Let me put this in context: ten years ago cell phones weren't "necessary". They aren't really "necessary" today either, but i'm not going back to my land-line only existence.
I don't know what this has to do w/the discussion.
1) You had to install the Google toolbar to get pop up blocking and toolbar access to Google, two features that Firefox has "out of the box" (the google toolbar also includes form management, btw). You're comparing IE + Google toolbar with Firefox, which isn't a fair comparison (Firefox has a great number of extensions, shall we start comparing those?)
No, I didn't compare those two. I just said that popup blocking isn't necessary for browsing.
2) IE doesn't have "100% perfect rendering on ALL pages" - there even used to be pages that would cause IE to crash. Having said that, more web designers will make the effort to code around IE's problems (that's what 95%-plus market share does for you), so i guess the point is moot...
I am not quite sure what this has to do w/anything either. IE renders all sites I have visited correctly. Two of the most common sites I have visited with Firefox did not. The point is not moot.
3) In terms of "BEST configuration out of the box", i trust that you have at least changed your browser's default security settings? Or are you surfing from behind a firewall? I trust that you have at least applied the security patches for IE (do you Windows Update?)
Again, not what I was talking about. You're drawing at straws. At least directly refute what I am saying. Do not bring up other things into the discussion.
IE is easy to configure from dialog boxes and menus. I do not have to find websites that tell me what I need to do to increase the horsepower and use about:config and change strange configuration lines (several of them IIRC for rendering).
Oh, and btw: my browser CAN beat up your browser;)
And yet you were modded insightful. Fucking amazing.
most of the time when I'm not home I don't want people harassing me with phone calls anyway. As for 802.11*, the data rate and reliability of ethernet beats it every time for home networking use. Something about carrying around a laptop so I can browse the web at random hotspots just doesn't float my boat. I have wired access at home and at work, and if I need access when I'm at neither I'd go to an internet cafe.
I don't see what cell phones have to do w/this but anyway... Yeah, I guess that wlan's aren't for everyone. I am moving in the next month and a half to a house of my own. It's two floors. I have absolutely no desire to be running ethernet cables behind the walls or through the ceiling in order to network devices in both areas of the house. I am going to be using my current 802.11b until I can justify the upgrade to g.
Personally I love having wireless net access whereever I am. I like being able to have email/web/AIM access at my disposal but also the ability to turn the device off when I want.
It keeps me from spending 20 minutes when I get home from whereever I am to go through all that stuff.
I like my personal space and I don't want anyone invading it unless it is on my terms. The off button is made for just that.
What's so evil about SBC? Should I pay charter cable the same price for half the service (768k down)? It's a free market. I can choose another provider if I want, and I choose not too.
I am moving in August to a house of my own. I will have to move providers and will be forced into using Charter. They don't allow any servers to be run and apparently block port 25 except to their own mail servers. While that annoys me royally that's not the point of my post...
The point is that I just checked charter.com. Apparently for 39.99/mo (21.95 for the first three) you get 3mbit downstream. I am not quite sure where you are getting your 768k numbers from (unless it somehow read my hostname and assumed my location) I didn't have to enter a specific area.
Up and until this past week I would have agreed with this. I have speakeasy DSL on a QWest phone line. Good service from the former. The later has a real bad track record.
No matter what when there are two seperate companies controlling the fate of your connections reliability or speed you will never get an honest answer from either.
Verizon was overselling bandwith in Bowling Green. Supposedly, for 768/128k DSL, they were to be using one rack per T1 at the DSLAM. Instead of doing that they were using 1 T1 for two racks. I was averaging about 35kB/s to 40kB/s on most downloads. Finally the DSL connection went out completely showing that there was a problem w/Verizon. When the DSL tech came out he admitted they had been overselling bandwith and splitting the T1 between two racks.
The speed issues continued and when RoadRunner came to town we were the FIRST people to sign up.
The great state of California has ruled that SBC Communications must sell local phone service and broadband service separately. This gives SBC customers the option to change local phone providers and/or choose any DSL company they wish.
I had this option when I used Verizon in Bowling Green, OH for DSL. It was nothing but a hassle compared to getting DSL+ISP through Epix in NEPA or cable through Roadrunner or Comcast/ATTBI. Any issue that would come up with the Internet connection would result in fingerpointing at either the ISP or the line provider.
