[Long] [OT] That Big Shadow Over Your Shoulder, Part 1, was Re: [Coco] OS Vulnerabilities

[David Hazelton]

Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
> Woke up this mornin', 'bout the break of daaayy....
> 
> ...and had to finish some thoughts. This is getting too long (my fault!),
> so I'll just put these down & be done with it & leave it back to CoCo
> topics...
> 

> Still, it does once again bring up that interesting dichotomy -- that there
> are at least two kinds of standard: what a standards body asserts and what
> is actually a de facto standard.
> 
> MSWord is a de facto standard, but it's not a standards-body standard. And
> here is that hateful truth that none of us are really comfortable with:
> It's the former that actually matters. (But, recognizing their need for
> legitimacy, Microsoft has spent considerably more time in the past few
> years both participating in and lobbying standards bodies; case in point
> for another discussion: SOAP.)


I would agree that MSword format is the businessworld standard, but over 
the past few years more and more businesses have moved towards 
third-party Word processors to write MSword format.  A company would 
rather pay $30 to $100 for an Office suite than $400.

> Mac led the world out of the command-line interface to the graphical
> interface. No, they didn't invent it, but that didn't matter. And Microsoft
> actually gave the world that graphical interface. Yes, they stole it from
> Apple, but that didn't matter. (One Mac user even said, in a fit of
> sourness, that "we all use Apples now". Alas, you *can* rewrite history --
> at least the history of perception in the tradist's theocracy.)

Yes, but now the Mac is running Unix, so when will Microsoft grow up.  :)

> 
> The world is full of spurned technologies and rewritten history. Who would
> have guessed that it wasn't information or computer technology, the stuff
> we did on the CoCo, but good ol' *shopping* that put a computer in every
> American home, and living-room-style entertainment that has kept it there?
> 
> But back to your specific comment: As a writer, I would never dream of
> handing a WordPerfect DOS document to a business round-robin discussion or
> shared edit or editor or publisher. I wouldn't do it because it's not used
> and, more important to me, because I'd lose the account since I wouldn't be
> perceived as up to speed with business technology. Even with everyday users
> -- who were not there during the computer rev-o-lu-tion of the 1970s/80s --
> a WordPerfect DOS document would be utterly useless, and an embarrassment
> to them because I'd be shoving the appearance of geekdom in their faces.

Dealing with many clients in a computer hardware environment, We had 
documents from many different Software packages, even though we demanded 
that the docs be in MSword format.  Most modern packages can do this and 
we saw many. We preferred spreadsheets in CVS format, but would take 
excel.  We also preferred all E-mail in text not HTML.  Most of our 
clients were fine, some wanted to use PDF, which was useless for our 
business.

> As for Alex's comment about PDF/PS. Yes, PDF documents are useful for final
> product presentation, and PS is (decreasingly) used in the print shop,
> which has gone to PDF as Macs fade and Windows PCs rise there. But MSWord
> is the standard editor from which the PDF documents are created and the
> tool business uses as it works. (And even so, PDF is another 'standard'
> that changes with every iteration from Adobe -- it's a corporate-created
> format just like MSWord, but people tend not to hate Adobe as much as they
> do Microsoft.)

The Printshop that my wife used preferred PS, but would take 
PDF...Actually would charge more for PDF documentation.

> 

> Let's talk about email. That's simple, right? Not. My email client is an
> old version of Eudora (3.0.6, from 1997), with all formatting turned off.
> Since the tech crash of 2001, I don't do much business writing anymore, but
> if I did, I would *have to get* a richtext/HTML client. I *like* plaintext
> (albeit not monospaced). But the business world now expects to
> *collaborate* via email, meaning editing of content using color, images,
> etc. Even today, when I get some piece of richtext/HTML mail that requires
> my attention, I open it in my browser to see what's been done during
> editing. But I can't reply in kind. If or when it comes time (meaning, if
> or when my collaborative participation via email becomes necessary for me
> again), I'll have to move to it and away from plaintext.
> 
> We all repeat the joke about the good thing about standards is that there
> are so many of them. And there are so many of them because competition
> encourages it! So why do we lament when standards are so readily tossed
> aside when something better comes along? Amazing, the capitalist forces at
> work! :)
> 
> Wal-Mart's putting it to the test with preconfigured Linux boxes. We'll see
> what standard is next. I'm up for it!

Yes, first with Mandrake then with Lindows,  I don't see Walmart making 
that much of a difference until they decide which way they are going.

> 
> Dennis
>