Microsoft, the future and you

[Lyle Fairfield]

1. Will your next operating system be Windows?

2. Will your next browser be Internet Explorer?

3. Will your next office suite be MS Office XXXX?

4. Will your next e-mail client be Outlook or Outlook Express?

5. Will your next database server be MS-SQL?

6. Will you development technology be Access or Something.Net?

Do you find that little by little MS's dominance of your computer lessens?

For 10 or so years I was ALL MS. And then the security problems with IE
and its being part of Windows arose. And I had a tres bad experience
with ADPs. (I don't mind having to create a few kludges; but if the damn
kludge will work on Wednesday then I expect it to work on Thursday
too!). And I started to use Firefox and Thunderbird. And I realized I
had a full version of Office 2003 that cost quite a few bucks sitting on
several computers, and XP on some others and that they were getting very
little use. And I downloaded some open source stuff from SourceForge.
And I used a copy of Quattro Pro for a few weeks (after years away from
this fabulous program). In my opinion Excel is the greatest evidence of
the power of marketing that ever existed. How Bill made that PIG the
winner over the beautiful, elegant and powerful Quattro Pro boggles my
mind. Are a bunch of regions of planes the same as 3-d? Nooooooooooooooooo!
I'm at the point where MS seems far from as wonderful as it used to, and
maybe a THEN and not a NOW thing.

I'm ready to bail. Only problem is there's no clearly great route to
bail to? Are you ready to bail? Why not? Why? Where? When?

Are MS's defenders out there?

--
--
Lyle

"The aim of those who try to control thought is always the same. They
find one single explanation of the world, one system of thought and
action that will (they believe) cover everything; and then they try to
impose that on all thinking people."
- Gilbert Highet

[Trevor Best]

Lyle Fairfield wrote:

1. Will your next operating system be Windows?
I just installed Linux (Suse 9.1) for a looksie.
2. Will your next browser be Internet Explorer?
Already use Firefox and now looking at Netscape 8.0 (based on Firefox),
which has the uncanny ability to utilise IE for rendering of pages that
require it, e.g. Windowsupdate.
3. Will your next office suite be MS Office XXXX?
OpenOffice.org opened all my MS docs (from Office XP) except Access :-(
4. Will your next e-mail client be Outlook or Outlook Express?
Look at my headers :-) (Thunderbird, like you)
5. Will your next database server be MS-SQL?
Yes.
6. Will you development technology be Access or Something.Net?
We're starting to make a move from Access to .Net using C# although
Access will figure big for a couple of years yet.
Do you find that little by little MS's dominance of your computer lessens?

For 10 or so years I was ALL MS. And then the security problems with IE
and its being part of Windows arose. And I had a tres bad experience
with ADPs. (I don't mind having to create a few kludges; but if the damn
kludge will work on Wednesday then I expect it to work on Thursday
too!). And I started to use Firefox and Thunderbird. And I realized I
had a full version of Office 2003 that cost quite a few bucks sitting on
several computers, and XP on some others and that they were getting very
little use. And I downloaded some open source stuff from SourceForge.
And I used a copy of Quattro Pro for a few weeks (after years away from
this fabulous program). In my opinion Excel is the greatest evidence of
the power of marketing that ever existed. How Bill made that PIG the
winner over the beautiful, elegant and powerful Quattro Pro boggles my
mind. Are a bunch of regions of planes the same as 3-d? Nooooooooooooooooo!
I'm at the point where MS seems far from as wonderful as it used to, and
maybe a THEN and not a NOW thing.

I'm ready to bail. Only problem is there's no clearly great route to
bail to? Are you ready to bail? Why not? Why? Where? When?
Excel is a Godsend, God sent it to test our belief in him :-) Seriously
though, people seem to think Excel is the bee's knees and use it for
everything other than spreadsheet use, e.g. data transfer (ahem, CSV,
XML, Pipe delimited have all worked in the past and Access vs Excel in
data transfer is a nightmare).

While working in Kazakhstan (in an Ex-pat rotation environment) one of
the ex-pats had some formatting problems while writing his handover
notes for his b2b, I asked him why he was using Excel as a word
processor and he said he didn't like word :-\
Are MS's defenders out there?

