Now, Flash is overused, but it is actually an excellent product that manages to incorporate a very fast vector graphics engine, video playback (using On2 VP6), and a lot of scriptibility in a very small footprint.
Would "overuse" include a simple slider widget? That's one of the things I'm using SVG for, since html forms don't include such. The slider actually stores the value in a hidden input, and I can post it just like I would any other. Of course, I could do it in flash... oh wait, no I can't. Not without paying for development tools.
If it only added extra things, it would be no big deal. Doesn't work with my good, standards-compliant code at all, not even the simple things. I think I have a button that hides/reveals an element via display style... since it won't even do that, I can't test it further. It's a joke. Is setAttributNS() some proprietary mozilla thing that I don't realize?
So many flash ads out there now. And a bad flash game does tend to kill mine (3ghz p4, and it still slows to a crawl while simultaneously overheating the machine).
Would be interesting to know which page, and if it's reproducible. Wonder if there's any simple fix though.
What OS are you using? Firefox can get a little sluggish on my machine that only has a half gig of ram. But it sure as hell isn't persistent through an application restart. That's an OS problem.
Firefox has its problems. I don't deny it. But hell, this is the only issue I ever hear people complain about that sounds like a real problem at all... they'll fix it eventually. And at this rate, long before IE7 is out. In the meantime, use whatever you want, use anything at all... as long as it's not IE.
I almost gave up on Firefox, to return to Mozilla. I liked the "Modern theme", hate the XPish theme Firefox had. Til I stumbled upon a clone. That gave it a week or so worth of reprieve.
Then, I found Download Statusbar. Why the thing isn't the default download manager for 2.0, I don't really know. Honestly, it kicks ass.
And Adblock was nice. Session Saver was better. I learned little tricks like getting rid of a bookmark's name on the bookmark toolbar, just using the favicon. I can fit 40 or so in without even ever touching the bookmarks menu. Even better was the Favicon Picker extension... the few sites that didn't have a favicon could be given one. (Even more offtopic: Anyone have a good 16x16 dilbert icon?)
So, I myself wouldn't try this just for the sake of trying. It's hard to imagine anything better in the ways that I define "better". But as a guy working on a website, I did decide to try and see if Opera could do some things I thought would make my site Firefox-only. It's passed with flying colors. Guess IE just sucks.
They will to a point. At 10% marketshare, everyone knows someone that uses Firefox. The right combination of a cool site that doesn't work on IE because it's shit, and word-of-mouth might just see Firefox (and all the others combined, too) jump up 2-5% in a matter of weeks.
I'm doing stuff that I thought was only ever possible in flash or maybe java. And it's crap now, wait til you see some of the stuff I've got ideas for but not quite the skill yet to implement...
Um, and why wouldn't you write it up as a xhtml/javascript/xmlhttprequest webapp anyway? XUL offers nothing new really. Sure, if you want to design local apps based on it (chatzilla) it's pretty snazzy, but those will run using the firefox engine anyway...
Because it's alot like trusting that spouse when they tell you that they won't cheat on you ever again. Even though it's the 19th time you've caught them in bed with someone else. Everyone that believes Microsoft's lies about security keeps getting burned.
And while most people are too ignorant to know, IE is primitive and will remain so. Their javascript doesn't comply with standards. Their browser won't do correct mime types (hey NoMoreNicksLeft, why does it want me to download index.php when I go to your site?). It won't ever have native SVG. Or any of the other important XML variants for that matter.
Most of us are concerned with IE losing marketshare, not so much who picks up the pieces.
If Opera is someday 90%, and Firefox still with only 8%... this is good for Firefox. Opera encourages website developers to write correct xhtml and javascript, which Firefox handles just fine.
My own disgust at IE led me to Mozilla years ago. I was reluctant to try Firefox at first, but that switch was pleasant. I never really tried Opera though, until recently.
You see, I'm working on a website that will never be usable in IE. IE is too primitive, and broken. It can't handle xml mime types, and won't even in IE7. It can't do SVG natively, and I don't feel like wrapping all my many SVG widgets in object tags and writing code for a bad Adobe plugin. And besides, people should just plain be discouraged from ever using IE.
SVG though is important to the website, I suppose I could use something gay like flash or java, but I really wanted this to be a pure site. I thought that it would mean that it was Firefox only. Some friends chided me into trying to make it work with Opera and Konq though...
And I was shocked. Opera 8 gets alot of the non-interactive SVG right. Better yet, the Opera 9 beta gets alot of it right, period. And the places where it's screwed up? Bad syntax on my part, that Firefox ignores but that Opera is (rightfully) bitchy about. I won't start using Opera 9, but there's no reason why others shouldn't. It kicks ass.
