In Triumph of the Nerds, Steve Jobs quotes Pablo Picasso, "Good artists copy, great artists steal." Given the context in which that statement was made, I would have to say that I agree with him. It was made in 1996, when Microsoft had a virtual monopoly on the personal computer market and Apple was tanking. Jobs had been fired from his position at Apple due to creative differences with the CEO, John Scully. Jobs saw the company that he had helped to create being cornered by a company that had used some of Apple's own design techniques to make their own success.
I have to understand where he was coming from. He was angry about the situation at the time. He did have a point, though. Apple effectively stole the GUI from Xerox and, in turn, Microsoft stole it from Apple. Xerox owned the technology to begin with and could have effectively destroyed Apple and Microsoft before they got bigger. It would seem that in this situation, the person who stole the technology made a bigger profit off of it than the company they stole it from.
Showing posts with label microsoft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label microsoft. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Browser Wars
Safari is Apple's own entry into the browser market. Originally it was restricted to the Mac, but has recently released for Windows, as well. Safari offers native RSS support, rather than requiring another application to manage feeds. It supports tabbed browsing. It comes free on every Mac sold. However, the current version for Mac, Safari 3 still in beta and is available for free download on both Mac and Windows. It can also import bookmarks from any other browser.
Firefox is another free web browser provided by Mozilla. Firefox is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux. It is open-source software, meaning not only is it free, anyone can mess with the browser's code, tweak it, upgrade it, and enhance it. There is a community surrounding this browser and they help to keep it updated. It works well with its companion email program, Thunderbird. It can show RSS headlines, but requires Thunderbird for email and the ability to read RSS articles in full. It has a phishing filter, which can help a user from inadvertently revealing sensitive information online. It is also "skinnable," meaning its appearance can be easily changed with third-party skins. It can import settings from Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, and Opera. It can also import bookmarks in the form of an HTML file.
Camino is a browser offered exclusively for the Mac. It is a free download and is open source. It does not offer native RSS support. However, it can detect feeds and will allow you to set up an external RSS feed reader. Like the other two browsers mentioned here, it supports tabbed browsing. It includes a built-in spell checker and it can save your last session for when you decide to reopen Camino. This will store all the windows and tabs you had open as well as data for the Forward and Back buttons. From a technical standpoint, there really is not much of a difference between Camino and Firefox, other than the organizations that maintain them.
In the wake of Internet Explorer 7, it looks like Mozilla will take a big bite out of Microsoft's browser market share with Firefox. It could go either way on the Mac with Safari and Firefox. IE is not a factor on the Mac anymore as Microsoft has long since stopped developing its web browser for the Mac platform. Microsoft Windows users will not have a hard time finding a free browser with IE7, Firefox, and a whole host of others. WIth more and more people, malware authors and hackers will have a more difficult time damaging people's systems. When a single browser, Internet Explorer, has 80% to 90% browser market share, it makes them a very large target for the jerks out on the internet. Also, Internet Explorer is directly linked to its operating system, Windows, and is used as the file browser on the computer's internal hard drive. The others listed are not so closely entwined with the systems that they are on.
Personally, I prefer Safari and Firefox. I use Safari primarily for reading my many RSS feeds and Firefox for tabbed browsing and broadcasting. As long as I keep both of them up to date, they rarely fail me. Also, I downloaded and tried out Camino. I thought it looked very clean and elegant. Its specs were pretty good. However, I did not think it was compelling enough to adopt permanently.
Firefox is another free web browser provided by Mozilla. Firefox is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux. It is open-source software, meaning not only is it free, anyone can mess with the browser's code, tweak it, upgrade it, and enhance it. There is a community surrounding this browser and they help to keep it updated. It works well with its companion email program, Thunderbird. It can show RSS headlines, but requires Thunderbird for email and the ability to read RSS articles in full. It has a phishing filter, which can help a user from inadvertently revealing sensitive information online. It is also "skinnable," meaning its appearance can be easily changed with third-party skins. It can import settings from Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, and Opera. It can also import bookmarks in the form of an HTML file.
Camino is a browser offered exclusively for the Mac. It is a free download and is open source. It does not offer native RSS support. However, it can detect feeds and will allow you to set up an external RSS feed reader. Like the other two browsers mentioned here, it supports tabbed browsing. It includes a built-in spell checker and it can save your last session for when you decide to reopen Camino. This will store all the windows and tabs you had open as well as data for the Forward and Back buttons. From a technical standpoint, there really is not much of a difference between Camino and Firefox, other than the organizations that maintain them.
In the wake of Internet Explorer 7, it looks like Mozilla will take a big bite out of Microsoft's browser market share with Firefox. It could go either way on the Mac with Safari and Firefox. IE is not a factor on the Mac anymore as Microsoft has long since stopped developing its web browser for the Mac platform. Microsoft Windows users will not have a hard time finding a free browser with IE7, Firefox, and a whole host of others. WIth more and more people, malware authors and hackers will have a more difficult time damaging people's systems. When a single browser, Internet Explorer, has 80% to 90% browser market share, it makes them a very large target for the jerks out on the internet. Also, Internet Explorer is directly linked to its operating system, Windows, and is used as the file browser on the computer's internal hard drive. The others listed are not so closely entwined with the systems that they are on.
Personally, I prefer Safari and Firefox. I use Safari primarily for reading my many RSS feeds and Firefox for tabbed browsing and broadcasting. As long as I keep both of them up to date, they rarely fail me. Also, I downloaded and tried out Camino. I thought it looked very clean and elegant. Its specs were pretty good. However, I did not think it was compelling enough to adopt permanently.
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