Yes, I worked with them both, they're both called "Jeremy", dunno if
that's significant.
--
[Oo=w=oO]

[Steve Jorgensen]

On Mon, 25 Apr 2005 00:03:36 -0400, Lyle Fairfield <ly******@yahoo.ca> wrote:

1. Will your next operating system be Windows?
Yes, and ...
2. Will your next browser be Internet Explorer?
No (except when browsing MSDN where MS has made sure Firefox doesn't work)
3. Will your next office suite be MS Office XXXX?
Maybe
4. Will your next e-mail client be Outlook or Outlook Express?
No
5. Will your next database server be MS-SQL?
Possibly
6. Will you development technology be Access or Something.Net?
No, but I could see swinging back around to doing more with it.
Do you find that little by little MS's dominance of your computer lessens?
Yes, but I'll probably always use some MS stuff.
For 10 or so years I was ALL MS. And then the security problems with IE
and its being part of Windows arose. And I had a tres bad experience
with ADPs. (I don't mind having to create a few kludges; but if the damn
kludge will work on Wednesday then I expect it to work on Thursday
too!). And I started to use Firefox and Thunderbird. And I realized I
had a full version of Office 2003 that cost quite a few bucks sitting on
several computers, and XP on some others and that they were getting very
little use. And I downloaded some open source stuff from SourceForge.
And I used a copy of Quattro Pro for a few weeks (after years away from
this fabulous program). In my opinion Excel is the greatest evidence of
the power of marketing that ever existed. How Bill made that PIG the
winner over the beautiful, elegant and powerful Quattro Pro boggles my
mind. Are a bunch of regions of planes the same as 3-d? Nooooooooooooooooo!
I'm at the point where MS seems far from as wonderful as it used to, and
maybe a THEN and not a NOW thing.

I'm ready to bail. Only problem is there's no clearly great route to
bail to? Are you ready to bail? Why not? Why? Where? When?

Are MS's defenders out there?

I see myself as both a defender and a detractor. For all their problems, MS
has done a lot of greate stuff. Heck, Access has been my bread and butter
longer than any other platform - period.

On the other hand, MS has had a monopolistic strangle-hold on the market for a
long time, and they've used it to get away with giving us a lot of barely
functional crap because no one had the brand name clout to compete with it.
Some of what MS has done (like ADPs) was simply blundered, but everyone makes
blunders, so there's only so much of that I can hold against them.

Lately, I've seen a lot of signs that MS is trying hard to come around to
writing applications that are secure by design, using modern, agile techniques
to make rock-solid, flexible code. They've come out with more cost effective,
full-featured development environments to compete with the open source Java
tools and IDEs, etc. Eventually, there will be an Access.NET, though it looks
a little far off for my liking.

I see my future as involving both MS and non-MS operating systems, development
tools, office application, and other software and products. I think the MS
products I do use will likely get better and more cost effective under the
pressure of the higher competition MS is now starting to deal with.

My crystal ball has been known to be a bit cloudy, but that's how it looks
from here.

[Steve Jorgensen]

On Mon, 25 Apr 2005 05:40:20 -0500, Chuck Grimsby
<c.*******@worldnet.att.net.invalid> wrote:

On Mon, 25 Apr 2005 00:40:48 -0700, Steve Jorgensen
<no****@nospam.nospam> wrote:

2. Will your next browser be Internet Explorer?

No (except when browsing MSDN where MS has made sure Firefox doesn't work)

Download the "User Agent Switcher" plug-in, Steve. Before going to
MSDN, set it to tell sites that you're using IE, and MSDN seems to be
OK with that.

Don't use it everywhere however. Some javascript functions won't work
properly with the wrong setting.

MSDN has stuff on it that just doesn't display right in FireFox - expandable
text sections that won't expand, for instance.

[Steven Zuch]

"Lyle Fairfield" <ly******@yahoo.ca> wrote in message
news:4Z*****************@read1.cgocable.net...

1. Will your next operating system be Windows?

2. Will your next browser be Internet Explorer?

3. Will your next office suite be MS Office XXXX?

4. Will your next e-mail client be Outlook or Outlook Express?

5. Will your next database server be MS-SQL?

6. Will you development technology be Access or Something.Net?

All Yes to the above. For #6, we will continue to use Access for
data-centric thick client applications, and .Net for web-site development
(currently being outsourced ).
Do you find that little by little MS's dominance of your computer lessens?
Nope, still a pretty much all MS shop. However I did buy a Mac for my
daughter to fend off the viruses at school. She loves it.

