True... but I wish the new databases were a bit more usable, in a way that allows cross-searching of materials. I profoundly miss the old card catalogs, where I could have a dozen cards popped up (stuck sideways in the drawer to save my place) while I narrowed or broadened my search. Why don't modern catalog databases allow for some similar function, so I don't have to be flipping around thru multiple searches, none of which can interact? They seem to assume that the user is only interested in ONE thing at a time.
Yeah... I like the commandline, but I also like long file names and the ability to just grab a bunch of files in Explorer and throw them at an archiver. I bought the first PKZip for Win32, and it was a waste of $10 (and come to think of it, it was activationware of sorts, too -- you couldn't download the real thing til you'd registered by way of the stub, which insisted on embedding the name on your credit card). From their promotion, I'd been led to expect that it put a Win32 front end on PKZip so I'd have point-and-click access to all the commandline options (which was exactly what I wanted). Instead, all it did was add a "zip files" context menu item, which frequently failed to finish the job, and since the idiots put a [registered trademark] symbol in the program name, caused other problems such as interfering with backups. Grrr... easy to fix, but still stupid of 'em.
I've heard before that 7zip was pretty good, tho hadn't gotten around to looking at it. What with hard disks being the sizes they are these days, I don't use compression so much anymore. In fact I mainly use it when I need to sneakernet a couple files that can thus be coerced into fitting on a floppy.
While my recollection is that PKZip did indeed compress better, faster, and with fewer bugs than most of the early DOS archivers, I don't think that's what led to its dominance (as all here are aware, being better doesn't necessarily lead to market popularity!) Rather, its ease of use and interoperability put it ahead of the rest, even those that had better compression or more speed.
BBS zipfiles, business uses (whether internally or for commercial software -- after all, that's where PKWare's real income came from), PKLite's attractiveness to utility programmers -- all those factors contributed, too. But if I had to pick ONE factor that put PKZip at the head of the pack, it was the open format, that encouraged everyone who needed compression to follow the route of least resistance, whether they implemented it themselves or licensed it from PKWare.
Now, if ZIP had been an open format but sucked, chances are it would have been rapidly forgotten, or delegated to the ranks of the also-rans. But being both open AND good made it #1. It didn't have to be the best, nor perfect, just good and reliable and easy to implement.
Tho speaking from a WinUser perspective, RAR via WinRAR has largely displaced ZIP for me -- not because it's better (a lot of the time it's not, and RAR is also relatively slow) but because the first PKWare for Win32 was so awful, and WinZIP was scarcely better. Whereas WinRAR behaves mostly (if not perfectly) how I expect a WinApp to behave.
I think that may have had a lot more to do with commandline friendliness, an oft-unsung virtue back in the DOS era. PKZip made its operation flamingly obvious (screw up, and you'd be rewarded by full yet simple instructions) -- the only part that you had to RTFM to figure out was the exclude flag, which worked the opposite of the obvious assumption. -- I tried several archivers that I couldn't get to work at all, or had to fight with first, including early versions of LHA and RAR; PKZip worked on the first try. I doubt I was alone in this.
My observation was that a lot of BBS utils (offline mail readers and the like) went out of their way to support non-PKZip utilities, but ease of use won out in the end. And sysops are lazy folk, who love automation:)
F-Prot (my personal fave AV) has been doing RARs for many years. It does have one ongoing bug, tho -- it doesn't scan files that span segments. When I complained about this, they told me they do what they can with compressed files, but they're an AV company, not a compression company:)
Most of the BBSs that I used to call wouldn't accept RARs, or would automagically repack them into ZIPs. So RARs were very seldom seen.
All this aside, as best I recall how it went, the REAL reason that ZIP became the de facto default compression method, was because Phil Katz released the algorithm into the public domain, for all the world to freely interact with.
At the time there wasn't any standard; LHA, ARC, and half a dozen others all shared the market. But the ZIP format was a lot easier to implement, especially inside a business app. Which in turn enlarged ZIP's market, and PKZip with it.
Tho last I recall paying attention to PKWare, the company had "upgraded" to a proprietary method.
Looks like there's LOTS of stuff that could be changed here but isn't in the Preferences dialog. Is there a complete "this does X or Y" type list of explanations anywhere, so a person can make good choices about changing non-obvious stuff?
