Although I don't think it was the intention of the OP, I think this whole question is effectively trolling the community. There are too many different opinions and perspectives on the issue of outsourcing to get a meaningful answer.
Just to clarify what I said earlier... I realize that the government isn't defining actual morals. I just mean to say that, if a government is to make a law or set of rules based on what is morally acceptible, the leadership needs to define "morally acceptible". Otherwise, it's left to the individual discretion of some anonymous government servant who might not have had his coffee yet this morning. The definition is needed for the leadership to affect change when morals drift.
As far as actual morals go, I agree with you. Morals are defined by people. Morals are taught to us by our parents (hopefully), are affected by our culture, but are inevitably defined by individuals. Things which other people think are fine, I might consider morally offensive, and vice-versa.
By the way, you just ruined my vacation schedule... how can I visit southern Spain now that I've learned they won't let me do any of my favorite things?!?:)
Can a word be immoral?
Well, if you really want to pick nits, you could argue that a word cannot be any concept. It's a word... nothing more and nothing less. However, even a single word can represent an immoral concept.
... should a government-chosen domain registry be allowed to enforce their own moral code on the public.
A government should create a policy which clearly defines what is morally acceptible for it's people. How to do this is far beyond me. If individuals at the ".ie omain Registry" are coming up with their own definitions of what is acceptible, in the absence of clear policy, I would say that they are wrong. However, the blame falls on the government for creating a set of rules without a definition of terms. In the US, the principle of "separation of church and state" forces our moral baseline to be very basic... in spite of our glorious leader's perceived religious bias.
I am a Catholic American living in a country with an Islamic government (Malaysia). I suppose that gives me a unique perspective. I see examples of a similar problem in censorship of the media. It is common knowledge that words that are contrary to public policy or morally unacceptible will not be allowed in any media. The problem is the same: Neither the public policy, nor what the government deems morally unacceptible is clearly defined. As a result, I suppose it's left up to the people in charge of the TV/radio station, newspaper, magazine, etc... Because there are no clear rules, every offensive word makes it through occasionally. Also because of the lack of clear rules, many words that are clearly not offensive and a few that are just confusing are censored. Occasionally, the name Jesus is also censored. I suppose this is the religious bias of the person employed to censor the media.
Malaysia _claims_ to have freedom of religion. Their constitution even guarantees it, though there are some problems.
For the record, I disagree with _government_ censorship in almost every form.
By the way, I've just learned that the domain "porn.us" is available... "Offer $5 000 000.00 or more and your offer will be accepted."... quite a bargain, dontcha think:)
The author made some good points, but I'm confused why he didn't mention the Linux Standards Base. Aren't these issues exactly what the LSB is supposed to address?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think closed source software is really the main issue for most Linux users. New software is what we lack. Many people are using NVidia video cards with a closed source driver and playing Doom 3 which is also closed source. For example, I want Photoshop and Dreamweaver and Nero (the real one) to run natively in Linux.
I use Linux. That narrows it down right away. However, IE6 works very well for me with wine. I keep the latest version of Opera installed. So, how is it an easy decision for me? Well, for one thing, only one of the three browsers in question is open source. But that's really a separate topic. To use the article that inspired the conversation as an example, here is how it is displayed by Opera 9:
Active Server Pages error 'ASP 0126'
Include file not found
/article2/0,1697,1990852,00.asp, line 400
The include file '/component/util_generate_article_discussion_info/ 0,1460,a=183694,00.asp' was not found.
The article displays properly in Firefox.
Now, I'm sure someone can finish a sentence that starts with "That happens because...". You might even tell me that it's a problem that happened on the server. Does it matter?
Must people tweak their browser to view all Web pages properly? Must developers test in IE, Opera, and Firefox? Poor compliance with standards is one problem. But I think I read somewhere that Opera was the first to pass the Acid2 test. Problems at the W3C are another problem. Microsoft's slowly-loosening strangle-hold on the browser market is another problem.
These are the problems I can identify, but I'm sorry that I can't offer solutions. So, I comment in hopes that someone with possible solutions will read it.
I have just learned about Phillips' recent application for a patent entitled "Apparatus and method for preventing switching from a channel during an advertisement display" numbered 20060070095.
I'm writing to inform you and your company that, due to this patent, I have decided never to purchase a Phillips product again. While my family and I have bought many Phillips products in the past, we feel that this patent serves only to hinder my enjoyment of television programming.