For 10 or so years I was ALL MS. And then the security problems with IE
and its being part of Windows arose. And I had a tres bad experience with
ADPs. (I don't mind having to create a few kludges; but if the damn kludge
will work on Wednesday then I expect it to work on Thursday too!). And I
started to use Firefox and Thunderbird.
Never really worked with ADPs much given my uses for Access. Never felt the
dying need to replace IE contained with the operating system.
And I realized I had a full version of Office 2003 that cost quite a few
bucks sitting on several computers, and XP on some others and that they
were getting very little use.
Not sure what this has to do with MS operating systems, browsers and
Access/.Net Seems like you spend too much money :(.
And I downloaded some open source stuff from SourceForge. And I used a
copy of Quattro Pro for a few weeks (after years away from this fabulous
program). In my opinion Excel is the greatest evidence of the power of
marketing that ever existed. How Bill made that PIG the winner over the
beautiful, elegant and powerful Quattro Pro boggles my mind. Are a bunch
of regions of planes the same as 3-d? Nooooooooooooooooo!
Excel has more than enough power for my needs, and my clients feel very
comfortable with it.
I'm at the point where MS seems far from as wonderful as it used to, and
maybe a THEN and not a NOW thing.

I'm ready to bail. Only problem is there's no clearly great route to bail
to? Are you ready to bail? Why not? Why? Where? When?

I solve problems for my clients and develop applications using desktop
computers, operating systems, and development tools. Microsoft provides a
nice complete package, at a reasonable cost, with support and updates.
Are MS's defenders out there?

It is nice to know that programs that I wrote using QuickBasic, VB3, Access
2.0, and Access 97 still run on the most current operating systems running
on PCs. It is nice to know that the my primary software company is fiscally
healthy, constantly providing new products, and supports their development
tools for at least 10 years after the initial release date. It is nice to
know that the company is ultimately controlled by a nerdy computer geek, who
appreciates software.

If I did switch my primary development tool from Access, I would go to
Visual FoxPro. No kidding.

Steven R. Zuch, CPA
Cogent Management Inc.

[Johan]

Lyle Fairfield <ly******@yahoo.ca> wrote in
news:4Z*****************@read1.cgocable.net:

1. Will your next operating system be Windows? My next computer purchase will be a Mac. I have no reason to upgrade my
existing PC computers.
2. Will your next browser be Internet Explorer? I use Firefox for web-browsing and rss-feeds.
3. Will your next office suite be MS Office XXXX? I see no reason to upgrade. I could as well look into other office software
- thank you for mentioning Quattro Pro.
4. Will your next e-mail client be Outlook or Outlook Express? Pegasus for e-mail, Xnews for newsgroups.
5. Will your next database server be MS-SQL? I think so.
6. Will you development technology be Access or Something.Net? Access. But I'm only partly making my living from developing.
Do you find that little by little MS's dominance of your computer
lessens?

Yes. Today I look for the alternatives before buying Microsoft software
without reflection and hesitation, and there are more alternatives
available.

[snip]

Johan

[Salad]

Trevor Best wrote:

Already use Firefox and now looking at Netscape 8.0 (based on Firefox),
which has the uncanny ability to utilise IE for rendering of pages that
require it, e.g. Windowsupdate.

Does SendObject work with Netscape 8.0 Email client? It worked in v4.x
then bombed in v6 and v7. It doesn't recongnize to To, CC, or BCC fields.

[Larry Linson]

I've been happy with the marketplace that developing Microsoft Access /
Office software has provided me. As long as that continues to be the case,
I'll continue to develop for that marketplace and (primarily) use those
products -- the old "eat your own dogfood" advice).

It always pays to keep in touch with what is going on, so I will also
investigate other products on occasion.

Larry

[Trevor Best]

Salad wrote:

Trevor Best wrote:

Already use Firefox and now looking at Netscape 8.0 (based on
Firefox), which has the uncanny ability to utilise IE for rendering of
pages that require it, e.g. Windowsupdate.

