Windows has had problems for YEARS because of the moody s/w written by the likes of Adobe, etc. - and they'll still pretend that it's *essential* to run several apps in the background, all day, in case you *might* want to access them - as well as several that you *don't* (Nero Indexer, anyone?). And now the problem has been replicated onto the browser plugins. But let's all blame MS/ IE, it's easier...
It isn't as if companies such as Adobe, Apple and the like don't have the resources, beta OS's or time to write decent code for IE, or even Windows itself. How many YEARS did it take Apple to write a decent Quicktime player? Why did it take another YEAR for Adobe to write an installer for IE7/ Vista that wasn't tripped up by the sandbox? But let's all blame MS, it's easier...
These companies will always blame MS/ IE, because all the fanboys will then roll their eyes and say "well, no surprise there" and leave it at that. It seems that every time MS try and implement something new, everyone throws their arms in the air and collectively shout "standards! standards!" (I can still remember being told that AD would never get anywhere with Novell in place) - and yet here we all are, raving about Chrome being able to run seperate instances (old news for IE), and Firefox being more secure - more secure? I'm now on 50+ users who have all looked on in horror as I expose their passwords in English with two clicks. Oh, you can secure the p/w list, but I haven't seen a single user do that yet - *not one*. You won't get any arguement from me about FF being technically better and nicer to use - but at the end of the day, your non-tech client won't be interested in your protestations about browser security when their laptop has been stolen and their bank accounts emptied (even when they themselves installed it 'because my son said it was beter'). So we're really talking about swapping the frying pan for the fire, as opposed to a one-stop-shop for all.
Which means no easy way out - but you could do worse than start learning about Group Policy/ local settings, and stop assuming that the browser will just protect you from anything by default - otherwise you may as well just assume that Windows 'is set up right' and not bother configuring that either....which is, of course, what loads of users have done with Vista itself - and those same users (for instance) then turn off UAC 'because it's annoying', and still see nothing wrong with blaming MS when they come unstuck because that in turn disables IE protected mode...
As for plugins, I generally block my clients' plugins by default anyway. Flash may be wonderful, but if Yahoo insist on using it to drive a landrover in front what I'm trying to read (for example), then no thanks. Realplayer? It was years before I realised that they were actually seperate from Gator (remember them?), simply because of their softwares' behaviour. Quicktime? No, I don't want to install Safari sneaky-style just because updating Quicktime seemed like a good idea. And then there's the Gator (sorry, Google) toolbar....The list goes on - but hey, let's just blame MS. If they block s/w, they're being non-standard - if they allow the sort of power coders want, their OS/ browser is rubbish.
No-one is asking *why* it has taken Firefox three versions to get it right, and everyone is ignoring the second browser war that's only making losers out of everyone (and if you don't think there's a second format-war on already, try signing up to Be Unlimited with IE - yup, written for FF, won't work in IE).
I'll just type this all over again, because 'there was an error'.
If you have a youngster and an oldie in for an interview - here's what counts.
The youngster will probably have knowledge of all the latest s/w - but their advantage ends there. This is because generally, their experience will be limited to what's ideal for a single machine connected to the internet.
The oldie may not have the same knowledge as the youngster, but they'll be able to tell you how to configure IE6/7 to do what you need, as opposed to the youngster who will insist that everyone should be running Firefox simply because he runs it at home and 'everyone knows it's the best'. You can apply this rule to almost any software - the same sort of thing applies to hardware, but that's even more straightforward as there won't be many youngsters who've configured a HP SAN in their bedroom.
You can also apply this to coding - the youngster will know how to code the latest versions, but they won't have enough background to know how to code an older version that you've been saddled with and cannot upgrade.
I've seen this happen in interviews where younger applicants, when asked about what they're into, will go off into long diatribes about Linux/ Apple/ Vista etc. - none of which will be any use to the interviewer (apart from showing aptitude). They won't have any knowledge about running Win2000 apps, Win2000 itself, NT4....and it's the historical stuff that's important, partly because older problems may not have a dozen web pages telling you how to fix them!
