# Financial software that has any compatibility with online banking
GnuCash 1.8
# Any kind of tax software
Do it online. 2 or 3 options there.
# Any kind of publishing/greeting card software (like you mentioned)
Agreed. This would be a good project for someone to take up. I bet some good KDE hackers could put one together in a few weeks.:)
# Any kind of "useful" office suite. By useful, I mean something that can be used anywhere by anybody. If I create an excel sheet or a powerpoint presentation, I can send that to anybody in the world and know that they can open it and read it
OpenOffice.org. And don't tell me it's not. And if for some reason it's not *yet*, it will be with 1.1 later this year.
# Any kind of children or educational software
There is some. Not a huge wealth of choices yet, but seriously, how much do they need? Isn't learning better done through books and toys anyway?
# Any kind of decent game that is has nothign to do with squashing Bill Gates while he is infecting computers with windows, or some freeking penguin on a skateboard. WineX doesn't count, too, because it rules out any of the latest games. A game console doesn't count, either. If I have all the hardware required to play games on my PC, why would I want to buy more hardware to play on a console just because I chose a crappy OS?
Bah. No one needs anything beyond TEG.:-) Actually there are plenty of decent games in Linux. You just have to be able to live without most of the big-money specific titles in the Windows world. Not that I care, I'm way too addicted to TEG!
# Antivirus/Security software
Huh? Linux has a fundamentally different architecture. Mail programs in Linux don't randomly execute every attachment they get. Distros ship with firewalls (which aren't even necessary if you don't run crap you don't need to run).
# Business/Accounting/Law software
There are choices out there for accounting, but granted, that category is well behind what is available for Windows. Fortunately, not everyone needs that stuff. Give it a couple years, it will come.
Do not worry about finding a list of mirrors. download.kde.org will automatically forward you to an open mirror.
Well, it found me one in Germany. And I'm in Oregon. That's really efficient, folks!
(No, I'm not downloading from there... I'm waiting for some kind of Red Hat packages. Maybe I'll even wait till the 8.1 release, though that would kind of suck.)
Seems like there's tons of books on PHP and MySQL. Not to troll, but why doesn't someone release a book on PHP and PostgreSQL? It really is a better database, and does things in a somewhat more standardized way than MySQL.
Not that I would need such a book (since I already know the combo fairly well), but I'd like to be able to recommend PG to people over MySQL, and some would find a book like this useful.
If it's from God, it could be simply to display His power over creation. If it's from Satan or demons, it could be to get people worked up about weird alien theories or whatever. I dunno.
> Oh, yes, the fallen angels... I'd thought they've got better things to do than spraying graffitti.
Like the other reply said, they will do whatever they need to do to draw you away from God.
> Artists, man, artists! Why do you look for a supernatural explaination when there's a perfectly good and natural one at hand?
Did you read the evidence in some of those articles? They seem to defy the possibility of them being created by humans.
> Is your faith that weak that you need proof every single dammed day of your pitiful life?
Nope. I'm just here pondering this with the rest of you. I never said I was sure I had any of the answers here. I don't know if they were done by pranksters (but again, based on the stated evidence, that seems unlikely), demons, or God.
I just find it amusing that some people are theorizing about weird energy sources or aliens. ALIENS, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! Is God and/or Satan a less credible explanation than aliens?
ok, wow, this deserves some discussion, I think, and I haven't seen anyone attempt a post from a Christian perspective yet.
I do very much believe in God, and also in evil spiritual beings (Satan and demons). I'm pretty sure all of them would have the capability to do this.
First, I'll admit that I am not a scientist, haven't seen these, and am going by what I'm reading in the linked articles here. And I haven't read anywhere near everything linked.
BUT... let's assume for a minute that the evidence discussed in this article is real, and some of this stuff was done by something "not quite human."
First, about the cool geometric designs. I'm kind of reminded from this passage from Romans:
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:18-20)
Now, about the encoded message on the disc, which some people missed from the explanation here.