Does SendObject work with Netscape 8.0 Email client? It worked in v4.x
then bombed in v6 and v7. It doesn't recongnize to To, CC, or BCC fields.

I don't know, I use Thunderbird at home for mail and LookOut at work
(only because I haven't got Thunderbird working with LDAP for the global
directory on Exchange Server yet).

--
[Oo=w=oO]

[Trevor Best]

Steve Jorgensen wrote:

MSDN has stuff on it that just doesn't display right in FireFox - expandable
text sections that won't expand, for instance.

Can you give an example url that doesn't work? Maybe using client side
VBScript? Or just sloppy JavaScript syntax that IE seems to support (and
encourage anyone to write sloppy JavaScript).

--
[Oo=w=oO]

[Trevor Best]

Chuck Grimsby wrote:

Any site that requires either ie or flash doesn't want my business.
It's really rather amazing how many people I talk to that agree with
that.

So you'll never see Foamy the Squirrel :-)

--
[Oo=w=oO]

[Arno R]

"Lyle Fairfield" <ly******@yahoo.ca> schreef in bericht news:4Z*****************@read1.cgocable.net...

1. Will your next operating system be Windows?

2. Will your next browser be Internet Explorer?

3. Will your next office suite be MS Office XXXX?

4. Will your next e-mail client be Outlook or Outlook Express?

5. Will your next database server be MS-SQL?

6. Will you development technology be Access or Something.Net?

Do you find that little by little MS's dominance of your computer lessens?

For 10 or so years I was ALL MS. And then the security problems with IE
and its being part of Windows arose. And I had a tres bad experience
with ADPs. (I don't mind having to create a few kludges; but if the damn
kludge will work on Wednesday then I expect it to work on Thursday
too!). And I started to use Firefox and Thunderbird. And I realized I
had a full version of Office 2003 that cost quite a few bucks sitting on
several computers, and XP on some others and that they were getting very
little use. And I downloaded some open source stuff from SourceForge.
And I used a copy of Quattro Pro for a few weeks (after years away from
this fabulous program). In my opinion Excel is the greatest evidence of
the power of marketing that ever existed. How Bill made that PIG the
winner over the beautiful, elegant and powerful Quattro Pro boggles my
mind. Are a bunch of regions of planes the same as 3-d? Nooooooooooooooooo!
I'm at the point where MS seems far from as wonderful as it used to, and
maybe a THEN and not a NOW thing.

I'm ready to bail. Only problem is there's no clearly great route to
bail to? Are you ready to bail? Why not? Why? Where? When?

Are MS's defenders out there?

--
--
Lyle

"The aim of those who try to control thought is always the same. They
find one single explanation of the world, one system of thought and
action that will (they believe) cover everything; and then they try to
impose that on all thinking people."
- Gilbert Highet

Hi Lyle,
Personally I am ready to bail also BUT ...

ALL of my clients use Windows,
ALL of my clients use MSOffice,

It is MS all over ..., and I need my bread and butter.
So I HAVE TO use the MS-stuff. But I am not looking for new versions all the time.
Personally I am also 'lurking' at Linux and OpenOffice and so on.
My development technology is (and will be the next years) Access.
I am investigating the 'Something.Net' stuff. Did NOT need it yet ...

Arno R

BTW: My newsserver is still down. Created an account on teranews ...

[David W. Fenton]

Trevor Best <no****@besty.org.uk> wrote in
news:42**********************@news.zen.co.uk:

Lyle Fairfield wrote:

[]

2. Will your next browser be Internet Explorer?

Already use Firefox and now looking at Netscape 8.0 (based on
Firefox), . . .

Actually, no, NS 8 is not based on Firefox, but on Mozilla, the same
project on which Firefox is based.

[]

4. Will your next e-mail client be Outlook or Outlook Express?

Look at my headers :-) (Thunderbird, like you)

Why anyone would willingly use a Microsoft email client, I don't
know. I can understand that in an environment where you have
Exchange as your email server, Outlook has great features. But as an
email client, it still sucks a big green one, and has all those
dependencies on Internet Explorer, which is a huge security disaster
waiting to happen.

The less said about Outlook Express, the better. What a pile of
garbage.

Do you find that little by little MS's dominance of your computer
lessens?