At least with cable there is only one person to blame. Slow speeds? It could be my computer but I doubt it. It's likely an issue w/the local lines or the ISP. I don't have to pay two separate bills. I don't have to call two separate companies when I want to cancel (signing up amazingly enough is dealt with through a central location in my experience).
I find DSL to be nothing but an overly expensive hassle at least in the areas I have lived (I realize that out west they seem comparable to Cable, if not better). I despise Comcast and what they have to done to dominate the local market but at least I can hate one company w/o a doubt rather than having to play catch the monkey if you can w/DSL.
A bit longer article is here at ZDnet from 6/14/2004.
Further, the disclosure here was not to the public at large, but rather was to a government agency in the wake of a terrorist attack that called into question the security of the nation's transportation system.
I fail to see how any of this validates what NW did. Are we still in the wake of the terrorist attacks? Will this ruling stand as a blanket ruling which will allow further intrusions on our privacy?
- no tabbed browsing - no native pop up control - no caret browsing - no form management - no "block images from..." feature... etc etc.
I have used tabbed browsing. I don't find it an attractive feature. I don't know why everyone seems to believe it to be the best thing out there but I just don't need it. Another instance of IE is fine for what I do.
Pop-up control is a bit of a hassle but Google's toolbar stopped that stuff for me and added Google to my toolbar. I understand that a browser would be better with it but it certainly not necessary.
I don't know what caret browsing or form management is. I can't imagine that Joe Blow would need it if I (as a regular Slashdot whore) don't know what it is.
I don't need "block images from..." I guess ads are a pain in the ass. Most users just deal with them. It's certainly not something I would require in a browser to make it functional.
I guess we differ on our opinions of what is necessary. I think easy configuration, BEST configuration out of the box, and 100% perfect rendering on ALL pages being most important. Firefox/Mozilla don't offer those things to me.
I have used Netscape, Mozilla, FireFox, Opera, and various other browsers that really don't even count.
IE, because of general adoption of its own capabilities (standardized or not), the best browser I have used.
It's fast, it's stable, and I don't have any problems viewing any pages out there. Not once did I have to stare at lines that had different sized links than the rest of the text (no/bad css or not). Not once did I have to goto about:config to change some strange options to make it render differently/faster.
I know that this goes against the general consensus of the rest of Slashdot but IE is, for what 98% of the world, the best browser out there.
Why can I not drag the URL bar (and google bar) up to the menu bar like I can in IE?
Why do pages not look right in Firefox? Links are a different size than the rest of the line. I have tried to change the font size to make it exactly the same as the text size as IE but it doesn't seem right.
I just can't see myself switching when it just doesn't work the way I am used to.
it probably makes for a good sign/precident for 'other things' to be eliminated from the Internet. (Be it pirated files, porn, 'ideas that my citizens shouldn't be having', etc.)
I am certain that's exactly what they are looking to do. They do plenty of law making that is questionable but it falls under the guise of protection or something that is "good" for us.
We all nod our heads in unison as they wipe away the rights of terrorists because afterall, we're not terrorists. We all nod in unison as they give us national ID numbers because, afterall, it's so much easier to just use that rather than having this card and that card and that card, right? We all nod our heads in unison as they eliminate our rights to privacy because, afterall, when you're in a public place you shouldn't have the right to privacy -- you should have your every movement tracked by a central governing body, right?
Wow, I really hope that they didn't put those 32 processors and 56GB of DDR RAM into use for this. Sounds like they should have read this article instead. Maybe it would have been cooler and not so grainy!
It's pretty tough to argue with a legal listen for 1-2 cents (exchange rate varies). I bet that 50-100 times is about as many as I could listen to a song before I'm bored of it anyways, and for 99 cents I can get either that, or I can own the song. Plus, unscrupulous listeners could always record the stream!
It was also pretty tough to argue w/99 cents when iTunes came out unless you were the RIAA "trying to protect your artists'".
How long do you seriously believe that the money-grubbing music cartels are going to let these low prices go before they jack it up to something far more attractive to their wallets?
The only price worth paying is free. Free monitarily, free codecs, and free distribution.
