The war has been going on for some time.
on
Browser Wars Mark II
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Microsoft has been retooling the web for sometime now. It has worked well for Microsoft because pretty much no one is paying attention to what they are doing. Since the web is one of the few things MS cannot buy outright they have had to use other methods to gain control of it and for the most part it has worked flawlessly. Since most users will use IE on the web adding features to its content creation tools that create sites that only work with IE under windows is something that will sneak under the radar of most users.
Web standards are the last thing the MS wants. If every browser worked the same that would not give MS an advantage. If the web pages that your business relies on works only with IE and under Windows what will your business have to use to get its work done? This fact has not been lost on Microsoft and day after day many sites are becoming MS only sites where you need IE or IE and Windows to make use of the services the page offers.
Microsoft only needs to add more MS only features to its content creation and delivery tools to shut out the competition. Next time you are on a Mac or surfing with Linux or using Mozilla under Windows and you cannot access a site do not blame the web designer for bad site design. More than likely MS will be involved with that site in one way or another. They have already done a proof of concept when they torpedoed Opera browsers on their own site before Opera exposed them.
Most High School radio stations don't operate under the same rules as the commercial stations. The are usually granted secondary status on the frequency they are assigned. Since they are secondary and do not have to follow all of the same procedures and rules set forth for commercial stations, if push comes to shove they will have to be the ones that either go off the air or move their frequency.
It may sound unfair but the free market should get priority over a government run broadcast station.
And a lot of those features that are staying are those that have been around in OS X for at least a year now.
It seems that Microsoft is in the same spot that Apple was when it was trying to develop Rhapsody. Back then you could get different answers from every Apple spokesman. This is the way MS sounds now. Gotta wonder what Ballmer is doing, if anything.
Ever since Cisco purchased Linksys the frequent firmware updates for my router has dropped to zero!
An email to tech support about the subject yields troubling information about the company. Not one person can tell me if development on the router firmware has stopped or if the router is being discontinued or when/if a new one will be released.
My next router will not be a linksys. I am going into IT work soon and that equipment will not be linksys either!
How come there have been so many conflicting reports coming out of Redmond lately? It seems like one person will make an announcement and the next day another spokesman is out there revoking the previous statement.
The last two that really spring to mind are the iPod story and the XP SP2 release for pirates. What is worse is the way the second press release handles the first one. Microsoft never admits to the mistake in the first place and then covers that with some of the stupidest spin I have ever heard, often it makes absolutely no sense and almost always never relates other than on the surface to the first release.
Either Ballmer has stopped taking his medication or he has been taking way too much. It might be time for Bill to arrange a little accident in the warehouse.
Microsoft is paying someone to lie to make Linux look bad and windows look good? Say it ain't so! Well all know that Linux was hobbled together from stolen code from all over the world and is a pile of junk when compared to Windows.
Microsoft on the other hand has worked hard to put out a stable, secure OS that they came up with from the start and did not copy any line of code or UI ideas from anyone. Microsofts pledge of using only their own code goes back to the day they sold IBM the rights to their own hand coded DOS operating system. Microsoft worked for years developing this version of DOS for IBM and it was all original work unlike the trash the Linus has hobbled together and unleashed on the world.
Microsoft is now going after Apple for the iPod design that Steve Jobs stole from them and is going to put those rip offs at Apple out of business once and for all.
Bill Gates is the most original thinker and fairest person in the world. He goes out of his way to help companies that compete with him and even agrees unfair license agreements foisted on him by computer manufactures.
Not only that.....but the....I.....think.....uh.. Doctor, Doctor....I think the drugs are wearing off, can I have another shot?
Sony has a chance to make an iPod killer and their inclusion of video is a good start. However Sony more than any other company has been trying to make an iPod killer for some time now. They have yet to make one that even comes close to some of the bad iPod clones like the dell jukebox or as some of its users call it, the Hell Jokebox.