For 10 or so years I was ALL MS. And then the security problems
with IE and its being part of Windows arose. And I had a tres bad
experience with ADPs. (I don't mind having to create a few
kludges; but if the damn kludge will work on Wednesday then I
expect it to work on Thursday too!). And I started to use Firefox
and Thunderbird. And I realized I had a full version of Office
2003 that cost quite a few bucks sitting on several computers,
and XP on some others and that they were getting very little use.
And I downloaded some open source stuff from SourceForge. And I
used a copy of Quattro Pro for a few weeks (after years away from
this fabulous program). In my opinion Excel is the greatest
evidence of the power of marketing that ever existed. How Bill
made that PIG the winner over the beautiful, elegant and powerful
Quattro Pro boggles my mind. Are a bunch of regions of planes the
same as 3-d? Nooooooooooooooooo! I'm at the point where MS seems
far from as wonderful as it used to, and maybe a THEN and not a
NOW thing.

Quattro Pro (I was a huge fan of the DOS version -- a real Borland
booster, actually) did not make the transition to Windows
gracefully. The last time I looked at it, it still retained many
non-Windows aspects that went all the way back to my experience with
Lotus 2.x on DOS, in the way it handled printing. Excel never had
that, and at the time it matured (around version 4, 1992 or so), it
was vastly superior to anything else that was available.

Of course, my use of spreadsheets is very limited. Excel certainly
does everything I've ever needed (though certain things like
dynamic, data-based page headers are still lacking in it).

--
David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
dfenton at bway dot net http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

[David W. Fenton]

Chuck Grimsby <c.*******@worldnet.att.net.invalid> wrote in
news:ur********************************@4ax.com:

On Mon, 25 Apr 2005 00:03:36 -0400, Lyle Fairfield
<ly******@yahoo.ca> wrote:

2. Will your next browser be Internet Explorer?

It isn't now, and it hasn't been for quite some time.
I discourage ie's use to everyone I can, whenever I can.
I also do that for Macromedia's Flash, by the way. I've
un-installed it from my system, and I've blocked the download site
so can't be re-installed.

Any site that requires either ie or flash doesn't want my
business. It's really rather amazing how many people I talk to
that agree with that.

You do know about the FlashBlock add-in, right?

I used to be against Flash, but I think it can be used very well,
and the only reason I have negative feelings against it is that lots
of ads are Flash. The days of idiots doing stupid websites
unnecessarily all in Flash have really pretty much gone the way of
the dodo bird. Mostly it's amateurs who do that today -- real
websites don't tend to be Flash-based unless it makes sense (I
recently saw a mail-order place that had their entire printed
catalog in Flash on their website. It was extremely easy to use, and
I would say a very appropriate use of the technology).

The Mozilla FlashBlocker allows you to run the Flash movies you
really want to see, without having to see the ones you don't. Once I
had that, I saw no reason to avoid having their plug-ins installed.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
dfenton at bway dot net http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

[Randy Harris]

"David W. Fenton" <dX********@bway.net.invalid> wrote in message
news:Xn**********************************@24.168.1 28.78...

Trevor Best <no****@besty.org.uk> wrote in
news:42**********************@news.zen.co.uk:

Lyle Fairfield wrote:
[]

2. Will your next browser be Internet Explorer?

Already use Firefox and now looking at Netscape 8.0 (based on
Firefox), . . .

Actually, no, NS 8 is not based on Firefox, but on Mozilla, the same
project on which Firefox is based.

I use Firefox, rarely ever go back to Internet Exploder.

4. Will your next e-mail client be Outlook or Outlook Express?
Look at my headers :-) (Thunderbird, like you)

Why anyone would willingly use a Microsoft email client, I don't
know. I can understand that in an environment where you have
Exchange as your email server, Outlook has great features. But as an
email client, it still sucks a big green one, and has all those
dependencies on Internet Explorer, which is a huge security disaster
waiting to happen.

The less said about Outlook Express, the better. What a pile of
garbage.

Can't completely agree with you. I prefer to use a single client for both
email and news. There are much better email clients. There are much better
news readers. As feeble as Outlook Express is, I can't find one that does
both jobs better. I tried Thunderbird for about a week. It isn't ready -
yet. Maybe in its next release? I went back to OE.
David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
dfenton at bway dot net http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

[Trevor Best]

David W. Fenton wrote:

Actually, no, NS 8 is not based on Firefox, but on Mozilla, the same
project on which Firefox is based.