Earthlink used to have a plain-HTML webmail interface. It had all the usual features, it worked in any browser, and it was FAST, even on dialup (especially since one could forego loading images and still use it easily enough).
A couple years ago, Earthlink replaced it with a javascript-driven webmail interface. It has the same features, but now it only works in relatively new browsers, and it's slow as molasses (even for users on broadband; on dialup, it's so slow it's almost unusable).
Despite an avalanche of complaints (and zero praise) -- primarily about how SLOW it became -- ELN kept the new interface. Why? Turns out it was a fairly expensive purchased interface (somewhere I saw a list price of $10,000 for minimal users, so I'm sure it's more for millions of users), and by damn we're not going to let that investment go to waste, no matter how much the users hate it!
I think the advertising industry, and their clients (remember, companies, NOT users, are their clients!), are in the same boat. By damn we've invested millions in these "advances" in ad delivery, and the user is going to watch our ads like it or not!
"Disabling or replacing context menus is a pet peeve so I uncheck that one too."
I'd argue that this is not a pet peeve, but a necessary safety measure. What if a context menu was silently replaced, such that no matter which context menu option you clicked, Something Bad[tm] happened? Frex, "install our spyware in the background, when you thought you'd clicked BACK".
I don't know if that's technically possible, but if *I* can think of it, surely the Evil Ones can too.
Ya know, if they'd just stick to TEXT ADS (which more often than not I actually READ), no one on either side would have to worry about whether ads are delivered, blocked, too intrusive, or anything else.
AFAIK there were no service packs for WFWG. The closest thing to an update was the optional Win32s package. Are you sure you didn't get TCP/IP via an installer from your ISP?
Unfortunately, that's my perception of the situation as well -- I use and like Windows, but by damn I am NOT going to let M$ install any bloody ActiveX or other "authentication" applet. It's a very short hop from "authentication before you can download" to "your software is too old so we are disabling it" or "we are now inspecting your machine on behalf of our partners".
If I need an update that bad, I'll find it somewhere else.
But it's also going to cripple the ability of legit user to patch critically vulnerable machines. Know how long it takes unpatched NT to get hacked? 30 seconds or less. I personally know sysadmins who had to borrow someone else's already patched machine (or find a suitably secure non-Windows box), download the needful patches, burn 'em to CD, then drag the CD over to the server and manually apply the patches -- because the fresh new server was being attacked before they could even get to M$'s site to FIND the damned patches.
So what happens if you're in the field, and you have available an already-secured linux box and an unpatched NT box that you need to download patches for? M$'s new requirement means that your unpatched NT box MUST be used to download patches; you can't sensibly use the linux box to fetch 'em.
This sort of shit is I yearn for the day when everything I need and do on Windows can be seamlessly handled by some other OS.
Nope, Win3.11 (Workgroups or otherwise) did NOT have a TCP/IP stack. For internet connectivity, you had to download or buy a 3rd party utility, or get one from your ISP. Myself, I used a subversion of the Shiva dialer (very nice and stable).
Side note: WFWG and the minor 3.11 "upgrade" (the 8 DLLs that reportedly did nothing but break OS/2) to Win3.1 were both numbered "3.11", to the confusion of many.
However, WFWG 3.11 was indeed a considerable upgrade to plain old Win3.1x, as WFWG not only spoke networking, but also had 32bit disk and file access, so ran nearly twice as fast on the same hardware.
Actually, this was due to a bug in DRDOS6. M$ just took advantage of the bug (albeit unfairly). What the heck was the name of that book that covered a whole bunch of reverse-engineering that was done on several species of DOS, back in the day? Anyway, it's discussed in there.
The bug was fixed in DRDOS7. Also, there was a patch available for DRDOS6, but not everyone needed it. Our local little geek group (including myself) ran Win3.1x on DRDOS6 and NW/DRDOS7 without any problems.
[laughing] Actually, having come from MT/ND/MN... the longer I live in California, the more convinced I become that all the *intelligent* life is somewhere else!!
[And when I no longer need CA's population base to make my living, I'm outta here.]
California has such high vehicle licensing fees compared to other states, that out-of-state registrations used to be a common workaround, primarily using Oregon (OR plates used to cost only $10 for any car, while the same car in CA could cost you *hundreds* to license).
