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User: Jonathan+Quince

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Comments · 63

  1. Re:Split the components of Office? on Israel v. Microsoft, Next Round · · Score: 2, Interesting
    On the box they used to be shaped like jigsaw puzzle pieces, it can't be hard to separate them.

    But back then, IIRC, you could buy them as separate components. And now that you can't, the logo is different; it's all connected together as one big set of loops for Office 2003. Hmmm...

  2. Re:still no hebrew support in MS Office for mac on Israel v. Microsoft, Next Round · · Score: 1

    Any decent desktop application nowadays has bidi support. Office 2000 (especially Word) had a lot of bugs in that regard, but they seem to have shaken them out in Office XP and up for Windows. So why can't they get it together for the Mac version?

    Of course, Windows (starting with Windows 2000) has excellent system-level features that help programmers handle Unicode, bidi, mirroring, etc. I have no idea whether or not the Mac platform makes a similar effort to facilitate i18n/l10n. Any Mac programmers around here care to comment about that?

    As for nikkudim (vowel markings), I don't see how support could be substantially more complicated than for accented Latin characters. (Though I haven't tried, so I could be wrong.)

  3. Windows uses SCO Code (sort of) on SCO Approaches Google About Linux Licenses · · Score: 1

    I use Windows, and Windows supposedly has some FreeBSD code, and FreeBSD sounds like it could be one of those nasty Linux-like, UNIX-like, *nix-like operating systems (or something)...

    Uh-oh. That ought to be close enough for SCO's legal team to take aim. I am calling my lawyer immediately for counsel.

  4. Still wrong about <abbr> and <acronym> on AOL Now Publishing SPF Records · · Score: 1

    w3schools.com is hardly the be-all end-all authority on HTML semantics. In fact, I'd say that a website that (as of 2004-01-09) uses tables for layout and <b> for navigation bar heading text wouldn't know what "semantic web" meant if it reared up and bit them in the you-know-where. (Go ahead, view the source.) The disclaimer on their homepage states, "W3Schools is for training only. We do not warrant the correctness of the content. The risk of using it remains entirely with the user." I'd listen to their disclaimer (and homepage joke-of-the-day) much more than their markup advice.

    Come on: A random link does not an argument make. I've seen horrible HTML tutorials "explain" how <blockquote> is used to indent text and <h1>, <h2>, et al are good for making text bigger and smaller. If "somebody wrote it on the Internet" links constitute an argument, though, I'd say that Web Design Group offers a much more reliable and better-thought explanation of <abbr> and <acronym>.

    Also, note that the W3's homepage itself uses <abbr> and <acronym> as I described, with the incomprehensible exception of their copyright-footer link to the name of the W3 itself. Their entire homepage navbar marks up abbreviations such as "HTML", "CSS", and "XMLP" using <abbr> while reserving <acronym> for pronounceable formulations such as "SMIL" and "SOAP". (Again: View the source.) I'd say that if any page has been extensively tested using a diverse spectrum of user-agents (including aural browsers and experimental semantic web applications), the W3's homepage is probably the benchmark to be exceeded.

    As for the formal specs and other documentation (which really ought to be referenced here), I'm way too lazy to dig through them for a random /. argument. But that's ok, since another poster already took a decent crack at it. :-)

    But the central issue remains: Assuming that <abbr> and <acronym> are to be used as you say, they're semantically indistinguishable and therefore redundant. I say that each has its own correct discrete usage. <acronym> is for acronyms, which are pronounceable by definition and often words in and of themselves (e.g., Web Design Group's example of "radar"). <abbr> is for other abbreviations, including unpronounceable initialisms, which cannot be pronounced or used as whole words in their own right. This is an important practical distinction for Web robots and aural browsers.

    HTH.

  5. Wrong. (Re:Nitpick (Re:Tag it)) on AOL Now Publishing SPF Records · · Score: 1
    It seems you don't know what an acronym is...

    We could now start a flamewar over acronyms v. initialisms. But if I wanted to engage in such a puerile waste of time, I'd go argue gun control and evolution on Usenet; and besides, it would be irrelevant to the parent comment. So instead, I'll merely point out that the tags <acronym> and <abbr> have semantically discrete meanings.

    <acronym> is intended to be used for pronounceable formulations. <abbr> is for unpronounceable strings. Sometimes it's a judgment call - for example, some people pronounce "SQL" as a word and some don't - but two different tags exist for a reason. There will probably be other good reasons if/when somebody actually creates more widespread applications that use robotic parsing of semantic markup.

    Users of aural browsers will thank you for honoring this distinction.

  6. Nitpick (Re:Tag it) on AOL Now Publishing SPF Records · · Score: 1

    "SPF" is not an acronym. The proper tag is:

    <abbr title="Sender Permitted From">SPF</abbr>

  7. Corporate Petty Politics on TiVo sues EchoStar for Patent Infringement · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does anybody know if there is any kind history between the two companies?

