I scroll with my mouse wheel, which frequently causes middle button clicks.
Dude, the solution is not to cripple the excellent middle-button functionality. It's to buy a better mouse, or mix in a couple decaf coffees with the regular during the course of the day:-)
Netscape Communicator 4.x had a primative but extremely useful Roaming Profiles [mozilla.org] function, but Mozilla doesn't. A lot of people have voted for it, but it just hasn't been a top coding priority.
My conspiracy theory is that AOL/Netscape still wants to leverage roaming profiles into a corporate product feature and has therefore been steering its developers away from it:-)
Mozilla is getting real close to the point that I'd offer it as an option to our users. Roaming profiles would seal the deal, I think. On the other hand I really don't think I'd do that with Netscape since it's so consumer-oriented. Really not right for the workplace.
But I have an incredible sense of guilt when using it because I know that lots of people have put in their time and best effort to make this awesome software and that I'm not giving much in return.
Be comforted by the thought that you're doing your part to keep the software landscape vital and diverse.
Please look here underAdministrative Fascist [gnu.org].
So, if you were responsible for a few hundred desktops and a dozen servers, you wouldn't mind users installing whatever they wanted on your company's systems?
Now,when I say "users" I mean "computer illiterates.". And by "responsible", I mean "if anything goes wrong you have to fix it, whether it's the user who thought he'd try to install his own ISA modem in his PC (which has no ISA slots), the guy who thought it might be cool to set up a Wolfenstein server and invite everyone on his floor to play, the receptionist who won't stop crying because she can't get rid of comet cursor and the Yahoo toolbar that have taken over her browser, and the executive who thought it might be a nice idea to upgrade to Office XP while everyone else is still using Office 97."
If it weren't for company-wide standards and controls on computing resources, I guarantee you workplace violence statistics would be WAY higher.
I indicated that AOL may face a risk of departing customers if too many web pages don't work.
I don't think so. For starters, commercial web designers follow stories like these, and those that are using IE-only crap will start working some long weekends to make sure their customers (internal or external) don't have broken websites. Or go out of business / get fired - their choice.
On the other end of the spectrum, if you're the typical AOL user and suddenly your cousin's Limp Bizkit websitez be goin all shiznit on you, are you going to blame Great Mother AOL, or your three-bongloads-a-day cousin? I don't think they'll start firing off angry missives to Steve Case about the deplorable lack of support for non-standards.
Okay, you don't like ads...I don't like ads, but guess what: I learned something recently. Joe User does not care!
I learned something about myself recently. It's not the ads per se that I so despise. It's the ANIMATION that drives me insane. I don't mind glancing at a static ad for one of those goddamned X10 cameras. But if, while trying to focus on an article, my attention is forced to fight the lure of a dancing clown juggling AT&T logos, I get REALLY pissed off.
Bringing this back on-topic - That's another reason Mozilla is great. I can TURN OFF the animations, but still accept images from the ad servers used by/. and other sites whom I want to support with my eyeballs.
Now if we could do the same with Flash animations I might start using the Flash plugin again.
A Linux utopia brought about by a bigger monopoly than Microsoft? What in the fuck are you thinking?
The people using "AOL-OS" as you put it are not likely people who have the cluefulness to investigate an alternative OS on their own. Even if they are entirely unaware of their "OS/browser switch", it will alter the technology demographics in a very favorable way.
Diverse implementations of standard protocols is a very VERY good thing. Anyone who wants to reach the 35million or so AOL subscribers cannot just assume every Internet-connected moron with a credit card will be running IE on Windows (we'll leave passport/.net discussion for another day).
I'm not saying I would prefer the reverse to be true - that is, the Windows/IE market share decimated to 10% and AOL's share at 90%. I would rather have a number of competing providers with roughly equal market share. That would FORCE them to adopt open standards, and would force content providers who want to reach a full audience to adhere to open standards as well.
It's obvious that Mundie sees the world through Windows-colored glasses.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who's noticed this. Pronouncements from MS occasionally betray their increasingly myopic, MS-centric view of the computing universe. Not in the obvious ways, but in odd, subtle statements here and there. I don't think it's calculated - I think they're losing their objectivity. Starting to believe their own FUD. Which is a weakness.
