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mennonite

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Post by mennonite »

i'm not actually trying to start a flame, but i'm sure this will become one at some point. it's about how much *YOUR* software sucks after all. well not *yours*, i dunno what you use.

but you get the point. i may turn this into a qbe article, so anyone posting to the thread, please be sure to explicitly state that you do not want your post paraphrased or quoted if you take issue with that.

i (kinda...) think all the new OS's and hardware are throwaway, even intentionally so, based not on things working but on them not working.

not that things were ever perfect (general protection fault, himem has an unrecoverable error at eeee:000h. system halted.) it used to be that you bought a machine you liked and got a compatible OS.

the best thing about pc's vs macs was, pc parts worked with pc's... isa vs pci aside, you bought something for a pc it wasn't throwaway. you bought something for a mac, very limited compatibility as they'd change the whole architecture soon, and screw the old stuff! you'll buy it all new.

now you buy a new os and buy it all new hardware. what a scam! windows will keep you buying new stuff you already have, over and over and over. every product only has a driver in the new os, every new windows needs (some) new hardware. every couple years!

might as well write your own OS and use that. oh wait, torvalds did that already. meanwhile the pc, which was the success it was for being open and backwards compatible, is becoming propriatary thanks to ibm? amd? no, microsoft! thanks, suddenly nothing works. not that i've had lots of luck with linux, but at least people actually design it to work.

the internet too, succeeding on connecting everyone together with basic html, gifs, jpegs, and mpegs, is becoming closed due to DRM (or .net and java-whatever) and pretend-standards that will never be met by more than two compaines (and thus aren't really "standards" at all. standard means it's the same in two places. #2 pencils are "standard." html... ha.) and will be abandoned and replaced by standards unrecognizable to embracers of the original every two years- kinda like the pretend-standards of windows that will be gone in the next version.

all that's happening is we're making windows stuff that only works with windows stuff (and then only for 2 years before it breaks and is replaced with ALL new non-working stuff!)

you're gonna build a connection between everyone on every machine when your own product line doesn't even interoperate with your own product line? don't make me laugh. this is rockefeller oil all over again.

maybe someone *should* write an OS in qb (the running joke) or fb. maybe we should learn to build our own hardware too. i knew USB would never be the one ____ fits all they promised it would. it could never hold up to the cross compatibility of serial port devices, because no company CARES if our hardware actually works anymore. as long a it works for 600 days, they make 70 or 200 bucks on it and are never willing to discuss the matter again. ready to use right out of the box - ready to throw out - *ready to throw out of the box*. in my book, it's all Garbage.

your thoughts? your flames? or why i'm wrong in 65535 words or less... (i'm aware of exceptions, but i'm talking about a rule companies seem to be following almost all the time. it even makes writing free stuff harder- after all, what platform(s) do you write it for?)

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Post by MystikShadows »

Wow, it's 5:30 in the morning, and this was quite a read to take in ;-) on my first cup of coffee that is.

First off, if anyone wants to paraphrase my post, go right ahead. :-).

On the side of hardware, as you may know Macs are gonna start shipping with intel processors but this subject started with PowerMacs and PowerPCs where one side would offer a means to run the other side's software. Of course Mac software would run slower on a power PC and PC software ran slower on PowerMacs (to keep their competetive edge). It seems today this particular need intensified to the point where Apple decided to put Intel cpu's in their Apple (who would have thought that day would arrive back then? ;-) ).

From what I've seen in a recording, it seems to me that the reason Macs are shipping with Intel CPUs now is because of the developer's demand. The idea of multiplatform development is becoming more essential everyday or Macs would never have shifted to Intel Processors. So yes, today if Apple wants to sell their computers (and software) Intel CPUs seemed to be the intelligent way to go these days. So I'm not surprised to see this. However, I"m not for it totally either. I happen to like the distinction that existed between Apples and PCs. And that distinction is going to dissapear soon. Now it won't be a matter of which computer you buy, it will be a matter of which operating system you want to use. So I don't quite believe this is an actual good move for Apple even though they seem to think so (from that presentation I've seen) But of course they wouldn't exactly say to the audience that they did this because of lack of choice ;-) that wouldn't be good for any company to do that ;-). But it's my view of things only.

Sure the macs will soon run more software that are known to be "popular" and that might help the sales a bit, then again, a PC user will still expect to by PC software and the transition time between now and the time where a typical PC user (business or person) get's used to this distinction having dissapeared will vary in time and just might last long enough to seriously hurt Apple in the process. As for software, developers and that whole industry, this move will be grand, multiplatform projects will be much easier than it is today and therefore it will be more feasible for a company to decide to make a program that works on both linux and macintosh and windows without necessarily maintaining 3 totally independant code bases. As for making our own GUI in fb. I say go for it. It would definitaly help promote the power of FB. And as far as I'm concerned, it will help do more than that too if the GUI project is successfull and seriously developed.