Microsoft on the other hand does not have a clue about making an iPod killer. With the price they are charging they only have two choices for their player. A cheap flash memory based player with 64MB to 256MB of memory or a large hard drive based player that they cannot make money on at 50 dollars. The second one might be possible if Microsoft comes up with its own music store and ties the player to their music store only. This could defray some of the cost of selling the player at 50 bucks.
Microsoft does have the deep pockets that allow it to under sell its hardware in hopes of capturing the market. The Xbox is a good example. I don't believe the Xbox division has made one dime of profit yet. They have gotten a lot of Xbox's on the market by selling it below cost but I don't think the market share they have now is as much as they wanted to have by this point.
The other hurdles Microsoft has to tackle are the design of the unit, Microsoft has had some good designs, like their optical mice and some really dogs, like their keyboards. This leaves firmware the device will run and the jukebox software that is needed to feed the device. Since Apple has patented the iPods OS design look and feel among other things, coming up with some iPod killer software may prove a challenge for Microsoft this time around since they will have to depend on their own R&D instead of Apples.
With the Market share that Apple has with the iPod and iTunes Music Store I don't believe they are quaking in their boots at Microsofts announcement. Microsoft has been doing some big talking these last few weeks with little to back them up. Even the PC magazines have been questioning Microsofts "breakthrough" longhorn features such as transparent windows, the 3D UI elements of Avalon, the expose-like window management features and the auto discovery networking technology as direct rip offs of Apples nearly year old Panther OS.
Time will tell, it will be interest to see what Sony comes up with and Microsoft should be good for a few laughs before we start feeling very sorry for them.
There is no doubt that he knows that he brought them in and he knows he made that mistake. He also thought he would be around to rein them in if needed.
Yes, Jobs was the salesman of the Apple I and II lines. He did not support the IIgs or the III. At that time he was hard at work on Lisa and the Mac. The Mac was Jobs baby from day one and Woz had little to nothing to do with it. While Jobs was no programmer or designer he did pull the talent together and protected them from Apple....which sounds weird but was true.
That is where Jobs talent lies....he knows the people to get the job done and he knows how to inspire those people. If he were a great salesman, Next would still be in business.
If you have not read "the second coming of Steve Jobs" you should check it out, it provides a good insight into Jobs, whether you like him or dislike him.
As far as MS goes what goes around come around and I love it when it comes home to roost!
Several government agencies have moved away from Windows and jumped on the MacOS X bandwagon.
Steve Jobs made a really good point about Microsoft, he said that after Apple forced him out in the 80's they person in charge was a salesman. Apple made obscene profits but in the long run damaged the company and almost killed it...he said that Steve Ballmer is one of the biggest salesmen he has seen.
It is obvious that MS is very worried about linux taking some of their profits...even more so now that they have no new OS for sale for the next several years. If linux wants to make inroads now is the time since MS has not product to compete with new developments in linux.
It would be nice if they did and they may have to! But a rose by any other name....or garbage by any other name.....
What they need to do is totally cut the cord to DOS. They have been trying to ween DOS out of the system with every release and they have been getting better systems in the process. Make the break, get away from the DLL and other junk that can really crap out the system.
Windows 3.1 was a joke but it was better than Windows 1 & 2. I remember a woman at a computer store showing me the first windows release and touting how much better it was than a Mac. She knew nothing about the Mac because her selling points for that first windows release was, "It uses a mouse, you can't do that on the Mac" and "It has a calculator, the Mac does not have that".
Anyway, back to my point....if I had one, is that with 95 and 98 some parts of DOS were being phased out...WinMe was really a mess but XP was a good release....XP Pro that is...not XP home. Microsoft should have released just one XP OS and that should have been XP Pro. Other than lining MS pockets there was no reason for two versions.
If they have the cahones to make the break from the old it would really be better for them. It would also be easier for them to generate a unified OS their products. One that would work as a media center, desktop, tablet and server. MacOS X is the same OS as the server but the server has a few other applications to aid in its set up. Apple already had digital ink incorporated into the OS a year before MS did and if Apple ever releases a tablet computer the same OS would work on it today without modification.
