• msn and free software

    From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to MRO on Tue Oct 11 19:57:00 2022
    Re: Re: Russia's Endgame
    By: MRO to Boraxman on Tue Oct 11 2022 10:44 am

    Re: Re: Russia's Endgame
    By: Boraxman to MRO on Tue Oct 11 2022 09:38 pm

    I'm referring more to the business side of things. I read a story just before about how Microsoft pressured the UK government into abandoning a program to push Free Software. Microsoft threated to pull out some resea

    i doubt that happened. uk is always the one taking microsoft to task over a

    A company I used to contract at would donate life cycled hardware to a local non-pofit that would supply under privileged families with a desktop and monitor that is 3 to 5 years old, but still relevant for classwork and online activities. I've read of other groups trying to avoid the license hassle,
    and install a linux distro such as Mint or Ubuntu. Upon asking, I learned MS has a partnership with these refurbishers, and provide activation keys and deployment servers and services to slipstream the OS install / imaging
    process. I wouldn't be surprised if a special MS Office distribution comes installed, along with tools to indoctrinate budding developers into going the MS route first.

    ---
    þ Synchronet þ The Cave BBS - Since 1992 - cavebbs.homeip.net
  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Moondog on Tue Oct 11 23:52:42 2022
    Re: msn and free software
    By: Moondog to MRO on Tue Oct 11 2022 07:57 pm

    A company I used to contract at would donate life cycled hardware to a local non-pofit that would supply under privileged families with a desktop and monitor that is 3 to 5 years old, but still relevant for classwork and online activities. I've read of other groups trying to avoid the license hassle,
    and install a linux distro such as Mint or Ubuntu. Upon asking, I learned MS has a partnership with these refurbishers, and provide activation keys and deployment servers and services to slipstream the OS install / imaging process. I wouldn't be surprised if a special MS Office distribution comes installed, along with tools to indoctrinate budding developers into going

    well things might have changed. i dont hear much about microsoft anymore.

    gates and balmer were a different animal. very devious and competitive. apparently this indian guy nadella was educated in my current city of milwaukee.

    I dont know much about him and he seems to keep a low profile.
    he seems brilliant. i'm looking at his wikipedia article now.
    i didnt know ms bought linkedin and github.
    ---
    þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::
  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Moondog on Wed Oct 12 21:56:13 2022
    Re: Re: Russia's Endgame
    By: Moondog to MRO on Wed Oct 12 2022 05:57 pm

    My understanding is the earliest version of Win95 shipped without any form of browser, and Netscape's browser was the clear successor. By shipping IE with the OS, it gave IE a clear advanrage because most basic users would use what the OS shipped with. Same applied with taking business away from the media player software manufacturers. The most software publishers, it

    Not only did later versions of Windows include Internet Explorer, Microsoft claimed it was integrated into Windows in such a way that it would be difficult to remove it. That was back when (I think) Microsoft was using sneaky tactics to try to corner the market. Microsoft also made IE behave a bit differently (in a non-standard way) than other web browsers, so by the time IE gained a lot of marketshare, some web sites pretty much worked only with IE.

    Nightfox

    ---
    þ Synchronet þ Digital Distortion: digitaldistortionbbs.com
  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Nightfox on Thu Oct 13 00:30:24 2022
    Re: Microsoft
    By: Nightfox to Moondog on Wed Oct 12 2022 09:56 pm

    Not only did later versions of Windows include Internet Explorer, Microsoft claimed it was integrated into Windows in such a way that it would be difficult to remove it. That was back when (I think) Microsoft was using sneaky tactics to try to corner the market. Microsoft also made IE behave a

    yeah they wove it into explorer.exe a bit.

    sneaky tactics to try to corner the market. Microsoft also made IE behave a bit differently (in a non-standard way) than other web browsers, so by the time IE gained a lot of marketshare, some web sites pretty much worked only with IE.



    standards back then weren't really strictly followed.
    ---
    þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::
  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to MRO on Thu Oct 13 09:01:02 2022
    Re: Microsoft
    By: MRO to Nightfox on Thu Oct 13 2022 12:30 am

    sneaky tactics to try to corner the market. Microsoft also made IE
    behave a bit differently (in a non-standard way) than other web
    browsers, so by the time IE gained a lot of marketshare, some web
    sites pretty much worked only with IE.

    standards back then weren't really strictly followed.