I was using abuse@comcast.com. They ignore my emails to them about all the worms hitting my boxes daily so I figured they just sent everything to/dev/null. My spam won't hurt.
i have seen that, but perhaps i haven't clearly explained my point. if there is a market, that is, if people care, someone will produce tires that don't have RFID tags in them. if enough people care, nobody will put RFID tags in them.
Perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly enough for you... The government feels it is a priviledge for us to ride on "their" roads. Thus they will mandate the RFID tags be tied to our VINs.
the government's never going to say (knock on wood) that all clothes or shoes or whatever must have RFID tags, so it's really not something to worry about.
Perhaps you should see this then. Maybe that will open your eyes.
Speeding tickets in the mail, realtime tracking of all vehicles, and no privacy.
But, but, driving is a priviledge! Sorry but the government was never meant to be my parent no matter how much they would like. But, but, our roads will be safe from escaping terrorism suspects and speeders!
It seems to me that maybe one of the reasons RFID tags are in such widespread use now is the fact that the patent did expire so other companies were free to implement their own uses for it.
Nah, they are in widespread use because there is now more technology to read them. People are less aware and disgusted by intrusive technology (some even think it's fucking good for them -- ooh, but the ones inbedded in tires will make our roads safer w/o us having to actually have real police out there patroling!)
The only way that the public will revolt against instrusive technologies is if it somehow keeps them from watching Survivor.
Am I the only one that sees something wrong with donation and tax-subsidized radio being locked up in these sorts of formats?
No! For God's sake boy! What are you thinking?! Just because you pay for it either directly or indirectly doesn't mean you should have free access to the content.
And don't forget that the second installment of the ever so popular Shrek series was the fastest animated movie to break $300 million (and it is also the highest grossing one after beating out Nemo)
Shrek 2 has broken the record for the highest grossing animated film of all time and has beaten its predecessor to do so.
Shrek 2 earned a not too shabby $346.5 million as of June 12, passing Finding Nemo which has made $339.8 million to date. Shrek 2 did it just 25 days after release. Shrek 1 made $267 million at the box office.
Claiming that Windows users "don't care" just because they're Windows users is incorrect, to say the least. How can people mod that as insightful? Generalization like that should be discouraged as it is not constructive, but some actually reward it... Quite puzzling to me..
This is puzzling to you? Hmm, I am more puzzled by the fact that entire COMPANIES went down when some of the worms started spreading because of unpatched systems that should have been patched MONTHS (almost a year IIRC) before.
Now, if you are at a COMPANY and your system goes unpatched it's because the IT department there either doesn't believe the possible threat or does NOT care.
You read obviously read Slashdot therefore you are not a typical Windows user. You know about vunerabilities and even if Windows didn't tell you about them you'd still have an idea of what to watch out for (and possibly fix). My generalization is 100% dead on accurate. Most Windows users do not care, are afraid to patch, or just don't know.
There are goods and bads, however, the information is readily available. There are patches that "work", even before a full explanation is available.
This is how it always was. So? MS has plenty of patches out there for known vunerabilities (sometimes faster than others). Does it matter? NO. You know why? Windows users don't tend to care. They don't read Windows news sites daily, they don't subscribe to mailing lists that send out warnings as soon as a vunerability is found. They don't patch when Windows tells them to.
You know why? They don't care, they don't want to "break" anything, or they don't even know that the little icon in their taskbar is any different from their 1000 other ones in the tray.
Get aptitude and be done w/your problems. It has automatically corrected errors in package dependencies that apt-get didn't. It shows progress bars and it seems to be updated pretty frequently (twice since I started using it about 6 months ago).
Retail-box is also useless because one order mandrake and fedore CD from chapbytes.com and host of other websites for less $$
I know plenty of people who don't believe that any piece of software that is downloaded is of any worth. Retail boxes are the only way that these users will buy a piece of software.
Backwards perhaps, more expensive certainly, but that's the way they feel comfortable.
Slashdot Mirror
Let me put this in context: ten years ago cell phones weren't "necessary". They aren't really "necessary" today either, but i'm not going back to my land-line only existence.
;)
I don't know what this has to do w/the discussion.
