto) on your desktop and manage the icons directly from the desktop.
Selecting from the start menu is simply doubleclicking an icon from the desktop, and the send to is the target of a drag, but one does not need to see the desktop to make this happen.
You can use a right-drag to allow multiple options to be selected from the same drag and drop. You drag $2 to $1, and from the pop-up menu, select "$1 -m $2" or "$2 $1" or "gfc $1 $2" whatever. The icons can be configured to do this. It is the user perception that needs to be made aware of it.
It goes the other way as well. The Windows start command will open documents, directories etc from a command line, and I have changed Windows and OS/2 icons and titles from a command line script. This gives a visual indication that the script is done, and there needs to be attention from the user. The easier the interface is understood, the better it runs.
This is a strength of OS/2, in that the icons have global names, and is not dependant on their positions in the desktop. You can change the name of an icon, or start it from the command line from a rexx script. The c:\nowhere folder is used for icons not intended for the desktop or vible directory.
You can join the GUI and CLI in innovative ways, but unless you communicate what is possible, the user is simply going to ignore it. Ignore it, becaise the User is forgotten.:)
I always thought that packaged food did it myself. Prehaps there are people who are so stupid they mistake their PDAs for chocolates.
The other reason that people think the next generation are dumber is because they are not dosed with the same general level of influence as their parents. We don't have the sort of general knowledge to live in our parent's day, and we do not instill the general knowledge to allow our kids to live in our age. They've got their own problems to deal with.
The os2fan thinks that people are not getting enough REXX, and she would have this as a compulsory subject as far as seventh grade. Many things os2fan knows comes from people doing things that she would never have dreamed of doing, like putting equal signs in file names.
But os2fan is a dinosaur from 1999, and there has been a whole year gone on in the IT world. So she is wildly out of date:( She has learnt really basic HTML, though, and scares people by typing up web pages directly in the DOS E Editor.
The idea here is that one should be able to load and unload services on need. If you think in terms of a small system, you get the idea.
For example, a games console does not require you to grovel around in config.sys or whatever. This means that you stick the game in and play it, and stick the next game in and play this.
If you consider the shell as some sort of launcher, you can start different games as if the machine were speficifally configured for it alone. When done, it swaps back the system kernal.
You could then make rooms (computers) where you install different apps together in the same room. If you do lots of office stuff, swapping between wordpro and 1-2-3 and approach, you could cut and paste between them.
Rooms could be made secure, so that you could run your mail client and the browser in its own room, this would not trash your system a la ILOVEYOU.
The idea is that you should be able to test, install and run applications in separate configurations, from the same desktop.
You can add and replace hardware, because each VM would connect to a `sound card', not a SB16 or an AWE64. Your VM seeks a `soundcard', and the OS maps suggests AWE64.
When a device runs as a FS (eg a Zipdrive or a cdrom or a network), this is part of the FS, and the app does not need to deal with drivers for these.
The terminal concept should be supported. An app should be able to run another app, and pull off the data from it. For this, we could have roles. Example, ZIP, RAR, TAR and ARJ are all file archivers. You may want to manage the contents of these from some other different tool, like a file manager, or a folder on the desktop. If there is a certian role for archiver file systems, then the two can talk.
What is needed is not to replace the OS, but realise that the bloat in the OS is due to the OS becomming more a shared library. We need to work on some sort of shared role interface, and demand it. You don't need a big exec file to run RAR, but if the interfaces existed, you could open rar files in File Commander, ZTBold, as directories in 4OS2 (eg cd/a archive.rar), or whatever.
With a shared GUI layer, you could write a game that looks to see if the video on the other end has the grunt, and then start playing it in full screen mode. It basically swaps out the OS and plays with its own config, and swaps the OS shell back in when it's done.
Think differently. Think OS/2.
What about the apps...
on
OS X on x86?
·
· Score: 1
For those of us who keep dozens of operating systems for interest and diversity's sake, we are torn between running one app across multiple platforms, and running native apps on each platform.
We welcome yet another OS to the intel platform, bit on the same hand, the desire to have java or cobra or something like it, to allow apps to run on different apps becomes an issue.
The trouble is, is that no-one is moving in the right direction, except under duress. MS would not had embrased the net, but fostered their Compu$erve clone MSN on us, were it not that the people wanted the Net. IBM would have us on MicroChannel, were it that everyone wanted the AT system. Open standards may be comming to apps as well people.
Even if the Excel has nothing to do with banking, the notion that certian practices, software and hardware could be certified for use is worth looking at.
For example, that Excel can have these bugs and the Pentium chip can have these bugs, should alert us to that these or other bugs can exist in other tools.
Security works on secret keys. Safety works on open processes and modular construction. Only an open process can prevent bugs being hidden. Only a modular proces allows the replacement of defective parts in a cost effective way.
A process can be both safe and secure, because while the process of the key is understood, the exact value of it is not. Banks went for many years with bits of paper and keys. The technology of these were understood. The exact form of the key is revealled only to those who have a valid need for a copy of it.
Heed excel bugs, not as defects in one program, but defects in our trust in software.
Good design of programs and hardware could reduce power, significantly. Even better design would allow the computer to dispense power as it was needed.
We had this network that ran on small monitors, and then they upgraded the machines to run on fast pentiums and big screens, because that's what Windoze NT needed. The first big power outage took out the UPS, because the computers were sucking heaps more power.
Did this make the network users more productive? No. Did this make the network easier to administer? No, because stepping from Netware to NT was stepping back a few years.
So where was all this juice going. Sucked up into the ether to keep NT's bloatware going. What can you think of an OS that requires a pentium to boot?