Now, with many websites turning into paysites, if AOL people cannot see your website in a proper and appealing way (font types, font syzes, table rendering, html extensions.... all those things that makes a website "designed for IExplorer".... and mostly unfriendly to mozilla/W3C) they will start to see that their projected visitors/revenue fall down because of lack of standards adherement.
I am clapping my hands with glee at the thought of all those dick-head "IE only" web designers frantically scrambling about trying to get their web pages standards-compliant.
MS drone: "But - but I used FrontPage! That's from MICROSOFT! I thought Microsoft WAS the Internet! What's going on???"
Boss: "Shut up you WORM! I don't know what happened, but if you don't fix our website FAST and get our numbers back up, YOU'RE FIRED!"
The original poster is a troll, look at his posting history. Best thing to do about trolls is to ignore them, they thrive on others' reactions to their bait.
Yes, but newbies can't tell truth from trollery, so sometimes you do a good deed by wasting a few precious minutes of your time responding to it.
You Open-Sauce Zealots are really something, you know that?
Gee, I know, almost as head-shakingly perturbing as a Microsoft toadie.
Here you are talking about brainwashing innocent children into thinking bad things about a software company
Did you learn to write watching Barney or something?
And yes, I think it's a good idea for young people to question the role Microsoft has assumed in their lives. Christ, the kids coming on-line today can't even conceive of a world without Microsoft. They don't stop to consider the implications of using closed software, or how their operating systems and software products treat them like milkable cow-teats. That sounds EXTREMELY unhealthy to me, and EXTREMELY profitable and positive for Microsoft.
but when Microsoft tries to give software to schools you rant and scream like it's the end of the world.
Ok, you're clearly trolling for fun and profit now, but I'll bite. Just re-read the previous paragraph and append the usual canned (but valid) paragraph regarding "monopoly".
Mao called the American bomb a "paper tiger". Several times he is quoted as saying that he hopes that the Americans drop a bomb to prove who was morally correct. China isn't afraid of US nukes. a fight with China is a baaaad idea. just let them have Taiwan (pragmatism). they haven't fucked up Hong Kong too much.
You're a coward, an intellectual weakling, and a moral reprobate.
Fact: Linux is not, and never will be, ready for the desktop.
Clue 1: Linux IS ready for the desktop.
Clue 2: You cannot predict the future.
Myth: Open-source is a viable business strategy.
Fact: No it isn't. [yahoo.com]
Clue 1: Open source is a development model, not a business anything.
Clue 2: Citing a company's stock performance is pretty much entirely irrelevant to open source.
Clue 3: Allow me to cite a stock: Microsoft. Huge stock value, huge bank accounts. You know whose money that used to be? Software USERS' money. Open source is first and foremost good for software USERS - including companies who are not in the business of selling software. You know it. I know it. Microsoft knows it. They're scared shitless.
Myth: Slashdot is a nice place to go for intelligent conversation about technology and political issues.
Fact: Slashdot is full of 14 year-old fanboys who toe the party line for the "approval" of people they will never meet and fascist Janitors who resort to low minded trickery and censorship to further their narrow world-view and agenda. If you want to read posts that are Insightful and Funny, read at -1.
Both the myth and fact have elements of truth. And please continue to piss off the 14-year-olds. After all, they're the decision-makers and software customers of the future, and a healthy ingrained dislike for Microsoft toadies inculcated at an early age can only be good.
Myth: Information wants to be free.
Fact: Musicians want to be paid.
Clue 1: Musicians want to be paid
Clue 2:...almost as much as I want non-crippled consumer electronics that don't assume I'm a thieving scumbag.
Myth: Constantly putting down popular music and culture shows your uber-intelligence and good taste.
Fact: Constantly putting down popular music and culture shows you are a stuck-up fuckwit with no friends.
Clue 1: Popular music and popular culture are a sickly green phlem whose only two purposes are 1) to stick to and remove money from the purses and wallets of naive prepubescent idiots and no-nothing wage-slaves who labor only to enrich their nakedly contempuous corporate masters, and 2) make the veins on my forehead throb as I ponder the worth of continuing to live.
Clue 2: I'm a stuck-up fuckwit with no friends.
Myth: The government is taking away our rights. WAAAAH!!
Fact: While you're busy complaining and stuffing your fat face with pork rinds and cheese puffs, the government is busy keeping you, and the American way of life, safe from harm.
Another misuse of the either-or proposition. They're both true - paradoxical.
Myth: Libertarianism is a good solution to our problems.