1) You had to install the Google toolbar to get pop up blocking and toolbar access to Google, two features that Firefox has "out of the box" (the google toolbar also includes form management, btw). You're comparing IE + Google toolbar with Firefox, which isn't a fair comparison (Firefox has a great number of extensions, shall we start comparing those?)
No, I didn't compare those two. I just said that popup blocking isn't necessary for browsing.
2) IE doesn't have "100% perfect rendering on ALL pages" - there even used to be pages that would cause IE to crash. Having said that, more web designers will make the effort to code around IE's problems (that's what 95%-plus market share does for you), so i guess the point is moot...
I am not quite sure what this has to do w/anything either. IE renders all sites I have visited correctly. Two of the most common sites I have visited with Firefox did not. The point is not moot.
3) In terms of "BEST configuration out of the box", i trust that you have at least changed your browser's default security settings? Or are you surfing from behind a firewall? I trust that you have at least applied the security patches for IE (do you Windows Update?)
Again, not what I was talking about. You're drawing at straws. At least directly refute what I am saying. Do not bring up other things into the discussion.
IE is easy to configure from dialog boxes and menus. I do not have to find websites that tell me what I need to do to increase the horsepower and use about:config and change strange configuration lines (several of them IIRC for rendering).
Oh, and btw: my browser CAN beat up your browser
And yet you were modded insightful. Fucking amazing.
most of the time when I'm not home I don't want people harassing me with phone calls anyway. As for 802.11*, the data rate and reliability of ethernet beats it every time for home networking use. Something about carrying around a laptop so I can browse the web at random hotspots just doesn't float my boat. I have wired access at home and at work, and if I need access when I'm at neither I'd go to an internet cafe.
I don't see what cell phones have to do w/this but anyway... Yeah, I guess that wlan's aren't for everyone. I am moving in the next month and a half to a house of my own. It's two floors. I have absolutely no desire to be running ethernet cables behind the walls or through the ceiling in order to network devices in both areas of the house. I am going to be using my current 802.11b until I can justify the upgrade to g.
Personally I love having wireless net access whereever I am. I like being able to have email/web/AIM access at my disposal but also the ability to turn the device off when I want.
It keeps me from spending 20 minutes when I get home from whereever I am to go through all that stuff.
I like my personal space and I don't want anyone invading it unless it is on my terms. The off button is made for just that.
YMMV.
What's so evil about SBC? Should I pay charter cable the same price for half the service (768k down)? It's a free market. I can choose another provider if I want, and I choose not too.
I am moving in August to a house of my own. I will have to move providers and will be forced into using Charter. They don't allow any servers to be run and apparently block port 25 except to their own mail servers. While that annoys me royally that's not the point of my post...
The point is that I just checked charter.com. Apparently for 39.99/mo (21.95 for the first three) you get 3mbit downstream. I am not quite sure where you are getting your 768k numbers from (unless it somehow read my hostname and assumed my location) I didn't have to enter a specific area.
So for $5/less a month I get twice the speed.
Up and until this past week I would have agreed with this. I have speakeasy DSL on a QWest phone line. Good service from the former. The later has a real bad track record.
No matter what when there are two seperate companies controlling the fate of your connections reliability or speed you will never get an honest answer from either.
Verizon was overselling bandwith in Bowling Green. Supposedly, for 768/128k DSL, they were to be using one rack per T1 at the DSLAM. Instead of doing that they were using 1 T1 for two racks. I was averaging about 35kB/s to 40kB/s on most downloads. Finally the DSL connection went out completely showing that there was a problem w/Verizon. When the DSL tech came out he admitted they had been overselling bandwith and splitting the T1 between two racks.
The speed issues continued and when RoadRunner came to town we were the FIRST people to sign up.
The great state of California has ruled that SBC Communications must sell local phone service and broadband service separately. This gives SBC customers the option to change local phone providers and/or choose any DSL company they wish.
I had this option when I used Verizon in Bowling Green, OH for DSL. It was nothing but a hassle compared to getting DSL+ISP through Epix in NEPA or cable through Roadrunner or Comcast/ATTBI. Any issue that would come up with the Internet connection would result in fingerpointing at either the ISP or the line provider.
