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Microsoft Announces ".net"
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"Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love." -- Albert Einstein
"Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love." -- Albert Einstein
Re:...paving the way to pay-per-use... (Score:5)
then send you the bill for $1.00 per Word doc you opened,
I don't know why everyone is so automatically against this. It boils down to economics. It's not going to be a $1/doc. What if it was a penny per doc, and you had access to every application in the entire industry? I think that would be mighty cool.
For example, I don't have a copy of Visio, but there have been times that I would really have liked to have access to it. But it's never been worth going out and buying it [and there is nothing like Visio in the OSS world, but that's another story]. If I could pay a penny on an as-need basis, it would make great economic sense.
Again, it all boils down to the cost. If the cost is low enough, it makes a lot of sense.
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Re:Microbull (Score:2)
There are many kinds of people in this world, and they sometimes overlap.
1) Those who RTFM
2) Those who beg #1 to please reinstall their computer for them because they can't RTFM or get their stuff to work
3) Those who make software without manuals for #2; software without manuals doesn't work. If you don't explain it, and insist on hiding it, there might be something wrong with it. This is what would be called "suspicious behavior" anywhere else.
4) Those who try to have useful discussions about these topics.
5) Those who whine, bitch, moan, and flame #4.
...and your arguments are *completely* unsound, even for a rant *OR* a flame.
It's like saying that apples have been oranges all along, I mean, what are those seeds for?
So let me help you.
1) UNIX does things properly.
2) Windows does things in a way that allows the most people to be able to use it, at least theoretically.
3) However, if #2 doesn't do things properly, how can it allow anyone to use it, ultimately? Also, how could knowing how to do a task help you when the procedure doesn't work?
Give me my pipes, my C, and my terse documentation any day, until you can show me another system that *works* as well.
Feel free to make things easier to use once you've at least gotten them working in the first place.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
A Good Idea (Score:2)
I think that the ubiquitous desktop is the wave of the future because it makes things better for people who don't adjust as quickly. I really don't have much of an opinion on MS doing it, but I think that everyone will go this way eventually. If MS published this as their idea, it would be quite false, since this has been around as an idea, as far as I know, since the mainframe days. Them employing that idea is fine, if it makes computers easier for the average person to use.
Real issues may arise because of bugs and viri: everyone using the same software makes bugs and viri easy to create (ala nature w/uniform genetics) If only MS can use their desktop settings, then it may prove to be a hive for bugs and viri, like Outlook et al. That's a bit of another topic altogether, though. This settings-anywhere has a ton of issues that MS probably isn't even aware of (often because they like to reinvent the wheel, poorly). But, if they get it right, it would be quite neat.
The only other issue I have is with the recurring charge that would accompany something online like that; this is something that average-joe would probably pay for on a recurring monthly basis, and that's fundamentally wrong, in my very humble opinion.
Re:hmmm... (Score:4)
portable USB hard drive: $300
spare USB cable, hub: $60
bootable CDROM with OS of choice: $15
assorted floppies, zips $30
knowing M$ won't be reading my data: priceless.
Re:windows.net, office.net (Score:2)
Similarly, "WindowsME.com" is for mechanically engineered window cleaners. I wonder how much money Microsoft will need to throw at them before they just sue WindowsME.com outright.
Re:XML == Completely OverHyped (Score:2)
So what's wrong about it? Plain-vanilla text files are so useful because they are both human- and machine-readable. I'll take UNIX's gaggle of config files over that binary monster of a registry any day. Yes, it's not the most efficient use of bits, but who cares?
People are advocating XML is this great new technology for universal data exchange. Well, it's NOT... no more than a standard text file is.
Ah, but you see, a standard text file is is a great technology for data exchange. It's easily debuggable, you don't have to worry about big-/little-endianess (not the mention the horrors of binary representation of reals) and everybody in the world can deal with ASCII.
Yes, XML is just text structured in a certain way. That's a feature, not a bug.
Kaa
Re:"Open" Office Document Formats? (Score:2)
If it's like Office now, they'll be XML-ized binaries with hidden or tweaked DTDs that nobody will be able to use anywhere else.
MY Computer? MINE? Promise? (Score:2)
Hmm - that sounds like Back Orifice.
Piracy (Score:2)
-Mr. Macx
Moof!
Fantastic Idea!! (Score:2)
The real reason (Score:5)
Very hokey... (Score:5)
- Here's a good one... "Passwords are the weak link in today's networks." No, I think I'd disagree - the weak link is lousy security on systems such as *cough* Windows.
- Unintentional slip? Gates said that information sharing is good. Hmm...
- The
.net servers will be running Windows 2000, which has apparently set "world-setting benchmarks" for speed and reliability. I was under the impression that benchmarks showed that Win2K is slower than even WinNT. - The "core" of
.net is XML. It was not explained why this is good, or how this particular brand of text formatting (or "protocol", as Gates insists on calling it) will be used. - Gates repeatedly alluded to "per-minute charges" for the required broadband access. If this
.net thing flies and people actually use it, then MS is set to suck a LOT of money from hapless consumers. - Apparently, the PC "required" a "universal platform" (line Windows) in order for applications to be created. Please. I suppose that Gates is conveniently forgetting the many problems and incompatibilies which his "common platform" has caused.
For those who are interested, technology "highlights" include:Re:XML is <just>tags</just> (Score:5)
Yeah, and the XML tags will all end up looking like this;
<binary>!%!@#!1234@#14%%1551%!!!#$%!$!#%SAF@#!#
Re:...paving the way to pay-per-use... (Score:2)
Oh, so you mean MS is actually looking into the future for once? Good for them, it's about time.
Whether we like it or not, this is the way things will go. It's not only cheaper, but it's easier for maintainance reasons (ie. if your copy of Word doens't work, just download another one).
Once the net becomes a completely (like 99.9%) reliable medium, people will be less hesitant about leaving their docs on remote servers. Large corporations will still have their own servers to handle private docs, but most people and small businesses will just encrypt their stuff (optional) and upload it. Would you not leave things in your fridge now because you're afraid the power will go out??