CA cracked down hard on this practice, and now out-of-state plates are rarely seen, and are almost entirely legit. If you have an out-of-state plate, you'd *better* have a matching legal address.
Also, you have only 20 days to get new plates once you move into CA, after that they fine you when you finally do get CA plates. But they have no good way of checking up on that, so if you do have to register a car from out of state, tell 'em you just got in the day before, and save yourself $60.
California used to soak you $300 for bringing your own car in from out of state, as an "excess smog fee" -- even if the car was manufactured to CA smog standards, and had passed the CA smog certification.
This extra fee waa found unconstitutional, and the state was forced to refund the money.
(I speak firsthand, having done the mound of paperwork and claimed my refund.)
Having moved from Montana to California... you are absolutely right. And this cheap-labour economy has trashed expectations of quality, so you pretty much CAN'T get good quality anything here anymore.
Slashdotters are always saying "If you don't like what your government is doing, change it!" Well, THAT APPLIES TO OTHER COUNTRIES TOO!! Mexico is a democracy; Mexicans have the same power to change their government that Americans do, whether that's at the ballot box or by civil disobedience. So if you don't like how your country is run -- STAY HOME AND FIX IT. Don't expect another country to take care of you.
I don't have anything against immigrants who come here legally, and do their best to become Americans. I *do* have a problem with immigrants who sneak in, bring the old country with them problems and all, and expect CITIZENS to change their lives to accomodate THEM. If the old country's ways are so great, STAY IN THE OLD COUNTRY.
As a direct effect of watching what illegal immigrants are doing to the economy and quality of life here, I've become a proponent of gun turrets at the border. I have no desire to live in Los Estados Mexicanos del Norte.
Slashdot Mirror
True... but I wish the new databases were a bit more usable, in a way that allows cross-searching of materials. I profoundly miss the old card catalogs, where I could have a dozen cards popped up (stuck sideways in the drawer to save my place) while I narrowed or broadened my search. Why don't modern catalog databases allow for some similar function, so I don't have to be flipping around thru multiple searches, none of which can interact? They seem to assume that the user is only interested in ONE thing at a time.
I tried format.c -- it wouldn't compile. ;)
... rootkit.com is slashdotted, while sysinternals.com is not. Do all these people know something we don't??
Yeah... I like the commandline, but I also like long file names and the ability to just grab a bunch of files in Explorer and throw them at an archiver. I bought the first PKZip for Win32, and it was a waste of $10 (and come to think of it, it was activationware of sorts, too -- you couldn't download the real thing til you'd registered by way of the stub, which insisted on embedding the name on your credit card). From their promotion, I'd been led to expect that it put a Win32 front end on PKZip so I'd have point-and-click access to all the commandline options (which was exactly what I wanted). Instead, all it did was add a "zip files" context menu item, which frequently failed to finish the job, and since the idiots put a [registered trademark] symbol in the program name, caused other problems such as interfering with backups. Grrr... easy to fix, but still stupid of 'em.
I've heard before that 7zip was pretty good, tho hadn't gotten around to looking at it. What with hard disks being the sizes they are these days, I don't use compression so much anymore. In fact I mainly use it when I need to sneakernet a couple files that can thus be coerced into fitting on a floppy.
Oh, I'm not disagreeing with you... :)
While my recollection is that PKZip did indeed compress better, faster, and with fewer bugs than most of the early DOS archivers, I don't think that's what led to its dominance (as all here are aware, being better doesn't necessarily lead to market popularity!) Rather, its ease of use and interoperability put it ahead of the rest, even those that had better compression or more speed.
BBS zipfiles, business uses (whether internally or for commercial software -- after all, that's where PKWare's real income came from), PKLite's attractiveness to utility programmers -- all those factors contributed, too. But if I had to pick ONE factor that put PKZip at the head of the pack, it was the open format, that encouraged everyone who needed compression to follow the route of least resistance, whether they implemented it themselves or licensed it from PKWare.
Now, if ZIP had been an open format but sucked, chances are it would have been rapidly forgotten, or delegated to the ranks of the also-rans. But being both open AND good made it #1. It didn't have to be the best, nor perfect, just good and reliable and easy to implement.
Tho speaking from a WinUser perspective, RAR via WinRAR has largely displaced ZIP for me -- not because it's better (a lot of the time it's not, and RAR is also relatively slow) but because the first PKWare for Win32 was so awful, and WinZIP was scarcely better. Whereas WinRAR behaves mostly (if not perfectly) how I expect a WinApp to behave.