Okay... So, it seems that the ISPs who sell us an "Unlimited" broadband Internet connection at speeds from 1-5Mbps don't actually want us to use it to it's full potential...
That's bullshit: They sold us a service which they told us was unlimited and then complained when we used it as advertised. However, that's the nature of business and marketing a service. Their reasons are understandable.
Now that ISPs are getting smart enough to limit our use to save themselves some money, is a market going to open for those of us who want to use our broadband service?
My situation is this: Most of my WWW usage is pretty basic. I read documentation, forums, emails, and articles. I'm not usually interested in watching videos online or downloading large files. None of that consumes much bandwidth. On the other hand, my Internet usage includes P2P file sharing... a lot of it. My bandwidth is usually maxxed out. So, if my plain and ordinary 1Mbps ISP limits my usage on ports other than 80, 25, etc, I might as well switch to dial-up for all that I can use the Internet for.
I don't think I'm unique. If it came down to it, I don't want to, but I probably would pay extra to continue using my full bandwidth. Is this a potential market? Do the ISPs realize it? How much would it cost to the user for it to be a sustainable business model for the ISP?
"... Microsoft competes against open-source products..."
Implied, of course, by this statement is
Open-source products are competent and hold a significant part of the market.
Open-source products have the advantage in some markets and Microsoft must work to compete against them.
An alternative wording could have been Open-source products compete against Microsoft in many areas..., but this would have conveyed the opposite meaning.
If this reflects anything at all, it's just the impression of the author of that article... or just my impression of the article.
I am a Web developer and programmer who abandoned Microsoft products years ago in favor of open-source alternatives. I have purposefully allowed my MS-related skills and knowledge to weaken.
This little thing puts a smile on my face.
-- Ghodmode
For me it makes more sense to download a decent quality copy off the net. Most of the time, the movies I download with P2P are much better quality than the pirated ones I get. But it doesn't make sense for pirates...
There are only two broadband providers here and the max available speed is 1Meg per second down. With that speed it takes anywhere from 24 hours (if I'm very lucky) to 1 week to get a movie. So, it's slower.
Unfortunately for Malaysians, there is no Malay soundtrack. All foreign movies here are sub-titled in Malay and Mandarin... that took some getting used to:)
So, it takes two hours for a guy to sit in a theater. Then it probably doesn't take too long to transfer the movie to VCD or DVD and make thousands of copies for distribution.
Also, I have the impression that most Malaysians are not Internet savvy. The nerds like us are just as savvy as us, but I think that perhaps a slim majority of Malaysians don't really get what the Internet is for and certainly don't realize they can download movies. My sister-in-law is always amazed when I bring her children Disney movies to watch and she doesn't really get how I can "download them from the Internet".
I didn't mean to steer this into a discussion about Malaysians' support of of video and music piracy, but I think it's still relevant to the topic as piracy is seen as more of a problem in Asian countries.
I don't know any real content pirates, but I am one of their regular customers. Perhaps the ones George Ou knows do things differently.
I'm American, but I live in a "relatively modern third-world country" (Malaysia) and I can tell you that over 80% of all DVD and VCDs sold here are pirated from an analog source... Not just 80% of pirated copies, 80% of all sold.
All of the three shopping malls here (KK) are loaded with video stores. Only one of them (Speedy video) doesn't sell pirated DVDs/VCDs at all.
Pirates don't care about the quality. Sometimes it's barely watchable. They just want to get as many copies of their pirated movies on the shelves as possible. Usually, it's from some guy sitting in a movie theater with a video camera.
DRM and any other acronym they throw in there is just a waste of time and money for everyone. It will only make things more difficult for the paying customers. If people can watch it or listen to it, they can make a copy of it. With just a little bit of effort, people can make excellent copies of any original, regardless of the copy-protection.
Java would be better suited for this type of task, but there is a different perspective to consider...
I don't want to install Java. I don't want to install the runtime environment no matter how well my browser of choice has automated the process. I don't want to see that coffee cup, or whatever it is, in my system tray.
JavaScript, which is all AJAX actually is, on the other hand, is available by default in IE and Firefox. If, as a novice user, I visit a page and I'm prompted to install "missing plugins", I might be averse to visiting that page. Especially since all of the fuss with SpyWare started.
For my part I choose to enable JavaScript on every browser I use and, just by chance, I don't use any sites which require Java. So, I don't have Java installed on any computer which I do not use for development.
