I made a light reference to my complaint with Smart Tags in the response to maxpublic's IE solution. I laughed out loud when I read the Microsoft official's comment on "under-linked" pages. Creating links to content where links do not explicitly exist circumvents a rather large editorial process. I work at a state-funded agency in Kentucky where the editorial process is big league bureaucracy. We can't link to anything without SWAT teams of managers first launching in with their reasoning for or against doing so.
In fact, we had a project proposed recently that involved some pages with kids content. I was charged with creating a way to insert a bumper page between these pages on our site and every link to external sites. Annoying! But that's how serious some people, namely editors, are about links off of their own content.
So, some sod with IE6 with Smart Tags drops in for a visit to our site and suddenly he sees links that our editors and producers have no intention or desire for in the first place. Original content we took the time and resources to produce now has links away from our site and our work.
This is copyright infringement. The site browsing experience we have carefully if not painfully constructed is no more. For anyone including a Microsoft official to describe pages as "under-linked" is patently myopic. Who is anyone to say what a page should or should not link to except for the people producing the page containing the links?
Say your favorite TV show is CSI and it's all new tonight. Would you hand over the remote to someone else who wants to flip around during that show? Probably not. So why would you allow someone to create links in your web pages where they do not exist?
I disapprove of your solution for essentially the same reason I disapprove of Microsoft's general philosophy (including Smart Tags). For example, how is your intolerance toward IE in general make you any better than Microsoft's intolerance toward "under-linked" pages?
I do not know what your site looks like or what it does that IE cannot handle, but shouldn't a successful site contain pages that all browsers can display? As rabid a supporter of Mozilla and other OSS solutions as I am, I only use what works across the board (read: server-side programming).
Let's admit it. In our wildest dreams, the world embraces & uses open-source software and standards. If advocacy of OSS can make that dream a reality, we will advocate. So I fail to see how shutting out even IE users advocates anything we strive for.
Re:But Jimmy Hoffa is missing
on
IT Unions?
·
· Score: 1
Sure, but those folks you mentioned wouldn't be dumb enough to head up an IT union...unless...yeah...IT unions became popular, and then Bill Gates would introduce Microsoft Union and seize 60% of the workforce.
This isn't the Great Depression from which Social Security and other grandfathered, "protective" programs have siphoned away obscene amounts of money from the workforce for seventy years. The problem with unions is that once initiated, they're next to impossible to disband, even for the right reason.
But Jimmy Hoffa is missing
on
IT Unions?
·
· Score: 1
Jimmy Hoffa was a union guy. Maybe we can get Steve Jobs to run this IT union and make him disappear to!
Lawsuits instead of unions
on
IT Unions?
·
· Score: 2
With the American legal system as ripe for the picking as it is, why would you join a union to protect yourself from being exploited, when you can score much bigger with a lawsuit?
I'd rather take my chances with a jury of "my peers" than with organized labor.
Unions are for the weak
on
IT Unions?
·
· Score: 1
Nothing tempers production like unions. I can't imagine a union succeeding for the IT workforce, a workforce more mobile than any other by light years. Why would you want a cap on the amount of money you can make? How about the ridiculous benefits we IT workers have demanded the last few years?
Unionization would do more harm than good. There's too much of a cult thing going on with most companies to begin with. "We'll pay you $100K if you can put in 80 hours a week." Not to mention little perky things like in-house coffee shops, bohemian dress codes, etc. that make leaving the office guilt trip fodder.
Unionization is the feces of mass production. Putting everybody on a singular pay scale and demanding cheap benefits does not solve the single biggest problem of corporate America: the vastly overpaid CEO. That's what needs fixing.
Mozilla needs a feature freeze
on
Mozilla 0.9 Out
·
· Score: 1
I've been using Mozilla since M17 and have been generally impressed with a lot of the features. Cookie management rocks for one. However, I have been considering going back to Netscape 4.x for some time now because:
1) The mail client is deathly slow and nearly unusable. (I'm running on an Athlon 500).