Beware the bearers of FALSE gifts & their BROKEN PROMISES. Much PAIN but still time. BELIEvE. There is GOOD out there. We OPpose DECEPTION. Conduit CLOSING. Acknowledge.
First, does anyone know about the evidence surrounding this thing? Does it have the microwaved plants & such, that make it pretty clearly not a prankster?
If it were possible to write that one off as a prankster, I might be inclined to do so. After all, why would God use a retarded looking alien to get a message across? (Ok, so He'll probably slap me soon if it is indeed Him!:-) )
But the message (if you ignore a couple questionable bits and the inconsistent capitalization) is interesting, to say the least. The Bible talks about a time when a great deceiver will make a treaty with Israel, after which will come a time of Tribulation on the earth. Many signs indicate that that time could happen relatively soon.
I think that message could be talking about the false gift of peace from this great deceiver... or the fake signs and wonders he will publicly display to the masses. The pain of course would refer to the plagues of the Tribulation period (see Revelation 8 and 9). I do believe that during that time, people will be able to respond to God's message of Jesus (hence "but still time" in the message). "Conduit closing" could refer to the finite amount of time people have to receive His gift.
I think that any message like this that COULD be supernatural should be compared to the Bible to tell whether it is from God or Satan. And as far as I can tell, this lines up with what the Bible says. But I still can't get past that retarted looking alien.:-)
I hope I don't come off as looking extremely gullible or stupid here. I don't know more about this than most of you. I'm just adding this to the list of possible responses, and also to see if any other Christians have opinions on the matter.
Almost. I once wrote a one line shell script that took the root zone file from a TLD (which my company had access to) and outputted a sorted list of all registered domains in that TLD. It was fun.:)
Kylix OE is NOT Open Source... it's only free beer. Which is OK as far as it goes, but Open Source > free beer, by far.
I've used Kylix 1 and 2, and it's definitely the easiest way to create Linux GUI apps. I'm just concerned about putting too much faith in Borland. It took them forever to fix some serious bugs in K1, then the "fix" was far less than people expected, because K2 was being marketed and of course they wanted people to upgrade. It also took them a long time to support newer versions of databases (don't know if that's improved in the last year). Plus, Borland abandoned BC++ for OS/2. Who knows if Kylix would suffer the same fate if its sales aren't strong enough. Also there are rumors of MS buying Borland. What the heck would happen to Kylix support then?
Having dabbled in wxPython, I'm pretty sure I'll code my next GUI app in it (either that or XUL). It's open source, and Python always supports the latest database versions, and you know it's not going to be abandoned.
Re:Why can't they arleady do this?
on
SVG On the Rise
·
· Score: 2, Informative
> So the first thing we have to do is quit asking the government to wipe our hineys for us, because it takes tax dollars to buy toilet paper and hire certified personnel.
Oh NO don't give the tax-and-spenders any ideas!
I'm sure now within a few days we'll see Gephardt and Daschle on TV with this message:
"Our research indicates that 23% of sicknesses, and 35% of deaths caused by sicknesses, are directly or indirectly caused by improperly wiped arses, or improperly washed hands after a self-done arse-wiping. Of these sicknesses, 69% of them are second-hand, being transferred to someone else through a handshake with an improperly washed hand. This tragic statistic demands immediate action. We are proposing to Congress a bill which will create the 'Department of Personal Sanitation'. We will hire ONE MILLION Personal Sanitation Engineers, who are specially trained to properly wipe arses, and will carry special clensing solutions to kill all bacteria. We will also issue to each American a Need-Arsewipe Pager, which will have a button on it. When you start to take a dump, simply press the button. A Personal Sanitation Engineer will be at your service within THREE MINUTES, guaranteed, whether you're in Midtown Manhattan or hiking in the vast expanses of the Gates of the Arctic National Park. It will become a federal felony to wipe your own arse, punishable by 5 years in prison and/or a $100,000 fine. As a side benefit, this program will nearly eliminate unemployment in this tough economy. Finally, our laid off technologists will have something productive on which to focus their amazing energy and talent. Some of you are wondering about the costs. We have determined that it will cost MERELY $300 billion a year. To get started, we are leveraging a one-time tax on the wealthiest corporations and individuals. All corporations with more than $1 billion cash in the bank will be taxed their entire balance less the $1 billion, which we feel they need to keep to stay alive. For individuals, all of their net worth over $5 million will need to be sent in. This, of course, will only last us a few months until we work out a more sustainable funding model, but the urgency of the situation requires it. Thank you, fellow Congressmen, fellow Americans, and Mr. President. I urge you to act quickly to pass this essential act. God bless America!"