I choose to see the ajaxLaunch.com effort as more of a proof of concept. It's excellent, but I don't think they really expect to displace Microsoft Office. I definitely don't think they expect to displace more conventional programming languages with JavaScript and XML.
I live in the jungles of Borneo... okay, it's not that bad, but it's East Malaysia. Unfortunately most homes here, and even most offices, do not have an Internet connection. There's generally only one ISP and they don't care about maintaining their service because you can't threaten to switch to another provider. So, there's no reliable internet connection.
I don't have any doubt that they will iron out all of the bugs, including copyright issues and document formatting, but the fact that it's Web-only makes it unreliable for me.
On the other hand, I'm a Linux enthusiast and a wannabe Web Developer who has dabbled a bit in AJAX. Naturally, I have a slight bias against Microsoft. I think that this is absolutely fantastic as a proof of concept. I think that this might be a significant part of the goal of the folks at ajaxLaunch.com, to say "Yes, we CAN do that in a Web browser." So, kudos to them.
I'm not usually the one to say MS has done anything good, but this one is so simple.
It is because of problems in Microsoft Operating Systems that there is such a large market for anti-spyware software products. Should we now blame Microsoft for fixing these problems?
If MS has learned from their mistakes, and they are able to nearly eliminate spyware, it's good for them and for their consumers. I hope they do the same with viruses.
I can happily say that, for many years now, I have not been a MS customer.
It seems like we've been hearing a lot of theories, rumors, and other things that "sources" say about what Google is going to do. I haven't heard anything interesting about what Google actually has done.
When I observe what's happening in the computer world, I see a many companies working really hard to make life easier for people who want an alternative. Some of them are even large, relatively stable companies such as Sun Microsystems, IBM, Novell, etc...
I try not to sound anti-Microsoft most of the time. Some people actually consider my advice valuable enough to help them make their purchasing decisions with regard to technology. So, I try to remain unbiased.
What really makes me smile, though, is when the largest and, supposedly, most stable of technology companies helps to make it easier to switch to an alternative.
In this case, Microsoft has effictively told all Apple computer users "We don't consider you valuable and we don't want your business."
It is not insignificant just because IE is free software. Consider the companies who do the majority of their business through the Internet. They also find it easier to choose an alternative. Now, if they want to keep their Apple customers and utilize the latest technology in their Web sites, they only need to design their Web sites according to a specification (W3C) which is supported by browsers on every platform. Reduce cost and development time with just a single site, without cross-browser tricks, and it works everywhere... Ok, that's ideal, not real, but it's an ideal that Microsoft has been effectively working against while every other browser development team works towards it.
I do not wish to digress too far, but consider this: Safari is based on a KHTML code base, which is derived from the KDE project, which is primarily used on the Linux platform, which is seen as a threat to Microsoft's business.
Every day there are new problems where legitimate businesses, who purchased all of their software legally are told that they need to pay a license fee to continue using it.
Even home users have problems. Given the nature of the latest version of the most common operating system, it's necessary to format the hard drive and re-install occasionally. But if you do it more than three times, you have to call Microsoft and convince them that you actually purchased your software so that you can have a new activation code. This one has personally affected me. Even though I have legally purchased more copies of Windows XP than I am using, I use a cracked "Corporate Edition" of the software because I don't want to deal with the hassle of Activation.
The company with the largest market share keeps irritating their paying customers. Businesses are already choosing alternatives in droves. Soon, even average users won't even want to bother with them.
Well... Apple users... Where do you want to go today?
Microsoft was an underdog, rather than the only dog? Ok, that does predate my experience, but I think it was a completely different world then. Perhaps there was a time when people voted for MS and against IBM, but there were much fewer people with votes then. At that time, they were all experts working in the computer field.
After reading the article, I wondered the same thing... Can Google be the next Microsoft? I've heard it so many times about companies associated with Linux.
My answer is NO. History can't repeat itself in this case because the necessary ingredients are missing: naivete and lack of competition. Microsoft had a relatively naive market until recent years. Even before Windows, people bought a computer and it had Microsoft software on it... period. When MS was gaining it's momentum, the only people who might've known better all stood to benefit from supporting them. There weren't any competitors. I'll bet that even Linus Torvalds never originally intended to oppose Microsoft.
The world will not allow itself to be held hostage to one company's products the way we have been with MS. Now, most computer scientists are against MS, it seems, and there are many others to consider, at every level of computer knowledge. Teenagers, soccer moms, grandparents, students, etc. have all at least heard a little bit of the bad press about MS. They all have friends with expertise to help them make an informed decision when making choices for their computers.
