At some point the users gonna say "why are all these people pist at IE?"
I doubt it.
When people go to little blogs all day and see that some sites don't like IE, but then they go to their bank's website and it doesn't care... And they go to major news corporation sites and those sites don't care... And then they go car shopping and Ford's website doesn't care... do you get where I'm going with this? People are more likely to respect the opinion of major sites with millions of dollars invested in them (wellsfargo.com, etc.) than small company sites or blogs. The corporations aren't going to put out non-IE-compliant sites because IE has huge marketshare and corporations are more interested in customer-service than taking philosophical stands.
Personally I can't stand the "this site is better in browser X" notices because, in my opinion, a web designer's job is to design web pages that work for the majority of visitors. Too many "designers" forget that they are designing the pages for the visitors, not for themselves. As a visitor to a webpage, I don't care what browser the designer thinks I should be using, I just want the page to work. If I visit it in IE and the page breaks, I feel it is partly IE's fault for not making things easier for designers but also the designer's fault for not realizing that "going the extra mile" would've made the site experience better. Every site I design is designed to be standards compliant and then I include a few minor hacks to get IE to display correctly. I don't feel I've done my job properly until the site looks/operates nearly identical in IE (6 & 7), Firefox, Opera (8 & 9), and Safari. I don't have the time to test every browser known to man, but I figure those browsers cover the vast majority of visitors. Yes, it would be much easier to just code it to be standards-compliant and not give a shit about how it displays in various browsers, but that's not good design.
Are you a professional designer? Whether or not you support Microsoft's decisions, it seems silly not to offer better than "crippled minimal feature version" support for the browser with the most market-share. I can't imagine telling one of my clients (or my boss if I worked for a different company) "Yeah, your/our site doesn't look good in the most popular browser, but it's because their philosophy is flawed."
And, if it's about standards-supporting browsers, why don't you test for Opera?
It's still a stupid idea though. At least with Mac you only have 1 sound - the Mac brand. If Vista goes through with this I'll have to hear Vaio branding followed by Microsoft branding. Eventually the boot process will be a long symphony and the justification will be "so you don't have to take the effort to look at your screen, you'll know your computer is ready when Beethoven's 9th finishes."
That justification is also retarded. "This way the consumer can make a bowl of cereal without wondering if his computer is ready to use." Uh... if I'm having cereal, generally I get the cereal, milk, & bowl and walk back to the computer. I know the computer is ready to use when it prompts me for a password. I don't need a sound effect.
He had a temporary license to practise law in Alabama. Judge James Moore revoked his temporary license and referred his actions to the Alabama Bar for "appropriate action". Since he is a member of the Florida Bar, he is still in good standing though he may have trouble practising law in Alabama again.
The USDA approved the protocol in 2002 and afterwards there was a short trial done but the feedback was terrible. The irradiated products have a big ugly "this fruit is irradiated" sticker on the box which tends to turn off people. There was also a big anti-radiation movement from "green" groups that didn't like the idea of using radiation in edible products. This article is an example, check out the cartoon on the right. No basis in fact, just preying on peoples' fears.
There is a state-of-the-art facility on Kauai that was built specifically to irradiate Kauai pineapples other subtropicals for shipment to the mainland. The facility has gone largely unused because after the public's initial bad reaction major retailers became scared to bring in any product using that protocol. You won't find irradiated fruit in Safeway but some of it ends up in the terminal markets and distributed to smaller community stores.
In all likelihood, the technology will be used to replace existing PLU stickers. So instead of having a sticker with a number and another rediripe sticker you'll just have a PLU sticker that changes colors as the fruit gets ripe.
The stickers aren't just a pain in the ass, they're a pain for packers as well since they have to pay for the stickers and the machines and the labor. The problem is that retail chains will reject fruit that is not stickered because it costs too much to train clerks to remember PLU codes. It also isn't very practical for them to try and train the clerks because many fruits have different PLUs for large size and for small sizes and it may be difficult to determine the category of a piece of fruit when it comes to the register.