But of course, the main issue is giving the masses enough bandwidth to make this worthwhile. While cable is nice, it'll end up being the 'poor man's' high speed connection in 5 years. Fiber is going down fast, and high speed wireless is going to be big.
There's also matters of security and convinence (can you get to the networked Word if you are at 32000 ft from LA to Tokyo?)
yes. A major airline (Continental?) just signed a contract with a provider to give internet and e-mail access at 32000 ft. In 5-10 years (where this net apps thing is aimed), the net will be EVERYWHERE, because people will demand it. MS is going to be releasing this stuff 'soon', but they know it's not going to be replacing their OS and Office suite packages any time soon.
Re:.net is not the NC (Score:3)
Whatever. In that case, they've re-implemented either
- That stupid little "Briefcase" feature that everyone deletes
- Palm HotSync
- CVS
on a larger scale. This is not new tech, except that they're possibly making it more popular among the end-user crowd.Regarding the voice recognition, etc., I'll believe it when you can get it at Best Buy.
Regarding the community envy, I think you've got that backwards on this one. MS ridiculed the NC concept (which is a superset of this "new invention"), and now they're touting it as the Next Great Thing.
Feh. (Score:5)
Joy!
Not.
Re:XML is <just>tags</just> (Score:2)
Re:...paving the way to pay-per-use... (Score:3)
Re:Microbull (Score:2)
LOL! How accurate! Here's a real life quote for ya:
"Sure, I could [RTFM] but it's more exciting to think I've screwed up the entire system and lost everything." --My Brother-in-law, VP of Production for a Net Media company, upon calling me for the umpteenth time to help him fix his bleedin' NT nonlinear editing box that he continually fscks with despite how me and a thousand OEM techs have warned him how fragile it is...
Re:Fantastic Idea!! (Score:2)
You'll get up in the morning and see that the coffee maker, TV, radio, traffic lights and computer aren't working, the banks and stores are closed, or else only trading by barter, and you'll say to yourself "Ah! Another Registry Day! I can go back to sleep."
Re:Software leasing (Score:3)
The last place I worked, they were leasing Dell desktops. By the time the machines had reached the end of their useful life, they had been paid for many times over. It would have been far, far cheaper to just buy them up front. And everyone knew it!
But due to "cash flow" and other accounting BS, they were leased anyway.
So there is no _economic_ reason that Microsoft could not successfully lease software. Companies will do it to avoid the budget hit of purchasing 1000 copies of Office 2000 at the same time. Remember, you will have to upgrade everyone at once, or document version incompatibility issues will kill you.
Or... companies will say "fsck this" and switch to free software. Linux should be pretty good for desktop machines by the end of the year, what with Mozilla, the new Gnome, new KDE, new office apps, the 2.4 kernel, and XFree86 4.0.
(And don't bother to tell me it's good now... yes, I run it now, but I wouldn't make my parents use it just yet. This Christmas I will probably switch them over.)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Re:...paving the way to pay-per-use... (Score:2)
we're already paying this, at least. our [user's] time is worth money, too. everytime win* crashes and I either lose data or have to just waste my time with senseless reboots, I lose productivity.
figuring a silicon valley computer professional is worth in the neighborhood of $100/hr and a reboot (with their scandisk being invoked) can take, say, 3 minutes (all told), that's: $5 per reboot. and who gets thru the day without at least 2 reboots of win*? there's your $10 already ;-)
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Re:It's Been Done ... (Score:2)
Well, if they use Sun tools they of course could
Re:XML == Completely OverHyped (Score:3)
XML is better than a standard delimited text file for several reasons:
Unfortunately, it fell short of it's biggest potential achievement: to allow the layering of information from multiple sources. While XML Namespace take care of naming conflicts, they provide NO guidelines on how and where to use them. As such, there is no proper way to validate a document under more than one DTD. And because of that, we are now seeing standards that are definitively not validatable under certain DTDs. XML should have stuck with SGML styled architectures, despite how complicated they are to implement.
As for the speed issue, XML should have been written with a parallel binary format in mind.
"It's all about the client, st*pid" (Score:5)
Exactly, and with this announcement, Microsoft is doing just that - stepping up to the bar and stating that it will define a broad set of schemas applying to both web services and clients. Microsoft is essentially trying to impose a defacto standard on how XML information will be passed around the web, using the strength of its desktop position as the lever.
Indeed, the user interface part of this announcement is particularly intriguing. As you say:
And they create a special car browser to display the number of cupholders in their cars
This is exactly what the Microsoft
Interestingly, Windows itself winds up playing a peripheral role in this scheme. As Microsoft's white paper points out, the Windows OS will be renamed Windows
Hey! I OWN microsoft.NET!! - READ THIS! (Score:2)
Back in December when Michael Chaney [doublewide.net] payed for passport.com, I payed the bill for microsoft.NET.
See for yourself! http://www.worldwidewait.com/ms/ms.html [worldwidewait.com]
No, I never received a check like Michael did...
Wow, whole hog now.. (Score:3)
Apperently, now that Microsoft has been judged a monopoly, they've decided this:
"Welp, they found us out. We might as well go whole hog now".
Everything in this Microsoft.NET platform, which they push as being 'The next generation of the Internet' is so based on Microsoft run service it isn't even funny. They name dropped every service they offer, from extending email off of 'Hotmail', to instant messaging based on MSIM.
In some ways, they're getting better, using open protocols such as SOAP, and using storage, etc, using XML. In other ways, the beast is getting worse..
Marketing Irony (Score:2)
Domain Name: dot.net
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Comay, David S (DC115) David.Comay@ENG.SUN.COM
This must be another example of Microsoft "leadership" and "innovation" at work...
-LP (not connnected with Sun myself)
Re:...paving the way to pay-per-use... (Score:2)
Re:Ummm, profiles barely work now... (Score:2)
As in, I've had many problems when using a mixture of NT 3.51 and NT 4.0 machines, or now with a mixture of 4.5 and 2K machines. I've also had nightmares where Windows 95 and Windows 98 do NOT play nicely with the same profiles.
