xmlHttpRequest was created by Microsoft and is not part of any HTML, XHTML, JavaScript, or CSS standards. Firefox happily supports it, and everyone who's used Gmail loves it. Nobody ever requested it; Microsoft merely provided it and Firefox supported it years afterwards.
All the applications you describe are still in beta. If you'll just be patient, Google will address every bug and enhancement request before taking something as important as an instant messenger out of beta.
(Their "desktop search appliance," though, is a Linux server you lease. I think you mean "desktop search tool," which is only available for Windows.)
I agree with you and also replied to the parent's comment, but why not have an elevator that verbally announces the floor you're on, like elevator operators do? It doesn't seem like it would be that hard to have a recording "Third floor, housewares, bridal registry" play every time the doors open on the third floor.
I think the BING sounds are for the benefit of blind riders, who can count the number of BINGs to determine which floor they're on. The same goes for the one-BING-for-up, two-BING-for-down tones that accompany each door opening.
My point is that it's naive to assume that everyone's going to be connected to the Internet all the time. I enjoy having a local cache of my IMAP mail server's folder structure on my laptop so that I can compose messages off-line and have them sent the next time I connect to the Internet. To me it doesn't make sense to pay $60-$80 a month for a cell phone plan with unlimited data or $30 a month for T-Mobile wi-fi access just so I can access my old e-mail while on the go. Even at "54" Mbps, the network presents a huge performance bottleneck for many applications.
True, true. Safari is my reader and it's notoriously bad at duplicating entries that have merely changed. It also uses "RSS" as a term for "syndication" regardless of whether the site truly uses RSS or Atom.
Re:Web 2.0 brought on some interesting solutions..
on
Web 3.0
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· Score: 1
*ahem*
I've done web development work for three years now, but it's business-to-business stuff and not consumer-oriented. I assumed you were talking about the expense of setting up development, not the costs associated with getting noticed (i.e. marketing). My bad.
Thank you for the compliment, but I actually got it from script.aculo.us. Apparently to be truly Web 2.0 compliant you have to have a mind-numbingly stupid domain name, not an intuitive name like "Google" or "Slashdot.";)
Re:Web 2.0 brought on some interesting solutions..
on
Web 3.0
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Apache, mod_perl, and PHP have always been Free as in Beer Speech FLOSS FLUSH, and they were used for all the "Web 1.0" apps. People have been hacking on them since the dawn of the Web. How did you ever "need" thousands of dollars to start a company before, where you don't now? Stupid VCs will flush money down the drain almost as readily now (blogs! community! sticky eyeballs! contextual ads!) as they did then (portals! community! sticky eyeballs! banner ads!).
Re:Web 2.0: Where solutions don't need problems?
on
Web 3.0
·
· Score: 1
People are still under the impression that web applications can duplicate the "feel" of a native desktop application. Ignoring all those pesky browser buttons that would destroy any AJAX application, JavaScript does make many web apps feel snappier. The app still breaks the second two backbone ISPs have a slap-fight, you refuse to pay another $30 for wi-fi access at a Starbucks, or some moron starts BitTorrenting Linux ISOs at work.
It's a lot like Web 1.0, but with JavaScript instead of Flash and RSS instead of RSS.
Consider a web site you visited 10 years ago. Now replace all the boring HTML with exciting AJAXified scriptaculosity!!
Also RSS is really important to Web 2.0, even though it's been around for 10 years and still has glaring flaws that remain unaddressed since that time. (How do I indicate something's been updated or deleted without triggering duplicate entries in everyone's feed reader?)
XChat is an IRC client, though, and many IRC servers expressly forbid users logged in as root to connect.
Besides, every scummy application distributor will simply say "You may see a message 'WARNING! YOU ARE ABOUT TO INSTALL SOFTWARE THAT REQUIRES FULL ROOT PRIVELEGES! ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DO THIS? IT IS A SECURITY RISK!' Please click 'Yes' to install this important software." They already provide explicit instructions for getting past any Internet Explorer dialog boxes. It's up to the user to make intelligent decisions.
The only software installation difference between the Windows world of today and the UNIX/MacOSX world of today: to install software in the latter case the user must provide a password. That provides a little extra security to guard against background processes, but all the cases mentioned in the article required the user to click a button to proceed. Malware authors could simply say "To install this cool Aaliyah screen saver, enter your password!" and most UNIX/MacOSX users would happily comply.
To get software installed in a diverse environment, malware authors would just provide source code that would be compiled, the binary installed, and the code purged.
Microsoft decided not to even try porting Access to the Mac, instead advocating FileMaker Pro, a few years ago. Both Access and FileMaker can make nice friendly front-ends, but I don't think either file format is portable to the other app without serious data lossage.