Actually I believe the vast majority of MS code has been removed -- maybe a bit left in the 16-bit subsystem or HPFS filesystem. But now we have the JFS filesystem and don't really need 16 bit support.
I have a copy of Warp 4 and Visual Age C++ for OS/2 that I'll almost certainly never use again. Would be willing to sell for cheap+shipping.
I loved OS/2, but it is what helped convince me that Free Software is SO important. I put quite a bit of effort into learning OS/2, hoping it would take off, and learned a lesson when IBM stopped pushing it. You just can't put much hope in non Free software! Linux is, fortunately, immune to being ignored by its manufacturer the way OS/2 (and BeOS) was.
I was wanting to do something like that with travel guides -- i.e. a Lonely Planet type guide under an open content license, with all the data stored as XML so it could be regenerated in any way desired. Unfortunately I never got much interest in it, but if people want to run with it it's not too late...
In addition to the question on which topics you are looking for, I'd also ask what the qualifications would be for writing a book. I did fairly well in grammar classes, and I have written tutorials before (and was praised for them). I run a sole-proprietor consulting company, but things are slow so I might be interested in this if I can come up with a reasonable topic.
FWIW, Red Hat seems to be doing well with its Advanced Server and paid up2date subscriptions. Not to mention RHCE certs. I think RHAT will be doing just fine over the next year.
And a $300K profit is a lot better than a loss, which many $1B+ public companies have these days!!!
For 2003, it would be nice if Open Office got better (much better). Also, Mozilla speed improvements or Phoenix 1.0 would rock!
I for one am confident that both projects will have huge strides in 2003.
For OOo, version 1.1 will be released, probably in mid-year. There is a pretty good list of new features and bug fixes. Also, hopefully the native OS X port will be done. Maybe Apple will even bundle it with every box? Wouldn't THAT be sweet? In your face, Bill!
For Mozilla, yes, Phoenix should create a butt-kicking browser. Mozilla will keep adding features. If the Mozilla guys fix some of the things they broke since 1.0.1, I really see Mozilla+XUL+Javascript making strides in the edutainment department.
Hmmm, no I haven't tried an HTML textbox. That would likely work, I think!
Still, for now, I'm thinking it's probably wisest to stick to HTML/CSS. BUT... I think I'll keep looking at XUL, and maybe use it to provide an alternate interface to the same site, as soon as I can. That may be the best of both worlds! Still encourage Mozilla use, but don't limit yourself to a small fraction of the Internet's users (though hopefully it will be a large fraction by the end of this year).
I would be interested in hearing some of the lessons you learned in your XUL trials.
For one thing, I got excited about using the HTML composer to allow people to write messages. But apparently that is only available in chrome apps (which are installed locally, not fetched via HTTP). When I reverted to plain-text boxes, I discovered that I could not even get XUL to do the equivelant of wrap=soft in HTML -- the user had to press a hard Enter at the end of every line! That is probably the biggest "killer", for now anyway, for this particular application. Making it look and feel nice to users is of utmost importance.