But could you connect to the internet with it, or only to another Windows machine??
I think that may have had a lot more to do with commandline friendliness, an oft-unsung virtue back in the DOS era. PKZip made its operation flamingly obvious (screw up, and you'd be rewarded by full yet simple instructions) -- the only part that you had to RTFM to figure out was the exclude flag, which worked the opposite of the obvious assumption. -- I tried several archivers that I couldn't get to work at all, or had to fight with first, including early versions of LHA and RAR; PKZip worked on the first try. I doubt I was alone in this.
:)
:)
My observation was that a lot of BBS utils (offline mail readers and the like) went out of their way to support non-PKZip utilities, but ease of use won out in the end. And sysops are lazy folk, who love automation
BTW I still use a BBS and an OLMR every day
F-Prot (my personal fave AV) has been doing RARs for many years. It does have one ongoing bug, tho -- it doesn't scan files that span segments. When I complained about this, they told me they do what they can with compressed files, but they're an AV company, not a compression company :)
Most of the BBSs that I used to call wouldn't accept RARs, or would automagically repack them into ZIPs. So RARs were very seldom seen.
All this aside, as best I recall how it went, the REAL reason that ZIP became the de facto default compression method, was because Phil Katz released the algorithm into the public domain, for all the world to freely interact with.
At the time there wasn't any standard; LHA, ARC, and half a dozen others all shared the market. But the ZIP format was a lot easier to implement, especially inside a business app. Which in turn enlarged ZIP's market, and PKZip with it.
Tho last I recall paying attention to PKWare, the company had "upgraded" to a proprietary method.
Ah, thank you!! Yes, that will make life much easier!!
Looks like there's LOTS of stuff that could be changed here but isn't in the Preferences dialog. Is there a complete "this does X or Y" type list of explanations anywhere, so a person can make good choices about changing non-obvious stuff?
Just for the record, I went there and got no popup, with Mozilla v1.50 on Win98.
I do have all the "change the interface" type things blocked in Prefs, Advanced, tho. Maybe that makes a difference.
If I can't see the location bar, I *assume* that YOU are trying to fuck with my browser, probably in a malicious way.
And if "querystring hacking" is enough to get into sensitive parts of your server, you need better security on your end anyway.
Earthlink used to have a plain-HTML webmail interface. It had all the usual features, it worked in any browser, and it was FAST, even on dialup (especially since one could forego loading images and still use it easily enough).
A couple years ago, Earthlink replaced it with a javascript-driven webmail interface. It has the same features, but now it only works in relatively new browsers, and it's slow as molasses (even for users on broadband; on dialup, it's so slow it's almost unusable).
Despite an avalanche of complaints (and zero praise) -- primarily about how SLOW it became -- ELN kept the new interface. Why? Turns out it was a fairly expensive purchased interface (somewhere I saw a list price of $10,000 for minimal users, so I'm sure it's more for millions of users), and by damn we're not going to let that investment go to waste, no matter how much the users hate it!
I think the advertising industry, and their clients (remember, companies, NOT users, are their clients!), are in the same boat. By damn we've invested millions in these "advances" in ad delivery, and the user is going to watch our ads like it or not!
I guess that explains why there's been such a clamour for a plain-HTML version of GMail, that it's in GMail's "future features" list.
"Disabling or replacing context menus is a pet peeve so I uncheck that one too."
I'd argue that this is not a pet peeve, but a necessary safety measure. What if a context menu was silently replaced, such that no matter which context menu option you clicked, Something Bad[tm] happened? Frex, "install our spyware in the background, when you thought you'd clicked BACK".
I don't know if that's technically possible, but if *I* can think of it, surely the Evil Ones can too.
Ya know, if they'd just stick to TEXT ADS (which more often than not I actually READ), no one on either side would have to worry about whether ads are delivered, blocked, too intrusive, or anything else.
AFAIK there were no service packs for WFWG. The closest thing to an update was the optional Win32s package. Are you sure you didn't get TCP/IP via an installer from your ISP?
