Try WinHTTrack, for Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP http://www.httrack.com/ They released a new version a week ago.
From the website:
HTTrack is a free (libre/open source) and easy-to-use offline browser utility.
It allows you to download a World Wide Web site from the Internet to a local directory, building recursively all directories, getting HTML, images, and other files from the server to your computer. HTTrack arranges the original site's relative link-structure. Simply open a page of the "mirrored" website in your browser, and you can browse the site from link to link, as if you were viewing it online. HTTrack can also update an existing mirrored site, and resume interrupted downloads. HTTrack is fully configurable, and has an integrated help system.
You make a good point, but I have to disagree. Please note a huge and unique fact of CDs:
We have alternative media (tape & vinyl).
CDs cost less to make, distribute, store, etc.
CDs cost MORE to buy.
Why?
Looking for answers to that question, and getting angry because of them, does not seem "incredibly naive" to me.
Of course, conspiracy and exploitation exists in other industries, but not with such in your face (compare prices of media at any store) obvious and ongoing evidence, or quite such offensively obvious and ongoing hypocracy.
Come to think... if the RIAA get what they deserve, should we have a next target in mind?
From: Hui Neng [hubaraka@yahoo.com]
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2001 3:49 AM
Subject: Muhammed on Non-Violence, Peace, and Justice
A Collection of Sound Hadith on Non-Violence, Peace and Justice
The Words of Muhammad Compiled from Reliable Sources by Dr. M. Hafiz Syed, and edited by Kabir Helminski
Copyright Threshold Productions 2001
*
Islam
*
Every religion has a distinctive virtue, and the distinctive virtue of Islam is
modesty.
*
Anyone who walks with a wrong doer that he may strengthen him knowing all the
while that he is a wrong doer, has departed from Islam.
*
A Perfect Muslim
*
A perfect Muslim is he from whose tongue and hands mankind is safe, and a true
emigrant [muhajir] is he who flees from what God has forbidden.
*
The messenger of God said to me (Anas), 'Son, if you are able, keep your heart
from morning till night and from night till morning free from malice towards
anyone'; then he said, 'Oh! My son, this is one of my laws, and he who loves my
laws verily loves me.'
*
The best of God's servants are those who, when seen, remind one of God; and the
worst of God's servants are those who carry tales about to do mischief and
separate friends, and seek for the defects of the good.
*
He who believes in one God and the hereafter, let him speak what is good or
remain silent.
*
That person is nearest to God, who pardons, when he has him in his power, one
who would have injured him.
*
It is unworthy of a Mu'min [a person with faith] to injure people's reputations;
and it is unworthy to curse any one; and it is unworthy to abuse any one; and it
is unworthy of a Mu'min to talk arrogantly.
*
All Muslims are as one person. If a man complains of a pain in his head, his
whole body complains; and if his eye complains, his whole body complains.
*
All Muslims are like one foundation, some parts strengthening others; in such a
way they must support each other.
*
Assist your brother Muslim, whether he be an oppressor or an oppressed. 'But how
shall we do it when he is an oppressor?' Muhammad said, 'Assisting an oppressor
is by forbidding and withholding him from oppression.'
*
The exercise of religious duties will not atone for the fault of an abusive
tongue. A man cannot be a Muslim till his heart and tongue are so.
*
Certainly, people will follow you, and certainly people will come to you from
all quarters of the earth to understand religion; when they come to you, guide
them toward goodness.
*
The best jihad (lit. striving) is his who speaks a just word before a tyrannical
authority.
*
Your smiling in your brother's face is charity; and your exhorting mankind to
virtuous deeds is charity; and your prohibiting the forbidden is charity; and
your showing people the road, in the land in which they lose it, is charity; and
your assisting the blind is charity.
*
I came to Medinah, and saw a man whose counsels men obeyed, and he never said
anything but they obeyed him. I said, 'Who is this man?' They said, 'This is the
Rasul of God.' Then I went to him and said, 'Give me advice.' Prophet Muhammad
said, 'Abuse nobody.' And I never did abuse anybody after than, neither freeman
nor slave, nor camel nor goat. And he added, 'And if a man abuse you, and lay a
vice which he knew in you then do not disclose one which you know in him.'
*
God
*
God's kindness towards His creatures is more than a mother's towards her babe.
*
Truly, God is mild, and is fond of mildness, and He gives to the mild what he
does not give to the harsh.
*
Truly God instructs me to be humble and lowly and not proud and no one should
oppress others.
*
He who humbles himself for (the sake of) God, him will God exalt; he is small in
his own mind, and great in the eyes of the people. And he who is proud and
haughty, God will render him contemptible, and he is small in the eyes of the
people and great in his own mind, so that he becomes more contemptible to them
than a dog or a swine.
*
God is gentle and loves gentleness.
*
God is a unity, and likes unity.
*
We were with the Rasul on a journey, and some men stood up repeating aloud, 'God
is most great;' and the Rasul said, 'O men, be easy on yourselves and do not
distress yourselves by raising your voices; truly, you do not call to one deaf
or absent, but Truly to one who hears and sees; and he is with you; and He to
whom you pray is nearer to you than the neck of your camel.'
*
The most beloved of men in the sight of God, on the day of resurrection, and the
nearest to Him, in regard to seat, shall be the just leader; and the most
hateful of men in the sight of God on the day of resurrection, and the farthest
removed form Him in regard to seat, shall be the tyrannical leader.
*
Faith
*
You will not enter paradise until you have faith; and you will not complete your
faith, till you love one another.
*
A man asked, 'O Prophet of God! what is faith?' The Prophet said, 'When your
good work gives you pleasure, and your evil work grieves you, and you are a man
of faith.' The man said, 'And what is sin?' he said, 'When anything disturbs you
within yourself, forsake it.'
*
Faith is a restraint against all violence, let no Mu'min commit violence.
*
Anyone of you who sees wrong, let him undo it with his hand; and if he cannot,
then let him speak against it with his tongue, and if he cannot do this either,
then (let him abhor it) with his heart, and this is the least of faith.
