Don't Mess With Texas

On a sunny day (Fri, 03 Apr 2009 07:00:41 -0700) it happened John Larkin wrote in :

mmm. I wanted to order some self-designed postage stamps online. First opera in Linux, crashed on the link. Tried Firefox in Linux, crashed on the link. Then an other Firefox on the eeePC in Linux, crashed on the link. Then booted Xp, with Firefox in Xp it worked... Now I dunno, but could it be 'Linux' is rejected? Try this site:

There all sorts of politics played out on the web.. and of course not only on the web.

It is a bit like: We want open source and Linux (gov POV), and then you get his. (tntpost is strongly connected to the gov). Just like 'we want better public transport', the result: No public transport at all here much of the time.

So what do I make of that 'rider' they talk about.... Probably MS will bribe some of them, that could be the whole game.

Weird that they left schools out of the equation... at least for the machines the kids are using, what do you really need Vista for?

Of course, I'm just bitter that so many schools "standardize" on MS Office rather than OpenOffice.

---Joel

On my Linux system (Debian "stable") with Firefox 3.0.6 (the "Iceweasel" branded version), the link does come up OK. Although I have a useragent-switching utility installed in the browser (so I can set the browser to report that it's Internet Exploiter to sites which absolutely refuse to try to play nice with other browsers) it's currently set to "default", so it should be reporting that it's Firefox/Mozilla running on Linux.

As far as I can tell, this site isn't rejecting Linux-based browsers, or sending anything which is known not to work right on Linux (i.e. I don't think it's dependent on ActiveX or on Microsoft-proprietary extensions to HTML).

However, the stamp-design process is implemented in Flash, not directly with HTML (a common Web-design technique these days, alas). Possibly your Linux browser setups do not have a proper Flash player installed?

Works fine for me ! Says something about 9euro and logging in ! My German is rubbish. Crap web site though, very messy !

On a sunny day (Fri, 3 Apr 2009 10:47:52 -0700) it happened snipped-for-privacy@radagast.org (Dave Platt) wrote in :

Well, good to hear it works over there. Flash works fine here, on youtube too, but may be an older versions, but no 'need to upgrade messages' appeared. Could be flash, as Opera also crashed.

But it would make sense if they actually tested the sites on some other browsers too. Usually a lot of young script kiddies make those sites, always wanting the very latest. I must say that I am utterly fed up with that intolerance, and rather spend my time doing something interesting, rather then just 'upgrading' every 2 days, if not for this sort of stuff, then for security related stuff, an other browser update appears every few days really, same for flash, and same for adobe reader, and same for anti-virus programs, and I forgot the MS auto updates... Something absolutely needs to change with computing, if cars were as reliable as this you would go ride a horse.

On a sunny day (Fri, 03 Apr 2009 19:20:57 +0100) it happened Baron wrote in :

Snif.. my eeePC is only 1 year old, should work really. Opera is only a few month (2?) old, should work too, could be flash, see my reply to Baron. :-)

Sorry I didn't say: Open SuSe 10.2 KDE 3.5 Opera 9.63

See ! I said my German was crap... :p

I wonder how long they will let that go on.

I remember a client a few years ago who had a weird M$ server issue. Users would login and then if they just switched of the machine (The days before ATX Psu's) the server would just freeze and then other machines on the network would start to go down as well. Thing that was really odd was that the server wouldn't restart if there were any machines still active. As far as I am aware they never found a solution. The client did move to a Unix server but by that time I'd moved on.

Too many M$ fingers in too many pies ! M$ got at the education system in the UK as well. Must admit, clever strategy, kidding John Major on that he was swinging a good deal to get software cheap for the schools !

Same here on an old SuSE system with Opera 7.11.

And your German _is_ crap, because its Dutch (.nl). ;-)

But then some of the attempts to make Linux and OSS a second class system have backfired miserably. Not long ago, I tried to submit some information to the City of Bellevue engineering department's web site. It doesn't work with Opera or Mozilla. But the symptom is that the entire IIS/SQL Server site goes down. When I try to go back to the home page, its no longer there and that condition lasts for an hour or so (until their IT guy reboots the server, I guess).

Gotta get those new customers hooked on thre hard stuff early.

On a sunny day (Fri, 03 Apr 2009 20:29:32 +0100) it happened Baron wrote in :

Yes, sure: Opera Version

Opera/9.60 (X11; Linux i686; U; en) Presto/2.1.1

LOL

Put XP PRo SP3 on it and it might...

On a sunny day (Fri, 03 Apr 2009 23:44:18 -0500) it happened JP wrote in :

Works fine here with Xp home SP3. But did I not just move to 8GB SDcards? Well, SP3 screwed that one up:

So, you need several OSses (works fine in Linux with my 8GB SDcards) and several browsers and several PCs to do the most simple and essential things these days, like ordering something online, or reading in a card from your camera, or watching video (!!!), or editing video...

Hopefully after some time, most likely shortly after (or during) WW3, these things will get fixed, as most cars these days actually do get you from point A to point B, and you do not need a separate one for uphill and downhill, and the driveway and the main road, and one of parking too. :-)

Adobe flash 10 for linux is pretty crap.

TNT is a multinational courier/freight company apparently based in the Netherlands. 0.44? is for national letter postage? seems kind of high.

We (in NZ) had 'Toll NZ' running our rail network (into the ground) for

On a sunny day (4 Apr 2009 10:45:47 GMT) it happened Jasen Betts wrote in :

Yes, 44 Euro cents, well, I cannot bring the letters for that. TNTpost is actually 'Koninklijke TNT Post', where 'Koninklijke' stands for 'Royal', and as such is in the control of the state of the Netherlands

My personal view is that big things like utilities and transport should be under direct public control. I mean the things that need some guarantee that they are always there. What if the power company cuts you off because 'there are not enough users in your area'. They do that with busses and trains here.

Of course that really stimulates the car industry, sells more cars, something we really need in these times..

Things are getting pretty mad lately... Now they want to forbid older cars in some city centres (because of pollution they say, but of course it is part of the 'sell more cars' initiative).

To control that, you likely need remote sensors and what not, more sales... This is why humanity needs wars, to melt all the crap so it can start sane again. The revolt will be strong, all devastating, and a new era will emerge, or humanity will go Dinosaur's way.

Don't know, don't care. That was back when I was getting a start in my own engineering biz and I was trying to get onto their approved bidder list. Working on public contracts is a good way for a beginner to get a start, but once one has made a name for themselves, putting up with the bureaucratic b.s. (including use my favorite browser or else) doesn't pay.

You have to understand their position. They're just down the road from Microsoft's HQ, who are noted for throwing a hissy-fit if people don't use their technology. Which is all the funnier because, when Bill Gates built his mansion, the volume of permits and drawing submittals was swamping Medina's city hall. So they invested in a turn-key document management system. Which was based on a Linux system. I had heard that the vendor had asked them to set it up with the screen (and the Tux logo) facing the public entry.

Which is an insane decision IMO. OO is free, and assuming that *principles* are being taught OO is perfect for the job. Unless the game is to teach kids to use MS like trained monkeys.

ge

ines

Oh, the poor students... ;-)

Yep, OpenOffice should be fine. Of course you assume a competent, efficiently run school system... always remember to list your assumptions... ;-)

Michael