So I don't get flamed - younger=less corporate experience, older=more corporate experience.
Interviewees either know a lot about their subject, or do their best to bluff based on what they *do* know.
Whittling the list down to a bunch of peeps that belong to the former is easy - but how do you choose which applicant has the most useful knowledge?
I've found time and again that the younger ones will know an awful lot - but it's all based in their bedroom (as in, what's best for a user on a single machine connected to the internet). Older types will give answers not based on 'what's the best?', but 'what's the best fit?'. One extra word that make a huge difference - sure, the younger ones may have done their MCP/ MCSE and know about Group Policy, but the older ones will be able to tell you what to do with it.
As an example, a bedroom-fanboy will talk you under the ground about how Linux is the best, or Firefox, etc. etc. - but someone with actual experience will not go straight to the best apps, but will discuss how to make the best of IE7/ XP/ Whatever you're using right now.
...until someone sues over being illegally blocked, the government has to capitulate over not being able to afford paying out on a hundred more lawsuits of the same vein, and then we're back to square one.
But what bothers me more about this is that, while I don't condone or even understand those that need kiddie porn to get their rocks off, it has made me ponder - if you're going to prosecute them as if they're molesters themselves, does that mean I have to go to jail for the murders I *might* commit after watching Faces of Death? It's a slippery slope...
IE doesn't need screen refeshes to show new mail in OWA 2007 (or 2003, AIR). You really need to be running a Windows/ Office laptop or box - it's not like they cost lots of money...
A lot of the solutions to allow other clients and the like access involve weakening the security of Exchange - not really a good option.
When someone releases a messaging/ calender client that has the same functionality as Outlook 2007, I'll have a look - but not until then.
Re:Great, just when we'd almost standardised....
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Google Chrome, Day 2
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We have several large customers that want their website to work well in Firefox (which is just as well, because we prefer to test in Firefox), some of them have firefox on their desktop, and many corporate websites make use of the extra features that Firefox offers. My next employer, for example, makes a living building Firefox extensions for eBay, Amazon, and that sort of companies.
There's definitely corporate interest in Firefox (although it's obviously not nearly as big as their interest in IE).
Yup - and I'll bet that's nearly all for targeting home users. Still, any company will pay developers a bit more to cover that 20% - but how about this - if you had to tell them that for some reason the pages/ site didn't work in either IE or FF on release day, which do you think they'd be most angry about?
Half the issue with IE is that it has to be locked down - it's far too open by default. This is easy on a domain level, but too many users simply don't think that they have to bother. Also - does your company enforce training on the password list within FF? Again, far too many users have installed this and then looked shocked when I show them all their passwords, in English in three clicks (yes you can password-protect the list - I have yet to visit a machine where a user has actually done this).
Progress won't stop, but it's the sort of progress that would have been nice when it mattered.
What do you mean? Has progress suddenly ceased to matter? I'm quite happy with the last 10 years of progress in browser technology.
I mean progress as in some actual competition for MS other than the likes of netscape suddenly deciding that everyone won't mind paying $30.
If you're doing websites that are FF-happy but IE-unfriendly (which there are lots of already), that's going to make you look super-cool at the expense of lost business...but the main problem here is *we're back to the incompatible browser fun*.
We've never left the "incompatible browser fun".
Sure, but you must admit that while IE was the 90% majority share, that was what you developed for. Now whith each browser rival comes a new set of problems, and incompatibility between each.
IE6 was a piece of crap because IE6 was (and IE7 is) the 'primary target'. You can sidestep a lot of that simply by running IE 64bit.
I have no idea what you're trying to say here, but IE6 was a piece of crap because it was built in the "piece of crap"-age of web browsers, and hasn't been improved since. Other browsers have improved quite a lot in those 10 years, and that's why they're better.