Take a look at the power needs of Windows 95 and ME. Has the needs of the last five years really meant that we need to run a fast pentium with 64 MB, or is it just using resources because it it there. Do we really need to upgrade computers because only the latest OS is available? Come on.
There may be many computers that are more powerful than they need to be, and are just sucking the juices of the nation dry. Not in a big way, but Moore's law operates here as well.
At home, I run a 486 and a pentium. When I do code development, I do not need the grunt, so I do it on the 486. This is also the guest machine and the network client. When there's a genuine need for speed, then I fire up the pentium.
We could think of this in a single box, operating like a dual flush toilet. When both are on, one could act as the video accelerator. Pushing a turbo button could change the innards of the machine to add the needed grunt.
Programs and OS's could carry energy ratings, based on some form of minimum standard usage. You could then play feature against energy.
Maybe we need to think behind raw power and think in terms of the ecology. Every little bit helps.
Maybe we should be thinking globally. We should design energy efficient standards, and enforce them, even as far as product recalls. Start living as if the Earth matters.
Yeah, right. Can you imagine looking through a directory and finding files like FROG.DLL {Oh!, he just looked up at the window, and sore this simply darling frog looking in at him}, and SPIDER.SYS {On his way to work, he saw a spider get away from a lizard, and he commemorated it}. Can you imagine fixing this system?
What IS wrong with the name HFPS.SYS. If I saw this, I would know exactly what the file was related to. No second-guessing. No unravelling the programmer's mood on some long forgotten day.
Also, PINBALL.SYS sounds like a game file, and a sysadmin may very easily delete it. Ouch.
I say again, and this confirms it, that MS disrupts the user interface.
Ahem!! I can get up-to-date fix packs for both Warp3 and Warp4.
The damage was done long before. Microsoft had made life hard for it in 92-95. Cases in point:
Vapourware: OS/2 was being compared with prerelease data of (then) Windows 4.0 in 1993 and all of 1994 and all of 1995.
Preloads: Microsoft greatly undercut the cost of their preloads, especially if no other OS was shipped on any other computer by the vendor.
Windows 3.11 and OS/2 for Windows. MS had a patch for it, to allow it to run under Windows, (and also undo the Win3.10 to Win3.11 free upgrade. But it was never released. [It is documented in the OS/2 Magazine.
I take it you have not seen Microsoft's vision of Zero Administration. It's frightening in itself. Really scary stuff.
We have for a whole decade, taught people about safe computing, not to take strange things from strange people, etc. We have drummed in the need to read the readme file. Understand what is to be done.
What is MS's new idea? A single binary install file. No readme, no nothing. You don't have a ghost of a chance until the damage is done. And because this is the only choice, people just trust it.
Like, hey, I've seen computers download a file, install software, and reboot. Is that scary or is that scary. And people trust it. Not just your ma and pops, but even savvy sallies.
The SMS is a joy to watch NOT. From a user's point of view, the program appears on the screen, snatches the focus, and then churns away. Then it closes. I call it Screw my System, a title not widely recieved on MS training courses:). Administrators call it Slow Moving Software. Whatever it is, it allows anyone who can hack a SMS package to do all sorts of damage to a network.
Microsoft is hacking the Common User Interface, so that when you try the neat tricks that work in Windows, they crash other systems. The user then gets a negative feeling about the system, and the system is by this, made to appear unstable.
Microsoft is using its lawyers as well. Linux may well have some cover in its GNU and FSF copyleft, but MS may be scouring its patent data.
None the less, I suspect, be very afraid.
What you Linuxers should do is start ferreting up lawyer types and go microsoft on hazardous design. Get a few recalls under way. [This product is capable of causing damage, and shall be recalled.] That's where I think the copyleft crowd should look at. Seriously.
Don't kid yourself that MS will use the same tricks on Linux as they did on OS/2, Netscape, Novell or WP. They have other evil planned for Linux.
Linux has a lot of different things to these companies. Linux may not be a company with a soft underbelly, but that does not mean that they don't have a soft underbelly that MS can attack.
That Linux, OS/2, NetWare, WP, Amipro, Netscape,... were considerably better thought-out, more user friendly etc, than their contemporary MS offerings means naught. What MS has is a considerably better Legal Prober department. They have people poking at the limits of legality.
If you read the MS history, you will note they used different tricks to force the issues. Many of these are downright illegal, but they have got away with it, because the people in the US have some sort of government phobia.
What you will find most likely happen is that MS will start doing things like killing off dual boot systems on every boot. [I think NT does this already], detatching wizards to fix `corrupt partitions' [eg formatted in ext2fs], and so forth.
Much of this will be pretty low fuzz stuff that is designed to damage the standing of Linux generally, because when people install Linux and Windows, Windows will subtlety sabatage Linux.
It should be noted, that both the HPFS and NTFS file systems are type 0x07. That NT used to support HPFS and NT as separate file systems, and they chose 0x07 for both, gives the impression that they see HPFS as a corrupt version of NTFS. Also, if to show the intent, the NT HPFS driver is called PINBALL.SYS - ping
Even Windows use of Control-Alt-Delete to bring up nice features is less than benign. What happens is that people get use to pressing these keys, and then start doing them in other systems. If this had been some sort of critical thing that people's lives depended on, then MS would have been guilty of a major industrial design fraud. [Something akin to making the brake pedal an accelerator pedal on a car]
I suspect that the reason that DOS boot mode support was pulled from Windows ME was more to counter the BeOS boot from Windows, then any genuine recogintion that DOS games are passe. The personal edition of BeOS used the MS-DOS loader to boot a virtual partiton, much like a dedicated VMWare thingie.
