[cobalt-users] Re: user default page shows username@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[Charlie Summers <charlie@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 5:51 PM -0500 11/21/01, baltimoremd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx is rumored to have
typed:

> You may have also noticed that Cobaolt insists that any front page site
> use index.html, while the default MS value is index.htm

   Much as I love to beat up on Sun/Cobalt, in this case, Microsoft is the
culprit and Cobalt is COMPLETELY correct. ".html" has always been _the_
standard on the Internet (stands for "HyperText Markup Language") used by
both Un*x machines and Macintosh-generated web pages, until people started
using MS applications to create pages once Bill Gates discovered the Net
wasn't just a fad. Since Win3.1 was still in wide use, and even Win32 uses
_only_ three-character extensions to link documents to applications, MS
defined the ".htm" and continues it to this day - those kids in Redmond never
could admit to making a mistake. ("HyperText Markup" makes no sense as an
abbreviation.)

   To this day, _only_ applications that generate pages in Windows make this
mistake; pretty much everyone who uses a legitimate operating system follows
the original convention started, I assume, by Tim Berners-Lee. Like
everything else, Microsoft changes things to suit itself, and then pretends
it's the "standard" when it isn't.

   And speaking of Tim Berners-Lee, as a completely off-topic sidenote, see:

http://town.hall.org/radio/Geek/102793_geek_ITR.html

   ...for an interview broadcast on Internet Talk Radio with Berners-Lee back
in 1993 (lawd, I remember downloading the .au file on a 14.4 modem way back
then through EMAIL, of all things!) as part of the weekly "Geek of the Week"
program. It was interesting to hear back then, but it's _facinating_ to
listen to now...

         Charlie (who misses ITR, the world's first Net-Only radio station)