If you've never heard of it, Venkman is the incredibly handy integrated JavaScript debugger bundled with Mozilla. Firebird has become my default browser but there are still times when I need Venkman, and that's why I keep Mozilla around. Firebird makes it available only as an extension, but it's stability is said to be dubious. (This is by no means a knock against Firebird and the decision not to integrate it, that's in line with it's spirit of un-bloatedness) But if that were to change, I would fully agree with you.
You can determine if a user's version of Internet Explorer exhibits the new behavior by examining the user agent string. If it contains the token AXCompat, then the browser has the new behavior.
Fantastic. More browser sniffing, more money spent on more developer time to code workarounds for the new behavior, and more dialogs to arbitrarily disrupt user experience.
The trouble with that is, Netscape mishandles basic inheritance (which puts the "cascading" in css.) On top of that, Netscape forgets all style information after a form element. So if you want all your content to display in the same font, you have to overload elements like p, ul, li, h1, h2, etc. to accomodate for Netscape instead of setting your font one time on the body and being done with it.
I would do everything you said, in reverse: Write the imported stylesheet first, to get the look you want in modern browsers. Netscape doesn't understand style, so it will ignore it; now make a copy of the css you just wrote, and link it. Fix the stuff that breaks in Netscape, but without overloading any elements - because styling those elements explicitly will take precedence over anything that is supposed to follow inheritance properly in your advanced, imported stylesheet.
Alternatively, depending on how big a sacrifice you are willing to make to the visual experience in older browsers, you could start from scratch in your linked stylesheet and only include very basic style info for Netscape. This is probably preferable if you are doing significantly complex things in your advanced stylesheet, thus making debugging it in NS a painful experience. Check out this article for more on this approach.
IANAL of course and most of you probably aren't either, but if you really detest VeriSign then don't just rant about it on Slashdot, join the lawsuit. It doesn't take much of your time, is a learning experience, will make a real difference by strengthening the case against VeriSign, and there's a slight cance it will actually net you some cash.
The catch, of course, is that you have to fit the description of the proposed class, and this story is short on details regarding what that proposed class is. I can only speculate that it would be anyone who has typed a URL lately and ended up at SiteFinder when they expected to find something else.
AT&T Wireless has had this for quite some time. It's called find-a-friend, and it lets you locate and be located by other AT&T GSM customers that you specify. I do have a GSM/GPRS phone with AT&T and I've read a little about the feature, but never used it.
Indeed, IGN, GameSpot, and others have taken their share of flack for ads similar to those described here - an ad that the user is forced to view before they can reach the content they came for.
Two major differences, though. The first is the fact that the Unicast ads hoard the entire screen area. IGN ads leave your browser controls intact.
Second,
Designed to Open Between Same-Site Page Views
As I understand it, IGN presents you with the click-through ad only once, upon your initial arrival to the site, and then never again that session. The Unicast way of doing things is to take over your screen for 15 seconds (not taking into account load time, so this is likely far more) every time you request a new page.
The good news is that these fullscreen 300k 15 second abominations are, in all likelihood, Flash or some other ActiveX control - and thus easily blocked.
sucking bandwidth with Flash ads saying "WAR!" and streaming RealMedia
Huh?
Which news sites are you visiting? No major news outlet that I know of streams RealMedia on the front page until it's explicitly asked to do so. Both CNN and MSNBC are approximately 30k in size. Slashdot's front page is nearly double that.
The BBC is great for other things besides news.
on
BBC on Website Slow Downs
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Certainly I am keeping myself informed of the latest events surrounding the war, but on a lighter note -- I don't know how I would get through the work week without listening Pete Tong'sEssential Selection every Friday after lunch, and today the stream halts and has to re-buffer every 30 seconds or so.
Such are the side effects of outrageously high demand for their news content, I guess.
Being a part of Windows gives IE a competitive advantage, but it doesn't stop people from finding something better.
Obscurity is what's stopping people from finding something better. The original browser wars garnered incredibly high visibility, to the point of Marc Andreesen making the cover of TIME.