Also, Mozilla seems to have fairly unstable support for changing some properties dynamically. Some things that worked great in Mozilla 1.0.1 don't work right at all in any recent build (since last August I think). Here is a test page that I put up. When you move the mouse over the image, it's supposed to increase/decrease the opacity. Works great in 1.0.1, but in recent builds it just works the first time the mouse touches it, then the opacity just stays the same. I filed a bug on this -- Bugzilla #185432. Not an issue for my afformentioned application, but I believe Mozilla+XUL could be huge in the edutainment market, and this kind of thing makes it almost worthless for that. They need to get this kind of thing working reliably in all builds.
That's correct. I've done some playing with this (remote XUL apps) and I really think it has great potential.
Unfortunately, there are some bugs to be worked out. I was going to create a new app I'm working on in XUL, partly to have a "better" interface and partly to thumb my nose at Microsoft and hopefully get more people to try Mozilla. But I ran into some problems and it's back to standard HTML/CSS.:( Maybe next year...
Well, I guess Chacham won't consider this the Bible, but I sure do...
"I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book." Revelation 22:18-19.
Granted, that particular word might apply only to the book of Revelation, not the whole Bible. But I think the concept is there -- God doesn't want His words tampered with!
"The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever." -- Psalms 12:6-7
And Jesus actually kept to that principle: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven." -- Matthew 5:17-19
Jesus just took several points in the Law of Moses and said that it's really a HEART condition. Just not committing these sins is not good enough. The intention or desire to commit them also violates the law! All that, of course, leads up to the fact that none of us are perfect, or even good, in God's sight ("There is none righteous, no, not one" -- Romans 3:10). Which is why we are in desperate need of reconcilliation to God, which is something only Jesus, as God's UNIQUE Son, can do!
Sorry for preaching, but you asked, and it sort of led to all this.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, I'll bite.
:)
:-) Actually there are plenty of decent games in Linux. You just have to be able to live without most of the big-money specific titles in the Windows world. Not that I care, I'm way too addicted to TEG!
# Financial software that has any compatibility with online banking
GnuCash 1.8
# Any kind of tax software
Do it online. 2 or 3 options there.
# Any kind of publishing/greeting card software (like you mentioned)
Agreed. This would be a good project for someone to take up. I bet some good KDE hackers could put one together in a few weeks.
# Any kind of "useful" office suite. By useful, I mean something that can be used anywhere by anybody. If I create an excel sheet or a powerpoint presentation, I can send that to anybody in the world and know that they can open it and read it
OpenOffice.org. And don't tell me it's not. And if for some reason it's not *yet*, it will be with 1.1 later this year.
# Any kind of children or educational software
There is some. Not a huge wealth of choices yet, but seriously, how much do they need? Isn't learning better done through books and toys anyway?
# Any kind of decent game that is has nothign to do with squashing Bill Gates while he is infecting computers with windows, or some freeking penguin on a skateboard. WineX doesn't count, too, because it rules out any of the latest games. A game console doesn't count, either. If I have all the hardware required to play games on my PC, why would I want to buy more hardware to play on a console just because I chose a crappy OS?
Bah. No one needs anything beyond TEG.
# Antivirus/Security software
Huh? Linux has a fundamentally different architecture. Mail programs in Linux don't randomly execute every attachment they get. Distros ship with firewalls (which aren't even necessary if you don't run crap you don't need to run).
# Business/Accounting/Law software
There are choices out there for accounting, but granted, that category is well behind what is available for Windows. Fortunately, not everyone needs that stuff. Give it a couple years, it will come.
Do not worry about finding a list of mirrors. download.kde.org will automatically forward you to an open mirror.
... I'm waiting for some kind of Red Hat packages. Maybe I'll even wait till the 8.1 release, though that would kind of suck.)
Well, it found me one in Germany. And I'm in Oregon. That's really efficient, folks!
(No, I'm not downloading from there
Seems like there's tons of books on PHP and MySQL. Not to troll, but why doesn't someone release a book on PHP and PostgreSQL? It really is a better database, and does things in a somewhat more standardized way than MySQL.