At least with cable there is only one person to blame. Slow speeds? It could be my computer but I doubt it. It's likely an issue w/the local lines or the ISP. I don't have to pay two separate bills. I don't have to call two separate companies when I want to cancel (signing up amazingly enough is dealt with through a central location in my experience).
I find DSL to be nothing but an overly expensive hassle at least in the areas I have lived (I realize that out west they seem comparable to Cable, if not better). I despise Comcast and what they have to done to dominate the local market but at least I can hate one company w/o a doubt rather than having to play catch the monkey if you can w/DSL.
A bit longer article is here at ZDnet from 6/14/2004.
Further, the disclosure here was not to the public at large, but rather was to a government agency in the wake of a terrorist attack that called into question the security of the nation's transportation system.
I fail to see how any of this validates what NW did. Are we still in the wake of the terrorist attacks? Will this ruling stand as a blanket ruling which will allow further intrusions on our privacy?
- no tabbed browsing ... etc etc.
- no native pop up control
- no caret browsing
- no form management
- no "block images from..." feature
I have used tabbed browsing. I don't find it an attractive feature. I don't know why everyone seems to believe it to be the best thing out there but I just don't need it. Another instance of IE is fine for what I do.
Pop-up control is a bit of a hassle but Google's toolbar stopped that stuff for me and added Google to my toolbar. I understand that a browser would be better with it but it certainly not necessary.
I don't know what caret browsing or form management is. I can't imagine that Joe Blow would need it if I (as a regular Slashdot whore) don't know what it is.
I don't need "block images from..." I guess ads are a pain in the ass. Most users just deal with them. It's certainly not something I would require in a browser to make it functional.
I guess we differ on our opinions of what is necessary. I think easy configuration, BEST configuration out of the box, and 100% perfect rendering on ALL pages being most important. Firefox/Mozilla don't offer those things to me.
I have used Netscape, Mozilla, FireFox, Opera, and various other browsers that really don't even count.
IE, because of general adoption of its own capabilities (standardized or not), the best browser I have used.
It's fast, it's stable, and I don't have any problems viewing any pages out there. Not once did I have to stare at lines that had different sized links than the rest of the text (no/bad css or not). Not once did I have to goto about:config to change some strange options to make it render differently/faster.
I know that this goes against the general consensus of the rest of Slashdot but IE is, for what 98% of the world, the best browser out there.
Why can I not drag the URL bar (and google bar) up to the menu bar like I can in IE?
Why do pages not look right in Firefox? Links are a different size than the rest of the line. I have tried to change the font size to make it exactly the same as the text size as IE but it doesn't seem right.
I just can't see myself switching when it just doesn't work the way I am used to.
Well, the editors just have it backwards... They read the articles they just don't read Slashdot.
it probably makes for a good sign/precident for 'other things' to be eliminated from the Internet. (Be it pirated files, porn, 'ideas that my citizens shouldn't be having', etc.)
I am certain that's exactly what they are looking to do. They do plenty of law making that is questionable but it falls under the guise of protection or something that is "good" for us.
We all nod our heads in unison as they wipe away the rights of terrorists because afterall, we're not terrorists. We all nod in unison as they give us national ID numbers because, afterall, it's so much easier to just use that rather than having this card and that card and that card, right? We all nod our heads in unison as they eliminate our rights to privacy because, afterall, when you're in a public place you shouldn't have the right to privacy -- you should have your every movement tracked by a central governing body, right?
Slippery slope.
Aww, I have a fan club! Thanks AC! This is the greatest day of my life!
Oh wait.
Wow, I really hope that they didn't put those 32 processors and 56GB of DDR RAM into use for this. Sounds like they should have read this article instead. Maybe it would have been cooler and not so grainy!
It's pretty tough to argue with a legal listen for 1-2 cents (exchange rate varies). I bet that 50-100 times is about as many as I could listen to a song before I'm bored of it anyways, and for 99 cents I can get either that, or I can own the song. Plus, unscrupulous listeners could always record the stream!
It was also pretty tough to argue w/99 cents when iTunes came out unless you were the RIAA "trying to protect your artists'".
How long do you seriously believe that the money-grubbing music cartels are going to let these low prices go before they jack it up to something far more attractive to their wallets?
The only price worth paying is free. Free monitarily, free codecs, and free distribution.
