Mozilla suggestions (since someone locked the other thread)

[leech]

However, you said closed source sucks because only the people involved can improve on it. Well then, why is the best desktop OS, the best word processor, the best spreadsheet, one of the best browsers, the best photo manipulation program, the best vector graphics programs, the best of almost every piece of desktop software all closed source? Because closed source works as a business model, and they can invest. Open source often fails because they miss what they are targetting.

In a word, Money. Another word, Time. And last off, wether they're the 'best' is purely opinion.

They are now about to release Office version 11. That's quite far up there on how many years that Word/Excel etc have been out. Open Office.org is pretty sweet, and it's only at version 1.0 Sure they had the base of Star Office to work upon, but from what I know most of that code got dropped because it was trying to hard to be a desktop in itself.

But take a look at Gnome2 (hopefully Gnome 2.2 soon) and look at the many improvements to the UI that they have done. They even make it especially easy to impliment features for handicapped people.

With the newer distributions like Red Hat 8 and Mandrake 9, you can't really say that windows is easier anymore. Linux is different, that's it. That's where the difficulty in using it lies, is in the differences between the Windows and the Linux way.

Like Breezer said, Mozilla is just as easy to configure, and actually if you put the theme on classic, it melds just fine with WindowsXP's theme.

It's too early here......

Leech

[leech]

Originally posted by UtwigMU
Lynx anyone - teh blaz0ring fast bro\/\/5aR

Lynx rocks Though for your website to work properly in lynx you must remember to use the alt text command, at least on images that have links.

Thanks KeiFront, that multizilla looks pretty sweet, I installed it and am playing around with it right now.

Leech

[leech]

SP1? Hello, we're going round in circles. You say that you don't like XP because SP1's features came a year after its release. So...by my earlier comparison, I don't like Mozilla, because NS4 should've offered what it offers. Take products on what we have now. Should I ignore Radeons and GeForces because Rages and Riva128s are crap? Bleh.

Actually netscape did the right thing and opened their source code up because it started to suck, and now mozilla doesn't suck, because it's had more time to mature. IE keeps on sucking because there is at least one new security update released a month.

Anyhow I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here.. Also I apologize on that other post where what I posted went between the quotes (it wasn't supposed to, damned the bad luck....)

Leech

[leech]

Ok, for the record, I never said that all closed source software sucks, I apologize if that's what it seemed like, but what I was specifically saying was that Microsoft's closed sourced software sucks. Photoshop is a magnificent beast of a program.

And as far as 'best' software all being closed source..... Take a look at Filmgimp. A whole lot of flim studios are moving towards that, and it does the job they want. Scooby Doo used it, as well as Harry Potter, etc. Wake up and smell the code, Open sourced software can work, and better yet, it's free!

Leech

[Pace]

Originally posted by leech
Lynx rocks Though for your website to work properly in lynx you must remember to use the alt text command, at least on images that have links.

Alt text should be used on all images, and title too, especially links.

Actually netscape did the right thing and opened their source code up because it started to suck, and now mozilla doesn't suck, because it's had more time to mature. IE keeps on sucking because there is at least one new security update released a month

That's not why IE is bad, that's an argument to say it's good. Are you debating with yourself?

Ok, for the record, I never said that all closed source software sucks, I apologize if that's what it seemed like, but what I was specifically saying was that Microsoft's closed sourced software sucks. Photoshop is a magnificent beast of a program

Well, I've yet to use OpenOffice, but I doubt they have surpassed it. The only review I've read seemed to agree.

And, likewise, I didn't say closed source sucks. I said "Open source often fails". I didn't say all the best software is closed source, I picked a selection covering what, in my opinion, are top of the pack in their categories, and said "the best of almost every piece of desktop software". I can't think of any major fields where open source wins on the desktop, although I'm sure a few apps will be better. Open source is nice, but it could do with some nicer business models. Good to see RedHat still around though, have the posted any nice profits recently? I don't read Slashdot quite as avidly as usual.

MSN Messenger is one where I think Microsoft have messed up, it used to be about 800k, now it's close to 5MB? (Just checked, it's 4). What features have they added of use to me....none The preview of version 5 ensures I'll never used it again, except v4.0 (v4.5+ is a bit off my liking, but the forced tabs in 5 just ain't cricket).

The represents where Microsoft (and a lot of software companies) are going wrong for me...lack of configurability. Previously everything could be configured on install etc, and from the program. Now stuff like Real etc, and the newer versions of Office all just let you click a few options. What happened to Advanced installs? Even those that offer custom installs allow you to change very little. Which means going into the registry and editing stuff later. Which is the main reason why Windows used to be better, all important config could be done through the GUI, whereas Linux it's all done in config files.

