| Wednesday,
January 19, 2000 Every now and
then I get this kind of complaint. I have not the foggiest notion of what
to do about it. I am not a web designer. If I have real problems I can
find people who are.
Hi,
Just followed a link to your piece on among other
things, the Netwinder: http://www.byte.com/column/BYT19991201S0003 And
annoyingly, the HTML reads (significantly):
<body background="(..snip..)" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
link="#0022BB"
alink="#EE0000" vlink="#555555">
Notice that there is no text="#000000" (or
similar dark color) attribute. Since I like reading text silver-on-black
(OK so I have overdosed on consolemode ;-) I get silver-on-white when
trying to read your article. I can't even begin to recall how many
articles (some of them in Byte, I believe) that state IF SETTING COLOR
ATTRIBUTES SET THEM ALL... well I guess you get the picture....
It's a pity that the first feedback I write to you
is of this sort, because I really like your articles ... and anyway I
suppose it should go to whomever is in charge of the website, BUT since
there's wasn't a friendly webmaster@byte.com
link at the bottom of the page, or some other obivous place (I just now
spotted a TINY "feedback" squezed in between "Byte
Editorial Staff" and "Sales Staff") I send it to you. And
hope that you will be suficiently embarassed, and that you'll make sure
whomever SHOULD be embarassed also is. So that I may more easily read your
generally excellent articles.
Does that mean this constitutes fan-mail ? (Oh who
cares ...)
To sum up my ranting (a small reward for whomever is
patient enough to read THIS FAR), reading silver text on white background
is difficult, and when I know (or leastways have good reason to expect)
that the text is a good text, it's all the more annoying. And that it
appears on Byte.com is all the more pathetic and annoying.
Phew.
And a happy new year! ;)
--Eirik Schwenke<eirik@as-if.com>
Why a k-k-insect ? Why k-k-not ? (not that *I*
saw it of course, but we spent a lot of time looking, didn't we ?)
I don't feel embarassed or even embarrassed. If I
thought black on silver looked better I would probably set it as the
default, but I don't, and alas I don't feel particularly bad about not
adjusting things so it looks good no matter what colors people use. I
imagine the BYTE.COM designers have much the same view. Thanks for the
kind words, but I guess I have no remedy for you unless a reader can
suggest one. It's not clear to me whether you are unhappy about my site,
which I control, or the BYTE site over which I have no control at all and
don't want any.
I THEN GOT THIS:
Subject: NOW, I am dissappointed (Or: colors and Chaos Manor)
Well, now I read the byte.com article, and it was
very informative ... and now I dropped by jerrypournell.com ...
You've set a bright background, and NO other colors
in your <BODY>-tag. I suppose this can be excused since you're using
frontpage (Now that you've got a defintly working linux-box, how about
reviewing php3, and learning some REAL html ;-) -- not that I have tried
php3, and I suppose you do know html (or, *gasp* sgml), but anyways.
Same trouble, difficult to read silver-text on a
bright background, so I have to Select the text in Netscape, in order to
inverse it, so it's readable ... (If only I could aford opera<www.opera.no>
i could just click a button to override your poor html, but alas ...)
I still like your writing, though!
--Eirik Schwenke
I am tempted to -- no, I won't say. But I have a
life, and I will not spend it trying to make things work better for people
who can't use the defaults. Good enough is good enough. I don't know what
it means, set no other colors in my body tag, as if I were some kind of
criminal, and I really don't much care. I fear I am letting my emotions
get away from me, so I had better stop writing now. Look: I do what I can.
One day I may redesign this place. Until then, I'll fix real bugs, but I
am not going to spend a lot of time making it look like every other web
site.
Hi Jerry!
I just thought I would drop you a line and
(hopefully) help you understand the problem Eirik Schwenke is reporting.
I'll just deal with his problem with www.jerrypournelle.com as I don't
believe you have any control over the HTML at www.byte.com.
The BODY tag in currentmail.html is as follows:
<body bgcolor="#ffffcc"
background="../images/image1.jpg">
This means that, unless overwritten elsewhere, all
text and links on the page will be in the user's default colours. The
background colour will be a greenish-yellow colour (at least it is on my
system). Finally, if the browser is allowed to display images, the
background image will be image1.jpg.