*
If you rely upon God as He ought to be relied upon, He will provide you as He
provides the birds; they go out empty and hungry in the morning and come back
big-bellied at eventide.
*
Service to Humanity
*
He is true who protects his brother both present and absent.
*
What actions are most excellent? To gladden the heart of a human being, to feed
the hungry, to help the afflicted, to lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful, and
to remove the wrongs of the injured.
*
He who tries to remove the want of his brother, whether he be successful or not,
God will forgive his sins.
*
The best of people is one from whom good accrues to humanity.
*
All God's creatures are His family; and he or she is the most beloved of God who
tries to do most good to God's creatures.
*
Someone said to the Prophet, 'Pray to God against the idolators and curse them.'
The Prophet replied, 'I have been sent to show mercy and have not been sent to
curse.'
*
Truly my heart is veiled with melancholy and sadness for my followers and verily
I ask pardon of God one hundred times daily.
*
Words to Remember
*
The proud will not enter paradise, nor a violent speaker.
*
God is not merciful to him who is not so to mankind.
*
Kindness is a mark of faith, and whoever has not kindness has not faith.
*
Anyone who kills a sparrow for nothing, it will cry aloud to God on the day of
resurrection, saying, 'O My Lord! such and such a man killed me for nothing, he
never killed me for any good.'
*
An adulteress was pardoned, who passed by a dog at a well holding out his tongue
from thirst which was nearly killing him; for she took off her short boot and
tied it to her wrapper, and pulled water for him; so was she pardoned for that.
It was asked, 'Shall we then have any reward for (our behavior to) the animals?'
'There are rewards' said the Prophet, 'for all endowed with fresh and tender
hearts.'
*
We were on a journey with the prophet when we saw a finch with two young ones.
We took away the two young ones and the mother bird fluttered around. Then the
Prophet came and said, 'Who has distressed her by taking away her young ones?
Return her young ones to her.' The Prophet also saw the abode of ants which we
had burnt, and said, 'Who has burnt this?' We said, 'We (have done this).' The
Prophet said, 'It is not proper that any one should punish another by fire
unless it be the Lord of fire himself.'
*
General Advice
*
I found this inscribed on the hilt of the Prophet's sword: 'Forgive him who
wrongs you; join him who cuts you off; do good to him who does evil to you, and
speak the truth although it be against yourself.'
*
The best of your leaders are those whom you love and who love you, for whom you
pray, and who pray for you; and the worst of your leaders are those whom you
hate, and who hate you, whom you curse, and who curse you.
*
Prophet Muhammad said, 'My Cherisher has ordered me nine things: (1) To
reverence Him, externally and internally; (2) to speak true, and with propriety,
in prosperity and adversity; (3) moderation in affluence and poverty; (4) to
benefit my relations and kindred; who do not benefit me; (5) to give alms to him
who refuses me; (6) to forgive him who injures me; (7) that my silence should be
in attaining knowledge of God; (8) that when I speak, I should mention Him; (9)
that when I look on God's creatures, it should be as an example for them.'
*
Deal gently with the people, and be not harsh; cheer them and condemn them not.
*
Do not exceed bounds in praising me; I am only the Lord's servant; then call me
the servant of God and His messenger.
Could people PLEASE check facts before they post or mod?
The roundtable participants don't hate Apple any more than they hate Microsoft... I could have phrased that better. Regardless, anyone who reads it will find an excellent roundtable; not so much whether Apple matters, but more why and how, and growing opportunities (which I expect Apple to mostly ignore, as it most always does).
About the facts:
Amelio, far from killing clones, initiated and championed Apple clones - for the first time in Apple's history - contrary to Steve Jobs stupid, gutless, counterproductive, anticustomer, antideveloper, anticompetitive, long established and soon reinstated whine, shout, hunt, & kill clones policy.
You only need to use BeOS briefly, or just watch a demo, to find many of Gassee's statements justified.
Raskin's criticisms of OSX and its rejected opportunities have received ample support from every independent authority on UI design; for one example, you can drop these in your browser.
http://asktog.com/columns/034OSX-FirstLook.html
http://asktog.com/columns/035SquanAdv.html
http://asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html
Jef Fortt has his work at http://www.siliconvalley.com/hottopics/apple/
for anyone who wants to read a fair sample of it.
Why doesn't mr100percent name, or even mention, the other 3 or 4 panelists? Did he or the moderators not even click on the link?
Finally, would Dvorak "hate Apple" just because Apple ignored priceless consulting that he (and nearly every analyst in the industry) repeatedly gave them for free?
Incidentally, at the end of the
introduction of participants it states, "Note: Despite our best efforts, Apple has declined to participate in this conversation. [Care to guess why?]
MacNN publisher Monish Bhatia, while originally scheduled to participate in this event, is unable to do so."
Apple matters. (USB ports anyone?) You can't read the roundtable without thinking that Apple would matter far more if its management would let it. That has rarely changed since 1986.
Apple did not steal GUI from PARC; the term "windowing" had already come into use and Raskin had already led the development of the Mac ideas at Apple. Steve Jobs may not have got the clue till he visited PARC however.
I think the name of the QDOS company was Seattle
Computing Productions; they had purchased CP\M from DR for internal use, then started selling another version of it (they labeled the HD as C instead of A) for the new Intel CPUs.
Aside from that, the IBM, M$, and DR versions of the story differ from each other.
Apparently, Microsoft purchased stolen intellectual property under false pretenses.
Excellent links and ideas from someone who clearly understands and cares about accessability\usability. Good of you to offer email assistance.
BUT how can anyone email you? (I probably know some who would.) Your post does not include an email address. You can add an email address to your posts (you would just have to reply to this one), or edit your Slashdot user info to display an email address in the heading or the sig of your comments. (Always include a "killspam" of your choice.)
This makes a good example of how UNusability happens. We all typed an email address to Slashdot (necessarily, to get our password and ensuing info emailed to us). So we know Slashdot has our email address. So, if we post on Slashdot, people who read it can get our email. WRONG, and risky; we would likely get spammed to obliteration if Slashdot worked that way.