Not that I would need such a book (since I already know the combo fairly well), but I'd like to be able to recommend PG to people over MySQL, and some would find a book like this useful.
Nice troll, but OK....
> and they'd bother, why exactly?
If it's from God, it could be simply to display His power over creation. If it's from Satan or demons, it could be to get people worked up about weird alien theories or whatever. I dunno.
> Oh, yes, the fallen angels... I'd thought they've got better things to do than spraying graffitti.
Like the other reply said, they will do whatever they need to do to draw you away from God.
> Artists, man, artists! Why do you look for a supernatural explaination when there's a perfectly good and natural one at hand?
Did you read the evidence in some of those articles? They seem to defy the possibility of them being created by humans.
> Is your faith that weak that you need proof every single dammed day of your pitiful life?
Nope. I'm just here pondering this with the rest of you. I never said I was sure I had any of the answers here. I don't know if they were done by pranksters (but again, based on the stated evidence, that seems unlikely), demons, or God.
I just find it amusing that some people are theorizing about weird energy sources or aliens. ALIENS, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! Is God and/or Satan a less credible explanation than aliens?
I do very much believe in God, and also in evil spiritual beings (Satan and demons). I'm pretty sure all of them would have the capability to do this.
First, I'll admit that I am not a scientist, haven't seen these, and am going by what I'm reading in the linked articles here. And I haven't read anywhere near everything linked.
BUT
First, about the cool geometric designs. I'm kind of reminded from this passage from Romans:
Now, about the encoded message on the disc, which some people missed from the explanation here.
First, does anyone know about the evidence surrounding this thing? Does it have the microwaved plants & such, that make it pretty clearly not a prankster?
If it were possible to write that one off as a prankster, I might be inclined to do so. After all, why would God use a retarded looking alien to get a message across? (Ok, so He'll probably slap me soon if it is indeed Him!
But the message (if you ignore a couple questionable bits and the inconsistent capitalization) is interesting, to say the least. The Bible talks about a time when a great deceiver will make a treaty with Israel, after which will come a time of Tribulation on the earth. Many signs indicate that that time could happen relatively soon.
I think that message could be talking about the false gift of peace from this great deceiver
I think that any message like this that COULD be supernatural should be compared to the Bible to tell whether it is from God or Satan. And as far as I can tell, this lines up with what the Bible says. But I still can't get past that retarted looking alien.
I hope I don't come off as looking extremely gullible or stupid here. I don't know more about this than most of you. I'm just adding this to the list of possible responses, and also to see if any other Christians have opinions on the matter.
Almost. I once wrote a one line shell script that took the root zone file from a TLD (which my company had access to) and outputted a sorted list of all registered domains in that TLD. It was fun. :)
I'm developing a website right now using the httpd, php, and postgresql packages from RH 8. No problems yet.
Kylix OE is NOT Open Source... it's only free beer. Which is OK as far as it goes, but Open Source > free beer, by far.
I've used Kylix 1 and 2, and it's definitely the easiest way to create Linux GUI apps. I'm just concerned about putting too much faith in Borland. It took them forever to fix some serious bugs in K1, then the "fix" was far less than people expected, because K2 was being marketed and of course they wanted people to upgrade. It also took them a long time to support newer versions of databases (don't know if that's improved in the last year). Plus, Borland abandoned BC++ for OS/2. Who knows if Kylix would suffer the same fate if its sales aren't strong enough. Also there are rumors of MS buying Borland. What the heck would happen to Kylix support then?
Having dabbled in wxPython, I'm pretty sure I'll code my next GUI app in it (either that or XUL). It's open source, and Python always supports the latest database versions, and you know it's not going to be abandoned.
