"So I would expect this to continue until someone with political clout (e.g. Clear Channel) is hurt; at that point there there will be a big brawl in Congress but again the individual consumer will not be at the negotiating table."
Ah yes, welcome to the New America. Of the Corporations, By the Corporations, and For the Corporations. And absolutely no one looking out for us mere "subjects."
That low-level whirring sound you hear from Massachusetts to Georgia is the sound of our Founding Fathers spinning in their graves.
"Companies are inhibiting innovation, Cerf said, by letting users receive information faster than they can send it."
There's an old saying: "Freedom of the press only applies to those who own one." Besides the issue of bandwith limits, most broadband ISPs block ports 21 and 80, and specifically prohibit running any sort of server, i.e., publishing on the web.
George Orwell's "1984" got one thing wrong: it's industry, not the government, that's now playing the role of Big Brother. In the US at least, this makes sense; the government is bound (well, to some degree) by the Constitution; corporations have no such limits on their behavior.
With fewer and fewer corporations controlling more and more of our lives, and with huge profits to apply towards influencing government policy, is it any wonder we're heading towards Dystopis, Inc.?
"In any case, software is _package_ based. Why do we still throw library files from different packages together in the same directory?!"
Um, well, cos that's the *idea*. Libraries are shared code, intended to be used by multiple programs/apps/packages.
"We should be able to completely remove software by simply removing a directory. I've heard MacOS does this, why can't Linux?"
That's the ideal on the mac, you're right. But in practice, it's seldom that easy.
On really old versions of the Mac, it was even simpler: an app was a single file that could be placed anywhere. All resources were built-in. Nothing was installed in the System directories, cos there wasn't one! Deleting an app meant dragging the one icon to the trash.
Just as the Mac OS got bigger, more sophisticated and more modular, necessitating it's own private directory, so did applications. They needed preference files, plug-ins, other optional components, etc., which generally went into the same directory as the application; so now applications had their own directories. Some large developers (Micro$oft, Adobe, Claris) tried to share common code and resources between their own apps, and generally put it in the new-fangled System Folder. Others built apps that depended on system extensions (think kernel modules), which likewise were installed into the System Folder amongst (and sometimes conflicting with) the Apple-supplied stuff.
By the time Mac OS 9 came out, things were outta hand. OS 8 (or 7, it's been a while) even introduced an Application Support folder in the System Folder, but developers generally ignored it. System stability was hard to acheive. Some suites, like MS Office, installed so many components in so many places that it was nearly impossible to uninstall, and nearly impossible to troubleshoot if something went wrong. It was getting as bad as Windows; many Mac power users simply clean-reinstalled their systems every six months or so. Whee.
Then came Steve Jobs. And Steve begat Mac OS X...
Mac OS X, as you probably know, is based on BSD (although with a Mach kernel). it's not straight-up BSD, though; there's no ports collection. Also, some directories have been moved and/or hidden from users. It does, however, have packages, and it's own proprietary package manager.
Actually, it has two types of package. One is the app package; like the Mac applications of old, this encapsulates the executable code and other resources into what appears to the user as a single file. (Actually, it's a directory, but the UI hides this from the user.) Installing these is trivially easy: drag and drop (or cp if you're into that). Not just for small utilities and the like, even MS Office installs this way. They can reside anywhere in the directory tree, within reason. Uninstallation is as easy as deleting the package file.
The other package type is the installer package; this uses a version of the NeXT installer to do dependency checking (rather badly, at this point) and handles the job of installing components into the right directories (system, library, user, etc). In general, it's only used for apps that require installation of system components.
In addition, many apps use their own installers, either becauuse of the deficiencies of Apple's installer, or just because they've Always Done It That Way (e.g. Adobe).
Ah, but then there's shared code and resources.
Like *nix, Mac OS X has shared libraries. Apple designed a sophisticated set of libraries, collections, frameworks and other system resources for all apps to use. These are, of course, hidden from the user. Since Apple designed the whole system, they also get to define the environment, so their system is more organized compared to the hodgepodge of libraries you see under *nix (although those *nix libraries are there too, if the user installs the optional BSD Subsystem and Developer Tools).
Fo sharing application resources, there's still the Application Support directory, and developers are actually using it these days. App code is kept very much separate from system code. IMHO it's a big improvement over *nix that way.
Well, DUH! :{D
on
Is RPM Doomed?
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· Score: 2, Informative
While I agree with the thrust of the article, it would be much more persuasive with a little more meat behind it.
"There is at least one distribution (ESware) that has moved from RPMs do DEBs, but I don't know of any movement in the opposite direction."