Same client, different version.
This is pretty funny (Score:4)
According to this article in the San Francisco Chronicle [sfgate.com], their innovation sounds highly dubious. Some examples:
A command line. Wow. With a screen reader! Funny, a friend of mine (who happens to be blind) had something like this years ago...it's called using a DOS app with a screen reader.
News flash: Microsoft invents metadata!
Anyone here remember Apple's OpenDoc? Remember how well it was received? Embeddable content like graphics files is okay, but who in hell needs to embed movies or sounds in their word processor documents? This will fall flat on its @$$.
Frankly, the only new part of this whole thing is the fact that they'll be cramming all of this into a few XML formats. Can you imagine the complexity required of the DTDs for this? Yikes!
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Zardoz has spoken!
Put it all together (Score:2)
Assuming they lose their Supreme Court appeal, watch for the Windows group to become sacrifical goats. Since Windows is far from the best server solution in most cases, and IE can be ported wherever they want to put it, the applications group will literally have no use for it once everything is piped through a browser.
Plus, they can sidestep piracy, users reluctant to upgrade, and most of the other things that customers do to sap their revenue machine. I've got to hand it to whoever dreamed up their long-term strategy; it's sharp. But then, I guess MS has always survived more on its aggressive management style than its technology.
Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about this overall. Maybe if their record were better on privacy and security issues, the thought of being able to keep their code off my hard drive would actually outweigh the perpetual upgrade serfdom that businesses are going to face.
Now I understand why MS put so much time and money into making IE5 for the Mac a decent browser -- it's a proof-of-concept for their ability to outlive Windows. Hats off to the world's most effective monopoly; they've once again found a way to effectively distort the fabric of reality with their black-hole like mass.
WOW!! (Score:2)
A potential plus (Score:2)
...phil
Re:It's Been Done ... (Score:4)
I really have to wonder... Do they? Email, possibly, but given the PC-centric setup of every other office I've ever seen running Microsoft's products I really have to wonder whether or not someone in Redmond can sit down and be productive on any system on campus.
My current employer is a Microsoft shop. Most of us who have used more than one machine ended up turning off roaming profiles because they got completely hosed. (Try logging in at a desktop and a laptop simultaneously and watch that profile go south!) Even when you can login to another machine, what good does it do you if all your tools are on the local harddrive on your primary machine? If all the machines in the building are set up with the same set of apps, no problem. Otherwise you're in deep doo-doo. Okay, MS-Office is probably installed everywhere. You can access your email and Word docs. What about anything else? Can I sit down at an ME's desk and compile code? Can an ME sit down at my desk and fire up AutoCAD? No way!
Contrast this to a previous employer which was a Sun shop. Everything was server-centric just an X-Terminal on your desk. It does display only, with all your data stored in a central location. All your data. Not to mention all your apps. Even in the pre-X-Terminal days when we were using Sun3s all the data and major apps were stored centrally. The local machine just held the standard SunOS image, and every machine was set up identically. You really could login on any machine in the building and do everything you could do at your own desk.
And, somehow, the UI was faster even piping the display across the network than Windows is locally. Go figure.
Re:XML == Completely OverHyped (Score:3)
Of course it is not necessarily a technology for universal data exchange (although, HTML, despite its rather horrible and semantically-devoid implementation of SGML/XML, has to some extent shown that it is), but rather a technology for domain-specific data exchange. There there are many domains in which people HAVE already agreed on a common set of descriptive elements for their given domain. Take DTDs such as the TEI, APA, DocBook, or any of the military's MIL/IETM DTDs, not to mention the DTDs used by the IRS, Sun Microsystems, the DOE, the Library of Congress, and the ATA, etc. etc. etc. Having worked with SGML (XML is merely SGML with a little less clutter) for more than ten years now, I can tell you that it is very useful.
Carole_Mah@brown.edu
Senior Programmer/Analyst
Brown University Scholarly Technology Group
Quote in Salon article (Score:2)
Run! Run for your lives!
Re:So, MS is getting a trademark on ".net" (Score:3)
you mean like algol-60 and fortran-77?
Its not about piracy (Score:2)
If you've followed microsoft for the past several years, they've been constantly, consistantly, pushing the "rented" software concept. Their goal is that you don't own any software, you just pay microsoft a monthly fee for the right to use their products or have it cut off. This is a first, and somewhat well disguised step in this direction - everyone reliant on microsoft servers.
I hope you realize what everyone "renting" software from microsoft would do to the world. You want to talk control... your computer would become nothing if not connected to microsoft. No files, no programs, no operating system. Linux? Hardly - every program, to be widely accepted, must reside on microsoft's program servers. You want to talk about hard to reverse engineer, you don't even have a copy of the programs to work with - if you hack up your OS to allow such program-hacking, your changes will be lost the next time you boot. This is microsoft's dream - a system which can't really be torn down easily, all centralized and reliant on microsoft. Convoluted programs, protocols, and legal recourse for reverse engineering - the microsoft anticompetitive dream.
Even moreso is the legal aspect. It seems clear that the government will eventually wisen up to shrink-wrapped licenses that have unreasonable purchase restrictions. However, there is little legislation, and almost no constitutional support, for limiting service restrictions. They can cut your support for any reason they deem proper, and you have little legal recourse.
I think its apparent to all of us here, that not having *any* rights over our software is bad. But this is what microsoft wants - and this is a major step in that direction.
.. not to mention it would significantly increase microsoft's revenue...
Rage against the dying of the light. Fight plans like this to the end.
- Rei
Re:unplugged? (Score:2)
Ummmm... wrong! If you are trying to claim that accessing personal information like email and documents from any device can't be done with existing technology, you're full of it. There are scores of companies out there right now that allow you to access your information from devices and handhelds (I work for one!). And yes, I mean anyone's device, not just any device. Unplugging isn't a problem, either, that's what local caching and synchronization are for. Haven't you ever used a Palm?