Look again: http://www.trevor.easynet.co.uk/images/aboutns.jpg

--
[Oo=w=oO]

[Trevor Best]

I find Thunderbird better than OE for both mail and news, spam
filtering is excellent, which release were you trying? There's been a
few updates that I know of.

[Lyle Fairfield]

Chuck Grimsby wrote:

I take this back. FireFox does *not* work with MSDN.

MSDN does not work with Firefox? I thought Firefox was committed to
working with all HTML/XML etc meeting the standards of the W3 group?

--
--
Lyle

"The aim of those who try to control thought is always the same. They
find one single explanation of the world, one system of thought and
action that will (they believe) cover everything; and then they try to
impose that on all thinking people."
- Gilbert Highet

[Lyle Fairfield]

Trevor Best wrote:

I find Thunderbird better than OE for both mail and news, spam
filtering is excellent, which release were you trying? There's been a
few updates that I know of.

I'm trying TB for news. It has some nice features and some problems I
haven't solved yet. Number 1 is that if I double click CDMA and there
are no new messages it opens a new window. Also, it isn't as convenient
for tracking threads as X-News. I miss the back to the previous post
button and the reconstruct thread button.

--
--
Lyle

"The aim of those who try to control thought is always the same. They
find one single explanation of the world, one system of thought and
action that will (they believe) cover everything; and then they try to
impose that on all thinking people."
- Gilbert Highet

[Randy Harris]

"Trevor Best" <go**********@besty.org.uk> wrote in message
news:11**********************@g14g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com...

I find Thunderbird better than OE for both mail and news, spam
filtering is excellent, which release were you trying? There's been a
few updates that I know of.

I had tried TB 1.0, right after it was released. I agree that it has much
going for it. My objections had to do with views. I don't recall all of
the specifics, but it seems that I remember that it wouldn't keep one view
for mail and another for news. Whenever I changed the view, it did an
expand all - couldn't control it. Even changing the sort order in a view
caused problems. I hated giving up the spam filter and the other slick
features, but I couldn't put up with the view problems.

[Trevor Best]

Lyle Fairfield wrote:

Chuck Grimsby wrote:

I take this back. FireFox does *not* work with MSDN.

MSDN does not work with Firefox? I thought Firefox was committed to
working with all HTML/XML etc meeting the standards of the W3 group?

Is is AFAIK but is MS committed to producing web pages to the same
standard?

I do know that in .NET for example, a simple web page will not display
properly in Firefox unless you take pains to modify your browsercaps
file. Of course Firefox is perfectly able to render the pages but by
default the server is being told different.

This is an assumption made by .NET, if it's never heard of the
particular browser that's requesting the page, it assumes the browser
has naff all in the way of rendering ability and so will only send it
very basic HTML.

Would you expect MS to keep the browsercaps information on their site up
to date for anything other than IE?

--
[Oo=w=oO]

[Albert Marshall]

You wrote

"Lyle Fairfield" <ly******@yahoo.ca> schreef in bericht
news:4Z*****************@read1.cgocable.net...

1. Will your next operating system be Windows?

2. Will your next browser be Internet Explorer?

3. Will your next office suite be MS Office XXXX?

4. Will your next e-mail client be Outlook or Outlook Express?

5. Will your next database server be MS-SQL?

6. Will you development technology be Access or Something.Net?

Do you find that little by little MS's dominance of your computer lessens?

Arno wrote
ALL of my clients use Windows,
ALL of my clients use MSOffice,

It is MS all over ..., and I need my bread and butter.
So I HAVE TO use the MS-stuff. But I am not looking for new versions
all the time.

It's four years since I last wrote a true line of business app in Access
(or anything else!) but I have been using Access as a major tool in my
armoury.

Most of my work nowadays is in data migration for big (SAP, PeopleSoft,
Oracle) system implementations and I would hate to try to do it all
without Access. It's not just that I can link to so many different data
sources but that I can build a set of tools to automate all the steps in
what can be a very messy process.

It's also the best tool I know for data analysis. Finding the gotchas in
a shed load of data so that they can be fixed in time needs a highly
interactive environment that is built around data manipulation.

