While initially, it may seem that Microsoft may not be able to use its OS leverage against Google because it is a server-based application, perhaps the precense of Microsoft IIS market share may have influence. They have already demonstrated that, despite the open standards of the web, they still attempt to lock-in users to their software.
Microsoft may somehow enable websites hosted on IIS to work with their search engine more efficiently than the way Google works with regular sites. Even though IIS doesn't have majority market share, it still has 22.68% at the moment. This still may be an advantage. Google does provide a search appliance for intranets and public websites, which probably integrates with the main Google search engine (I'm just guessing). But I doubt Google search appliances are anywhere near as commonplace as IIS servers.
What you see as a conspiracy is actually two companies with different business models.
That may be so, but in the big picture, Apple and "Wintel" are in direct competition with each other. Just think about all the computer manufacturers from the 80's with their own OSes that went under, like Commodore and Atari. They all couldn't compete against the Wintel industry. Apple would have gone under as well if they didn't get an infusion of $150 million from Microsoft in 1997.
One of the factors that drove companies under was the lack of third party software and peripherals. A cross-platform OS with a good market share could eliminate this problem for computer manufacturers, provided peripheral drivers could also be cross-platform. According to a previous post, Apple was looking into an intel version of their OS up until the point Microsoft invested in them. Apple wouldn't have done so if they didn't see it as an avenue they might have to take.
Who the hell wants some crappy camcorder-made copy of a movie, anyways?
For regions where movies haven't been released in the theaters yet, bootleg videos are the only way to see the most recent Hollywood movies. There is a demand for bootleg videos in these regions because of this, since there usually aren't video copies of the movies available from the studios that they can copy.
Ah, nostalgia! I remeber being a kid in the school computer club. We split into two groups according to what kind of computers we owned, kind of like sports fans. There were people who had Apple ]['s and those that had Commodore 64's, who were nicknamed "commies". It was sadistically funny, considering the cold war.
There must be something going on behind the scenes where Apple and Microsoft have made a deal to keep their operating systems on separate platforms. If Apple released an OS for the intel platform, Microsoft could probably easily release a version of Windows for Mac hardware. That would be a head-on confrontation worth watching.
Ironically, when Pink came out, IBM still had leverage with OS/2, so they still had some influence over the intel platform. If Apple and IBM both adopted Pink, they would probably have had an opportunity to curb Microsoft's dominance, compared to the chances of that happening today. Apple probably didn't release Rhapsody for intel because they knew it was too late. Maybe they just used it as a bargaining chip, the way Microsoft uses the threat of discontinuing Office for the Mac.
It's a shame to see corporate politics get in the way of producing better software. Pink, Rhapsody, Java... all the promises of cross-platform programs have never happened. Consumers should be able to go into a store and buy an application that would work on any platform, but as usual, benefits are skewed in favor of the corporatioins rather than the consumer.
I would have no idea. I just knew of it from reading about it a long time ago. In fact, there seems to be surprisingly little information about it on the web.
Do apps that install without administrator passwords have limited access to the filesystem so they can't cause damage? I thought OS X forced all installations to require password authorisation, and I'm not familiar with installations that bypass that process.
I found it really disconcerting to see an application launch in the dock just from clicking on a Flash dialogue box in a browser, because I presumed it could do whatever it wanted to my system. I'm just not comfortable with binaries being installed and launching so easily as a regular application in that manner.
Flash content also can't be searched using search engines either. I have found that to be really detrimental. Google can handle html, pdf, and doc file formats for searches, but not swf.
If you post your entire website using flash, you won't be getting people who come across it through search engines. That's really important when you forget the domain name of a certain site with information that you want to revisit. I've never thought of flash as a good way for designing a website because of that reason specifically. You can forget how well your website ranks in search engine results because it won't show up at all.
Email encryption should be a standard active feature in email programs along with digital signatures. That way, average users would be using it by default. Perhaps this would also be a way of dealing with spam, by confirming "reply to" addresses, or through some other method.
I never thought unencrypted email was secure anyway considering how it bounces around from node to node until it reaches it's final destination. Not only would ISPs be able to read it, but any node it passed through could as well.
I'm also not too surprised that courts would rule in favor of ISPs, even though I think it's wrong. Email stored on a company's server is legally considered the property of the company and not the recipient, so your employer has the right to go through your email on their computers. Technically, it would seem to be the same situation with ISPs. Frankly, I think email should be treated with the same privacy concerns as snail mail.