If you think this
Re:.net is not the NC (Score:3)
-That stupid little "Briefcase" feature that everyone deletes
-Palm HotSync
-CVS
or:
X10
NUMA
JINI
NDS
In any case, you're right. All of this has been done before.
Re:XML == Completely OverHyped (Score:2)
w/o trying to i've written a web form that won't work with ie and will work with netscape (though netscape on windows sometimes fails). urgh.
Re:XML == Completely OverHyped (Score:2)
Maybe the data format of the future will be GZipped XML files, as compression works fairly well on text.
The GNOME desktop environment uses XML files for various things already, and these files are indeed GZIPped due to their large size.
XML was meant to fill a void that existed in the markup language world. When processing HTML, nothing can be said about it's content. HTML only describes the formatting of the content.
XML was designed (for example) to allow intelligent searching of documents, among other things. Given the availability of parsers in almost any language (including Java of course) this does make universal data exchange a possibility.
But us veterans know something will fuck it up.
What about the hardware side of things? (Score:2)
For one thing: ASP's will require application server farms and numerous routers and firewalls that are up 24/7, with 99.99999999% uptime on each, that can handle near-100% CPU loads and lots of HD accessing without fail. Lots of RAID. Lots of 64-node machines. Expensive stuff. It seems like a bit much, but if MS expects businesses and some home users to rely on someone else's machines in another state, or even country, there'd better be some very hefty, extremely reliable hardware, running on some bloody robust OSes. I don't think we have anything yet that's up to the task; not Linux, not *BSD, not even Windows. Hell, most commerical Unices may not even be up to the task.
Then again, Win9x has trained people to believe that it's normal for computers to die at least once a week, so maybe occasional service outages won't be noticed; the blame will just shift from the home OS to the ASP.
As well...how about the connections needed? Keep in mind, the ASPs (or Microsoft itself; whoever will host these massive monster machines) will require huge pipes; they'd better be ready to take the equivalent of a Slashdotting every minute of every business day, sometimes worse. This, on top of normal network/Internet traffic. The backbone providers will make a mint, assuming their techs don't go insane from trying to handle the load. I doubt home users will accept seeing Word run at a snail's pace if their machine is an Athlon or Pentium III because they're still living off a 56k modem. MS will seriously have to put their apps on a diet if they expect info to transfer efficiently over networks. Perhaps developing cellphone and webpad thin clients will drum this into their heads, though I have little reason to believe that will happen.
What MS is demanding will require massive infrastructre improvements, and fast. Invest in chipmakers, RAM producers, and backbone companies now; they're about to become very rich along with MS.
For the record...I will use Linux even more now; I like having my data on my hard drive in my posession, where if something fails I know I can fix it myself instead of waiting for the ASP to do it. I also know I can encrypt my data if I want - what guarantees of security will MS promise for data stored elsewhere?
What I'd rather see MS pushing is a more distributed system, where "Windows everywhere" means your own devices can access each other from anywhere. I'd like something where I can still have my massive home machine to do my work and store my data, but have that machine easily accessible by my laptop, webpad, or even cell phone from anywhere else - and only by my devices through some form of cryptography and identity checking. I think that would be an even better form of distributed computing and information sharing, because the user still would have most of the control over their data and programs. It would also eliminate the subscription model problem; I absolutely refuse to drop $10 a month plus whatever so I can keep working on my essays and keep my budget up to date. I already feel sorry for university students that get suckered into this; they'll pay through the nose somehow, either directly to an ASP or to their university so the instituion can pay the charges for this scehme. That's being more tied to a software provider (either MS or an ASP) than I'd like to be.
Re:Microbull (Score:2)
Hmz, I think its kinda harsh and very arrogant to call tools like Dreamweaver "inadequate". It focusses on nothing and leaves the user completly open to do -anything- with the site that he or she wants to do. Either write code from the bottom up and look at the results or drag and drop and watch the code being added. Its your choice. So may I conclude here that this man is saying that total freedom is inadequate? Since Dreamweaver is a well known product I think its quite hard to miss it.
No, what they are talking about is building functional websites. Not about stupid basic 4 year old HTML.
Imagine buying something from amazon, choosing to have the coupon amazon gives you from the webbrowser into Money. The point is at the moment the web is (for the most part) one way, and context free. With XML, everything will have meaning.
So basicly Microsoft finally managed to grasp the idea behind Unix? I mean; c'mon.. I've been doing this kind of stuff for quite some years now. Allthough I have to admit; in a total different environment. Instead of clicking I'm entering "cd
If you think that's the same thing, you're totally deluded.
Gee, who needs computers, I have an abacus.
It's like saying that unix has been doing COM all along, I mean, what is "|" for?
Or saying that C++ is crap cause C can do it all.
It's not just the concept, it's being able to do it PROPERLY and in a way that allows the MOST people to be able to use it. This is NOT something is good at. In fact Unix is absolutly CRAP at it.
If ya can't beat 'em... (Score:3)
Remember what MS said when Sun advocated the same thing? "That's ridiculous! The computer is the comoputer, and the network is the network!"
I guess that desparation leads to open minds. What will Redmond "invent" next? NIS?
Re:.Net copyright? (Score:5)
www.microsoft.mil
Re:XML == Completely OverHyped (Score:2)
People are advocating XML is this great new technology for universal data exchange. Well, it's NOT... no more than a standard text file is.
Perhaps I should have phrased that statement slightly differently. I'm not saying that XML isn't good, I'm saying it's not real new and it's not real revolutionary. XML can be great in the same way a text file can be great, only slightly better due to its hierarchical structure. But to call it revolutionary (as that marketers at Microsoft and elsewhere do) is a joke.
Do I sound bitter? It's because I'm working on a project right now that involves heavy use of XML FOR NO GOOD REASON. It's screwing the project up because it's totally misused... some pointy-haired manager thought that XML was a cool buzzword so he insisted that XML be the basic for this application. Has this ever happened to you? :-)
How ingenious (Score:4)
Any computer running Windows, anyway. Oh and you have to install our software.
