YellowTab has updated its web site, added some screenshots from Zeta’s betas, while recent press releases from the group are mentioning YellowTab getting financial support and collaborating with another firm on securing Zeta.
YellowTab Updates Web Site, Secures Finance and… OS
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
What exactly is Zeta? Is is a repackaging of BeOS R5, or a brand new re-write of BeOS, or some combination of the two? If it’s just a repackaging, how can they change all the logos and sell it w/o incurring the wrath of Palm, and if it’s a re-write, why is it so far ahead of it compititors (OBOS, BlueEyed OS, etc…)?
Perhaps this is a question that I sould know the answer to, but a cursory examination of the yellowTab website yielded nothing. It’s almost as if they don’t want you to know what Zeta is… :/
I did not like the old site, but I do absolutely not like this. It looks HOMEMADE! It looks non-serious! It is (still) filled with spelling errors… It (still) gives a bad impression… And I guess 80 percent of the site contains the MacOS10 BeOS SVG Icons.
Really, Yellowtab, You have to do better than this.
http://www.razorfish.com – perhaps
Zeta is based on the Dano version of BeOS (R6, which was never released by Be, it was in beta stages when Be was sold to Palm) and YellowTab has extended it and fixed bugs. In a way, Zeta is BeOS R6, and in another way, it is a fork which adds new elements to the mix, which were never initially planned by Be.
I am still appalled at the atrocious spelling mistakes on the site and the bad grammar, it makes me think yellowtab is a pseudo-business. Don’t they know how to use http://www.dictionary.com ? Here are some examples…
“Frequently Asqued Questions”
And this FAQ
“What is Zeta based on?
To give an answer to that question it is really difficult. Zeta is not R5, Zeta is NOT Dano, Zeta is not OpenBeOS.
Zeta is much more. But the most important thing is that Zeta is a legal update of BeOS to BeOS R6 so developers
can develop software for a legal operating system and can get support from a company behind it. ”
You don’t say this is a hard question!!! It makes you look stupid, like you have no idea what you’re doing. How about telling us what it IS instead of what it’s not. Hell, it sure looks like Dano to me, there has to be some bits from Dano in there somewhere. Let’s look at some more non-sensical bits shall we?
Want some bad grammar again?
“Will the SVG Tracker be Zeta-only, or will you release it open source?
For the moment, yes. We have added to much new and own things that it is simple impossible to opensource it. ”
Sure, you can get the general idea but it’s a pain to read.
This is a professional gem of wisdom too
“I heard that Zeta is using some leaked (illegal) DANO code. Is this true?
No. Everything yellowTAB is using, yellowTAB is allowed to do. A business company which is working in that
sector of business would get
bankruped in less then 4 weeks IF it would work that way.”
If they can’t get the website right, with spelling and grammer, then I can just image the OS itself will be rife with such laziness.
Oh, and the “Assume the Power” slogan is lame. I think, I might, I probably, will have the power, if I ever get released. The Assume is out of context, sure you can assume power (e.g. like a dictator), but “Assume the Power” comes across as “you can assume that our os is powerful, especially since we don’t even know ourselves what it is based on”. Something like “Seize the Power” would make alot more sense.
Here’s some more bad grammar and false promises…
“The GCC compiler is at
your disposal for instantaneously passing your projects along. Zeta gives GUI
programing a new start. Never has it been so easy to program operating system close.
With CodeLiege, you get an IDE tool at your fingertips that hardly leaves any
wishes open. Moreover, you get the important aid of making your Applications
MultiLingual without the need of paying one Cent for it.”
COOL! I can “instantaneously” port apps from MacOSX or Linux???? Please. And I can have Multilingual capabilities without paying one cent for it? phwooooaaaa!! I think I paid more than one cent for zeta!
I can’t wait to have Zeta “fully configurated” on my system, so I can speak engrish all day long.
Are you joking about http://www.razorfish.com? It requires Flash. A site that refusing to display on anything except Flash is idiotic to the extreme. At least the zeta site is viewable…
Sorry, we are unable to present you the site.
Please ensure you are using Version 4 or higher.
Download the latest Macromedia Flash Plug-in.
I have no choice but to agree with Bumble Bee. YellowTab does not appear to convey even the slightest notion of professionalism. There should be no grammar or spelling mistakes on the website, and if they continue to make an appearance, the company will surely not be taken seriously by customers. The other thing that really bothers me are the thumbnails of their screenshots; they are completely out of wack. Some hints for YellowTab: get a good graphic designer to create a nice theme, some good-looking *original* icons, and a profesional website. Someone with above average English skills wouldn’t hurt either.