Hmm, time to go out, see ya's

[Pace]

And, while the film argument is good, it reeks of "Amiga rocks, it made Babylon 5"

At least it's a start on the productive workstation.

btw, has anyone used recent versions of Everybuddy and Trillian? Just wondering how they compare now.

P.

[Jessterw]

Originally posted by KeiFront
About the tabbed browsing in Mozilla. I believe this hasn't been mentioned before on Murc.

But there's a nice plugin for Mozilla multizilla that improves the tabbed browsing feature.

Actually a good bit of the tabbed browsing code in Mozilla is based on the multizilla code, though the latter seems to work a little better.

Originally posted by Pace
The represents where Microsoft (and a lot of software companies) are going wrong for me...lack of configurability. Previously everything could be configured on install etc, and from the program. Now stuff like Real etc, and the newer versions of Office all just let you click a few options. What happened to Advanced installs? Even those that offer custom installs allow you to change very little. Which means going into the registry and editing stuff later. Which is the main reason why Windows used to be better, all important config could be done through the GUI, whereas Linux it's all done in config files.

Yeah, alot of Windows software is getting insanely possessive and controlling (why oh why must Winamp provide me with AOL links ), but most of the software in this category that are getting rather annoying aren't even from Microsoft (sans some of the MSN junk).

As far as Office configurability... how much more do you want? Honestly the configuration options have only increased there. During install you can choose not to install almost every single component and how you want to install it... once installed Office is by far one of the most configurable software packages (sets of applications) in the market today (hence the ease in creating malicious scripts and such).

Personally I use a mixture of closed and open source software (some are better than others). I get crashes ever so often when using Photoshop (on a few different systems), yet when it works it's great... I've never had a crash with Windows 2K or XP... only had one with FreeBSD (albeit my fault). Mozilla is my favorite browser now that it has matured a bit. I think the real issue is not open vs. closed source, it's free vs. paid. I've yet to see anyone mention, tout any open source software that wasn't free. You can deny it, but people just like free.

[leech]

Originally posted by Pace
And, while the film argument is good, it reeks of "Amiga rocks, it made Babylon 5"

At least it's a start on the productive workstation.

btw, has anyone used recent versions of Everybuddy and Trillian? Just wondering how they compare now.

P.

Amiga does rock since it made Babylon 5. WIth how old the amiga hardware is, and yet it was able to do some pretty awesome stuff.

Actually Film Gimp is able to edit 16bit color. (No, I don't mean 65k color palette. That's 16bit per channel.)

I don't use Everybody or Trillian. I use CVS version of GAIM. It rocks as a linux Messenger. Supports all protocols that I can think of. Even the CVS version that I run rarely crashes.

Leech

PS I'm tired as all hell, so if this post doesn't make sense, it's due to my extreme lack of sleep.

[leech]

Ok, I'll try to sum this up in reply to both Pace and JesterzWild in one post so I don't look like a complete post whore.

Pace: No I wasn't debating with myself. My complaint about the Security issues with IE is that they keep finding more and more security issues with it, and yet as previously posted in this thread, they have fixed "previously addressed security vulnerabilities, <i>as well as any newly discovered</i> vulnerabilities affecting Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP"

So all the newly discovered ones should have automatically been fixed by this one magical security update release? Geez, did Microsoft lie to us? No, not that. Yet here it is many months later that they are still coming out with them. Yes, it's a good thing that they are fixing their problems. The bad thing is that they still have a lot of issues with it buried in the code. And it's real scary when it saves credit card numbers as auto-complete lines. That's where Open Source excells. Security means everything on the web, because of course that's where all the people who are going to try to hack your system are.


Jesterzwild: Yeah, the apps are starting to get very vague on what you install. And though I will say that Office is probably one of the few products of Microsoft's that I actually think is pretty good (I like they're mice and keyboards too) It has one small failing. If you try to load up a rather large file (this was a plain text script file for UOX (Ultima Offline eXperiment) that was about 4 megs in size) then it will crash every single time. Though to put things in perspective, EVERY editor I threw at it crashed as well, except for one. Possibly the best all around editor for anything and everything, even will help for coding and such..... EMACS. Open Source software that had no problems whatsover with opening this file. Emacs rocks, and it's out for every platform imaginable. Seriouisly good stuff, and I just thought it was hilarious that a completely free program could deal with this file no problem, and yet any other word processor or text editor would crash. (though for the record I didn't try Vi. I tried MS Word (XP version), Abiword, Star Office 5.2, Open Office.org, Emacs, Gedit, Gnotepad+, Notepad, and Wordpad.) I don't recall what version of the other programs I used, because this was quite some time ago. Still pretty amusing, I thought.

Leech