Prediction #1: We will never hear about this again.
Prediction #2 (somewhat related to #1): ASP's are never going to take off in a big way, at least not for "desktop" software. With the possible exception of email service (for small businesses), ASP's are going to be the 2001 equivalent of the 1996-7 "push technology".
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Re:It's Been Done ... (Score:2)
duh. it's obvious this is different.
More benefits (Score:2)
And I also don't think that speed
A beautiful idea (Score:3)
Gates repeatedly alluded to "per-minute charges" for the required broadband access. If this .net thing flies and people actually use it, then MS is set to suck a LOT of money from hapless consumers.
Yep. Microsoft has been fascinated for years with the idea of a per-use licensing scheme, but they couldn't find a way to make it work technically. Any PC can be hacked.
But what if part of the app is sitting on an server in Redmond? The new Office 2003 will have the GUI and some local editing logic on the PC. Global stuff like find-and-replace get executed on the Redmond server.
This is an incredibly beautiful idea (from Microsoft's standpoint). It provides total control as well as absolute protection from piracy. They don't even need to worry about backward compatibility. Just put up the new version while updating the Word documents in Redmond to the new format.
The only danger is somebody creating their own server farm that is compatible with the PC front-end (basically replacing the Redmond side). That can easily be delt with by using strong asymmetric encryption (a la Authenticode) so the front-end demands the server present the proper Microsoft-signed digital certificate. And if the front-end is hacked around this, there are always the lawyers to fall back on.
This is really beautiful. They can finesse the whole anti-trust case. They can cheerfully publish the Win32 API and the OS source code for us lamers while they shove all of the new technology onto untouchable servers.
Re:It's Been Done ... (Score:2)
Re:XML == Completely OverHyped (Score:2)
When XML schemas come into wide use things will be even better as you can do some type validation.
Re:XML == Completely OverHyped (Score:2)
Now that you mention it...we just went Gold today on a product at my workplace which mis-uses XML to obtain buzzword compliance!
<bitter>
And the worst part is, the developer who created the obfuscated, uncommented mess which I was thrust into the responsibility of making work (and doing it right was not an option--I asked) disavowed all responsibility for it as soon as it compiled and instead went on to do other "cool" things. </bitter>
Moving off-topic here...
My favorite proposed mis-use of XML these days is what Sun is advocating for JSP/EJB: Using XML to create "Custom Actions" to effectively act as a middleware layer. What it instead does is create a set of XML wrappers around beans so that instead of having a clean, efficient method of accessing them, you have a whole bunch of extra parsing, indirection, and code execution. Just the thing for a high-transactional volume system. Sounds like somone at Sun is still pissed at OMG for dissing RMI to me.
-bing
I don't even speak for all of the voices in my head, much less my employer.
Ummm, profiles barely work now... (Score:4)
This sounds like a horrible idea. If it is "because we can" that's pretty cool, just for the neato factor (although possible now with LMHOSTS files), but as a real approach to computing... right... Unless they are planning to REALLY strip down what goes in a profile (a good idea) and try to make the concept work... but even then, the point seems dubious.
XML == Completely OverHyped (Score:5)
This is a product that integrates with windows using XML to store all of your information on Microsoft servers, so any computer in the world can be used as "your" computer. "
I've been working with XML for about six months now. I would have to say it's one of the stupidest bizzword-fads I've ever seen
XML is basically a big ol' delimited text file. The only things separating it from a 30-year old text file is the fact that it's hierarchical and the fact that there are parsers that let you navigate the tree structure easily.
People are advocating XML is this great new technology for universal data exchange. Well, it's NOT... no more than a standard text file is. Both parties still have to agree and understand the format and structure of the data before it becomes useful, so that's definitely not a progression over any existing technology. Also, XML is not fast... nor was it designed to be.
It's Been Done ... (Score:4)
Re:How ingenious (Score:2)
a) their yearly license-fee harvest, or
b) the desktop (viz: windows).
.net, Thin clients, Terminal Servers, Java, whatever. They make interesting month-to-month copy for ZD, but those "ground floor" adopters always get burned in the end when MS realizes it no longer has to pay lip service to them to appear "with it". Savvy managers know this, and wont want to touch it with a 10-meter cattle prod until most of their business partners are already using it. Read: it simply will never get off the ground, even if it is Microsoft.
Re:XML == Completely OverHyped (Score:2)
The only reason it has taken off is because people think "Gee, it looks like HTML". And when will people wake up to the fact that seeing <PRICE>20</PRICE> tells you little...
<PRICE UNITS="DOLLARS" VALUE="20.00"/>
<PRICE><DOLLARS>20</DOLLARS></PRICE>
and lots of other combos
I guess it is reasonable (and heavily verbose) to mark up with XML... but it really is kind of sad to see it being such a big hit, when much better thought out interoperability schemes get no press (such as KIF, KQML, FIPA).
All the effort in XML seems directed towards making it work better in the directions of querying/relatiting concepts.
XML is fine for CSS.... and maybe for making previously cryptic configuration files more editable. But think about MacOS X - Are the XML files really going to be any more easily understood than the old UNIX/X config files ?
Widget.window.x = 10
Widget.window.y = 10
versus
<WIDGET><WINDOW><X>10</X></WINDOW></WIDGET>
Nothing against XML, one just has to ask, what does it really buy me ?
Winton
Re:How ingenious (Score:2)
Re:Software leasing (I love this) (Score:2)
M$ wires network access into Windows, Office, and other M$ apps in such a way that these products communication with M$'s servers is involuntary (for the user).
M$ then builds into this network communication framework required registration number checking, and personal registration.
M$ puts in checks to make sure that all the software on on the machine is registered to users that match. Example: If Windows is registered to Big Bird, and Office is registered to Kermit TheFrog, then their servers report your machine for possible piracy.
M$ checks your registration number against all others already registered.
M$ then stops 'selling' Office, they start requiring a net connection and sell term (1, 2, or 5 year) licenses.