A little research into just how many distros have migrated one way or the other in, say, the last five years would be instructive.
"Similarly, there are many users who have moved from RPMs to DEBs, but very few who have chosen the opposite path."
This statement is pivotal to the article, but is completely unsupported by any hard numbers, and comes off overly broad. (Surely there must be have been SOME attempts to determine market share of the major distros?) Maybe you don't know anyone who's gone the other way, but I'm sure it happens.
That said, there's a lotta truth in this article. After a couple years of struggling with RPM Hell on Red Hat and later Mandrake & Yellow Dog, I've recently decided to switch over to FreeBSD (ports, yum!) on my server and Debian on the workstation.
Oh, as an aside, there's an implementation of deb/apt for Mac OS X and Darwin, called fink. Fink supports both binaries with apt-get/dselect, and source installs with their own ports-like tool. I know a number of people who run traditional Linux/Unix progs, including X Windows, The Gimp, KDE, etc., side-by-side with their regular Mac apps. Oh so very cool.
This is what irks me. The web is supposed to be platform-neutral, not built for IE. Mozilla, IMHO is doing the right thing by not making its browser conform to the skewed standards IE has set. I say let those pages that are "built for IE" look like crap.
Hey, I agree with you. In a perfect world, at least.
Problem is, in the Real World, MSIE is currently dominant, and the fact that Mozilla doesn't render IE-tuned sites exactly right is all the reason many people need to not use Mozilla.
So, sadly, CNET does have a point, however misplaced.
Let's not even discuss those misguided sites that use MS-specific technologies like ActiveX, or sniff browsers and refuse to accept anything but IE, like some banks...
"I just don't get it I guess, it just seems like there are already so many standards."
It makes a lot more sense if you look at the world market, and not just American business. SuSE is very strong in Europe, TurboLinux in Asia, and Connectiva in Latin America. El Reg has a good perspective on this.
Except not everyone ones some all-in-one privacy intruding box from MS... Why do I need to combine these into one box that doesn't do any of the 3 tasks particularly well?
Because if Micro$oft has it's way, you won't have any choice.
First, MS essentially owns your computer already. Once they institute Windows subscriptions, you'll hafta send Bill a check every month to keep reading and sending your email and browsing the Web. And the Xbox gives them experience in designing and marketing hardware; once Microsoft is no longer dependant on Dell and HPaq and IBM to build hardware, how long do you think they'll restrain themselves from chasing *them* outta business, too?
Second, they're gonna dump money into the Xbox till Nintendo and Sony are minority players. Developers have a bigger market with Xbox, so that's what they write to. It snowballs, till Xbox owns that space, too.
Third, M$ is already tight with the big media conglomerates, since they're willing to provide them the DRM-protected distribution systems they so desperately desire. The MPAA will keep suing "unprotected" PVR system makers till they're broke, but will almost certainly bless Microsoft's version because they trust it. MS PVR will be the only game in town.
"Oh," you say, "I can always just run Linux and access this stuff via the Internet." Sure, until Microsoft expands their proprietary "gaming" network to handle all that DRM-managed media, chat, software updates, etc. etc. etc. in addition to online gaming, until all the goodies are only on the MS Internet(TM).
If you think this is all just about trying to sell games, you're sadly mistaken.
Remember, it's not a SQL worm, it's a MS SQL Server worm. It's not an email virus, it's an MS Exchange/Outlook virus. It's not a web server worm, it's a MS IIS worm.
While I'm usually against shooting the messenger, the computing public really should start holding Microsoft accountable for their shoddy security practices, and the damage they cause.
"Cut out the middleman?" There ya go.
on
Fair IP Laws?
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· Score: 1
What laws can be written that will be fair both to content creators and to users, while cutting the middleman?
You just answered your own question.
IMHO, the single easiest improvement would be to forbid corporate entities from owning copyrights they themselves did not create. The creator of the intellectual property should retain sole ownership; they may licence others to make use of their work, but the creator should always have complete rights to their own creations.
Um, that was one of my points. The actual resource load from IE is actually higher than indicated. However, since Micro$oft has gone to such great lengths to prevent you from removing IE, it's really a moot point. Those resources are just plain lost.
I also noted that IE isn't very good at releasing memory if you browse with several open windows and later close them. Which is born out by my experience that extended surfing sessions using IE eventually result in the machine slowing to a crawl, requiring me to quit IE (or sometimes even log off / log back on) after a while.
Considering how "tightly integrated" into the OS it is, you'd think it'd be better behaved than that.