Geez. Aside from the grammer (which is a problem with the entire computer industry, though this is worse than most) what is the problem with the site? It has a unique, Be-inspired look. It’s streamlined, simple, and effective. It’s not a blinky-blinky Flash-infested mess like the typical corporate site, but isn’t that a *good* thing? And there are higher priorities than asthetics. Believe it or not, people aren’t as simple-minded as many on this board seem to believe. Otherwise, Pontiac would never sell a single car.
I think what they ment by that FAQis that, its not entirely Dano and not entirely anything else, but based on Dano with other bits added either it be from OpenBeOS R5/R6 or whatever… thats what i got from it!
I usewd to support YT but one BS broken word after another I doubt we will see it. The company has been reluctant to give a release date & investors want to know when they can expect a return on their “investment”. While this does not mean they dont have an internal release date set it still smells like BS to me… By the time Zeta is released no one will care & it’s relivance will have faded as the open source movements will have started to become a useable entity. I’m frankly amazed to see Eugina posted this after past rant about YT & I have agreed with her all the way… YT promises to release betas for review then 4 months later still hasnt done jack squat on their promise to provide a damn thing. The site lay out was & is horrible & while the screen shots are squewed in a mannor to “hide” “surprises” they look like crap as well as the preposed beta packaging… it looks like some 13 year old tossed together that crap – but this is a company?! When your competing against OS X or even KDE the screen shots on the YT site are pathetic… my god put a fricking wallpaper on the back ground so it looks half decent… Looks folks buy our bland blue crap desktop OS – it looks like old win95 shots for christs sake! The things needed to make it at least look like they are playing business are so minimal there is no excuse about donated work & free time… I could rant all day but I’ll leave you with this… Zeta might be ok in europe but it might as well be called “Steve takes it in the butt from Todd” here – Zeta is NOT a good name for western markets. Ranting is fun – but it’s not out of spite – it’s fear that our future is in the hands of a moron! JLG SAVE US!!!!!!!!
Yeah I have to say, that “yellowTAB” company – or whatever they are –
do not represent themselves well *at all* through that cheesy website
of theirs. In fact, reading through the whole site left me with an entirely
dysmall opinion regarding their competency in doing anything positive
whatsoever with whatever rights to BeOS they somehow acquired.
The site bites, the grammer bites, the poor excuse for a faq bites,
their business acumen BITES ( hard ), even their lousy slogan bites
the big one.
Whatever chance the other ( FREE! ) BeOS reincarnations had, this “Zeta” shite is only going to cast a negative perception towards the
whole BeoS revival concept.
I could go on, but I think I’ll just leave with this – I *really* dig that
“yellowTAB enters the next phase” news item, wherein they bolster
our confidence so well by stating they’ve sold 75% of the company,
which allowed the hiring of *freelance* wanking developers to continue
Zet development!
Pathetic.
I think all further news bits relating to yellowTAB and Zeta should be
relegated to the humor section…
The button to expand the links tree doesn’t work in my browser: Mozilla 1.2.1 final.
And all you folks complaining about spelling and grammar, are you aware that that they are Germans and English is a second language for them? It could be worst. The site could be in German ONLY and then we’d have to use Google to translate it.
I find it appalling that people judge things by their cover all the time. The YT folks are working their butts off right now. For a product we will use very soon. Who cares if the site has some errors in grammar. Too many ppl cannot even speak one language properly, yet they point out mistakes on a translated site. Who cares where it comes from, Dan0, netserver, Bone … It is the result that counts. At least wait with your criticism until Zeta has hit the market and you have BOUGHT it. That’s it.
I totally agree goober.
“I think all further news bits relating to yellowTAB and Zeta should be relegated to the humor section… ”
lol! That or posted on http://www.engrish.com
I find it hard to believe some people may take Zeta seriously, especially with all those pathetic screenshots (oooh, yeah, like the deskbar collapsed showing a crappy 8-bit zeta logo is meant to impress!!), some wallpaper and original icons wouldn’t go astray either! A while ago I was “testing” this svg tracker, and made a few icons (some here svg_tracker_icons.png), it’s not that hard you know yellowtab. I also had a much more colourful desktop (here http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~brentmor/screenshot_svg_tracker.png), yes, the tracker in zeta can look that good, you can easily convert images to icons (even 128×128 size). Also, if any devs were interested, I have the source to svg tracker, it’s a little buggy(though it’s a version with the icon cache :-)), but I’d like to see it further developed for R5 users instead of only available included in Zeta Engrish Edition™.
“The site could be in German ONLY and then we’d have to use Google to translate it.”
