Perhaps they should contact Stevie B. He might have the old MSN blueprints handy from the mid nineties. I'm sure he'd be thrilled at having a second shot at replacing the internet.
"But Balmer's and corporate ego could not take that I guess."
More to the point, were Ballmer to Wall St and MS stockholders that they have spent 5 years and however many billions on Vista only to discover that it is a market total flop and that people prefer to keep using a Circa 2002 product then utter chaos would erupt.
Ummm, because it would have made the xbox cost a lot more perhaps?
Sony, being the primary driver for BD, had a vested interest in leveraging their expected sales in PS/3 units to build support for BD.
Microsoft had far less vested in HD-DVD (They were not its primary backer) and were more interested in competing with Sony in the console wars as opposed to the HD format wars.
Ahh, yes, because everyone wants to click on a html file and have it open up to source code in Dreamweaver instead of in a, you know, browser thingy.
And I fully understand why you would want to click on a png file and then wait 40+ seconds for the massive bloatfest that is Photoshop to open up just so they can look at a picture of their grandkids.
"Yes, if the minimum application fee is raised to at least the 6-figure level"
Good idea. Make sure that the only people who can afford to patent anything are the lawyers and the megacorps. I have no doubt that MS/IBM/HP et al would just love to cut out the small players from the system.
It's this sort of wrong-headed thinking that got us into this mess in the first place.
You know, it may shock you to learn that most people don't need any of that shit. In fact 99% don't even have the $2000 worth of extra software that is required for it to happen.
Umm, snail mail redirect costs you money. You don't get it for free. Most people only have their mail redirected for a short time to give them time to change their address registrations at all the places necessary. It doesn't go on in perpetuity.
And guess what! You can do the same thing with your email address right now! All you need to do is pay your isp rental on your old email address and have them redirect it for you. It'd probably cost lest than the postal service redirect too.
I'm sure you would be happy to do that? Or are you bitching because you can't get your email redirected for free?
I realise this, but there was one MAJOR difference. All phone numbers were owned by only a few telco companies and as such it was politically possible for them to be forced into providing cross provider portability or run the risk of losing their common carrier status ie licence.
The domain system is much different. There are hundreds of thousands of domains owned by almost as many individuals and companies. It is not politically or technically feasible to force some sort of email portability across domains without changing the fundamental nature of how dns currently works.
Why should I (as an email admin) be forced to allow people to use the domain name that I legally own for free? Am I required to maintain some sort of forwarding list on my mail server of all the people for which I am required to forward mail to? Do I do this for free? If my server crashes and the list is lost am I held legally liable? Who is responsible for tracking where email for my domain should go? Me? The government? Which government?
Should the entire planets email-address-to-ip-address-cross-reference-table be stored in some central servers somewhere? Where? Who pays?
Yeah, sure. What you are suggesting is that I should be able to move house from one country/city/town/suburb but still be able to receive the mail sent to my old home address*. It's an utterly retarded idea.
When you use an @domain symbol your dns server directs the query to the server that is responsible for that domain. ie, the server operated by (or on behalf of) the owner of the domain.
If you want email portability then you can register your own domain. It's really quite simple.
If you don't want to do that then guess what, you can get an email address on somebody elses domain. If you choose to move from their domain you don't retain any rights to continue using a domain name that you don't own
How is that difficult to understand?
Honestly, sometimes I think we need a better class of geeks on slashdot. Is Digg down at the moment?
* Yes, I realise that you can do a temporary mail redirect but this costs money and is very resource intensive. If *everyone* tried to do this in perpetuity then the system would be completely unworkable, both logistically as well as inuitively.
erm, the fact that you contracted a "small malaysian company" (which I assume produced custom, proprietary, non-open software for you) is the reason you are locked in. It is this lockin that makes it necessary for you to pay them (and only them) for a "support subscription" post purchase.
The subscription does not create the lockin, it is the end result of the lockin. If you bought an open standards based (or even widely deployed proprietary off-the-shelf) solution then you would have no lockin problem and you could then subscribe to the support service from whatever vendor you choose to.
"Assuming I stick with a MS OS, of course. I like gaming too much at the moment to NOT have a microsoft OS."
I've been pretty much this way for about 8 years now, but as I get older I find that I have less inclination to play games. Maybe it's because games these days seem to be all glitz and no substance (much like Hollywood) or maybe I'm just reaching "auld phart" status, I dunno.
I still do get the urge to play the occasional game though, I've been playing Quake 4 a bit lately which runs natively on Linux. A few other games work using Wine or Cedega (far less than some people will have you believe though). Both Call Of Duty and C&C Generals both worked fine (CoD would hang on exit but apart from that was excellent). Lots of other stuff just won't work at all of course, so I simply don't bother. I couldn't be bothered maintaining a dual-boot environment just for the sake of a few games.
I'm thinking of maybe getting a Wii for games anyway, but then again I have an xbox and I only ever play that with my son so . . . .