I was pointing out that IE was always going to be the highest-risk browser to use because it's the version that nearly all attacks are aimed at. Apple pretended for years that they were more secure - neglecting to mention that having a less than 5% share of the world market puts you on a pretty low risk factor in terms of what OS the nasties are going to attack. The cool part is, the same benefit translates over to IE 64-bit, and that's what the press isn't really cottoning onto yet - if you're browsing in 64-bit on a 64-bit OS, that's a huge amount of nasties you don't have to worry about - because they're almost all 32-bit (or designed to attack 32-bit dll's and the like). This will change as 64-bit becomes the norm, but for now, it's a easy step to take.
And as for features and design - well, MS do have a rep for stealing all the best bits...
But for 10 years they didn't, and that's why they fell behind. The only reason why IE marketshare remained big is that most people get IE standard with their PC, and aren't even aware of alternatives. Very few people who are aware of other browsers choose IE over those other browsers.
Actually that's not true - on a corporate level (as you say elsewhere), and on a home level, you're only really talking about techs - most non-tech home users will stick to IE sim
Re:Great, just when we'd almost standardised....
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Google Chrome, Day 2
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Firefox is taken up by Corporations? Haven't seen it at any sites yet (outside of the usual Chairman because-he-was-advised-by-his-son situation) - I always assumed this was because of the lack of Group Policy controls - does FF have those now?
Progress won't stop, but it's the sort of progress that would have been nice when it mattered. I'm not an MS/ Windows fan in any way - you could say I make a living out of it not being perfect - but it's the same situation now as it was then; is it compatible? If you're doing websites that are FF-happy but IE-unfriendly (which there are lots of already), that's going to make you look super-cool at the expense of lost business...but the main problem here is *we're back to the incompatible browser fun*.
IE6 was a piece of crap because IE6 was (and IE7 is) the 'primary target'. You can sidestep a lot of that simply by running IE 64bit. And as for features and design - well, MS do have a rep for stealing all the best bits...
And how about this - if FF is so cool, why are the others (Apple, hell, Chrome) trying so hard to take a market share that's supposedly already won? Why are apple trying to trick me into installing Safari with their Quicktime Updater if it's so cool?
I guess the point I'm making (thanks for the troll points, slashdot)is that Windows (and then IE) unified everything - seperating browsers out again? Hmmm, that'll run smoothly. In three years' time, I'll be having to diagnose the chairmans' laptop because he's got five browsers loaded for different sites...
Great, just when we'd almost standardised....
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Google Chrome, Day 2
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...first FF, then Opera, now Chrome - hasn't anyone been paying attention in the last 10 years?
Are any of these browsers going to be taken up by corporations? No.
Is this all happening because some folks can't quite accept that MS won this war 10 years ago? Yes. Work with what people are using; the days of a brand-new alternative are faaar in the past.
Don't believe me? Fine, I'll just go and use one of the thousands of Open Office apps running right now arcoss the city...oh...er...I can't find one. How can that be?
If it was 10 years ago, the limit would be 5Gb p/month - to stop us all downloading DVD's.
Now the average seems to be 50-100Gb p/ month - presumably to stop us all downloading HD's.
I was with ZenADSL (unlimited d/l) from the beginning of broadband in the UK, and paid double the average cost for a number of years for the privilege, until they decided that they weren't making quite enough profit. So, out went the emails to all their users proclaiming that the contract they had previously insisted upon was now not quite what they wanted, and could they have their ball back, please. I replied apologising for using the connection within the limits they had insisted upon - and thanked them for 'forcing me to download like it's 1999'.
So I went to BE about a year ago, and haven't looked back. Their support may be lower than low (remember the call centre in Transformers? That's what you get), but the benfits are beyond worth it.
Usage? You can measure it now, but it won't stay that way for long. What about BBC iplayer? What about C4's 4oD? These services are going to increase in number, not go away...and what about Flash? I was disabling it ten years ago because of the amount of wasted bandwidth Flash pages can use, and that was when we were all on 56K modems. I have not changed this approach with the advent of Broadband - just as I don't buy a huge CPU so that MS can throw away my cycles on a pretty desktop (etc.), I don't have a unlimited fast connection so that Yahoo can allow landrovers to drive across what I'm trying to read. If you follow that thinking, and disable stuff like Flash, you won't have to worry about what's being used up when you're 'not looking'. But the actual bandwidth isn't the real issue here - it's what we're downloading...
