RasterWeb!Long ago I mentioned how browsers seemed to be named after cars, and if you look at how things have changed, well, they haven’t…
Let’s see we have:
There’s also Thunderbird, which is actually a mail client that used to be part of a browser suite, so we won’t count that.
This also reveals the real reason why Chimera and Phoenix had to change their names, because even if there are cars with those names, not enough people have heard of them…
(There’s more browser names over at browsers.evolt.org)
Joel talks up Firebird, which is a good thing. Why it is a good thing? Because Joel is a Microsoft camper, and Windows developers read his site and seem to generally listen to what he has to say. So this is a Windows guy, who has used IE, saying that it’s time to use Mozilla Firebird.
And that’s why it’s a good thing…
As for the whole Microsoft/AOL/IE thingy, see the MozillaZine item for lots of links to lots of places.
My big question is, what does this mean for web developers? It looked like we were on the road towards there being more standard-compliant browsers, which would mean less goofy hacks and workarounds for buggy browsers, and it might still mean that, but it’s too early to tell. I agree that it would be stupid for AOL to kill off Netscape now, as it is they could take a small fraction of the $750 million and support Netscape/Mozilla development for years to come, even if it’s just for insurance against Microsoft, and honestly, doesn’t everyone need an insurance policy against Microsoft?
(I know, Mozilla the browser, and Mozilla the organization won’t just disappear if Netscape goes away or AOL jettisons it, but it would be nice to have AOL keep paying for some of it.)
I’ve noticed that on this site, Mozilla has been surpassing Internet Explorer in the stats lately, which I see as good thing. Though I admit with some other sites I’m involved with, the IE numbers are quite high.
Still, I think Microsoft will eventually have to do some sort of development on IE, as it stands now, it’s feature set and lack of standards support is holding back the web. Web designers and developers are wondering what’s up with IE, as we have to create sites that work in that sorry old browser. Yes, IE is the new Netscape 4.x.
Tim Bray blames Microsoft, and I do to… I spent wasted a number of hours this week trying to get IE/Windows to do what Safari, IE/Mac, and all the Gecko-based browsers got right.
Once again, damn you Microsoft!
If you don’t pay, the bottom-line is that you lose. It may look like you’re not losing, but you are.
Cost of Apache: $0
Cost of Red Hat Linux: $0
Running www.scripting.com using Apache on Red Hat Linux: Priceless
The word “free” has many meanings, as does the word “open.” I’ll leave it as an exercise of the interested reader to investigate how those words apply to software…
Need to change or get a file’s type or creator code? Got the Developer Tools installed?
Look in the /Developer/Tools directory for command line utilities GetFileInfo and SetFile.
These are quite useful if, you know, you have to deal with those people living in the past, using an old, outdated operating system like Mac OS 9… ;)
(Update: Looks like Mac OS X Hints has a blurb on GetFileInfo and SetFile as well.)
There are also other goodies in the /Developer/Tools direcory, but we’ll deal with those later.