The year is almost over, now it’s time to tally up the best and most ground-breaking software innovations of 2004. Here is a Top 10 list to that effect.
The year is almost over, now it’s time to tally up the best and most ground-breaking software innovations of 2004. Here is a Top 10 list to that effect.
When did the 1st become a Firefox innovation? It’s just another Opera feature rip.
The rest are not too interesting either. I’d put my vote on Solaris 10 instead.
No……ithink firefox had it first ….and Opera still doesnt have find as u type…..(not /’word to find’)
That would be the same google desktop whereby I agree that they install some sort of tracking (eg. “spyware”) on my computer, right?
I’ll use that product when it’s a frigid one in hell.
Besides, I remember being able to search for documents by typing a few words I knew were in them way back in W98, so I still don’t get what makes this so special.
Either the writer is Windows guy or open source people are not innovating…
and firefox and OpenOffice is. …………………RTFA
and yes the site vbrad….so its obviously MS centric
Did these guys get Slashdotted or something?
No……ithink firefox had it first ….and Opera still doesnt have find as u type…..(not /’word to find’)
No ….. type the fullstop character “.” (no need to use the mouse) in Opera to search as you type, had it before firefox
A pretty lame list… Doom 3, iTunes Music store… XFce? We could have seen a more varied top 10
“and firefox and OpenOffice is. …………………RTFA”
Yes, they are innovative as far as their respective products go.
Firefox:
1) Tab browsing
2) Pipelining
3) Find as you type and comprehensive keyboard short cuts. You can actually use the keyboard to surf the web if you choose too. IE: type the name of the link, the cursor ends up there, hit enter or ctrl enter and have that either open up in the existing window or a new tab.
4) The increase in size of fonts at your leisure. Any browser (including upgrades) that is below XP, your limited on the size of your fonts. The Gecko engine allows you to change the size of your font up/beyond 300 percent. No extra tools.
5) pop up blocking built right in.
6) Extensible, its more than just plug-ins.
IE:
a) (Ad Blocking with a 10k file, IE: servers like, fastclick or how about a key word like advertisment),
b) Various dictionary lookups w/another 10-20k extension (30 dictionaries good enough). Just highligt a word and right click and select look up.
7) Its not intergrated into an OS.
There are hundreds of extensions for FireFox that enable the user to customzie its usibility to your hearts content.
These are just a few innovations that exist for FireFox / Mozilla. I could go on and on, however, I think I have made my point. Is it really necessary that I go into OO.o and explain some of the innovations that exist in this Open Source app?
True, Opera had this long before Firefox did, like most of the features Firefox ripped from Opera.
Anybody knows if this is possible with X11?
free pdf creation http://www.cutepdf.com
Opera never did it as well as firefox. Firefox does some things not before done with this, like searching links then plain text, using colors to indicate if it was found…etc. And Mozilla had it first I think.
It’s a handy feature for not using a mouse to browse the web.
None of these are what I would call innovative. Nice features? Yes. But innovative? Not at all.
Oh, and for anyone who wants an open source alternative to Google Desktop that does not have any spyware in it, I suggest x-friend: http://www.x-friend.de/en/
It is written in Java so it does require you have a JRE installed. But it is open source and has no spyware.
While not browser-centric like Opera or FireFox, search while you type is hardly a new innovation. I remember several applications that had this feature back in the early 90’s, and I was using it in my apps from about 1994 on.
Another one is PDF printing. Linux and Unix have had it for a while, using filters like ps2pdf.
Oh, and for anyone who wants an open source alternative to Google Desktop that does not have any spyware in it, I suggest x-friend: http://www.x-friend.de/en/
It is written in Java so it does require you have a JRE installed. But it is open source and has no spyware.
Oh, and of course, because it is written in Java, it also works on Linux and MacOS rather than being only for Windows like Google Desktop is.
Great, thanks for the link
that there are vb guys, who slept since ever?! it’s not even an innovation, to declare long existing stuff as innovation. microsoft is doing this all the time.
‘Find as you type’ is hardly innovative to either Opera or Firefox (and actually, Mozilla core had it before Firefox was started). Afterall, the same feature is present in text editors like emacs and vim – all Opera / Mozilla have done is apply the idea to a web browser.
That said, the Firefox implementation is pretty nice, with the search panel at the bottom of the page instead of either a popup dialog or no feedback at all.
Looking at that list, I think the author has accepted the Microsoft definition of “innovation”.
The list reads more like a “My useful software list for 2004”.
Open Office’s Export to pdf feature is useful, but as the author alludes, the full version of Adobe Acrobat could do that – so where’s the innovation?