"I do not understand what you are saying. They do not issue patents for finding and identifying the chemical structure and physical properties of compounds found in nature."
Ummm, no. A sensible person might believe this, but since the beginning of the nineties it has been common practice to patent the discovery of genes. As in "I have identified a gene that (allegedly) determines who will be fat and I am patenting it". Things such as this so-called "fat gene" are naturally occurring but nevertheless companies are falling over themselves to patent (the discovery of) their existence. This is happening now, there is no invention at all, just a discovery of a naturally occurring substance.
Do a google search for "gene patents" or read Michael Crichtons "Next" novel for more details.
The problem is not so much that MS has an OS and browser monopoly so much as that they have a monopoly on OEM bundling.
To destroy Microsoft, all one would need to do is;
1) Disallow Volume Discounts to OEMS. A standard price for Windows for all.
2) Disallow "Exclusivity" clauses in OEM contracts. OEMS should be allowed to sell whatever OS they care to without penalty.
3) Stop hiding the cost of Windows in the price of the PC. The PC hardware should be offered at $X and the purchaser then offered a selection of OS and support options to choose from.
4) Force MS to adopted accepted industry standards and disallow the use of proprietary protocols and formatswhich are designed solely as a means to lock in users to the Microsoft platform.
Do these things and Microsoft's "monopoly" would disappear within a couple of years.
My GF sent me an email the other day with an attached word document with the tag that it was "amazing".
I tried to open it in OO on linux and got a blank screen.
So I boot to Windows and open it in Word
Seems that it is simply a Flash animation embedded in a Word document, which gives rise to two questions;
1) Why the hell would somebody embed a flash animation in a fricking word document?
2) Why in the name of all that is holy is Word even capable of rendering Flash?
It is no fricking wonder that the MS Windows+Office platform is such a successful malware attractant when all their apps are capable of doing completely inapproriate things with inappropiate data.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmmm, maybe you could try Richie Sambora then?
Actually, it is more like a high tech version of the old Russian Samizdat during the Soviet era.
Perhaps they should contact Stevie B. He might have the old MSN blueprints handy from the mid nineties. I'm sure he'd be thrilled at having a second shot at replacing the internet.
"But Balmer's and corporate ego could not take that I guess."
More to the point, were Ballmer to Wall St and MS stockholders that they have spent 5 years and however many billions on Vista only to discover that it is a market total flop and that people prefer to keep using a Circa 2002 product then utter chaos would erupt.
Actually, 'ie' stands for the latin term 'id est' or 'in other words'
Ummm, because it would have made the xbox cost a lot more perhaps?
Sony, being the primary driver for BD, had a vested interest in leveraging their expected sales in PS/3 units to build support for BD.
Microsoft had far less vested in HD-DVD (They were not its primary backer) and were more interested in competing with Sony in the console wars as opposed to the HD format wars.
Ahh, yes, because everyone wants to click on a html file and have it open up to source code in Dreamweaver instead of in a, you know, browser thingy.
And I fully understand why you would want to click on a png file and then wait 40+ seconds for the massive bloatfest that is Photoshop to open up just so they can look at a picture of their grandkids.
Get a grip.
"Yes, if the minimum application fee is raised to at least the 6-figure level"
Good idea. Make sure that the only people who can afford to patent anything are the lawyers and the megacorps. I have no doubt that MS/IBM/HP et al would just love to cut out the small players from the system.
It's this sort of wrong-headed thinking that got us into this mess in the first place.
"there's no way to slipstream or download those for the other 3 computers I'm installing later..."
You could use apt-cacher to save re-downloading it. I've got 4 machines here and only have to d'load any given update once.
You know, it may shock you to learn that most people don't need any of that shit. In fact 99% don't even have the $2000 worth of extra software that is required for it to happen.
Have got to agree with you there. Numb3rs has to be one of the most ludicrous techno-babble fests ever to show on TV.
I read it, thought what has IE got to do with anything and moved to the next post. The grammar lesson is valid.
Umm, snail mail redirect costs you money. You don't get it for free. Most people only have their mail redirected for a short time to give them time to change their address registrations at all the places necessary. It doesn't go on in perpetuity.
And guess what! You can do the same thing with your email address right now! All you need to do is pay your isp rental on your old email address and have them redirect it for you. It'd probably cost lest than the postal service redirect too.
I'm sure you would be happy to do that? Or are you bitching because you can't get your email redirected for free?
I realise this, but there was one MAJOR difference. All phone numbers were owned by only a few telco companies and as such it was politically possible for them to be forced into providing cross provider portability or run the risk of losing their common carrier status ie licence.
The domain system is much different. There are hundreds of thousands of domains owned by almost as many individuals and companies. It is not politically or technically feasible to force some sort of email portability across domains without changing the fundamental nature of how dns currently works.