(And as for Konq, things are looking good. It did the non-interactive SVG really well, and Konqueror 4 looks like it will do just as well as the other two. Still waiting on Safari, but I think it will soon be pretty good itself)
But for IE, we might never need browser specific hackery at all.
Not all jobs are, of course. But we're talking something like half of a percent of all jobs would be a truly significant cut.
Out of your list, let's take a look:
Teachers - true. lawyers - Not all the time, they have to show up at court, and do consultations. Do they have to drive to an office, when it only amounts to paperwork alot of the time? clients - Not an occupation. *BUZZZZ* McDonalds employees - true. factory workers - true, but we're getting rid of alot of these jobs. workers who need to collaborate with others - *BUZZZZ* Wrong. We just don't have the telecom infrastructure to make that practical. Email and phone won't cut it. I don't think I mean tiny little webcams and postage stamp sized choppy video, in truth, I'm not sure what would be possible if telecoms weren't fucking things up left and right. Mind you, these are the companies that have decided that they deserve more money for not sabotaging speed, rather than earning it by giving us more speed.
Most office workers in most big office parks do not need to drive 10-20 miles each day to sit in a building and do 99% of what little work they do in front of a computer. The government needs to find a way to encourage their employers to let them do it from home... it might be too late if we let them figure all this out for themselves.
Haha. I'm just going to have a few thousand of my closest friends to manually key in all the metadata, in exchange sharing the content. Of course, only works for specific kinds of content...
He wouldn't have to be Grand Dictator. Could probably manage it with being a senator with some clout, assuming it doesn't take a total absenece of ethics to become such.
Last job I worked at, we had an entire call center that could have easily worked at home. Telephone company, and they gave away free phone/DSL to employees, because it was so cheap for them (obviously, not because they were good guys... but what's an extra few pennies for you, if you get to play it up as a perk).
If they can give it away as a morale booster or incentive to work there, then surely they can install an ISDN if it saved them money. Imagine the building costs of 100 person cube farm reduced to 10. Those employees never able to use the excuse (real or fake) of car trouble. Never being late because of traffic. Able to fill in on a moment's notice for an hour if needed.
But apparently they're too dense to see the savings in that. Then again, maybe some tax incentives would be enough to tip things in favor of it.
100 employees not wasting gasoline, driving to work. No need to air condition a large building (would still keep a small one, to train people at, maybe ask each person show up once every 2 weeks or month). No need to heat a large building in winter. Less use of roads, less wear and tear on them, less traffic congestion. Higher effective wages (when you're paying them $12-14 an hour, not having to pay for a tank of gas a week is significant to them).
And this is far from an unusual case. Even now, my current job, I'm doing a software install over a remote connection. 25 miles to work every night, one way.
Of course, it would help if the telecom companies would get off their asses, and give this nation an infrastructure that isn't straight out of the "gouging us for every penny for 1970s technology" era. Again, something congress could fix, if they had half an ounce of sense.
Yes it does. Specifically, it releases a slightly higher than background radiation level amount of neutrons. And then only when you pour more energy into it than is released by it...
I remember when paypal was "we'll make our money off the float, totally free for you!". That lasted what, 8 months? Now they fee you to death, police what you can buy and sell, and penalize you whenever they feel like it with absolutely no recourse. I'm trying to set up my own paysite soon, but I can't really use them, and I can't afford a proper merchant account.
I hope google kicks their ass. Hell, I hope google sets up its own auction site.
Then you should have said "It's not powerful enough". That means, people need to add some features to it. It's the right tool, even if it's not refined enough yet. Instead, you'd have us bolt on functionality to gimp that probably doesn't belong there?
Anyone that says "uh, it's not working" only needs to ask me for me to do my best to help them. Sure, I get a little snippy, when they don't describe the problem very well the first try, but most days I'm in a decent enough mood to bite my tongue and help them figure out how to ask the question.
Me, I tried qmail for my first. God, anything must be better. Postfix if I ever have occassion to set up another mailserver.
I think we can all agree that photoshop is unix, in the sense that it has 20 million different inconsistent graphical interfaces that all look like they're straight out of 1985.
Past that, I don't know what you're talking about.
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Now, Flash is overused, but it is actually an excellent product that manages to incorporate a very fast vector graphics engine, video playback (using On2 VP6), and a lot of scriptibility in a very small footprint.
Would "overuse" include a simple slider widget? That's one of the things I'm using SVG for, since html forms don't include such. The slider actually stores the value in a hidden input, and I can post it just like I would any other. Of course, I could do it in flash... oh wait, no I can't. Not without paying for development tools.