I gave your comment a little more thought, and came to the conclusion that you're comparing apples to oranges as far as RAM is concerned. You may have had 50MB used / 30MB free, but that's *physical* allocation. I was quoting from Win2K's Task manager, which states *virtual* RAM utilization. Your Mozilla may have well been allocating the same 24MB virtual as mine, and simply had most of it swapped out. On an 80MB mahine, that's pretty much a certainty, in fact.
If you wanna use Mozilla, hey, I'm down with that. I like Mozilla, a LOT, but not on my low-end machines.
But if you haven't installed and tried Opera side by side with it and MSIE, like I did, then please refrain from attacking my empirical results with complete non-sequiturs. If you wanna do the work, come up with your own numbers, THEN we can talk, m'kay?
Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion, no matter how wrong it may be;{D
For the record, my tests were done on a Toshiba Portege 7000, 266MHz PII, 160MB RAM, Win2K. In other words, a reasonably modern OS, although on somewhat less than state-of-the-art hardware. Win98 might lead to different results. YMMV. I wouldn't let that abomination anywhere near my Wintel machines.
Yeah, I didn't have the *exact* numbers handy when I originally posted that, but now that I'm home and can review my notes, it turns out I remembered them correctly to within a meg or two on all numbers quoted. Not bad at my age.
Besides, if you actually read what I wrote, you'd notice that even if I was off 5MB or so, it's *quite* clear that Mozilla is a bit of a pig, the combination of IE and OE are surprisingly wasteful of resources (especially once you start opening windows; what the heck does IE *do* with all that RAM?), and Opera kicks all their butts.
If you really wanna quibble about inches when I'm talking yards, that's your perogative, but it doesn't really add much to the discussion.
You might be right about the scrolling being a mere setting issue; but it was the most concrete example I could think of off the top of my head of my favorite Opera feature: it's responsiveness on low-end machines. The other PC I run Opera on is an ancient HP Pentium 166, and it's slick as snot even on that creaky old iron. Mozilla lasted about two days on there before I uninstalled it.
As for DOM support, I never claimed Opera was perfect. IMHO it's no worse than IE 4, for which I also develop. Of course, I also have to support Netscape 4, so I'm very careful what DOM features I try to use. That said, I've been quite pleased by Opera's compatibility. No complaints here. If you like to live on the bleeding edge, yeah, you might find more glitches than me, but hey, it's your choice. Newsflash for ya: lotsa users *aren't* running Mozilla, Netscape 6, or MSIE6. If you wanna alienate them, that's also your perogative.
If you want to use a free browser, fine. No one's stopping you. If you want to use the Browser of the Beast, with all its security woes and dubious privacy policies, more power to ya. I happen to think that a solid, high-performance, standards-compliant browser that gives me more control is worth a few bucks. To each his own.
OK, I agree with you, up to a point... but no further.
Microsoft is in the dominating position they are because they've spent the last 20 years looking over their shoulders, competing not only against real competitors, but against potential competitors.
Open Source projects like OpenOffice give Sun a reason to excel. Sure, you could cheap out and buy OO, if $76 is too rich for you... but you give up Sun's support if you do. Sun needs to charge for their version, and to justify that, they offer superior support. You *do* get something for your money.
It's evolution: basic software *will* become commoditized. Yeah, it makes things a bit rougher for Sun and their business plan, but it also keeps them honest. They're forced to offer some added value to what' otherwise a commodity, if they want to make a buck. The big winner is, of course, the customer, who gets a better product, if they're willing to pay for it.
This isn't new. Open Source, freeware, shareware, in-house-written stuff... there's always been a cheaper solution for almost any software problem you can name. In the end you get what you pay for.
In another post, someone is bemoaning how Opera, which previously shipped on a single floppy, has added too much bloat.
Bloat? BLOAT? PuhLEEZE.
Try this on Windoze: from a fresh log-in launch Opera, Mozilla, Internet Exploder and Outlook Express. Then press ALT-CTL-DEL, and click Task Manager, then click the Processes tab. Then take a look at how much RAM each is eating up.
I did this at home, so I don't have the exact numbers handy, but as I recall Mozilla ate about 24MB, IE 7MB, OE 13MB (yikes!), and Opera 6 about 7MB.
That's with no sites loaded. Now open up some good, large, complex pages; I tried Slashdot, Salon, CNN, and a few others, the same sites in each browser. In OE, Opera and Mozilla, go sign onto my IMAP email server, just for good measure. Now Mozilla uses 30+MB, IE is up over 20MB, OE is still eating 13MB or so, and Opera is using... about 12MB. Not too shabby.