Around the early 90's, Apple developed a prototype operating system called Pink, which they later spun off into a company called Taligent, with the help of IBM and Hewlett Packard. Here is an old article about it and why it was canned. I remember reading something about how former Apple CEO John Scully gave a demonstration to some people of what looked like the Macintosh operating system running on a PC. As I recall it could run on both Mac and PC hardware platforms, and was designed in such a way that programmers could create programs that ran on both platforms through object-oriented programming. I purchased a book on it ages ago in which it was described as an "application system". It was meant to be a true cross-platform operating system.
I DO NOT want to be running code from web sites on my PC, sandbox or no sandbox.
I remeber a time when it was just common sense not to run code that way because it was a security risk. Even though they said it was secure, when Java first came out it had security holes and could steal information from you like your email address. The idea of allowing remote code to execute on your computer so easily just set off alarm bells for anyone with experience in programming, and should never have been adopted. All that should have come through web pages were file formats that the browser handled, just like file formats that applications handled (without things like embedded macros or code).
The funny thing is I recall word documents used to be the standard for distributing documents online ages ago, before the web, in the days of BBSes, Compuserve, and the pre-web AOL. Everyone had Word. I remember thinking that Word could display information better than Mosaic when it first came out, and I always thought that if Microsoft turned Word into a Web browser at that time, and used Word documents as the standard for web pages instead of HTML documents, they could have taken over the web at the very beginning rather than having to wrestle it away from Netscape. If they had any creativity and foresight, rather than blindly plagerising everything that is popular, that is what they should have done. It was such a no-brainer, I couldn't believe they missed it.
Macromedia Central is an application that can be installed through a web browser without having to download a package, restart the OS or the browser even, or get any OS authentication from the user. It even installs itself on OS X without asking for the administrator password the way everything else normally installs on OS X. I'm sure it can be used to install another browser, because it is pretty much a Flash browser independent of a web browser. I'm actually not to keen on the way it installs. It seems like a really big security hole just waiting to be exploited.
Maybe they're trying to get publicity for it, and will apply it later down the line to more than just web browsers. Active X works for other things too like databases, which is really useful. If Linux and Mac OS had a similar standard, it could be applied in other programs on both platforms. That kind of functionality is missing on both platforms at the moment, I think. Apple, IBM, and Lotus tried to establish OpenDoc ages ago but it didn't catch.
Macromedia must also be getting into this because Microsoft sees Flash as a threat to their control of the interface and plans to push their own standard, "Sparkle". Flash seems to have accomplished what Java applets were supposed to do on the web, providing a cross-platform programming language that actually works without interference from Microsoft, and can be used for more than just animation. Macromedia Central was supposed to allow Flash to be used for making applications that can work independently of a web browser, seamlessly across different platforms, but I don't know why that hasn't caught on either.
The second screen shot about the "Auto Scale mode" looks like a feature that works better than Expose on OS X. The thing I don't like about Expose is having to work with function keys or desktop hot corners in order to activate it. The Auto Scale mode looks like a version of Expose that runs while you are working, without having to resort to function keys or hot spots.
It looks like a feature in which the shrunken windows are visible around the normal size active window, without any overlapping. I presume switching between windows requires you to simply click on a shrunken window, which would resize it to normal and shrink the previously acitve one, kind of similar to Expose.
This also eliminates the need for a Task Bar, and would also have the advantage of actively showing the windows contents, rather than just representing a window with a Task Bar button. OS X can display a minimised window's contents in the dock, but this Auto Scale mode can display minimised window contents in a larger fashion, depending upon the space available on the screen.
I also presumed that Expose was OS X's answer to the Task Bar, because their dock didn't allow you to switch windows as efficiently as the Task Bar. This Auto Scale feature looks like something that is a combination of Expose and the Task Bar, but works better than both. I think this is a really innovative concept for window managers.
Slashdot Mirror
I just tried "antitrust microsoft" and got no results!
I just tried it and this is what I got...
The second attempt got results. The third got this message again. Subsequent attempts got results. I'm sure it's just a bug, but it's funny.
While initially, it may seem that Microsoft may not be able to use its OS leverage against Google because it is a server-based application, perhaps the precense of Microsoft IIS market share may have influence. They have already demonstrated that, despite the open standards of the web, they still attempt to lock-in users to their software.