Google has a lot of potential. They will do wonderful things and horrible things. They will make heaps of money and do whatever it takes to make even more money. That's all that MS is guilt of, by the way. But no one, not even Google, will be another Microsoft.
There are too many email clients out there! Why bother even looking at another new one. I've checked out the Columba page and I didn't immediately see a list of features. I'm not interested. The Ristretto class library there looks more interesting than the email client.
I've tried Groupwise, Notes, Outlook, Outlook Express, Incredimail, Eudora, Netscape email (does that still exist?:)), Sylpheed, KMail, Evolution, Thunderbird, and every Web mail service under the sun.
I don't know what other people are looking for, but none of them have ever quite met my needs. So, I just pick the one that, to me, seems to have the largest base of testers and developers and the most active development and I hope for the features to come.
Reasons not to choose Groupwise, Notes, Outlook(s), or Incredimail are flamebait for another time.
None of the choices seem to support HTML for email composition very nicely. They all try to give you a nice WYSIWYG to things like fonts, colors, images, etc., but they don't give you a way to change it if the WYSIWYG doesn't do things exactly the way you want it. It's like FrontPage for email.
I want the option to use some version of standard regular expressions on the entire message, including full header, for my own spam filtering. Naturally, it needs something for people who don't have a m/^f.*ing$/i clue what a regular expression is, but this is "Advanced" filtering. I want to put a rule somewhere that says something like
if m/^Received: from.*83\.226\.13\.32/gi then put email in folder: spam
I also want to be able to export my email in some standard format that I can backup and restore in the future to any email client.
So, right now, I'm a Thunderbird user. It doesn't have the features I want, but neither does any other client.
Oh well... at least I still have that cool "You've Got Mail!" wav file from my AOL dayz:)
I do some Web development and, while I'm not the ultimate Web Guru, some people actually pay me to do it. I don't follow security as closely as I should, perhaps, but this is about browser choice. And security is not the only factor to consider.
I have not invested in a subscription to MSDN. So, most of my references are either from books with strange animals on the covers or from the W3C recommendations.
I use my references and create a Web site for a client. Then I proceed to testing with Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape, Opera, and IE. What I have found is that, in Firefox, Mozilla, and (most of the time) Netscape, it usually all works just as expected. In Opera, a few changes are required. In IE, however, it almost never works like it should.
To be completely fair, I have to say that none of the popular browsers seem to get the W3C recommendations right 100% of the time (but that might be me getting it wrong:)). Sometimes (rarely), I must admit, it even seems like IE's interpretation of the W3C recommendation makes more sense. However, after using all of the browsers I test with, and a few others, I have to say that I choose Firefox.
My computer experience started with MS-DOS 3.3. I became pretty good at writing batch files.
I loved DOS and resisted Windows at first. As we all have since learned, resistance is futile and I was assimilated.
Then, I discovered *nix and I saw the light... a powerful operating system with a command line. I've never looked back.
My colleagues and friends all think I'm fully Anti-Microsoft, but I just prefer to seek alternatives to Microsoft's overpriced products.
If this command shell becomes a truly powerful command shell and scripting language, and I allow myself to forget that Microsoft is an evil company bent on world domination, then this has the potential to make me secretly like Microsoft, a little, again... I'm soooo ashamed...
Is Microsoft hoping that they can kill more open source by making copyrighted code available? Do they hope they will then find it in something like OpenOffice.org or AbiWord so they can sue those projects into non-existence?
If that's the case, how is this possible?...
Nothing is truly original. Writing an original program is the result of taking ideas from other people's work, and putting them together in a different way.
Here's a story: Some talented and enthusiastic programmer (like I hope to be) from viewing Microsoft's "shared" code and saying to himself "Oh... That's how they do that.". Then this person closes the Microsoft code, never to look at it again, and makes some new changes to the code in OpenOffice.org based on his experience and understanding of all of the code that he has read and learned from in the past.
Can Microsoft now sue this person?
If so, Brian Kernighan and Dennis Richie have one Hell of a Payday coming from their lawsuit.
Slashdot Mirror
Although I don't think it was the intention of the OP, I think this whole question is effectively trolling the community. There are too many different opinions and perspectives on the issue of outsourcing to get a meaningful answer.