For those of you that hate the stickers, there is currently a lot of research being done on laser-etching that burns PLU codes directly into product surfaces without damaging the produce. Another research tangent is systems that use ink injection to tattoo fruit with the codes. The problem with these other methods is public perception. If people perceive the laser to damage the fruit or think maybe the ink isn't safe to eat, they won't buy the product. Paranoia will usually override other factors. (For example, pineapples from Hawaii must be treated before import to "the mainland". Hot water dips and vapor treatments satisfy USDA/APHIS requirements but dull the flavor of the fruit. Radiation treatments satisfy the requirements and the flavor is not impaired, but the public mostly refuses to purchase fruit that was treated this way. Despite years of testing & approvals processes, John Q. Public's fear of the word "radiation" is stronger than his desire to eat better tasting fruit.)
Stability and legacy "bad-code" support don't seem like they'll be much of an issue.
The biggest problem won't be IE7 breaking pages, it will be stupid webmasters who are overly specific on which useragent strings they'll allow. If sales are slow the week before christmas, it may be because users are getting a "Please visit this page in IE6" message.
Spoken like a true thoughtless drone who equates any endorsement, no matter how mild, with subservient behavior.
I suppose Charles Manson was innocent, just a victim of the government being abusive. After all, if I think even for a moment that he might have been prosecuted justly I'm bending over and the government is doing me up the chute.
It seems like most of the replies are saying, "see, it's best to reserve judgment." Very few posters are accusing him of being guilty, the vast majority are simply pointing out that perhaps indeed the government had a perfectly valid reason for arresting Rombom and he's not just a victim carefully chosen by the government to make an example and help control the populace.
Maybe there are cel phones for blind people that I'm unaware of, but how to you propose that a blind person navigate a Motorola menu, launch a browser, type in a URL using Tap or iTap, go to Gmail and try to sign up? And that's even before the CAPTCHA.
I don't know the ADA inside and out, but roadblocks aren't being put in front of disabled people wanting to use Gmail, they just have limited ways in which they can access it and this limited access isn't because Google purposefully went out of their way to say "screw the blind", but because certain methods (like cel phones) have inherent limitations. If you're blind, you need to use a screenreader on a computer, not a phone. Maybe it sucks, but you're blind and you should get used to the fact that your life has a few more hardships than most.
You've also mentioned the deafblind people who probably interface with the web using braille readers. Why not also mention people with no hands and paraplegics? Certainly Google should have to make their website accessible to people who don't have the use of their limbs. Ok, I'm exagerating here but I have a point - companies shouldn't have to go out of their way to provide things for everybody in the world. If you're disabled and a company doesn't offer accesibility features that you want, don't patronize them. Companies should provide features because the market demands it, not because the government mandates it.
My bad, meant to hit preview. __________________________________________________ __
I would guess their reasoning is that now it's more of a drinking holiday and less of a "let's celebrate the Catholic patron saint of Ireland" day.
Other religious holidays they did... Holi (several times) - A Hindu holiday Halloween (several times) - Commercialized now, but with religious roots (much like Christmas) Easter (several times) - Commercialized, but still very religious also. Valentine's Day (several times) - Commercialized, but religious roots.
Yes, each of these holidays has gone "mainstream" but to say that Easter is ok but Christmas is too religious... I would have to disagree. But as soon as they do Christmas and neglect to do Ramadan, are they going to face harassment lawsuits and other problems? Should we start the deathwatch now on how much longer they do fun logos before it's not worth the hassle? It already happened on Miro's birthday...
I would guess their reasoning is that now it's more of a drinking holiday and less of a "let's celebrate the Catholic patron saint of Ireland" day.
But then again, they did...
Holi (several times) - A Hindu holiday
Halloween (several times) - Commercialized now, but with religious roots (much like Christmas)
Easter (several times) - Commercialized, but still very religious also.
Valentine's Day (several times) - Commercialized, but religious roots.
Yes, you have to dig a bit hard to find the religious history of some of those holidays, but to claim that Christmas has not been commercialized as much as Easter would be naive. But as soon as they do Christmas and neglect to do Ramadan, are they going to face harassment lawsuits and other problems? Should we start the deathwatch now on how much longer they do fun logos before it's not worth the hassle? It already happened on Miro's birthday...
While it may be understandable for them to complain, I don't find it reasonable. If you have to work on 2 different engines to support the desired client-base, that's a business decision you have made. Since the decision is yours to make, I don't see a reason to complain. Choose to support only 1 browser and take the share of the market that comes with that browser, or choose to support multiple browsers and realize that you'll have a little extra work. I was in agreement with the poster who said, "you knew what you were getting into..."
