Thought Patterns

From Wired News:

Netscape Browser to Die a Quiet Death in February 2008
By Michael Calore

The browser that started it all is going the way of the dodo.

Tom Drapeau, AOL's director of the Netscape brand, announced in a blog post Friday that AOL will cease development on all Netscape web browsers on February 1, 2008. The company will continue to support the current version of the browser, Netscape 9, by releasing patches or security fixes until that date. After February 1, all development will stop.

Drapeau recommends that anyone running a Netscape-branded browser make the switch to Mozilla Firefox, the open-source browser upon which the last few versions of Netscape have been based.

(snip)

Originally released in 1994 during the nascent days of the web, Netscape Navigator was the underdog contender in the "browser wars" of the late 1990s, when it faced stiff competition from Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. Even though Netscape championed web standards and was first to market with dozens of new features, Internet Explorer shipped on the desktop of every new Windows computer. So while Microsoft continued to enjoy the larger market share, Netscape, which needed to be downloaded and installed, lagged behind. This issue was central to the United States' anti-trust case against Microsoft.

Eventually, AOL purchased the Netscape Communications Corporation in 1999 and released its browser code as the open-source Mozilla project.

(link to full article)

In the comments of the article, Asa Dozer, who is quoted in the article, says this:

"Eventually, AOL purchased the Netscape Communications Corporation in 1999 and released its browser code as the open-source Mozilla project."
Not quite. Netscape released the source code and created the Mozilla project before AOL was even considering acquiring Netscape (April 1998).
- A
Posted by: Asa Dotzler | Dec 28, 2007 4:05:40 PM

And another comment later:

Asa beat me to the punch. get it right Wired… the Mozilla Project was started before the acquisition by AOL was started. I believe it is what saved the Idea of what Netscape was and what FireFox is now. We dreaded it when Netscape was taken over by AOL, but were happy and safe in the fact that the Code was out there and would live on and grow with how the users wanted it. the Real Browser lives on…… ans as for people calling it the Underdog… it always kicked IE's Arse… hands down… and like Alan, I to always waited anxiously for the next version to release, and laughed as IE tried to keep up…

Posted by: Angus | Dec 28, 2007 9:09:29 PM

I've been using Firefox for a while now. I was an avid Netscape (loved the integrated email and browser!) user for years. Then it was bought by AOL. But by then I was using Mozilla for a while until Firefox came out. I highly recommend using Firefox as opposed to IE. I hate sites that are not compliant and must be viewed by IE or webmasters who say "Best viewd with IE". Snort. Best get a better webmaster.

Linkage:

Mozilla Foundation:

Firefox (browser)
Thunderbird (email)
Sunbird (calendar)
MiniMo (portable browser)
Other projects

Way to go NASA! This opens the door for a lot of possibilities. The more minds into a project, the better it can become. It cannot become stale, static.

On the other had, too many cooks in the kitchen results in everyone talking about food and no one cooking it.

From WiredNews:

Young Scientists Design Open-Source Program at NASA
Aaron Rowe

NASA scientists plan to announce a new open-source project this month called CosmosCode — it's aimed at recruiting volunteers to write code for live space missions, Wired News has learned.

The program was launched quietly last year under NASA's CoLab entrepreneur outreach program, created by Robert Schingler, 28, and Jessy Cowan-Sharp, 25, of NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. Members of the CosmosCode group have been meeting in Second Life and will open the program to the public in the coming weeks, organizers said.

"CosmosCode is … allowing NASA scientists to begin a software project in the public domain, leveraging the true value of open-source software by creating an active community of volunteers," said Cowan-Sharp, a NASA contractor.

CosmosCode is indicative of a larger shift at NASA toward openness and transparency — things for which complex and bureaucratic government labs are not known. The software project is part of CoLab, an effort to invite the public to help NASA scientists with various engineering problems. The space agency is also digging into its files from previous missions and releasing code that until now remained behind closed doors. Together, these projects are creating a sort of SourceForge for space.

link to article

From Wired News:

MS Fights to Own Your Office Docs
By Scott Gilbertson

As Microsoft prepares the biggest update ever of its ubiquitous Office software suite, it is once again fending off charges of using hardball business tactics to muscle out competitors.

(snip)

Much is hanging in the balance, and some critics allege that Microsoft is once again rigging the game to ensure customer loyalty.

At stake in the current round of criticism are the file formats created by office productivity software, such as word processing and spreadsheet applications. Government agencies in recent years have grown increasingly reluctant to use Microsoft's current Office products, which use proprietary formats, in favor of alternatives that use open-source formats, notably the OpenDocument format, or ODF.

Microsoft's Office 2007 has won some positive reviews. But the update will debut with a new open-source file format, Office Open XML, or OOXML, a move that OpenDocument supporters say will create a new and unnecessary format war — all to support Microsoft's business plans. Significantly, OOXML will not work with older versions of Microsoft Office, which alone could motivate some to upgrade.

link to full article

For what it's worth, I use OpenOffice.org (OO.o). I love it. I recommend it. I have to keep M$Word due to exchange of information between my publisher and my editor. Otherwise, I'd delete the thang and save well over 400MB of disc space.

