Hello Richard:
3/26/01 12:13:31 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Richard Menedetter) wrote:
>Hi
>
>25 Mar 2001, "Samuel W. Heywood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >> It's not the big companies bribing the diskjokeys, but the users
> >> calling the jokey (on port 80)
>
> SH> That is because they feel a need to connect with the website, and to
> SH> do so they can use no browser other than the one(s) for which the
> SH> website is specifically designed.
>Definitely not ...
>
>If people see a website saying optimized for ie4+ ther will not be a single
>person saying: Oh .. I have to delete Netscape/Opera/Arachne/lynx/whatever
>because I need IE to view this page.
They will not have to delete any of the browsers already installed, but they will
have to install IE in addition to what they already have.
>I'm not using IE, and I haven't seen a single page that needs IE.
>(expect update.microsoft.com :))
Here is an example of a webpage that says you must have
MSIE 4.5 or above: http://www.dialpad.com
The site will not work with MSIE 4.0 and it will not work with
Opera 5.02. This page lets you make PC-to-phone long
distance calls in the US for free. Until just recently the site
used to work with just fine with MSIE 4.0.
> SH> All others are excluded and referred to a page urging the user to
> SH> download the latest and greatest stuff.
>Such sites usually don't have the content I want to read.
>In other words I can happily live without them.
There are a lot of people that can't live happily without being able to
make long distance phone calls for free, especially men who travel a
lot and have to keep in touch with a girlfriend or a wife who likes to
spend too much time talking on the phone. If you want to keep her,
you will have to put up with her talkativeness, or she will find some
other man to talk at.
> SH> This is about as absurd as listening to a disk jockey telling
> SH> you that you aren't cool and you will be shunned by everybody who is
> SH> really hip if you don't go out right now and buy the latest hit
> SH> recordings.
>Some would reply, that this is if somebody would require that no color
>television program should be broadcasted, because there 3% of the
>population can't see the colors.
No, it is not the same. A television station broadcasting over the public
airwaves has no means of knowing whether the listeners and viewers
are using a color television or a B&W television, or just a radio capable
of tuning in TV sound. The television stations would prefer that you
tune them in by any means, whatever the limitations of your receiving
equipment, rather than to not tune them in at all. Many webmasters
have very purposefully designed their sites so that the computer users
would either get all of the content or none of it, depending on the kind
of computer OS and type of software they are trying to promote.
>This is *NOT* my point of view ... but there sure are many people thinking
>so
>
> SH> You might feel forced to listen to him anyway if his is
> SH> the only station you can tune in
>he is NOT the only station.
>There are 2 other major choices (which conform to the latest standards)
There are many rural areas in the US where you can tune in only one
regular broadcast station.
>and what is much more important, the specification of how to build a radio
>station is freely available !!!
Radio frequencies are not freely available here. You have to buy them
and have them especially licensed for your use in order to operate
legally. Also you have to conform to the current standards of political
correctness when broadcasting over the public airwaves. The right to
freedom of speech is subject to many restrictions in the case of public
radio broadcasts.
> SH> Any old radio that can tune in the station's broadcast frequency will
> SH> work just fine, but not just any old browser that can connect with
> SH> port 80 can display the website.
>this is the choice of the author of the page.
>If he feels that it's OK for him to concentrate only on IE users, that's
>his business ...
> we can say that he is silly, and he will cut his own finger with that decision, but
>it's
>still HIS choice.
>(If I would be american I would say that the first amandment gives him the
>right for free speech.)
We can both agree that he has the right to be that way if that is what he wants to
do. Also we both have a perfect right to feel that such behavior is really foolish
and asinine.
>I find it at least as silly to promote .ZBM, which is proprietary, and
>there is no standard describing it.
As we already have learned, a ZBM is simply a zipped BMP.
PKZIP and BMP are both very well defined standards. By
giving the file an extension of ZBM instead of ZIP, then we
know what kind of archive file it is without even having to go
to the trouble of looking inside to see. I think it is a good idea.
If you didn't know that a ZBM is really just a zipped BMP, then
all you have to do to instantly recognize it as a ZIP file is to
use a file viewer to take a look at the file headers. No problem.
>Promoting proprietary things instead of using freely available standards is
>allways a VERY bad idea !
I don't see anything proprietary about ZBMs. PKZIP and BMP are both
very well known standards.
>(see kerberos implementation of M$ - which is NOT compatible with the real
>kerberos implementation by the MIT)
>
> SH> To design a commercial website that will work only with special
> SH> browsers is about as stupid
>YES ... I full-heartedly agree ...
>
>but if the company decides to do so, they are free to do so.
>We can boycot them and we can write them letters.
>But in the last run it is their decision.
>
> SH> I don't understand why so many people who want to advertise their
> SH> products on the internet don't hire website developers to produce
> SH> just normal webpages that will work with any browser.
>99.9999% of the pages I view are such pages.
>
>And sites which only work with one special browser are from such dumb
>idi**s, that I'm not interested in their contents.
>
> SH> They don't really need https and they certainly don't need
> SH> JavaScript.
>stop ...
>we spoke from sites requireing ONE browser ... and not about free
>standards.
>
>HTTPS is *VERY* useful thing.
>If you would know how easy it is to log network traffic, you would feel so
>to. (NSA, Echelon, Carnivor, .....)
Yes, I know it is a very useful thing; however, there are many people whose
browsers do not have SSL capability. They would just like to be able to view
a catalog at an ordinary http site where they would see a telephone number to
call for placing an order.
<snip>
Regards,
Sam Heywood
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