Great, at least then we’ll get less grammatical and spelling errors
Really, it isn’t that hard to use a dictionary (they know the words, they just can’t be bothered to check their appalling spelling). Hell, Suse is a german linux company, and their distros and such were always fine spelling wise iirc.
And ChaOS I do care where it comes from, the Dano GUI is *fugly*, the BButtons, BBox’s,BSliders,Scrollbars etc are all very ugly, I don’t want to use it. And I won’t be buying Zeta either, I don’t need 3 gigs of engrish on my HD or their “supa” BeBochs (slowwwww).
Whoops, those links are…
http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~brentmor/screenshot_svg_tracker.png
http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~brentmor/svg_tracker_icons.png
sorry
I do understand that English is a second language to those at Yellowtab, but it’s not very difficult to have someone who is a native speaker to translate the bad English into good English. I could probably fix the entire site within a couple hours.
Kurt – It is a famous webdesign corp.
—
ChaOS – Well even if we *KNOW* how great the product is (if it really is that, I dont know) Any non-beos user who make a visit to that site will probably laugh their ass off asking something like, “WTF IS THIS?”
And the site does not only have *SOME* errors in grammar… it has *LOTS* And people are not criticising Zeta, People are criticising the Website! It does not matter if they work “their butts of” no one will buy the product unless it has a professional profile.
—
Anonymous – Well if it would be in German they would be pretty stupid. And even if alot of the people in the yellowtab team is German, they have to provide proper English.
I noticed they’re still talking about how you’ll be able to run Gobe Productive on this and get “excellent compatibility” with Microsoft Office. Is it just me, or does anyone else see a problem with promoting that to new users?…
qoute from website
“Daniel Furrer (aka Assimil8or) is the webmaster of yellowTAB (since Aug. 2001).
He has developed and/or organized the new yellowTAB.com homepage.
Please tell us someting about yourself
I am a 17 years old student, live near Zürich (Switzerland) and want to study computer science.”
hmm…need i say more
What the ?
What is a spleeny?
and boxers ?
Ah my spleen !
Good copy, like good code, is hard to write.
You have to balance things like information, readability and tone into each sentance.
Couple that with writing from a different language, and you are facing a great challenge.
YellowTab does not have that many employees, and I’m sure that they are all working on technical details, rather than spending as much time as they should on PR spit and polish.
Give it some time. I’m sure it will improve leaps and bounds.
voidref – well that it is allmost more important with PR than “polishing”
Is everyone on a BeOS hating spree today, or what?
I don’t see any problem with the Zeta name. BeOS, if anything, was an odd name. Macintosh is an odd name. Atari is an odd name.
And the site looks quite fine in Internet Explorer. A bit too much white space here and there, and a lack of info on the front page, but really, I sense a lynch mob here. Their site won’t win any design prizes, but OTOH it doesn’t look or smell like shite.
And BeOS still looks as good as it did in ’96. And it looked good back then.
The guys at YT doing their best to bring back BeOS on the spotlight, perhaps you could be more grateful on them and stop judge before you even tried Zeta.
I agree than the website is not perfect, the spelling mistake are indecent; but remember than they are few people behind it.
I’am sure they will continue to improve the OS and the website, like Be,inc does at his time.
the problem is this.
A company needs to gain confidence with its potential users and well having a website designed with low quality graphics and spelling mistakes doesn’t give much confidence.
What they should have done is to outsource it to a group of webdevelopers, someone said razorfish they are good I would have gone with kioken ltd. , outsourcing doesn’t take time off their hands it gives them more time to concentrate on development.
and for the spelling mistakes, it would have been negligable if there were only four or five in total on the whole site, now this isn’t the case.
I confronted bernd about this half an hour ago and he told me to “1 Hey i found some erros. I want show you and help you to fix them, is that ok
2. Yeah, thx and sorry for that but we´re working on it so send me please” this sort of behaviour is inexcusable for a company.
If they want my help they pay me for it otherwise, it’s a no-go.
I have hopes in the fact they will release a product based on beos but whar concerns me is this constant state of stalling deadlines.
“I confronted bernd about this half an hour ago and he told me to “1 Hey i found some erros. I want show you and help you to fix them, is that ok
2. Yeah, thx and sorry for that but we´re working on it so send me please” this sort of behaviour is inexcusable for a company.”
makes no sense…
in the context of the sentence it makes sense.
It is in agreement with BeOS soul – “OS for fun”.
And it looks good even in simplest browsers like Net+.
Say what you want but –
Zeta appears to be the first post-Be BeOS project that delivers a fully functional system. OpenBeOS and BlueEyedOS are still far from it because they have to rebuild most stuff from scratch where Zeta uses the original sources for Dano.