Now close all the browser windows and log off email. Guess what? Moz is back to 24MB, Opera's back to 7MB, OE still hasnt' changed much, but IE is still sucking down 24MB. Nice garbage collection there, Microsoft.
When you consider that A) Opera provides the functionality of IE *and* OE, and B) some of IE/OE's resource usage is hidden in assorted other "OS" DLLs, Which one is bloated again?
Oh, one last little test... open up a loooong site in each (nice fat thread on Slashdot at Score:0 will do it), then press and hold the down arrow key and see how long it takes to scroll to the bottom. Opera is about twice as fast as Mozilla, and about half again as fast as IE. Add in Opera's industry-best standards compliance and rendering speed, what's not to like?
Mac OS X? Piece of cake. Drag the MSIE icon to the trash, Empty Trash. Thanks to OS X's application bundles, the entire app in there under that one icon. Couldn't be easier.
First of all, I'm not in the market for Wintel; I was talking Macs. See my other reply.
Secondly, I'm not sure I'd want rez that high, anyhow. I do graphics and web work, so I need to be able to work at the pixel level. 1600x1200 on a 14" LCD? By my calculations, that's about 145ppi. On a 15", it's 133ppi. Do those screens come with a special pair of glasses?;{) I need to be able to read the damn thing for it to be useful.
On my 21" CRT, I switch between 1280x960 (80ppi) for pixel pushing, and 1600x1200 (100ppi) for text-based stuff (web surfing, QuarkXPress, etc.) and illustration. That works very, very well for me.
At 1280x854, the new PowerBook is just a little over 100ppi. That, to me, is pretty much ideal, especially with Apple's Quartz antialiasing, and has plenty of screen space to spread out multiple windows. And in a PowerBook, so it's portable. Hence my enthusiasm.
Great. I'm impressed. Now, if you can get Mac OS X to run on it, I might actually be interested.;{)
Yeah, I know there are *WINTEL* laptops out there with higher-rez displays. If you read what I originally posted, I said the new PowerBook G4 would be my next *MAC*. Let's compare apples to apples, folks. (Pun very much intended.)
Compared to the original iMac, the new eMac seems pretty evolutionary. Ho hum. It's practical, but visually boring.
The new "desk lamp" iMac is a much more radical, distinctive design, which gets more attention in the press (free marketing, folks!) and int he store, and prolly moves more units than "just another" iMac.
Practical model for the schools, flashy model for the fashion-conscious or gadget-happy home buyer. Seems pretty smart to me.
Don't get me wrong, I think the eMac *is* a good design; it's the iMac we shoulda had 18 months ago instead of those dreadful "flower power" iMacs. Bet they woulda moved a bunch of 'em then...
Yeah, I noticed that too... maybe they're trying to update their typography to something more modern, to go with the new, modern look of their newer computers...
Of course, that raises the obvious question: why didn't they break in the new typeface at the same time as a truly readical product line, like, say, the new "makeup mirror" iMac? That new eMac looks almost retro, now!
It's now official: my next new Mac is gonna be a PowerBook G4.
I'm one of those people who just can't stand to work on a screen smaller than 1280 or so pix wide. Even 1024x768 feels cramped, and 800x600 is downright claustrophobic.
Now that Apple's packing the new PowerBook with a 15.2" 1280x854 LCD, the ol' 21" CRT on my desk, with it's huge size, godawful heat output and power requirements, isn't looking so appealing anymore.
Oh, it has another nice feature: fully-accelerated DVI output to a second monitor, if ya got it. 1280x854 not enough room when you're doing graphics work? just hook up a second LCD monitor. Sweet.
But there's no denying the differences in color gamut. Designing for the Web means designing for the screen, and even Hexachrome printing doesn't really have the range to do so accurately. What your posters *can* be useful for is comparing colors on a *relative* basis, but there's still no subsitute for seeing your colors on a monitor.
Of course, even previewing colors on screen is somewhat approximate, thanks to the widely varying color accuracy of commodity monitors. Now, if you can help with *that* issue, I'm all ears;{D
Ah!! That's pretty similar to what I was thinking of, yes. Except for the layout; the one I had in mind used the hexagonal layout of your mousepad. What I like about the hex is that you see every color adjacent to all it's "neighbors," which makes it easier to see the minor differences between them. Your Color lab layout is more haphazard.
I *have* bookmarked the Color Lab, though, and I'll be passing it around to my cow-orkers. Thanks!
Ah, but it *doesn't* work in Opera, my browser of choice. Still, thanks, it's a Good Link.
If I get really bored sometime, I might try to build that GIF I described. I think it'd be a very useful tool. And I can't believe no one else has done so yet.
