On Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:36:18 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>>>> I'm guessing also that a lot of those pointless Flash games and
>>>>> similar only work well in IE.
>>>> Um, not if they're Flash games....Flash runs in Firefox....
>>> And how much do you want to bet that the entire site markup is only
>>> tested with IE?
>> 
>> Anyone who designs a website and doesn't run it through a W3C checker
>> is asking for trouble.
> 
> I agree. But we're also talking about the same kinds of sites that use
> ActiveX to silently install spyware on your PC while you're playing the
> new shiny game, so... ;-)

Yeah, well, it doesn't bother me that those ActiveX controls simply won't 
install on my systems. ;-)

Jim

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On Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:40:42 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> For my sins, no. I just assumed that "Office Home Edition" would have
> the parts of Office that are useful to a home user, without the parts
> that only an office worker would want. I was wrong.

How many home users really have a need to create presentations?

Jim

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:498335df$1@news.povray.org...
> Invisible wrote:
>> unecessarily complicated,
>
> That kind of depends on whether you need the complicated bits, don't you 
> think? The opposite of "unnecessarily complicated" is "lacking features."

Its code isn't a sparkling paragon of elegant efficiency.  Shoulda used 
Haskell!

*wink*

-- 
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net
>
>> poorly documented,
>
> MS has some of the best documentation out there, and they teach classes in 
> using their stuff. Just because you never learned it doesn't mean it isn't 
> out there.
>
>> resource-inefficient,
>
> Somewhat, but what are you comparing it to?  How resource-efficient *you* 
> could make it if you didn't have any commercial constraints?
>
>> insecure,
>
> Somewhat. Much of that is due to people not installing patches or people 
> not using the system as designed.
>
>> Let's suppose that a particular Word document is corrupted. Why should 
>> that make Word crash? Shouldn't it just pop up a message saying "I can't 
>> read this file, it seems to be corrupted"? Isn't that what "graceful 
>> failure" is all about? But no, Word just crashes outright.
>
> Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. If it's corrupted in a way that's 
> hard to check, it crashes, because if it didn't, you'd be using up even 
> *more* resources to be doing the checking. See?
>
>> I opened the same file in OpenOffice, and it just opened up as if there 
>> was nothing wrong with it. I saved it again, and it has worked in Word 
>> ever since.
>
> It probably deleted whatever it was that was confusing Office.
>
>> Why is it that Word, a premium product designed and produced by the 
>> richest software company on earth, cannot do something that OpenOffice 
>> can?
>
> Why is it that OpenOffice can't do something that Word can?
>
> -- 
>   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
>   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
>   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
>   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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>>> Anyone who designs a website and doesn't run it through a W3C checker
>>> is asking for trouble.
>> I agree. But we're also talking about the same kinds of sites that use
>> ActiveX to silently install spyware on your PC while you're playing the
>> new shiny game, so... ;-)
> 
> Yeah, well, it doesn't bother me that those ActiveX controls simply won't 
> install on my systems. ;-)

Nor me - but then, I don't visit that kind of website in the first 
place! ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Darren New wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> unecessarily complicated, 
> 
> That kind of depends on whether you need the complicated bits, don't you 
> think? The opposite of "unnecessarily complicated" is "lacking features."

You know, I *was* going to construct a long and detailed reply carefully 
explaining why you're wrong and I'm right. But you know what? I've just 
got home from another exhilerating dance class, and I don't actually 
*care* any more. I know I'm right, and if you don't... well, right now, 
I'm not fussed. I'm going to go have a nice relaxing shower! :-D

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> and I don't actually *care* any more. I know I'm right, 

Excellent!  Glad to hear it. It's a stupid thing to argue about anyway. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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On Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:34:25 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>>> Anyone who designs a website and doesn't run it through a W3C checker
>>>> is asking for trouble.
>>> I agree. But we're also talking about the same kinds of sites that use
>>> ActiveX to silently install spyware on your PC while you're playing
>>> the new shiny game, so... ;-)
>> 
>> Yeah, well, it doesn't bother me that those ActiveX controls simply
>> won't install on my systems. ;-)
> 
> Nor me - but then, I don't visit that kind of website in the first
> place! ;-)