Please, add your email to your posts that you would like a reply to, or open your Slashdot user page and type it in for your heading or sig.
I have sent Jef Raskin's email below,
after a few framing paragraphs.
A few days ago, I sent an email to Mr. Malda asking to please
consider starting a new topic heading, with its own icon:
User Interface Design.
Continuously improving UI design seems critical,
to me, for the spread of free\open software.
After not receiving any reply
(and expecting nobody has time to answer email soon)
I decided, with Jef's okay, to post it here.
Today's follow-up of last week's thread heartens me.
I see two early questionable comments rated 4.
One seems, to me, to suggest that Raskin shouldn't
expect people to read his writing carefully,
let alone to check their references, before replying.
The other seems, to me, to misinterpret,
and quote out of context, from his
article in the Dec. 1993 issue of Wired.
Both have corrections rated 5.
Way to go!
The Slashdot self organizing community does self correct.
Many respondents (both today and last week)
seem truly unable or unwilling to understand basics of interface design,
or even the importance of it, let alone more complex ideas
(like those addressed in "The Humane Interface" and books like it).
All the more reason for a new topic heading.
I had emailed Jef Raskin about
Slashdot's linking to the osOpinion.com
editorial regarding his OSX concerns.
He replied with a lengthy response to the Slashdot thread.
Regardless of the decision about the new heading,
here is what he wrote in response to last week's thread.
Jef Raskin wrote:
Thanks to Slashdot for notifying its readers of Michael Burg's article about
my opinions on operating systems; unlike a lot of such articles, his was
quite accurate. I have only a few comments on the article itself, which I
will get to in a minute.
The reader commentary, mostly anonymous, ranged from helpful and insightful to stupid and spiteful. Often, when the writer did not know how to do something I proposed, they labeled it impossible. In other cases, they assumed an inept solution of their own and then criticized their own solution, assuming that it would be how I'd do it.
I do not imply malice to the contributions. This kind of stuff happens even with well-meaning writers. For example, my friend Simson Garfinkel reviewed my book "The Humane Interface" in Wired. He critiqued only one point in the book (about how to ease password-protected sign-ons) by assuming a particular implementation, one which I'd never propose. I sent Simson an email showing how it could be done quite nicely, and he agreed that he'd goofed (perhaps I should have given an explicit method). Unfortunately, the tens of thousands of readers of Wired will never know this.
Fortunately, I can communicate directly with the Slashdot audience.
My main critique of OSX has not to do with the underpinnings, which represent a long-needed set of improvements, but with its user interface. Burg clearly stated this. Many readers seem to have missed his point. I have always thought, and still think, that UNIX is a work of genius. I was a UNIX hacker for years, and its elegance, power, and flexibility continue to be an inspiration. It is based on a deep understanding of operating systems. The designers of Unix, and the majority of programmers who have gone on to expand it and to develop Linux, OSX, and other derivative systems, have not had a correspondingly deep understanding of user interfaces. As a result, the interfaces are difficult to learn and much harder than necessary to use.
This is admitted by the UNIX world, which builds shells to protect us from its interface ugliness. Unfortunately, the various GUIs and other front ends have been created by people who do not have a as masterful understanding of interface design as they do of computers. Thus, the interfaces suck deeply.
The failings of the OSX interface are less excusable because it is a contemporary product, and the designers did not take full advantage of what is known about interaction.
A primary audience for my book "The Humane Interface" is my fellow nerds and hackers who have as little patience for psychological mumbo-jumbo as I do. We needed, and the existing literature did not supply, a sourcebook of straightforward and first principles with real, quantitative, measures that a programmer or software architect could use (not just a bunch of examples that peter out when you try to apply them to other problems). I assume that my readers are not scared off by a few logarithms.
Burg quotes me correctly as saying that an operating system "is the program you have to hassle with before you get to hassle with the application." But the rest of the quote, "It does nothing for you, wastes your time, is unnecessary" applies only to having to deal with the operating system's interface. The stuff an OS does underneath, such as handling disk I/O, is, of course, essential. It is as essential as the circuit that comprises the disk motor clock, and the application-level user has as little need for knowing how one works as a programmer needs to know the other. Today's GUI interfaces require the user to understand far too much. They are primitive, crude, and surprisingly counterproductive. Burg put it well: "In short: the omnipresence of the OS is obsolete."
But he also said, "The ability to be transparent, such as on the Palm handhelds... is far more important." Unfortunately, this is only a relative transparency. You still have to launch applications on the Palm. The OS is still obnoxiously there. But that's a whole other article that I won't repeat here (surf to my article "Down with GUIs" in Wired).
Another example where Burg is still trapped in the old paradigm, while struggling mightily to escape, is where he said, "The idea of walking up to a PC in sleep mode and hitting a button, which would instantly activate a specific app, is compelling." He is still thinking in terms of having to hit a button and having applications. This tells me that he has gotten, maybe, a third of the way to understanding the kinds of interfaces that would really be easy to use. But, to quote his dead-on concluding paragraph "Raskin
wasn't criticizing OSX for its qualities as an OS, but for the fundamental principal that it represents: something standing between you and whatever you want to do."
Now let's get down and dirty and deal with some of the threads that followed the article.
As TheJohn pointed out, "No, he's not really saying that at all. Raskin goes into quite a bit of detail about his vision in his book, The Humane Interface , and it doesn't involve most of the things people are attributing to him in this thread. It's not about locking people into one application provider, or even eliminating menus, or not having what I would call an OS (controlling devices, managing resources, etc.) It just doesn't look like what we often think of as an OS."
An example of what TheJohn was talking about is a statement like this, from another poster "is that what the world really wants? a simple pad to activate your apps, a disk (cartridge) for a simple install and no real flexibility? I can see my grandma or mother using it, but me, my father, my sisters, or really anyone whos not "afraid" of that off white box would disregard it as another applience." I never suggested anything of the sort. Never have, never would.