Unfortunately, that's my perception of the situation as well -- I use and like Windows, but by damn I am NOT going to let M$ install any bloody ActiveX or other "authentication" applet. It's a very short hop from "authentication before you can download" to "your software is too old so we are disabling it" or "we are now inspecting your machine on behalf of our partners".
If I need an update that bad, I'll find it somewhere else.
But it's also going to cripple the ability of legit user to patch critically vulnerable machines. Know how long it takes unpatched NT to get hacked? 30 seconds or less. I personally know sysadmins who had to borrow someone else's already patched machine (or find a suitably secure non-Windows box), download the needful patches, burn 'em to CD, then drag the CD over to the server and manually apply the patches -- because the fresh new server was being attacked before they could even get to M$'s site to FIND the damned patches.
So what happens if you're in the field, and you have available an already-secured linux box and an unpatched NT box that you need to download patches for? M$'s new requirement means that your unpatched NT box MUST be used to download patches; you can't sensibly use the linux box to fetch 'em.
This sort of shit is I yearn for the day when everything I need and do on Windows can be seamlessly handled by some other OS.
Nope, Win3.11 (Workgroups or otherwise) did NOT have a TCP/IP stack. For internet connectivity, you had to download or buy a 3rd party utility, or get one from your ISP. Myself, I used a subversion of the Shiva dialer (very nice and stable).
Side note: WFWG and the minor 3.11 "upgrade" (the 8 DLLs that reportedly did nothing but break OS/2) to Win3.1 were both numbered "3.11", to the confusion of many.
However, WFWG 3.11 was indeed a considerable upgrade to plain old Win3.1x, as WFWG not only spoke networking, but also had 32bit disk and file access, so ran nearly twice as fast on the same hardware.
[I ran WFWG for 7 years -- on DRDOS.]
Actually, this was due to a bug in DRDOS6. M$ just took advantage of the bug (albeit unfairly). What the heck was the name of that book that covered a whole bunch of reverse-engineering that was done on several species of DOS, back in the day? Anyway, it's discussed in there.
The bug was fixed in DRDOS7. Also, there was a patch available for DRDOS6, but not everyone needed it. Our local little geek group (including myself) ran Win3.1x on DRDOS6 and NW/DRDOS7 without any problems.
Yep, all the way back to when it was purely an Infoworld column.
:)
Geez, now I feel old
[laughing] Actually, having come from MT/ND/MN... the longer I live in California, the more convinced I become that all the *intelligent* life is somewhere else!!
[And when I no longer need CA's population base to make my living, I'm outta here.]
California has such high vehicle licensing fees compared to other states, that out-of-state registrations used to be a common workaround, primarily using Oregon (OR plates used to cost only $10 for any car, while the same car in CA could cost you *hundreds* to license).
CA cracked down hard on this practice, and now out-of-state plates are rarely seen, and are almost entirely legit. If you have an out-of-state plate, you'd *better* have a matching legal address.
Also, you have only 20 days to get new plates once you move into CA, after that they fine you when you finally do get CA plates. But they have no good way of checking up on that, so if you do have to register a car from out of state, tell 'em you just got in the day before, and save yourself $60.
California used to soak you $300 for bringing your own car in from out of state, as an "excess smog fee" -- even if the car was manufactured to CA smog standards, and had passed the CA smog certification.
This extra fee waa found unconstitutional, and the state was forced to refund the money.
(I speak firsthand, having done the mound of paperwork and claimed my refund.)
Having moved from Montana to California... you are absolutely right. And this cheap-labour economy has trashed expectations of quality, so you pretty much CAN'T get good quality anything here anymore.
Slashdotters are always saying "If you don't like what your government is doing, change it!" Well, THAT APPLIES TO OTHER COUNTRIES TOO!! Mexico is a democracy; Mexicans have the same power to change their government that Americans do, whether that's at the ballot box or by civil disobedience. So if you don't like how your country is run -- STAY HOME AND FIX IT. Don't expect another country to take care of you.
I don't have anything against immigrants who come here legally, and do their best to become Americans. I *do* have a problem with immigrants who sneak in, bring the old country with them problems and all, and expect CITIZENS to change their lives to accomodate THEM. If the old country's ways are so great, STAY IN THE OLD COUNTRY.
As a direct effect of watching what illegal immigrants are doing to the economy and quality of life here, I've become a proponent of gun turrets at the border. I have no desire to live in Los Estados Mexicanos del Norte.