Of course, they do not have to have to attack Linux or some other product directly. All they need is to provide a series of misleading experiences from their own OS or product, that causes some doubt that the other guy is doing it.
(Snakes are imune to their own venom).
Windows.NET could prove to be as equally ugly in its heavy dependence on MS server stuff.
{example type="made up data"}So, for example, if you have Windows.NET and Linux on the same system, you might get messages saying that partitions are corrupt on every boot, or have to do something different to reboot.{/example}
So don't be too coy about having superior technology rah rah rah. Unless MS is reeled in, and you get over this liberty/free enterprise etc crap and realise that MS are criminals hiding using these as shields, you are going to have to watch for traps.
I never said that Windows 3.11 had WebTV. What I said was that later versions of what was Windows 3.00 evolved into later versions that had extra features, like networking (3.11), IE (95B) and WebTV (98).
I would look at ut with considerable suspicion. Here's why.
MS has shown time and again that it is quite capable of putting out products that rock, kill off the market, and then work the monopoly. Case in point: Windows
Windows 3.0 was a real rocker that gave PC users access to vast amounts of memory, and was considerably better than other dos guis at the time. By the time Windows 3.11 was out, they were getting us to swallow botter pills [MS networking, IE, WebTV,...].
Windows NT certification gets killed off as the next version gets released.
What's stopping them rolling out XBOX OS's and cutting off driver and program support to the previous versions. What's stopping them comingling assorted code as a stunt to take over markets *in other areas*.
Picture this: XBOX gets merged into Windows X. Windows X has some new toy that MS is trying to kill off the market for, and contends tant this toy "is an integral part of OS". But some legal mind points out that XBOXen run without it, and so it gets added into the XOS v 2.0, whether or not XBOXen need the toy.
The character & concatinates strings, eg "Hello, " & "World" means "Hello, World".
DEFINE '0' = ASCII("0")
For MS users [GWBASIC etc], the year is "19:1" = "19"&char$(year div 10 - 190 + '0')&char(year mod 10 + '0').
For Lotus users (eg Lotus 123 v 3.x for DOS), the year is 19101 = "19"+string(year-1900).
For Century users, the year is 1901, ie 1900+(year mod 100).
For those of us who use long numbers, the year is 1681, because a hundred is six scores, not five.
For those who grok binary, it is 11111010001, or 0x1FA1, or 0o3721.
For the rest of us, it's 2001.
The next biggie is dec 2040 (=1700 in long numbers). The millenium is a long way off, 1.0000 is dec 14400.:)
Seen
We have been fed a diet of `wonderous new technology' for 2001. So what do we see on a calendar for 2001? A picnic from 1901. Do these people know something that we don't?
What are my predictions?
OS/2 will win. This is because Linux, Windows, BeOS and others haven't been killed off, and OS/2 has always been dead. Since the others will be dead when they're dead, and OS/2 is living when are dead, then OS/2 must win.
Microsoft will lose their Windows source, and this will kill off any MS innovation. [If this is the test, have they already lost it?]. Microsoft will make a lunge at Corel on the hope of nabbing their Linux source code, but by the this happens, Corel Linux will have left the building.
The install icon for Windows icons will show a caddy of cdroms hopping out of the box [They currently use 5.25 inch disks].
The metric system will be abandoned in a fit of sanity. We will all revert to using feet and pounds. A new electrical system will be fitted to the Imperial system.
A huge vulcano will make all irrelevant {sorry} I've been reading David Key's "Castrophe". {/sorry} But because OS/2 is rock solid, it survives, and takes over.
Happy birthday, Australia. We've been a democracy for 100 years [dec].
Solitaire is one of the most widely played games, but I can't say it's influential. [It's a cut back version of OS/2's klondyke] MS regard it as the most widely tested Windows app.
I was asked to make a boot diskette, that loaded DOS and Windows, and runs Solitaire. The thing boots straight into Windows, and then loads solitaire as the shell.
os2fan was not denying that the code does not appear in the retail version: What the point was was that the message was not harmless when it was active:
Hey, if you type a command at the dos prompt, where does your hand end up? On the enter key.
What key do you press to clear an info box? an enter key.
What happens if you press the enter key here: Windows aborts.
Is this the `harmless message that was spoken about. - No
There is a big difference between MS and the Linux distros.
That two programs might share code, or call each other is not a tie. 4DOS can use REXX if it finds it, regardless of the vendor of REXX. Using both together is better than either alone. This is not a tie, since 4DOS and REXX are quite functional on their own.
Let's suppose I want to use Word and Lotus 123. If I buy Word and 123 separately, I can add them together, and use the consolidated product. If I buy Office and SmartSuite, I can install Office and SmartSuite elements as I see fit: eg Word and 123.
If the installation of Word forces me to install Excel and Powerpoint, for no other reason than it can, then this is a tied product.
If I am forced to buy Excel when all I want is Word, then this is a tied product.
In the case of Windows + IE, two separate products were taken, and then distributed as a required bundle [in Win95B, the IE install is a separate thing done after Windows]. This bundle is illegal, since the tied product Win95 was no longer available except with the tied prodict IE, yet IE was separately available. I could none the less not install IE under Win95.
In Windows 98, the tied product was artificially bound into the program (since 98lite can remove it), and this tied product is exactly the same result as you can get by adding IE to Win95. Therefore, the product is tied and fails the test.
In the Linux distros, you do not have to install any of the supplied browsers to the system. These are not tied.
This message is from a retail version of pwb.com, a program included with MS languages, like MS-BASIC 7.1. It is illegal under some Warranty act in the US, and they stopped doing this, only after they were investigated. As before, the code is taken from the program output [under NT].