My Canon Cat design has been dumped on by the ignorant for its supposed limitation to its own built-in tasks. In fact, you could write code, even assembly code, in the word processor and execute it without leaving the letter you were typing. The user had access to all system resources. True, we didn't want users to execute code by accident. You had to type in a one-time password (it was in the manual) to gain access. That was it.
To get at the Mac's power, you have to buy software, like compilers. My kind of designing gives far more flexibility than what we now have. So much for that rant. bear@spdcc.com pointed out that the piece was poorly titled. I had the same thought when I read it.
Here's another case of someone being misled by their own preconceptions: Burg's article said, "Raskin goes on to illustrate that a computer should be as easy to use as to start typing on a keyboard to open a word processor --
with no lost keystrokes, or to put a stylus to a tablet and start drawing in a graphics app." To which someone replied, "This is all very nice and good,but what if you wanted to use a spreadsheet instead?" I've explained this many times in print, so I won't go into it again as this reply is getting longish.
Dancin Santa said, "It's one thing to make an OS as non-intrusive as possible, but it's a whole different proposition to remove any semblance of an OS altogether." Yup, it's a whole different proposition. And it can be done.
osgeek@my-deja.com says (I have a lot of respect for those who sign their opinions), "A palm pilot is a very specific device that is normally only used for several simple applications: taking notes, scheduling, and keeping contact info. As soon as you start adding tons of varied applications to your Palm Pilot, you begin to find that its specialized interface & transparent OS are a hindrance." osgeek is so correct! But he or she went on, "You begin to wish that you had a better way to organize your files or add hardware. If you could keep adding all of that functionality back in there, guess what you'd have... a PC." osgeek is so wrong! Just because osgeek can't see anyway around the problem s no proof that it can't be solved. This is another case of a reader tripping on his own boxed-in-ness.
Unfortunately, osgeek then becomes less civil, "Everyone is always looking to topple the PC with bullshit articles and arguments like Raskin's. They think that just complaining about it is going to inspire the industry to create something new and different that will change everything. For once, I'd like to see one of these pundits put forth a legitimate idea for the future of computing that might obsolete the PC - and no, web phones, PDA's, and Internet-saavy refrigerators don't count." I heard stuff like that about my "complaints" about usability before I created the Mac at Apple. Why does osgeek assume that I'm not developing something right now? Does osgeek know about the systems I've designed for various companies over the last decade?
A quote from another commenter thought my machine would work like this:
"Turn on keyboard
Type letter.
print letter.s
You don't have to tell me I'm right, I know I'm right!"
Wrong. You shouldn't have to turn on the keyboard.
Sourav.mandal@nospam.ikaran.com wrote, "The 'computer as appliance' vision is stultifying. There's a reason a computer has totally general input (keyboard, mouse) and output (pixel-based monitor, sound) devices -- people want their workspace to be totally abstracted from the hardware in which it resides."
Sourav, thinking to disagree with me, actually agrees. Read my book, which says that our present hardware, with its general text and graphic input devices and graphic and aural output devices are a sound basis for the future.
Who is it that these people are arguing against?
Enough examples. There was also a personal attack that requires an answer. I've run into this many times and usually just point people to the original sources (you can find many at <http://library.stanford.edu/mac/>) or to careful book-length accounts of the history such as Linzmayer's well-researched "Apple Confidential" or Malone's "Infinite Loop".
Sabat said, "Jef Raskin did not have any hand in designing the Macintosh as we know it. He had the original idea of an "appliance" computer (sound like his current rant?) and started the project, misspelling its name as "Macintosh" (instead of McIntosh). Shortly after, Steve Jobs kicked Jef off the project and changed it completely, basing it on the idea of a low-cost version of the Lisa (which was not selling well at $10k a pop). Guys like Andy Hertzfeld and Bill Atkinson are to thank for the Mac GUI, not Jef."
First, what does it mean to invent something? Edison invented the light bulb, and the Wright brothers invented the airplane. However, Edison certainly had no hand in designing the fluorescents that illuminate my office, and neither Wilbur nor Orville contributed to designing the Boeing 747. In 1978 I saw that Apple had no product that would take the company into the future. I also believed that getting personal computers to the world in quantity would require making them far easier to use. This was a vision very different than anything at Apple at the time. I called my invention "Macintosh" after my favorite apple, the McIntosh. I changed the spelling to avoid (I hoped) conflict with the McIntosh hi-fi company.
I did coin the term "information appliance," so I knew that the Macintosh was not one. I designed it with provisions for bus expansion because I knew that people would want to add hardware. I wanted to have a programming language built in. Jobs took the bus expansion off and deleted the programming. The bus came back with the Mac SE, but you still(!) have to buy programming languages for it.
Thousands of people have contributed, some brilliantly, to the Mac and its applications. I didn't write a single line of code or design a single circuit. I did hire great people and give them a direction which did not then exist in the personal computer world. I did create a number of new interface methods now taken for granted in every GUI-based machine.
Sabat is unaware that the Lisa was originally a character-generator machine, and it *gained* its graphics-based screen from the Mac project. (I went over and convinced the Lisa team to change their architecture.) Jobs did not kick me off the project; that never happened, and is insulting to Jobs as well. (The facts are to the contrary: When I resigned, he tried to convince me to stay).
I don't want to belabor this, or detail here the influence of Xerox PARCs outstanding contributions to interface design. Bottom line is that I created the Mac and ran the project for nearly four years. A zillion details were changed (some for the better, some for the worse) both while I was project leader and afterward my basic vision of a computer-based-on-an-interface instead of the prevailing build-it-and-then-add-random-software did change the face (and interface) of computing. Jobs, Hertzfeld, and Atkinson were major factors in making my invention a commercial reality, along with many others (Brian Howard was especially important, but rarely mentioned). My dream became their dream.
Get the facts and turn down the flames. I am always happy to discuss real issues.
-- Jef
</ Jef Raskin>
Sorry; I hit "submit" when I intended to "preview" before. This reads better.
If Bobby Fischer told me how to play chess, or Bill Gates told me how to make money, I'd listen, I'd thank them, and I'd think long and hard before I contradicted them.