The problem we face now is that 'they' are all terrified of us downloading HD and HD-Audio, when (for the most part) we've got all that stuff already - and anyone who hasn't probably knows someone that has (yes, we've had that long). Of course, if they hadn't wasted so much time trying to perfect a way preserving their seventies business model, I'd have bought dozens if not hundreds of BD's already - but since I refuse to spend hundreds/ thousands more on a system that won't do as good a job as my PC, to watch films I've already paid at least three times for (Star Wars, anyone?)...well, you don't have to be a market analyst to see what's happening en masse. I paid £25 for a copy of War of the Worlds in 1986 - an album already nearly 10 years old, by then. Why did it cost that much? 'Because it's a double'. Or £16 for Dark Side of the Moon (again, not new). And for years afterwards, all investigations mysteriously agreed that CD's 'were not a rip off'. Anyone notice how the lowest BD player jumped by $100 when HD-DVD went down? I suppose that must have been coincidence too.
Maybe if they hadn't lied so many times about how much CD's cost to make over the years, I'd be a bit more sympathetic. Or if Metallica hadn't illustrated just how greedy four men could be once their primary songwriter left. Or if the studios had invested in Digital Screens *everywhere* seven years ago like Lucas was trying to get them to do...that's just three examples, and I have over a dozen more, each of which would have made a real difference if they'd only been a bit less greedy - and not bothered with silly UK ads which no-one pays attention to (Knock off Nigel? Why would he be *buying* DVD's?)
By the time they have a lid on the pirates, it'll be too late (in fact, it is already). But they don't know what else to do, so sit back and enjoy watching one protection system fall after another.
Remember everyone, 'Home Taping is Killing Music' - but someone has to keep Amy Winehouse stocked up with gak.
Here we go again....windows is rubbish blah blah....apple is better blah blah....linux is best blah blah...
The clue was in the statement pointing to Apple's OS X - while ignoring that in the grand scheme of things, *no one uses it* - especially since they decided to abandon their old OS (no backwards compatibilty? That'll sell). Imagine if MS had brought out XP with a proviso that you had to wait for W95 to run on top of it before you could run any old apps...Gates would have been stoned to death.
Ditto linux. This race was over decades ago, when Apple, Digital, Novell and Netscape went for the dollars instead of the users. Now here we are, squabbling over which app is claiming the most of what's left of the pie MS have almost finished.
Firefox? No Group Policy controls, plus I can bring up a users' passwords, in clear english, with three clicks - Hmmm very secure. And MS have already stolen the best bits (as they always do).
Linux? No Support. From a corporate point of view, that means End Of.
You're absolutely right - as I said, it's the old 3-year rule, which doesn't really count as 'news'.
Remember everyone complaining about how slow 2000 was, and how they weren't going to fix the issues but save them to be fixed in XP?
Or how rubbish Win95 was, the the fixes were to be found in Win98?
Still, imagine how bad things would be now if we'd all gone the Apple way - and how much poorer we'd be for it!
I've been in this game too long:-)
Who bothered loading W2000 with XP 3 years away? *everyone*.
Who bothered loading NT4 with W2000 3 years away? *everyone*.
Who bothered loading 95 with 98 3 years away? *everyone*.
So, in short, Slashdot are following the rest of the media, shrieking too loudly to notice what they're shrieking about.
Eh? Most users make calls via Firefox? Try looking outside your bedroom...
It's the Mac issue all over again. 'I Use this, all my friends use this, so that's the standard, isn't it?'
And you know that all these 'geeks' (hehehe) will still be loudly proclaiming how their browser is the best, even once the app has finished its lifecycle (cue Amiga, Netscape, Digital, Betamax, BBC Micro, 8-Track...). I only need three characters for you lot - I. E. 7.
What a shame the poster couldn't simply report news without adding their own naive opinion first. Still, that's the web for you.
Slashdot Mirror
....but I don't see it being used en-masse...
This is where we end up going in circles...