I agree with you about informing my clients to get better browsers, but it's not their browsers that matter it's *their* clients browsers that matter. I do not wish to be a browser evangelist myself nor do I want to have to tell my client to become one. Programming a site that only works in standards-compliant browsers is as wise as programming a site that only works in IE. Perhaps the standards-compliant browsers have the "moral" backing that IE lacks, but IE has the sheer market penetration that compliant browsers lack. I program sites that work in standards compliant browsers and throw in a quick hack to correct any IE errors. Does it suck doing it this way? Perhaps. But it's not as bad as people seem to construe and it's certainly not a surprise to any developers any more.
Fair enough.
All the major automakers do have proprietary parts in their engines that do require proprietary tools to work on them properly. Yes, the majority of the parts are standardized but there are parts (especially the computer chips) on each engine that require a special tool or proprietary part. IE, while definitely having it's own shit (like the shitty Filter CSS), still renders *most* things the same way as other browsers.
I don't do any Gov't work, but I thought they had fairly strict requirements. Or is that only for accessibility features?
I don't have a Mac so I don't get the chance to use Safari on a regular basis. I use Firefox for most things but I've been surprised & impressed with the IE7 betas. Sure, it's not perfect, but it's nice to see that MS is moving in the right direction (especially the PNG support).
And I do agree that we *shouldn't* have to do hacks & work-arounds at all, but it seems to be unavoidable (yes, I know that's not the "right" attitude).
IE doesn't follow standards and doesn't even support PNG files correctly.
Unless I'm mistaken, no browser implements 100% of all specs. And the PNG complaint is valid and thankfully MS finally fixed this in IE7.
unless you want to exclude 1 out of 10 users from your site can not support just IE
I don't think the parent poster was suggesting developing IE-exclusive sites, but that web designers need to stop whining about having to develop for multiple browsers.
I will not due business with a company that has an IE only site.
I know it's petty, but I wouldn't hire a person if they made such an egregious misspelling on their resume.
IE doesnt support current standards
You are technically correct, but if you use the appropriate DOCTYPE it will render *most* things properly.
Because of IE I can not use PNG files with an alpha channel on websites I design.
A very valid complaint.
Just because most people use junk that is no reason to...
c. Try to get people to use a better product.
I don't think you meant that.
Microsoft fix IE 7 before you release it. Get PNGs working and ACID 2.
PNGs I agree. ACID 2... eh, fuggit
To use a stupid analogy: Is it reasonable for mechanics to complain about having to learn Ford *and* GM engines because the automakers can't agree on a standard motor? Sure the basics of each motor are the same, but each has it's own unique characteristics and design choices - just like browsers.
You can design a website to conform to the W3C spec and then add a stylesheet for IE. IE is the only browser to recognize its proprietary conditional comments tag so put a IE-only stylesheet inside a IE-conditional comment tag. Other browsers will treat the stylesheet include as a comment and ignore it but IE will treat it as a valid include and use the styles. Is it perfect? No. Does it work? Yes. And if you use a DOCTYPE IE will render *most* of the styles correctly leaving very little "clean-up" work for the IE-only stylesheet.
All I'm saying is that there are ways to efficiently design websites that support standards and use a quick & simple hack for most of IEs problems. The big one is PNG support and using.htc files (in my opinion) is not an acceptable hack since they don't seem to be 100% reliable. The only feature in IE7 that I'm actually looking forward to is the PNG support because now I can have more fun with the art.
It seems funny to me that a person so intent on telling everybody else they shouldn't waste their time posting opinions and "defending" corporation would take the time to post its opinion twice in defense of a community.
Are you worried the community's feelings will get hurt? I can assure you that it has no feelings, it's not a human being, it has no soul or feelings.
No, they aren't in that situation, they put themselves into that situation
You contradict yourself a little bit there. I think what you are trying to say was that they weren't put in that position but that they did it to themselves and I completely agree. But regardless how they got there, they're there.
They want their software to run everything. They want everything to be the same, uniform, for all users, for all applications, for the world.