Not too long ago, I contacted ATI about getting some serious specs about their cards (I didn't want them to develop anything, just give me the right specs I need to develop something myself. I was very clear, in my email, that all I wanted was a text file, a pdf or whatever format explaining the different registers and their values so I can create my own non windows driver and specified that there was no work involved on their part either. And I had no cooperation from them for even getting just that. That's the part that I hate about today's industry. The companies that are pro only one OS. I'm sure they got paid the big bucks to be so stubborn about it too. Like no one else can ever try to compete with Microsoft Windows or something. Anyone wanting to create their own OS/GUI combination should have the rights to do so and it really shouldn't be up to those damn hardware manufacturers to decide who get's the chance to do so. The companies that operate like that really aren't very high on my apreciation list at all.

But I do believe that today for the developer, now is the best time to develop, being Intel CPUs are now in Macs, it will broaden the developer's market share for most of his or her projects. Cept for GUI of course because of those stubborn companies that decided that Windows was all they needed to survive economically. Bad move, this will start a chain of events that will take a big chunk out of what they thought was their true calling. I'm still convinced today that Windows Vista (the official name for Windows Longhorn) is gonna cause more problems than solutions especially for us developers being we wont have true access to the configuration of our PCs with that. Imagine that.
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Post by guest »

i have no idea what you just said its way too early in the morning...
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Post by The Walrus »

I hate having to update my hardware just to run the newest Windows. I read in a magazine today that Windows Longhorn will require about 1 GHz. What are they trying to do, kill my CPU :lol:

So I guess I can just stick to my Windows 98, right? No, a lot of new games only run on newer Windows versions, so I have to spend a lot of money on a new Windows. There ought to be a law again stuff like that, it's almost like Microsoft's blackmailing me. While I'm at it, I think they should strip down Windows a lot - 1.5 GB for a clean Windows XP install seems to me like resource waste.

The only reason I still use Windows on some of my computers is that there's a lot of programs and games for it - if Linux could play Half-Life 2 I'd throw Windows in it's own recycle bin :lol:
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stuff

Post by mennonite »

of course there are many laws being broken, but unless someone is actually going to find microsoft guilty and mete a ounishment (something we're quick to do to people but almost never to businesses, as if entities that exist only in the form of paper and concrete are more important than human lives)

and i imagine (possibly) even some laws to protect consumers that microsoft is breaking, i wish i knew which.

there are pretatory business practices on their part for certain. the industry (and thus everyone else) suffers in quality for it. i've seen the whole timeline, at least from dos 3.3 onward, turn from help to hinderance as far as the existence of microsoft.

but even though now is a hot time to develop, mac using intel isn't a good thing. it's coalescence at a time when everyone is going to move to DRM, which means that AMD may be shut out or be "forced" to become what they hate... intel. or maybe intel will be able to buy amd in the future. intel has been making x86 chips for almost a quarter century, and only that single consistancy, while xt became isa became pci, while 16 bit real mode became 32bit protected, while cga became ego vga became svga became vesa svga became agp svga became 3d svga and dos became linux (now i'm getting symbolic. i don't suffer a delusion that linux grew from dos.)

x86 has been x86 has been x86. but the media companies want DRM. x86 is the most open, consistant, and unifying standard in the computer industry... it's about 25 years old.

but you can't lock up x86. it's TOO open (i don't think so, but technically, open =/= drm.) and that's the point: DRM means no more x86 instruction set.

so while mac becomes intel, that just means intel will be bigger and harder to fend off by competition when
they switch from the ultimate standard to Doesn't Read Much. drm is not based on things working, it's based on things Never working except under a very specific combination of events.

you think you hate bill gates, but he's nothing compared to the trouble that will be caused by the head of disney, the mpaa, and sen. fritz hollings. these 3 people could end the last things that are absolutely great about computers and development, unless something changes the road we're on.

dark days ahead in computing, and i can't wait to be proven wrong. this incompatibility, it's nothing compared to what industry corporations want to do to us. of course industry is a bad word, the industry also includes little companies with the big ideas for actually making things better again.

but just like central point anti virus became MSAV.exe, we know what happens to them.
if i was a gamer, i wouldn't play games on xbox or windows. i'd wait for playstation to get better, or, start my own gaming company. if i had an ounce of business saavy, i'd be starting one right now. only to be swallowed by bill, of course.
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Re: stuff

Post by The Walrus »

mennonite wrote:you think you hate bill gates
Wll, I don't hate Bill Gates as a person, what I don't like is the way Windows "owns" most of the PC market. Almost every PC sold with an operating system comes with some version of Windows, which is a very bad thing for the market. Sure, Linux is there and it's free, but most users won't bother installing another OS if their computer already has one. Same goes with Internet Explorer, even though many people like FireFox (or whatever) better, many still use IE because it's already there and is very hard to remove, since Microsoft has integrated it with the desktop.

And also, why do I have to pay so much to upgrade my Windows 98 to XP? The accessories are basically the same, Windows XP even has 16-bit accessories! Many accessories haven't changed in years. Notepad, paint, wordpad, calculator, just to mention a few. They should rewrite them all from scratch and put in some new, fancy stuff - and leave out all the stuff nobody uses anyway. Even explorer.exe haven't changed much - in explorer.exe from Windows 98 I found pictures from Windows 3.11 using resource hacker - cheap, Microsoft, cheap. Pull yourself together.
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Post by MystikShadows »

I don't even hate Microsoft or Bill Gates for that either....He knows how to market things, and I'm glad for them that windows is so successful. ..What I do hate is. Part of the way they got their success. and two, how hard it is to get information for hardware when you want to build your own GUI that takes adventage of the low level video access, printer drivers, and other "essential" gui stuff...you're on your own in that...that's the part of the market I hate. :-)

Windows wants to be successful, that's fine...but anyone wanting to build their own OS/GUI whatever should have the right to the same Hardware information. Pisses me off to hear about a "windows" printer. Or a Win Modem, or any other. A Windows ____ certified PC...the hell is that? You know?
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Post by Pete »

I think a major flaw in this argument is that things are getting better, not worse.