Visio can work with OmniGraffle Pro ($150). I really like Graffle; the non-pro version comes with some Macs, so you can upgrade for less. My PowerBook included non-pro version 3.
I don't know if there's any satisfactory native replacement for Project. You might have to pick a web-based application and pray Safari will render it. (Damn those developers who assume everyone runs Firefox.)
No, it isn't. Except for the "list" functionality, Excel 2004 for Mac is roughly on a par with Excel 2000 for Windows. Just look at the Protect Cells dialogue in Excel 2004; it's a direct copy of 2000's.
The interface in Excel 2004 is all Carbon, not Cocoa. Little animations meant to resemble Mac OS X behaviors (the infamous "genie effect" on toolbars) are all hacked in and are really annoying to disable. The whole thing performs much slowly, megahertz for megahertz, then on a comparable Windows machine.
If Photoshop is the app that always runs faster on the Mac, then MS Office is the killer app for Windows. Office for Mac is awful, and OpenOffice.org/NeoOfficeJ is even worse.
Google Video is in BETA, so these problems are normal. Just keep buying stuff and everything will be all right.
Back when ESPN was in BETA in the early '80s, basketball games got cut off all the time. Nobody minded, though, because they knew ESPN had a vision for the future.
I wouldn't call Google News "sweet." 99% of the news stories are from the AP wires; it just looks like it has a diverse blend of stories because it randomly chooses one of 1100 AP subscribers as a source.
Most trojans out there use IRC in some form. Most modify your mIRC scripts file (SCRIPT.INI?) to automatically DCC-send an installer to everyone who joins channels you're in. Some also connect directly to an IRC server to listen for remote-access commands. As an unfortunate casualty of this, many corporate networks block outgoing IRC connection requests. IRC doesn't have too many business uses, but sometimes an open source project uses IRC for "support."
Infecting P2P networks is the next logical step since IRC is going the way of Usenet (not dying so much as shrinking to a loyal core of users).
"Oh, good! A blog! Well, have some free stuff. Would you like some manipulated photos so that you can claim to have a 'leak' to show your loyal readers?"
Slashdot Mirror
xmlHttpRequest was created by Microsoft and is not part of any HTML, XHTML, JavaScript, or CSS standards. Firefox happily supports it, and everyone who's used Gmail loves it. Nobody ever requested it; Microsoft merely provided it and Firefox supported it years afterwards.
All the applications you describe are still in beta. If you'll just be patient, Google will address every bug and enhancement request before taking something as important as an instant messenger out of beta.
(Their "desktop search appliance," though, is a Linux server you lease. I think you mean "desktop search tool," which is only available for Windows.)
Like the late Mitch Hedberg, blind people know what floor they're really on.
"What room are you in?" "1401." "No, you're not! Jump out the window; you will die earlier!"
At my old apartment building I had an apartment right next to the elevator. I was awakened by that buzzing several times. Steps to stop buzzing:
1. Pull emergency stop switch.
2. Push emergency stop switch.
3. Go back to bed.
(Optional step 2.5: Call super to bitch about elevator)
I agree with you and also replied to the parent's comment, but why not have an elevator that verbally announces the floor you're on, like elevator operators do? It doesn't seem like it would be that hard to have a recording "Third floor, housewares, bridal registry" play every time the doors open on the third floor.
I think the BING sounds are for the benefit of blind riders, who can count the number of BINGs to determine which floor they're on. The same goes for the one-BING-for-up, two-BING-for-down tones that accompany each door opening.
My point is that it's naive to assume that everyone's going to be connected to the Internet all the time. I enjoy having a local cache of my IMAP mail server's folder structure on my laptop so that I can compose messages off-line and have them sent the next time I connect to the Internet. To me it doesn't make sense to pay $60-$80 a month for a cell phone plan with unlimited data or $30 a month for T-Mobile wi-fi access just so I can access my old e-mail while on the go. Even at "54" Mbps, the network presents a huge performance bottleneck for many applications.
True, true. Safari is my reader and it's notoriously bad at duplicating entries that have merely changed. It also uses "RSS" as a term for "syndication" regardless of whether the site truly uses RSS or Atom.
*ahem*
I've done web development work for three years now, but it's business-to-business stuff and not consumer-oriented. I assumed you were talking about the expense of setting up development, not the costs associated with getting noticed (i.e. marketing). My bad.
Thank you for the compliment, but I actually got it from script.aculo.us. Apparently to be truly Web 2.0 compliant you have to have a mind-numbingly stupid domain name, not an intuitive name like "Google" or "Slashdot." ;)
Apache, mod_perl, and PHP have always been Free as in Beer Speech FLOSS FLUSH, and they were used for all the "Web 1.0" apps. People have been hacking on them since the dawn of the Web. How did you ever "need" thousands of dollars to start a company before, where you don't now? Stupid VCs will flush money down the drain almost as readily now (blogs! community! sticky eyeballs! contextual ads!) as they did then (portals! community! sticky eyeballs! banner ads!).