2) Frequent crashes on pages that do anything JavaScript which IMHO should be sent to programming language gulag.
3) Lastly, the countless little bugs that have made their way through each subsequent release. The focus seems to have shifted away from a lightweight, stable browser to a bloated, feature-encrusted core dumper.
Let me make it clear that I want Mozilla to succeed, but the prime reason I was attracted to trying it out (lightweight & stable) seems to have been scrapped.
The OSS development model leads to a strong possibility of unhealthy "forking" of a code base, resulting in the development of multiple incompatible versions of programs,
TRANSLATION: Runs on more platforms.
weakened interoperability,
TRANSLATION: Improves and expands upon existing API's.
product instability,
TRANSLATION: (as stated earlier in his speech) Augmented debugging.
and hindering businesses' ability to strategically plan for the future.
TRANSLATION: Does not let poor management and development practices off the hook and give them someone to file a lawsuit against.
Furthermore, it has inherent security risks
TRANSLATION: Does not run VBScript macros.
and can force intellectual property into the public domain.
TRANSLATION: Accelerate innovation by building around the structure and spirit of the Internet, i.e. share creativity and ingenuity freely.
No, no, no, you have to get hold of Dione Warwick if you want to solve a Microsoft Graph question! Paul doesn't know Microsoft Graph from his elbow. He's their Freecell support guy.
If opt-in services increase costs, increases the risk of fraud and identify theft, and reduces opportunities, then why are they using an opt-in method for their e-Mail Preference Service? This service allows people to have their e-mail addresses "removed from many marketing lists."
For one year.
That's removal? Hell no, that's filtering. And the process is two-steps. After entering your e-mail address for removal, you have to reply to a verification e-mail sent by the DMA. In other words, opt-in!
What me worry? I fully expect someone talented out there to hack Microsoft's proprietary.wma files and or Microsoft's audio software when this comes into existence. Hell if it's only a registry hack, then groovy, baby, YEAH!
This is too little too late. How many folks are really going to leap to XP from Win95/98/Me to begin with? Microsoft has worn people out. People won't stand for this. Until Microsoft or somebody out there has a hot, affordable, and portable.wma file player, this too shall pass.
Read this snippet from a letter from China's ambassador to the U.S. sent to a U.S. Senator. It is in regards to the U.S. threatening to scuttle China's bid to host the 2008 Olympics:
The bills in Congress against Beijing's bid, therefore, constitute a gross interference in the internal affairs and inherent rights of the IOC. Such bills run counter to the spirit of the Olympic Charter which forbids discrimination against any country or individual, on the basis of race, religion, politics, sex or any other reason. It would be "incompatible with the capacity of Olympics" for the US Congress to obstruct, under the pretext of human rights, Beijing's bid and China's efforts to contribute to the Olympic Movement, world peace and development.
Human rights?! That's like Eminem telling Frank Sinatra he can't carry a tune.
Personally, I don't know why any country would put any effort into hosting the Olympics. Who gives a rat's ass (which is a Chinese delicacy), how far a muscled bound freak can put the shot or what margin Dream Team v1.5.10 will thrash Ecuador by. This just shows how irrational the Chinese political culture is. I make the distinction of policital culture, because I think China if interested in human rights, true democracy, and free trade could be a valuable member of the international community. But until it lets go of the dogma, it won't happen. No apologies.
Okay, no big deal. I live in Lexington, KY and am rabid Cincinnati Reds fan. I listen to those games on the radio. Now, I'll just say fuck MLB and look up the box scores in the newspaper like I used to do 10 years ago. I like most honest, working folk won't bother to listen to Kansas City Royals or West Coast teams' games any more.
$10 for an entire season isn't unreasonable. But forcing me to use a proprietary $30 player to listen to the games in a proprietary format is. I think MLB is attempting to crop its listening audience to localized regions and failing that, making a quick buck. No big deal though I refuse to use any RealNetworks product if possible.