The reported problem occurs when a user has
configured their browser to use non-default colours. This is not as
uncommon as you may assume. I, for example, use IE4's accessibility
feature to overwrite all colours on a web page, displaying the text as
black on white (which is what I find easiest to read).
Now to the problem. Say I had configured my browser
to display all text in the colour "#ffffcc" if no colour is
specified on the web page. Upon browsing your page (if images are turned
off), I will not see any text as it will be the same colour as the
background.
This is why it is recommended that when one colour
is set in the BODY tag, all should be set. That way, your specified text
colour is used instead of my browser's and the page is readable.
Otherwise, your colours may conflict with the default colours I have
chosen.
For a little more detailed information:
http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/wilbur/body/body.html
Unfortunately, I don't know how to change the
colours in Frontpage, but I'm sure one of your other readers knows that.
Jason Berkan
If there's an easy way to fix things I will do
it, but I fear I have not the time to learn a lot and still keep up; good
enough has to be good enough. Thanks for the explanation.
Jerry,
I was reading your other reader's responses to my
diatribe against MS and Windows. I wanted to ask you for the opportunity
to reply to some of Mr. Langill's comments, published in your mail page in
Tuesday's mail.
> Mr. Bazdresch takes Microsoft to task for not "...offering an
OS with decent > multitasking until Windows95". I wonder where he
was when NT 3.51 came > out?
I was reading ads and reviews saying it wasn't
appropriate for the desktop in my home, saying it was not very easy to use
and appropriate for an industrial setting. I should have make clear I was
talking about my personal experience with Windows, which is my home
desktop, and what I hear from friends and relatives who also use it.
> And why is MS the only one who takes this hit? What about Apple?
What > about all the 8-bit OS's that appeared throughout the 80's, like
the Atari > 800 or Commodore 64--why aren't they just as guilty?
They are, indeed, and I have suffered many of those.
Currently, however, I only have to suffer Windows. (And yes, I *have* to
suffer it.)
> What's worse, if MS had actually built multitasking in earlier,
Mr. Bazdresh > would probably be on the same bandwagon, only this time
lumping on MS for > "stealing" technologies they didn't
invent. Bah!
Please don't put words in my mouth. If I'd had good
multitasking earlier, I would have been happier. Believe me, complaining
about MS and Windows is not a hobby of mine.
> Mr. Bazdresh presumes (too greatly, methinks) to speak for
"the market" > when he declares that the browser is not part
of the OS
I don't know how can you infer I am speaking for
"the market". I am explaining what I understand an OS to be, and
that has nothing to do with no "market".
> After-market be damned, I want speed AND broad-based usability.
That's not > UNIX, that's not LINUX, that's not MAC. It's WINTEL.
I am sincerely happy Wintel works so good for you.
It doesn't for me, and for many others I know.
I have been interpreted as being a pinhead Unix
bigot. I might be a "pinhead bigot", but the "Unix"
label shows I have been misinterpreted. I am sorry for not having
explained myself very clearly. I will try to do it one more time:
I am not suggesting we all do Unix. I know it's not
a good idea. All I'm saying is, if there is one system that has proven
that good multitasking and good stability are possible on current hardware
(that system being, in my mind, Unix, but there are other examples), then
MS (together with Apple etc.) has no excuse for not offering those same
qualities in Windows.
Anyway, if what I read is correct, this discussion
will become superfluous once we are all using W2000...
Thanks for publishing this, Jerry, in case you think
it's appropriate.
-- Miguel Bazdresch
In fact I believe the pinheaded bigot was someone
you quoted, and that has been shown to be a misnomer.
It is surely possible to have more than one view
of what an operating system is. I recall back in the 80's the UNIX and
other such gurus were explaining to us micro users that we didn't have a
REAL operating system because it didn't egrep and bulim and xcide and have
a bunch of other features that REAL operating systems have, and those all
had to be done by applications programs but in a REAL operating system
they would be built in. So Microsoft began to add features to its Windows
system (attempts to make UNIX run well on PC's were pretty much a flop; we
had an AT&;T machine here that ran UNIX with a DOS addon for a while,
but it never caught on). After Microsoft added features they were accused
to adding features.