People are still under the impression that web applications can duplicate the "feel" of a native desktop application. Ignoring all those pesky browser buttons that would destroy any AJAX application, JavaScript does make many web apps feel snappier. The app still breaks the second two backbone ISPs have a slap-fight, you refuse to pay another $30 for wi-fi access at a Starbucks, or some moron starts BitTorrenting Linux ISOs at work.
It's a lot like Web 1.0, but with JavaScript instead of Flash and RSS instead of RSS.
Consider a web site you visited 10 years ago. Now replace all the boring HTML with exciting AJAXified scriptaculosity!!
Also RSS is really important to Web 2.0, even though it's been around for 10 years and still has glaring flaws that remain unaddressed since that time. (How do I indicate something's been updated or deleted without triggering duplicate entries in everyone's feed reader?)
XChat is an IRC client, though, and many IRC servers expressly forbid users logged in as root to connect.
Besides, every scummy application distributor will simply say "You may see a message 'WARNING! YOU ARE ABOUT TO INSTALL SOFTWARE THAT REQUIRES FULL ROOT PRIVELEGES! ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DO THIS? IT IS A SECURITY RISK!' Please click 'Yes' to install this important software." They already provide explicit instructions for getting past any Internet Explorer dialog boxes. It's up to the user to make intelligent decisions.
The only software installation difference between the Windows world of today and the UNIX/MacOSX world of today: to install software in the latter case the user must provide a password. That provides a little extra security to guard against background processes, but all the cases mentioned in the article required the user to click a button to proceed. Malware authors could simply say "To install this cool Aaliyah screen saver, enter your password!" and most UNIX/MacOSX users would happily comply.
To get software installed in a diverse environment, malware authors would just provide source code that would be compiled, the binary installed, and the code purged.
What do you do when someone sends you a spreadsheet and your battery won't last long enough for NeoOffice/J to open?
Microsoft decided not to even try porting Access to the Mac, instead advocating FileMaker Pro, a few years ago. Both Access and FileMaker can make nice friendly front-ends, but I don't think either file format is portable to the other app without serious data lossage.
Visio can work with OmniGraffle Pro ($150). I really like Graffle; the non-pro version comes with some Macs, so you can upgrade for less. My PowerBook included non-pro version 3.
I don't know if there's any satisfactory native replacement for Project. You might have to pick a web-based application and pray Safari will render it. (Damn those developers who assume everyone runs Firefox.)
Nobody buys Macs because they're cheap...
No, it isn't. Except for the "list" functionality, Excel 2004 for Mac is roughly on a par with Excel 2000 for Windows. Just look at the Protect Cells dialogue in Excel 2004; it's a direct copy of 2000's.
The interface in Excel 2004 is all Carbon, not Cocoa. Little animations meant to resemble Mac OS X behaviors (the infamous "genie effect" on toolbars) are all hacked in and are really annoying to disable. The whole thing performs much slowly, megahertz for megahertz, then on a comparable Windows machine.
If Photoshop is the app that always runs faster on the Mac, then MS Office is the killer app for Windows. Office for Mac is awful, and OpenOffice.org/NeoOfficeJ is even worse.
Google Video is in BETA, so these problems are normal. Just keep buying stuff and everything will be all right.
Back when ESPN was in BETA in the early '80s, basketball games got cut off all the time. Nobody minded, though, because they knew ESPN had a vision for the future.
Google Video is in beta and they expect you to PAY FOR IT.
Please explain Google Images: no ads, not in beta.
I wouldn't call Google News "sweet." 99% of the news stories are from the AP wires; it just looks like it has a diverse blend of stories because it randomly chooses one of 1100 AP subscribers as a source.
Most trojans out there use IRC in some form. Most modify your mIRC scripts file (SCRIPT.INI?) to automatically DCC-send an installer to everyone who joins channels you're in. Some also connect directly to an IRC server to listen for remote-access commands. As an unfortunate casualty of this, many corporate networks block outgoing IRC connection requests. IRC doesn't have too many business uses, but sometimes an open source project uses IRC for "support."
Infecting P2P networks is the next logical step since IRC is going the way of Usenet (not dying so much as shrinking to a loyal core of users).
"Oh, good! A blog! Well, have some free stuff. Would you like some manipulated photos so that you can claim to have a 'leak' to show your loyal readers?"
Don't compare someone to Vanilla Ice unless you can prove that he got his ass kicked by Todd "Willis" Bridges on national television.
Lanier created a blogazine. Do I need to spell it out for you? B-L-O-G-A-Z-I-N-E. There, I did it.