I stream Kentucky's entire General Assembly session including committee and chamber meetings live using RealServer & RealProducer (for encoding). Once you begin to build an audience for such an event, you would be surprised how important people feel it is to watch events live. Also, archiving a large volume of events for people to download or stream is the real pain in the arse. My how 3-8 meetings a day for 2-3 months on end can wear down a guy supposedly hired as a web application developer! Harumph!
I support RMS's political statement, and here's why. RealServer/RealProducer to date does not allow me to schedule events for streaming or archiving. It basically is a throw the switch to start streaming and archiving type of system. I have expressed my need for some method of scheduling to RealNetworks numerous support calls and even to supposed Real developers at their conference in San Jose. That was a year ago, and I've heard no word. Lariat, another company I spoke with at the Real Conference last year, said they would have an scheduling application for use with RealServer/RealProducer available in July of 2000. It was December of 2000 before they released the software. Too late!
With nearly 200 meetings to stream at all times of the day for 2-3 months, I don't have the time to watch a video feed all day long and click a button to begin streaming and archiving. In dire need of a method to schedule events for streaming/archiving, I wrote a Perl module to work with a SQL database of events that are entered via a Web interface. It got me by despite the fact that we're running Windows NT on all our servers! No native CRON daemon! Ack!
Despite my manager and network admin being card-carrying Microsoftians, I probably could have pressured them into running an open source streaming video server. But there are none, and I think that may be RMS's motive behind his demand. I hope the open source community does not bahhumbug streaming media too much longer. Its importance to end users will continue to grow.
Finally, there is good news on the open source audio streaming front. Icecast is an open source audio streaming server that continues to improve thanks to some talented programmers. Those in need of an audio only streaming solution should give it a look.
The reason we tend to compete against Microsoft's Evil Empire is because we want the credibility that comes with larger market share. You know the old saying, "You don't get fired for buying Microsoft..." A lot of IT folks would love to implement their systems with open sourced software such as Linux but never get the chance because their managers and fellow workers politick for "safe" solutions. And we all know what happens when politics dictate solutions (e.g. USS Yorktown).
I want Linux, Apache, Perl, etc. to succeed so when the next project comes up for discussion at my meetings and I know what it will take using said software, I can pitch an implementation and be taken seriously. Else, I'm stuck squeezing square pegged software into rounded needs.
I knew some people who growed some microjuana in their window sills.
I growed but one microinch in high school.
George W. Bush will be a full-growed adult male in four years.
When asked of his light schedule, former president Ronald Reagan replied (paraphrasing): Doctors say heavy workloads can increase stress dramatically. I figure, why take the chance.
Honestly, I don't want a president who wants to affect every damned thing. I want him or her to sit tight, shut up, and don't f**k anything up. Anyone agree.
While Mr. Brin's essay was well written and thought out, I find Al Gore's and the Democrat's party (of which nothing is democratic) to be more lording than the Republicans and Bush. When Al Gore stands before the American people and repeatedly promises to spend X billion dollars for this and that, I feel as a fief in his kingdom.
How is it that we have allowed it this far? How can a presidential candidate propose to spend billions of dollars for issues that belong in the private domain without the American public crying foul?
Mr. Brin explains that Europeans have used their governments to perpetuate their wealthy inner circles from generation to generation. Does he not think that Democrats are capable of this too? Al Gore's father? A former U.S. Senator!
Hey, I agree with Mr. Brin's conclusion, but I don't agree with his course of intellect. Look at both main parties' candidates: the son of a former president and the son of a former senator. Both were bred to be "lords." I will take Mr. Brin's argument and go one further. I refuse to accept the politispeak of the two main parties. I refuse to accept the socialist spending free-for-all of the Democrats. I refuse to accept the cultural hypocrisy of the Republicans.