Please forgive my mistakes, & thanks for reading,
J. Daniels
Slashdot Mirror
please moderate parent up
Try WinHTTrack, for Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP
http://www.httrack.com/
They released a new version a week ago.
From the website:
HTTrack is a free (libre/open source) and easy-to-use offline browser utility.
It allows you to download a World Wide Web site from the Internet to a local directory, building recursively all directories, getting HTML, images, and other files from the server to your computer. HTTrack arranges the original site's relative link-structure. Simply open a page of the "mirrored" website in your browser, and you can browse the site from link to link, as if you were viewing it online. HTTrack can also update an existing mirrored site, and resume interrupted downloads. HTTrack is fully configurable, and has an integrated help system.
You make a good point, but I have to disagree. Please note a huge and unique fact of CDs:
We have alternative media (tape & vinyl).
CDs cost less to make, distribute, store, etc.
CDs cost MORE to buy.
Why?
Looking for answers to that question, and getting angry because of them, does not seem "incredibly naive" to me.
Of course, conspiracy and exploitation exists in other industries, but not with such in your face (compare prices of media at any store) obvious and ongoing evidence, or quite such offensively obvious and ongoing hypocracy.
Come to think... if the RIAA get what they deserve, should we have a next target in mind?
From: Hui Neng [hubaraka@yahoo.com]
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2001 3:49 AM
Subject: Muhammed on Non-Violence, Peace, and Justice
A Collection of Sound Hadith on Non-Violence, Peace and Justice
The Words of Muhammad Compiled from Reliable Sources by Dr. M. Hafiz Syed, and edited by Kabir Helminski
Copyright Threshold Productions 2001
*
Islam
*
Every religion has a distinctive virtue, and the distinctive virtue of Islam is
modesty.
*
Anyone who walks with a wrong doer that he may strengthen him knowing all the
while that he is a wrong doer, has departed from Islam.
*
A Perfect Muslim
*
A perfect Muslim is he from whose tongue and hands mankind is safe, and a true
emigrant [muhajir] is he who flees from what God has forbidden.
*
The messenger of God said to me (Anas), 'Son, if you are able, keep your heart
from morning till night and from night till morning free from malice towards
anyone'; then he said, 'Oh! My son, this is one of my laws, and he who loves my
laws verily loves me.'
*
The best of God's servants are those who, when seen, remind one of God; and the
worst of God's servants are those who carry tales about to do mischief and
separate friends, and seek for the defects of the good.
*
He who believes in one God and the hereafter, let him speak what is good or
remain silent.
*
That person is nearest to God, who pardons, when he has him in his power, one
who would have injured him.
*
It is unworthy of a Mu'min [a person with faith] to injure people's reputations;
and it is unworthy to curse any one; and it is unworthy to abuse any one; and it
is unworthy of a Mu'min to talk arrogantly.
*
All Muslims are as one person. If a man complains of a pain in his head, his
whole body complains; and if his eye complains, his whole body complains.
*
All Muslims are like one foundation, some parts strengthening others; in such a
way they must support each other.
*
Assist your brother Muslim, whether he be an oppressor or an oppressed. 'But how
shall we do it when he is an oppressor?' Muhammad said, 'Assisting an oppressor
is by forbidding and withholding him from oppression.'
*
The exercise of religious duties will not atone for the fault of an abusive
tongue. A man cannot be a Muslim till his heart and tongue are so.
*
Certainly, people will follow you, and certainly people will come to you from
all quarters of the earth to understand religion; when they come to you, guide
them toward goodness.
*
The best jihad (lit. striving) is his who speaks a just word before a tyrannical
authority.
*
Your smiling in your brother's face is charity; and your exhorting mankind to
virtuous deeds is charity; and your prohibiting the forbidden is charity; and
your showing people the road, in the land in which they lose it, is charity; and
your assisting the blind is charity.
*
I came to Medinah, and saw a man whose counsels men obeyed, and he never said
anything but they obeyed him. I said, 'Who is this man?' They said, 'This is the
Rasul of God.' Then I went to him and said, 'Give me advice.' Prophet Muhammad
said, 'Abuse nobody.' And I never did abuse anybody after than, neither freeman
nor slave, nor camel nor goat. And he added, 'And if a man abuse you, and lay a
vice which he knew in you then do not disclose one which you know in him.'
*
God
*
God's kindness towards His creatures is more than a mother's towards her babe.
*
Truly, God is mild, and is fond of mildness, and He gives to the mild what he
does not give to the harsh.
*
Truly God instructs me to be humble and lowly and not proud and no one should
oppress others.
*
He who humbles himself for (the sake of) God, him will God exalt; he is small in
his own mind, and great in the eyes of the people. And he who is proud and
haughty, God will render him contemptible, and he is small in the eyes of the
people and great in his own mind, so that he becomes more contemptible to them
than a dog or a swine.
*
God is gentle and loves gentleness.
*
God is a unity, and likes unity.
*
We were with the Rasul on a journey, and some men stood up repeating aloud, 'God
is most great;' and the Rasul said, 'O men, be easy on yourselves and do not
distress yourselves by raising your voices; truly, you do not call to one deaf
or absent, but Truly to one who hears and sees; and he is with you; and He to
whom you pray is nearer to you than the neck of your camel.'
*
The most beloved of men in the sight of God, on the day of resurrection, and the
nearest to Him, in regard to seat, shall be the just leader; and the most
hateful of men in the sight of God on the day of resurrection, and the farthest
removed form Him in regard to seat, shall be the tyrannical leader.
*
Faith
*
You will not enter paradise until you have faith; and you will not complete your
faith, till you love one another.
*
A man asked, 'O Prophet of God! what is faith?' The Prophet said, 'When your
good work gives you pleasure, and your evil work grieves you, and you are a man
of faith.' The man said, 'And what is sin?' he said, 'When anything disturbs you
within yourself, forsake it.'
*
Faith is a restraint against all violence, let no Mu'min commit violence.
*
Anyone of you who sees wrong, let him undo it with his hand; and if he cannot,
then let him speak against it with his tongue, and if he cannot do this either,
then (let him abhor it) with his heart, and this is the least of faith.