Slashdot Mirror
What? You mean your employee didn't have his brain degaussed at the exit interview, per company policy? ;{)
"So I would expect this to continue until someone with political clout (e.g. Clear Channel) is hurt; at that point there there will be a big brawl in Congress but again the individual consumer will not be at the negotiating table."
Ah yes, welcome to the New America. Of the Corporations, By the Corporations, and For the Corporations. And absolutely no one looking out for us mere "subjects."
That low-level whirring sound you hear from Massachusetts to Georgia is the sound of our Founding Fathers spinning in their graves.
"Companies are inhibiting innovation, Cerf said, by letting users receive information faster than they can send it."
There's an old saying: "Freedom of the press only applies to those who own one." Besides the issue of bandwith limits, most broadband ISPs block ports 21 and 80, and specifically prohibit running any sort of server, i.e., publishing on the web.
George Orwell's "1984" got one thing wrong: it's industry, not the government, that's now playing the role of Big Brother. In the US at least, this makes sense; the government is bound (well, to some degree) by the Constitution; corporations have no such limits on their behavior.
With fewer and fewer corporations controlling more and more of our lives, and with huge profits to apply towards influencing government policy, is it any wonder we're heading towards Dystopis, Inc.?
"In any case, software is _package_ based. Why do we still throw library files from different packages together in the same directory?!"
Um, well, cos that's the *idea*. Libraries are shared code, intended to be used by multiple programs/apps/packages.
"We should be able to completely remove software by simply removing a directory. I've heard MacOS does this, why can't Linux?"
That's the ideal on the mac, you're right. But in practice, it's seldom that easy.
On really old versions of the Mac, it was even simpler: an app was a single file that could be placed anywhere. All resources were built-in. Nothing was installed in the System directories, cos there wasn't one! Deleting an app meant dragging the one icon to the trash.
Just as the Mac OS got bigger, more sophisticated and more modular, necessitating it's own private directory, so did applications. They needed preference files, plug-ins, other optional components, etc., which generally went into the same directory as the application; so now applications had their own directories. Some large developers (Micro$oft, Adobe, Claris) tried to share common code and resources between their own apps, and generally put it in the new-fangled System Folder. Others built apps that depended on system extensions (think kernel modules), which likewise were installed into the System Folder amongst (and sometimes conflicting with) the Apple-supplied stuff.
By the time Mac OS 9 came out, things were outta hand. OS 8 (or 7, it's been a while) even introduced an Application Support folder in the System Folder, but developers generally ignored it. System stability was hard to acheive. Some suites, like MS Office, installed so many components in so many places that it was nearly impossible to uninstall, and nearly impossible to troubleshoot if something went wrong. It was getting as bad as Windows; many Mac power users simply clean-reinstalled their systems every six months or so. Whee.
Then came Steve Jobs. And Steve begat Mac OS X...
Mac OS X, as you probably know, is based on BSD (although with a Mach kernel). it's not straight-up BSD, though; there's no ports collection. Also, some directories have been moved and/or hidden from users. It does, however, have packages, and it's own proprietary package manager.
Actually, it has two types of package. One is the app package; like the Mac applications of old, this encapsulates the executable code and other resources into what appears to the user as a single file. (Actually, it's a directory, but the UI hides this from the user.) Installing these is trivially easy: drag and drop (or cp if you're into that). Not just for small utilities and the like, even MS Office installs this way. They can reside anywhere in the directory tree, within reason. Uninstallation is as easy as deleting the package file.
The other package type is the installer package; this uses a version of the NeXT installer to do dependency checking (rather badly, at this point) and handles the job of installing components into the right directories (system, library, user, etc). In general, it's only used for apps that require installation of system components.
In addition, many apps use their own installers, either becauuse of the deficiencies of Apple's installer, or just because they've Always Done It That Way (e.g. Adobe).
Ah, but then there's shared code and resources.
Like *nix, Mac OS X has shared libraries. Apple designed a sophisticated set of libraries, collections, frameworks and other system resources for all apps to use. These are, of course, hidden from the user. Since Apple designed the whole system, they also get to define the environment, so their system is more organized compared to the hodgepodge of libraries you see under *nix (although those *nix libraries are there too, if the user installs the optional BSD Subsystem and Developer Tools).
Fo sharing application resources, there's still the Application Support directory, and developers are actually using it these days. App code is kept very much separate from system code. IMHO it's a big improvement over *nix that way.
While I agree with the thrust of the article, it would be much more persuasive with a little more meat behind it.
"There is at least one distribution (ESware) that has moved from RPMs do DEBs, but I don't know of any movement in the opposite direction."