Not much different than Google, a comany "focused" on search that is offering a new app for almost every market, or Apple which makes everything from OS's to personal musical accessories. Many companies have broad focuses and it is difficult to excel in each field with such a wide array of products.
They can split up, and half a dozen mini-Microsoft's can compete separately in different markets
I'm a realist. I happen to think that's a bad idea because baby-Microsofts would probably be run in similar fashions to "Ma-Microsoft"'s strategies (without the monopolistic advantages, of course) and instead of 1 proprietary Office (or whatever) format there would be half a dozen proprietary baby-Office formats.
It's a nice ideal to think that the split-up "baby" companies would suddenly have new personalities and cultures, but realistically they probably won't.
It isn't as if they haven't been caught buying studies before. So the distrust is well justified.
Justified perhaps, but automatically accurate... not necessarily.
Plain and simple fact is if Microsoft could compete with the usefulness of a solid Linux distro their product would speak for itself. In some cases this is true but in essentially all technical senses Microsoft is just a plain loser.
Ok, fanboy.
Most of Microsofts problems is that they don't listen to the customers. I mean sure they listen to Dell, RIAA, MPAA, maybe even IBM and other big wigs. But what about us users? What does WGA give me in terms of a useful feature? What does the bloat that is WMP give me over a simpler mplayer?
So when MS doesn't add new features they are slammed for not innovating enough, and when they do add new features they are slammed for contributing to bloat that you don't want. People bitched about IE6 not having tabs, etc. Firefox came out and MS finally realized it had to update IE so it added a lot of features people were asking for and the most-heard comment on Slashdot after IE7b2 was released was "it's ugly". Face it: Microsoft just can't win.
Why must they invent their own file formats [e.g. Office files, WMV, WMA] that are proprietary instead of using or establishing more open standards? etc, etc, etc. Everything MSFT does is to benefit the stock holders through locking the "customers" into their system. Use our OS, use our office suite, use our media tools, use our development tools. All the while they ignore any sense of established standards [ISO C99 anyone?] which make interoperability a bitch for Windows users. There is simply no reason why MSFT uses these awful platform dependent libraries.
You sorta' answered yourself there.
Take DirectX for instance. On any OTHER platform you combine Allegro with OpenGL and have essentially the same thing [just 1/10th the size and in C]. But no, we must use the DX "experience" because somehow the hype makes it shinier!
Not every product is a winner. MS historically doesn't release every single product as a beta and quietly stop promoting the ones that suck. Instead they release final versions and some fall on their face. No company has a perfect record.
I know what I'm saying is "no duh", but you seemed to be hinting that MSFT hatred is not warranted. Us "OSS" users don't hate MSFT because it's better. We hate it because it lulls people into a sense of superiority when all it does is move to separate them from their money. It creates nightmares for us who chose to chose.
The problem is not that criticism isn't warranted, it's that MS can't win no matter what. If they release a weak or buggy product they get slammed, but if they take too long to release they get slammed. If they don't add new features they get slammed, but if they add new features it's called bloat. If an MS product gets bad reviews the reviewers are being honest, but if they get good reviews the reviewers are obviously being paid. For years MS got slammed for security issues, and they beefed up SP2 and suddenly there were waves of "but it broke my application" complaints. The list goes on.
Microsoft has gotten so big that they are in the impossible position of trying to keep everyone happy. I'm not particularly a Microsoft "fan", but I hate this wanton "Micro$oft is teh suxors!1!" b.s. OSS fanboys need to grow up and realize that Microsoft can't go back in time and correct the sins of the past, and since it is a monopoly it can't just genuinely screw its customers and break every file/application by releasing a new version of Windows that corrects all the problems of the old versions but offers no legacy support. They have a tough balancing act to do and, while they're not perfect, they're getting better.
I missed yours or you missed mine? Methinks the latter.
I don't know why you would think I missed your point completely when my opening words were, "I agree with everything you wrote except..." My only gripe was with the ridiculous statement, "Microsofts needs to give up [its] freakin' monopoly." Short of Microsoft actually installing competing operating systems on computers there is no way for Microsoft to simply "give up" its monopoly. Adhering to open standards or open-sourcing their software will not automatically result in termination of their monopoly. People will have to overcome their "it has a MS brand on it so I'll buy this one" mindset before the monopoly ends and Microsoft can't force that to happen.