Microsoft has a chance to do great things with its next OS....lets hope they do....if not my Windows box will quickly become a Unix box.
The Windows trademark was rejected the first time around for being too generic. How it got accepted the second time around is anyones guess.
I stated here on slashdot before many months ago that MS was on shaky ground on this one and by going after Lindows they could lose the Windows trademark. If Microsoft were smart they would drop the case, settle out of court with Lindows and pay all court expenses. That way they may get out with their trademark intact, at least for awhile. I doubt they will make the smart move.
If they lose be sure to purchase my new Windows 2004 PX OS.
I was referring to Microsoft giving its Applications such as outlook and explorer the ability to install programs without the user doing much or nothing at all.
As far as spyware goes everytime I run Ad-aware on the PC it will usually find something that should not be there. Usually cookies that track all visited websites. Often it finds more. Admitted I pick these up on questionable websites that one would not visit at work. Whenever possible I use MacOS X to visit those sites and render their little tricks useless.
I have been using both Macs and PCs since the day the came out and old CPM machines and Apple IIs back to 1978. GUI-wise there are some similarities between X and XP but under the hood is a different story. I much prefer the OS X and the underlying Unix layer....good stuff!
Yes, the MBU is the most unwindows part of Microsoft but MS has been diminishing its role. It no longer makes Explorer for the Mac and therein lies the problem. Some of Microsofts content creation tools create sites that do not work with any other browser besides Explorer....worse yet, some sites only work with Explorer and Windows!
Apple has the right to enforce its patents with whomever it chooses too. It may charge MS for the right and give a free license to another if they choose.
Instead of the usual MS tactic of going for full bore feature bloat they really cleaned up the rough edges and most new features were done with restraint....a word not usually present in the MS dictionary.
I wish my Windows XP version of Office looked and acted a lot more like the latest version for OS X. This has just added yet another reason for me not to fire up the XP box when I need to edit a word document. Thanks Microsoft!
Well, I don't know if they patented it yet but giving everyone except the user more privileges on their own computer is one.
Then there are Windows excellent spyware API's. Don't forget their built in disk compression....oh wait, that was not theirs.
The problem is I use XP pro...so most of the jokes I could make a cruelly funny.
What is funny is that MBU at MS really made use of the transparent windows in latest version of Office for OS X. I doubt Apple will press the matter with the patents with MS, it would make better sense to keep them in reserve in case Ballmer gets weird with the MBU or if Apple wants another MS title on the Mac platform. I do get a chuckle every time an MS press release touts these features as "new" and/or "breakthroughs" when the Mac has been using them for at least a year. Their auto discovery networking "breakthrough" press release at WinHEC really got me going.
If Apple continues to patent its UI elements Microsoft is going to be in a lot of trouble and will be doing a lot of redesign or groveling at Apple.
Much of what I have seen in the way of screen shots and videos, makes Avalon and Aero look as they are "borrowing" an awful lot of MacOS X's look and feel as well as many UI elements. Even the window widgets are gaining Mac like colors!
This makes Longhorn look very nice but if Apple continues to patent their "look and feel", and they should, it would provided them with a nice bit of leverage with MS. Microsoft might even have to stop "borrowing" features and stop calling them "New and Ground breaking Microsoft developments".
BTW....I think you have it backwards. Concave will magnify, convex will shrink. Think of the mirrors they use in stores and also focal points.
This page will explain it:
http://physics.bu.edu/py106/notes/Spherical.html
I believe they are concave.....they must be because they have fried to a crisp just about anything I put in the beam.
That was over twenty years ago but I am sure it was a 5x mirror. I guess I will have to buy one next time I am at the store to check it out......I feel sorry for the neighbors cat;-)
Find the biggest "beauty mirror" you can. These things have a regular mirror on one side and a 5X mirror on the other. Use the 5X side to focus a beam of destruction wherever you wish.
Whoa, did I blow it! MacOS X came out long before March of 2001! Which puts it even further ahead of XP.....which again probably picked up features from OS X.