Web standards compliance isn't being ignored, it's being embraced. Seven or eight years ago, every browser (Netscape, IE and others) had dozens of browser-specific HTML tags that would not display properly in other browsers. These tags are being weeded out both in new browser releases and even more because web designers no longer feel the need to use Netscape's <blink> tag or to color scrollbars with IE's made-up CSS. These days, every modern browser is aiming toward complete W3C standards compliance, including IE7.

As for hardware -- hardware is continually improving, you can't argue with that. Sure, a lot of hardware may fail, but a lot of hardware has *always* failed. Just a few years ago, I used floppy disks as my primary portable storage medium, just like everybody else. Every few weeks, I was almost guaranteed to have floppy fail on me, or generate a host of other problems, such as corrupted files, or the mysterious ability to be read on some systems and not on others. I lost dozens of papers and schoolwork because of floppy disks. Now, I use a 100MB USB key for portable storage, which has never once given me a problem, and it is also cross-platform compatible. I use the same USB key on PCs, Macs and Linux. It also has about 70 times the storage of a floppy. People just don't seem to remember the shit we went through a few years ago because they've grown too accustomed to the conveniences of today's technology.

Besides, the reason more hardware is failing now is because it is more complicated hardware that does a hell of a lot more stuff than the hardware we used in the past. With such intricate, multi-functional designs, there are a lot more things that could go wrong. My AMD Radeon 9800 All-In-Wonder Graphics card lets me do everything I want -- and more. It supports dual monitors, lets me watch and record cable TV, lets me play amazing 3D games in high-resolution with incredible detail, lets me hook up any A/V device to my computer and watch it on the screen, outputs video in a half dozen different formats, has its own TV remote, and way more. Sure, it may be more likely to fail than the 8MB Voodoo card I had in 1996, but I would rather have a robust multi-functional card with a slim chance of failing than that slow one-trick pony -- no matter how reliable it is.

Operating systems are the same way. They're getting better, more stable and are able to do much more than in years past. Windows XP literally never crashes for me. I've had fewer than a dozen blue screens of death since I started using the OS in 2001. Windows 98, ME and 95 habitually crashed and were ridiculously unreliable. I couldn't go through a day without a crash, and every few minutes the OS would demand a restart or something equally annoying. Windows XP is immeasurably better. You can't say that Windows is getting worse in terms of architecture. Your only good complaint is that it's not 100% backwards compatible with DOS and old serial devices -- which is an annoyance for the .01% of users who actually need this type of backwards compatibility -- and there are plenty of workarounds. Plus, look at the systems that WinXP is backwards compatible with: Just about every video game system known to man through emulation; DOS through the Command Prompt, VMs or emulation; almost all Windows programs ever written for all of the past versions of Windows; and I'm sure, a lot more.

Granted, there are fewer OS choices than there were in the past -- but the choices are much better. An individual writing their own operating system from scratch is out of the question -- unless you're looking for an operating system that sucks. Creating an OS that will interface with all the devices and programs we have today takes the work of hundreds of talented programmers. You may say that Linus Torvalds made Linux on his own, but if you were running just the pars of Linux that Torvalds wrote himself, it would be a fairly worthless OS with very little support for anything. And as others have mentioned, more and more OS choices are springing up every day. There are dozens of Linux distributions, Windows, soon there will be Mac OS... it's not like you're forced to use Windows.

Besides, there are huge benefits because of the Windows dominance -- since the majority of PC users use Windows, there's always a program out there that will do what you want or need. Because there is one dominant platform, it means that almost all software companies are competing with each other to release software for that platform -- leading to more choices, more innovation, and better software. Having used Macs and Linux extensively, I have had dozens of problems because I simply can't find a program that will do what I need in the way that I want it done. There's just not the overwhelming developer support that we see on Windows. The situation would be much worse if there were dozens of operating systems to choose from, all with an equal market share -- each one of them would significantly lacking in several areas. I'd rather use one OS that will do everything I need.

I think your point of view on this matter is completely skewed. As the Beatles said:

You've got to admit it's getting better, getting better all the time.
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Post by MystikShadows »

Well, it's getting better for windows maybe. ;-). What I'm saying is that even today, if we had hundreds of talented developers uniting on a project they still couldn't take advange of the hardware available because the information is simply not there. Not available even under signed NDA's. Well maybe if we pay the big bucks they would be more "cooperative".but even so...ATI for example is really a windows video card market now. No matter which way you slice and dice it. I don't get why companies are throwing themselves at M$'s feet when popular OSes still today have to use some third part alternative for printing. That's what I'm complaining about here ;-). I can do all the Research and Development I want so long as it's under windows? I don't think so, it's now why I want to make a GUI, quite the contrary.