Just to clarify what I said earlier... I realize that the government isn't defining actual morals. I just mean to say that, if a government is to make a law or set of rules based on what is morally acceptible, the leadership needs to define "morally acceptible". Otherwise, it's left to the individual discretion of some anonymous government servant who might not have had his coffee yet this morning. The definition is needed for the leadership to affect change when morals drift.
As far as actual morals go, I agree with you. Morals are defined by people. Morals are taught to us by our parents (hopefully), are affected by our culture, but are inevitably defined by individuals. Things which other people think are fine, I might consider morally offensive, and vice-versa.
By the way, you just ruined my vacation schedule... how can I visit southern Spain now that I've learned they won't let me do any of my favorite things?!? :)
Can a word be immoral?
Well, if you really want to pick nits, you could argue that a word cannot be any concept. It's a word... nothing more and nothing less. However, even a single word can represent an immoral concept.
A government should create a policy which clearly defines what is morally acceptible for it's people. How to do this is far beyond me. If individuals at the ".ie omain Registry" are coming up with their own definitions of what is acceptible, in the absence of clear policy, I would say that they are wrong. However, the blame falls on the government for creating a set of rules without a definition of terms. In the US, the principle of "separation of church and state" forces our moral baseline to be very basic... in spite of our glorious leader's perceived religious bias.
I am a Catholic American living in a country with an Islamic government (Malaysia). I suppose that gives me a unique perspective. I see examples of a similar problem in censorship of the media. It is common knowledge that words that are contrary to public policy or morally unacceptible will not be allowed in any media. The problem is the same: Neither the public policy, nor what the government deems morally unacceptible is clearly defined. As a result, I suppose it's left up to the people in charge of the TV/radio station, newspaper, magazine, etc... Because there are no clear rules, every offensive word makes it through occasionally. Also because of the lack of clear rules, many words that are clearly not offensive and a few that are just confusing are censored. Occasionally, the name Jesus is also censored. I suppose this is the religious bias of the person employed to censor the media.
Malaysia _claims_ to have freedom of religion. Their constitution even guarantees it, though there are some problems.
For the record, I disagree with _government_ censorship in almost every form.
By the way, I've just learned that the domain "porn.us" is available... "Offer $5 000 000.00 or more and your offer will be accepted."... quite a bargain, dontcha think :)
-- Ghodmode
The author made some good points, but I'm confused why he didn't mention the Linux Standards Base. Aren't these issues exactly what the LSB is supposed to address?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think closed source software is really the main issue for most Linux users. New software is what we lack. Many people are using NVidia video cards with a closed source driver and playing Doom 3 which is also closed source. For example, I want Photoshop and Dreamweaver and Nero (the real one) to run natively in Linux.
-- Ghodmode
I use Linux. That narrows it down right away. However, IE6 works very well for me with wine. I keep the latest version of Opera installed. So, how is it an easy decision for me? Well, for one thing, only one of the three browsers in question is open source. But that's really a separate topic. To use the article that inspired the conversation as an example, here is how it is displayed by Opera 9:
The article displays properly in Firefox.
Now, I'm sure someone can finish a sentence that starts with "That happens because ...". You might even tell me that it's a problem that happened on the server. Does it matter?
Must people tweak their browser to view all Web pages properly? Must developers test in IE, Opera, and Firefox? Poor compliance with standards is one problem. But I think I read somewhere that Opera was the first to pass the Acid2 test. Problems at the W3C are another problem. Microsoft's slowly-loosening strangle-hold on the browser market is another problem.
These are the problems I can identify, but I'm sorry that I can't offer solutions. So, I comment in hopes that someone with possible solutions will read it.
-- Ghodmode
I for one would like to remind Phillips that the customer is always right. I also think they should learn about the Slashdot effect.
If you would like to join me, use the information below:
Terry Fassburg
N O_PRODUCT_SELECTED
Vice President
Brand Communications
Email: terry.fassburg@philips.com
http://www.feedback.philips.com/dedicated/news/
http://www.feedback.philips.com/consumer/?param1=
-- Ghodmode
Okay... So, it seems that the ISPs who sell us an "Unlimited" broadband Internet connection at speeds from 1-5Mbps don't actually want us to use it to it's full potential...
That's bullshit: They sold us a service which they told us was unlimited and then complained when we used it as advertised. However, that's the nature of business and marketing a service. Their reasons are understandable.
Now that ISPs are getting smart enough to limit our use to save themselves some money, is a market going to open for those of us who want to use our broadband service?