XP came out in October of 2001, MacOS X came out in March 2001, seven months later and as you said it was not enabled out of the box but it was there...in OS X.
With Microsofts recent trips to the patent office and its claims of breakthrough features in Longhorn, most of which sounds as if they were copied directly from OS X, I think Apple doing this is a good thing. After all they don't have to enforce them and it might give them a little leverage with Microsoft.
Apple must do this. If you look at the "new" features of longhorn, nearly every one has been done by Apple for years with OS X. Apple has been using translucent windows, expose window management, drop shadows for windows and auto discovery networking....all of which MS announced as breakthrough technologies that THEY are rolling out in Longhorn. These are just a few examples there are more.
Apple has been bitten once my MS knocking off the GUI and other Mac elements. This time around it will not be so easy. Remember it is also up to Apple if they wish to enforce this patent, or with whom they wish to enforce it.
In Soviet Russia there are two TV channels, communist propaganda on channel 1 and on channel 2 a KGB agent telling you to turn it back to channel 1.
Sorry Yakov!
Actually around our town they are using something like this for low visibility crosswalks. You could never tell they were there until someone pushes the button and the crosswalk flashes yellow to both lanes of traffic.
Of course the groups pirating the discs are not the boy scouts so the RIAA shies away from actively going after these groups. It is also not as easy as threatening some 80 year old grandmother with a lawsuit.
You really have to wonder about the RIAA. Since Apples iTunes Music Store has done so well they now want to punish them by raising prices well above what they charge for the disc at the store. Seems people are buying just the good songs from the disc and not the filler present on the discs that some artists put out. I am sure that since their sales are up this has come as quite a shock to the labels, since everyone who buys music has said to them that legal downloads would be good for business.
Maybe they will remove their heads from where they are currently at and see the world like it really is....of course being that far away from their bosses orifice might make it harder for them to brown nose.
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Microsoft has been retooling the web for sometime now. It has worked well for Microsoft because pretty much no one is paying attention to what they are doing. Since the web is one of the few things MS cannot buy outright they have had to use other methods to gain control of it and for the most part it has worked flawlessly. Since most users will use IE on the web adding features to its content creation tools that create sites that only work with IE under windows is something that will sneak under the radar of most users.
Web standards are the last thing the MS wants. If every browser worked the same that would not give MS an advantage. If the web pages that your business relies on works only with IE and under Windows what will your business have to use to get its work done? This fact has not been lost on Microsoft and day after day many sites are becoming MS only sites where you need IE or IE and Windows to make use of the services the page offers.
Microsoft only needs to add more MS only features to its content creation and delivery tools to shut out the competition. Next time you are on a Mac or surfing with Linux or using Mozilla under Windows and you cannot access a site do not blame the web designer for bad site design. More than likely MS will be involved with that site in one way or another. They have already done a proof of concept when they torpedoed Opera browsers on their own site before Opera exposed them.
Most High School radio stations don't operate under the same rules as the commercial stations. The are usually granted secondary status on the frequency they are assigned. Since they are secondary and do not have to follow all of the same procedures and rules set forth for commercial stations, if push comes to shove they will have to be the ones that either go off the air or move their frequency.
It may sound unfair but the free market should get priority over a government run broadcast station.
And a lot of those features that are staying are those that have been around in OS X for at least a year now.
It seems that Microsoft is in the same spot that Apple was when it was trying to develop Rhapsody. Back then you could get different answers from every Apple spokesman. This is the way MS sounds now. Gotta wonder what Ballmer is doing, if anything.
Ever since Cisco purchased Linksys the frequent firmware updates for my router has dropped to zero!
An email to tech support about the subject yields troubling information about the company. Not one person can tell me if development on the router firmware has stopped or if the router is being discontinued or when/if a new one will be released.
My next router will not be a linksys. I am going into IT work soon and that equipment will not be linksys either!
