Tag Archives: linux

Mac Need Not Apply

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BrassRing Enterprise 8, which is used by many companies to allow applicants to apply for a job online is going to be adding Firefox support in version 8 (due out December) to address incompatibility with Mac users (I presume Linux users are also affected). This is great news of course, and may mean that they are close enough to standards compliance that you can use your browser of choice (although it sounds like Firefox will be the only non-IE browser supported).

American Express also uses BrassRing Enterprise according to the article. This is a separate issue from the #1 reported issue I discussed the other day.

That’s another win for alternative browsers. I’m hoping American Express and others follow.

[Hat tip CNET News]

Copyright Office Compatibility Update

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Macworld notes that the W3C objects to the Copyright Office Browser Compatibility plan (I mentioned this a few weeks ago). There are two particular quotes I wanted to share:

While stressing that the W3C is not criticizing Internet Explorer, the W3C officials said the office would be placing limitations on users of the Mac OS, Linux and Unix, who may have incompatible browsers. Cell phone and PDA users, and persons with disabilities also may be affected, Berners-Lee said.

So well said of Berners-Lee. What about Linux users? Where do they download the latest Internet Explorer? The Mac version is the same as the PC version in name only.

The W3C also stressed that the Web “was born and achieved widespread use only because of a commitment to open, vendor-neutral standards.”

I think that sums things up rather well. Not just about the problem with this proposal, but the problem facing the Internet in general. It applies to some patents, and to some monopolies.

You can find the complete W3C letter here.

I’m running Fedora Core 2

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Well, I finally did it. I burnt Fedora Core 2 Install CD’s, and put it on my 2nd HD of my Thinkpad. Had trouble booting at first, but found a hidden option in my BIOS to select the drive as my boot drive. It’s zippy! Very, very, very fast. My big problem so far is I’ve been unable to get my wireless card going, and downloading anything, means booting into windows, and copying to a floppy disk…. a real drag.

But it is fast. Looks like I got a new toy to play with!

Also on th agenda is a boot loader. I tried just using the Windows one, but that wasn’t working for me, so perhaps I’ll just use grub on the alternate drive, to boot windows. If anyone has some good directions, or reading material on this topic, please shoot me an email, or leave a comment, I’d really appreciate it.

Other than that, all is good. It’s been a very busy week, so some geeky fun was in order.

Knoppix Update

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Finally got around to updating my Knoppix CD. What a neat little setup. One CD with a TON of software. Interesting note on the page:

Closed because of “Software-Patents”

In the next few days, the European Parliament will decide about the legalisation and adoption of so-called “software patents” in Europe, which are already used by large companies in other countries to put competitors out of business. This can lead to the termination of many software projects such as KNOPPIX, at least within Europe, because the holders of the over 30,000 already granted “software patents” (currently without a legal foundation) can claim exclusive rights and collect license fees for trivial things like “progress bars”, “mouseclicks on online order forms”, “scrolling within a window” and similar. That way, software developers will have to pay the “software-patentholders” for using these features, even in their own, completely self-developed applications, which can completely stall the development of innovative software for small and medium companies. Apart from this, the expense for patent inquiries and legal assistence is high, for even trying to find out if the self-developed software is possibly violating “software-patents”, if you want to continue to market your software. Contrary to real patents, “software-patents” are, in the current draft, monopolization of business ideas and methods, even without any tangible technical implementation.

More about the current major problem at http://swpat.ffii.org/index.en.html

You can still download the software… but hope it sticks around. It’s super cool. Even when the computers in the lab aren’t working right, just pop in the CD, and I’m up and running. No issues, not glitches. Just smooth sailing.