These days, sure, Mozilla is always a hot topic on Slashdot, but aside from the relatively few people you would find in a technology-centric forum such as this one, what proportion of web users do you actually believe are aware of Mozilla's existence?
This is exactly why Microsft has not introduced any particularly innovative changes to IE in recent years - their dominance over the space precludes the need for them to do so.
I see the point you are trying to make, but you are really comparing apples to oranges. I think the original poster meant "innovations" in the context of user interface elements: tabbed browsing, popup blocking, gestures, things of that nature. Things with the potential to make Mozilla, Netscape, Chimera, et. al. more competetive with IE.
"Innovate" UI widgets on different browsers all you want; as long as they all use the Gecko rendering engine, as a developer, I don't have to care. Indeed, this freedom to not care is the whole idea behind web standards, but we aren't quite there yet.
Many constituents who have had perfectly reasonable emails blocked may not pursue the issue further.
No shit.
Does anyone here who blocks spam actually indicate to the spammer that they've been blocked? That would be counterintuitive to say the least. Seems to me the constituents have no way of knowing if their message was denied as a false positive.
Sad? Yes. Disturbing? Yes, quite. But senseless? I don't think so at all. In fact, I think you made my point for me:
These people risked their lives to better mankind, and it's terrible that this could happen to such noble people.
If you believe in the fundamental importance of space exploration, and scientific discovery in general, then those people are all heroes for giving their lives in the name of such a cause.
Healan said some installations probably occurred when people clicked "OK" in a pop-up box without really knowing what they had agreed to, or when they meant to close the pop-up window.
Probably because the popup is a fake user interface dialog. How in God's name does even a novice user inadvertently grant permission for a software install when their original intent was to close the window? Or is it common knowledge these days that the X in the top right corner of a dialog box is synonymous with the OK button.
Bonzi is being sued for this, and these scumbags deserve the same.
I'd have to look more closely at the patent to see what they mean by "browser."
That's an excellent point. I've only glazed over the patent, and certainly I may be missing something totally obvious, but I think this answers your question:
A structured document browser includes a constant user interface for displaying and viewing sections of a document that is organized according to a pre-defined structure. The structured document browser displays documents that have been marked with embedded codes that specify the structure of the document.
Trouble is, I can't find anything in the Abstract or Claims that would indicate that their claim is limited to hypertext documents on the web. Surely interfaces other than web applications fit the vague definition they've given? OK, so a constant user interface for displaying and viewing that displays documents that have been marked with embedded codes? Glancing around my desktop, here are some other interfaces that seem to fit this description:
Microsoft Windows Explorer
Lotus Notes
Microsoft Internet Explorer
Adobe Photoshop
SecureCRT
Rational ClearCase
Then there's this gem:
7. A browser as claimed in claim 1 wherein said plurality of input devices comprises:
a set of keys on a keyboard, each of said keys configured to correspond to a specific part of the predefined document structure;
wherein the controller causes a specific part of the document to be displayed in the display window when a user presses the key that corresponds to the specific part.
The keyboard. The keyboard!! I guess all the mainframers out there aren't safe from IP liability either. Who do these clowns think they are?
No shortage of stuff for you to plagiarize in your infinite karma whoring, huh? God, you are the troll of the fucking decade. Stop modding this douchebag up!!
Back in 1999, it was discovered that Real were assigning unique IDs to RealJukebox users and profiling them without their knowledge. Real were subjected to a federal probe and slapped with two lawsuits. Even then, were Real compelled to stop what they were doing? Nah, they just issued a patch that maybe 10% of all users even knew existed.
Real have cleaned up their act since then, but clearly their past arrogance has left a bad taste in the mouths of many users.
Well, they like it enough to make it #133 in IMDB's top 250 with a mere 1900 votes - quite amazing considering the ranking is weighted on the 1250-vote minimum that TTT has only barely eclipsed.
Of course, those 1900 are the type of people whose first thought when they leave a movie is to go rate it on IMDB...