The articles suggested that this licensing ploy was Microsoft's response to those who would install a dual-boot system with Linux and Windows. I think this is a great opportunity. Think about it. Something goes awry with your master boot record. Which OS is in deeper doo-doo? Windows, because you have nothing but a lame recovery CD while you have a full-blown Linux distribution in hand. Dilligent Linux vendors should sieze this poor business practice on Microsoft's part. Supply documentation and support for reclaiming the lobotamized Windows partitions for use with our stable, usable Linux partitions. Microsoft is gambling with this: if Windows goes, everything goes. Linux vendors can turn this around. Put a big link on your top pages: "How to fix a broken Windows 2000/Linux dual-boot installation."
There are lots of solutions bouncing around, but I think opening Microsoft's code to the public would be the best solution. I don't care that Microsoft makes a lot of money. Who wouldn't want those kinds of profits. But opening their source would prevent them from forcing competitors out of markets with proprietary software. And we could improve their software and make it adhere to widely accepted standards.
I don't think dividing the company into various OS, applications, and Internet groups would do much good. Each mutation of Microsoft would still be heads and shoulders above the rest of the software world.
So I'm setting up an NT server last night. This includes installation of several service packs. Each one a sizable lump. I note the size of one as 33MB.
I think to myself: find enough things to patch Microsoft?
21 small patches are nothing compared to a 33MB lump of which you have little idea what it patches.
If you're a musician, make music. Why does everything have to be about the internet? Make good music, let somebody else worry about closing tags, and be happy.
Either sign with Sony on Sony's terms, or go a different way. If this is bad business practice on Sony's part, time will tell.
Slashdot Mirror
In fact, we had a project proposed recently that involved some pages with kids content. I was charged with creating a way to insert a bumper page between these pages on our site and every link to external sites. Annoying! But that's how serious some people, namely editors, are about links off of their own content.
So, some sod with IE6 with Smart Tags drops in for a visit to our site and suddenly he sees links that our editors and producers have no intention or desire for in the first place. Original content we took the time and resources to produce now has links away from our site and our work.
This is copyright infringement. The site browsing experience we have carefully if not painfully constructed is no more. For anyone including a Microsoft official to describe pages as "under-linked" is patently myopic. Who is anyone to say what a page should or should not link to except for the people producing the page containing the links?
Say your favorite TV show is CSI and it's all new tonight. Would you hand over the remote to someone else who wants to flip around during that show? Probably not. So why would you allow someone to create links in your web pages where they do not exist?
I do not know what your site looks like or what it does that IE cannot handle, but shouldn't a successful site contain pages that all browsers can display? As rabid a supporter of Mozilla and other OSS solutions as I am, I only use what works across the board (read: server-side programming).
Let's admit it. In our wildest dreams, the world embraces & uses open-source software and standards. If advocacy of OSS can make that dream a reality, we will advocate. So I fail to see how shutting out even IE users advocates anything we strive for.
Sure, but those folks you mentioned wouldn't be dumb enough to head up an IT union...unless...yeah...IT unions became popular, and then Bill Gates would introduce Microsoft Union and seize 60% of the workforce.
This isn't the Great Depression from which Social Security and other grandfathered, "protective" programs have siphoned away obscene amounts of money from the workforce for seventy years. The problem with unions is that once initiated, they're next to impossible to disband, even for the right reason.
Jimmy Hoffa was a union guy. Maybe we can get Steve Jobs to run this IT union and make him disappear to!
I'd rather take my chances with a jury of "my peers" than with organized labor.
Unionization would do more harm than good. There's too much of a cult thing going on with most companies to begin with. "We'll pay you $100K if you can put in 80 hours a week." Not to mention little perky things like in-house coffee shops, bohemian dress codes, etc. that make leaving the office guilt trip fodder.
Unionization is the feces of mass production. Putting everybody on a singular pay scale and demanding cheap benefits does not solve the single biggest problem of corporate America: the vastly overpaid CEO. That's what needs fixing.
1) The mail client is deathly slow and nearly unusable. (I'm running on an Athlon 500).
2) Frequent crashes on pages that do anything JavaScript which IMHO should be sent to programming language gulag.