My situation is this: Most of my WWW usage is pretty basic. I read documentation, forums, emails, and articles. I'm not usually interested in watching videos online or downloading large files. None of that consumes much bandwidth. On the other hand, my Internet usage includes P2P file sharing... a lot of it. My bandwidth is usually maxxed out. So, if my plain and ordinary 1Mbps ISP limits my usage on ports other than 80, 25, etc, I might as well switch to dial-up for all that I can use the Internet for.
I don't think I'm unique. If it came down to it, I don't want to, but I probably would pay extra to continue using my full bandwidth. Is this a potential market? Do the ISPs realize it? How much would it cost to the user for it to be a sustainable business model for the ISP?
-- Ghodmode
"... Microsoft competes against open-source products ..."
Implied, of course, by this statement is
An alternative wording could have been Open-source products compete against Microsoft in many areas ..., but this would have conveyed the opposite meaning.
If this reflects anything at all, it's just the impression of the author of that article... or just my impression of the article.
I am a Web developer and programmer who abandoned Microsoft products years ago in favor of open-source alternatives. I have purposefully allowed my MS-related skills and knowledge to weaken.
This little thing puts a smile on my face. -- Ghodmode
For me it makes more sense to download a decent quality copy off the net. Most of the time, the movies I download with P2P are much better quality than the pirated ones I get. But it doesn't make sense for pirates ...
There are only two broadband providers here and the max available speed is 1Meg per second down. With that speed it takes anywhere from 24 hours (if I'm very lucky) to 1 week to get a movie. So, it's slower.
Unfortunately for Malaysians, there is no Malay soundtrack. All foreign movies here are sub-titled in Malay and Mandarin ... that took some getting used to :)
So, it takes two hours for a guy to sit in a theater. Then it probably doesn't take too long to transfer the movie to VCD or DVD and make thousands of copies for distribution.
Also, I have the impression that most Malaysians are not Internet savvy. The nerds like us are just as savvy as us, but I think that perhaps a slim majority of Malaysians don't really get what the Internet is for and certainly don't realize they can download movies. My sister-in-law is always amazed when I bring her children Disney movies to watch and she doesn't really get how I can "download them from the Internet".
I didn't mean to steer this into a discussion about Malaysians' support of of video and music piracy, but I think it's still relevant to the topic as piracy is seen as more of a problem in Asian countries.
-- Ghodmode
I don't know any real content pirates, but I am one of their regular customers. Perhaps the ones George Ou knows do things differently.
I'm American, but I live in a "relatively modern third-world country" (Malaysia) and I can tell you that over 80% of all DVD and VCDs sold here are pirated from an analog source ... Not just 80% of pirated copies, 80% of all sold.
All of the three shopping malls here (KK) are loaded with video stores. Only one of them (Speedy video) doesn't sell pirated DVDs/VCDs at all.
Pirates don't care about the quality. Sometimes it's barely watchable. They just want to get as many copies of their pirated movies on the shelves as possible. Usually, it's from some guy sitting in a movie theater with a video camera.
DRM and any other acronym they throw in there is just a waste of time and money for everyone. It will only make things more difficult for the paying customers. If people can watch it or listen to it, they can make a copy of it. With just a little bit of effort, people can make excellent copies of any original, regardless of the copy-protection.
-- Ghodmode
Java would be better suited for this type of task, but there is a different perspective to consider ...
I don't want to install Java. I don't want to install the runtime environment no matter how well my browser of choice has automated the process. I don't want to see that coffee cup, or whatever it is, in my system tray.
JavaScript, which is all AJAX actually is, on the other hand, is available by default in IE and Firefox. If, as a novice user, I visit a page and I'm prompted to install "missing plugins", I might be averse to visiting that page. Especially since all of the fuss with SpyWare started.
For my part I choose to enable JavaScript on every browser I use and, just by chance, I don't use any sites which require Java. So, I don't have Java installed on any computer which I do not use for development.
I choose to see the ajaxLaunch.com effort as more of a proof of concept. It's excellent, but I don't think they really expect to displace Microsoft Office. I definitely don't think they expect to displace more conventional programming languages with JavaScript and XML.
-- Ghodmode
I live in the jungles of Borneo... okay, it's not that bad, but it's East Malaysia. Unfortunately most homes here, and even most offices, do not have an Internet connection. There's generally only one ISP and they don't care about maintaining their service because you can't threaten to switch to another provider. So, there's no reliable internet connection.
I don't have any doubt that they will iron out all of the bugs, including copyright issues and document formatting, but the fact that it's Web-only makes it unreliable for me.