    Microsoft certainly didn't strictly follow standards, but they used that to their advantage to get people to use IE.

    I've often heard IE was the bane of web developers because they had to do things differently for their web site to work properly in IE.

    Nightfox

    ---
    þ Synchronet þ Digital Distortion: digitaldistortionbbs.com
  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Nightfox on Thu Oct 13 12:35:08 2022
    Re: Microsoft
    By: Nightfox to MRO on Thu Oct 13 2022 09:01 am

    browsers, so by the time IE gained a lot of marketshare, some web
    sites pretty much worked only with IE.

    standards back then weren't really strictly followed.

    Microsoft certainly didn't strictly follow standards, but they used that to their advantage to get people to use IE.

    I've often heard IE was the bane of web developers because they had to do things differently for their web site to work properly in IE.


    yeah but everyone was doing things their own way to some degree.
    things could look different on 3 different browsers.

    i think at some point microsoft just tried to muscle its way into being the standard.
    ---
    þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::
  • From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to Nightfox on Fri Oct 14 19:58:26 2022
    On 10/12/22 21:56, Nightfox wrote:

    Not only did later versions of Windows include Internet Explorer,
    Microsoft claimed it was integrated into Windows in such a way that
    it would be difficult to remove it. That was back when (I think)
    Microsoft was using sneaky tactics to try to corner the market.
    Microsoft also made IE behave a bit differently (in a non-standard
    way) than other web browsers, so by the time IE gained a lot of
    marketshare, some web sites pretty much worked only with IE.

    To be fair, the "browser standards" were pretty much crap at the time,
    IE and NN were both pushing their own solutions. Netscape's ILayers
    models sucked hardcore, IE's api was better, then the W3C came up with
    yet another standard that was different than both, but closer to IE's implementation. IE5 had theirs mostly implemented at launch and NN took
    the better part of a year to catch up, and broke in a lot of ways... IE
    broke the older API for manipulating select lists in 5.0.0 (burned on
    Windows 2000, Office 2000 and Windows ME discs), man was that a
    clusterf*ck to deal with.

    When IE6 came out, it was just that far ahead in terms of standards and advanced features... was a couple years before Firefox/NN had
    XmlHttpRequest to catch up. IIRC it was close to 2006 before it was in significant use... It was around IE8 (2010?) that IE became much more of
    a joke, and not long after Chrome passed them both.

    I was working with a company at the time (1999-2001), where I had to
    support back to NN 4.04 for one of our biggest clients/users as well as
    new browsers (IE5/6)... that was a total mess... Creating in-browser
    charts and stack diagrams that worked across 3 different browser implementations. I'm more than happy to deal with the handful of quirks
    these days. NN 4.x was such hot garbage to work with.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com
    ---
    þ Synchronet þ Roughneck BBS - roughneckbbs.com
  • From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to MRO on Fri Oct 14 20:05:51 2022
    On 10/12/22 22:30, MRO wrote:

    standards back then weren't really strictly followed.

    The 4.x browsers both Netscape and IE didn't strictly follow standards.
    W3C took nearly 4 years to get the DOM together with IE5 being slightly
    ahead of NN5 by the time they came out. They both did different implementations that they independently proposed respectively.

    The W3C DOM was different from both.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com
    ---
    þ Synchronet þ Roughneck BBS - roughneckbbs.com
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@VERT/REALITY to Tracker1 on Sat Oct 22 08:57:00 2022
    Tracker1 wrote to Nightfox <=-

    quirks these days. NN 4.x was such hot garbage to work with.

    I'm running SeaMonkey on the BBS now, feels akin to Netscape Communicator
    4.x bit with a modern rendering engine.


    ... Have you ever seen anything like this place?
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    þ Synchronet þ .: realitycheckbbs.org :: scientia potentia est :.
  • From Dumas Walker@VERT/CAPCITY2 to MRO on Sun Oct 30 11:38:00 2022
    And yet rouding up their own people and putting them in re-education work camps, and killing the ones that won't go or don't pass re-education, doesn't get China quite the same bad rap. Interesting how that works.

    look what they did with black people during covid.

    What did China do with them?


    * SLMR 2.1a * They went that-a-way --->

    ---
    þ Synchronet þ CAPCITY2 * capcity2.synchro.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/Rlogin/HTTP
  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Dumas Walker on Sun Oct 30 16:14:45 2022
    Re: Re: China's Endgame
    By: Dumas Walker to MRO on Sun Oct 30 2022 11:38 am

    And yet rouding up their own people and putting them in re-education work camps, and killing the ones that won't go or don't pass re-education, doesn't get China quite the same bad rap. Interesting how that works.

    look what they did with black people during covid.