After much wrangling among attorneys over the definition of the word "willful," the judge told jurors that in order to find the company guilty, they must agree that company representatives knew their actions were illegal and intended to violate the law. Merely offering a product that could violate copyrights was not enough to warrant a conviction, the jury instructions said.
While software capability versus programmer intent as it pertains to the DMCA may be an interesting issue, I thought the main point of contention (at least from the perspective of the/. crowd) is the fact that we are holding a Russian-based software maker (and individual developer for christ's sake) accountable for United States law and United States copyrights. It's a double standard. Why should anyone writing code overseas give a shit about some copyright law in the US? And if there is a reason, then what's keeping the government of someplace like Botswana from hauling Microsoft into court??
Slashdot Mirror
ChatZilla, the IRC client, is available as a Firebird extension.
One word. Venkman.
If you've never heard of it, Venkman is the incredibly handy integrated JavaScript debugger bundled with Mozilla. Firebird has become my default browser but there are still times when I need Venkman, and that's why I keep Mozilla around. Firebird makes it available only as an extension, but it's stability is said to be dubious. (This is by no means a knock against Firebird and the decision not to integrate it, that's in line with it's spirit of un-bloatedness) But if that were to change, I would fully agree with you.
Fantastic. More browser sniffing, more money spent on more developer time to code workarounds for the new behavior, and more dialogs to arbitrarily disrupt user experience.
The trouble with that is, Netscape mishandles basic inheritance (which puts the "cascading" in css.) On top of that, Netscape forgets all style information after a form element. So if you want all your content to display in the same font, you have to overload elements like p, ul, li, h1, h2, etc. to accomodate for Netscape instead of setting your font one time on the body and being done with it.
I would do everything you said, in reverse: Write the imported stylesheet first, to get the look you want in modern browsers. Netscape doesn't understand style, so it will ignore it; now make a copy of the css you just wrote, and link it. Fix the stuff that breaks in Netscape, but without overloading any elements - because styling those elements explicitly will take precedence over anything that is supposed to follow inheritance properly in your advanced, imported stylesheet.
Alternatively, depending on how big a sacrifice you are willing to make to the visual experience in older browsers, you could start from scratch in your linked stylesheet and only include very basic style info for Netscape. This is probably preferable if you are doing significantly complex things in your advanced stylesheet, thus making debugging it in NS a painful experience. Check out this article for more on this approach.
IANAL of course and most of you probably aren't either, but if you really detest VeriSign then don't just rant about it on Slashdot, join the lawsuit. It doesn't take much of your time, is a learning experience, will make a real difference by strengthening the case against VeriSign, and there's a slight cance it will actually net you some cash.
The catch, of course, is that you have to fit the description of the proposed class, and this story is short on details regarding what that proposed class is. I can only speculate that it would be anyone who has typed a URL lately and ended up at SiteFinder when they expected to find something else.
AT&T Wireless has had this for quite some time. It's called find-a-friend, and it lets you locate and be located by other AT&T GSM customers that you specify. I do have a GSM/GPRS phone with AT&T and I've read a little about the feature, but never used it.
Indeed, IGN, GameSpot, and others have taken their share of flack for ads similar to those described here - an ad that the user is forced to view before they can reach the content they came for.
Two major differences, though. The first is the fact that the Unicast ads hoard the entire screen area. IGN ads leave your browser controls intact.
Second,
As I understand it, IGN presents you with the click-through ad only once, upon your initial arrival to the site, and then never again that session. The Unicast way of doing things is to take over your screen for 15 seconds (not taking into account load time, so this is likely far more) every time you request a new page.
The good news is that these fullscreen 300k 15 second abominations are, in all likelihood, Flash or some other ActiveX control - and thus easily blocked.
Huh?
Which news sites are you visiting? No major news outlet that I know of streams RealMedia on the front page until it's explicitly asked to do so. Both CNN and MSNBC are approximately 30k in size. Slashdot's front page is nearly double that.