Yes, I'll admit with you that the hardware is more and more reliable. The storage media is a good example of that. But all parts of hardware are more reliable than they were before. So long as you use it under Windows. As soon as you try anything with any other OS be it Linux, BSD, FreeDOS or whatever you're on your own. And you shouldn't be. That's what I'm saying.

DO this, by a 3 1/2" floppy drive. Put a disk in it, and use some C code and biosdisk and see what you can do with it under DOS. Break it, and then tell the company to pay you back. Today, if you weren't using your trusted Windows explorer, they'll find excuses. such as, but not limited to "we only support windows".

I can't use my SoundBlaster soundcard under DOS and I emailed Creative Labs about it. and all they could tell me is you need to use it under windows. The hardware SHOULD NOT be dependant on the OS. That's my basic point here (in the last 3 messages). That's why I'm saying what I'm saying. all the hardware you buy today (cept for harddrives I guess).. Are for windows, has windows drivers, ________ for windows. And that gets me sick. And that game is gonna have it's rules changed even more with Windows Vista. these situations aren't gonna get better. they're gonna get worse.

Used to be bought hardware (complete PC's) and then you could decide to do whatever you wanted to it today you can't....Even my motherboard wouldn't work right because it had windows 2000 or windows XP drivers for the onboard stuff like onboard video, onboard network card, etc etc. and that's all it would work on too. That's another thing I just don't get. I;'m not saying they shouldn't support windows, I'm saying they shouldn't JUST support windows. I couldn't even put Windows ME in there. How bad is that?

And now they're deadling to get BIOS makers to be windows only. and other stuff like that. I just don't get where Microsoft even got to thinking they could immobilize hardware vendors like that.

Sorry, the more I think about all those details, the more I hate it ;-). lol.
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Post by Pete »

When I wrote my post above, I had only read mennonite's first post and none of the others in the thread, so sorry if you thought my comments were aimed at any of the rest of you. :P


MystikShadows: About your most recent post -- I agree with you that it would be spectacular if hardware manufacturers would support multiple platforms, but the sad truth is that these companies are in the business to make money. It's not feasible to please each and every customer, so they aim for the biggest market: Windows users. When you buy a piece of hardware that comes with only Windows drivers, it's assumed that it's meant to be used only on Windows systems. Of course, once you own the hardware, it's yours -- you can do what you please with it. But if you want to get it to work on a non-supported platform, you're going to have to figure it out for yourself.

I'm going to have to sympathize with the chip manufacturers here -- they would just lose money if they tried to cater to every niche audience with their hardware. If there were money to be made by making Linux or BSD or FreeDos drivers, the companies would make them. At the moment though, there just isn't a big enough market.

Luckily, the userbase for alternative operating systems is expanding, so this all might change in a few years. :)
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Post by lurah- »

Well, fact is that there is allways goin to be one big and few smaller oners. Yes, comparing or thinking what ever.

Ok, so i have visited on some pc shops time to time, some ones sells new pc's, some ones sels used pc's. Only in one store, had chance to buy new pc with out windows. Well, if i want pc with out windows, dealer removes it, but i have to pay it anyway. There is label, top of pc's box where is serial etc. for windows installed on it allready at factory where it was manufactured.

I feel like a ???. I want to buy pc, not windows. If i go to shop to buy a bottle of milk, i buy bottle of milk, i dont need to buy a bag where to carry it, dont i? Alltough, in my cups doesnt read "Supports only milk made by Micromilk"?

Thank god, EU didnt accept software patents here. This way we can be sure (At least some years) that microsoft wont get patent in EU for something what some one else has innovated.

But life is life, and business is business. We all know what is the end of greedy ones...sooner or later.
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dude youre just wrong

Post by mennonite »

pete, i love my old browser that can't get javascript or java or active F exploits because it's too old to get anything but maybe a buffer overflow (nothings impenetrable) and i love how it doesn't waste any cpu time doing a bunch of useless garbage.

but html from version 3 to version 4 has almost no compatibility, it just changes mode altogether. most html wont render on my browser, because they simply Abandoned half the markup language... bold, color changes, all the basics, are done using an entirely different format. html is Not html anymore. and youve had lots of trouble with it, even though you normally enjoy the perks of css. it's like they suddenly drop a c compiler in your lap and tell you its quickbasic - sure, it's still a markup language, and yeah, it has big advantages over the former, but now everyone has embraced and extended html to the point that anyone using older software can't tell if your text is underlined - that's insane.

i can't afford a machine, personally, running windows xp, and i've never had an experience with it that was anything but a hassle. you say it never crashes on you? most of the machines i've seen that try to run it (except one! i have seen one machine run xp in a tolerable fashion, the rest to me are mythology... things i hear about only from others) make you wait while IE loads... and wait, and wait, and even notepad can be slow. i know most of you think i'm making it up- i feel like most of you are making it up.

but never mind all of that. i'm talking about the trend towards things that are not getting better... not the past. i'm talking about the near future. how much do you know about DRM, pete? that's the core of my rant... drm. it's going to make everything Not Work. i summed it up thusly, although only for a laugh:

http://angelfire.com/electronic2/mennonite/feat/drm.htm

of course i could be wrong. i *want* to be wrong. but i think you've gotta be kidding, pete. no disrespect meant. i can't stand windows. every version that comes out i find more intolerable than the last. you feel differently. ok.