As for you missing my point entirely... I never suggested you wanted a new monopoly of another company nor was I suggesting a new monopoly would be a good idea. I simply stated that "the masses" currently use Microsoft and Linux & Mac have never made a good enough offer for "the masses" to defect and then I got a bit off topic with a proposed plan of how to attract Windows users. "The masses" defecting could simply result in 30% marketshare for Mac. That would be huge for Mac and wouldn't constitute a monopoly.
Your analogy is also counterproductive. If Mac & Linux are "John Deeres" then they aren't competing with Microsoft at all. If this is the case, Microsoft doesn't have any competitors at all so not only should it not "give up" its monopoly but there is nobody to "give up" its monopoly to.
Slashdot Mirror
I doubt it.
When people go to little blogs all day and see that some sites don't like IE, but then they go to their bank's website and it doesn't care... And they go to major news corporation sites and those sites don't care... And then they go car shopping and Ford's website doesn't care... do you get where I'm going with this? People are more likely to respect the opinion of major sites with millions of dollars invested in them (wellsfargo.com, etc.) than small company sites or blogs. The corporations aren't going to put out non-IE-compliant sites because IE has huge marketshare and corporations are more interested in customer-service than taking philosophical stands.
Personally I can't stand the "this site is better in browser X" notices because, in my opinion, a web designer's job is to design web pages that work for the majority of visitors. Too many "designers" forget that they are designing the pages for the visitors, not for themselves. As a visitor to a webpage, I don't care what browser the designer thinks I should be using, I just want the page to work. If I visit it in IE and the page breaks, I feel it is partly IE's fault for not making things easier for designers but also the designer's fault for not realizing that "going the extra mile" would've made the site experience better. Every site I design is designed to be standards compliant and then I include a few minor hacks to get IE to display correctly. I don't feel I've done my job properly until the site looks/operates nearly identical in IE (6 & 7), Firefox, Opera (8 & 9), and Safari. I don't have the time to test every browser known to man, but I figure those browsers cover the vast majority of visitors. Yes, it would be much easier to just code it to be standards-compliant and not give a shit about how it displays in various browsers, but that's not good design.
Are you a professional designer? Whether or not you support Microsoft's decisions, it seems silly not to offer better than "crippled minimal feature version" support for the browser with the most market-share. I can't imagine telling one of my clients (or my boss if I worked for a different company) "Yeah, your/our site doesn't look good in the most popular browser, but it's because their philosophy is flawed."
And, if it's about standards-supporting browsers, why don't you test for Opera?
Same thing with the Vista branding.
It's still a stupid idea though. At least with Mac you only have 1 sound - the Mac brand. If Vista goes through with this I'll have to hear Vaio branding followed by Microsoft branding. Eventually the boot process will be a long symphony and the justification will be "so you don't have to take the effort to look at your screen, you'll know your computer is ready when Beethoven's 9th finishes."
That justification is also retarded. "This way the consumer can make a bowl of cereal without wondering if his computer is ready to use." Uh... if I'm having cereal, generally I get the cereal, milk, & bowl and walk back to the computer. I know the computer is ready to use when it prompts me for a password. I don't need a sound effect.
He had a temporary license to practise law in Alabama. Judge James Moore revoked his temporary license and referred his actions to the Alabama Bar for "appropriate action". Since he is a member of the Florida Bar, he is still in good standing though he may have trouble practising law in Alabama again.
The USDA approved the protocol in 2002 and afterwards there was a short trial done but the feedback was terrible. The irradiated products have a big ugly "this fruit is irradiated" sticker on the box which tends to turn off people. There was also a big anti-radiation movement from "green" groups that didn't like the idea of using radiation in edible products. This article is an example, check out the cartoon on the right. No basis in fact, just preying on peoples' fears.
There is a state-of-the-art facility on Kauai that was built specifically to irradiate Kauai pineapples other subtropicals for shipment to the mainland. The facility has gone largely unused because after the public's initial bad reaction major retailers became scared to bring in any product using that protocol. You won't find irradiated fruit in Safeway but some of it ends up in the terminal markets and distributed to smaller community stores.
In all likelihood, the technology will be used to replace existing PLU stickers. So instead of having a sticker with a number and another rediripe sticker you'll just have a PLU sticker that changes colors as the fruit gets ripe.