You might be on to something there. From ldd:
/usr/lib/libgtk-1.2.so.0 (0x40246000)
mozilla/mozilla-bin:
[...]
libgtk-1.2.so.0 =>
GTK is certainly LGPL also!!!! What exactly is the problem here again?
> So the first thing we have to do is quit asking the government to wipe our hineys for us, because it takes tax dollars to buy toilet paper and hire certified personnel.
Oh NO don't give the tax-and-spenders any ideas!
I'm sure now within a few days we'll see Gephardt and Daschle on TV with this message:
"Our research indicates that 23% of sicknesses, and 35% of deaths caused by sicknesses, are directly or indirectly caused by improperly wiped arses, or improperly washed hands after a self-done arse-wiping. Of these sicknesses, 69% of them are second-hand, being transferred to someone else through a handshake with an improperly washed hand. This tragic statistic demands immediate action. We are proposing to Congress a bill which will create the 'Department of Personal Sanitation'. We will hire ONE MILLION Personal Sanitation Engineers, who are specially trained to properly wipe arses, and will carry special clensing solutions to kill all bacteria. We will also issue to each American a Need-Arsewipe Pager, which will have a button on it. When you start to take a dump, simply press the button. A Personal Sanitation Engineer will be at your service within THREE MINUTES, guaranteed, whether you're in Midtown Manhattan or hiking in the vast expanses of the Gates of the Arctic National Park. It will become a federal felony to wipe your own arse, punishable by 5 years in prison and/or a $100,000 fine. As a side benefit, this program will nearly eliminate unemployment in this tough economy. Finally, our laid off technologists will have something productive on which to focus their amazing energy and talent. Some of you are wondering about the costs. We have determined that it will cost MERELY $300 billion a year. To get started, we are leveraging a one-time tax on the wealthiest corporations and individuals. All corporations with more than $1 billion cash in the bank will be taxed their entire balance less the $1 billion, which we feel they need to keep to stay alive. For individuals, all of their net worth over $5 million will need to be sent in. This, of course, will only last us a few months until we work out a more sustainable funding model, but the urgency of the situation requires it. Thank you, fellow Congressmen, fellow Americans, and Mr. President. I urge you to act quickly to pass this essential act. God bless America!"
Oh well, my karma is too high anyway.
Actually I believe the vast majority of MS code has been removed -- maybe a bit left in the 16-bit subsystem or HPFS filesystem. But now we have the JFS filesystem and don't really need 16 bit support.
I have a copy of Warp 4 and Visual Age C++ for OS/2 that I'll almost certainly never use again. Would be willing to sell for cheap+shipping.
I loved OS/2, but it is what helped convince me that Free Software is SO important. I put quite a bit of effort into learning OS/2, hoping it would take off, and learned a lesson when IBM stopped pushing it. You just can't put much hope in non Free software! Linux is, fortunately, immune to being ignored by its manufacturer the way OS/2 (and BeOS) was.
Oop. I presumed he was describing Bishop Ussher's claim of 4004 BC, the most noted bible-based claim to the age of the universe.
He probably thought he was talking about that too, but nevertheless he just said 4000 years AGO, which is not the same. Oh well...
The guy said 4003 years ago, not 4003 BC.
I was wanting to do something like that with travel guides -- i.e. a Lonely Planet type guide under an open content license, with all the data stored as XML so it could be regenerated in any way desired. Unfortunately I never got much interest in it, but if people want to run with it it's not too late...
Bruce,
In addition to the question on which topics you are looking for, I'd also ask what the qualifications would be for writing a book. I did fairly well in grammar classes, and I have written tutorials before (and was praised for them). I run a sole-proprietor consulting company, but things are slow so I might be interested in this if I can come up with a reasonable topic.
Thanks!
I'm not Bruce, but the Open Content license is almost like the GPL for code. Yes, it will be free. (supposedly)
FWIW, Red Hat seems to be doing well with its Advanced Server and paid up2date subscriptions. Not to mention RHCE certs. I think RHAT will be doing just fine over the next year.