I weary of this. If you can't make WINTEL work
for you, it may be hardware, or it may be your definition of
"work". Yes, there are many things I wish were different, but I
get a LOT of work done with Wintel systems. Including this.
Dr. Pournelle:
In 1980 I had the priviledge of working on
multi-tasking operating system that ran on a Z80 processor chip. The
motherboard had 256 meg of memory and used bank switching to seperate the
users from each other. Each user had about 64K of memory. Naturally, it
was a character based system. It ran quite well and rarely did we have any
problems with the system requiring reboots. It had a hard disk (large
platters, not much storage) and used 8" floppies. It was called MVT/FAMOUS
(if memory serves me correct).
The point of this is that multi-tasking has been
available for a long time. Why Microsoft has taken so long to get to where
they are is a mystery. The technology could have been made available on
the x86 processors (it worked on the Z80). Microsoft and Intel have just
chosen not to properly implement the process. The key is not in the
processor but in the logic on the motherboard that will allow segmented
memory that is untouchable by other tasks in different memory space. When
the OS switches memory banks, only the memory used by the task is seen by
the task. When the OS has control it should see all of memory.
Granted this requires more logic on the motherboard
and some more smarts in the OS. A slight increase in cost. This is not
rocket science and the technology is well known. Why the WINTEL monopoly
ignores this is beyond me. Have consumers been harmed by this. Probably
not much. Have businesses been harmed by this. Probably a lot.
Ray Thompson Q Systems.
I recall all that stuff and it worked just awful,
slow, slow, slow. I never could make myself stay with any of those long. I
did use DesqVIEW for a long time, a task switcher. How a Z-80 was got to
address 256 meg of memory is interesting; I don't recall that it did, and
in those days 256 megs of memory would have been physically large and VERY
expensive.
As to your slight increase in cost, my guess is
that if it were that easy it would have been done. Often.
Like you, I grow weary of this. But if you're
interested in continuing this debate...
"Currently, however, I only have to suffer Windows. (And yes, I
*have* to suffer it.)"
This is the one I really don't get, and I think is
endemic to the computing public and truly unfair. Who is making Mr.
Bazdresch "...*have* to suffer..." WINTEL?
If out-of-box productivity is most important, get an
Apple--but don't expect commodity prices on your hardware. If extreme
granularity of control is most important, get an Intel box and put LINUX
on it--but don't expect to be productive anytime soon! If snortin' power
is most important, get a SUN--and prepare to pay the priesthood!
Every platform has its pros and cons. Multi-tasking
has not, until recently, been a broad-based need. OS/2 did effective
multi-tasking on WINTEL boxes long before MS got 'round to it--if
multi-tasking were truly a deep, competitive market demand, OS/2 would
have survived. It didn't.
It amazes me that people can only manage to be wary
and suspicious of Microsoft's presence, nay, dominance of the computing
industry. Why isn't it remarkable that Windows runs on so many different
kinds of computers? Why aren't Gates and Grove heroes for growing a
viable, pervasive computing environment? How much more hellish would our
lives be if the computing industry was segmented across a dozen or so
Apples, each pushing its own set of standards and approaches? If you think
it's tough trying to support ONE desktop, imagine supporting 15 or more
*competing* platforms! BAH!
...cheers...KCL...
Keith C. Langill, Principal Engineer Stellcom, an
Employee-Owned Company 10525 Vista Sorrento Parkway, Ste 100 San Diego,CA
92121 Direct: (858) 812-3217 Fax: (858) 657-0773 klangill@stellcom.com
www.stellcom.com
You put it more strongly than I would, but your
points about the pros and cons of alternative systems are very close to my
views. Commodity prices and more or less good enough is wintel; if you
want more, prepare to spend COMPUTER prices, which is what EVERYONE had to
pay before the Wintel revolution in pricing.
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