    What did China do with them?


    https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/05/china-covid-19-discrimination-against-africans

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/us/politics/african-americans-china-coronavirus.html

    there's a lot of migration and trade between china and africa.
    ---
    þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::
  • From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to poindexter FORTRAN on Tue Feb 14 07:49:47 2023
    Re: Re: Microsoft
    By: poindexter FORTRAN to Tracker1 on Sat Oct 22 2022 08:57:00

    Tracker1 wrote to Nightfox <=-
    quirks these days. NN 4.x was such hot garbage to work with.
    I'm running SeaMonkey on the BBS now, feels akin to Netscape Communicator 4.x bit with a modern rendering engine.

    Yeah, it was the rendering that was the biggest issue... was writing web-ui charting and literally had to cover the entire screen when doing so, or it would send someone into a seizure with the flickering. IIRC NN4.07 was required support for the company I was at around 1999 or so, as Novel was a major client and it was their "standard" browser internally.


    --
    Michael J. Ryan
    +o roughneckbbs.com
    tracker1@roughneckbbs.com

    ---
    þ Synchronet þ Roughneck BBS - roughneckbbs.com
  • From hollowone@VERT/BEERS20 to Tracker1 on Tue Mar 21 03:52:00 2023
    quirks these days. NN 4.x was such hot garbage to work with.
    I'm running SeaMonkey on the BBS now, feels akin to Netscape Communic 4.x bit with a modern rendering engine.
    Yeah, it was the rendering that was the biggest issue... was writing web-ui charting and literally had to cover the entire screen when doing so, or it would send someone into a seizure with the flickering. IIRC NN4.07 was required support for the company I was at around 1999 or so,
    as Novel was a major client and it was their "standard" browser internally.

    I think the moment when Netscape was rewritten into Java killed the adoption completely. It was NN6 if I recall. Looked fancy from UI/UX perspective as we call it today, but slow as hell and unbearable for daily use comparing to sleek IE integrated with the OS.

    That was also one of the reasons for fanboyism and complaints against MSFT that there is no way browser can be so fast unless put into lower levels of the OS, which was unfair. But I believe NN fucked up implementation and choosing Java as front-end was way premature by the end of 90s.

    -h1

    ... Xerox Alto was the thing. Anything after we use is just a copy.
  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to hollowone on Thu Mar 23 00:22:30 2023
    Re: Re: Microsoft
    By: hollowone to Tracker1 on Tue Mar 21 2023 03:52 am


    I think the moment when Netscape was rewritten into Java killed the adoption completely. It was NN6 if I recall. Looked fancy from UI/UX perspective as we call it today, but slow as hell and unbearable for daily use comparing to sleek IE integrated with the OS.


    i used netscape and i don't even remember that happening. i looked it up and it said it was using the gecko engine.

    i think people ditched nutscrape long before 6 if that really happened.
    ---
    þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::
  • From hollowone@VERT/BEERS20 to MRO on Thu Mar 23 12:53:00 2023
    i used netscape and i don't even remember that happening. i looked it up and it said it was using the gecko engine.

    THen perhaps memory plays tricks with me. it somehow resonates with me that six (that with aqua blue ui and big six in the background layer of the welcome web page it was starting with, I think animated as well) was implemented in java or strongly integrated with java.

    Regardless, it was slow beyond acceptance on my computer at that time

    MR> MR> i think people ditched
    nutscrape long before 6 if that really happened.

    I liked it up to 4, for sure. It was my browser on early linux and win 3.11/32. My early Internet access memories is Netscape and MIRC :>

    -h1

    ... Xerox Alto was the thing. Anything after we use is just a copy.
  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to hollowone on Thu Mar 23 14:34:22 2023
    Re: Re: Microsoft
    By: hollowone to MRO on Thu Mar 23 2023 12:53 pm

    i used netscape and i don't even remember that happening. i looked
    it up and it said it was using the gecko engine.

    THen perhaps memory plays tricks with me. it somehow resonates with me that six (that with aqua blue ui and big six in the background layer of the welcome web page it was starting with, I think animated as well) was implemented in java or strongly integrated with java.