I've done migrations using stored procedures or SQL Server DTS, but for
the analysis part give me Access any day. That said, I could do most of
what I want in Access 2, so all the latest goodies are a bit wasted on
me.
--
Albert Marshall
Marshall Le Botmel Ltd
01242 222017

[David W. Fenton]

"Randy Harris" <ra***@SpamFree.com> wrote in
news:Jv*************@newssvr19.news.prodigy.com:

"David W. Fenton" <dX********@bway.net.invalid> wrote in message
news:Xn**********************************@24.168.1 28.78...

The less said about Outlook Express, the better. What a pile of
garbage.

Can't completely agree with you. I prefer to use a single client
for both email and news. . . .

See, to me that's idiotic. Email and news reading are completely
different.

For instance, top-posting in email is quite sensible, as email
exchanges are different from Usenet conversations. On Usenet,
top-posting is a huge mistake (in my opinion) and the only reason we
see so much of it is that lots of people are using Usenet readers
that are designed to be principally email readers, rather than news
readers.
. . . There are much better email clients.
There are much better news readers. As feeble as Outlook Express
is, I can't find one that does both jobs better. I tried
Thunderbird for about a week. It isn't ready - yet. Maybe in its
next release? I went back to OE.

I think Thunderbird suffers from "Outlook-itis," whether OE or full
Outlook. They have tried to much to make it look like MS products
and not given enough thought to how restricting the UI assumptions
behind MS's email products actually are.

I use xNews for Usenet and Pegasus Mail for email.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
dfenton at bway dot net http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

[David W. Fenton]

Trevor Best <no****@besty.org.uk> wrote in
news:42***********************@news.zen.co.uk:

David W. Fenton wrote:

Actually, no, NS 8 is not based on Firefox, but on Mozilla, the
same project on which Firefox is based.

Look again: http://www.trevor.easynet.co.uk/images/aboutns.jpg

I'm not sure what that means. It's a user agent string, but it
doesn't tell me which code base they are using.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
dfenton at bway dot net http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

[David W. Fenton]

Lyle Fairfield <ly******@yahoo.ca> wrote in
news:B9*********************@read2.cgocable.net:

Chuck Grimsby wrote:

I take this back. FireFox does *not* work with MSDN.

MSDN does not work with Firefox? I thought Firefox was committed
to working with all HTML/XML etc meeting the standards of the W3
group?

It is, absolutely.

But you wrongly assume that MSDN is producing standards-compliant
HTML.

It ain't even close.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
dfenton at bway dot net http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

[David W. Fenton]

Trevor Best <no****@besty.org.uk> wrote in
news:42**********************@news.zen.co.uk:

Would you expect MS to keep the browsercaps information on their
site up to date for anything other than IE?

Well, of course I would.

Only assholes wouldn't.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
dfenton at bway dot net http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

[Salad]

David W. Fenton wrote:

Can't completely agree with you. I prefer to use a single client
for both email and news. . . .

See, to me that's idiotic. Email and news reading are completely
different.

For instance, top-posting in email is quite sensible, as email
exchanges are different from Usenet conversations. On Usenet,
top-posting is a huge mistake (in my opinion) and the only reason we
see so much of it is that lots of people are using Usenet readers
that are designed to be principally email readers, rather than news
readers.

I'll assume you are joshing. I like Netscape since browser, e-mail,
news are all contained in one program. I have no need to have multiple
programs open. My only complaint with Netscape is that SendObject, in
my current version, doesn't stuff the To, CC, and BCC fields.

[Lyle Fairfield]

David W. Fenton wrote:

Lyle Fairfield <ly******@yahoo.ca> wrote in
news:B9*********************@read2.cgocable.net:

Chuck Grimsby wrote:

I take this back. FireFox does *not* work with MSDN.

MSDN does not work with Firefox? I thought Firefox was committed
to working with all HTML/XML etc meeting the standards of the W3
group?

It is, absolutely.

But you wrongly assume that MSDN is producing standards-compliant
HTML.

It ain't even close.

Oh My! I opened

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht....microsoft.com

and was astounded to find

65 points of divergence from the standards.
--
--
Lyle

"The aim of those who try to control thought is always the same. They
find one single explanation of the world, one system of thought and
action that will (they believe) cover everything; and then they try to
impose that on all thinking people."
- Gilbert Highet

[Arno R]

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht....microsoft.com

and was astounded to find

65 points of divergence from the standards.