A little research into just how many distros have migrated one way or the other in, say, the last five years would be instructive.
"Similarly, there are many users who have moved from RPMs to DEBs, but very few who have chosen the opposite path."
This statement is pivotal to the article, but is completely unsupported by any hard numbers, and comes off overly broad. (Surely there must be have been SOME attempts to determine market share of the major distros?) Maybe you don't know anyone who's gone the other way, but I'm sure it happens.
That said, there's a lotta truth in this article. After a couple years of struggling with RPM Hell on Red Hat and later Mandrake & Yellow Dog, I've recently decided to switch over to FreeBSD (ports, yum!) on my server and Debian on the workstation.
Oh, as an aside, there's an implementation of deb/apt for Mac OS X and Darwin, called fink. Fink supports both binaries with apt-get/dselect, and source installs with their own ports-like tool. I know a number of people who run traditional Linux/Unix progs, including X Windows, The Gimp, KDE, etc., side-by-side with their regular Mac apps. Oh so very cool.
This is what irks me. The web is supposed to be platform-neutral, not built for IE. Mozilla, IMHO is doing the right thing by not making its browser conform to the skewed standards IE has set. I say let those pages that are "built for IE" look like crap.
Hey, I agree with you. In a perfect world, at least.
Problem is, in the Real World, MSIE is currently dominant, and the fact that Mozilla doesn't render IE-tuned sites exactly right is all the reason many people need to not use Mozilla.
So, sadly, CNET does have a point, however misplaced.
Let's not even discuss those misguided sites that use MS-specific technologies like ActiveX, or sniff browsers and refuse to accept anything but IE, like some banks...
"I just don't get it I guess, it just seems like there are already so many standards."
It makes a lot more sense if you look at the world market, and not just American business. SuSE is very strong in Europe, TurboLinux in Asia, and Connectiva in Latin America. El Reg has a good perspective on this.
Except not everyone ones some all-in-one privacy intruding box from MS ... Why do I need to combine these into one box that doesn't do any of the 3 tasks particularly well?
Because if Micro$oft has it's way, you won't have any choice.
First, MS essentially owns your computer already. Once they institute Windows subscriptions, you'll hafta send Bill a check every month to keep reading and sending your email and browsing the Web. And the Xbox gives them experience in designing and marketing hardware; once Microsoft is no longer dependant on Dell and HPaq and IBM to build hardware, how long do you think they'll restrain themselves from chasing *them* outta business, too?
Second, they're gonna dump money into the Xbox till Nintendo and Sony are minority players. Developers have a bigger market with Xbox, so that's what they write to. It snowballs, till Xbox owns that space, too.
Third, M$ is already tight with the big media conglomerates, since they're willing to provide them the DRM-protected distribution systems they so desperately desire. The MPAA will keep suing "unprotected" PVR system makers till they're broke, but will almost certainly bless Microsoft's version because they trust it. MS PVR will be the only game in town.
"Oh," you say, "I can always just run Linux and access this stuff via the Internet." Sure, until Microsoft expands their proprietary "gaming" network to handle all that DRM-managed media, chat, software updates, etc. etc. etc. in addition to online gaming, until all the goodies are only on the MS Internet(TM).
If you think this is all just about trying to sell games, you're sadly mistaken.
Somebody mod this guy up.
Remember, it's not a SQL worm, it's a MS SQL Server worm. It's not an email virus, it's an MS Exchange/Outlook virus. It's not a web server worm, it's a MS IIS worm.
While I'm usually against shooting the messenger, the computing public really should start holding Microsoft accountable for their shoddy security practices, and the damage they cause.
What laws can be written that will be fair both to content creators and to users, while cutting the middleman?
You just answered your own question.
IMHO, the single easiest improvement would be to forbid corporate entities from owning copyrights they themselves did not create. The creator of the intellectual property should retain sole ownership; they may licence others to make use of their work, but the creator should always have complete rights to their own creations.
"Wow, imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!"
We now return you to your regularly scheduled Slashdot.
Um, that was one of my points. The actual resource load from IE is actually higher than indicated. However, since Micro$oft has gone to such great lengths to prevent you from removing IE, it's really a moot point. Those resources are just plain lost.
I also noted that IE isn't very good at releasing memory if you browse with several open windows and later close them. Which is born out by my experience that extended surfing sessions using IE eventually result in the machine slowing to a crawl, requiring me to quit IE (or sometimes even log off / log back on) after a while.
Considering how "tightly integrated" into the OS it is, you'd think it'd be better behaved than that.