WARNING: This Microsoft product has been tested and certified
for use only with the MS-DOS and PC-DOS operating systems.
Your use of this product with another operating system may
void valuable warranty protection provided by Microsoft on
this product.
Pressing the offered Help button yields:
The Microsoft Programmer's WorkBench (PWB) has found that the
operating system is not MS-DOS or PC-DOS; that is, it was not
originated by Microsoft. If PWB is run on an operating system that
is not an exact duplicate of a Microsoft-originated operating
system, the product may not perform as intended.
(a) Here's the actual words, cut and pasted from the RETAIL Win.com.
Non-Fatal error detected: error #2726
Please contact Windows 3.1 beta support
Press ENTER to exit or C to continue
Hey, are you going to press C or Enter every time you start Windows?
(b) You would never guess that this is the offending message when you look into the win.com with a hex viewer. It's nestled after the MSDPMI message (which you can get, if you run win.com from a dos session started in winstart.bat.
Supprising at it may seem, the error code that DR-DOS gives is STILL there, and it takes only a few bytes change to activate it. I've done this at home, along with loading a program that fakes WIN.COM into thinking that MS-DOS is DR-DOS. It's all in Undocumented DOS.
MS-Word's format is so easily corruptable that it shocking. And Word 97 can't read it. It is changing because it's been decoded by 3rd party people.
You can get the same sorts of message from MS PWB under Windows NTDOS.
Larry Ellison, I think, is CEO of Oracle. He is a competitor of MS. Just as MS would do Oracle in if it had half the chance, so would Oracle do MS in.
os2fan is an end user who wants choice, and is not a ceo of any company. Since choice means supporting the underdog, this is what is done. os2fan sees MS killing off choice, and therefore MS must be attacked. Since we do it for different reasons, and are different people, os2fan != "Larry Ellison".
Product development is slow because MS sales are no longer competitive-driven. The whole calculator thing went on during a time when MS was free to act, and despite all of these versions, and the problem being in the press, it was when WSJ made it news that MS was shamed into fixing it. [While you're at it, try NYC in Wingdings font: that's keep a lot of Jews happy!]
Some things should be slowed anyway. Many companies rely on software to do their business, and changing versions is not good for these customers. You read of ancient database formats, why? Because if the format is not kept, the product does not sell. Why? because the old one will do the job.
The committee does not need to be some sort of bureaucrat or competetors. The point is that the product needs to be reviewed before release.
The way it could work is that MS could release on a beta program, the updated version of the existing database, and, as separate addins, each of the proposed added new features. People could then make submissions to (some point) which would then be heard for each separate addition. Since MS is the guilty party, it pays the costs of the exercise.
ironically, Netscape? Are you a microserf? No, I am against monopolies, not against MS. Although I think their software is tenpence in the dinar, that does not affect my views on their right to market. I still think that Netscape was better than IE at any point in the market until MS cut off Netscape's air supply.
Microsoft's superior product Yeah Right. I haven't seen one that isn't better than 10d in the shilling. Word 2 and Excel 4 were so far behind Lotus 123 for DOS, and marginally up there with Multimate 4. The main reason that nearly any MS product is superior is because they gave them away like candy to OEMs. They still do.
The proposal is not because MS is a monopoly, but because they abused that monopoly. They committed a crime, and so they should be regulated at their expense. I mean, you can't send Windows to jail?
In your model, do only CEO's have original thoughts. Do you think that because I make suggestions against MS, I favour its competion? Maybe you should get out more, and see that the world is not black & white and shades of grey.
How long does it take to get a fix now. Next version, three years later. Hmmm.
Case in point. Windows calculator was buggy (try 3.10+0.01 = 3.10 on Win3x calculator). Problem exists in 3.0. Fixed for 3.1 (no) fixed for 3.11 (no) fixed when Wall Street journal ran story on it (patch made available). Fixed in 95 (yes). IE this KNOWN problem went through two MAJOR versions before it was fixed. Fixed yesterday? Yeah, Right!
My model does not prevent patches being released. It does stop additional features being added to the OS to stave off competition.
You talk of liberty and free enterprise. If you buck the rules of liberty, they toss you in ail. If you milk the free enterprise system, they slap you on the wrist `naughty Billy' and let you off. Must be the American Way I've heard of.
The concept that people should not pay for commercial crimes seems foreign to you.
There is no precedent under antitrust law for the government to force all of a company's products to be approved by an external committee before they are shipped. But we're only doing one class of product. We're not forcing a review of the product. The process can be made reletively difficult to such an extent that new upgrades are not done on a whim. Also, we do not cover Plus! or Office products in this, and we do not prevent video-for-windows like distros.
Please do enlighten me on what benefit including a browser, a spreadsheet, a compiler or a wordprocessor on every possible machine is, anyway?
But this is the whole point of contention in Microsoft's case! It's not. The bone of contention is that the patches are forced, not optional. No-one's squealing about Plus!, video for Windows or MMExt.
If you choose not to upgrade, tough. Maybe new applications won't work on your computer. DOS 3.3 and 4 ran concurrently. If the new one is buggy, then choose the old one. You can only do this if they're both available and supported. [prehaps on the same cdrom?]
It seems that every anouncement made on OS/2 brings out the OS/2 is dead cry. IBM have just issued the last fix pack (#42) for version 3, and they're actively supporting versions 4 and 4.5.
Microsoft releases Win2k in February, and retires their certification for NT4 in December of the same year. Do we hear a cry of NT is dead? Not even a whimper, even though people are paying $8000 per time for MS certification.
