Interesting. What I want to do for my next computer is to have it not have Windows or any Microshaft products on it but still use the majority of the software I have, like the games. Wine looks like a good possibility.

I generally use IE.  I recently finished a web design class and used Cascading Style Sheets extensively in my final project.

 

The teacher said I did a nice job but that it rendered so differently in the other browsers than it did in IE that certain words were actually covered up in the other browsers.

 

The web presentation is totally W3C-compliant XHTML.

 

Some may wonder why there are rendering differences (that are so dramatic) when it comes to CSS.  Is it laziness on M$'s part or just a predatory business practice?  Or something else?

 

I don't know, but I will go with M$ for any Corporate USA-type projects as that is where everyone prettty much is in such settings.

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Using css, run two span tags inside a anchor tag and you

Edited May 7, 200619 yr by Ellester

Interesting.  What I want to do for my next computer is to have it not have Windows or any Microshaft products on it but still use the majority of the software I have, like the games.  Wine looks like a good possibility.

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I can hardly wait (w00t)

Yeah, I know. It will probably fail miserably. (w00t)

Hades? Miserably failing? No way (w00t)

Yes way! (w00t)

Linux will not be viable on the corporate desktop until it has something that can go toe-to-toe with (enterprise) Exchange/Outlook and that is, if not free, very competitively priced.

That's pretty much true.

 

In its current state any GNU/Linux distribution in a default configuration is waaaaaaaaaaaaay too far from being ready to use by an average Joe. It is still reserved for techies who enjoy to fiddle with OS internals all day.

 

If you want to (productively) use Linux now, prepare to learn Unix shell scripting, preferably perl and/or python, a bit of Unix C programming, fundamentals of networking, fundamentals of PC hardware architecture and a myriad of other little things.

 

Or alternatively find a very patient, helpful and knowledgeable person, who will help you with all listed above.

Linux will not be viable on the corporate desktop until it has something that can go toe-to-toe with (enterprise) Exchange/Outlook and that is, if not free, very competitively priced.

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Nearly.

 

M$ has always used its combined OS and desktop application hegemony to cajole corporates and squeeze out the competition. There are alternatives to Exchange-Outlook (IBM Lotus Domino, for example, which is much cheaper per seat, AND provides workgroup functionality that M$ is STILL playing catch-up to, nearly twenty years after Notes was released).

 

Also, as well as M$ making some borderline anti-competitive practices (e.g. adding unwanted new "features" to Word and Excel document standards, that coincidentally are incompatible with the previous versions ... and competitors' products), and providing cheaper access to their own desktop applications, for customers who buy their OS, by making an "Office" suite that effectively sold for the same amount as a spreadsheet like Lotus 1-2-3, database like Borland Paradox, or a wordprocessor like WordPerfect, on their own.

 

The main issue with a "corporate desktop" is support. M$ have (wisely) invested HUGE amounts into their supporting human resources' structure, so there exists an army of certified consultants who are readily available for corporates to keep their IT effective. Novell have started to address this; they have their own desktop application suite, and their own corporate distribution of Linux, which includes support.

 

However, a LOT of developing nations

So it will change.

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Yes, it will, eventually. Just as M$ has made hardware a commodity, so the desktop and its apps will eventually be commodities.

 

The new battle will (presumably) be over web services (charging a penny for every instance of an object someone wants across the web, etc).

 

.NET is not so much the Java killer as it is M$'s key to survival.

LOL remember when the out-of-control marketing dept suffixed ".NET" onto everything ... even Office? :D

LOL remember when the out-of-control marketing dept suffixed ".NET" onto everything ... even Office? :D

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yeah, they have the right idea but who knows when it will really take hold?

could be a lot longer than they thought.

 

Sharepoint, on the other hand, is huge at the moment (although, that, too, is built on .NET).

IBM like to poke fun at M$ about .NET, because it hasn't got a (finished) design document ... unlike their WebSphere, which is built on Sun's open-standard Java ... talk about vapourware ... "