If it only added extra things, it would be no big deal. Doesn't work with my good, standards-compliant code at all, not even the simple things. I think I have a button that hides /reveals an element via display style... since it won't even do that, I can't test it further. It's a joke. Is setAttributNS() some proprietary mozilla thing that I don't realize?
So many flash ads out there now. And a bad flash game does tend to kill mine (3ghz p4, and it still slows to a crawl while simultaneously overheating the machine).
Would be interesting to know which page, and if it's reproducible. Wonder if there's any simple fix though.
It's an X.org extension. It's in no way like a window manager at all. At least you don't use gnome or kde, I suppose...
What OS are you using? Firefox can get a little sluggish on my machine that only has a half gig of ram. But it sure as hell isn't persistent through an application restart. That's an OS problem.
Firefox has its problems. I don't deny it. But hell, this is the only issue I ever hear people complain about that sounds like a real problem at all... they'll fix it eventually. And at this rate, long before IE7 is out. In the meantime, use whatever you want, use anything at all... as long as it's not IE.
I almost gave up on Firefox, to return to Mozilla. I liked the "Modern theme", hate the XPish theme Firefox had. Til I stumbled upon a clone. That gave it a week or so worth of reprieve.
Then, I found Download Statusbar. Why the thing isn't the default download manager for 2.0, I don't really know. Honestly, it kicks ass.
And Adblock was nice. Session Saver was better. I learned little tricks like getting rid of a bookmark's name on the bookmark toolbar, just using the favicon. I can fit 40 or so in without even ever touching the bookmarks menu. Even better was the Favicon Picker extension... the few sites that didn't have a favicon could be given one. (Even more offtopic: Anyone have a good 16x16 dilbert icon?)
So, I myself wouldn't try this just for the sake of trying. It's hard to imagine anything better in the ways that I define "better". But as a guy working on a website, I did decide to try and see if Opera could do some things I thought would make my site Firefox-only. It's passed with flying colors. Guess IE just sucks.
Nice having a choice again, isn't it? We have at least* two browsers that are worthy, and now we can be picky about little details like that.
*Probably more like 4. By most of the standards that I use, Safari and Konqueror are both pretty close to Opera and Firefox.
I agree. Didn't a few QNX developers go missing about the time Opera came into being?
They will to a point. At 10% marketshare, everyone knows someone that uses Firefox. The right combination of a cool site that doesn't work on IE because it's shit, and word-of-mouth might just see Firefox (and all the others combined, too) jump up 2-5% in a matter of weeks.
I'm doing stuff that I thought was only ever possible in flash or maybe java. And it's crap now, wait til you see some of the stuff I've got ideas for but not quite the skill yet to implement...
Um, and why wouldn't you write it up as a xhtml/javascript/xmlhttprequest webapp anyway? XUL offers nothing new really. Sure, if you want to design local apps based on it (chatzilla) it's pretty snazzy, but those will run using the firefox engine anyway...
Why not?
Because it's alot like trusting that spouse when they tell you that they won't cheat on you ever again. Even though it's the 19th time you've caught them in bed with someone else. Everyone that believes Microsoft's lies about security keeps getting burned.
And while most people are too ignorant to know, IE is primitive and will remain so. Their javascript doesn't comply with standards. Their browser won't do correct mime types (hey NoMoreNicksLeft, why does it want me to download index.php when I go to your site?). It won't ever have native SVG. Or any of the other important XML variants for that matter.
Most of us are concerned with IE losing marketshare, not so much who picks up the pieces.
If Opera is someday 90%, and Firefox still with only 8%... this is good for Firefox. Opera encourages website developers to write correct xhtml and javascript, which Firefox handles just fine.
My own disgust at IE led me to Mozilla years ago. I was reluctant to try Firefox at first, but that switch was pleasant. I never really tried Opera though, until recently.
You see, I'm working on a website that will never be usable in IE. IE is too primitive, and broken. It can't handle xml mime types, and won't even in IE7. It can't do SVG natively, and I don't feel like wrapping all my many SVG widgets in object tags and writing code for a bad Adobe plugin. And besides, people should just plain be discouraged from ever using IE.
SVG though is important to the website, I suppose I could use something gay like flash or java, but I really wanted this to be a pure site. I thought that it would mean that it was Firefox only. Some friends chided me into trying to make it work with Opera and Konq though...
And I was shocked. Opera 8 gets alot of the non-interactive SVG right. Better yet, the Opera 9 beta gets alot of it right, period. And the places where it's screwed up? Bad syntax on my part, that Firefox ignores but that Opera is (rightfully) bitchy about. I won't start using Opera 9, but there's no reason why others shouldn't. It kicks ass.