Windows has had problems for YEARS because of the moody s/w written by the likes of Adobe, etc. - and they'll still pretend that it's *essential* to run several apps in the background, all day, in case you *might* want to access them - as well as several that you *don't* (Nero Indexer, anyone?). And now the problem has been replicated onto the browser plugins. But let's all blame MS/ IE, it's easier...
It isn't as if companies such as Adobe, Apple and the like don't have the resources, beta OS's or time to write decent code for IE, or even Windows itself. How many YEARS did it take Apple to write a decent Quicktime player? Why did it take another YEAR for Adobe to write an installer for IE7/ Vista that wasn't tripped up by the sandbox? But let's all blame MS, it's easier...
These companies will always blame MS/ IE, because all the fanboys will then roll their eyes and say "well, no surprise there" and leave it at that. It seems that every time MS try and implement something new, everyone throws their arms in the air and collectively shout "standards! standards!" (I can still remember being told that AD would never get anywhere with Novell in place) - and yet here we all are, raving about Chrome being able to run seperate instances (old news for IE), and Firefox being more secure - more secure? I'm now on 50+ users who have all looked on in horror as I expose their passwords in English with two clicks. Oh, you can secure the p/w list, but I haven't seen a single user do that yet - *not one*. You won't get any arguement from me about FF being technically better and nicer to use - but at the end of the day, your non-tech client won't be interested in your protestations about browser security when their laptop has been stolen and their bank accounts emptied (even when they themselves installed it 'because my son said it was beter'). So we're really talking about swapping the frying pan for the fire, as opposed to a one-stop-shop for all.
Which means no easy way out - but you could do worse than start learning about Group Policy/ local settings, and stop assuming that the browser will just protect you from anything by default - otherwise you may as well just assume that Windows 'is set up right' and not bother configuring that either....which is, of course, what loads of users have done with Vista itself - and those same users (for instance) then turn off UAC 'because it's annoying', and still see nothing wrong with blaming MS when they come unstuck because that in turn disables IE protected mode...
As for plugins, I generally block my clients' plugins by default anyway. Flash may be wonderful, but if Yahoo insist on using it to drive a landrover in front what I'm trying to read (for example), then no thanks. Realplayer? It was years before I realised that they were actually seperate from Gator (remember them?), simply because of their softwares' behaviour. Quicktime? No, I don't want to install Safari sneaky-style just because updating Quicktime seemed like a good idea. And then there's the Gator (sorry, Google) toolbar....The list goes on - but hey, let's just blame MS. If they block s/w, they're being non-standard - if they allow the sort of power coders want, their OS/ browser is rubbish.
No-one is asking *why* it has taken Firefox three versions to get it right, and everyone is ignoring the second browser war that's only making losers out of everyone (and if you don't think there's a second format-war on already, try signing up to Be Unlimited with IE - yup, written for FF, won't work in IE).
Right now, plugins are the least of our worries.
I'll just type this all over again, because 'there was an error'.
If you have a youngster and an oldie in for an interview - here's what counts.
The youngster will probably have knowledge of all the latest s/w - but their advantage ends there. This is because generally, their experience will be limited to what's ideal for a single machine connected to the internet.
The oldie may not have the same knowledge as the youngster, but they'll be able to tell you how to configure IE6/7 to do what you need, as opposed to the youngster who will insist that everyone should be running Firefox simply because he runs it at home and 'everyone knows it's the best'. You can apply this rule to almost any software - the same sort of thing applies to hardware, but that's even more straightforward as there won't be many youngsters who've configured a HP SAN in their bedroom.
You can also apply this to coding - the youngster will know how to code the latest versions, but they won't have enough background to know how to code an older version that you've been saddled with and cannot upgrade.
I've seen this happen in interviews where younger applicants, when asked about what they're into, will go off into long diatribes about Linux/ Apple/ Vista etc. - none of which will be any use to the interviewer (apart from showing aptitude). They won't have any knowledge about running Win2000 apps, Win2000 itself, NT4....and it's the historical stuff that's important, partly because older problems may not have a dozen web pages telling you how to fix them!
