The Vent and Rant Thread

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

So, am I supposed to judge you as the way you were as a 7 year old? Or, they way you are today?

Keep in mind... IE was the first browser the brought a lot of stuff to the web like AJAX for one. At the time there were NO standards.

Anyway... I agree with you... we will always live with these issues as web devs. Even Gecko and Webkit and Opera render some stuff differently... and all the different javascript engines don't help either.

But, I do think blaming MS for all the ills of the world is just a bit to tunnel visioned for me. Hind sight is 20/20.

BOb

i think the traumatism of IE6 is going to haunt most of us for a looooooooong time. it's very hard to forgive that, particularly given that although fewer and fewer webdevs are supporting it, it is STILL THERE.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

i think the traumatism of IE6 is going to haunt most of us for a looooooooong time. it's very hard to forgive that, particularly given that although fewer and fewer webdevs are supporting it, it is STILL THERE.

Yeah, i don't use windows that often. And so that that long ago, i vist a web site, and got a warnning : You're using IE6, the website won't work as well with it.
me : ** runs windows update **

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by lilac_jive

The geek is strong in this thread.

yes my point exactly...

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by kennyc

yes my point exactly...

I would third that!

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

i think the traumatism of IE6 is going to haunt most of us for a looooooooong time.

I can't argue with that.

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

it's very hard to forgive that, particularly given that although fewer and fewer webdevs are supporting it, it is STILL THERE.

What I can't understand is why MS doesn't treat IE6 as a virus. IE8 should be a CRITICAL level update at this point for anyone still running IE6. This is the part to me that is unforgivable... not the fact that they created IE6... heck WHEN did that come out? Long before XHTML/CSS2 and some of the more recent minimum versions that are considered acceptable these days if I recall correctly.

BOb

[yvanleterrible]

Is there a forum for operating systems? We could include a subfora for browsers?

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

i think the traumatism of IE6 is going to haunt most of us for a looooooooong time. it's very hard to forgive that, particularly given that although fewer and fewer webdevs are supporting it, it is STILL THERE.

That last bit kind of implies that webdevs should decide what end-users can have - maybe I misunderstood, but I'd have thought demand from end-users would be the most important factor.

Due to issues I'm experiencing with IE, I'm currently transitioning to Firefox; but if IE6 suits the needs of customers, I think they should be allowed to carry on using it.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

So, am I supposed to judge you as the way you were as a 7 year old? Or, they way you are today?

That depends upon how different I am from that 7 year old.

Little kids tend to have a me-centric view of the world, and see things in terms of what they want. Part of the process of growing is learning that you aren't the only thing in the world, and that you won't (and can't) always get what you want, when you want it. It takes some folks longer to grow up than others, and some never really do.

Microsoft became the biggest, wealthiest software vendor in the world, and became used to having things its own way. It largely set the standards in the PC world, and had a "Do it our way" attitude to how things should be done. That's changing slowly, as the computer landscape has changed, and MS can't simply do things by fiat. It is learning the value of cooperation, but it pretty much had to be dragged kicking and screaming to that point.

It's still doing its best to dominate and control the PC market, though it's being a little more circumspect about how it does so.

Microsoft is in for interesting times, in the "Chinese curse" sense of the word. For years, MS was the quintessential "growth" company. It regularly posted double-digit increases in revenue and profits, and got a stock price in the stratosphere. It didn't pay dividends for a long time, choosing the retain earnings, but shareholders made fortunes in capital gains.

The problem it faces now is where continued growth will come from. It's in transition from a "growth" company to a "mature" company. Mature companies throw off enormous amounts of cash, but don't have stock prices in the stratosphere. MS needs to continue to grow, but how?

Over here, pretty much everything that can run Windows and Office, does. MS is having problems in Europe, which does not trust it. It's getting nowhere in India or China. The X-box is only beginning to contribute to revenues in any real way. The search business is being re-invented yet again, but thus far isn't a threat to Google.