Such are the side effects of outrageously high demand for their news content, I guess.
Yes, wishful thinking, I know.
Obscurity is what's stopping people from finding something better. The original browser wars garnered incredibly high visibility, to the point of Marc Andreesen making the cover of TIME.
These days, sure, Mozilla is always a hot topic on Slashdot, but aside from the relatively few people you would find in a technology-centric forum such as this one, what proportion of web users do you actually believe are aware of Mozilla's existence?
This is exactly why Microsft has not introduced any particularly innovative changes to IE in recent years - their dominance over the space precludes the need for them to do so.
Sure! In fact, here are a dozen.
I see the point you are trying to make, but you are really comparing apples to oranges. I think the original poster meant "innovations" in the context of user interface elements: tabbed browsing, popup blocking, gestures, things of that nature. Things with the potential to make Mozilla, Netscape, Chimera, et. al. more competetive with IE.
"Innovate" UI widgets on different browsers all you want; as long as they all use the Gecko rendering engine, as a developer, I don't have to care. Indeed, this freedom to not care is the whole idea behind web standards, but we aren't quite there yet.
At least they're being honest.
Many constituents who have had perfectly reasonable emails blocked may not pursue the issue further.
No shit.
Does anyone here who blocks spam actually indicate to the spammer that they've been blocked? That would be counterintuitive to say the least. Seems to me the constituents have no way of knowing if their message was denied as a false positive.
Sad? Yes. Disturbing? Yes, quite. But senseless? I don't think so at all. In fact, I think you made my point for me:
If you believe in the fundamental importance of space exploration, and scientific discovery in general, then those people are all heroes for giving their lives in the name of such a cause.
Probably because the popup is a fake user interface dialog. How in God's name does even a novice user inadvertently grant permission for a software install when their original intent was to close the window? Or is it common knowledge these days that the X in the top right corner of a dialog box is synonymous with the OK button.
Bonzi is being sued for this, and these scumbags deserve the same.
That's an excellent point. I've only glazed over the patent, and certainly I may be missing something totally obvious, but I think this answers your question:
Trouble is, I can't find anything in the Abstract or Claims that would indicate that their claim is limited to hypertext documents on the web. Surely interfaces other than web applications fit the vague definition they've given? OK, so a constant user interface for displaying and viewing that displays documents that have been marked with embedded codes? Glancing around my desktop, here are some other interfaces that seem to fit this description:
Then there's this gem:
The keyboard. The keyboard!! I guess all the mainframers out there aren't safe from IP liability either. Who do these clowns think they are?
Those figures were determined using RIAA math. It's actually only like 200 bucks, and 6 months probation.
No shortage of stuff for you to plagiarize in your infinite karma whoring, huh? God, you are the troll of the fucking decade. Stop modding this douchebag up!!
There's nothing borderline about it.
Back in 1999, it was discovered that Real were assigning unique IDs to RealJukebox users and profiling them without their knowledge. Real were subjected to a federal probe and slapped with two lawsuits. Even then, were Real compelled to stop what they were doing? Nah, they just issued a patch that maybe 10% of all users even knew existed.
Real have cleaned up their act since then, but clearly their past arrogance has left a bad taste in the mouths of many users.
No, it's not.
Oh wait, my mistake, this topic must not be about Dmitry Sklyarov, the Russian software developer. It's about a totally different person, named Skylarov, who happens to be a big fan of online casinos, and wants to be free!
Uh-oh. Guess I better delete all my mp3s of this guy.
Of course, those 1900 are the type of people whose first thought when they leave a movie is to go rate it on IMDB...
While software capability versus programmer intent as it pertains to the DMCA may be an interesting issue, I thought the main point of contention (at least from the perspective of the /. crowd) is the fact that we are holding a Russian-based software maker (and individual developer for christ's sake) accountable for United States law and United States copyrights. It's a double standard. Why should anyone writing code overseas give a shit about some copyright law in the US? And if there is a reason, then what's keeping the government of someplace like Botswana from hauling Microsoft into court??