Why should I (as an email admin) be forced to allow people to use the domain name that I legally own for free? Am I required to maintain some sort of forwarding list on my mail server of all the people for which I am required to forward mail to? Do I do this for free? If my server crashes and the list is lost am I held legally liable? Who is responsible for tracking where email for my domain should go? Me? The government? Which government?
Should the entire planets email-address-to-ip-address-cross-reference-table be stored in some central servers somewhere? Where? Who pays?
It's a ridiculous idea.
Yeah, sure. What you are suggesting is that I should be able to move house from one country/city/town/suburb but still be able to receive the mail sent to my old home address*. It's an utterly retarded idea.
When you use an @domain symbol your dns server directs the query to the server that is responsible for that domain. ie, the server operated by (or on behalf of) the owner of the domain.
If you want email portability then you can register your own domain . It's really quite simple.
If you don't want to do that then guess what, you can get an email address on somebody elses domain. If you choose to move from their domain you don't retain any rights to continue using a domain name that you don't own
How is that difficult to understand?
Honestly, sometimes I think we need a better class of geeks on slashdot. Is Digg down at the moment?
* Yes, I realise that you can do a temporary mail redirect but this costs money and is very resource intensive. If *everyone* tried to do this in perpetuity then the system would be completely unworkable, both logistically as well as inuitively.
You need to read up on how the internet naming works before you make such ridiculous assertions.
erm, the fact that you contracted a "small malaysian company" (which I assume produced custom, proprietary, non-open software for you) is the reason you are locked in. It is this lockin that makes it necessary for you to pay them (and only them) for a "support subscription" post purchase.
The subscription does not create the lockin, it is the end result of the lockin. If you bought an open standards based (or even widely deployed proprietary off-the-shelf) solution then you would have no lockin problem and you could then subscribe to the support service from whatever vendor you choose to.
Good grief, it's not rocket science you know.
"Assuming I stick with a MS OS, of course. I like gaming too much at the moment to NOT have a microsoft OS."
I've been pretty much this way for about 8 years now, but as I get older I find that I have less inclination to play games. Maybe it's because games these days seem to be all glitz and no substance (much like Hollywood) or maybe I'm just reaching "auld phart" status, I dunno.
I still do get the urge to play the occasional game though, I've been playing Quake 4 a bit lately which runs natively on Linux. A few other games work using Wine or Cedega (far less than some people will have you believe though). Both Call Of Duty and C&C Generals both worked fine (CoD would hang on exit but apart from that was excellent). Lots of other stuff just won't work at all of course, so I simply don't bother. I couldn't be bothered maintaining a dual-boot environment just for the sake of a few games.
I'm thinking of maybe getting a Wii for games anyway, but then again I have an xbox and I only ever play that with my son so . . . .
They are not doing it to improve safety, they are doing it to provide the perception of safety.
That's funny, cuz I was taken aback by it.
Now, where's me coat . . . . . .
You can add to that list Monsanto and all the other GM seed companies.
"I do not understand what you are saying. They do not issue patents for finding and identifying the chemical structure and physical properties of compounds found in nature."
Ummm, no. A sensible person might believe this, but since the beginning of the nineties it has been common practice to patent the discovery of genes. As in "I have identified a gene that (allegedly) determines who will be fat and I am patenting it". Things such as this so-called "fat gene" are naturally occurring but nevertheless companies are falling over themselves to patent (the discovery of) their existence. This is happening now, there is no invention at all, just a discovery of a naturally occurring substance.
Do a google search for "gene patents" or read Michael Crichtons "Next" novel for more details.
Big pharma spends more money on advertising and "executive reimbursement" than they do on actual research, they deserve no sympathy.
The problem is not so much that MS has an OS and browser monopoly so much as that they have a monopoly on OEM bundling.
To destroy Microsoft, all one would need to do is;
1) Disallow Volume Discounts to OEMS. A standard price for Windows for all.
2) Disallow "Exclusivity" clauses in OEM contracts. OEMS should be allowed to sell whatever OS they care to without penalty.
3) Stop hiding the cost of Windows in the price of the PC. The PC hardware should be offered at $X and the purchaser then offered a selection of OS and support options to choose from.
4) Force MS to adopted accepted industry standards and disallow the use of proprietary protocols and formatswhich are designed solely as a means to lock in users to the Microsoft platform.
Do these things and Microsoft's "monopoly" would disappear within a couple of years.
My GF sent me an email the other day with an attached word document with the tag that it was "amazing".
I tried to open it in OO on linux and got a blank screen.
So I boot to Windows and open it in Word
Seems that it is simply a Flash animation embedded in a Word document, which gives rise to two questions;
1) Why the hell would somebody embed a flash animation in a fricking word document?
2) Why in the name of all that is holy is Word even capable of rendering Flash?
It is no fricking wonder that the MS Windows+Office platform is such a successful malware attractant when all their apps are capable of doing completely inapproriate things with inappropiate data.
It beggars belief.