How come there have been so many conflicting reports coming out of Redmond lately? It seems like one person will make an announcement and the next day another spokesman is out there revoking the previous statement.
The last two that really spring to mind are the iPod story and the XP SP2 release for pirates. What is worse is the way the second press release handles the first one. Microsoft never admits to the mistake in the first place and then covers that with some of the stupidest spin I have ever heard, often it makes absolutely no sense and almost always never relates other than on the surface to the first release.
Either Ballmer has stopped taking his medication or he has been taking way too much. It might be time for Bill to arrange a little accident in the warehouse.
Microsoft is paying someone to lie to make Linux look bad and windows look good? Say it ain't so! Well all know that Linux was hobbled together from stolen code from all over the world and is a pile of junk when compared to Windows.
Microsoft on the other hand has worked hard to put out a stable, secure OS that they came up with from the start and did not copy any line of code or UI ideas from anyone. Microsofts pledge of using only their own code goes back to the day they sold IBM the rights to their own hand coded DOS operating system. Microsoft worked for years developing this version of DOS for IBM and it was all original work unlike the trash the Linus has hobbled together and unleashed on the world.
Microsoft is now going after Apple for the iPod design that Steve Jobs stole from them and is going to put those rip offs at Apple out of business once and for all.
Bill Gates is the most original thinker and fairest person in the world. He goes out of his way to help companies that compete with him and even agrees unfair license agreements foisted on him by computer manufactures.
Not only that.....but the....I.....think.....uh.. Doctor, Doctor....I think the drugs are wearing off, can I have another shot?
Sony has a chance to make an iPod killer and their inclusion of video is a good start. However Sony more than any other company has been trying to make an iPod killer for some time now. They have yet to make one that even comes close to some of the bad iPod clones like the dell jukebox or as some of its users call it, the Hell Jokebox.
Microsoft on the other hand does not have a clue about making an iPod killer. With the price they are charging they only have two choices for their player. A cheap flash memory based player with 64MB to 256MB of memory or a large hard drive based player that they cannot make money on at 50 dollars. The second one might be possible if Microsoft comes up with its own music store and ties the player to their music store only. This could defray some of the cost of selling the player at 50 bucks.
Microsoft does have the deep pockets that allow it to under sell its hardware in hopes of capturing the market. The Xbox is a good example. I don't believe the Xbox division has made one dime of profit yet. They have gotten a lot of Xbox's on the market by selling it below cost but I don't think the market share they have now is as much as they wanted to have by this point.
The other hurdles Microsoft has to tackle are the design of the unit, Microsoft has had some good designs, like their optical mice and some really dogs, like their keyboards. This leaves firmware the device will run and the jukebox software that is needed to feed the device. Since Apple has patented the iPods OS design look and feel among other things, coming up with some iPod killer software may prove a challenge for Microsoft this time around since they will have to depend on their own R&D instead of Apples.
With the Market share that Apple has with the iPod and iTunes Music Store I don't believe they are quaking in their boots at Microsofts announcement. Microsoft has been doing some big talking these last few weeks with little to back them up. Even the PC magazines have been questioning Microsofts "breakthrough" longhorn features such as transparent windows, the 3D UI elements of Avalon, the expose-like window management features and the auto discovery networking technology as direct rip offs of Apples nearly year old Panther OS.
Time will tell, it will be interest to see what Sony comes up with and Microsoft should be good for a few laughs before we start feeling very sorry for them.
There is no doubt that he knows that he brought them in and he knows he made that mistake. He also thought he would be around to rein them in if needed.
Yes, Jobs was the salesman of the Apple I and II lines. He did not support the IIgs or the III. At that time he was hard at work on Lisa and the Mac. The Mac was Jobs baby from day one and Woz had little to nothing to do with it. While Jobs was no programmer or designer he did pull the talent together and protected them from Apple....which sounds weird but was true.
That is where Jobs talent lies....he knows the people to get the job done and he knows how to inspire those people. If he were a great salesman, Next would still be in business.