You can make a good case that Vista got released when it did, not because the market needed it, but because MS needed a new revenue stream from a new product. Unfortunately, much of the hardware in the pipeline back then didn't have the horsepower to really run it effectively, pick up suffered, and MS got (another) black eye. (Win 7 should do better simply because more of what it out there now can run it.)

Bill Gates picked a good time to step aside. He walked away a winner, having built MS into the biggest most powerful software house in the world, and becoming (for a time) the richest man in the world in the process. His job was to create and increase shareholder value, and he did that very well.

Now Steve Ballmer has the reins, and his big challenge is preserving shareholder value, which means supporting the stock price. It's not clear to me that he can, and I'm rather grimly fascinated wondering what Microsoft will do in pursuit of that goal.

MS is growing up, finally. I just think it took too long to recognize it needed to change.

Keep in mind... IE was the first browser the brought a lot of stuff to the web like AJAX for one. At the time there were NO standards.

Sure. Standards evolved as the web did.

Anyway... I agree with you... we will always live with these issues as web devs. Even Gecko and Webkit and Opera render some stuff differently... and all the different javascript engines don't help either.

Thank you.

But, I do think blaming MS for all the ills of the world is just a bit to tunnel visioned for me. Hind sight is 20/20.

I don't blame them for all the world's ills. I do blame them for a chunk of the ills in the PC market.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

What I can't understand is why MS doesn't treat IE6 as a virus. IE8 should be a CRITICAL level update at this point for anyone still running IE6. This is the part to me that is unforgivable... not the fact that they created IE6... heck WHEN did that come out? Long before XHTML/CSS2 and some of the more recent minimum versions that are considered acceptable these days if I recall correctly.

They're trying to do just that. If you have Automatic Updates turned on, IE 7 is pushed out to you as a critical security patch, and I believe IE 8 is next in line once you have IE 7.

Unfortunately, not everyone uses Automatic Update. We got burned by that years back at a prior employer, when we got hit by a nasty virus that got in via machines that weren't at current patch levels. If everything had been at current patch levels, the virus would never have gotten in. We turned on Windows Update for everyone shortly after.

But we ran our own WSUS server, and pushed updates out locally. Some things like IE 7 didn't get pushed out immediately over compatibility concerns. For instance, we used an electronic timesheet system tied to our accounting package, and accessed via IE. There was much concern that that would work under IE 7, as people wanted to be paid.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

An American saying they have high prices at the gas pump...

Your prices are nothing compared to ours. What you pay for a gallon is about the same as what we pay for a liter...

High prices are relative. They are high to us. What has been the shock has not been the total price, but the rate of increase. Prices rose very quickly from a US consumer viewpoint.

And that rapid price rise had effects beyond the gas pump for the car. Gas prices skyrocketed because oil got more expensive, so anything using oil went up in price. Airlines are still trying to cope with increases in the cost of jet fuel, and electricity costs rose in places using oil fired generating plants.

I'm aware you pay more than we do, but that doesn't change my analysis.
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Dennis

[vivaldirules]

At least we're not having bowser wars here, too.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

At least we're not having bowser wars here, too.

I prefer him in the original SMB, myself.

[lilac_jive]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I prefer him in the original SMB, myself.

[poshm]

Is it 3rd time lucky or not?

Grrr sold a gadget on Amazon to fund purchasing a kindle 2 - get a message from the buyer today to say it isn't working all of a sudden. So they have sent it back and I'll have to give a refund on that tomorrow when I receive it.

Bought a kindle yesterday on ebay, seller refunded me today as he's cracked the screen all of a sudden. He's refunded me but blooming paypal are withholding the refund for 7-9 days because it came from my bank account.

So far £400 down! At least temporarily!

I was determined to get a kindle (I'd already ordered a tuff-luv cover anyway!) so I've purchased another one off ebay this evening!

I just hope my luck's in with the last one!!!

What a flaming bad day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[kindlekitten]

why not just buy one from Amazon?