M$ checks your copy of office from time to time to make sure that your license is not expired and if it is then they send a kill signal to your copy of Office (Time Bombs and other such fun self-destructive software being made legal by DMCA), which then deletes a needed
Now here is the part I love. This is where the fun begins.
Some Cracker buys a copy of Office does something to invalidate the license or anything to get M$ to send the kill signal to the copy of Office.
The machine is running a packet sniffer which logs everything. This file gets analyzed and reverse engineered.
Now the cracker writes an program that spoofs a Microsoft IP and sends 'Office self-destruct signals' to either random computers, network broadcast addresses, every IP in the network of a hated company, or just sends packets a la network scan method (192.168.0.1, 192.168.0.2, 192.168.0.3, etc).
Ten thousand script kiddies download this program and wreak havok. Leaving a mangled pile of corporate softawre in it's wake.
Re:XML is <just>tags</just> (Score:3)
Shouldn't there be a ^M at the end? Also, all the quotes will be replaced with '?'
[grumbles] lousy cross-campus NT development environment...
XML is <just>tags</just> (Score:5)
People, XML is just a syntax. Unless the DTDs and schemas they use for
I don't know why the XML angle is being pushed so much; this could all be done with any structured data format, be it text or binary.
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"Where, where is the town? Now, it's nothing but flowers!"
I think its a good idea (Score:2)
This is the way things are going to go, I five years we'll wonder how we survived when all our devices didn't have a permanent connection and could synchronise data automatically wherever you are.
Yes it means storing some data in a public place, but we used to do that when we all used terminals to access a singal machine, so what's the difference ? Before long we started having our own machines and before long we will run our own central servers from home, not everyone will, but some of us, you can bet on that.
Re:This is pretty funny (Score:2)
I'd be seriously shocked if it was actually natural language rather than a natural-language-ish approximation (like AppleScript). True natural language processing has eluded AI researchers for a long time.
Specifically, I'd like to see how well it handles anaphora like "the", "that", "it", "such" etc. Anaphora are any words that refer to words previously used. Try here [srv.net] for a pretty good explanation (and ignore the stuff at the end about creating a system of anaphora, that's geared towards constructed-language design hobbyists).
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Zardoz has spoken!
Practical for non-Windows? (Score:2)
Certainly some prefs would be platform specific (like the location of the "Documents" directory), but others (like email address or screen saver delay time or mouse-focus method) are equally useable on any platform.
And since it should be extensible, one should be able to add X-specific prefs to the list.
This could actually be a very nice cross-platform feature, given full-time net accessibility.
Hmm... (Score:2)
This is a Microsoft application.
It is integrated with the Microsoft Windows operating system.
That would be a really big breach of the Microsoft ruling then.
Why do I get the feeling that they'll get away with this one as well
Maran
Re:XML == Completely OverHyped (Score:5)
XML is basically a big ol' delimited text file. The only things separating it from a 30-year old text file is the fact that it's hierarchical and the fact that there are parsers that let you navigate the tree structure easily.
C is basically a big ol' delimitated text file. The only things seperating it from a 60-year assembly program is the fact that it's expressive, easier to learn and there are compilers that let you write programs faster.
Re:XML == Completely OverHyped (Score:2)
Its sort of powerful, yes, and it does keep you from having to do the dirty work of actually parsing the file yourself, but it sure makes server administration cumbersome and error prone. Configuring Apache is just so simple: load the httpd.conf, type in a directive or 2, and you're done. With Tomcat, I have to load the XML file and type all the silly tags, which basically means I have to type almost twice as much text to get the same configuration stuff. And then theres the fact that all the tags make the actual configuration parameters hard to read...it's a mess. Ant is the same way. Having it all XML based is sort of a downer, because otherwise, it's a very cool concept and implementation.
XML is probably most useful in communicating between heterogenous services, since it does provide a way to ensure that the data you get makes sense to you. Things like MathML and the like are going to be huge wins. But using XML for ALL text-centric data is just misguided I think. It has significant drawbacks (not the least of which is the speed and size issues.) I think there's going to be a shakeout soon, and something better will come along as a result of some programmer scratching this itch...
Re:Feh. (Score:2)
He called somebody to "out to lunch" for saying running Unix was the same as operating a dumb terminal.
If anything, the post he was responding to was -1 (Flamebait), and his response was -1 (Flame).
To save you time, this post is -1 (Off Topic), and -1 (Pointing Out Idiotic Moderation)... and maybe even -1 (Troll) for good measure.
Do your worst, bitches!
Re:It's Been Done ... (Score:2)
I'm running Redhat 6.1 at work. My boss is running Mandrake 7.1. How do I go about calling up my work profile every time I sit down at his machine to show him something?
How do I call up the profile from either machine on the Windows PC in the airport lounge when I travel?
I am not aware of any existing standard for transfering profiles and applications between machines -- not even between machines running the operating system. There are some pretty hacks that exist in closed windows, unixen, and linuxen clusters, but there's nothing that exists in any type of worldwide application.
It scares me if people think any of the existing technologies for doing this are adequate -- it is currently a major pain in the ass to sit down at an unfamiliar computer and to try to do any productive work. There are some obvious things that could make this much, much better. Smart people can probably find unobvious was to make this even better than that.
Re:XML == Completely OverHyped (Score:4)
The fact that it's parseable with a generic parser makes all the difference in the world.
I don't know how many times I've had to implement parsers for weird-ass, half-baked, undocumented file formats apparently written by chimpanzees. (For example, RTF.) And then once I've figured out the features, I have to run about a zillion tests to make sure I'm emulating the right bugs, too. And of course, once somebody gets the idea to change the file format, then I need to do it all over again.
With XML, this problem goes away. I can focus on the data, not the representation. That's a big win!
A good comparision is programming a garbage-collected language versus one where you have to do memory management yourself. Sure, I can write C code that is more hardware-efficient than the same stuff written in Perl (or Java). But writing the Perl is faster (and the Java's more maintainable) because I can focus on higher-level issues than pointer arithmetic. I'm generally willing to burn CPU cycles to free up my cycles. That's what computers are for.