So I don't get flamed - younger=less corporate experience, older=more corporate experience.
Interviewees either know a lot about their subject, or do their best to bluff based on what they *do* know.
Whittling the list down to a bunch of peeps that belong to the former is easy - but how do you choose which applicant has the most useful knowledge?
I've found time and again that the younger ones will know an awful lot - but it's all based in their bedroom (as in, what's best for a user on a single machine connected to the internet). Older types will give answers not based on 'what's the best?', but 'what's the best fit?'. One extra word that make a huge difference - sure, the younger ones may have done their MCP/ MCSE and know about Group Policy, but the older ones will be able to tell you what to do with it.
As an example, a bedroom-fanboy will talk you under the ground about how Linux is the best, or Firefox, etc. etc. - but someone with actual experience will not go straight to the best apps, but will discuss how to make the best of IE7/ XP/ Whatever you're using right now.
I could write my own OS on the back of a postage stamp, and it would out-perform Windows. My *amiga* was faster than 95, never mind Vista.
Now lets run Outlook, Word, Games....oh, what do you mean they don't work? It's not twenty years ago, when this would have actually made a difference.
So, when someone figures out how this is actually a news item, do let me know.
...until someone sues over being illegally blocked, the government has to capitulate over not being able to afford paying out on a hundred more lawsuits of the same vein, and then we're back to square one.
But what bothers me more about this is that, while I don't condone or even understand those that need kiddie porn to get their rocks off, it has made me ponder - if you're going to prosecute them as if they're molesters themselves, does that mean I have to go to jail for the murders I *might* commit after watching Faces of Death? It's a slippery slope...
IE doesn't need screen refeshes to show new mail in OWA 2007 (or 2003, AIR). You really need to be running a Windows/ Office laptop or box - it's not like they cost lots of money...
A lot of the solutions to allow other clients and the like access involve weakening the security of Exchange - not really a good option.
When someone releases a messaging/ calender client that has the same functionality as Outlook 2007, I'll have a look - but not until then.
We have several large customers that want their website to work well in Firefox (which is just as well, because we prefer to test in Firefox), some of them have firefox on their desktop, and many corporate websites make use of the extra features that Firefox offers. My next employer, for example, makes a living building Firefox extensions for eBay, Amazon, and that sort of companies.
There's definitely corporate interest in Firefox (although it's obviously not nearly as big as their interest in IE).
Yup - and I'll bet that's nearly all for targeting home users. Still, any company will pay developers a bit more to cover that 20% - but how about this - if you had to tell them that for some reason the pages/ site didn't work in either IE or FF on release day, which do you think they'd be most angry about?
Half the issue with IE is that it has to be locked down - it's far too open by default. This is easy on a domain level, but too many users simply don't think that they have to bother. Also - does your company enforce training on the password list within FF? Again, far too many users have installed this and then looked shocked when I show them all their passwords, in English in three clicks (yes you can password-protect the list - I have yet to visit a machine where a user has actually done this).
Progress won't stop, but it's the sort of progress that would have been nice when it mattered.
What do you mean? Has progress suddenly ceased to matter? I'm quite happy with the last 10 years of progress in browser technology.
I mean progress as in some actual competition for MS other than the likes of netscape suddenly deciding that everyone won't mind paying $30.
If you're doing websites that are FF-happy but IE-unfriendly (which there are lots of already), that's going to make you look super-cool at the expense of lost business...but the main problem here is *we're back to the incompatible browser fun*.
We've never left the "incompatible browser fun".
Sure, but you must admit that while IE was the 90% majority share, that was what you developed for. Now whith each browser rival comes a new set of problems, and incompatibility between each.
IE6 was a piece of crap because IE6 was (and IE7 is) the 'primary target'. You can sidestep a lot of that simply by running IE 64bit.
I have no idea what you're trying to say here, but IE6 was a piece of crap because it was built in the "piece of crap"-age of web browsers, and hasn't been improved since. Other browsers have improved quite a lot in those 10 years, and that's why they're better.