I was using abuse@comcast.com. They ignore my emails to them about all the worms hitting my boxes daily so I figured they just sent everything to /dev/null. My spam won't hurt.
i have seen that, but perhaps i haven't clearly explained my point. if there is a market, that is, if people care, someone will produce tires that don't have RFID tags in them. if enough people care, nobody will put RFID tags in them.
Perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly enough for you... The government feels it is a priviledge for us to ride on "their" roads. Thus they will mandate the RFID tags be tied to our VINs.
the government's never going to say (knock on wood) that all clothes or shoes or whatever must have RFID tags, so it's really not something to worry about.
Perhaps you should see this then. Maybe that will open your eyes.
Speeding tickets in the mail, realtime tracking of all vehicles, and no privacy.
But, but, driving is a priviledge! Sorry but the government was never meant to be my parent no matter how much they would like. But, but, our roads will be safe from escaping terrorism suspects and speeders!
It seems to me that maybe one of the reasons RFID tags are in such widespread use now is the fact that the patent did expire so other companies were free to implement their own uses for it.
Nah, they are in widespread use because there is now more technology to read them. People are less aware and disgusted by intrusive technology (some even think it's fucking good for them -- ooh, but the ones inbedded in tires will make our roads safer w/o us having to actually have real police out there patroling!)
The only way that the public will revolt against instrusive technologies is if it somehow keeps them from watching Survivor.
and I can get through ClearChannel's "indecency measures."
Please don't be confused. As much as I despise ClearChannel and what they have done to radio it isn't ALL good 'ol Red's fault.
Remember what government agency that shouldn't have power over "decency" does and what they made CC do.
Am I the only one that sees something wrong with donation and tax-subsidized radio being locked up in these sorts of formats?
No! For God's sake boy! What are you thinking?! Just because you pay for it either directly or indirectly doesn't mean you should have free access to the content.
Remember, that would be communist.
And don't forget that the second installment of the ever so popular Shrek series was the fastest animated movie to break $300 million (and it is also the highest grossing one after beating out Nemo)
Shrek 2 has broken the record for the highest grossing animated film of all time and has beaten its predecessor to do so.
Shrek 2 earned a not too shabby $346.5 million as of June 12, passing Finding Nemo which has made $339.8 million to date. Shrek 2 did it just 25 days after release. Shrek 1 made $267 million at the box office.
Claiming that Windows users "don't care" just because they're Windows users is incorrect, to say the least. How can people mod that as insightful? Generalization like that should be discouraged as it is not constructive, but some actually reward it... Quite puzzling to me..
This is puzzling to you? Hmm, I am more puzzled by the fact that entire COMPANIES went down when some of the worms started spreading because of unpatched systems that should have been patched MONTHS (almost a year IIRC) before.
Now, if you are at a COMPANY and your system goes unpatched it's because the IT department there either doesn't believe the possible threat or does NOT care.
You read obviously read Slashdot therefore you are not a typical Windows user. You know about vunerabilities and even if Windows didn't tell you about them you'd still have an idea of what to watch out for (and possibly fix). My generalization is 100% dead on accurate. Most Windows users do not care, are afraid to patch, or just don't know.
There are goods and bads, however, the information is readily available. There are patches that "work", even before a full explanation is available.
This is how it always was. So? MS has plenty of patches out there for known vunerabilities (sometimes faster than others). Does it matter? NO. You know why? Windows users don't tend to care. They don't read Windows news sites daily, they don't subscribe to mailing lists that send out warnings as soon as a vunerability is found. They don't patch when Windows tells them to.
You know why? They don't care, they don't want to "break" anything, or they don't even know that the little icon in their taskbar is any different from their 1000 other ones in the tray.
Get aptitude and be done w/your problems. It has automatically corrected errors in package dependencies that apt-get didn't. It shows progress bars and it seems to be updated pretty frequently (twice since I started using it about 6 months ago).
It's also free.
Retail-box is also useless because one order mandrake and fedore CD from chapbytes.com and host of other websites for less $$
I know plenty of people who don't believe that any piece of software that is downloaded is of any worth. Retail boxes are the only way that these users will buy a piece of software.
Backwards perhaps, more expensive certainly, but that's the way they feel comfortable.