but doing that to the beatles, sacrilege... ugh. using them to advertise phillps/magnavox is bad enough. but microsoft? may god have mercy on your soul :P

(and i never intended to suggest torvalds did anything but Initiate a mammoth change. it's not like he did it on his own but now even macs use it.)
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Post by Nodtveidt »

I also detest the concept of DRM...hell, even my cellphone is DRM-enabled and came with "protected content". IMO, DRM was invented to squeeze a few extra pennies out of the consumer and a few extra million out of developers. These companies make millions as it is...they're in no danger of going under because of a few pirates. All the time you see "we lost 78346587234.32465 billion dollars last year coz of teh bad pirates!" yet in reality, they had like a 65% profit increase. Mentioning that to mainstream media wouldn't help their case though...so they push the "we took a huge loss!" bullshit lines. DRM does indeed slow down piracy...you can't stop it but it slows it down a bit and allows these companies to line their pockets with more cash. At the same time, buying into DRM schemes isn't cheap, so someone behind the controls of the DRM scheme is making a buttload of cash off of companies who wish to utilize this system to "enhance their bottom lines".

Oh and here's the great part about the whining about losses...haven't these fork ever stopped to think that if they released material worth buying that people would buy it? Could it be that there's simply not enough good stuff anymore? People today don't give up their hard-earned cash as easily as they did in the 80s, so they're not gonna go out and blow $100 on a bunch of unknown DVDs "just because it sorta looks cool". Times change, technology changes, and people change...but the market mindset doesn't appear to change. That's the real cause of any perceived losses these idiots have.

Forgive my ranting...it's very late at night and I need to sleep, so ciao. :D
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Re: dude youre just wrong

Post by Pete »

mennonite wrote:pete, i love my old browser that can't get javascript or java or active F exploits because it's too old to get anything but maybe a buffer overflow (nothings impenetrable) and i love how it doesn't waste any cpu time doing a bunch of useless garbage.
My default browser, FireFox, also doesn't get JavaScript or ActiveX exploits. It's much more secure than any old browser I can think of. It also doesn't have buffer overflows, and runs quite efficiently on my system. Furthermore, I have it customized so that I almost never see any form of obtrusive advertising -- and I have blocked most banner ads. Furthermore, this browser displays almost every page on the Internet perfectly, and has a host of new features that make browsing much more efficient and convenient, like tabbed browsing and the Google searchbar. There's no way that your old browser can deliver all of that.
mennonite wrote:but html from version 3 to version 4 has almost no compatibility, it just changes mode altogether. most html wont render on my browser, because they simply Abandoned half the markup language... bold, color changes, all the basics, are done using an entirely different format. html is Not html anymore. and youve had lots of trouble with it, even though you normally enjoy the perks of css. it's like they suddenly drop a c compiler in your lap and tell you its quickbasic - sure, it's still a markup language, and yeah, it has big advantages over the former, but now everyone has embraced and extended html to the point that anyone using older software can't tell if your text is underlined - that's insane.
There's a good reason that CSS is now standard on the web, both in use and according to the W3C -- becaue it's far superior in every imaginable way. With formatting separated from content through style sheets, I can redesign an entire website in a few minutes, rather than spending days doing tedious changes by hand. Removing useless formatting commands also cuts down on the amount of HTML markup (and thus, file size). And it gives designers much more precise control of how content is displayed in a browser.

Web browsers are all backwards-compatible with HTML 3 and HTML 4, but to expect for old web browsers to be forward-compatible is ridiculous. Pure HTML is too limited for the websites that people and companies want these days. Browsers and web programming have evolved to meet the needs of the public, and just about any computer made in the past eight to ten years can be configured to display modern websites.
mennonite wrote:i can't afford a machine, personally, running windows xp, and i've never had an experience with it that was anything but a hassle. you say it never crashes on you? most of the machines i've seen that try to run it (except one! i have seen one machine run xp in a tolerable fashion, the rest to me are mythology... things i hear about only from others) make you wait while IE loads... and wait, and wait, and even notepad can be slow. i know most of you think i'm making it up- i feel like most of you are making it up.
My computer runs almost flawlessly with Windows XP. Currently, it has been running for two weeks straight without so much as a restart, I've had not a single problem. Programs still load near-instantenously for me. And at the moment, I've got Vegas Video 6, Toon Boom Studio, Macromedia Flash MX, FireFox, AIM, Windows Media Player, AVG Antivirus and many background processes running. I'm doing video editing and animation -- a highly processor intensive and resource consuming activity -- and I'm able to switch to this web browser or to AIM or to listening to music at the drop of a hat.
mennonite wrote:but never mind all of that. i'm talking about the trend towards things that are not getting better... not the past. i'm talking about the near future. how much do you know about DRM, pete? that's the core of my rant... drm. it's going to make everything Not Work. i summed it up thusly, although only for a laugh:

http://angelfire.com/electronic2/mennonite/feat/drm.htm
I agree with your views on DRM, but I also think that you're paranoid. At the moment, I've got 17,000 MP3s on my hard drive (over 50 straight days of music), thousands of TV episodes that I recorded myself or downloaded, all kinds of video files, etc. I've got five hard drives -- four 160GB drives and one 37GB main drive -- full of media. And I completely control all of it. DRM hasn't hurt me at all. Remember, bits are bits. There is ALWAYS a way around DRM protection. Any restrictions I've had problems with have been solved with a quick Google search.

