General public perception of Microsoft is most definitely negative.
Much like general public perception of the Cable Company is most definitely negative -- nobody likes monopoly institutions, but that doesn't mean people want to get rid of them. It's not a cause for anyone except some upper middleclass kids too cowardly to leave their parents basement and find an actually meaningful place to devote their energies.
$8 Million really isn't that bad when you consider how little of Mosaic is actually in IE and how totally obsolete Mosaic is (Mosaic couldn't even do tables at the time.)
The funny thing is that Microsoft even sells a seperate Page Layout program, MS Publisher, for when Word Can't Do The Job, although it's very consumerish.
Furthermore, the ODF converter doesn't hook into the save-as dialog. Why? Because plugins in office don't support that.
Hmm -- there's other converters that plug into the Save As dialog. I suspect this is just a packaging issue that they haven't gotten to because they're only at version 0.01 or whatever.
This is typical anti-OSS flamebait but I'll respond anyways. "OSS" has nothing to do with this argument, Mr. Open Sores.
And to add to that, writing a book in Word is cruel. You never get to see the final product And that's just the point -- most people don't want to see the "final product" until the editing cycle is complete and the publication is in the production phase. For a publication with an establshed DTP workflow, "camera ready" is a hindrance, not a help.
TeX might be the greatest publication tool in existence (debatable), but it's rarely if ever used as a writing/editing workflow format outside of academia.
When will "hobbiest dabblers" realize that nobody uses TeX/LaTeX outside of academics and people with the title of "Typesetter"? In non-Slashdot reality, tools like FrameMaker and Quark/InDesign are used much more in publishing than TeX/LaTeX. (And even these tools are generally only as the final production step -- the writing and editing is done in a word processor.)
Sorry, this plugin is not going to magically make ODF an popular interchange format. It's for governments and others who want to use ODF as a archive format. It's going to take a long time for the converter to have any real installed base, and HR drones will continue to delete "wierd attachments" as IT instructed.
Just create your resume in HTML and rename it to.DOC, nobody will notice the difference.
Well, not quite. I had the same problem -- the issue was that that there was no agreement on the hidden file type code for a.JPG file -- some apps used "JPEG" and some used "JFIF" (which eventually won). And these apps couldn't open each other's files.
Eventually Apple added filetype mapping to the OS and apps got better about sniffing data like JPEG.
The problems I'm referring to are poor handling of network disconnects and filename issues with extended characters -- both of which I'm sure are specific to the OS X client. The SMB situation on Macs is 1000x better now that it was a year ago (still some problems, but not nearly as many), and not because Microsoft changed anything.
Wikipedia's Achilles' heel is the perception that Wikipedia is not a "good" source of information, and that it is a less "definitive," or "authoritative" source than others.
Well, the underlying Wikipedia philsophy is that "Any information is better than no information. (Look how many articles we have!!!)" This runs counter to the normal academic method where only substantiated information is allowed. Until Wikipedia normalizes their approach and starts actively removing uncited content (even if it 'seems right'), they're going to have this perception issue.
> The only place where these 'format wars' have had even minimal success have been in game consoles
Somewhat. Usually a single console "wins" in every generation. The secondary consoles either die, survive in a niche (Nintendo) or require masssive subsidies (MS, Sega).
Both the Enterprise Server Group at HP, responsible for HP9000 servers, and the DEC Alpha team, were completely decimated by Carly.
UNIX/RISC is in severe decline, mostly due to Linux/x86, and one could argue that HP/DEC has always been "third-tier" in this market, sales-wise. Plus you have the Itanium fiasco.
Without the purchase of Compaq Proliant, HP would be in very serious trouble in the Enterprise market. You can blame Fiorina for her management style, but you can't blame her for the trend toward commdification in enterprise computing. This group would have been decimated no matter who was in charge.
The EFF is "overrated" on slashdot because their legal strategy is basically "Score 5: Insightful" -- and I don't mean that in a good way. They take positions because they sound good, but they're pretty much ineffective and lose all the time.
That's you. I would much rather see the EFF engage in fundemental issues about how the Internet is governed and managed (including government monitoring and including broadcast flags) rather than taking lame potshots at the RIAA all the time and wasted their resources with "Piracy is Kewl Doodz!" advertisments in Wired magazine.
The large harddrive-based players are only a tiny part of the market (Maybe 10% of iPod sales).
Personally, I think iPod will always dominate that segment, but the smaller players will be "killed" by phones and virtually every other device filled with cheap flash memory.
The Microsoft thing is probably more of a "PiMP" -- personal media player focused on movies and such.
OK, then you are unintentionally ignorant. Your "points" are nothing but misguided rhetorical hot air. You haven't once demonstrated that one can effectively script mainstream Mac apps from the Unix commandline -- which is the entire crux of your argument. Usless.
You want a point by point argument? Here it is: Wrong. Wrong. You don't know what monad is. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
I can script the mac versions via the CLI using a dozen languages.
And you can do it from the Windows CLI in hundreds of languages. If you want to act like a willful ignoramus about this, I don't really care, you're only making yourself look like an idiot.
Who said anything about Unix?
You did, when you brought up the Mac CLI and Cygwin. Automator is a neat end user tool, but it really has nothing to do with all of the other things you're bringing up. Which is my only point.
Slashdot Mirror
General public perception of Microsoft is most definitely negative.
Much like general public perception of the Cable Company is most definitely negative -- nobody likes monopoly institutions, but that doesn't mean people want to get rid of them. It's not a cause for anyone except some upper middleclass kids too cowardly to leave their parents basement and find an actually meaningful place to devote their energies.
That doesn't surprise me -- RIPs can be very picky about their PostScript, and it is an issue for real page layout software as well.