Do tell me, how because I suggest some ideas that are already in place, that I am working for the enemy and therefore working for Oracle or Netscape? Do you *seriously* believe that people are incapable of making their own mind up? Applying the same logic to yourself, I could assume that you're a microserf.
If there is no threatening market, MS is quite happy to releace little addin patch kits (eg video for windows, multimedia extentions, Win32), and even charge for them (look at any Plus! and the next version of Windows).
Let there be some sort of competition, and we see some new version of Windows wheeled out, with the patch bound so hard that you can't remove it. We see Windows for Workgroups 3.11 with networking bound in. Even though a Windows 3.11 exists without the networking added in, this was so hard to find. The VSHARE.386 is a virtual driver that replaces SHARE.EXE, at first works only under WfW, but the latest version works under plain Win 3.10 from 1992. SHARE and VSHARE is not a network-only function. And then look at the netscape/IE show.
Do tell me, what benefit is to customers if networking and browsing is forced on them on every machine they use? Especially if the purpose is to kill off choice [Netware/MS/none] or [IE/Netware/Opera/none].
When DOS 4.0 came out, this did not kill off dos 3. DOS 4 had so many bugs in it that people kept using and selling DOS 3.3x. So don't tell me that the new versions are always better than the old!
The current system is not working, I put forward a new version, designed to kill off one form of mingling: rush versions of windows like WfW 3.11 and Win98, and to kill off the `Everyone must use the new version' thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Suppose I download the latest version. In order to install it, I need write permissions to the directory: something that I can restrict to the net-browser user or to network users. Therefore the app does not work properly.
Alternately, it may use secret passwords, and install despite the permissions.
Just imagine the mayhem that network administrators would have as assorted copies of WinWart and Exasp start expiring around the office. Oh the joys of it. *NOT*
Even if the user never fires up a terminal session, the command line interface is important. This is because a GUI is objects that one sends commands to.
The simplest is a program launcher, where one creates a command "$1" in. In a drag and drop, one drags $2 onto $1, and runs the command "$1 $2". One can also have the context drag, where one drags $2 onto $1, and gets a popup menu that $1 and $2 interact in defined ways.
Of course, one can use context menus for the drag and click. The Windows start and send to menus are nothing more than desktop objects used differently. You can actually put shaddows of these (c:\windows\start menu, and c:\windows\sendto) on your desktop and manage the icons directly from the desktop.
Selecting from the start menu is simply doubleclicking an icon from the desktop, and the send to is the target of a drag, but one does not need to see the desktop to make this happen.
You can use a right-drag to allow multiple options to be selected from the same drag and drop. You drag $2 to $1, and from the pop-up menu, select "$1 -m $2" or "$2 $1" or "gfc $1 $2" whatever. The icons can be configured to do this. It is the user perception that needs to be made aware of it.
It goes the other way as well. The Windows start command will open documents, directories etc from a command line, and I have changed Windows and OS/2 icons and titles from a command line script. This gives a visual indication that the script is done, and there needs to be attention from the user. The easier the interface is understood, the better it runs.
This is a strength of OS/2, in that the icons have global names, and is not dependant on their positions in the desktop. You can change the name of an icon, or start it from the command line from a rexx script. The c:\nowhere folder is used for icons not intended for the desktop or vible directory.
You can join the GUI and CLI in innovative ways, but unless you communicate what is possible, the user is simply going to ignore it. Ignore it, becaise the User is forgotten. :)
The other reason that people think the next generation are dumber is because they are not dosed with the same general level of influence as their parents. We don't have the sort of general knowledge to live in our parent's day, and we do not instill the general knowledge to allow our kids to live in our age. They've got their own problems to deal with.
The os2fan thinks that people are not getting enough REXX, and she would have this as a compulsory subject as far as seventh grade. Many things os2fan knows comes from people doing things that she would never have dreamed of doing, like putting equal signs in file names.
But os2fan is a dinosaur from 1999, and there has been a whole year gone on in the IT world. So she is wildly out of date :( She has learnt really basic HTML, though, and scares people by typing up web pages directly in the DOS E Editor.
For example, a games console does not require you to grovel around in config.sys or whatever. This means that you stick the game in and play it, and stick the next game in and play this.
If you consider the shell as some sort of launcher, you can start different games as if the machine were speficifally configured for it alone. When done, it swaps back the system kernal.
You could then make rooms (computers) where you install different apps together in the same room. If you do lots of office stuff, swapping between wordpro and 1-2-3 and approach, you could cut and paste between them.
Rooms could be made secure, so that you could run your mail client and the browser in its own room, this would not trash your system a la ILOVEYOU.
The idea is that you should be able to test, install and run applications in separate configurations, from the same desktop.
You can add and replace hardware, because each VM would connect to a `sound card', not a SB16 or an AWE64. Your VM seeks a `soundcard', and the OS maps suggests AWE64.
When a device runs as a FS (eg a Zipdrive or a cdrom or a network), this is part of the FS, and the app does not need to deal with drivers for these.
The terminal concept should be supported. An app should be able to run another app, and pull off the data from it. For this, we could have roles. Example, ZIP, RAR, TAR and ARJ are all file archivers. You may want to manage the contents of these from some other different tool, like a file manager, or a folder on the desktop. If there is a certian role for archiver file systems, then the two can talk.
What is needed is not to replace the OS, but realise that the bloat in the OS is due to the OS becomming more a shared library. We need to work on some sort of shared role interface, and demand it. You don't need a big exec file to run RAR, but if the interfaces existed, you could open rar files in File Commander, ZTBold, as directories in 4OS2 (eg cd /a archive.rar), or whatever.
With a shared GUI layer, you could write a game that looks to see if the video on the other end has the grunt, and then start playing it in full screen mode. It basically swaps out the OS and plays with its own config, and swaps the OS shell back in when it's done.