In the future, software manufacturers will continue to *try* to restrict our use of media, and in the future, they will continue to fail. The thing about digital media is that it can be manipulated, copied and changed with software -- you just need to know how to do it. There are ways around everything. Maybe the majority of casual computer users will have their digital property controlled, but I won't be one of them.
mennonite wrote:of course i could be wrong. i *want* to be wrong. but i think you've gotta be kidding, pete. no disrespect meant. i can't stand windows. every version that comes out i find more intolerable than the last. you feel differently. ok.
Windows is the only operating system that will do absolutely everything I want and expect out of my computer. No other operating system is as complete as Windows because Windows has way more software than any other platform in history. It does the most. And it has the most developer and user support. It's the best platform if you plan to use your computer for many diverse uses. Sure Macs may be best for video and photo editing and Linux systems make the best servers -- but Windows machines can do both well, plus a million other tasks.
mennonite wrote:but doing that to the beatles, sacrilege... ugh. using them to advertise phillps/magnavox is bad enough. but microsoft? may god have mercy on your soul :P
As I said before -- look how much progress has been made in computers and technology lately. My current computer does so much more than my previous computer, and that computer did much more than the computer I had before that. You can't say that things aren't getting better. Getting better all the time.

And what's with the hate for Microsoft!? You're posting at a board for a PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE WRITTEN BY MICROSOFT! Seriously, if you think Microsoft is evil, then you're a major hypocrite by coding in QB.

Anyway, I don't really understand your arguments... modern web sites, digital media and even Windows XP are incredible right now, and everything's going to continue to improve. Guaranteed.
mennonite

not a hypocrite, just slow

Post by mennonite »

actually i was working on a way to get around using qbasic when freebasic came out and made my efforts unnecessary. i still code in qb (i like the forums) but i'm moving towards FB anyway. i can convert all of my qbasic programs to fb, except one program that uses draw "TA" and one that uses 16bit code to use the clipboard. other than that, i don't have any qb code that i can't move to fbdos.

by the way, i've used non ms versions of dos that i liked better than ms dos, but they won't work with win9x.

i'm also moving away from windows but i've had some bad luck with that. i use 9x which is currently the only os i can make work with my hardware and isp. actually my dvd player will NOT work in windows because of some directx garbage i can't figure out. i get a black screen and audio instead.

i've installed different linuxes on a number of occasions but can't get it to authenticate with my isp, or i'd be using linux now. i'm a much bigger hypocrite for using windows (although it IS evil and i hate it) than for using qb, which i never took issue with. back then, microsoft wasn't so bad. i think they were okay until sometime in the era of win9x. actually i think the idea of the stand alone exe's requiring a qb license is evil too, but i've been meaning to replace qb45 with qbasic now that i can compile in fb.

like i said about drm, i hope i'm wrong. but it probably means that x86 set will be abandoned by intel, and that does suck. it will get to a point where 16bit code won't work, and that means no more qb unless you buy an older machine.

as for this:

"but to expect for old web browsers to be forward-compatible is ridiculous."

no, it isn't. one of the coolest things about the original HTML was that it was poised to make old browsers forwards compatible... to a point. new tags that weren't supported simply wouldn't work.

however CSS goes farther than adding new features, it Replaces the use of very basic tags (like bold and font) which makes new html useless to old browsers.

the way html was originally designed, html could have easily been compatible in both directions. add features, but do not replace. it was that simple. and very simply, none of the new designers cared.

i said this was going to be a controversial post, and didn't expect anyone to agree with me, but to a point, some did. i understand we disagree on this, no problem. but i'm going to continue to think i'm at least right to a point of course, until i have a good enough reason to think i'm not. i look forward to that, i do.

thanks for your posts :) we definitely disagree, but so what if we do?
mennonite

a note on hypocracy

Post by mennonite »

i don't actually think i'm being a hypocrite anyway, you know, although i guess if you looked at it as a matter of degress it's possible that (like everyone else on the planet) i'm a very small one.

my post was a complaint about microsoft and technologies that are making things more difficult, and largely about opinion and feelings. facts also were used, but in order to have a truly hypocritical stance (one that could be help up to the letter) it would have been much more hypocritical to call for a boycott of their products - then using them would be hypocritical... although a. i didn't call for a boycott and b. i actually do try to eliminate anything microsoft i can from my old machines, including this one.

what really makes them evil is getting their claws on every last bit of the industry, and any time you use a product like firefox, you reverse their hold. really.

now although i'm still not calling for a boycott, i do recognize and encourage this. and it is something i do. i never, ever use IE. i also don't use windows explorer. i will also never, never ever use 2k, xp, or vista. this isn't a boycott. it's a reduction.