*
If you rely upon God as He ought to be relied upon, He will provide you as He
provides the birds; they go out empty and hungry in the morning and come back
big-bellied at eventide.
*
Service to Humanity
*
He is true who protects his brother both present and absent.
*
What actions are most excellent? To gladden the heart of a human being, to feed
the hungry, to help the afflicted, to lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful, and
to remove the wrongs of the injured.
*
He who tries to remove the want of his brother, whether he be successful or not,
God will forgive his sins.
*
The best of people is one from whom good accrues to humanity.
*
All God's creatures are His family; and he or she is the most beloved of God who
tries to do most good to God's creatures.
*
Someone said to the Prophet, 'Pray to God against the idolators and curse them.'
The Prophet replied, 'I have been sent to show mercy and have not been sent to
curse.'
*
Truly my heart is veiled with melancholy and sadness for my followers and verily
I ask pardon of God one hundred times daily.
*
Words to Remember
*
The proud will not enter paradise, nor a violent speaker.
*
God is not merciful to him who is not so to mankind.
*
Kindness is a mark of faith, and whoever has not kindness has not faith.
*
Anyone who kills a sparrow for nothing, it will cry aloud to God on the day of
resurrection, saying, 'O My Lord! such and such a man killed me for nothing, he
never killed me for any good.'
*
An adulteress was pardoned, who passed by a dog at a well holding out his tongue
from thirst which was nearly killing him; for she took off her short boot and
tied it to her wrapper, and pulled water for him; so was she pardoned for that.
It was asked, 'Shall we then have any reward for (our behavior to) the animals?'
'There are rewards' said the Prophet, 'for all endowed with fresh and tender
hearts.'
*
We were on a journey with the prophet when we saw a finch with two young ones.
We took away the two young ones and the mother bird fluttered around. Then the
Prophet came and said, 'Who has distressed her by taking away her young ones?
Return her young ones to her.' The Prophet also saw the abode of ants which we
had burnt, and said, 'Who has burnt this?' We said, 'We (have done this).' The
Prophet said, 'It is not proper that any one should punish another by fire
unless it be the Lord of fire himself.'
*
General Advice
*
I found this inscribed on the hilt of the Prophet's sword: 'Forgive him who
wrongs you; join him who cuts you off; do good to him who does evil to you, and
speak the truth although it be against yourself.'
*
The best of your leaders are those whom you love and who love you, for whom you
pray, and who pray for you; and the worst of your leaders are those whom you
hate, and who hate you, whom you curse, and who curse you.
*
Prophet Muhammad said, 'My Cherisher has ordered me nine things: (1) To
reverence Him, externally and internally; (2) to speak true, and with propriety,
in prosperity and adversity; (3) moderation in affluence and poverty; (4) to
benefit my relations and kindred; who do not benefit me; (5) to give alms to him
who refuses me; (6) to forgive him who injures me; (7) that my silence should be
in attaining knowledge of God; (8) that when I speak, I should mention Him; (9)
that when I look on God's creatures, it should be as an example for them.'
*
Deal gently with the people, and be not harsh; cheer them and condemn them not.
*
Do not exceed bounds in praising me; I am only the Lord's servant; then call me
the servant of God and His messenger.
The roundtable participants don't hate Apple any more than they hate Microsoft... I could have phrased that better. Regardless, anyone who reads it will find an excellent roundtable; not so much whether Apple matters, but more why and how, and growing opportunities (which I expect Apple to mostly ignore, as it most always does).
About the facts:
Amelio, far from killing clones, initiated and championed Apple clones - for the first time in Apple's history - contrary to Steve Jobs stupid, gutless, counterproductive, anticustomer, antideveloper, anticompetitive, long established and soon reinstated whine, shout, hunt, & kill clones policy.
You only need to use BeOS briefly, or just watch a demo, to find many of Gassee's statements justified.
Raskin's criticisms of OSX and its rejected opportunities have received ample support from every independent authority on UI design; for one example, you can drop these in your browser.
http://asktog.com/columns/034OSX-FirstLook.html
http://asktog.com/columns/035SquanAdv.html
http://asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html
Jef Fortt has his work at http://www.siliconvalley.com/hottopics/apple/ for anyone who wants to read a fair sample of it.
Why doesn't mr100percent name, or even mention, the other 3 or 4 panelists? Did he or the moderators not even click on the link?
Finally, would Dvorak "hate Apple" just because Apple ignored priceless consulting that he (and nearly every analyst in the industry) repeatedly gave them for free?
Incidentally, at the end of the introduction of participants
it states, "Note: Despite our best efforts, Apple has declined to participate in this conversation. [Care to guess why?] MacNN publisher Monish Bhatia, while originally scheduled to participate in this event, is unable to do so."
Apple matters. (USB ports anyone?) You can't read the roundtable without thinking that Apple would matter far more if its management would let it. That has rarely changed since 1986.
Apple did not steal GUI from PARC; the term "windowing" had already come into use and Raskin had already led the development of the Mac ideas at Apple. Steve Jobs may not have got the clue till he visited PARC however. I think the name of the QDOS company was Seattle Computing Productions; they had purchased CP\M from DR for internal use, then started selling another version of it (they labeled the HD as C instead of A) for the new Intel CPUs. Aside from that, the IBM, M$, and DR versions of the story differ from each other. Apparently, Microsoft purchased stolen intellectual property under false pretenses.
BUT how can anyone email you? (I probably know some who would.) Your post does not include an email address. You can add an email address to your posts (you would just have to reply to this one), or edit your Slashdot user info to display an email address in the heading or the sig of your comments. (Always include a "killspam" of your choice.)
This makes a good example of how UNusability happens. We all typed an email address to Slashdot (necessarily, to get our password and ensuing info emailed to us). So we know Slashdot has our email address. So, if we post on Slashdot, people who read it can get our email. WRONG, and risky; we would likely get spammed to obliteration if Slashdot worked that way.