The stickers aren't just a pain in the ass, they're a pain for packers as well since they have to pay for the stickers and the machines and the labor. The problem is that retail chains will reject fruit that is not stickered because it costs too much to train clerks to remember PLU codes. It also isn't very practical for them to try and train the clerks because many fruits have different PLUs for large size and for small sizes and it may be difficult to determine the category of a piece of fruit when it comes to the register.
For those of you that hate the stickers, there is currently a lot of research being done on laser-etching that burns PLU codes directly into product surfaces without damaging the produce. Another research tangent is systems that use ink injection to tattoo fruit with the codes. The problem with these other methods is public perception. If people perceive the laser to damage the fruit or think maybe the ink isn't safe to eat, they won't buy the product. Paranoia will usually override other factors. (For example, pineapples from Hawaii must be treated before import to "the mainland". Hot water dips and vapor treatments satisfy USDA/APHIS requirements but dull the flavor of the fruit. Radiation treatments satisfy the requirements and the flavor is not impaired, but the public mostly refuses to purchase fruit that was treated this way. Despite years of testing & approvals processes, John Q. Public's fear of the word "radiation" is stronger than his desire to eat better tasting fruit.)
Stability and legacy "bad-code" support don't seem like they'll be much of an issue.
The biggest problem won't be IE7 breaking pages, it will be stupid webmasters who are overly specific on which useragent strings they'll allow. If sales are slow the week before christmas, it may be because users are getting a "Please visit this page in IE6" message.
Spoken like a true thoughtless drone who equates any endorsement, no matter how mild, with subservient behavior.
I suppose Charles Manson was innocent, just a victim of the government being abusive. After all, if I think even for a moment that he might have been prosecuted justly I'm bending over and the government is doing me up the chute.
Thanks for raising the level of discourse on /.
It seems like most of the replies are saying, "see, it's best to reserve judgment." Very few posters are accusing him of being guilty, the vast majority are simply pointing out that perhaps indeed the government had a perfectly valid reason for arresting Rombom and he's not just a victim carefully chosen by the government to make an example and help control the populace.
Excellent suggestion! Those Gundam kits are sweet, especially since they do offer the more complex kits as the builder becomes more advanced.
Maybe there are cel phones for blind people that I'm unaware of, but how to you propose that a blind person navigate a Motorola menu, launch a browser, type in a URL using Tap or iTap, go to Gmail and try to sign up? And that's even before the CAPTCHA.
I don't know the ADA inside and out, but roadblocks aren't being put in front of disabled people wanting to use Gmail, they just have limited ways in which they can access it and this limited access isn't because Google purposefully went out of their way to say "screw the blind", but because certain methods (like cel phones) have inherent limitations. If you're blind, you need to use a screenreader on a computer, not a phone. Maybe it sucks, but you're blind and you should get used to the fact that your life has a few more hardships than most.
You've also mentioned the deafblind people who probably interface with the web using braille readers. Why not also mention people with no hands and paraplegics? Certainly Google should have to make their website accessible to people who don't have the use of their limbs. Ok, I'm exagerating here but I have a point - companies shouldn't have to go out of their way to provide things for everybody in the world. If you're disabled and a company doesn't offer accesibility features that you want, don't patronize them. Companies should provide features because the market demands it, not because the government mandates it.
A mobile phone also can't help you walk up the stairs if you use a wheelchair. It's a phone, not a fully-functional browser on a desktop.
Sometimes being disabled means you don't have all the same priviledges as the majority of the population. It sucks, but it's life.
If you click the wheelchair next to the CAPTCHA it plays a aural CAPTCHA.
I's doin' pretty good. Thanks for askin'. Toodles!
Hi Doesn't-Get-The-Joke-Guy, how are you today?
My bad, meant to hit preview._ __
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I would guess their reasoning is that now it's more of a drinking holiday and less of a "let's celebrate the Catholic patron saint of Ireland" day.
Other religious holidays they did...
Holi (several times) - A Hindu holiday
Halloween (several times) - Commercialized now, but with religious roots (much like Christmas)
Easter (several times) - Commercialized, but still very religious also.
Valentine's Day (several times) - Commercialized, but religious roots.