And a $300K profit is a lot better than a loss, which many $1B+ public companies have these days!!!
For 2003, it would be nice if Open Office got better (much better). Also, Mozilla speed improvements or Phoenix 1.0 would rock!
I for one am confident that both projects will have huge strides in 2003.
For OOo, version 1.1 will be released, probably in mid-year. There is a pretty good list of new features and bug fixes. Also, hopefully the native OS X port will be done. Maybe Apple will even bundle it with every box? Wouldn't THAT be sweet? In your face, Bill!
For Mozilla, yes, Phoenix should create a butt-kicking browser. Mozilla will keep adding features. If the Mozilla guys fix some of the things they broke since 1.0.1, I really see Mozilla+XUL+Javascript making strides in the edutainment department.
Hey cool, that's great! I think I might use a similar technique for a new web app I'm developing, which will NOT have mostly tech-savvy users.
And off-topic, but gotta ask... you're a Miller in the Conestoga area of PA, so I suppose you have Mennonite connections?
Hmmm, no I haven't tried an HTML textbox. That would likely work, I think!
Still, for now, I'm thinking it's probably wisest to stick to HTML/CSS. BUT... I think I'll keep looking at XUL, and maybe use it to provide an alternate interface to the same site, as soon as I can. That may be the best of both worlds! Still encourage Mozilla use, but don't limit yourself to a small fraction of the Internet's users (though hopefully it will be a large fraction by the end of this year).
I would be interested in hearing some of the lessons you learned in your XUL trials.
For one thing, I got excited about using the HTML composer to allow people to write messages. But apparently that is only available in chrome apps (which are installed locally, not fetched via HTTP). When I reverted to plain-text boxes, I discovered that I could not even get XUL to do the equivelant of wrap=soft in HTML -- the user had to press a hard Enter at the end of every line! That is probably the biggest "killer", for now anyway, for this particular application. Making it look and feel nice to users is of utmost importance.
Also, Mozilla seems to have fairly unstable support for changing some properties dynamically. Some things that worked great in Mozilla 1.0.1 don't work right at all in any recent build (since last August I think). Here is a test page that I put up. When you move the mouse over the image, it's supposed to increase/decrease the opacity. Works great in 1.0.1, but in recent builds it just works the first time the mouse touches it, then the opacity just stays the same. I filed a bug on this -- Bugzilla #185432. Not an issue for my afformentioned application, but I believe Mozilla+XUL could be huge in the edutainment market, and this kind of thing makes it almost worthless for that. They need to get this kind of thing working reliably in all builds.
That's correct. I've done some playing with this (remote XUL apps) and I really think it has great potential.
:( Maybe next year...
Unfortunately, there are some bugs to be worked out. I was going to create a new app I'm working on in XUL, partly to have a "better" interface and partly to thumb my nose at Microsoft and hopefully get more people to try Mozilla. But I ran into some problems and it's back to standard HTML/CSS.
Well, I guess Chacham won't consider this the Bible, but I sure do...
:-)
"I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book." Revelation 22:18-19.
Granted, that particular word might apply only to the book of Revelation, not the whole Bible. But I think the concept is there -- God doesn't want His words tampered with!
"The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever." -- Psalms 12:6-7
And Jesus actually kept to that principle: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven." -- Matthew 5:17-19
Jesus just took several points in the Law of Moses and said that it's really a HEART condition. Just not committing these sins is not good enough. The intention or desire to commit them also violates the law! All that, of course, leads up to the fact that none of us are perfect, or even good, in God's sight ("There is none righteous, no, not one" -- Romans 3:10). Which is why we are in desperate need of reconcilliation to God, which is something only Jesus, as God's UNIQUE Son, can do!
Sorry for preaching, but you asked, and it sort of led to all this.
I haven't personally used it, but FlightGear uses PUI. It looks slick, and FG is probably one of the most advanced Open Source projects ever.