Microsoft may somehow enable websites hosted on IIS to work with their search engine more efficiently than the way Google works with regular sites. Even though IIS doesn't have majority market share, it still has 22.68% at the moment. This still may be an advantage. Google does provide a search appliance for intranets and public websites, which probably integrates with the main Google search engine (I'm just guessing). But I doubt Google search appliances are anywhere near as commonplace as IIS servers.
Spidey sense isn't radar, it detects a threat
Yes, but the movie was Spider-Man 2 . Get it? Oh, nevermind.
I think we all realize that a teen in a theater with a camcorder isn't much of a threat
Tell that to the MPAA.
What you see as a conspiracy is actually two companies with different business models.
That may be so, but in the big picture, Apple and "Wintel" are in direct competition with each other. Just think about all the computer manufacturers from the 80's with their own OSes that went under, like Commodore and Atari. They all couldn't compete against the Wintel industry. Apple would have gone under as well if they didn't get an infusion of $150 million from Microsoft in 1997.
One of the factors that drove companies under was the lack of third party software and peripherals. A cross-platform OS with a good market share could eliminate this problem for computer manufacturers, provided peripheral drivers could also be cross-platform. According to a previous post, Apple was looking into an intel version of their OS up until the point Microsoft invested in them. Apple wouldn't have done so if they didn't see it as an avenue they might have to take.
Who the hell wants some crappy camcorder-made copy of a movie, anyways?
For regions where movies haven't been released in the theaters yet, bootleg videos are the only way to see the most recent Hollywood movies. There is a demand for bootleg videos in these regions because of this, since there usually aren't video copies of the movies available from the studios that they can copy.
Ah, nostalgia! I remeber being a kid in the school computer club. We split into two groups according to what kind of computers we owned, kind of like sports fans. There were people who had Apple ]['s and those that had Commodore 64's, who were nicknamed "commies". It was sadistically funny, considering the cold war.
using some super radar sense à la Daredevil
Don't you mean Spidey Sense ?
So you're suggesting we dump html and move to flash?
No.
If flash were made by microsoft and not macromedia I'm sure that you wouldn't be suggesting this.
I didn't suggest that.
There must be something going on behind the scenes where Apple and Microsoft have made a deal to keep their operating systems on separate platforms. If Apple released an OS for the intel platform, Microsoft could probably easily release a version of Windows for Mac hardware. That would be a head-on confrontation worth watching.
Ironically, when Pink came out, IBM still had leverage with OS/2, so they still had some influence over the intel platform. If Apple and IBM both adopted Pink, they would probably have had an opportunity to curb Microsoft's dominance, compared to the chances of that happening today. Apple probably didn't release Rhapsody for intel because they knew it was too late. Maybe they just used it as a bargaining chip, the way Microsoft uses the threat of discontinuing Office for the Mac.
It's a shame to see corporate politics get in the way of producing better software. Pink, Rhapsody, Java... all the promises of cross-platform programs have never happened. Consumers should be able to go into a store and buy an application that would work on any platform, but as usual, benefits are skewed in favor of the corporatioins rather than the consumer.
I would have no idea. I just knew of it from reading about it a long time ago. In fact, there seems to be surprisingly little information about it on the web.
Do apps that install without administrator passwords have limited access to the filesystem so they can't cause damage? I thought OS X forced all installations to require password authorisation, and I'm not familiar with installations that bypass that process.
I found it really disconcerting to see an application launch in the dock just from clicking on a Flash dialogue box in a browser, because I presumed it could do whatever it wanted to my system. I'm just not comfortable with binaries being installed and launching so easily as a regular application in that manner.
Flash content also can't be searched using search engines either. I have found that to be really detrimental. Google can handle html, pdf, and doc file formats for searches, but not swf.
If you post your entire website using flash, you won't be getting people who come across it through search engines. That's really important when you forget the domain name of a certain site with information that you want to revisit. I've never thought of flash as a good way for designing a website because of that reason specifically. You can forget how well your website ranks in search engine results because it won't show up at all.
Email encryption should be a standard active feature in email programs along with digital signatures. That way, average users would be using it by default. Perhaps this would also be a way of dealing with spam, by confirming "reply to" addresses, or through some other method.
I never thought unencrypted email was secure anyway considering how it bounces around from node to node until it reaches it's final destination. Not only would ISPs be able to read it, but any node it passed through could as well.