I was pointing out that IE was always going to be the highest-risk browser to use because it's the version that nearly all attacks are aimed at. Apple pretended for years that they were more secure - neglecting to mention that having a less than 5% share of the world market puts you on a pretty low risk factor in terms of what OS the nasties are going to attack. The cool part is, the same benefit translates over to IE 64-bit, and that's what the press isn't really cottoning onto yet - if you're browsing in 64-bit on a 64-bit OS, that's a huge amount of nasties you don't have to worry about - because they're almost all 32-bit (or designed to attack 32-bit dll's and the like). This will change as 64-bit becomes the norm, but for now, it's a easy step to take.
And as for features and design - well, MS do have a rep for stealing all the best bits...
But for 10 years they didn't, and that's why they fell behind. The only reason why IE marketshare remained big is that most people get IE standard with their PC, and aren't even aware of alternatives. Very few people who are aware of other browsers choose IE over those other browsers.
Actually that's not true - on a corporate level (as you say elsewhere), and on a home level, you're only really talking about techs - most non-tech home users will stick to IE sim
Firefox is taken up by Corporations? Haven't seen it at any sites yet (outside of the usual Chairman because-he-was-advised-by-his-son situation) - I always assumed this was because of the lack of Group Policy controls - does FF have those now?
Progress won't stop, but it's the sort of progress that would have been nice when it mattered. I'm not an MS/ Windows fan in any way - you could say I make a living out of it not being perfect - but it's the same situation now as it was then; is it compatible? If you're doing websites that are FF-happy but IE-unfriendly (which there are lots of already), that's going to make you look super-cool at the expense of lost business...but the main problem here is *we're back to the incompatible browser fun*.
IE6 was a piece of crap because IE6 was (and IE7 is) the 'primary target'. You can sidestep a lot of that simply by running IE 64bit. And as for features and design - well, MS do have a rep for stealing all the best bits...
And how about this - if FF is so cool, why are the others (Apple, hell, Chrome) trying so hard to take a market share that's supposedly already won? Why are apple trying to trick me into installing Safari with their Quicktime Updater if it's so cool?
I guess the point I'm making (thanks for the troll points, slashdot)is that Windows (and then IE) unified everything - seperating browsers out again? Hmmm, that'll run smoothly. In three years' time, I'll be having to diagnose the chairmans' laptop because he's got five browsers loaded for different sites...
...first FF, then Opera, now Chrome - hasn't anyone been paying attention in the last 10 years?
Are any of these browsers going to be taken up by corporations? No.
Is this all happening because some folks can't quite accept that MS won this war 10 years ago? Yes. Work with what people are using; the days of a brand-new alternative are faaar in the past.
Don't believe me? Fine, I'll just go and use one of the thousands of Open Office apps running right now arcoss the city...oh...er...I can't find one. How can that be?
If it was 10 years ago, the limit would be 5Gb p/month - to stop us all downloading DVD's.
Now the average seems to be 50-100Gb p/ month - presumably to stop us all downloading HD's.
I was with ZenADSL (unlimited d/l) from the beginning of broadband in the UK, and paid double the average cost for a number of years for the privilege, until they decided that they weren't making quite enough profit. So, out went the emails to all their users proclaiming that the contract they had previously insisted upon was now not quite what they wanted, and could they have their ball back, please. I replied apologising for using the connection within the limits they had insisted upon - and thanked them for 'forcing me to download like it's 1999'.
So I went to BE about a year ago, and haven't looked back. Their support may be lower than low (remember the call centre in Transformers? That's what you get), but the benfits are beyond worth it.
Usage? You can measure it now, but it won't stay that way for long. What about BBC iplayer? What about C4's 4oD? These services are going to increase in number, not go away...and what about Flash? I was disabling it ten years ago because of the amount of wasted bandwidth Flash pages can use, and that was when we were all on 56K modems. I have not changed this approach with the advent of Broadband - just as I don't buy a huge CPU so that MS can throw away my cycles on a pretty desktop (etc.), I don't have a unlimited fast connection so that Yahoo can allow landrovers to drive across what I'm trying to read. If you follow that thinking, and disable stuff like Flash, you won't have to worry about what's being used up when you're 'not looking'. But the actual bandwidth isn't the real issue here - it's what we're downloading...