On the other hand, I'm a Linux enthusiast and a wannabe Web Developer who has dabbled a bit in AJAX. Naturally, I have a slight bias against Microsoft. I think that this is absolutely fantastic as a proof of concept. I think that this might be a significant part of the goal of the folks at ajaxLaunch.com, to say "Yes, we CAN do that in a Web browser." So, kudos to them.
-- Ghodmode
I'm not usually the one to say MS has done anything good, but this one is so simple.
It is because of problems in Microsoft Operating Systems that there is such a large market for anti-spyware software products. Should we now blame Microsoft for fixing these problems?
If MS has learned from their mistakes, and they are able to nearly eliminate spyware, it's good for them and for their consumers. I hope they do the same with viruses.
I can happily say that, for many years now, I have not been a MS customer.
hmmm... deja vu ... my previous rant
The headline says "a three hour trip". The truth is that this is just hype for the upcoming reality show: Gilligan's Island - The Next Generation.
They've already got Paris Hilton to play Ginger and David Spade to play Gilligan.
... It's getting kinda deep in here...
It seems like we've been hearing a lot of theories, rumors, and other things that "sources" say about what Google is going to do. I haven't heard anything interesting about what Google actually has done.
--
-- Ghodmode
When I observe what's happening in the computer world, I see a many companies working really hard to make life easier for people who want an alternative. Some of them are even large, relatively stable companies such as Sun Microsystems, IBM, Novell, etc...
I try not to sound anti-Microsoft most of the time. Some people actually consider my advice valuable enough to help them make their purchasing decisions with regard to technology. So, I try to remain unbiased.
What really makes me smile, though, is when the largest and, supposedly, most stable of technology companies helps to make it easier to switch to an alternative.
In this case, Microsoft has effictively told all Apple computer users "We don't consider you valuable and we don't want your business."
It is not insignificant just because IE is free software. Consider the companies who do the majority of their business through the Internet. They also find it easier to choose an alternative. Now, if they want to keep their Apple customers and utilize the latest technology in their Web sites, they only need to design their Web sites according to a specification (W3C) which is supported by browsers on every platform. Reduce cost and development time with just a single site, without cross-browser tricks, and it works everywhere... Ok, that's ideal, not real, but it's an ideal that Microsoft has been effectively working against while every other browser development team works towards it.
I do not wish to digress too far, but consider this: Safari is based on a KHTML code base, which is derived from the KDE project, which is primarily used on the Linux platform, which is seen as a threat to Microsoft's business.
Every day there are new problems where legitimate businesses, who purchased all of their software legally are told that they need to pay a license fee to continue using it.
Even home users have problems. Given the nature of the latest version of the most common operating system, it's necessary to format the hard drive and re-install occasionally. But if you do it more than three times, you have to call Microsoft and convince them that you actually purchased your software so that you can have a new activation code. This one has personally affected me. Even though I have legally purchased more copies of Windows XP than I am using, I use a cracked "Corporate Edition" of the software because I don't want to deal with the hassle of Activation.
The company with the largest market share keeps irritating their paying customers. Businesses are already choosing alternatives in droves. Soon, even average users won't even want to bother with them.
Well... Apple users... Where do you want to go today?
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-- Ghodmode
Microsoft was an underdog, rather than the only dog? Ok, that does predate my experience, but I think it was a completely different world then. Perhaps there was a time when people voted for MS and against IBM, but there were much fewer people with votes then. At that time, they were all experts working in the computer field.
After reading the article, I wondered the same thing... Can Google be the next Microsoft? I've heard it so many times about companies associated with Linux.
My answer is NO. History can't repeat itself in this case because the necessary ingredients are missing: naivete and lack of competition. Microsoft had a relatively naive market until recent years. Even before Windows, people bought a computer and it had Microsoft software on it... period. When MS was gaining it's momentum, the only people who might've known better all stood to benefit from supporting them. There weren't any competitors. I'll bet that even Linus Torvalds never originally intended to oppose Microsoft.
The world will not allow itself to be held hostage to one company's products the way we have been with MS. Now, most computer scientists are against MS, it seems, and there are many others to consider, at every level of computer knowledge. Teenagers, soccer moms, grandparents, students, etc. have all at least heard a little bit of the bad press about MS. They all have friends with expertise to help them make an informed decision when making choices for their computers.
Google has a lot of potential. They will do wonderful things and horrible things. They will make heaps of money and do whatever it takes to make even more money. That's all that MS is guilt of, by the way. But no one, not even Google, will be another Microsoft.