If you have not read "the second coming of Steve Jobs" you should check it out, it provides a good insight into Jobs, whether you like him or dislike him.
As far as MS goes what goes around come around and I love it when it comes home to roost!
Several government agencies have moved away from Windows and jumped on the MacOS X bandwagon.
Steve Jobs made a really good point about Microsoft, he said that after Apple forced him out in the 80's they person in charge was a salesman. Apple made obscene profits but in the long run damaged the company and almost killed it...he said that Steve Ballmer is one of the biggest salesmen he has seen.
It is obvious that MS is very worried about linux taking some of their profits...even more so now that they have no new OS for sale for the next several years. If linux wants to make inroads now is the time since MS has not product to compete with new developments in linux.
It would be nice if they did and they may have to! But a rose by any other name....or garbage by any other name.....
What they need to do is totally cut the cord to DOS. They have been trying to ween DOS out of the system with every release and they have been getting better systems in the process. Make the break, get away from the DLL and other junk that can really crap out the system.
Windows 3.1 was a joke but it was better than Windows 1 & 2. I remember a woman at a computer store showing me the first windows release and touting how much better it was than a Mac. She knew nothing about the Mac because her selling points for that first windows release was, "It uses a mouse, you can't do that on the Mac" and "It has a calculator, the Mac does not have that".
Anyway, back to my point....if I had one, is that with 95 and 98 some parts of DOS were being phased out...WinMe was really a mess but XP was a good release....XP Pro that is...not XP home. Microsoft should have released just one XP OS and that should have been XP Pro. Other than lining MS pockets there was no reason for two versions.
If they have the cahones to make the break from the old it would really be better for them. It would also be easier for them to generate a unified OS their products. One that would work as a media center, desktop, tablet and server. MacOS X is the same OS as the server but the server has a few other applications to aid in its set up. Apple already had digital ink incorporated into the OS a year before MS did and if Apple ever releases a tablet computer the same OS would work on it today without modification.
Microsoft has a chance to do great things with its next OS....lets hope they do....if not my Windows box will quickly become a Unix box.
The Windows trademark was rejected the first time around for being too generic. How it got accepted the second time around is anyones guess.
I stated here on slashdot before many months ago that MS was on shaky ground on this one and by going after Lindows they could lose the Windows trademark. If Microsoft were smart they would drop the case, settle out of court with Lindows and pay all court expenses. That way they may get out with their trademark intact, at least for awhile. I doubt they will make the smart move.
If they lose be sure to purchase my new Windows 2004 PX OS.
I was referring to Microsoft giving its Applications such as outlook and explorer the ability to install programs without the user doing much or nothing at all.
As far as spyware goes everytime I run Ad-aware on the PC it will usually find something that should not be there. Usually cookies that track all visited websites. Often it finds more. Admitted I pick these up on questionable websites that one would not visit at work. Whenever possible I use MacOS X to visit those sites and render their little tricks useless.
I have been using both Macs and PCs since the day the came out and old CPM machines and Apple IIs back to 1978. GUI-wise there are some similarities between X and XP but under the hood is a different story. I much prefer the OS X and the underlying Unix layer....good stuff!
Yes, the MBU is the most unwindows part of Microsoft but MS has been diminishing its role. It no longer makes Explorer for the Mac and therein lies the problem. Some of Microsofts content creation tools create sites that do not work with any other browser besides Explorer....worse yet, some sites only work with Explorer and Windows!
Apple has the right to enforce its patents with whomever it chooses too. It may charge MS for the right and give a free license to another if they choose.
Instead of the usual MS tactic of going for full bore feature bloat they really cleaned up the rough edges and most new features were done with restraint....a word not usually present in the MS dictionary.
I wish my Windows XP version of Office looked and acted a lot more like the latest version for OS X. This has just added yet another reason for me not to fire up the XP box when I need to edit a word document. Thanks Microsoft!
Well, I don't know if they patented it yet but giving everyone except the user more privileges on their own computer is one.