XML gives the same boost to data exchange between loosely coupled systems. It surely uses more disk space and processing time. But so what? Thanks to Moore's law, hardware doubles in capacity every 18 months. Programmers, sadly, don't. Use this fact to your advantage!
"Open" Office Document Formats? (Score:2)
[shift from] storing data in the company's proprietary Office formats to open standards.
Re:XML is <just>tags</just> (Score:2)
They use the word because it makes them sound 'friendly'.
Re:Microbull (Score:2)
blatant attempt to stay whole (Score:2)
But once again, BillG ("Bilge") will learn that lawyers and judges are (a) not stupid and (b) easily irritated by nerds who think "technicalities" will get them off the hook. Why does he have this reputation for being so smart?
Don't look now, it is called SOAP (Score:3)
And so a generation of application designers make mistakes, and firewalls need to learn to deal with SOAP. Except the pesky https encoded ones, which you cannot peek inside. So ban those.
Care to take bets on whether the boys from Redmond will have something critical (like say the verification that your usage period has not expired) that absolutely must go over https?
Cheers,
Ben
Re:How ingenious (Score:2)
I personally know of a company that is building a hardware device (networking gear) that will assist in speeding up ASP access. if their research is right, there is a big market for ASP use.
perhaps not a replacement for word processing, but big business might just love having all the benefits of app. use with none of the admin or support costs.
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Re:...paving the way to pay-per-use... (Score:2)
*
Per minute == lead balloon (Score:2)
We in the US pay for our local telephone service as a flat fee with unlimited local minutes. This has been the paradigm for a very long time. Whenever The Phone Company (of old) tried to offer per minute use plans they were a great flop.
I hear all the time of people in Autralia or Europe bemoaning the per minute charges there. They would jump on the opportunity that we have here.
What makes Bill think that people are going to pay by the minute or by the document to use an app across the wire? Performance will be slow, especially across 56k and in the end you have have to leave your document on an unsecure (although they claim it's secure) Microsoft server.
I don't know if there is enough marketing savvy (Read: FUD) in the world for MS to pull this off.
Besides, Apple already has this up and running (on the storage end anyway) and I think that other companies that have had the lead time on this issue will be able to deliver long before MS.
Of course they could just be planning to attempt to monopolize the Application Services and other markets... Nah, they'd never do anything like that.
Russ
Re:A beautiful idea (Score:2)
If MS announces that its next desktop operating system will be for thin clients, if I'm an OEM I get working on that kind of system. I certainly don't pay attention to the whiny linux user who wants a real PC. The only thing that I see standing in the way is the reluctance of desktop PC manufacturers to produce PCs that are any lower end than they already are.
Walt
Re:Hmm... (Score:2)
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No more e-mail address game - see my user info. Time for revenge.
WorkSpot? (Score:2)
Re:XML == Completely OverHyped (Score:2)
Hell, yes. Have you seen the browsing interface. It allows you to hierarchically browse through the data. If you still want to use 'vi' to do all you configuration, then it's not going to be any easier, but if you want to use the tools provided, it will make life simpler by letting you more easily find what is relevant to what you are wanting to change.
LOOOOK. People here are so silly (Score:2)
Let me show you how this works. (Typing.)
COMPUTER VOICE: Which index would you like?
JEFF RAINIER: (Typing.) Okay. Checking for the latest updates on that index.
COMPUTER VOICE: As of 9:10 A.M. the Dow industrial average is down minus 64 at 10,433.74.
JEFF RAINIER: Did you see how the computer asked me questions to resolve ambiguity and kind of worked with me like a person might have? That's the sort of power and intelligence that's built into the
Let me show you one more example. (Typing.)
COMPUTER VOICE: How long do you want to meet? (Typing.) Where do you want to meet? (Typing.) Do you need to check my schedule? (Typing.)
JEFF RAINIER: Ooh, I think my typo there caused some problems. Let me try that one more time.
COMPUTER VOICE: What would you like to do now? (Typing.) How long do you want to meet?
JEFF RAINIER: Okay, this is looking more promising. (Typing.)
COMPUTER VOICE: Where do you want to meet? (Typing.) Let me see if you are both available at this time. Okay, I've scheduled an appointment with Mark Leimberg on Friday, June 23rd at 2:00 P.M. for 30 minutes in his office.
JEFF RAINIER: Okay, you've seen how this interface works with typing, but this is much more natural and easier to use if you speak to your computer.
Imagine for a second using your cell phone to call in and get high priority mail messages, maybe make dinner reservations or even check for the latest news, all from your
Now you see? I want to just be able to tell my computer in natural language "hey, find some time and schedule a meeting for me with joe sometime on wednesday"
That's just neat. The more the computer does for me the better. I don't need to reafirm that I know how to do repetitive tasks day in and day out just to feel cool and elite.
Re:Security will be an issue (Score:2)
Out in the real world of mom and pop (l)users, where there is no forced education programs, they will continue to use weak passwords. This means they can go from a computer at home to a friends house and enter their logon details, and have access to their baby pictures just as they were home. Now, their friend's kid has installed a keyboard logging utility, and now has their logon details, and can access their data as well. What about dishonest cybercafes? University computers?
Expect M$ to slowly evolve this
Now scale the problems AOL are having with 13 million users to a M$ sized operation with 100+ million users. See where many opportunities for abuse start to open up, no matter how well they think they have secured the user's data?
If M$ has their way, they would love to force all business users onto a per use license with ever increasing fees, and they can hold the company data hostage because it is held in a completely proprietary M$ format, and the data is physically held on M$ controlled machines. Even if a company wanted to move from the M$ world to an open source world, M$ could force them to sign a multi-year agreement to gain access to their data. And even if they could intercept the data, the XML would only be interpretable by M$ applications.
the AC
...paving the way to pay-per-use... (Score:5)
IMO, the primary reason MS wants to go this way is that with net connections, you *can* count the number of times certain apps have been open, send that info securely back to MS, and MS can then send you the bill for $1.00 per Word doc you opened, or $10 per Windows restart. Pay-per-use has been in the works for a good year or so by more than just Microsoft (RIAA wants that too), and anything that depends on a net connection to work is going to be frowned upon until realistic pricing models and cheap fast net connections are in place.