Please, add your email to your posts that you would like a reply to, or open your Slashdot user page and type it in for your heading or sig.
I have sent Jef Raskin's email below,
after a few framing paragraphs.
A few days ago, I sent an email to Mr. Malda asking to please
consider starting a new topic heading, with its own icon:
User Interface Design.
Continuously improving UI design seems critical,
to me, for the spread of free\open software.
After not receiving any reply
(and expecting nobody has time to answer email soon)
I decided, with Jef's okay, to post it here.
Today's follow-up of last week's thread heartens me.
I see two early questionable comments rated 4.
One seems, to me, to suggest that Raskin shouldn't
expect people to read his writing carefully,
let alone to check their references, before replying.
The other seems, to me, to misinterpret,
and quote out of context, from his
article in the Dec. 1993 issue of Wired.
Both have corrections rated 5.
Way to go!
The Slashdot self organizing community does self correct.
Many respondents (both today and last week)
seem truly unable or unwilling to understand basics of interface design,
or even the importance of it, let alone more complex ideas
(like those addressed in "The Humane Interface" and books like it).
All the more reason for a new topic heading.
I had emailed Jef Raskin about
Slashdot's linking to the osOpinion.com
editorial regarding his OSX concerns.
He replied with a lengthy response to the Slashdot thread.
Regardless of the decision about the new heading,
here is what he wrote in response to last week's thread.
Jef Raskin wrote:
Thanks to Slashdot for notifying its readers of Michael Burg's article about
my opinions on operating systems; unlike a lot of such articles, his was
quite accurate. I have only a few comments on the article itself, which I
will get to in a minute.
The reader commentary, mostly anonymous, ranged from helpful and insightful to stupid and spiteful. Often, when the writer did not know how to do something I proposed, they labeled it impossible. In other cases, they assumed an inept solution of their own and then criticized their own solution, assuming that it would be how I'd do it.
I do not imply malice to the contributions. This kind of stuff happens even with well-meaning writers. For example, my friend Simson Garfinkel reviewed my book "The Humane Interface" in Wired. He critiqued only one point in the book (about how to ease password-protected sign-ons) by assuming a particular implementation, one which I'd never propose. I sent Simson an email showing how it could be done quite nicely, and he agreed that he'd goofed (perhaps I should have given an explicit method). Unfortunately, the tens of thousands of readers of Wired will never know this.
Fortunately, I can communicate directly with the Slashdot audience.
My main critique of OSX has not to do with the underpinnings, which represent a long-needed set of improvements, but with its user interface. Burg clearly stated this. Many readers seem to have missed his point. I have always thought, and still think, that UNIX is a work of genius. I was a UNIX hacker for years, and its elegance, power, and flexibility continue to be an inspiration. It is based on a deep understanding of operating systems. The designers of Unix, and the majority of programmers who have gone on to expand it and to develop Linux, OSX, and other derivative systems, have not had a correspondingly deep understanding of user interfaces. As a result, the interfaces are difficult to learn and much harder than necessary to use.
This is admitted by the UNIX world, which builds shells to protect us from its interface ugliness. Unfortunately, the various GUIs and other front ends have been created by people who do not have a as masterful understanding of interface design as they do of computers. Thus, the interfaces suck deeply.
The failings of the OSX interface are less excusable because it is a contemporary product, and the designers did not take full advantage of what is known about interaction.
A primary audience for my book "The Humane Interface" is my fellow nerds and hackers who have as little patience for psychological mumbo-jumbo as I do. We needed, and the existing literature did not supply, a sourcebook of straightforward and first principles with real, quantitative, measures that a programmer or software architect could use (not just a bunch of examples that peter out when you try to apply them to other problems). I assume that my readers are not scared off by a few logarithms.
Burg quotes me correctly as saying that an operating system "is the program you have to hassle with before you get to hassle with the application." But the rest of the quote, "It does nothing for you, wastes your time, is unnecessary" applies only to having to deal with the operating system's interface. The stuff an OS does underneath, such as handling disk I/O, is, of course, essential. It is as essential as the circuit that comprises the disk motor clock, and the application-level user has as little need for knowing how one works as a programmer needs to know the other. Today's GUI interfaces require the user to understand far too much. They are primitive, crude, and surprisingly counterproductive. Burg put it well: "In short: the omnipresence of the OS is obsolete."
But he also said, "The ability to be transparent, such as on the Palm handhelds... is far more important." Unfortunately, this is only a relative transparency. You still have to launch applications on the Palm. The OS is still obnoxiously there. But that's a whole other article that I won't repeat here (surf to my article "Down with GUIs" in Wired).
Another example where Burg is still trapped in the old paradigm, while struggling mightily to escape, is where he said, "The idea of walking up to a PC in sleep mode and hitting a button, which would instantly activate a specific app, is compelling." He is still thinking in terms of having to hit a button and having applications. This tells me that he has gotten, maybe, a third of the way to understanding the kinds of interfaces that would really be easy to use. But, to quote his dead-on concluding paragraph "Raskin
wasn't criticizing OSX for its qualities as an OS, but for the fundamental principal that it represents: something standing between you and whatever you want to do."
Now let's get down and dirty and deal with some of the threads that followed the article.
As TheJohn pointed out, "No, he's not really saying that at all. Raskin goes into quite a bit of detail about his vision in his book, The Humane Interface , and it doesn't involve most of the things people are attributing to him in this thread. It's not about locking people into one application provider, or even eliminating menus, or not having what I would call an OS (controlling devices, managing resources, etc.) It just doesn't look like what we often think of as an OS."
An example of what TheJohn was talking about is a statement like this, from another poster "is that what the world really wants? a simple pad to activate your apps, a disk (cartridge) for a simple install and no real flexibility? I can see my grandma or mother using it, but me, my father, my sisters, or really anyone whos not "afraid" of that off white box would disregard it as another applience." I never suggested anything of the sort. Never have, never would.
My Canon Cat design has been dumped on by the ignorant for its supposed limitation to its own built-in tasks. In fact, you could write code, even assembly code, in the word processor and execute it without leaving the letter you were typing. The user had access to all system resources. True, we didn't want users to execute code by accident. You had to type in a one-time password (it was in the manual) to gain access. That was it.
