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  From: Andrew Reid <andrew.reid@plug.cx>
  To  : Andrew McDonnell <andymc73@yahoo.com.au>
  Date: 31 Jul 2001 09:58:29 +0930

Re: linuxsa-digest Digest V2001 #559

On 30 Jul 2001 17:54:36 +1000, Andrew McDonnell wrote:

> well you can browse the web with it so what else would
> you call it? Words like abomination, etc are
> adjectives of the system, not a noun ;-)

Internet Explorer, n. A large, intrusive, system-degrading,
sanity-removing, competition-scrubbing, Microsoft-coded piece of shit
from the depths of hell destined to make the lives of Windows users as
unpleasant as possibly imaginable.

> I guess the words he may have been looking for is
> "works with all web sites". This is an unfortunate
> state of affairs, but true, and will remain so while
> web designers continue to put their "creativity" and
> the so-called "user-experience" ahead of useability,
> speed & accessibility.

Internet Explorer is a bit of a cretin, really. It says "Yeah, we'll
render everything Netscape does, but we'll make sure Netscape can't
render half of our 'special enhancements' as they don't conform to any
standards recognised by the appropriate authorities. There's nothing you
can do about it 'coz we're Microsoft".

I don't buy that rot, and as such, use Internet Explorer only when I'm
being paid to do so. Even then I make a conscious effort to steer clear
of such a demoralizing piece of software.

> I like Konq but I just cant go everywhere with it! I
> hate flash, so I tend to ignore sites that use too
> much of it anyway, but I do need to use the
> netbanking.

I've had fairly reasonable success with Flash in Konquerer, but I
suppose your milleage may vary. 

> From Linux: my Credit Union web banking only works
> with IE on Win4Lin, in Netscape & Opera & Konq it just
> bombs out. Planet mirror has an annoying tendency to
> actually "freeze" all Konq windows, if you have jumped
> in via a bookmark instead of drilling down via
> clicking. I have other examples I cant remember off
> the top of my head. I havent tried it but I reckon if
> I tried to view my Telstra call preview it wouldnt
> work through Konq either as I suspect they use some IE
> specific digital certificatery.

I suppose part of the problem is that the so-called "Web developers" out
there working for design firms don't know their arse from the elbow when
it comes to making decent, platform-independant software. It doesn't
solve the problem, however.

Konquerer has some Java support, and while I've not used it extensively,
I can say for sure that someone thinks its good enough to put on the
Konquerer website (http://www.konquerer.org/).

> The fonts tend to render bloody horribly; netscape.com
> is one of the worst, and you would expect its own
> browser to at least render the web site properly. This
> is partly my fault because there are only 24 hours in
> a day and I havent had a chance to get the ttf font
> server to work properly, but still, as an end user why
> should I have to muck around so much just to get web
> sites to render properly?

Assuming you're talking about Netscape now (you're talking about
Konquerer only a few lines ago, you see), I'd have to say that the
comments you've made are rather misleading. http://www.netscape.com
renders perfectly in Netscape for me, and I've not installed any fonts
or made any other changes to make it do so.

As to your comments on getting the '...ttf font server to work
properly', I'd have to say that's a bit misleading too. Installing TT
Fonts is really not that difficult. Assuming you're running a recent
version of xfs (X Font Server, not the filesystem), it's simply a matter
of copying some files and running two commands. There's a section in the
FONT-HOWTO which covers (quite comprehensively) the methods required to
install type fonts.

   - andrew

--
void signature () {
	cout << "Andrew Reid -- andrew.reid@plug.cx" << endl ;
	cout << "Cell: +61 401 946 813" << endl;
	cout << "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur" << endl;
}

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