3) Lastly, the countless little bugs that have made their way through each subsequent release. The focus seems to have shifted away from a lightweight, stable browser to a bloated, feature-encrusted core dumper.
Let me make it clear that I want Mozilla to succeed, but the prime reason I was attracted to trying it out (lightweight & stable) seems to have been scrapped.
TRANSLATION: Runs on more platforms.
weakened interoperability,
TRANSLATION: Improves and expands upon existing API's.
product instability,
TRANSLATION: (as stated earlier in his speech) Augmented debugging.
and hindering businesses' ability to strategically plan for the future.
TRANSLATION: Does not let poor management and development practices off the hook and give them someone to file a lawsuit against.
Furthermore, it has inherent security risks
TRANSLATION: Does not run VBScript macros.
and can force intellectual property into the public domain.
TRANSLATION: Accelerate innovation by building around the structure and spirit of the Internet, i.e. share creativity and ingenuity freely.
...there is no MULA.
No, no, no, you have to get hold of Dione Warwick if you want to solve a Microsoft Graph question! Paul doesn't know Microsoft Graph from his elbow. He's their Freecell support guy.
For one year.
That's removal? Hell no, that's filtering. And the process is two-steps. After entering your e-mail address for removal, you have to reply to a verification e-mail sent by the DMA. In other words, opt-in!The DMA = hypocrisy.
This is too little too late. How many folks are really going to leap to XP from Win95/98/Me to begin with? Microsoft has worn people out. People won't stand for this. Until Microsoft or somebody out there has a hot, affordable, and portable .wma file player, this too shall pass.
The bills in Congress against Beijing's bid, therefore, constitute a gross interference in the internal affairs and inherent rights of the IOC. Such bills run counter to the spirit of the Olympic Charter which forbids discrimination against any country or individual, on the basis of race, religion, politics, sex or any other reason. It would be "incompatible with the capacity of Olympics" for the US Congress to obstruct, under the pretext of human rights, Beijing's bid and China's efforts to contribute to the Olympic Movement, world peace and development.
Human rights?! That's like Eminem telling Frank Sinatra he can't carry a tune.
Personally, I don't know why any country would put any effort into hosting the Olympics. Who gives a rat's ass (which is a Chinese delicacy), how far a muscled bound freak can put the shot or what margin Dream Team v1.5.10 will thrash Ecuador by. This just shows how irrational the Chinese political culture is. I make the distinction of policital culture, because I think China if interested in human rights, true democracy, and free trade could be a valuable member of the international community. But until it lets go of the dogma, it won't happen. No apologies.
$10 for an entire season isn't unreasonable. But forcing me to use a proprietary $30 player to listen to the games in a proprietary format is. I think MLB is attempting to crop its listening audience to localized regions and failing that, making a quick buck. No big deal though I refuse to use any RealNetworks product if possible.
I stream Kentucky's entire General Assembly session including committee and chamber meetings live using RealServer & RealProducer (for encoding). Once you begin to build an audience for such an event, you would be surprised how important people feel it is to watch events live. Also, archiving a large volume of events for people to download or stream is the real pain in the arse. My how 3-8 meetings a day for 2-3 months on end can wear down a guy supposedly hired as a web application developer! Harumph!
I support RMS's political statement, and here's why. RealServer/RealProducer to date does not allow me to schedule events for streaming or archiving. It basically is a throw the switch to start streaming and archiving type of system. I have expressed my need for some method of scheduling to RealNetworks numerous support calls and even to supposed Real developers at their conference in San Jose. That was a year ago, and I've heard no word. Lariat, another company I spoke with at the Real Conference last year, said they would have an scheduling application for use with RealServer/RealProducer available in July of 2000. It was December of 2000 before they released the software. Too late!
With nearly 200 meetings to stream at all times of the day for 2-3 months, I don't have the time to watch a video feed all day long and click a button to begin streaming and archiving. In dire need of a method to schedule events for streaming/archiving, I wrote a Perl module to work with a SQL database of events that are entered via a Web interface. It got me by despite the fact that we're running Windows NT on all our servers! No native CRON daemon! Ack!