Think differently. Think OS/2.
We welcome yet another OS to the intel platform, bit on the same hand, the desire to have java or cobra or something like it, to allow apps to run on different apps becomes an issue.
The trouble is, is that no-one is moving in the right direction, except under duress. MS would not had embrased the net, but fostered their Compu$erve clone MSN on us, were it not that the people wanted the Net. IBM would have us on MicroChannel, were it that everyone wanted the AT system. Open standards may be comming to apps as well people.
Even if the Excel has nothing to do with banking, the notion that certian practices, software and hardware could be certified for use is worth looking at.
For example, that Excel can have these bugs and the Pentium chip can have these bugs, should alert us to that these or other bugs can exist in other tools.
Security works on secret keys. Safety works on open processes and modular construction. Only an open process can prevent bugs being hidden. Only a modular proces allows the replacement of defective parts in a cost effective way.
A process can be both safe and secure, because while the process of the key is understood, the exact value of it is not. Banks went for many years with bits of paper and keys. The technology of these were understood. The exact form of the key is revealled only to those who have a valid need for a copy of it.
Heed excel bugs, not as defects in one program, but defects in our trust in software.
We had this network that ran on small monitors, and then they upgraded the machines to run on fast pentiums and big screens, because that's what Windoze NT needed. The first big power outage took out the UPS, because the computers were sucking heaps more power.
Did this make the network users more productive? No. Did this make the network easier to administer? No, because stepping from Netware to NT was stepping back a few years.
So where was all this juice going. Sucked up into the ether to keep NT's bloatware going. What can you think of an OS that requires a pentium to boot?
Take a look at the power needs of Windows 95 and ME. Has the needs of the last five years really meant that we need to run a fast pentium with 64 MB, or is it just using resources because it it there. Do we really need to upgrade computers because only the latest OS is available? Come on.
There may be many computers that are more powerful than they need to be, and are just sucking the juices of the nation dry. Not in a big way, but Moore's law operates here as well.
At home, I run a 486 and a pentium. When I do code development, I do not need the grunt, so I do it on the 486. This is also the guest machine and the network client. When there's a genuine need for speed, then I fire up the pentium.
We could think of this in a single box, operating like a dual flush toilet. When both are on, one could act as the video accelerator. Pushing a turbo button could change the innards of the machine to add the needed grunt.
Programs and OS's could carry energy ratings, based on some form of minimum standard usage. You could then play feature against energy.
Maybe we need to think behind raw power and think in terms of the ecology. Every little bit helps.
Maybe we should be thinking globally. We should design energy efficient standards, and enforce them, even as far as product recalls. Start living as if the Earth matters.
Think Different, Think OS/2
What IS wrong with the name HFPS.SYS. If I saw this, I would know exactly what the file was related to. No second-guessing. No unravelling the programmer's mood on some long forgotten day.
Also, PINBALL.SYS sounds like a game file, and a sysadmin may very easily delete it. Ouch.
I say again, and this confirms it, that MS disrupts the user interface.
The damage was done long before. Microsoft had made life hard for it in 92-95. Cases in point:
We have for a whole decade, taught people about safe computing, not to take strange things from strange people, etc. We have drummed in the need to read the readme file. Understand what is to be done.
What is MS's new idea? A single binary install file. No readme, no nothing. You don't have a ghost of a chance until the damage is done. And because this is the only choice, people just trust it.
Like, hey, I've seen computers download a file, install software, and reboot. Is that scary or is that scary. And people trust it. Not just your ma and pops, but even savvy sallies.
The SMS is a joy to watch NOT. From a user's point of view, the program appears on the screen, snatches the focus, and then churns away. Then it closes. I call it Screw my System, a title not widely recieved on MS training courses :). Administrators call it Slow Moving Software. Whatever it is, it allows anyone who can hack a SMS package to do all sorts of damage to a network.
Microsoft is hacking the Common User Interface, so that when you try the neat tricks that work in Windows, they crash other systems. The user then gets a negative feeling about the system, and the system is by this, made to appear unstable.
Microsoft is using its lawyers as well. Linux may well have some cover in its GNU and FSF copyleft, but MS may be scouring its patent data.
None the less, I suspect, be very afraid.
What you Linuxers should do is start ferreting up lawyer types and go microsoft on hazardous design. Get a few recalls under way. [This product is capable of causing damage, and shall be recalled.] That's where I think the copyleft crowd should look at. Seriously.
Linux has a lot of different things to these companies. Linux may not be a company with a soft underbelly, but that does not mean that they don't have a soft underbelly that MS can attack.
That Linux, OS/2, NetWare, WP, Amipro, Netscape, ... were considerably better thought-out, more user friendly etc, than their contemporary MS offerings means naught. What MS has is a considerably better Legal Prober department. They have people poking at the limits of legality.
If you read the MS history, you will note they used different tricks to force the issues. Many of these are downright illegal, but they have got away with it, because the people in the US have some sort of government phobia.
What you will find most likely happen is that MS will start doing things like killing off dual boot systems on every boot. [I think NT does this already], detatching wizards to fix `corrupt partitions' [eg formatted in ext2fs], and so forth.
Much of this will be pretty low fuzz stuff that is designed to damage the standing of Linux generally, because when people install Linux and Windows, Windows will subtlety sabatage Linux.