my suggestion, while we're on the subject, and along the lines of what i already do, is that everyone not boycott m$ (which would be so close to impossible that no one would do it anyway. what's the point of a boycott almost no one takes part in?) but reduce, to whatever point they're capable, the amount of business they let microsoft do. a partial boycott from everyone is likely to be more powerful than a total boycott from a handful... even a handful as enormous as linux users (by the way, the internet still runs, unless i'm mistaken, on apache and linux.)

think of all the difference that's been made by your default browser. that's an enormous change for the better (cue beatles i guess)

it's one place microsoft is ceasing to dominate, because a lot of people (like you me, and lots of people in this thread and on the other forum i frequent) detest IE. it's a piece of garbage.

but my post was about something i hate and something i worry a bit about. i'm sure i'm more worried than necessary. i don't think that my worry, if excessive, is unfounded.

but my post wasn't a call for anyone to do anything that i don't do. it was just some opinions about something that i think most of us deal with. i don't think it was hypocritical. i think the details here are important, and in order to be a real hypocrite, i think you'd have to overgeneralize or read too far into what i'm saying.

not that i really mind. i mean i have a lot of respect for you and what you do, so while being called a hypocrite would ordinarily be pretty insulting, i guess you'd have to go a little farther. especially since it's so easy for this to be another thing we just disagree on :)

take care, pete.
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Post by Pete »

I'm going to use the best software on the market no matter what. If Microsoft makes it, so be it. I will continue to use FireFox until there's a better browser released. If Internet Explorer 7 is superior to FF, I will switch.

Windows XP is the most useful OS available right now, not because it is the most efficient or stable, but because it has the most software available for it. And that's really the bottom line. I don't really understand how you can hate a company if they make the best product.

Anyway, as long as my software does everything *I want it to do*, I don't care who makes it or what restrictions are placed on it.
mennonite

this is really foreign?

Post by mennonite »

microsoft prevents anyone from making a difference in the industry. they also put code in their programs to deliberately cause problems with other products and with their own. they have numerous documented practices that stop other companies from contributing to the industry.

they also produce more security problems than any othe company, to the point where government agencies tell people to not use their products.

that's not an issue of having the best product, pete. it's an issue, plain and simple, of preventing anyone with a better product from making it available to us. that's the problem. they have the best product not by a inclusion but by exclusion. they exclude better products from the market via predatory practices. it's like saying you're happy with a coat hanger abortion because it's the best, saftest method out there, when the only reason it's the best method is that any other kind of abortion was banned.

of course this thread was never intended to be about how to stop microsoft from doing what it does... although since you brought it up, i have outlined a basic solution (That most people to some degree already take part in, and it is an issue, not black and white, but a matter of degree) for making the computer world a better place.

the point of a would-be boycott is to make things better. by demanding and trying to force improvement, you get improvement. that's all any of us (those of us who are not as content as you are, we are many) want. well, improvement without having to buy all new stuff. i'm not the only one who's complained about that.

but this wasn't about boycott. it's about things not being good enough. things should be better. and if you are fully supporting microsoft, you are fully supporting the effort to prevent things getting better... as long as microsoft is stopping anyone else from contributing.

http://fork.com

i just want things to be better. i'm not at all satisfied.
it's not hypocracy. it's just dissatisfaction.
mennonite

as long as we're way off topic, one example of microsoft...

Post by mennonite »

screwing over other people trying to create innovations.

while microsoft actually claims that open-source sorftware "hurts innovation" they repeatedly exploit innovators and consume their ip into something propriatary, then shut the innovators out of their own design. here is one example of the kind of practice that gets them sued in antitrust violation cases:

one example of microsoft screwing over true innovators and making theirs what isn't theirs:
(how can things get better with this kind of totalitarian exploitation of every contributer to the industry?) literally thousands of examples like this one can and have been made in an attempt to stop the monolithic corporation.

(excerpts following from fork.com and are reproduced under fair-use clause. quotes should each be under 250 words each.)

"Kerberos is a technology created at MIT to make it easy for users to securely prove who they are. As an example, instead of having to enter a password for every program or web page you want to use, you would enter your password once when you begin your session with the computer and then Kerberos would take care of authenticating you everywhere else"

"Kerberos, as with most MIT software projects, was made freely available for anybody to use and integrate into their software."

"Microsoft... integrated it into Windows and then changed it to be incompatible with Kerberos on every other platform. [Then] they refused to freely release details of the changes that they made so that other platforms could be made compatible with their Windows "extensions." After much complaining from the tech community, Microsoft eventually released a spec for their changes, but in order to access it you had to agree to a license stating that it was a trade secret (yes, they wanted to claim trade secret protection on something they had mostly gotten for free from MIT)! Some people eventually decided to ignore the license and publish what changes were made anyway, which prompted Microsoft to threaten legal action."

"their Kerberos implementation still does not allow appropriate interoperability with standard Kerberos software."

[note: they did the same thing with sun's java, for which sun would have sued, but they thought java would lose out less if they let microsoft continue to use the platform and reputation-damaging implementation than force them to remove it altogether.]

