Printer-friendly version
Author:
Taxonomy upgrade extras:
Thanks to Bill and his incompetent wankforce I mean workforce, Microshit IE6 or whatever it's called, has just lost the whole of Episode 159.
I will now have to rewrite the whole bloody thing.
Bollocks to Bill!
Angharad.
Comments
M$ and company
We will patiently wait for your next attempt at 159.
And, we hope that the next try at 159 goes smoothly (for you anyway. It's too much to hope for it going smoothly for Cathy.).
Best,
Phrances
Give it the boot!
Dear Angharad
You have my heartfelt sympathy; I too have suffered the Curse of Gates.
Nobody had ever accused me of being technically minded, but many years ago, when I was free-lancing, Mr Gates' horrible excrescence of an operating system went all blue on me and lost a translation which was worth about £500 in fees for me and a great deal more for my client's business. Fortunately I had done a rough draft in pencil, my client was sympathetic, and after re-installing everything twice and typing like a maniac for hours (and I am a very bad typist) I was able to deliver the wretched thing a mere day late.
I was so annoyed that I installed a Linux distro the next day; it was much easier to install and configure than I had thought. I've had lots of fun learning to use and configure a proper operating system and a few moments when I wanted to hurl the wretched thing out of the window. I haven't had to spend a fortune on security software or indeed any software at all although it was worth spending some money and time on handbooks.
We have three PCs in the family - my daughter has the Dell which was the first machine I installed Linux on. It is 7 years old but runs a recent version of Ubuntu Linux. Mrs Sinister Penguin has an 8 year old HP which runs the last but two versions of SuSE Linux. Apart from taking about a minute to boot up, both machines can be used for word-processing, playing games, editing photos and going on-line. My own machine is much newer but nothing special, but it is much faster and more stable than a similar machine running Windows. It took me less than 45 minutes to install the operating system, all the applications I needed, connect the printer and connect to the internet. It only crashes when I try to be clever and tweak the system, but it has never, ever lost any data at all.
Even if you stick with Windows you don't have to use Internet Exploder - the most popular alternative is Firefox, but Opera is very good, too. Both will ask you if you want to restart where you left off if there is a crash. Both are much more secure than IE as well.
I am sorry, my inner geek just has to come out sometimes...
Rod
Sinisterpenguin
M$ monoply
Oh goody, M$ bashing :P
Looking at the market share:
Browser Statistics Month by Month
Browser Statistics Month by Month
2007
IE7
IE6
IE5
Fx
Moz
S
O
November
21.0%
33.6%
1.6%
36.3%
1.2%
1.8%
1.8%
October
20.7%
34.5%
1.5%
36.0%
1.3%
1.7%
1.6%
September
20.8%
34.9%
1.5%
35.4%
1.2%
1.6%
1.5%
August
20.5%
35.7%
1.5%
34.9%
1.3%
1.5%
1.7%
July
20.1%
36.9%
1.5%
34.5%
1.4%
1.5%
1.9%
June
19.7%
37.3%
1.5%
34.0%
1.4%
1.5%
1.8%
May
19.2%
38.1%
1.6%
33.7%
1.3%
1.5%
1.7%
April
19.1%
38.4%
1.7%
32.9%
1.3%
1.5%
1.6%
March
18.0%
38.7%
2.0%
31.8%
1.3%
1.6%
1.6%
February
16.4%
39.8%
2.5%
31.2%
1.4%
1.7%
1.5%
January
13.3%
42.3%
3.0%
31.0%
1.5%
1.7%
1.5%
It would seem that M$ does have a small advantage over Firefox (roughly 20% more market share), especially after swiping the good parts (tabbed browsing anyone?). This means that more people actually use the software (well, as much as they can use it between crashes). As Erin has noted before, internet exploder is not W3C compliant, nor does it appear they want it to be. I would say just compose the story in a text editor and upload from there, but I am not really sure how the process works so there may be a reason that might not work. This way, even if the browser of choice (or not, in the case of IE) crashes, you still have the original to work from at your leisure (and we know you have lots of that, right? hehe).
All I am saying here is that the browser is just a tool, and like any other tool, can be replaced with something better but it is up to the individual to choose since the tool will be part of who they are how they develop their work. Do all artists use the same brand of pen? pencil? paper? No, and authors each have their own tools they have chosen through trial and error. It is up to the individual to decide and not some given fact carved in stone that everyone must use this or can't use that. For instance, who still uses edlin? I still do, because it is a very useful editor that can do what I need it to do (that and I am too lazy to learn emacs); what do I care who it was made by? It is a tool like any other piece of software.