    According to the articles, Echostar has been offering DVR-like capabilities for awhile now; the suit is just based on some of their latest features. And obviously, TiVo has also been in this business for some time. Echostar offers the product with a service, and TiVo offers the product as their primary line of business. In this type of situation, it's only natural that one might approach the other and propose some kind of deal.

    Is there any chance that there is a history of offers/solicitations between the two companies, and that TiVo filed the suit because of being rebuffed?

    (Disclaimer for the attorneys: This is just wild speculation based on the "sniff test". As in, this suit just seems to be a bit too much from the clear blue sky...)

  8. Men are from Mars, Women are from... on First High-Res Color Photos from Mars · · Score: 1
    Mars should be OK. Just watch out for pics of Uranus.

    And I've heard that although she is beautiful to look at, Venus unclothed is positively toxic.

  9. Re:What are they censoring? on First High-Res Color Photos from Mars · · Score: 4, Funny
    Is there something there that NASA doesn't want us to see?

    Hot, green-skinned, six-breasted Martian stripper girls. They're just walking around the place, hitting on any robotic landers that they see in the hopes of starting a very long-distance relationship. Watch out, because before long, mail-order brides from Mars will be the next hot thing landing in your inbox.

    So of course they had to block parts out. We couldn't have government resources used to transmit pr0n, now could we?

  10. Telecommuting no good. We're back to 1800 now. on First High-Res Color Photos from Mars · · Score: 1
    Maybe I could talk my boss into letting me telecommute a couple of days a month...

    The lag is going to be hellish. Anything approaching real-time communication (telephone, IRC, etc.) is going to be impossible (unless, that is, we find a way to supercede the speed of light).

    Once the global society goes interplanetary, there will be some interesting social changes involved. Mostly it'll be like rolling back to the early (pre-telegraph) 1800s and before, although SMTP will still work faster than Pony Express.

  11. And the dual moonrises will be so romantic... on First High-Res Color Photos from Mars · · Score: 2, Funny

    Wow, such beautiful looking virgin terrain. The views are breathtaking, and the vast redness of the soil gives it a warm and cozy atmosphere.

    It just makes the real estate developer in me itch for action.

  12. If an OS were an Automobile... on Windows 98 Phased Out · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Darn that Micro$oft. They're ending support for a long-discontinued product that plenty of people are still using!

    I'm just glad that General Motors still manufactures genuine GM replacement parts for my '85 Chevy. Oh, wait; no, they don't, even though I still occasionally see people driving '85 Chevies around (especially since I live near a college town).

    Now please excuse me while I bring my Model T to my local Ford dealership for a tuneup and a shiny new black paint job.

    Seriously, no company in any industry will offer eternal support of discontinued products. And while Windows 98 might not seem that old, the computer industry's product lifecycles do move at a substantially faster rate than most others'.

    Sure, I'll be running to archive some patches to CD, and so will a lot of other people who are reading this; I do have friends and relatives still on 98. But I still don't fault Microsoft for choosing not to flush their support and development dollars down the toilet. I'd much rather see the significant resources needed to commercially support an old operating system go towards improving current and future versions of Windows. After all, Windows XP SP2 will be much more useful to me than Windows 98 Third Edition would be.

  13. Few buy from spam anyway, but that's irrelevant. on The Battle Against Junk Mail and Spyware · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The boycott you propose has already been around for a long time. It's called the "Boulder Pledge". Unfortunately, it doesn't work.

    The people who advertise through spam are fly-by-night operations. They typically hope to make a quick buck by shoving a message at a million people and getting a 0.0001% conversion rate. (Do the math.) Often they aren't even the ones with products to sell; rather, they're "basement operations" with little in the way of resources or business sense hawking merchandise on behalf of the less-reputable amongst affiliate programs.

    The people who make the real money off spam don't make the money selling stuff through spam. Instead, they get paid by aforementioned fly-by-nights to send the spam. They are the few fat sleazeballs sitting at the top of the pyramid being supported by everybody else. Just ask Alan Ralsky (if you can get a letter through to him under the massive number of catalogues he receives).

    This convoluted chain of middlemen is the reason why normal market forces haven't stamped out spam, even though spam is net unprofitable. Losers pour money into the spam system and are dealt out of the game with a high turnover rate; but there are always enough new losers coming in to keep the system afloat. Meanwhile, professional scam artists know every trick in the book to squeeze money out of an activity that truthfully causes a net loss for everybody else involved.

    From the fly-by-nighters lured in by the promise of easy riches and duped into paying hard cash for spam advertising to the victimized ISPs and end users who have server, bandwidth, and support costs shifted to them, everybody else comes out in the red anyway. So how, exactly, is a boycott supposed to work?