I'm also not too surprised that courts would rule in favor of ISPs, even though I think it's wrong. Email stored on a company's server is legally considered the property of the company and not the recipient, so your employer has the right to go through your email on their computers. Technically, it would seem to be the same situation with ISPs. Frankly, I think email should be treated with the same privacy concerns as snail mail.
... when there's all these damn slashdot comments to read through
Around the early 90's, Apple developed a prototype operating system called Pink, which they later spun off into a company called Taligent, with the help of IBM and Hewlett Packard. Here is an old article about it and why it was canned. I remember reading something about how former Apple CEO John Scully gave a demonstration to some people of what looked like the Macintosh operating system running on a PC. As I recall it could run on both Mac and PC hardware platforms, and was designed in such a way that programmers could create programs that ran on both platforms through object-oriented programming. I purchased a book on it ages ago in which it was described as an "application system". It was meant to be a true cross-platform operating system.
This pivots. It's only 21.3", though.
It's not the size that matters... it's how you use it
I DO NOT want to be running code from web sites on my PC, sandbox or no sandbox.
I remeber a time when it was just common sense not to run code that way because it was a security risk. Even though they said it was secure, when Java first came out it had security holes and could steal information from you like your email address. The idea of allowing remote code to execute on your computer so easily just set off alarm bells for anyone with experience in programming, and should never have been adopted. All that should have come through web pages were file formats that the browser handled, just like file formats that applications handled (without things like embedded macros or code).
The funny thing is I recall word documents used to be the standard for distributing documents online ages ago, before the web, in the days of BBSes, Compuserve, and the pre-web AOL. Everyone had Word. I remember thinking that Word could display information better than Mosaic when it first came out, and I always thought that if Microsoft turned Word into a Web browser at that time, and used Word documents as the standard for web pages instead of HTML documents, they could have taken over the web at the very beginning rather than having to wrestle it away from Netscape. If they had any creativity and foresight, rather than blindly plagerising everything that is popular, that is what they should have done. It was such a no-brainer, I couldn't believe they missed it.
Macromedia Central is an application that can be installed through a web browser without having to download a package, restart the OS or the browser even, or get any OS authentication from the user. It even installs itself on OS X without asking for the administrator password the way everything else normally installs on OS X. I'm sure it can be used to install another browser, because it is pretty much a Flash browser independent of a web browser. I'm actually not to keen on the way it installs. It seems like a really big security hole just waiting to be exploited.
I forgot to mention Flash has cross platform audio and video conferencing capabilities built-in as well.
Maybe they're trying to get publicity for it, and will apply it later down the line to more than just web browsers. Active X works for other things too like databases, which is really useful. If Linux and Mac OS had a similar standard, it could be applied in other programs on both platforms. That kind of functionality is missing on both platforms at the moment, I think. Apple, IBM, and Lotus tried to establish OpenDoc ages ago but it didn't catch.
Macromedia must also be getting into this because Microsoft sees Flash as a threat to their control of the interface and plans to push their own standard, "Sparkle". Flash seems to have accomplished what Java applets were supposed to do on the web, providing a cross-platform programming language that actually works without interference from Microsoft, and can be used for more than just animation. Macromedia Central was supposed to allow Flash to be used for making applications that can work independently of a web browser, seamlessly across different platforms, but I don't know why that hasn't caught on either.
The second screen shot about the "Auto Scale mode" looks like a feature that works better than Expose on OS X. The thing I don't like about Expose is having to work with function keys or desktop hot corners in order to activate it. The Auto Scale mode looks like a version of Expose that runs while you are working, without having to resort to function keys or hot spots.
It looks like a feature in which the shrunken windows are visible around the normal size active window, without any overlapping. I presume switching between windows requires you to simply click on a shrunken window, which would resize it to normal and shrink the previously acitve one, kind of similar to Expose.
This also eliminates the need for a Task Bar, and would also have the advantage of actively showing the windows contents, rather than just representing a window with a Task Bar button. OS X can display a minimised window's contents in the dock, but this Auto Scale mode can display minimised window contents in a larger fashion, depending upon the space available on the screen.
I also presumed that Expose was OS X's answer to the Task Bar, because their dock didn't allow you to switch windows as efficiently as the Task Bar. This Auto Scale feature looks like something that is a combination of Expose and the Task Bar, but works better than both. I think this is a really innovative concept for window managers.
What about this?