The problem we face now is that 'they' are all terrified of us downloading HD and HD-Audio, when (for the most part) we've got all that stuff already - and anyone who hasn't probably knows someone that has (yes, we've had that long). Of course, if they hadn't wasted so much time trying to perfect a way preserving their seventies business model, I'd have bought dozens if not hundreds of BD's already - but since I refuse to spend hundreds/ thousands more on a system that won't do as good a job as my PC, to watch films I've already paid at least three times for (Star Wars, anyone?)...well, you don't have to be a market analyst to see what's happening en masse. I paid £25 for a copy of War of the Worlds in 1986 - an album already nearly 10 years old, by then. Why did it cost that much? 'Because it's a double'. Or £16 for Dark Side of the Moon (again, not new). And for years afterwards, all investigations mysteriously agreed that CD's 'were not a rip off'. Anyone notice how the lowest BD player jumped by $100 when HD-DVD went down? I suppose that must have been coincidence too.
Maybe if they hadn't lied so many times about how much CD's cost to make over the years, I'd be a bit more sympathetic. Or if Metallica hadn't illustrated just how greedy four men could be once their primary songwriter left. Or if the studios had invested in Digital Screens *everywhere* seven years ago like Lucas was trying to get them to do...that's just three examples, and I have over a dozen more, each of which would have made a real difference if they'd only been a bit less greedy - and not bothered with silly UK ads which no-one pays attention to (Knock off Nigel? Why would he be *buying* DVD's?)
By the time they have a lid on the pirates, it'll be too late (in fact, it is already). But they don't know what else to do, so sit back and enjoy watching one protection system fall after another.
Remember everyone, 'Home Taping is Killing Music' - but someone has to keep Amy Winehouse stocked up with gak.
Here we go again....windows is rubbish blah blah....apple is better blah blah....linux is best blah blah... The clue was in the statement pointing to Apple's OS X - while ignoring that in the grand scheme of things, *no one uses it* - especially since they decided to abandon their old OS (no backwards compatibilty? That'll sell). Imagine if MS had brought out XP with a proviso that you had to wait for W95 to run on top of it before you could run any old apps...Gates would have been stoned to death. Ditto linux. This race was over decades ago, when Apple, Digital, Novell and Netscape went for the dollars instead of the users. Now here we are, squabbling over which app is claiming the most of what's left of the pie MS have almost finished. Firefox? No Group Policy controls, plus I can bring up a users' passwords, in clear english, with three clicks - Hmmm very secure. And MS have already stolen the best bits (as they always do). Linux? No Support. From a corporate point of view, that means End Of.
You're absolutely right - as I said, it's the old 3-year rule, which doesn't really count as 'news'. Remember everyone complaining about how slow 2000 was, and how they weren't going to fix the issues but save them to be fixed in XP? Or how rubbish Win95 was, the the fixes were to be found in Win98? Still, imagine how bad things would be now if we'd all gone the Apple way - and how much poorer we'd be for it! I've been in this game too long :-)
Who bothered loading W2000 with XP 3 years away? *everyone*. Who bothered loading NT4 with W2000 3 years away? *everyone*. Who bothered loading 95 with 98 3 years away? *everyone*. So, in short, Slashdot are following the rest of the media, shrieking too loudly to notice what they're shrieking about.
Eh? Most users make calls via Firefox? Try looking outside your bedroom... It's the Mac issue all over again. 'I Use this, all my friends use this, so that's the standard, isn't it?' And you know that all these 'geeks' (hehehe) will still be loudly proclaiming how their browser is the best, even once the app has finished its lifecycle (cue Amiga, Netscape, Digital, Betamax, BBC Micro, 8-Track...). I only need three characters for you lot - I. E. 7. What a shame the poster couldn't simply report news without adding their own naive opinion first. Still, that's the web for you.