Fact: Libertarianism would result in a worse country than the USSR, with political and economic instability, horrific human rights violations, and exploitation of workers of a scale not seen since slavery was outlawed.
Libertarianism is good because it strives to control the concentration of power in goverment. It sucks because it does nothing to control the power of wealth.
Myth: Microsoft is an evil monopoly bent on world domination.
Yes they are, just like any corporation, whose only reason for existence is to enrich its shareholders. I'm not saying that's good or bad, but let's recognize and admit the obvious.
Fact: Microsoft is a software company based in Redmond, WA,
Well, you got that right.
that produces fine software
Depending on which definition of the word "fine" you're using, I could agree or disagree with you.
and believes that programmers should get paid for their work.
Well, I'm all for getting paid. I'd just rather get paid to write software that is open, standards-compliant, and is friendly with other open standards-compliant software. Microsoft, on the other hand, does absolutely everything in its power to make choosing Microsoft software a one-way proposition. Basically it's a big Labrea Tarpit-like Roach Motel for unsuspecting software developers and users - you can check in, but you can't check out.
Have I missed any?
Well, you were all over the map with sporadic accuracy and no real focus aside from your own personal frustrations and feelings of inadequacy, so it's kind of hard to say.
So what your saying is, if your losing the war by conventional means you just say "f'ck it lets just nuke them"?
No, it would take more than just "losing a war." It requires a threat to vital national interests that can't be countered by other means.
Now, if we were losing a war on our soil and our very existence was at risk - well, yeah, bombs away.
In most cases, the threat is enough to deter. But in order to deter, you have to be willing to follow through if deterrence fails. Otherwise there is no deterrent. [arm stiffens involuntarily into a nazi salute as I reposition my wheelchair].
Sick and convoluted, but there you have it. There is no other way.
The way to get new languages and features is to let people get in and monkey with the runtime machine, the opcode set that feeds the JIT, the metadata representations of types, and the compilers that produce the metadata and opcodes! This, plus providing support for the ECMA standards and people who want to better understand them, is precisely why we are releasing this code.
Another incredible innovation from Microsoft. Whoever else could have possibly conceived of such a thing? Thanks guys! What would we do without you?
I can't wait to find out what the average semi-literate Linux-obsessed adolescent pimple factory thinks about the geo-political ramifications of this disturbing news. If possible, please include references to the time you and your best bud like totally blew up the world playing Civilization and I mean it was cool and all but it makes you go whoa dude too you know what I mean?
National policy is always best made after a long session with the SpaceBong 4000, dude!
The problem is the illusion of NATIONS, and the answer is to wake up and to start understand the world in terms of classes!
While there is a lot of truth in that statement, war resources are generally controlled by nations, not classes. (I know - begs the question of whether and which classes control nations).
Slashdot Mirror
Dude, the solution is not to cripple the excellent middle-button functionality. It's to buy a better mouse, or mix in a couple decaf coffees with the regular during the course of the day :-)
My conspiracy theory is that AOL/Netscape still wants to leverage roaming profiles into a corporate product feature and has therefore been steering its developers away from it :-)
Mozilla is getting real close to the point that I'd offer it as an option to our users. Roaming profiles would seal the deal, I think. On the other hand I really don't think I'd do that with Netscape since it's so consumer-oriented. Really not right for the workplace.
Be comforted by the thought that you're doing your part to keep the software landscape vital and diverse.
If you still feel bad, file some bug reports :-)
If I wanted to bang a machine I'd go here.
So, if you were responsible for a few hundred desktops and a dozen servers, you wouldn't mind users installing whatever they wanted on your company's systems?
Now,when I say "users" I mean "computer illiterates.". And by "responsible", I mean "if anything goes wrong you have to fix it, whether it's the user who thought he'd try to install his own ISA modem in his PC (which has no ISA slots), the guy who thought it might be cool to set up a Wolfenstein server and invite everyone on his floor to play, the receptionist who won't stop crying because she can't get rid of comet cursor and the Yahoo toolbar that have taken over her browser, and the executive who thought it might be a nice idea to upgrade to Office XP while everyone else is still using Office 97."
If it weren't for company-wide standards and controls on computing resources, I guarantee you workplace violence statistics would be WAY higher.
I don't think so. For starters, commercial web designers follow stories like these, and those that are using IE-only crap will start working some long weekends to make sure their customers (internal or external) don't have broken websites. Or go out of business / get fired - their choice.