[what can be done? always look for an alternative to a microsoft component that is not made by microsoft. this could be compared to a boycott, but by doing business with other companies... even by implementing freeware solutions in place of microsoft solutions, you reduce the control microsoft has over the industry, which reopens the industry to other companies and forces True standards... that is, standards that work across the board (what good is a standard that only one browser complies with? that's a design spec, not a standard. a standard, by definition, is implemented in more than one place at once. microsoft never complies to a standard but rather changes other standards to make them propriatary, then abandons the old. this makes it Illegal to comply to [false] standards]

[it is still not and certainly was not the intended purpose of the thread to propose a boycott of any kind, however. the purpose of the thread is/was to outline and discuss problems with the current situation. any proposed solutions have come up in light of... something or other. anyway, enough digression.]
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Re: this is really foreign?

Post by Pete »

mennonite wrote:microsoft prevents anyone from making a difference in the industry. they also put code in their programs to deliberately cause problems with other products and with their own. they have numerous documented practices that stop other companies from contributing to the industry.
I agree with you that Microsoft uses predatory business practices, but I am happy enough with the Microsoft operating system I'm using right now that I see no reason to fight against it. Microsoft has the right to protect their corporate interest and market share, and it would be stupid not to. If Microsoft truly created a bad operating system that was unbearable to use, I would be all for using alternate software.

I am extremely happy with Windows and Microsoft, and have been extremely unhappy with Apple software, Linux and every other alternate operating system I've tried. So why support a platform that doesn't deliver what I want?
mennonite wrote:they also produce more security problems than any othe company, to the point where government agencies tell people to not use their products.
This argument has pissed me off for years. The reason that Microsoft products have the most security issues is because the have the highest userbase! Internet Explorer and Windows are used by 90% of all PCs, so that means that 90% of the hackers, advertisements and spyware will be targeted toward Microsoft products. The only reason why there aren't as many virus outbreaks for Linux or Mac OS or Netscape is because there aren't as many people trying to find security exploits on these platforms. It's security through obscurity. Why go after a small target when you can go after the market leader?
mennonite wrote:that's not an issue of having the best product, pete. it's an issue, plain and simple, of preventing anyone with a better product from making it available to us. that's the problem. they have the best product not by a inclusion but by exclusion. they exclude better products from the market via predatory practices. it's like saying you're happy with a coat hanger abortion because it's the best, saftest method out there, when the only reason it's the best method is that any other kind of abortion was banned.
The reason why Windows is the best product, as I've said several times, is BECAUSE they have a monopoly. That means that there is many times more Windows software created than Linux or Mac OS software -- which leads to more creativity, competition and innovation in software in every field except for operating systems. You keep on talking about how "standards" are so important, so why not a standard operating system that can run every program? That's essentially what Windows is providing in my opinion. I consider the Windows monopoly to be a good thing for the end user because it gives them more software choices.

Every day I edit video on a Mac with OS X at work, and I'm continually amazed by how little software there is available for the platform. A lot of simple functions that can be achieved by dozens of Windows programs can't be done on a Mac because the software doesn't exist to do it. There's just not a big enough market for many types of niche software. I spent several hours looking for a decent freeware Mac program that would allow me to create PDF files, and I couldn't find one that would fit my needs. Eventually, I gave up and booted up my trusty Windows XP box and within a few minutes, found about twenty different free PDF makers.
mennonite wrote:of course this thread was never intended to be about how to stop microsoft from doing what it does... although since you brought it up, i have outlined a basic solution (That most people to some degree already take part in, and it is an issue, not black and white, but a matter of degree) for making the computer world a better place.

the point of a would-be boycott is to make things better. by demanding and trying to force improvement, you get improvement. that's all any of us (those of us who are not as content as you are, we are many) want. well, improvement without having to buy all new stuff. i'm not the only one who's complained about that.
As I said before, why boycott the product that I think is the best? For me, that would be silly. Personally, I am in a sense boycotting Linux and Apple because I don't like that software and want it to get improved. If a better operating system existed, I would switch to it in a heartbeat.
mennonite wrote:but this wasn't about boycott. it's about things not being good enough. things should be better. and if you are fully supporting microsoft, you are fully supporting the effort to prevent things getting better... as long as microsoft is stopping anyone else from contributing.
I don't agree. It's not like there aren't other companies that compete with Microsoft -- and they're gaining ground. Every day there are more users of Linux, Macs and other operating systems. It's not like Windows is gaining ground. Microsoft is constantly being forced to innovate and deliver new features that users demand.

Just look at the features for the new version of Internet Explorer that's currently in development. It's a huge improvement. Microsoft saw that it's losing market share to FireFox, Opera, Safari, etc. and decided to fight back. Sure, Microsoft is basically just rehashing the features that the competitors have already invented, but that will motivate the rival companies to innovate their product even more. Now that Internet Explorer 7 has tabbed browsing and a search bar built in, Mozilla will have to come up with even better and more creative additions to their browser to maintain their userbase.

The same can be said about the Yahoo! vs. Google vs. MSN race for search engine superiority. Or PS2 vs. Xbox vs. Gamecube. Microsoft does TONS of innovating, and is constantly competing with other companies. It's not like MS has taken control of the world and refuses to listen to the users -- it's doing just that all the time, just like every other successful company.

If there are enough users that want something some way, and there is money to be made, it will happen. The only reason why MS has not yet addressed your personal complaints about their software is because there are not enough people that agree with you to make it worthwhile (ie: profitable) for them to do so.
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