--
--
Lyle

I checked also:
I see a page with 126 points of divergence noted .. ???
Someone tried to fix it ? ;-)

Arno R

[Trevor Best]

David W. Fenton wrote:

Trevor Best <no****@besty.org.uk> wrote in
news:42***********************@news.zen.co.uk:

David W. Fenton wrote:

Actually, no, NS 8 is not based on Firefox, but on Mozilla, the
same project on which Firefox is based.

Look again: http://www.trevor.easynet.co.uk/images/aboutns.jpg

I'm not sure what that means. It's a user agent string, but it
doesn't tell me which code base they are using.

The bottom bit is a user agent string but the other bit that actually
states "based on Firefox 1.0" is pretty obvious even to a dumbass.

Having used Firefox, Netscape and Mozilla itself (so actually have
experience of what I'm talking about in this thread) I can say Netscape
has the look and feel of Firefox, at least within the browser itself the
decorations around the outside are a bit different.

[Lyle Fairfield]

Trevor Best wrote:

David W. Fenton wrote:

Trevor Best <no****@besty.org.uk> wrote in
news:42***********************@news.zen.co.uk:

David W. Fenton wrote:

Actually, no, NS 8 is not based on Firefox, but on Mozilla, the
same project on which Firefox is based.

Look again: http://www.trevor.easynet.co.uk/images/aboutns.jpg
I'm not sure what that means. It's a user agent string, but it
doesn't tell me which code base they are using.

The bottom bit is a user agent string but the other bit that actually
states "based on Firefox 1.0" is pretty obvious even to a dumbass.

I can attest to that because I noticed it right away!
Having used Firefox, Netscape and Mozilla itself (so actually have
experience of what I'm talking about in this thread)

That's cheating, isn't it?

--
--
Lyle

"The aim of those who try to control thought is always the same. They
find one single explanation of the world, one system of thought and
action that will (they believe) cover everything; and then they try to
impose that on all thinking people."
- Gilbert Highet

[David W. Fenton]

Salad <oi*@vinegar.com> wrote in
news:ub***************@newsread1.news.pas.earthlin k.net:

David W. Fenton wrote:

Can't completely agree with you. I prefer to use a single client
for both email and news. . . .

See, to me that's idiotic. Email and news reading are completely
different.

For instance, top-posting in email is quite sensible, as email
exchanges are different from Usenet conversations. On Usenet,
top-posting is a huge mistake (in my opinion) and the only reason
we see so much of it is that lots of people are using Usenet
readers that are designed to be principally email readers, rather
than news readers.

I'll assume you are joshing. . ..

I'm completely serious. I've learned to live with top-posting and
people who use hybrid programs, but I still think it's a completely
wrong approach to two sets of problems that are often mutually
exclusive, at least, insofar as any of the actual implementations
exist.
. . . I like Netscape since browser,
e-mail, news are all contained in one program. . . .
To me, that's a flaw, because when the browser crashes, it takes
down the email client with it.
. . . I have no need to
have multiple programs open. My only complaint with Netscape is
that SendObject, in my current version, doesn't stuff the To, CC,
and BCC fields.

In other words, it's not MAPI compliant.

I use Mozilla the browser, but have never used any of the bundled
Netscape/Mozilla mail apps. I had a client who used the old Netscape
4.x client, and it was corrupting its mailboxes and crashing all the
time. I migrated them to Pegasus Mail and they've not had such
problems since.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
dfenton at bway dot net http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

[Trevor Best]

David W. Fenton wrote:

I think Thunderbird suffers from "Outlook-itis," whether OE or full
Outlook. They have tried to much to make it look like MS products
and not given enough thought to how restricting the UI assumptions
behind MS's email products actually are.

Thunderbird has options to default to top post in mail and bottom post
in news. I'm not sure hoiw the default options are set now as I've
upgraded from early betas where the default action was to bottom post in
both mail and news.

As for the interface, I liked OE's interface so Thunderbird's one suited
me. It's not that far off Agent's interface and many of the keystrokes
are the same, dunno about OE's keystrokes as I didn't use that long
enough to find out if there were any shortcuts.