Yes, each of these holidays has gone "mainstream" but to say that Easter is ok but Christmas is too religious... I would have to disagree. But as soon as they do Christmas and neglect to do Ramadan, are they going to face harassment lawsuits and other problems? Should we start the deathwatch now on how much longer they do fun logos before it's not worth the hassle? It already happened on Miro's birthday...
I would guess their reasoning is that now it's more of a drinking holiday and less of a "let's celebrate the Catholic patron saint of Ireland" day. But then again, they did... Holi (several times) - A Hindu holiday Halloween (several times) - Commercialized now, but with religious roots (much like Christmas) Easter (several times) - Commercialized, but still very religious also. Valentine's Day (several times) - Commercialized, but religious roots. Yes, you have to dig a bit hard to find the religious history of some of those holidays, but to claim that Christmas has not been commercialized as much as Easter would be naive. But as soon as they do Christmas and neglect to do Ramadan, are they going to face harassment lawsuits and other problems? Should we start the deathwatch now on how much longer they do fun logos before it's not worth the hassle? It already happened on Miro's birthday...
While it may be understandable for them to complain, I don't find it reasonable. If you have to work on 2 different engines to support the desired client-base, that's a business decision you have made. Since the decision is yours to make, I don't see a reason to complain. Choose to support only 1 browser and take the share of the market that comes with that browser, or choose to support multiple browsers and realize that you'll have a little extra work. I was in agreement with the poster who said, "you knew what you were getting into..." I agree with you about informing my clients to get better browsers, but it's not their browsers that matter it's *their* clients browsers that matter. I do not wish to be a browser evangelist myself nor do I want to have to tell my client to become one. Programming a site that only works in standards-compliant browsers is as wise as programming a site that only works in IE. Perhaps the standards-compliant browsers have the "moral" backing that IE lacks, but IE has the sheer market penetration that compliant browsers lack. I program sites that work in standards compliant browsers and throw in a quick hack to correct any IE errors. Does it suck doing it this way? Perhaps. But it's not as bad as people seem to construe and it's certainly not a surprise to any developers any more.
Fair enough. All the major automakers do have proprietary parts in their engines that do require proprietary tools to work on them properly. Yes, the majority of the parts are standardized but there are parts (especially the computer chips) on each engine that require a special tool or proprietary part. IE, while definitely having it's own shit (like the shitty Filter CSS), still renders *most* things the same way as other browsers. I don't do any Gov't work, but I thought they had fairly strict requirements. Or is that only for accessibility features? I don't have a Mac so I don't get the chance to use Safari on a regular basis. I use Firefox for most things but I've been surprised & impressed with the IE7 betas. Sure, it's not perfect, but it's nice to see that MS is moving in the right direction (especially the PNG support). And I do agree that we *shouldn't* have to do hacks & work-arounds at all, but it seems to be unavoidable (yes, I know that's not the "right" attitude).
Unless I'm mistaken, no browser implements 100% of all specs. And the PNG complaint is valid and thankfully MS finally fixed this in IE7.
I don't think the parent poster was suggesting developing IE-exclusive sites, but that web designers need to stop whining about having to develop for multiple browsers.
I know it's petty, but I wouldn't hire a person if they made such an egregious misspelling on their resume.
You are technically correct, but if you use the appropriate DOCTYPE it will render *most* things properly.
A very valid complaint.
I don't think you meant that.
PNGs I agree. ACID 2... eh, fuggit
To use a stupid analogy: Is it reasonable for mechanics to complain about having to learn Ford *and* GM engines because the automakers can't agree on a standard motor? Sure the basics of each motor are the same, but each has it's own unique characteristics and design choices - just like browsers.
You can design a website to conform to the W3C spec and then add a stylesheet for IE. IE is the only browser to recognize its proprietary conditional comments tag so put a IE-only stylesheet inside a IE-conditional comment tag. Other browsers will treat the stylesheet include as a comment and ignore it but IE will treat it as a valid include and use the styles. Is it perfect? No. Does it work? Yes. And if you use a DOCTYPE IE will render *most* of the styles correctly leaving very little "clean-up" work for the IE-only stylesheet.
All I'm saying is that there are ways to efficiently design websites that support standards and use a quick & simple hack for most of IEs problems. The big one is PNG support and using .htc files (in my opinion) is not an acceptable hack since they don't seem to be 100% reliable. The only feature in IE7 that I'm actually looking forward to is the PNG support because now I can have more fun with the art.