Your one-stop law enforcement shop! (Score:3)
If I were in law enforcement this product would make me cum in my drawers! One place where all of the essential data exist for tracking people, money, communications, and associations. Now, all we need is one "easy" federal judge, and the keys to the kingdom are in hand!
This is almost too much like the plot of that really awful film "The Net".
Beware!
you've gotta give it to MS... (Score:5)
Software leasing (Score:4)
...phil
There's some sense in this... (Score:3)
The benefits are enormous, especially if you are reasonably mobile, and even more so if you live in more than one country.
But I can only do it because I have a university account. I could just about get by using the personal webspace provided on an ISP account, but using encryption, grep,
If Microsoft are looking to offer this service then I think they are making a sensible move. It would make more sense for ISP's to put together an appropriate service, but despite fierce competition non-one seems to be doing so.
Maybe an Apache module would kick some ISPs into action? Maybe Microsoft will catalyse the creation of such a tool.
Re:Just wait (Score:3)
Re:XML == Completely OverHyped (Score:3)
Re:XML is <just>tags</just> (Score:5)
Yes its just a syntax. But its an accessible syntax.
What does this mean? It means developer freedom. It means that even if MS decides that they're going to customise SOAP and make their own proprietary SOAP based format (which they've almost done already with their enveloping format), there's not a damn thing they can do to stop me using Perl's XML::Parser to create an MSSOAP service or client. And it won't be hard like sniffing network packets to try and reverse engineer samba. I'll just look at the structure and bam! Instant reverse engineering.
Why should this matter? Because there are still a lot of Win boxes out there, and if my Unix skills allow me to interoperate with those boxes then all the better.
And XML is slow. Big deal - this is MS talking about integrating it, not Linus. So we get our nice zippy Linux boxes talking away to slow, bogged down in XML parsing, Windows boxes. Sounds pretty good to me actually!
I think MS are way off the mark here, for what its worth. XML is a great interchange format (slashdot.xml is much better than the old ultramode text format, for example), and its pretty darn useful for doing web and other documentation work (content/design separation and all that), but as a low level network service or IIOP replacement? No thanks, Bill.
Security will be an issue (Score:5)
Expect the word "hacker" to take another tarnishing when
It doesn't matter how many bits of encryption they use, when the average windoze (l)user's password is their first name. So there will be many cracks of this system, and some of them will be embarassing.
And what happens if some (l)user decides to use this at work, so they can take their work home with them. Now a company's secrets are stored on a M$ server, where just about any one can peruse them. M$ will claim somewhere in the fine print they must review all content on a regular basis to prevent illegal material from being stored, and if they just happen to see a competitor's secrets, we can trust them to not take advantage of it.
Now corporate firewalls will have to block access to this site, as with the other new net services offering the same thing. I doubt
the AC
.net uses SOAP - basically RPC/DCOM over HTTP! Yuk (Score:5)
Hint: he doesn't like it. And neither do I.
Microbull (Score:5)
For the Web developer, the tools to build, test and deploy engaging Web sites are hopelessly inadequate. Many focus more on building attractive rather than useful Web sites.
Hmz, I think its kinda harsh and very arrogant to call tools like Dreamweaver "inadequate". It focusses on nothing and leaves the user completly open to do -anything- with the site that he or she wants to do. Either write code from the bottom up and look at the results or drag and drop and watch the code being added. Its your choice. So may I conclude here that this man is saying that total freedom is inadequate? Since Dreamweaver is a well known product I think its quite hard to miss it.
The fundamental idea behind Microsoft .NET is that the focus is shifting from individual Web sites or devices connected to the Internet, to constellations of computers, devices and services that work together to deliver broader, richer solutions.
So basicly Microsoft finally managed to grasp the idea behind Unix? I mean; c'mon.. I've been doing this kind of stuff for quite some years now. Allthough I have to admit; in a total different environment. Instead of clicking I'm entering "cd /net.priv/dave/updates" to access the computer of my friend Dave in the US and check out the latest updates he has. This whole thing is kinda silly if you think of it; in the past Windows would warn us if we accidently left netbeui and such linked to a dial up adapter (people can access netbios shares over the internet in this case) and just when we finally learned not to do this it gets re-instated? ;)
Microsoft .NET will take computing and communications far beyond the one-way Web to a rich, collaborative, interactive environment. Powered by advanced new software, Microsoft .NET will harness a constellation of applications, services and devices to create a personalized digital experience
And offcourse using .XML to do all this marvelous miracles. Well, by looking at the past I can only think of one thing at this time; they are trying to take over and flood the Net with a complete new standard leaving all other net based products (Unix/BSD/Linux/OS/2) out of the game. We want to use Unix based products? Well, would not surprise me if SCO got upgraded to handle this stuff.
And yes; I know that more products can handle XML. But that would only leave the question if the XML being used will be genuine or, just like kerberos in win2k, some MS mutated new flavor. Basicly the whole idea scares me. If they truly want to set up a functional environment like this the least thing they could have done is making Windows more secure and use this engine into this new product. At this moment Microsoft is not capable of securing Windows, take a look at the vsb scripts in the email, and yet they truly believe that they can build one giant "windows .NETwork" over the Internet and still insure the safety of the locally stored documents? Don't make me laugh.
Re:So, MS is getting a trademark on ".net" (Score:3)
Stupid as this sounds, just wait until competitors start naming all their software products with names ending in
Re:Software leasing (Score:3)
Have you see the number of places that will fork out thousands for this very pleasure, running MS Exchange and not using backups or any kind of RAID setup? A lot of managers honestly don't have a clue, which is why the marketters from MS can manipulate them so easily.
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