I gave your comment a little more thought, and came to the conclusion that you're comparing apples to oranges as far as RAM is concerned. You may have had 50MB used / 30MB free, but that's *physical* allocation. I was quoting from Win2K's Task manager, which states *virtual* RAM utilization. Your Mozilla may have well been allocating the same 24MB virtual as mine, and simply had most of it swapped out. On an 80MB mahine, that's pretty much a certainty, in fact.
If you wanna use Mozilla, hey, I'm down with that. I like Mozilla, a LOT, but not on my low-end machines.
But if you haven't installed and tried Opera side by side with it and MSIE, like I did, then please refrain from attacking my empirical results with complete non-sequiturs. If you wanna do the work, come up with your own numbers, THEN we can talk, m'kay?
Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion, no matter how wrong it may be ;{D
For the record, my tests were done on a Toshiba Portege 7000, 266MHz PII, 160MB RAM, Win2K. In other words, a reasonably modern OS, although on somewhat less than state-of-the-art hardware. Win98 might lead to different results. YMMV. I wouldn't let that abomination anywhere near my Wintel machines.
Yeah, I didn't have the *exact* numbers handy when I originally posted that, but now that I'm home and can review my notes, it turns out I remembered them correctly to within a meg or two on all numbers quoted. Not bad at my age.
Besides, if you actually read what I wrote, you'd notice that even if I was off 5MB or so, it's *quite* clear that Mozilla is a bit of a pig, the combination of IE and OE are surprisingly wasteful of resources (especially once you start opening windows; what the heck does IE *do* with all that RAM?), and Opera kicks all their butts.
If you really wanna quibble about inches when I'm talking yards, that's your perogative, but it doesn't really add much to the discussion.
You might be right about the scrolling being a mere setting issue; but it was the most concrete example I could think of off the top of my head of my favorite Opera feature: it's responsiveness on low-end machines. The other PC I run Opera on is an ancient HP Pentium 166, and it's slick as snot even on that creaky old iron. Mozilla lasted about two days on there before I uninstalled it.
As for DOM support, I never claimed Opera was perfect. IMHO it's no worse than IE 4, for which I also develop. Of course, I also have to support Netscape 4, so I'm very careful what DOM features I try to use. That said, I've been quite pleased by Opera's compatibility. No complaints here. If you like to live on the bleeding edge, yeah, you might find more glitches than me, but hey, it's your choice. Newsflash for ya: lotsa users *aren't* running Mozilla, Netscape 6, or MSIE6. If you wanna alienate them, that's also your perogative.
If you want to use a free browser, fine. No one's stopping you. If you want to use the Browser of the Beast, with all its security woes and dubious privacy policies, more power to ya. I happen to think that a solid, high-performance, standards-compliant browser that gives me more control is worth a few bucks. To each his own.
OK, I agree with you, up to a point... but no further.
Microsoft is in the dominating position they are because they've spent the last 20 years looking over their shoulders, competing not only against real competitors, but against potential competitors.
Open Source projects like OpenOffice give Sun a reason to excel. Sure, you could cheap out and buy OO, if $76 is too rich for you... but you give up Sun's support if you do. Sun needs to charge for their version, and to justify that, they offer superior support. You *do* get something for your money.
It's evolution: basic software *will* become commoditized. Yeah, it makes things a bit rougher for Sun and their business plan, but it also keeps them honest. They're forced to offer some added value to what' otherwise a commodity, if they want to make a buck. The big winner is, of course, the customer, who gets a better product, if they're willing to pay for it.
This isn't new. Open Source, freeware, shareware, in-house-written stuff... there's always been a cheaper solution for almost any software problem you can name. In the end you get what you pay for.
In another post, someone is bemoaning how Opera, which previously shipped on a single floppy, has added too much bloat.
Bloat? BLOAT? PuhLEEZE.
Try this on Windoze: from a fresh log-in launch Opera, Mozilla, Internet Exploder and Outlook Express. Then press ALT-CTL-DEL, and click Task Manager, then click the Processes tab. Then take a look at how much RAM each is eating up.
I did this at home, so I don't have the exact numbers handy, but as I recall Mozilla ate about 24MB, IE 7MB, OE 13MB (yikes!), and Opera 6 about 7MB.That's with no sites loaded. Now open up some good, large, complex pages; I tried Slashdot, Salon, CNN, and a few others, the same sites in each browser. In OE, Opera and Mozilla, go sign onto my IMAP email server, just for good measure. Now Mozilla uses 30+MB, IE is up over 20MB, OE is still eating 13MB or so, and Opera is using... about 12MB. Not too shabby.
