Microsoft
vs. United States of America (with 19 states and DC)
The nineteen
states included: Connecticut, California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico,
New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin
46 Findings
by U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson against Microsoft.
Well reasoned
and technically sound. It is much, much more than just the browser battle.
Findings state that Microsoft violated the Sherman Antitrust Act through predatory
practices designed to maintain its monopoly in the Intel-compatible PC operating
system called Windows.
The claim
that a monopoly exists is based on the fact that Microsoft has over 95% of
the operating system market. With Apple included, it has well over 80% of
the entire PC market. Because of the large cost of entry, this is deemed by
the court to be a monopoly.
Microsoft
sought to quench the introduction of middleware, which would enable rival
operating systems to enter the market. Read middleware to mean Sun's Java,
with its platform independence and its new set of Application Programming
Interfaces (APIs). The first dominant application based on the Java platform
was the Netscape Browser and its related applications. Netscape was attracting
the attention of software developers, seeking to hook into its APIs (or plugin
interfaces). MS was worried.
Encouraged
Internet Software Vendors (ISV) and Internet Content Providers (ICP) to exclusively
use IE in their application bundles.
Encouraged
(paid) ISV to develop software that used the Windows Java Virtual Machine
which was not compatible with the Sun Virtual Java Machine, in order to make
platform independence not work.
Where
do we go from here? (A Tech Talk opinion)
Let market
forces prevail. Java is gaining market share and Linux is gaining market share.
In the opinion of Tech Talk, Microsoft should NOT be dismantled. Even Microsoft
is seeking ways for it's dll's to communicate with Java applets.
However, Microsoft
should be fined for each operating system sold during the time that it engaged
in anti-competitive practices. The fine should be rebated to Microsoft customers.
Download
the complete text of the Judge Jackson's opinion from the Government Printing
Office.
The Conclusions of Law and Order (50 pages), issued April 3, 2000,
can be found here.
(A recommended read)
The
Findings of Fact (230 pages), issued November 5, 1999, and amended
December 21, 1999, can be found here.
The
goal of the e-government initiatives is to make government more accessible and
understandable to citizens and to increase the efficiency of baseline government
operations. It will accomplish these two goals by:
Cutting down
organizational barriers and providing unified e-services to citizens via the
Internet (social security, veterans benefits, tax information, etc.).
Consolidating
government databases and allow citizens to communicate with multiple agencies
through a single Internet interface. XML (Extensible Markup Language) will
facilitate the bonding of a variety of these databases by providing a common
document schema.
Setting up
an e-purchasing system for all contracts (large and small, competitive and
non-competitive). This will allow the small "guy" to compete for government
work that previously he didn't know about. It should also reduce the average
government contract cost.
What
are the barriers to implementation of e-government?
Accessibility
of internet to ALL citizens. Accessibility of the Internet may be included
in future ADA legislation.
Interagency
competition. Interagency competition can only be quenched with strong
Executive Leadership. This is also being provided by the Chief Information
Officers Council (www.cio.gov). Look
in particular at the CIO Council 2000 Plan which is available on this
site in pdf format.
Lack of qualified
IT professionals working for the government. These initiatives require
people who know networking, security, distributed databases, process improvement.
Hence, there are excellent opportunities for employment both in the private
sector (performing outsourced work) and within the government (performing
inhouse initiatives).
Methods
to insure the privacy of confidential data.
GIF (Graphic
Interchange Format), 8-bit color, lossless compression, developed by CompuServe
PNG (Portable
Network Graphic), 32-bit color, lossless, not widely used GIF replacement
Details
of JPEG (or JPG) Compression
Best used
for photographs with gradients
The compression
process loses some digital image data (i.e. it is a lossy process)
Selectable
image quality (low, medium, or high) typically produces from 20:1(low)
to 10:1 (high) compression ratios.
Most digicams
use JPG file storage with selectable compression
Two formats
(standard and progressive). The standard format loads with the final
resolution in the browser. The progressive begins loading a low resolution
look quickly. The resolution improves as more of the file is received
by the browsers.
Sharp edges
increase file size. Softening the image with image processing can reduce
file size, particularly at the highest compression ratios.
Details
of GIF (Graphic Interchange Format) Compression
Best used
on graphics with minimal gradients
Compression
is lossless and takes advantage of long stretches with the same value.
When using
GIF reduce the number of colors to make the file smaller. The maximum
number of colors is 8-bit (256 levels). Restrict the colors to the Netscape
color cube of 216 standard colors (See the April 1st show). This includes
colors that combine 00, 33, 66 99, CC, or FF (e.g. the color 0033FF).
Do not allow
dithering (the image size will increase, no long flat areas). Dithering
averages two colors to get an intermediate color. These color "sprinkles"
destroy the long stretches of the same color value and make the file size
much larger.
Two formats
(89a-Interlaced, 89a-NonInterlaced). The Interlaced format is like the
progressive JPG format in that a lower resolution view begin loading quickly,
as the picture is downloading from the net.
Supports Transparent
Colors (very useful for web apps)
Supports animation.
A frame sequence can be stored as a single gif file and the browser will replay
it (once, N times, or as a continuous loop). Most banners use animated
gifs. Two simple animated gifs are shown below The first is 6KB and the second
is 10KB.
Preparing
Graphics for the Web (A Quick Summary)
File size
is everything. Sites are defined by download times. It pays to experiment
to get the smallest image files.
Resample to
reduce size of image, just don't change the HTML display dimensions. (Number
one mistake of amateurs)
Use JPG for
photographs (continuous tone) and GIF for graphics with flat (or transparent)
backgrounds.
Always use
browser safe colors for GIF images and save without dithering.
My
Favorite Image Processing Programs
Adobe Photoshop
(www.adobe.com) The
professional industry standard. Excellent, but expensive.
JASC PaintShopPro
(www.jasc.com) The best
deal around for a powerful image processor.
Microsoft
Photo Editor (www.microsoft.com)
This is excellent and comes free with FrontPage.
JASC Animation
Show (www.jasc.com)
Comes with PaintShop Pro and used for Animated GIFs.