-- Ghodmode
Sung to the tune of "What a Wonderful World" by Sam Cooke...
There are too many email clients out there! Why bother even looking at another new one. I've checked out the Columba page and I didn't immediately see a list of features. I'm not interested. The Ristretto class library there looks more interesting than the email client.
I've tried Groupwise, Notes, Outlook, Outlook Express, Incredimail, Eudora, Netscape email (does that still exist? :)), Sylpheed, KMail, Evolution, Thunderbird, and every Web mail service under the sun.
I don't know what other people are looking for, but none of them have ever quite met my needs. So, I just pick the one that, to me, seems to have the largest base of testers and developers and the most active development and I hope for the features to come.
Reasons not to choose Groupwise, Notes, Outlook(s), or Incredimail are flamebait for another time.
None of the choices seem to support HTML for email composition very nicely. They all try to give you a nice WYSIWYG to things like fonts, colors, images, etc., but they don't give you a way to change it if the WYSIWYG doesn't do things exactly the way you want it. It's like FrontPage for email.
I want the option to use some version of standard regular expressions on the entire message, including full header, for my own spam filtering. Naturally, it needs something for people who don't have a m/^f.*ing$/i clue what a regular expression is, but this is "Advanced" filtering. I want to put a rule somewhere that says something like
I also want to be able to export my email in some standard format that I can backup and restore in the future to any email client.
So, right now, I'm a Thunderbird user. It doesn't have the features I want, but neither does any other client.
Oh well... at least I still have that cool "You've Got Mail!" wav file from my AOL dayz :)
-- GM
AFundi Mawi!!
...
::shrug::
AFundi Mawi!!
AFundi Mawi!!
One way trip!!
If you're not in Malaysia, you don't get it
I do some Web development and, while I'm not the ultimate Web Guru, some people actually pay me to do it. I don't follow security as closely as I should, perhaps, but this is about browser choice. And security is not the only factor to consider.
I have not invested in a subscription to MSDN. So, most of my references are either from books with strange animals on the covers or from the W3C recommendations.
I use my references and create a Web site for a client. Then I proceed to testing with Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape, Opera, and IE. What I have found is that, in Firefox, Mozilla, and (most of the time) Netscape, it usually all works just as expected. In Opera, a few changes are required. In IE, however, it almost never works like it should.
To be completely fair, I have to say that none of the popular browsers seem to get the W3C recommendations right 100% of the time (but that might be me getting it wrong :)). Sometimes (rarely), I must admit, it even seems like IE's interpretation of the W3C recommendation makes more sense. However, after using all of the browsers I test with, and a few others, I have to say that I choose Firefox.
My computer experience started with MS-DOS 3.3. I became pretty good at writing batch files.
I loved DOS and resisted Windows at first. As we all have since learned, resistance is futile and I was assimilated.
Then, I discovered *nix and I saw the light... a powerful operating system with a command line. I've never looked back.
My colleagues and friends all think I'm fully Anti-Microsoft, but I just prefer to seek alternatives to Microsoft's overpriced products.
If this command shell becomes a truly powerful command shell and scripting language, and I allow myself to forget that Microsoft is an evil company bent on world domination, then this has the potential to make me secretly like Microsoft, a little, again... I'm soooo ashamed...
We'll see... I just signed up for the beta.
---- GhodMode
Is Microsoft hoping that they can kill more open source by making copyrighted code available? Do they hope they will then find it in something like OpenOffice.org or AbiWord so they can sue those projects into non-existence?
If that's the case, how is this possible? ...
Nothing is truly original. Writing an original program is the result of taking ideas from other people's work, and putting them together in a different way.
Here's a story: Some talented and enthusiastic programmer (like I hope to be) from viewing Microsoft's "shared" code and saying to himself "Oh... That's how they do that.". Then this person closes the Microsoft code, never to look at it again, and makes some new changes to the code in OpenOffice.org based on his experience and understanding of all of the code that he has read and learned from in the past.
Can Microsoft now sue this person?
If so, Brian Kernighan and Dennis Richie have one Hell of a Payday coming from their lawsuit.
Hasn't Microsoft(TM) patented the word(TM) Office(TM) along with the words Windows(TM) and Word(TM)?
The mere existence of OpenOffice.org is a blatant disregard for copyright laws!
<g>
* Copyright Microsoft 1980-2100. All Rights Reserved. Resistance is futile.