On the other end of the spectrum, if you're the typical AOL user and suddenly your cousin's Limp Bizkit websitez be goin all shiznit on you, are you going to blame Great Mother AOL, or your three-bongloads-a-day cousin? I don't think they'll start firing off angry missives to Steve Case about the deplorable lack of support for non-standards.
I learned something about myself recently. It's not the ads per se that I so despise. It's the ANIMATION that drives me insane. I don't mind glancing at a static ad for one of those goddamned X10 cameras. But if, while trying to focus on an article, my attention is forced to fight the lure of a dancing clown juggling AT&T logos, I get REALLY pissed off.
Bringing this back on-topic - That's another reason Mozilla is great. I can TURN OFF the animations, but still accept images from the ad servers used by /. and other sites whom I want to support with my eyeballs.
Now if we could do the same with Flash animations I might start using the Flash plugin again.
The people using "AOL-OS" as you put it are not likely people who have the cluefulness to investigate an alternative OS on their own. Even if they are entirely unaware of their "OS/browser switch", it will alter the technology demographics in a very favorable way.
Diverse implementations of standard protocols is a very VERY good thing. Anyone who wants to reach the 35million or so AOL subscribers cannot just assume every Internet-connected moron with a credit card will be running IE on Windows (we'll leave passport/.net discussion for another day).
I'm not saying I would prefer the reverse to be true - that is, the Windows/IE market share decimated to 10% and AOL's share at 90%. I would rather have a number of competing providers with roughly equal market share. That would FORCE them to adopt open standards, and would force content providers who want to reach a full audience to adhere to open standards as well.
999 cuts to go.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who's noticed this. Pronouncements from MS occasionally betray their increasingly myopic, MS-centric view of the computing universe. Not in the obvious ways, but in odd, subtle statements here and there. I don't think it's calculated - I think they're losing their objectivity. Starting to believe their own FUD. Which is a weakness.
Well they're damn sure fighting us.
I'm not sure it would be in their best interest to buy Red Hat, unless it was a defensive move to prevent someone else from snatching it up.
It seems like it would be more in their interest to have an independently healthy Red Hat, and contract their services.
I am clapping my hands with glee at the thought of all those dick-head "IE only" web designers frantically scrambling about trying to get their web pages standards-compliant.
MS drone: "But - but I used FrontPage! That's from MICROSOFT! I thought Microsoft WAS the Internet! What's going on???"
Boss: "Shut up you WORM! I don't know what happened, but if you don't fix our website FAST and get our numbers back up, YOU'RE FIRED!"
Hehehehehe....
Yeah, I had this vague sense that they didn't like us after that whole plane / skyscraper thing, but that tape really clinched it.
Well, it makes him a dead nut and me an alive nut.
That is factually incorrect.
Why don't you just raise your threshold
For what?
and stop doubling all of the noise around here, or better yet, go back to AOL.
Some people define noise as "that which I do not want to hear".
Yes, but newbies can't tell truth from trollery, so sometimes you do a good deed by wasting a few precious minutes of your time responding to it.
Gee, I know, almost as head-shakingly perturbing as a Microsoft toadie.
Here you are talking about brainwashing innocent children into thinking bad things about a software company
Did you learn to write watching Barney or something?
And yes, I think it's a good idea for young people to question the role Microsoft has assumed in their lives. Christ, the kids coming on-line today can't even conceive of a world without Microsoft. They don't stop to consider the implications of using closed software, or how their operating systems and software products treat them like milkable cow-teats. That sounds EXTREMELY unhealthy to me, and EXTREMELY profitable and positive for Microsoft.
but when Microsoft tries to give software to schools you rant and scream like it's the end of the world.
Ok, you're clearly trolling for fun and profit now, but I'll bite. Just re-read the previous paragraph and append the usual canned (but valid) paragraph regarding "monopoly".
You're a coward, an intellectual weakling, and a moral reprobate.
Not to mention a shitty geo-political strategist.
Clue 1: Linux IS ready for the desktop.
Clue 2: You cannot predict the future.
Myth: Open-source is a viable business strategy.
Fact: No it isn't. [yahoo.com]
Clue 1: Open source is a development model, not a business anything.
Clue 2: Citing a company's stock performance is pretty much entirely irrelevant to open source.