$8 Million really isn't that bad when you consider how little of Mosaic is actually in IE and how totally obsolete Mosaic is (Mosaic couldn't even do tables at the time.)
The funny thing is that Microsoft even sells a seperate Page Layout program, MS Publisher, for when Word Can't Do The Job, although it's very consumerish.
Furthermore, the ODF converter doesn't hook into the save-as dialog. Why? Because plugins in office don't support that.
Hmm -- there's other converters that plug into the Save As dialog. I suspect this is just a packaging issue that they haven't gotten to because they're only at version 0.01 or whatever.
This is typical anti-OSS flamebait but I'll respond anyways.
"OSS" has nothing to do with this argument, Mr. Open Sores.
And to add to that, writing a book in Word is cruel. You never get to see the final product
And that's just the point -- most people don't want to see the "final product" until the editing cycle is complete and the publication is in the production phase. For a publication with an establshed DTP workflow, "camera ready" is a hindrance, not a help.
TeX might be the greatest publication tool in existence (debatable), but it's rarely if ever used as a writing/editing workflow format outside of academia.
When will "hobbiest dabblers" realize that nobody uses TeX/LaTeX outside of academics and people with the title of "Typesetter"? In non-Slashdot reality, tools like FrameMaker and Quark/InDesign are used much more in publishing than TeX/LaTeX. (And even these tools are generally only as the final production step -- the writing and editing is done in a word processor.)
Sorry, this plugin is not going to magically make ODF an popular interchange format. It's for governments and others who want to use ODF as a archive format. It's going to take a long time for the converter to have any real installed base, and HR drones will continue to delete "wierd attachments" as IT instructed.
.DOC, nobody will notice the difference.
Just create your resume in HTML and rename it to
Well, not quite. I had the same problem -- the issue was that that there was no agreement on the hidden file type code for a .JPG file -- some apps used "JPEG" and some used "JFIF" (which eventually won). And these apps couldn't open each other's files.
Eventually Apple added filetype mapping to the OS and apps got better about sniffing data like JPEG.
The problems I'm referring to are poor handling of network disconnects and filename issues with extended characters -- both of which I'm sure are specific to the OS X client. The SMB situation on Macs is 1000x better now that it was a year ago (still some problems, but not nearly as many), and not because Microsoft changed anything.
I wasn't trying to flame, but file name length is the topic of the story. The joke would have been better if you got it right.
Well, SfM has one set of problems, but the OS X SMB client has another set, so it's not definite which is better.
MacOS was limited to 31 character names, so you're misremembering things.
Wikipedia's Achilles' heel is the perception that Wikipedia is not a "good" source of information, and that it is a less "definitive," or "authoritative" source than others.
Well, the underlying Wikipedia philsophy is that "Any information is better than no information. (Look how many articles we have!!!)" This runs counter to the normal academic method where only substantiated information is allowed. Until Wikipedia normalizes their approach and starts actively removing uncited content (even if it 'seems right'), they're going to have this perception issue.
You end up doubling the licensing costs if you support both formats.
> The only place where these 'format wars' have had even minimal success have been in game consoles
Somewhat. Usually a single console "wins" in every generation. The secondary consoles either die, survive in a niche (Nintendo) or require masssive subsidies (MS, Sega).
Both the Enterprise Server Group at HP, responsible for HP9000 servers, and the DEC Alpha team, were completely decimated by Carly.
UNIX/RISC is in severe decline, mostly due to Linux/x86, and one could argue that HP/DEC has always been "third-tier" in this market, sales-wise. Plus you have the Itanium fiasco.
Without the purchase of Compaq Proliant, HP would be in very serious trouble in the Enterprise market. You can blame Fiorina for her management style, but you can't blame her for the trend toward commdification in enterprise computing. This group would have been decimated no matter who was in charge.
The EFF is "overrated" on slashdot because their legal strategy is basically "Score 5: Insightful" -- and I don't mean that in a good way. They take positions because they sound good, but they're pretty much ineffective and lose all the time.
That's you. I would much rather see the EFF engage in fundemental issues about how the Internet is governed and managed (including government monitoring and including broadcast flags) rather than taking lame potshots at the RIAA all the time and wasted their resources with "Piracy is Kewl Doodz!" advertisments in Wired magazine.
The large harddrive-based players are only a tiny part of the market (Maybe 10% of iPod sales).
Personally, I think iPod will always dominate that segment, but the smaller players will be "killed" by phones and virtually every other device filled with cheap flash memory.
The Microsoft thing is probably more of a "PiMP" -- personal media player focused on movies and such.
Ruby makes an excellent templating language.
Is Ruby better than Java for templating? Depends.
Is RHTML any better (or even that different) than plain ol' JSP. No. There, I said it.
You can open a file from the commandline -- that's your entire argument? Har.
> I'm sure your teachers are proud of you boy.
Yop, they taught me that most people are morons, and it looks like they've been proven right again.
OK, then you are unintentionally ignorant. Your "points" are nothing but misguided rhetorical hot air. You haven't once demonstrated that one can effectively script mainstream Mac apps from the Unix commandline -- which is the entire crux of your argument. Usless.
You want a point by point argument? Here it is: Wrong. Wrong. You don't know what monad is. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
I can script the mac versions via the CLI using a dozen languages.
And you can do it from the Windows CLI in hundreds of languages. If you want to act like a willful ignoramus about this, I don't really care, you're only making yourself look like an idiot.
Who said anything about Unix?
You did, when you brought up the Mac CLI and Cygwin. Automator is a neat end user tool, but it really has nothing to do with all of the other things you're bringing up. Which is my only point.
I figured it out -- apparently my "sticky bit" got turned off somehow. Thanks for convincing me that my system was misconfigured.