(And as for Konq, things are looking good. It did the non-interactive SVG really well, and Konqueror 4 looks like it will do just as well as the other two. Still waiting on Safari, but I think it will soon be pretty good itself)
But for IE, we might never need browser specific hackery at all.
Not all jobs are, of course. But we're talking something like half of a percent of all jobs would be a truly significant cut.
Out of your list, let's take a look:
Teachers - true.
lawyers - Not all the time, they have to show up at court, and do consultations. Do they have to drive to an office, when it only amounts to paperwork alot of the time?
clients - Not an occupation. *BUZZZZ*
McDonalds employees - true.
factory workers - true, but we're getting rid of alot of these jobs.
workers who need to collaborate with others - *BUZZZZ* Wrong. We just don't have the telecom infrastructure to make that practical. Email and phone won't cut it. I don't think I mean tiny little webcams and postage stamp sized choppy video, in truth, I'm not sure what would be possible if telecoms weren't fucking things up left and right. Mind you, these are the companies that have decided that they deserve more money for not sabotaging speed, rather than earning it by giving us more speed.
Most office workers in most big office parks do not need to drive 10-20 miles each day to sit in a building and do 99% of what little work they do in front of a computer. The government needs to find a way to encourage their employers to let them do it from home... it might be too late if we let them figure all this out for themselves.
Haha. I'm just going to have a few thousand of my closest friends to manually key in all the metadata, in exchange sharing the content. Of course, only works for specific kinds of content...
I should start buying up real estate in the canadian tundra, eh?
He wouldn't have to be Grand Dictator. Could probably manage it with being a senator with some clout, assuming it doesn't take a total absenece of ethics to become such.
Last job I worked at, we had an entire call center that could have easily worked at home. Telephone company, and they gave away free phone/DSL to employees, because it was so cheap for them (obviously, not because they were good guys... but what's an extra few pennies for you, if you get to play it up as a perk).
If they can give it away as a morale booster or incentive to work there, then surely they can install an ISDN if it saved them money. Imagine the building costs of 100 person cube farm reduced to 10. Those employees never able to use the excuse (real or fake) of car trouble. Never being late because of traffic. Able to fill in on a moment's notice for an hour if needed.
But apparently they're too dense to see the savings in that. Then again, maybe some tax incentives would be enough to tip things in favor of it.
100 employees not wasting gasoline, driving to work. No need to air condition a large building (would still keep a small one, to train people at, maybe ask each person show up once every 2 weeks or month). No need to heat a large building in winter. Less use of roads, less wear and tear on them, less traffic congestion. Higher effective wages (when you're paying them $12-14 an hour, not having to pay for a tank of gas a week is significant to them).
And this is far from an unusual case. Even now, my current job, I'm doing a software install over a remote connection. 25 miles to work every night, one way.
Of course, it would help if the telecom companies would get off their asses, and give this nation an infrastructure that isn't straight out of the "gouging us for every penny for 1970s technology" era. Again, something congress could fix, if they had half an ounce of sense.
Yes it does. Specifically, it releases a slightly higher than background radiation level amount of neutrons. And then only when you pour more energy into it than is released by it...
I have no problems with this, as soon as you can give me some assurance we don't flip things the other way and start our own ice age.
But we better get a move on. Manmade problem or overheating sun, it won't matter much if we lose 100 miles of coastland to rising ocean levels...
Probably not. But I'm just going to send a paypal bill for "Miscellaneous database services" and hope they don't catch me. :-P
Paypal = poodle-raping babybutcher evil.
Google's chinese censorship = shoplifting a candybar evil.
I'm not usually one to play "choose the lesser of two evils", but most times it's 9.94 to 9.93... this is more like 20 million versus 0.6.
I remember when paypal was "we'll make our money off the float, totally free for you!". That lasted what, 8 months? Now they fee you to death, police what you can buy and sell, and penalize you whenever they feel like it with absolutely no recourse. I'm trying to set up my own paysite soon, but I can't really use them, and I can't afford a proper merchant account.
I hope google kicks their ass. Hell, I hope google sets up its own auction site.
Then you should have said "It's not powerful enough". That means, people need to add some features to it. It's the right tool, even if it's not refined enough yet. Instead, you'd have us bolt on functionality to gimp that probably doesn't belong there?
Anyone that says "uh, it's not working" only needs to ask me for me to do my best to help them. Sure, I get a little snippy, when they don't describe the problem very well the first try, but most days I'm in a decent enough mood to bite my tongue and help them figure out how to ask the question.
Me, I tried qmail for my first. God, anything must be better. Postfix if I ever have occassion to set up another mailserver.
I think we can all agree that photoshop is unix, in the sense that it has 20 million different inconsistent graphical interfaces that all look like they're straight out of 1985.
Past that, I don't know what you're talking about.