Then there are Windows excellent spyware API's. Don't forget their built in disk compression....oh wait, that was not theirs.
The problem is I use XP pro...so most of the jokes I could make a cruelly funny.
What is funny is that MBU at MS really made use of the transparent windows in latest version of Office for OS X. I doubt Apple will press the matter with the patents with MS, it would make better sense to keep them in reserve in case Ballmer gets weird with the MBU or if Apple wants another MS title on the Mac platform. I do get a chuckle every time an MS press release touts these features as "new" and/or "breakthroughs" when the Mac has been using them for at least a year. Their auto discovery networking "breakthrough" press release at WinHEC really got me going.
If Apple continues to patent its UI elements Microsoft is going to be in a lot of trouble and will be doing a lot of redesign or groveling at Apple.
Much of what I have seen in the way of screen shots and videos, makes Avalon and Aero look as they are "borrowing" an awful lot of MacOS X's look and feel as well as many UI elements. Even the window widgets are gaining Mac like colors!
This makes Longhorn look very nice but if Apple continues to patent their "look and feel", and they should, it would provided them with a nice bit of leverage with MS. Microsoft might even have to stop "borrowing" features and stop calling them "New and Ground breaking Microsoft developments".
This could become very interesting!
At Microsoft is one person considered a team?
BTW....I think you have it backwards. Concave will magnify, convex will shrink. Think of the mirrors they use in stores and also focal points.
This page will explain it:
http://physics.bu.edu/py106/notes/Spherical.html
I believe they are concave.....they must be because they have fried to a crisp just about anything I put in the beam.
;-)
That was over twenty years ago but I am sure it was a 5x mirror. I guess I will have to buy one next time I am at the store to check it out......I feel sorry for the neighbors cat
Find the biggest "beauty mirror" you can. These things have a regular mirror on one side and a 5X mirror on the other. Use the 5X side to focus a beam of destruction wherever you wish.
To take full advantage of the altivec chip and multiple processors.
That and 100 G5 Xserves with Xgrid and my numbers would take a big jump!
Whoa, did I blow it! MacOS X came out long before March of 2001! Which puts it even further ahead of XP.....which again probably picked up features from OS X.
XP came out in October of 2001, MacOS X came out in March 2001, seven months later and as you said it was not enabled out of the box but it was there...in OS X.
With Microsofts recent trips to the patent office and its claims of breakthrough features in Longhorn, most of which sounds as if they were copied directly from OS X, I think Apple doing this is a good thing. After all they don't have to enforce them and it might give them a little leverage with Microsoft.
Apple must do this. If you look at the "new" features of longhorn, nearly every one has been done by Apple for years with OS X. Apple has been using translucent windows, expose window management, drop shadows for windows and auto discovery networking....all of which MS announced as breakthrough technologies that THEY are rolling out in Longhorn. These are just a few examples there are more.
Apple has been bitten once my MS knocking off the GUI and other Mac elements. This time around it will not be so easy. Remember it is also up to Apple if they wish to enforce this patent, or with whom they wish to enforce it.
In Soviet Russia there are two TV channels, communist propaganda on channel 1 and on channel 2 a KGB agent telling you to turn it back to channel 1.
Sorry Yakov!
Actually around our town they are using something like this for low visibility crosswalks. You could never tell they were there until someone pushes the button and the crosswalk flashes yellow to both lanes of traffic.
Of course the groups pirating the discs are not the boy scouts so the RIAA shies away from actively going after these groups. It is also not as easy as threatening some 80 year old grandmother with a lawsuit.
You really have to wonder about the RIAA. Since Apples iTunes Music Store has done so well they now want to punish them by raising prices well above what they charge for the disc at the store. Seems people are buying just the good songs from the disc and not the filler present on the discs that some artists put out. I am sure that since their sales are up this has come as quite a shock to the labels, since everyone who buys music has said to them that legal downloads would be good for business.
Maybe they will remove their heads from where they are currently at and see the world like it really is....of course being that far away from their bosses orifice might make it harder for them to brown nose.