And if your users do, then surely you'd want them to be protected from 
the malware....so don't let them run ActiveX and that's one less risk. ;-)

Jim

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scott wrote:
>> how M$ products in general tend to be unecessarily complicated, poorly 
>> documented, resource-inefficient, insecure, and so forth.
> 
> TBH I've found MS products to be really well documents, in fact I would 
> say better than any other software I've used.  Really, even if you have 
> a complicated thing you want to do in Excel, the documentation usually 
> has the answer.
> 
Seriously, in my experience, the programs, if it even ships with one, 
has a manual with nothing in it at all, and all the troubleshooting 
things are, "Are you a complete moron? Yes/No", variety. "Real" problems 
usually require going online and googling for fixes from forums, written 
by people that "use" the software, not the people that wrote it. The 
help files with the programs are... marginally better, but not by much, 
and their trouble shooting usually jumps from "Yes, I checked all that 
fracking stuff!", to, "Well, gosh, we don't have a clue what the problem 
is then!" If its something a decent user could figure out without it, or 
a simple command lookup, its great. If something goes wrong that isn't 
"simple" user error, or where you want even moderately non-default 
behavior, you are hosed. And.. There online documentation on the site is 
almost as bad, with pages referring to examples that don't explain 
anything different than the incoherent text did, examples that are 
missing, code that was removed 10 years earlier, because it was for 
something they no longer support, even though the same "problem" is one 
that you need to fix in the new stuff too. And.. in some cases you can't 
even find "current" documentation, even using the links in the software 
you are trying to find the documentations for, either due to it being 
moved, deleted, changes in some obscure way that makes their DB return 
the wrong thing, or just plain never being updated.

In other words, its as bad, in most cases, as other people's products, 
in that it doesn't account for the most common "unusual" problems, and 
"worse" than theirs, in that even when documented, you can't find the 
document explaining where to find the documents, never mind the document 
itself, some times. Which is, imho, worse than stating, "Sorry, we 
didn't bother writing one."

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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scott wrote:
>> Are you crazy?? Most of the software I see around me costs £20 - £40. 
>> £350 is seriously expensive!
> 
> 60 pounds for a pretty complex word processor, spreadsheet and 
> presentation package seems completely reasonable to me.
> 
> 290 extra pounds for an email client, desktop publisher and database 
> seems a bit extreme, but this is aimed at companies, not individuals, so 
> of course they make the price higher.
> 
> The alternative is to charge 100 pounds for the home edition, and 200 
> for the professional edition, but I suspect they would make vastly less 
> money that way.
> 
> 

Its not aimed at companies though. Companies "generally" don't go around 
installing single machines, but buy "bulk" licenses, which gives them 
"discounts" on installs. Sometimes they can even talk MS into handing 
them the stuff for free (though not the upgrades).

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Eero Ahonen wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> MS... doesn't. Their goal is just to make things look impressive, and do
>> enough to sell the product. Its not until it becomes obvious that they
>>
> 
> Part of this has been disgussed here before - MS lives by selling
> software (and hardware) and most of computer users don't have a clue of
> what's happening under the bonnet, so they have to do (also) visual
> changes (which aren't always improvements) to make people see a
> difference to older system. Hence one goal automatically is to make
> things look impressive.
> 
> -Aero


And, if they where doing something more than just sticking the "shell" 
of this:

http://www.livescience.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?s=technology&c=news&l=on&pic=080324-aptera-car-02.jpg&cap=The+electric+hybrid+Aptera+(greek+for+%22wingless+flight%22)+is+a+3-wheeled+motorcycle+registered+with+DOT+and+the+California+DMV.+The+production+model+will+go+85+mph+and+get+300+mpg%2C+the+company+states.+Credit%3A+Aptera.com&title=

on this:

http://www.omnieye.com/mc/ad-pics/22140345.jpg

I might be a bit more impressed. ;) lol

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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