    I used Netscape for a long time as well, and I don't remember hearing about it being ported to Java. And with that version of Netscape, I don't recall needing to install the Java runtime to use it.

    Nightfox

    ---
    þ Synchronet þ Digital Distortion: digitaldistortionbbs.com
  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to hollowone on Thu Mar 23 17:24:18 2023
    Re: Re: Microsoft
    By: hollowone to MRO on Thu Mar 23 2023 12:53 pm


    I liked it up to 4, for sure. It was my browser on early linux and win 3.11/32. My early Internet access memories is Netscape and MIRC :>


    i used the mosiac browser with compuserv
    ---
    þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::
  • From hollowone@VERT/BEERS20 to Nightfox on Fri Mar 24 03:14:00 2023
    I used Netscape for a long time as well, and I don't remember hearing about it being ported to Java. And with that version of Netscape, I
    don't recall needing to install the Java runtime to use it.

    Yeah.. I keep searching for some reference, but it seems that my mind's boggled. Apologies for confusion. But still I remember it was slow like hell, that sticks.

    -h1

    ... Xerox Alto was the thing. Anything after we use is just a copy.
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@VERT/REALITY to hollowone on Sat Mar 25 08:17:00 2023
    hollowone wrote to Nightfox <=-

    I used Netscape for a long time as well, and I don't remember hearing about it being ported to Java. And with that version of Netscape, I
    don't recall needing to install the Java runtime to use it.

    Yeah.. I keep searching for some reference, but it seems that my mind's boggled. Apologies for confusion. But still I remember it was slow like hell, that sticks.

    I don't think it was ported to Java, but Netscape devceloped Javascript
    (no relation) to extend what was mostly static web sites way back when.



    ... IN CASE OF EMERGENCY DIAL 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3
    --- MultiMail/Win v0.52
    þ Synchronet þ .: realitycheckbbs.org :: scientia potentia est :.
  • From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to hollowone on Sun Apr 2 09:48:47 2023
    Re: Re: Microsoft
    By: hollowone to Tracker1 on Tue Mar 21 2023 03:52:00

    But I believe NN fucked up implementation and choosing Java as
    front-end was way premature by the end of 90s.

    To be clear, Java isn't JavaScript. The JS UI was started with NN6 using an XML UI templating language called XUL. Riff on Ghostbusters, "There is no data. There is only XUL!"

    XUL itself had a lot of really cool features, and by 2002 most PCs were more than fast enough. There was a standalone Application toolkit called XULRunner and quite few third party apps used it... Mozilla kind of left it to die though, and eventually nuked XUL support and left it to die. It was pretty much Electron a decade and a half before Electron existed.

    They also added JS support for E4X (ecmascript for xml), the only other implementation was in ActionScript 3 for Flash/Flex.


    --
    Michael J. Ryan
    +o roughneckbbs.com
    tracker1@roughneckbbs.com

    ---
    þ Synchronet þ Roughneck BBS - roughneckbbs.com
  • From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to MRO on Sun Apr 2 09:51:08 2023
    Re: Re: Microsoft
    By: MRO to hollowone on Thu Mar 23 2023 00:22:30

    I think the moment when Netscape was rewritten into Java killed the
    adoption completely. It was NN6 if I recall. Looked fancy from UI/UX
    perspective as we call it today, but slow as hell and unbearable for

    i used netscape and i don't even remember that happening. i looked it up and it said it was using the gecko engine.

    Gecko is Mozilla's (formerly Netscape) HTML rendering engine... XUL was the templating language used for the UI/Chrome around that (the browser's UI, not the web page). It was also JavaScript, not Java.


    --
    Michael J. Ryan
    +o roughneckbbs.com
    tracker1@roughneckbbs.com

    ---
    þ Synchronet þ Roughneck BBS - roughneckbbs.com
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@VERT/REALITY to Tracker1 on Sun Apr 2 07:21:00 2023
    Tracker1 wrote to hollowone <=-

    To be clear, Java isn't JavaScript. The JS UI was started with NN6
    using an XML UI templating language called XUL. Riff on Ghostbusters, "There is no data. There is only XUL!"

    XUL itself had a lot of really cool features, and by 2002 most PCs were more than fast enough. There was a standalone Application toolkit
    called XULRunner and quite few third party apps used it... Mozilla kind
    of left it to die though, and eventually nuked XUL support and left it
    to die. It was pretty much Electron a decade and a half before
    Electron existed.

