Comment Linux Client Usage (Score 1) 293
Linux client usage appears to be making gains as well. I am assuming the articles reference to "stronger data center position" hinges on primarily server usage.
Comment ACID 2 Test (Score 3, Insightful) 214
Currently less than 25% of browser usage can pass the ACID 2 test. It will be interesting to see how the release of IE8 affects this.
Luckily for JS developers, projects like JQuery make cross-browser scripting WAY easier and less error prone. Hopefully broad support for an increasing subset of web standards will make cross-browser layout quirks less annoying for web developers. Overall I think the ACID tests are a good thing to measure this.
Adbusters Suggests Click Fraud As Protest 390
An anonymous reader writes "In response to Google's recently announced plans to expand the tracking of users, the international anti-advertising magazine Adbusters proposes that we collectively embark on a civil disobedience campaign of intentional, automated 'click fraud' in order to undermine Google's advertising program in order to force Google to adopt a pro-privacy corporate policy. They have released a GreaseMonkey script that automatically clicks on all AdSense ads."
Comment Re:Google Won't Let this Happen (Score 5, Informative) 200
Comment 3rd Party Cookie Stats (Score 2, Informative) 219
According to these guys: http://www.statowl.com/third_party_cookie_support.php
Roughly 9% of Internet usage will not be trackable using 3rd party cookies. I am not really for or against Google's decision. But I think it is interesting to see what percentage of Internet users are aware of tracking mechanisms and are also against being trackable.
Comment proposal to compete with outlook+exchange (Score 2, Interesting) 553
Greetings,
Since it appears that Thunderbird + Firebird now wants to compete more with Outlook, I'd like to propose an approach that may make this possible. Microsoft's comments here:
http://news.com.com/Mozillas+Lightning+to+strike +O utlook/2100-7344_3-5501618.html
Are valid to a certain extent. People have come to demand more from "PIM" applications. Assuming Thunderbird and Sunbird were successfully integrated, that alone is not enough to compete with Outlook + Exchange. People want their data seemlessly synced up to all interfaces in which they access it. Exchange provides this currently. If I run Exchange and I can access my email, calendar, and contacts from Outlook, Outlook Web Access, and portable devices (i.e. phones and pdas) that offer Exchange plugins (i.e. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/) and everything "just works" seemlessly.
I believe the same can be said for Thunderbird + Sunbird without too much effort. Obviously, Thunderbird + Sunbird is just part of the solution in my above example and I am not proposing that the Mozilla foundation tries to build all the software for the whole solution. I am proposing that we come up with a viable solution to integrate all interfaces in which people access email, calendar data, contact data, todo lists, etc. on their primary PIM app, web based PIM interfaces, and mobile devices.
First lets take a look at what we have today: IMAP4 basically takes care of email for us, LDAP to a certain extent handles contacts, and ICAL over WebDAV handles calendar and todo list issues. I am not proposing that these interfaces are abandoned (especially IMAP) - but I would like to propose an alternative that may offer an easier way to reach our end goal of complete PIM data integration. I'm not saying that LDAP and and ICAL over WebDAV are bad - I just don't think they are going to offer a solution that can compete with Outlook + Exchange.
I think SyncML (http://www.openmobilealliance.org/syncml) offers a viable alternative that could relatively easily be bolted on to Thunderbird + Sunbird. SyncML offers the following benefits from my viewpoint:
* Open standard that already has a lot of traction. For example, it
is part of the WAP 2.0 standard so 90% of the cell phones you can
buy today already support synchronizing contacts, calendars, todo
lists over HTTP/SyncML. Also, many cell phones are now offering
email clients with IMAP support.
* To really compete with Outlook + Exchange, Thunderbird + Sunbird
will need to support Exchange. This is possible over SyncML and
this open source project: http://sync4j.funambol.com/.
* SyncML support should be there soon for the two most popular open
source web mail clients: IMP (http://www.horde.org/imp/) and
Squirrelmail (http://squirrelmail.org/). For example, IMP is
working on this already: http://www.horde.org/sync and a
Squirrelmail plugin to support SyncML should be easy enough to
write assuming Squirrelmail rolls out support for decent Calendar
and Contacts (already in CVS for both)
Furthermore, the Mozilla Foundation could host documentation for sys admins on how to setup Exchange integration over SyncML etc. A comprehensive HowTo would almost be a requirement since we are tying multiple software projects together in order to offer rich PIM client + Webmail + Mobile device integration.
Anyways, I am just brain-storming here and thought I would share this idea since this appears to be a topic of focus recently. It would appear to me that this would be the path of least resistance to offer a solution that can compete with Outlook + Exchange.
Since it appears that Thunderbird + Firebird now wants to compete more with Outlook, I'd like to propose an approach that may make this possible. Microsoft's comments here:
http://news.com.com/Mozillas+Lightning+to+strik
Are valid to a certain extent. People have come to demand more from "PIM" applications. Assuming Thunderbird and Sunbird were successfully integrated, that alone is not enough to compete with Outlook + Exchange. People want their data seemlessly synced up to all interfaces in which they access it. Exchange provides this currently. If I run Exchange and I can access my email, calendar, and contacts from Outlook, Outlook Web Access, and portable devices (i.e. phones and pdas) that offer Exchange plugins (i.e. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/) and everything "just works" seemlessly.
I believe the same can be said for Thunderbird + Sunbird without too much effort. Obviously, Thunderbird + Sunbird is just part of the solution in my above example and I am not proposing that the Mozilla foundation tries to build all the software for the whole solution. I am proposing that we come up with a viable solution to integrate all interfaces in which people access email, calendar data, contact data, todo lists, etc. on their primary PIM app, web based PIM interfaces, and mobile devices.
First lets take a look at what we have today: IMAP4 basically takes care of email for us, LDAP to a certain extent handles contacts, and ICAL over WebDAV handles calendar and todo list issues. I am not proposing that these interfaces are abandoned (especially IMAP) - but I would like to propose an alternative that may offer an easier way to reach our end goal of complete PIM data integration. I'm not saying that LDAP and and ICAL over WebDAV are bad - I just don't think they are going to offer a solution that can compete with Outlook + Exchange.
I think SyncML (http://www.openmobilealliance.org/syncml) offers a viable alternative that could relatively easily be bolted on to Thunderbird + Sunbird. SyncML offers the following benefits from my viewpoint:
* Open standard that already has a lot of traction. For example, it
is part of the WAP 2.0 standard so 90% of the cell phones you can
buy today already support synchronizing contacts, calendars, todo
lists over HTTP/SyncML. Also, many cell phones are now offering
email clients with IMAP support.
* To really compete with Outlook + Exchange, Thunderbird + Sunbird
will need to support Exchange. This is possible over SyncML and
this open source project: http://sync4j.funambol.com/.
* SyncML support should be there soon for the two most popular open
source web mail clients: IMP (http://www.horde.org/imp/) and
Squirrelmail (http://squirrelmail.org/). For example, IMP is
working on this already: http://www.horde.org/sync and a
Squirrelmail plugin to support SyncML should be easy enough to
write assuming Squirrelmail rolls out support for decent Calendar
and Contacts (already in CVS for both)
Furthermore, the Mozilla Foundation could host documentation for sys admins on how to setup Exchange integration over SyncML etc. A comprehensive HowTo would almost be a requirement since we are tying multiple software projects together in order to offer rich PIM client + Webmail + Mobile device integration.
Anyways, I am just brain-storming here and thought I would share this idea since this appears to be a topic of focus recently. It would appear to me that this would be the path of least resistance to offer a solution that can compete with Outlook + Exchange.