It should be noted, that both the HPFS and NTFS file systems are type 0x07. That NT used to support HPFS and NT as separate file systems, and they chose 0x07 for both, gives the impression that they see HPFS as a corrupt version of NTFS. Also, if to show the intent, the NT HPFS driver is called PINBALL.SYS - ping
Even Windows use of Control-Alt-Delete to bring up nice features is less than benign. What happens is that people get use to pressing these keys, and then start doing them in other systems. If this had been some sort of critical thing that people's lives depended on, then MS would have been guilty of a major industrial design fraud. [Something akin to making the brake pedal an accelerator pedal on a car]
I suspect that the reason that DOS boot mode support was pulled from Windows ME was more to counter the BeOS boot from Windows, then any genuine recogintion that DOS games are passe. The personal edition of BeOS used the MS-DOS loader to boot a virtual partiton, much like a dedicated VMWare thingie.
Of course, they do not have to have to attack Linux or some other product directly. All they need is to provide a series of misleading experiences from their own OS or product, that causes some doubt that the other guy is doing it. (Snakes are imune to their own venom).
Windows .NET could prove to be as equally ugly in its heavy dependence on MS server stuff.
{example type="made up data"}So, for example, if you have Windows .NET and Linux on the same system, you might get messages saying that partitions are corrupt on every boot, or have to do something different to reboot.{/example}
So don't be too coy about having superior technology rah rah rah. Unless MS is reeled in, and you get over this liberty/free enterprise etc crap and realise that MS are criminals hiding using these as shields, you are going to have to watch for traps.
MS has shown time and again that it is quite capable of putting out products that rock, kill off the market, and then work the monopoly. Case in point: Windows
Windows 3.0 was a real rocker that gave PC users access to vast amounts of memory, and was considerably better than other dos guis at the time. By the time Windows 3.11 was out, they were getting us to swallow botter pills [MS networking, IE, WebTV, ...].
Windows NT certification gets killed off as the next version gets released.
What's stopping them rolling out XBOX OS's and cutting off driver and program support to the previous versions. What's stopping them comingling assorted code as a stunt to take over markets *in other areas*.
Picture this: XBOX gets merged into Windows X. Windows X has some new toy that MS is trying to kill off the market for, and contends tant this toy "is an integral part of OS". But some legal mind points out that XBOXen run without it, and so it gets added into the XOS v 2.0, whether or not XBOXen need the toy.
Think about it?
DEFINE '0' = ASCII("0")
For MS users [GWBASIC etc], the year is "19:1" = "19"&char$(year div 10 - 190 + '0')&char(year mod 10 + '0').
For Lotus users (eg Lotus 123 v 3.x for DOS), the year is 19101 = "19"+string(year-1900).
For Century users, the year is 1901, ie 1900+(year mod 100).
For those of us who use long numbers, the year is 1681, because a hundred is six scores, not five.
For those who grok binary, it is 11111010001, or 0x1FA1, or 0o3721.
For the rest of us, it's 2001.
The next biggie is dec 2040 (=1700 in long numbers). The millenium is a long way off, 1.0000 is dec 14400. :)
Seen
We have been fed a diet of `wonderous new technology' for 2001. So what do we see on a calendar for 2001? A picnic from 1901. Do these people know something that we don't?
What are my predictions?
OS/2 will win. This is because Linux, Windows, BeOS and others haven't been killed off, and OS/2 has always been dead. Since the others will be dead when they're dead, and OS/2 is living when are dead, then OS/2 must win.
Microsoft will lose their Windows source, and this will kill off any MS innovation. [If this is the test, have they already lost it?]. Microsoft will make a lunge at Corel on the hope of nabbing their Linux source code, but by the this happens, Corel Linux will have left the building.
The install icon for Windows icons will show a caddy of cdroms hopping out of the box [They currently use 5.25 inch disks].
The metric system will be abandoned in a fit of sanity. We will all revert to using feet and pounds. A new electrical system will be fitted to the Imperial system.
A huge vulcano will make all irrelevant {sorry} I've been reading David Key's "Castrophe". {/sorry} But because OS/2 is rock solid, it survives, and takes over.
Happy birthday, Australia. We've been a democracy for 100 years [dec].
I was asked to make a boot diskette, that loaded DOS and Windows, and runs Solitaire. The thing boots straight into Windows, and then loads solitaire as the shell.
Hey, if you type a command at the dos prompt, where does your hand end up? On the enter key.
What key do you press to clear an info box? an enter key.
What happens if you press the enter key here: Windows aborts.
Is this the `harmless message that was spoken about. - No
I rest my case.
That two programs might share code, or call each other is not a tie. 4DOS can use REXX if it finds it, regardless of the vendor of REXX. Using both together is better than either alone. This is not a tie, since 4DOS and REXX are quite functional on their own.
Let's suppose I want to use Word and Lotus 123. If I buy Word and 123 separately, I can add them together, and use the consolidated product. If I buy Office and SmartSuite, I can install Office and SmartSuite elements as I see fit: eg Word and 123.
If the installation of Word forces me to install Excel and Powerpoint, for no other reason than it can, then this is a tied product.
If I am forced to buy Excel when all I want is Word, then this is a tied product.
In the case of Windows + IE, two separate products were taken, and then distributed as a required bundle [in Win95B, the IE install is a separate thing done after Windows]. This bundle is illegal, since the tied product Win95 was no longer available except with the tied prodict IE, yet IE was separately available. I could none the less not install IE under Win95.
In Windows 98, the tied product was artificially bound into the program (since 98lite can remove it), and this tied product is exactly the same result as you can get by adding IE to Win95. Therefore, the product is tied and fails the test.
In the Linux distros, you do not have to install any of the supplied browsers to the system. These are not tied.
WARNING: This Microsoft product has been tested and certified
for use only with the MS-DOS and PC-DOS operating systems.
Your use of this product with another operating system may
void valuable warranty protection provided by Microsoft on
this product.