A new version of OpenOffice is out. It is now up to 2.0.4.

I love OO.o and almost any other open source software. OpenOffice can do almost everything M$Office can do, only for much cheaper (as in OO.o is free). OpenOffice has Writer (Word), Calc (Excel), Base (Access), Draw (?), Impress (PowerPoint), and Math (?).

So far, the only time OpenOffice has let me down was when Jane and I were doing edits. I had to use Word since OpenOffice hasn't mastered the fine art of compatible comment tracking and display. Other than that, I've not had many complaints.

OpenOffice can save and open in many formats (including .pdf) although there will always be some crossover problems, mostly due to the other program not understanding OO.o, rather than the other way around. But either way, the support is great.

Okay, done plugging.

There are two new software out that I am tickled about.

First, OpenOffice.org has officially released OpenOffice.org version 2. I think that is like, you know, cool. It is M$Office's main competition, something that no one thought would happen. OO.o will do everything Office does, only better and like, you know, for free. It has alternatives to Word, Access, Powerpoint and Excel. It also has a built in html editor and graphics doohickey. It also has this big math thingy but hey, it says Math and that's as far as I got.

On the one hand I bad mouth Microsoft, but on the other hand, I like their games. M$ is crappy when it comes to OS and the like, but their gaming division is on the alleged ball. Zoo Tycoon 2 now has its first expansion pack with the Endangered Species. Just released, it adds in some parts that are similar to the Roller Coaster Tycoon games but without all the barf. I have Zoo Tycoon 1 Complete Collection (marine, dino and etc) of course. I have or have played several other MS games, such as MechWarrior and Roller Coaster Tycoon.

And in case you want to know, and frankly, why wouldn't you, I also have: Black and White, Zeus, Pharoah, Home World, The Nations and Recoil (which is by far my favorite but my CD died!). These are the ones I keep in a hard case here on the desk. Unfortunately, because of space, only ZT2 is on the laptop. I have other games on the rack across the room, such as Majesty Gold and Traffic Giant.

So yeah, I am thrilled about the OO.o because now I can now make all my WIP files in one format (vs the 1.4 format and all the betas). And I am thrilled about the expansion pack because now I can procrastinate using that new downloaded OpenOffice.org.

I am avoiding writing (different from procrastination) so I am playing with the plugins available for WordPress. And there are a few.

I have a list of the plugins I use for this site. I've not updated it yet with the ones I started up today.

I tried several different ones but only had success and/or use for a few.

I am now using the wp-Define plugin by Marios Tziortzis. It is like an automatical acronym thingy. Usually, if I needed to name a mass of letters, I had to enter in the acronym: acronym title="Really Simple Syndication". I left off the < and the >. But now, with this plugin, I 'define' RSS head of time and it automatically defines it each time it is used. Way cool and groovy, eh? So as I go along, I will enter in more definitions. Such as BG1, BG2b, etc etc.

I am also using Search Meter plugin by Bennett McElwee. This one you won't see the result of since it is an admin thing. It keeps track of everything that is entered into the little search box in the upper right sidebar. So if I have a lot of people coming here to search for 'toads', then I'll know my toad article was a big hit. (I don't have a toad article, btw) (hey! another definition to enter!)

Another new one is the Official Comment plugin by Brett Taylor. This is basically for my ego benefit since I am the only active user. Anyway, this plugin recognizes the person making the comment as either a logged in user or a non-user. If logged it, it then highlights that person's comments.

I've had Head Meta plugin for a while but for some reason never activated it. So I upgraded to the latest version and viola! Dougal Campbell is a cool fella so I figured it must have some purpose. It does, but again, it's not anything you will see. It uses the keywords for the posts and adds a doohickey meta thingy to the header. I am not quite sure what a meta is but I do know they are important.

The next is Database Manager by Joe Newing. While I don't think it is exactly working right now, I think this is a fantastic idea. It is basically "one-click database backup". And, when/if it works, sure beats the heck out of the other way!

And then there is the Ajax Spell Checker plugin by zz85 & m0n5t3r & emil & broken-notebook. Not only will you now get spell-checked posts to read, by you can spell check your comments too!

Okay, well, it is after 2 and I reckon I need to hit the proverbial sack.

The WordPress community is great for not just developing the software, but also for helping others to gain access to the program, the support, and now the Codex.

The Codex is a vast resource for not just WordPress, but also for CSS, HTML and PHP tips and resources.

Tamba has put everything in the Codex into individual .pdf files. This makes the Codex readable and printable off line. I suggest you read the FAQ before wantonly downloading the files. The files, 244 of them weighing 34MB+/-, are listed in alphabetical order, making it easy to find just what you need.

If you find the page you need to refer to on the Codex itself, you can hop over to the list and download that page as a .pdf file, which makes it prettier in print.

PS: Tamba also suggests an Open Source software called Foxit Reader as an alternative to Acrobat Reader. I am all for Open Source!