Clue 3: Allow me to cite a stock: Microsoft. Huge stock value, huge bank accounts. You know whose money that used to be? Software USERS' money. Open source is first and foremost good for software USERS - including companies who are not in the business of selling software. You know it. I know it. Microsoft knows it. They're scared shitless.
Myth: Slashdot is a nice place to go for intelligent conversation about technology and political issues.
Fact: Slashdot is full of 14 year-old fanboys who toe the party line for the "approval" of people they will never meet and fascist Janitors who resort to low minded trickery and censorship to further their narrow world-view and agenda. If you want to read posts that are Insightful and Funny, read at -1.
Both the myth and fact have elements of truth. And please continue to piss off the 14-year-olds. After all, they're the decision-makers and software customers of the future, and a healthy ingrained dislike for Microsoft toadies inculcated at an early age can only be good.
Myth: Information wants to be free.
Fact: Musicians want to be paid.
Clue 1: Musicians want to be paid ...almost as much as I want non-crippled consumer electronics that don't assume I'm a thieving scumbag.
Clue 2:
Myth: Constantly putting down popular music and culture shows your uber-intelligence and good taste.
Fact: Constantly putting down popular music and culture shows you are a stuck-up fuckwit with no friends.
Clue 1: Popular music and popular culture are a sickly green phlem whose only two purposes are 1) to stick to and remove money from the purses and wallets of naive prepubescent idiots and no-nothing wage-slaves who labor only to enrich their nakedly contempuous corporate masters, and 2) make the veins on my forehead throb as I ponder the worth of continuing to live.
Clue 2: I'm a stuck-up fuckwit with no friends.
Myth: The government is taking away our rights. WAAAAH!!
Fact: While you're busy complaining and stuffing your fat face with pork rinds and cheese puffs, the government is busy keeping you, and the American way of life, safe from harm.
Another misuse of the either-or proposition. They're both true - paradoxical.
Myth: Libertarianism is a good solution to our problems.
Fact: Libertarianism would result in a worse country than the USSR, with political and economic instability, horrific human rights violations, and exploitation of workers of a scale not seen since slavery was outlawed.
Libertarianism is good because it strives to control the concentration of power in goverment. It sucks because it does nothing to control the power of wealth.
Myth: Microsoft is an evil monopoly bent on world domination.
Yes they are, just like any corporation, whose only reason for existence is to enrich its shareholders. I'm not saying that's good or bad, but let's recognize and admit the obvious.
Fact: Microsoft is a software company based in Redmond, WA,
Well, you got that right.
that produces fine software
Depending on which definition of the word "fine" you're using, I could agree or disagree with you.
and believes that programmers should get paid for their work.
Well, I'm all for getting paid. I'd just rather get paid to write software that is open, standards-compliant, and is friendly with other open standards-compliant software. Microsoft, on the other hand, does absolutely everything in its power to make choosing Microsoft software a one-way proposition. Basically it's a big Labrea Tarpit-like Roach Motel for unsuspecting software developers and users - you can check in, but you can't check out.
Have I missed any?
Well, you were all over the map with sporadic accuracy and no real focus aside from your own personal frustrations and feelings of inadequacy, so it's kind of hard to say.
No, it would take more than just "losing a war." It requires a threat to vital national interests that can't be countered by other means.
Now, if we were losing a war on our soil and our very existence was at risk - well, yeah, bombs away.
In most cases, the threat is enough to deter. But in order to deter, you have to be willing to follow through if deterrence fails. Otherwise there is no deterrent. [arm stiffens involuntarily into a nazi salute as I reposition my wheelchair].
Sick and convoluted, but there you have it. There is no other way.
Has anyone seen my precious bodily fluids?
Another incredible innovation from Microsoft. Whoever else could have possibly conceived of such a thing? Thanks guys! What would we do without you?
Your childish red-baiting aside, I'm essentially a capitalist.
NEWS FLASH: There are social and economic classes! I KNOW it's hard to believe, but it's true! Really!
National policy is always best made after a long session with the SpaceBong 4000, dude!
Costa Rica is beautiful, hospitable, and affordable.
Perhaps you've seen their new advertising campaign:
"Costa Rica - You'll come for the absence of a national nuclear policy. But you'll stay for the sun, the beaches, and the people!"
While there is a lot of truth in that statement, war resources are generally controlled by nations, not classes. (I know - begs the question of whether and which classes control nations).