It seems funny to me that a person so intent on telling everybody else they shouldn't waste their time posting opinions and "defending" corporation would take the time to post its opinion twice in defense of a community.
Are you worried the community's feelings will get hurt? I can assure you that it has no feelings, it's not a human being, it has no soul or feelings.
You contradict yourself a little bit there. I think what you are trying to say was that they weren't put in that position but that they did it to themselves and I completely agree. But regardless how they got there, they're there.
Not much different than Google, a comany "focused" on search that is offering a new app for almost every market, or Apple which makes everything from OS's to personal musical accessories. Many companies have broad focuses and it is difficult to excel in each field with such a wide array of products.
I'm a realist. I happen to think that's a bad idea because baby-Microsofts would probably be run in similar fashions to "Ma-Microsoft"'s strategies (without the monopolistic advantages, of course) and instead of 1 proprietary Office (or whatever) format there would be half a dozen proprietary baby-Office formats.
It's a nice ideal to think that the split-up "baby" companies would suddenly have new personalities and cultures, but realistically they probably won't.
Justified perhaps, but automatically accurate... not necessarily.
Ok, fanboy.
So when MS doesn't add new features they are slammed for not innovating enough, and when they do add new features they are slammed for contributing to bloat that you don't want. People bitched about IE6 not having tabs, etc. Firefox came out and MS finally realized it had to update IE so it added a lot of features people were asking for and the most-heard comment on Slashdot after IE7b2 was released was "it's ugly". Face it: Microsoft just can't win.
You sorta' answered yourself there.
Not every product is a winner. MS historically doesn't release every single product as a beta and quietly stop promoting the ones that suck. Instead they release final versions and some fall on their face. No company has a perfect record.
The problem is not that criticism isn't warranted, it's that MS can't win no matter what. If they release a weak or buggy product they get slammed, but if they take too long to release they get slammed. If they don't add new features they get slammed, but if they add new features it's called bloat. If an MS product gets bad reviews the reviewers are being honest, but if they get good reviews the reviewers are obviously being paid. For years MS got slammed for security issues, and they beefed up SP2 and suddenly there were waves of "but it broke my application" complaints. The list goes on.
Microsoft has gotten so big that they are in the impossible position of trying to keep everyone happy. I'm not particularly a Microsoft "fan", but I hate this wanton "Micro$oft is teh suxors!1!" b.s. OSS fanboys need to grow up and realize that Microsoft can't go back in time and correct the sins of the past, and since it is a monopoly it can't just genuinely screw its customers and break every file/application by releasing a new version of Windows that corrects all the problems of the old versions but offers no legacy support. They have a tough balancing act to do and, while they're not perfect, they're getting better.
Not trying to be a troll, but how does the parent post get modded "Insightful"?
It's almost funny and it's definitely amusing, but I fail to see any insight provided.
"Boy, talk about missing the point completely!"
I missed yours or you missed mine? Methinks the latter.
I don't know why you would think I missed your point completely when my opening words were, "I agree with everything you wrote except..." My only gripe was with the ridiculous statement, "Microsofts needs to give up [its] freakin' monopoly." Short of Microsoft actually installing competing operating systems on computers there is no way for Microsoft to simply "give up" its monopoly. Adhering to open standards or open-sourcing their software will not automatically result in termination of their monopoly. People will have to overcome their "it has a MS brand on it so I'll buy this one" mindset before the monopoly ends and Microsoft can't force that to happen.
As for you missing my point entirely... I never suggested you wanted a new monopoly of another company nor was I suggesting a new monopoly would be a good idea. I simply stated that "the masses" currently use Microsoft and Linux & Mac have never made a good enough offer for "the masses" to defect and then I got a bit off topic with a proposed plan of how to attract Windows users. "The masses" defecting could simply result in 30% marketshare for Mac. That would be huge for Mac and wouldn't constitute a monopoly.
Your analogy is also counterproductive. If Mac & Linux are "John Deeres" then they aren't competing with Microsoft at all. If this is the case, Microsoft doesn't have any competitors at all so not only should it not "give up" its monopoly but there is nobody to "give up" its monopoly to.