Despite my manager and network admin being card-carrying Microsoftians, I probably could have pressured them into running an open source streaming video server. But there are none, and I think that may be RMS's motive behind his demand. I hope the open source community does not bahhumbug streaming media too much longer. Its importance to end users will continue to grow.
Finally, there is good news on the open source audio streaming front. Icecast is an open source audio streaming server that continues to improve thanks to some talented programmers. Those in need of an audio only streaming solution should give it a look.
I want Linux, Apache, Perl, etc. to succeed so when the next project comes up for discussion at my meetings and I know what it will take using said software, I can pitch an implementation and be taken seriously. Else, I'm stuck squeezing square pegged software into rounded needs.
I knew some people who growed some microjuana in their window sills. I growed but one microinch in high school. George W. Bush will be a full-growed adult male in four years.
When asked of his light schedule, former president Ronald Reagan replied (paraphrasing): Doctors say heavy workloads can increase stress dramatically. I figure, why take the chance.
Honestly, I don't want a president who wants to affect every damned thing. I want him or her to sit tight, shut up, and don't f**k anything up. Anyone agree.
While Mr. Brin's essay was well written and thought out, I find Al Gore's and the Democrat's party (of which nothing is democratic) to be more lording than the Republicans and Bush. When Al Gore stands before the American people and repeatedly promises to spend X billion dollars for this and that, I feel as a fief in his kingdom.
How is it that we have allowed it this far? How can a presidential candidate propose to spend billions of dollars for issues that belong in the private domain without the American public crying foul?
Mr. Brin explains that Europeans have used their governments to perpetuate their wealthy inner circles from generation to generation. Does he not think that Democrats are capable of this too? Al Gore's father? A former U.S. Senator!
Hey, I agree with Mr. Brin's conclusion, but I don't agree with his course of intellect. Look at both main parties' candidates: the son of a former president and the son of a former senator. Both were bred to be "lords." I will take Mr. Brin's argument and go one further. I refuse to accept the politispeak of the two main parties. I refuse to accept the socialist spending free-for-all of the Democrats. I refuse to accept the cultural hypocrisy of the Republicans.
I want to live free. I'm voting Libertarian.
The articles suggested that this licensing ploy was Microsoft's response to those who would install a dual-boot system with Linux and Windows. I think this is a great opportunity. Think about it. Something goes awry with your master boot record. Which OS is in deeper doo-doo? Windows, because you have nothing but a lame recovery CD while you have a full-blown Linux distribution in hand. Dilligent Linux vendors should sieze this poor business practice on Microsoft's part. Supply documentation and support for reclaiming the lobotamized Windows partitions for use with our stable, usable Linux partitions. Microsoft is gambling with this: if Windows goes, everything goes. Linux vendors can turn this around. Put a big link on your top pages: "How to fix a broken Windows 2000/Linux dual-boot installation."
There are lots of solutions bouncing around, but I think opening Microsoft's code to the public would be the best solution. I don't care that Microsoft makes a lot of money. Who wouldn't want those kinds of profits. But opening their source would prevent them from forcing competitors out of markets with proprietary software. And we could improve their software and make it adhere to widely accepted standards.
I don't think dividing the company into various OS, applications, and Internet groups would do much good. Each mutation of Microsoft would still be heads and shoulders above the rest of the software world.
3G
So I'm setting up an NT server last night. This includes installation of several service packs. Each one a sizable lump. I note the size of one as 33MB.
I think to myself: find enough things to patch Microsoft?
21 small patches are nothing compared to a 33MB lump of which you have little idea what it patches.
If you're a musician, make music. Why does everything have to be about the internet? Make good music, let somebody else worry about closing tags, and be happy.
Either sign with Sony on Sony's terms, or go a different way. If this is bad business practice on Sony's part, time will tell.