    They also added JS support for E4X (ecmascript for xml), the only other implementation was in ActionScript 3 for Flash/Flex.

    This is bringing up bad memories of HotJava, the java browser for
    Solaris.




    ... What does this mean?
    --- MultiMail/Win v0.52
    þ Synchronet þ .: realitycheckbbs.org :: scientia potentia est :.
  • From hollowone@VERT/BEERS20 to Tracker1 on Sun Apr 2 13:11:00 2023
    But I believe NN fucked up implementation and choosing Java as front-end was way premature by the end of 90s.

    To be clear, Java isn't JavaScript. The JS UI was started with NN6
    using an XML UI templating language called XUL. Riff on Ghostbusters, "There is no data. There is only XUL!"

    I knew the bell wasn't ringing far from truth. Thanks for pointing me to the right waters. I'd not mistake java with javascript, perhaps my memory resonated with the wrong echo from the beginning.

    I know XUL, it was pitched by Mozilla years after NN collapsed as something that may help Javascript conquer desktop app development. It never resonated though.

    But that makes sense to me, if XUL predecessor as Wikipedia claims developed initially by Netscape Communications in around 1997 was responsible for NN6 rendering and I experienced it around 1999/2000 with my Celeron 300Mhz, no brainer it was slow as hell.

    Now I even found right reference regarding this XUL thing to impact performance on slower machine at the time of NN6 release.

    Mystery solved.

    -h1

    ... Xerox Alto was the thing. Anything after we use is just a copy.
  • From Lmorchard@VERT/DECAFBAD to hollowone on Mon Apr 3 19:01:11 2023
    Re: Re: Microsoft
    By: hollowone to Tracker1 on Sun Apr 02 2023 01:11 pm

    I know XUL, it was pitched by Mozilla years after NN collapsed as something that may help Javascript conquer desktop app development. It never resonated though.

    But that makes sense to me, if XUL predecessor as Wikipedia claims developed initially by Netscape Communications in around 1997 was responsible for NN6 rendering and I experienced it around 1999/2000 with my Celeron 300Mhz, no brainer it was slow as hell.

    Turns out, XUL was kind of just ahead of its time. Nowadays, there's a booming business in desktop apps based on Electron, which is essentially just HTML/JS/CSS web apps with some enhanced APIs and backend resources.

    It's also kind of why Apple's Webkit took off rather than Mozilla's Gecko: Where Webkit was made to be easily embeddable into other apps, Gecko & XUL kind of assumed you'd build your apps *inside* it as a framework.

    So, when it turned out that the world really wanted an embedded web view component rather than to buy into a whole app framework, Mozilla kind of lost the contest there.

    ---
    þ Synchronet þ 0xDECAFBAD - bbs.decafbad.com
  • From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to hollowone on Tue Apr 4 00:53:53 2023
    Re: Re: Microsoft
    By: hollowone to Tracker1 on Sun Apr 02 2023 13:11:00

    To be clear, Java isn't JavaScript. The JS UI was started with NN6
    using an XML UI templating language called XUL. Riff on
    Ghostbusters, "There is no data. There is only XUL!"

    I knew the bell wasn't ringing far from truth. Thanks for pointing me to the right waters. I'd not mistake java with javascript, perhaps my memory resonated with the wrong echo from the beginning.

    Yeah... I worked with it a bit, and enjoyed it for what it offered at the time.

    Timely blog post..
    https:/crisal.io/words/2023/03/30/xul-layout-is-gone.html

    I know XUL, it was pitched by Mozilla years after NN collapsed as something that may help Javascript conquer desktop app development. It never resonated though.

    Yeah, it was ahead of its' time, considering how popular electron is today.

    But that makes sense to me, if XUL predecessor as Wikipedia claims developed initially by Netscape Communications in around 1997 was responsible for NN6 rendering and I experienced it around 1999/2000 with my Celeron 300Mhz, no brainer it was slow as hell.

    Now I even found right reference regarding this XUL thing to impact performance on slower machine at the time of NN6 release

    Yeah, it was very bad before 2000 or so, but on anything over 1ghz was pretty decent. On today's hardware you wouldn't even notice.


    --
    Michael J. Ryan
    +o roughneckbbs.com
    tracker1@roughneckbbs.com

    ---
    þ Synchronet þ Roughneck BBS - roughneckbbs.com