In his comments about Microsoft Office: “It was possible to do this type of search before, but now it is really easy.” – so again, where’s the innovation? Making something easier is a laudable achievement, but does not count as “innovation”.
I’ve not used CodeRush, but the example he gives looks a lot like a more advanced implementation of aliasing. I’m sure it is ace, and a real timesaver, but is it really a 2004 innovation?
For Firefox: “This feature was available in late 2003 (when Firefox was known as Firebird) as well, but it has now nicely matured and just feels natural.” So, even discounting the dubious fact that Firefox was first with this feature, by 2004 it wasn’t an “innovation”.
As this author’s misunderstanding of “innovation” demonstrates, the word has become almost meaningless. I’m not convinced people want innovation more than convenience, stability, or certain features.
Wow – has anybody tried that yet? What is different to beagle?
It looks like it supports far more file types than beagle.
10. Has this guy ever heard of X, VNC?
8. I remember setting up a free “print to PDF” filter well over five years ago.
3. Most OSes have provided basic search functionality (by name or content) for a decade now. You have been able to buy better search software from third parties for just as long, and probably longer.
1. Find as you type is an innovation? Raskin was talking about it in his book four years ago, citing an implementation of it too. Anyone hear of this “obscure” program called emacs.
I figured that nobody would have.
So, of the four cases where I knew exactly what he was talking about, I found examples spanning back at least half a decade. One example may have existed over 15 years ago. Maybe he should have done a bit of research. It isn’t as though much of this stuff is obscure after all.
As for the other six, I’ll let someone who knows exactly what he is talking about there comment on it.
He should have called the article: the top 10 features I found out about this year.
it is even possible between multiple operating systems, try it with http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/ . It is not possible to drag and drop windows between the two desktops, but copy/paste of text should work.
Seems like nothing on the x-Friend website talks about open-source. I’ve found no source, no license…
Plz, correct me if I’m wrong !
Yer
If a slightly improved find feature is really the greatest software innovation this year, then the software industry is in a pretty sorry state!
>it is even possible between multiple operating systems, try >it with http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/ . It is not possible >to drag and drop windows between the two desktops, but >copy/paste of text should work.
This is not like you have 2 monitors, does it?
With synergy they are still 2 systems (but with one mouse and keyboard) where each system runs its own processes.
What I am looking for is the possibility two have two monitors (like dual-head) over the network. (So that your laptop functions as a second monitor to your main system).
Why MS Office doesn’t have this? I have no idea, seems like a no-brainer to me.
Here’s a wild, mad idea: Microsoft don’t want to promote a rival document format?
I couldn’t find anything on their Web site that specifically says it is open source. But other articles I have read on it have all stated that it uses the Apache Lucine license, so it is definately open source if that is the case.
> Here’s a wild, mad idea: Microsoft don’t want to promote a rival document format?
PDF isn’t a document format, it’s an output format.
The difference is that you can’t load a PDF in a Word processor, start editing it, and then save it again.
But you’re right that Microsoft doesn’t want to promote PDF because people wouldn’t need Word to read the documents (you’d be surprised how many people never have heard about MS Word reader).
Umm, Mac OS?
Since forever you can print to PDF from any application! The entire windowing system is PDF!
This guy is dumb.
Sorry.
Really. Emacs has had “incremental search” since forever.
I’d have to agree with others here. This article should have been called, “The 10 most useful techie things I discovered this year while liesurely doing my job.” Innovations are much larger scale than this, and really don’t get out into the public for years. So what are some examples of innovations? Let’s take a look at history:
Journaling in file systems: Developed by Xerox PARC (if I remember correctly) around 30 years ago. It hasn’t made it into many file systems until recently.
Distributed computing: Hmm… Xerox also did this a while back too…
The desktop: … guess who innovated here again (Xerox) and to be fair, Apple is making some nice additions to their innovation (after stealing it and making it their own 🙂 ).
Object oriented programming: Can’t remember who innovated here, but it wasn’t C++, JAVA, C#. Try somefhing far more ancient.
Garbage Collection … same thing.
These are innovations. There are more recent innovations too. XPrize, large-size diamond crystalizations, and tons more. … but things like exporting to PDF, desktops over lan, aliasing … these things aren’t innovations in 2004. They are cool features – not innovations.
The worse part about the article is that the author wasn’t even informed about a lot of comments he made. (Export to PDF – there have been free Windows/Linux/MacOS filters and converters for this for years…).
So, oh well. My rant is over. Does anyone have a list of 10 real innovations in the computing sector for this year? I think that would be a lot more informative to read.
