Banking Hit By XP

Alias Bob

Users running Windows XP were unable to access their Internet bank accounts because the operating system does not include Microsoft's Java virtual machine

Read full story fron Znet news



[URL=http://]http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2107761,00.html[/URL]


Yours
Alias Bob
Don't forget my Guinness lads.
:cool:

Cake Fiend

And of course it's such a hard job downloading the VM and installing it...

Alias Bob

And of course it's such a hard job downloading the VM and installing it...

Most all software comes complete, but of course this is MS XP were talking about, so I gather from your comment, that this means we have to become a bunch of DIY Programmers now does it?

Yours
Alias Bob
Don't forget my Guinness lads

:cool:

Cake Fiend

Er... what are you talking about? They don't need to program anything. They need to download and install this to run java applications. Not exactly rocket science.

Difficult

for some users it is........

Alias Bob

Er... what are you talking about? They don't need to program anything. They need to download and install this to run java applications. Not exactly rocket science.

OK! So it's not rocket science, but what comes next, this for example:

Bare Bones.
Kit Form.

MicroSoft Office Professional 2004.

Description:

New MS Office bare bones gives the user a licence to upgrade via download all of the following components.

1 MS Office Professional 2004, Word Processor.
2 MS Office Professional 2004, Xcel.
3 MS Office Professional 2004, PowerPoint.
4 MS Office Professional 2004, Access.
5 MS Office Professional 2004, Outlook.

Each application will require also a separate licence renewable every six months.

NOTE: All data will Auto Erase within two months should licence fees remain unpaid.

Sell this idea to Bill, I'm sure he would love it, providing he has any takers of course.

This new system of marketing excellence, allows the customer to pay only, for those applications they require as and when needed.

Yours
Alias Bob
Don't forget my Guinness lads
:cool:

DiscoStu

the reason why the microsoft java virtual machine isint included on the win xp cd is because of a legal battle between sun microsystems and microsoft. sun accused m$ of infringing the java licencing agreement by including their own virtual machine as standard and not giving people the opportunity to use the official jvm. sun of course won and from now on all versions of windows will not include the micrsoft virtual machine on cd and will have to be downloaded seperatly.

Meh

Originally posted by DiscoStu
sun accused m$ of infringing the java licencing agreement by including their own virtual machine as standard and not giving people the opportunity to use the official jvm.

The legal dispute was actually over Microsoft's proprietary, Windows-specific extensions to their VM. Sun saw this as a breach of the Java license agreement, and the courts agreed. The dispute had nothing to do with the bundling of the jvm with Windows.

from now on all versions of windows will not include the micrsoft virtual machine on cd and will have to be downloaded seperatly.

Microsoft will no longer install a vm along with Windows. OEMs will be free to install it if they want though.

DiscoStu

i stand corrected

phobos

I have to agree with Alias Bob to a certain degree. What user wants to be concerned with the intricacies of why programs written in a certain language won't work. Deployment of Java oriented software is a problem in that context, when compared to that of other programming languages. People who use computers (meaning casual users), the kind of people you could ask "What OS are you running?", and they'll swear they are running "Compaq", would find this a big issue, and this is something that Java needs to consider as it matures. Most people that browse the boards.ie wouldn't fall under that category (of course ). So in all fairness, when you're not in the know, it's not always easy. You would like to know, but the problem is finding information, and even more important than that, what information to find.

What I suggest is perhaps a generic install shield, to be provided by Sun that will simply wrap the application's install method, by checking for the presence of a VM, if not, installs one (the latest version if a net connection is available, it's not that big TBH). Anyway, that way the user can still be shielded from the complexities of the language, still maintaining that all important word "portability" (The lifesaver of many software projects).

;-phobos-)

Jpaulik

Originally posted by phobos
People who use computers (meaning casual users), the kind of people you could ask "What OS are you running?", and they'll swear they are running "Compaq", would find this a big issue,

Should these people be banking online then ?

phobos

Should these people be banking online then ?

Probably not, but they are going to anyway. As a programmer we were told in the early days of college that the essence of writing good software, is to treat the end user like an idiot. Treating them like idiots, doesn't mean they are stupid or anything, it just means that as long as we can simplify the interface, without losing functionality or flexibility, we should do so.

A lot of people on these boards have been using computers for years (like myself), and have experience of a broad range of topics, and can interlink those topics, to form their grasp of technology. I know plenty of people, that come from a variety of backgrounds (doctors, teachers, etc), and they haven't a clue about computers, but can use them. Personally for someone to be able to use Windows for example, they shouldn't have to know the composite parts of an Operating System (Kernel, File System, User Interface, etc). That is up to the techies, not the end user.

Sico, I know when you say "How hard could it be to download, and install a VM...". I was like that, before I got in to software dev. It really opened my eyes, to how we can seperate users from techies. I know how frustrating it can be to watch someone who is making a balls of things, and all you want to do is jump in and put things right. But you shouldn't do that, because the person would never learn that way. Also we should be aware that not everyone wants to know as much about computers as us. Take myself for example, my life, my work, my hobbies, all roll in to one, and revolve around computers. It is pretty obvious that I would spend a lot of time learning about them, and would be required to understand how they tick. But not everybody has to.

Not everyone has an interest in computers, but they use them, because they might want to send a message to someone at the other side of the world within seconds. Who care's how the message gets there, someone else has to worry about that (and rightfully so). They might want to run a program, and all of a sudden "Class could not be loaded: java.lang.ClassDefNotFound Exception thrown". Why would they bother going any further. They say that the software is broken, but in fact all that's wrong is that they don't have a VM and the necessary runtime libraries installed to perform execution. Why should they have to care what a VM is?

Most of us on the boards would want to find out, because we have an interest. Not everyone does, that's my point!. People out there want it work, and they want to work now, and they don't care how it works, just as long as it fukkin works

;-phobos-)

mayhem#

Originally posted by Jpaulik


Should these people be banking online then ?

The amount of stupid people being allowed access to a PC is frightening....