Pressing the offered Help button yields:
The Microsoft Programmer's WorkBench (PWB) has found that the
operating system is not MS-DOS or PC-DOS; that is, it was not
originated by Microsoft. If PWB is run on an operating system that
is not an exact duplicate of a Microsoft-originated operating
system, the product may not perform as intended.
Non-Fatal error detected: error #2726
Please contact Windows 3.1 beta support
Press ENTER to exit or C to continue
Hey, are you going to press C or Enter every time you start Windows?
(b) You would never guess that this is the offending message when you look into the win.com with a hex viewer. It's nestled after the MSDPMI message (which you can get, if you run win.com from a dos session started in winstart.bat.
MS-Word's format is so easily corruptable that it shocking. And Word 97 can't read it. It is changing because it's been decoded by 3rd party people.
You can get the same sorts of message from MS PWB under Windows NTDOS.
os2fan is an end user who wants choice, and is not a ceo of any company. Since choice means supporting the underdog, this is what is done. os2fan sees MS killing off choice, and therefore MS must be attacked. Since we do it for different reasons, and are different people, os2fan != "Larry Ellison".
Product development is slow because MS sales are no longer competitive-driven. The whole calculator thing went on during a time when MS was free to act, and despite all of these versions, and the problem being in the press, it was when WSJ made it news that MS was shamed into fixing it. [While you're at it, try NYC in Wingdings font: that's keep a lot of Jews happy!]
Some things should be slowed anyway. Many companies rely on software to do their business, and changing versions is not good for these customers. You read of ancient database formats, why? Because if the format is not kept, the product does not sell. Why? because the old one will do the job.
The committee does not need to be some sort of bureaucrat or competetors. The point is that the product needs to be reviewed before release.
The way it could work is that MS could release on a beta program, the updated version of the existing database, and, as separate addins, each of the proposed added new features. People could then make submissions to (some point) which would then be heard for each separate addition. Since MS is the guilty party, it pays the costs of the exercise.
ironically, Netscape? Are you a microserf? No, I am against monopolies, not against MS. Although I think their software is tenpence in the dinar, that does not affect my views on their right to market. I still think that Netscape was better than IE at any point in the market until MS cut off Netscape's air supply.
Microsoft's superior product Yeah Right. I haven't seen one that isn't better than 10d in the shilling. Word 2 and Excel 4 were so far behind Lotus 123 for DOS, and marginally up there with Multimate 4. The main reason that nearly any MS product is superior is because they gave them away like candy to OEMs. They still do.
The proposal is not because MS is a monopoly, but because they abused that monopoly. They committed a crime, and so they should be regulated at their expense. I mean, you can't send Windows to jail?
How long does it take to get a fix now. Next version, three years later. Hmmm. Case in point. Windows calculator was buggy (try 3.10+0.01 = 3.10 on Win3x calculator). Problem exists in 3.0. Fixed for 3.1 (no) fixed for 3.11 (no) fixed when Wall Street journal ran story on it (patch made available). Fixed in 95 (yes). IE this KNOWN problem went through two MAJOR versions before it was fixed. Fixed yesterday? Yeah, Right!
My model does not prevent patches being released. It does stop additional features being added to the OS to stave off competition.
You talk of liberty and free enterprise. If you buck the rules of liberty, they toss you in ail. If you milk the free enterprise system, they slap you on the wrist `naughty Billy' and let you off. Must be the American Way I've heard of.
The concept that people should not pay for commercial crimes seems foreign to you.
Please do enlighten me on what benefit including a browser, a spreadsheet, a compiler or a wordprocessor on every possible machine is, anyway?
But this is the whole point of contention in Microsoft's case! It's not. The bone of contention is that the patches are forced, not optional. No-one's squealing about Plus!, video for Windows or MMExt.
If you choose not to upgrade, tough. Maybe new applications won't work on your computer. DOS 3.3 and 4 ran concurrently. If the new one is buggy, then choose the old one. You can only do this if they're both available and supported. [prehaps on the same cdrom?]
Microsoft releases Win2k in February, and retires their certification for NT4 in December of the same year. Do we hear a cry of NT is dead? Not even a whimper, even though people are paying $8000 per time for MS certification.
Do tell me, how because I suggest some ideas that are already in place, that I am working for the enemy and therefore working for Oracle or Netscape? Do you *seriously* believe that people are incapable of making their own mind up? Applying the same logic to yourself, I could assume that you're a microserf.
If there is no threatening market, MS is quite happy to releace little addin patch kits (eg video for windows, multimedia extentions, Win32), and even charge for them (look at any Plus! and the next version of Windows).
Let there be some sort of competition, and we see some new version of Windows wheeled out, with the patch bound so hard that you can't remove it. We see Windows for Workgroups 3.11 with networking bound in. Even though a Windows 3.11 exists without the networking added in, this was so hard to find. The VSHARE.386 is a virtual driver that replaces SHARE.EXE, at first works only under WfW, but the latest version works under plain Win 3.10 from 1992. SHARE and VSHARE is not a network-only function. And then look at the netscape/IE show.
Do tell me, what benefit is to customers if networking and browsing is forced on them on every machine they use? Especially if the purpose is to kill off choice [Netware/MS/none] or [IE/Netware/Opera/none].
When DOS 4.0 came out, this did not kill off dos 3. DOS 4 had so many bugs in it that people kept using and selling DOS 3.3x. So don't tell me that the new versions are always better than the old!
The current system is not working, I put forward a new version, designed to kill off one form of mingling: rush versions of windows like WfW 3.11 and Win98, and to kill off the `Everyone must use the new version' thing.