Now close all the browser windows and log off email. Guess what? Moz is back to 24MB, Opera's back to 7MB, OE still hasnt' changed much, but IE is still sucking down 24MB. Nice garbage collection there, Microsoft.
When you consider that A) Opera provides the functionality of IE *and* OE, and B) some of IE/OE's resource usage is hidden in assorted other "OS" DLLs, Which one is bloated again?
Oh, one last little test... open up a loooong site in each (nice fat thread on Slashdot at Score:0 will do it), then press and hold the down arrow key and see how long it takes to scroll to the bottom. Opera is about twice as fast as Mozilla, and about half again as fast as IE. Add in Opera's industry-best standards compliance and rendering speed, what's not to like?
Mac OS X? Piece of cake. Drag the MSIE icon to the trash, Empty Trash. Thanks to OS X's application bundles, the entire app in there under that one icon. Couldn't be easier.
First of all, I'm not in the market for Wintel; I was talking Macs. See my other reply.
Secondly, I'm not sure I'd want rez that high, anyhow. I do graphics and web work, so I need to be able to work at the pixel level. 1600x1200 on a 14" LCD? By my calculations, that's about 145ppi. On a 15", it's 133ppi. Do those screens come with a special pair of glasses? ;{) I need to be able to read the damn thing for it to be useful.
On my 21" CRT, I switch between 1280x960 (80ppi) for pixel pushing, and 1600x1200 (100ppi) for text-based stuff (web surfing, QuarkXPress, etc.) and illustration. That works very, very well for me.
At 1280x854, the new PowerBook is just a little over 100ppi. That, to me, is pretty much ideal, especially with Apple's Quartz antialiasing, and has plenty of screen space to spread out multiple windows. And in a PowerBook, so it's portable. Hence my enthusiasm.
Great. I'm impressed. Now, if you can get Mac OS X to run on it, I might actually be interested. ;{)
Yeah, I know there are *WINTEL* laptops out there with higher-rez displays. If you read what I originally posted, I said the new PowerBook G4 would be my next *MAC*. Let's compare apples to apples, folks. (Pun very much intended.)
Hence my enthusiasm.Compared to the original iMac, the new eMac seems pretty evolutionary. Ho hum. It's practical, but visually boring.
The new "desk lamp" iMac is a much more radical, distinctive design, which gets more attention in the press (free marketing, folks!) and int he store, and prolly moves more units than "just another" iMac.
Practical model for the schools, flashy model for the fashion-conscious or gadget-happy home buyer. Seems pretty smart to me.
Don't get me wrong, I think the eMac *is* a good design; it's the iMac we shoulda had 18 months ago instead of those dreadful "flower power" iMacs. Bet they woulda moved a bunch of 'em then...
Yeah, I noticed that too... maybe they're trying to update their typography to something more modern, to go with the new, modern look of their newer computers...
Of course, that raises the obvious question: why didn't they break in the new typeface at the same time as a truly readical product line, like, say, the new "makeup mirror" iMac? That new eMac looks almost retro, now!
I'm one of those people who just can't stand to work on a screen smaller than 1280 or so pix wide. Even 1024x768 feels cramped, and 800x600 is downright claustrophobic.
Now that Apple's packing the new PowerBook with a 15.2" 1280x854 LCD, the ol' 21" CRT on my desk, with it's huge size, godawful heat output and power requirements, isn't looking so appealing anymore.
Oh, it has another nice feature: fully-accelerated DVI output to a second monitor, if ya got it. 1280x854 not enough room when you're doing graphics work? just hook up a second LCD monitor. Sweet.
But there's no denying the differences in color gamut. Designing for the Web means designing for the screen, and even Hexachrome printing doesn't really have the range to do so accurately. What your posters *can* be useful for is comparing colors on a *relative* basis, but there's still no subsitute for seeing your colors on a monitor.
Of course, even previewing colors on screen is somewhat approximate, thanks to the widely varying color accuracy of commodity monitors. Now, if you can help with *that* issue, I'm all ears ;{D
Ah!! That's pretty similar to what I was thinking of, yes. Except for the layout; the one I had in mind used the hexagonal layout of your mousepad. What I like about the hex is that you see every color adjacent to all it's "neighbors," which makes it easier to see the minor differences between them. Your Color lab layout is more haphazard.
I *have* bookmarked the Color Lab, though, and I'll be passing it around to my cow-orkers. Thanks!
Ah, but it *doesn't* work in Opera, my browser of choice. Still, thanks, it's a Good Link.
If I get really bored sometime, I might try to build that GIF I described. I think it'd be a very useful tool. And I can't believe no one else has done so yet.