To get at the Mac's power, you have to buy software, like compilers. My kind of designing gives far more flexibility than what we now have. So much for that rant. bear@spdcc.com pointed out that the piece was poorly titled. I had the same thought when I read it.
Here's another case of someone being misled by their own preconceptions: Burg's article said, "Raskin goes on to illustrate that a computer should be as easy to use as to start typing on a keyboard to open a word processor --
with no lost keystrokes, or to put a stylus to a tablet and start drawing in a graphics app." To which someone replied, "This is all very nice and good,but what if you wanted to use a spreadsheet instead?" I've explained this many times in print, so I won't go into it again as this reply is getting longish.
Dancin Santa said, "It's one thing to make an OS as non-intrusive as possible, but it's a whole different proposition to remove any semblance of an OS altogether." Yup, it's a whole different proposition. And it can be done.
osgeek@my-deja.com says (I have a lot of respect for those who sign their opinions), "A palm pilot is a very specific device that is normally only used for several simple applications: taking notes, scheduling, and keeping contact info. As soon as you start adding tons of varied applications to your Palm Pilot, you begin to find that its specialized interface & transparent OS are a hindrance." osgeek is so correct! But he or she went on, "You begin to wish that you had a better way to organize your files or add hardware. If you could keep adding all of that functionality back in there, guess what you'd have... a PC." osgeek is so wrong! Just because osgeek can't see anyway around the problem s no proof that it can't be solved. This is another case of a reader tripping on his own boxed-in-ness.
Unfortunately, osgeek then becomes less civil, "Everyone is always looking to topple the PC with bullshit articles and arguments like Raskin's. They think that just complaining about it is going to inspire the industry to create something new and different that will change everything. For once, I'd like to see one of these pundits put forth a legitimate idea for the future of computing that might obsolete the PC - and no, web phones, PDA's, and Internet-saavy refrigerators don't count." I heard stuff like that about my "complaints" about usability before I created the Mac at Apple. Why does osgeek assume that I'm not developing something right now? Does osgeek know about the systems I've designed for various companies over the last decade?
A quote from another commenter thought my machine would work like this:
"Turn on keyboard
Type letter.
print letter.s
You don't have to tell me I'm right, I know I'm right!"
Wrong. You shouldn't have to turn on the keyboard.
Sourav.mandal@nospam.ikaran.com wrote, "The 'computer as appliance' vision is stultifying. There's a reason a computer has totally general input (keyboard, mouse) and output (pixel-based monitor, sound) devices -- people want their workspace to be totally abstracted from the hardware in which it resides."
Sourav, thinking to disagree with me, actually agrees. Read my book, which says that our present hardware, with its general text and graphic input devices and graphic and aural output devices are a sound basis for the future.
Who is it that these people are arguing against?
Enough examples. There was also a personal attack that requires an answer. I've run into this many times and usually just point people to the original sources (you can find many at <http://library.stanford.edu/mac/>) or to careful book-length accounts of the history such as Linzmayer's well-researched "Apple Confidential" or Malone's "Infinite Loop".
Sabat said, "Jef Raskin did not have any hand in designing the Macintosh as we know it. He had the original idea of an "appliance" computer (sound like his current rant?) and started the project, misspelling its name as "Macintosh" (instead of McIntosh). Shortly after, Steve Jobs kicked Jef off the project and changed it completely, basing it on the idea of a low-cost version of the Lisa (which was not selling well at $10k a pop). Guys like Andy Hertzfeld and Bill Atkinson are to thank for the Mac GUI, not Jef."
First, what does it mean to invent something? Edison invented the light bulb, and the Wright brothers invented the airplane. However, Edison certainly had no hand in designing the fluorescents that illuminate my office, and neither Wilbur nor Orville contributed to designing the Boeing 747. In 1978 I saw that Apple had no product that would take the company into the future. I also believed that getting personal computers to the world in quantity would require making them far easier to use. This was a vision very different than anything at Apple at the time. I called my invention "Macintosh" after my favorite apple, the McIntosh. I changed the spelling to avoid (I hoped) conflict with the McIntosh hi-fi company.
I did coin the term "information appliance," so I knew that the Macintosh was not one. I designed it with provisions for bus expansion because I knew that people would want to add hardware. I wanted to have a programming language built in. Jobs took the bus expansion off and deleted the programming. The bus came back with the Mac SE, but you still(!) have to buy programming languages for it.
Thousands of people have contributed, some brilliantly, to the Mac and its applications. I didn't write a single line of code or design a single circuit. I did hire great people and give them a direction which did not then exist in the personal computer world. I did create a number of new interface methods now taken for granted in every GUI-based machine.
Sabat is unaware that the Lisa was originally a character-generator machine, and it *gained* its graphics-based screen from the Mac project. (I went over and convinced the Lisa team to change their architecture.) Jobs did not kick me off the project; that never happened, and is insulting to Jobs as well. (The facts are to the contrary: When I resigned, he tried to convince me to stay).
I don't want to belabor this, or detail here the influence of Xerox PARCs outstanding contributions to interface design. Bottom line is that I created the Mac and ran the project for nearly four years. A zillion details were changed (some for the better, some for the worse) both while I was project leader and afterward my basic vision of a computer-based-on-an-interface instead of the prevailing build-it-and-then-add-random-software did change the face (and interface) of computing. Jobs, Hertzfeld, and Atkinson were major factors in making my invention a commercial reality, along with many others (Brian Howard was especially important, but rarely mentioned). My dream became their dream.
Get the facts and turn down the flames. I am always happy to discuss real issues.
-- Jef
</ Jef Raskin>
Sorry; I hit "submit" when I intended to "preview" before. This reads better.
If Bobby Fischer told me how to play chess, or Bill Gates told me how to make money, I'd listen, I'd thank them, and I'd think long and hard before I contradicted them.
Please forgive my mistakes, & thanks for reading,
J. Daniels