PDF isn’t a document format, it’s an output format.
The difference is that you can’t load a PDF in a Word processor, start editing it, and then save it again.
Umm, PDF means Portable Document Format and it is fully editable. Of course you need some [Adobe] editor for this
you can’t load a PDF in a Word processor, start editing it, and then save it again.
You can load, edit and save pdf file again on Adobe Acrobat. :p
I see that many of you are still thinking along the lines of
/word
or
.word
but by going to Preferences in Firefox and turning on the accessibility option “Begin finding as soon as you start typing” you need only type
word
in other words, there is no character you must type to “activate” find-as-you-type.
This is what they are saying is new to firefox.
Even in vim, you have to preface your find with / to begin searching. you cannot simply just start typing.
And here I was thinking you people were smart. X-)
This is not a mac specific feature. its enabled through cups. gnome and kde can do this too for example
“This is not a mac specific feature. its enabled through cups. gnome and kde can do this too for example”
He wasn’t claiming it was Mac specific, just pointing out that it exists and every Mac program with a print function has a print to pdf function which is enabled via the Windows Server on the Mac. In other places it may be through CUPS but not on the Mac.
And in all of these three you still have to click File => Print, and select the PDF pseudo printer. In OpenOffice you can just click File > Export as PDF. Of course, that’s not innovation, but they’ve made it easier.
I also couldn’t find any information on X-Friend’s license, but it certainly is spyware to a certain degree too. They are monitoring your web and product searches, but not the local searches (as far as I could see).
I’ll stick with Beagle on GNOME, and, of course, BeOS queries.
> Even in vim, you have to preface your find with / to begin searching. you cannot simply just start typing.
Well thank god.
of course,
since xorg-6.8, see:
2.2 Distributed Multihead X (DMX)
http://www.x.org/X11R6.8.1/RELNOTES.txt
Here’s a list of some software that has received the ACM Software System award. Only one per year, but a pretty good list of truly innovative ideas.
http://www.acm.org/awards/ssaward.html
Well, I just found one interesting thing. Probably this is nothing new, but who knows:
http://logicaldesktop.sourceforge.net/
About tabbed browsing – I did found following: “Tabbed browsing existed in the early days of the browser wars with the Global Network Navigator, the first web/email/news integrated client.”
Both based on next article:
http://www.newsforge.com/programming/04/02/05/1828243.shtml?tid=105…
The review is just to informal for me.
The list missed some of the major softwares with lots of innovation.
The reason Opera doesn’t have instant “find as you type” is that it has single-key keyboard shortcuts. For example, you can go back and forward by pressing “z” and “x”, or cycle through links with “q” and “a”.
It’s great for people who browse using the keyboard, but it means that you have to press an extra character before searching. Personally I think that it’s a good trade off, I know a few people who use Opera on their laptops because of it’s fast keyboard navigation.
I can see why people prefer the Firefox method, but it still doesn’t seem like such a huge innovation…
When the number one best innovation is Find as you Type in Firefox.
Tell you what though, Firefox is certainly doing something right. Mozilla will have people believing that Firefox invented the web browser soon.
The muine music player.
I think it has the simplest coolest UI of any music player out there. Truly innovative.
Not amazing UI (actually, kinda feels hackish) but yea; finally:
Somebody put in easy access to song lyrics.
You may try also:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/x2x/
> Only one per year,…
… which of course doesn’t mean that it’s the most innovative piece of software in that particular year.
Some real innovations, admittedly historical:
http://www.dwheeler.com/innovation/innovation.html#innovations
Interesting that nobody has come up with any suggestions for a recent innovation that come even close to the level of innovation exhibited by these pioneers.
Does this reflect the poor state of software development today? Or is the pioneering era over, with few real innovations left to be made?
Personally, I think there is still plenty of innovation going on. It’s just that it takes a while for the real innovation to hit the mainstream. Only time will tell what the real “Top 10 Software Innovations of 2004” have been.
Kramii.
When I saw this posted on OS News, I immediately thought “Have there been any this year?”
After reading the article, I see I was right. *sigh*
– chrish
Been there done that: X2X or X2vnc …
hast just anyone of you read what maxivista is? It’s not just a second desktop or something you get with x2x, x2vnc or whatever. It’s like connecting a second monitor right to your computer, that’s a big difference. First read, then rant.
yes, and x2vnc can give you the same effect (but not the ability to drag between desktops)
machine A:
run X
run VNC server
run x2vnc
machine B: (extra screen)
run VNC viewer, connected to machine A