The preceding is the sole opinion of the author of this piece. Thank you,
Diana
ps I forgot to mention that I am computer tech so any flaws that M$ introduces is money for me to fix :D
Web browsers
It always amazes me that the "features" that everybody touts as making IE7 better than IE6, "especially after swiping the good parts (tabbed browsing anyone?)", are the very things that stopped me from using those other browsers in the first place. I suspect the climbing numbers of IE7 users is simply due to the inability to uninstall it and install IE6. Firefox, et-al, are not better, just different; the same with IE7.
KJT
Down with ego photo sigs!
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Ego?
I made mine because I was asked to. Sorry to have offended you with my countenance.
Edeyn Hannah Blackeney
Wasn't it Jim Henson who said, "Without faith, I am nothing," after all? No, wait, that was God... Sorry, common mistake to make...
Offended?
No. But it is annoying, particularly when one person doing it is using a photo that's not even them. (Not you, and they know who they are.) In forums such as the GZ forum there is a place for avatars, but it's my personal opinion, which I'm allowed to express in my sig, that this is not the place for them. Erin has given me no indication that she objects to it, if she did I would of course immediately remove it. This is, after all, her site.
This is the second time in 24 hours I've been attacked here in an open forum for having an opinion that somebody else didn't like. There are several sigs here that express opinions that do offend me, but I haven't criticized them, publicly or privately. My sig line did not single anybody out by name, instead it criticizes a trend. Think of it as a one woman public protest march.
KJT
Down with ego photo sigs!
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
I'd do one but ...
I am too inept to post an avitar to the site.
As a sllllllow and clllllupmnzy, clumsy typist, I do my stories in MS Word 2002 -- because I have it, could use WordPerfect 12 or Open Office -- and save frequently to at least two slighty differen named files in addition to saving to a USB flash drive and on rare occasion a CD-R. That way old feeble thumbs can't wipe out four hours of work with a couple ill timed keystrokes.
My comments here and at other sites I usualy do live and I do loose it all on occasion thought hitting the back button often recovers it.
I remember an entry in Byte some ten years ago or so. It went something like ...
Once upon a time two guys wrote a Basic interpreter for a hobbists computer.
Then they made the deal of a lifetime with IBM.
Then they ruled the World.
A few years back an honorable mention in the annual Bulware-Lyton bad opening line comntest -- EI the It was a dark and stormy night" guy -- had the Enterprise heading toward certain doom as all ssytems were down and they were on battery power. Kirk looks at the solid blue viewscreen and declares. "This is the last ship I'll serve on that uses Windows for it's opperating system."
But then we all love to bash the big guys, look at Wally World, McD., the politician of your choice.
Keep plugging way guys and gals and don't be afraid to be wrong on occasion. But then I never bake missteaks.
John in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
Glad to be of service!
Edeyn Hannah Blackeney
Photo Sigs
Karen, you PM'd me to complain about photo sigs and I told you they were allowed. That is the last word on it. I deliberately chose Drupal because it makes such things easy to do. It doesn't matter if the photo is of the poster or not. It's a community building thing.
I haven't said anything about your public campaign against photo sigs until now because I didn't think it important enough to say anything. A sig line that is not a personal attack is permitted but if you think your sig line is aimed at someone specific, maybe you shouldn't be using it.
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
S?
Edeyn Hannah Blackeney
Netscape EOL
Quick FYI for anyone interested. As of Febuary 1st 2008 Netscape will be discontinued. AOL is sighting lack of users as a reason. Here's a article with more info: http://www.law.com/jsp/legaltechnology/pubArticleLT.jsp?id=1...
-HuGgLeS-
Piper/GeekGirl/Kirstyn Amanda Fox (and others)
May I respectfully ...
... recommend that you write your post off-line using something like Word, Wordpad, or OpenOffice and then use Firefox as your browser. That way you minimise the danger of Bill, his minions or, perish the thought, dumb thumbs/fingers affecting your deathlessly entertaining prose. Plus, even more importantly, avoiding depriving your eagerly waiting fans of their nightly fix of EAFOAB.
hugs (and sympathy)
Geoff
I was trying to be clever
I was going to include a small illustration at the end, IE wouldn't support posting it as it said it compromised my security, dunno how?
But then I'm not a geek, I'm a cyclist and I still don't understand how derailleurs work! So spare me the electronics, I'm too stupid to understand them, actually thanks for the thought, but I'm still dim.
hugs,
Angharad cyberphobe!
PS I can mend punctures, sometimes!
Angharad
Word processing
If I can offer a suggestion, try writing it in a word processing program first. That way you can have a hard copy of your story, incase something goes to pot. It's as simple as a copy/paste once you have it done and on your hard drive, or as I prefer, a zip stick. Just my $.02. Either way, I just LOVE your story. Please keep it up.
Much love
Toni