…is one of the funniest I ever saw. While I understand that being french, greek or german for that matter is no excuse for not having an english dictionnary and a good english corrector on your computer, or some reliable english speaking friend around, it is a real joy to see that none, I repeat none, of the grammar ayatollahs here is able to write english correctly. I suppose you do have the excuse of not being, or not trying to be professionals, which certainly give you the right to massacre your own idiom.
Now, feel free to criticize my english, which by the way is not my first language, nor my second, and not even my third to say the truth.
hehe sure I expect that we should make some distinctions first, osnews is a discussion forum a.. newsboard.
yellowtab.com is yellowtab gmbh’s corporate presence on the web.
Do you notice the difference.
And well I spellcheck everything but chatboard messages and im messages so I really could care less.
I agree with many of the above posters, a good graphics designer is a MUST for a modern Desktop OS, I will not buy a cheesy looking GUI from a company with a cheesy looking website, I don’t need to. Otherwise I’m ready to pay again for a new good looking “BeOS” (quotation marks) release. Most Linux distros have made and are making the same error, you simply cannot bypass aesthetics if you want to attract people’s wallets, not on the Desktop, and not mine.
GET A GOOD GRAPHICS DESIGNER, or forget it.
Nevertheless, I adknowledge that Yellowtab is trying more than anyone to bring back BeOS fun, their website is a very good start, what else? OpenBeos? wait two years and see (at least). The Yellowtab website has gone backwards, the original design was a cool one, and the new motto is extremely infantile. However they have very much needed initiatives (plenty of them, including the security one), let’s just give them some time to work on it a bit more: again, regarding me, GET A GOOD GRAPHICS DESIGNER or forget about it.
I love reading all the spelling Nazis pointing out this non-native English speaker’s mistakes, all the while spelling ‘grammar’ as ‘grammer’…
I don’t get why they’re so vague about what it’s based on though — certainly makes me very suspicious to read that this simple question is “difficult to answer”…!
I think the site looks good overall, but doesn’t contain enough actual reading material.
I fully agree with Jean-Marc about the situation. About confronting Bernd with it, he’s not the “commercial type”. Believe me, if you get to know him personally he’s a really great guy, but when it comes to promotion and P&R, it’s not him you need to talk about.
Besides, do you even KNOW why it takes them longer to release stuff? Cuz YellowTAB wants to bring you the best. Add more to get more value for your frickin’ $99.
I know Zeta’s website is not all-perfect, but I don’t see you guys doing much about it, except for spending time writing useless comments which nobody can use for any purpose at all.
Here’s what I said on TBJ’s forum (http://www.beosjournal.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=406)
Geez, do you realize how pathetic it is of you to complain about the website’s layout or language now?
I mean, have you offered to do the website back then? Don’t think so! Did you send YellowTAB a message pointing out where the errors are? No? Well WTF are you whining about then?
Oh, so you didn’t have time? Well then explain to me why you DO have time now to write whole books about “well I don’t like this and that” (see above and see TBJ forum)
Say Max, what are you waiting for, spending a couple of hours correcting the website. Or are you also just trying to be cool by making stupid comments?
By the way, you can read about the webmaster here: http://www.yellowtab.com/company/credits.php. I think the new YellowTab website is (A) way better than the old one and (B) a hell of a job for a 17 y/o German student.
Sorry about having been quite harsh up here, but I thought it was rather sad to read some replies up here. Nothing personal, no offense. And yes, I DID send them a relatively detailed description of what’s wrong in a non-whining way, so I have a right to open up my mouth here.
for those like me that followed http://www.starbridgesystems.com/ since the first day you know how crappy a website can be (the fisrt version was full of church reference!!)
Before making any critic to the site remember that this is a distributed effort among a very cosmopolite bunch of individual. Bern don’t have that much time to verify the competance of all those that offer help, this will improve over time. It’s the way it work for all company binded by the internet, it cost a lot less but have it’s disadventage.
Stop telling he should do this or that, the entire economy is stumbling because of some “the box must be better than the product inside” mentality. Let them do good product first then talk about it after.
What you currently probably see is simply stuff to maintain the current core of BeOS community informed, do you really think Joe Blow know this?? Product need to be 100% solid first because they will not have ressource for a second product launch if it pass unoticed first.
Also, the site need to be took within the http://www.beunited.org context, so they don’t need to put that much info because zeta/beunited and obos are part of a whole.
Howdy y’all,
I am, and have been for nearly a year, a developer working with/for yellowTAB. I am, perhaps, better known for my own Dano-based distrobutions of BeOS (namely SuperDANO A1/2 and PhOS).
Many of the problems y’all are complaining about are due to the site having been run by a german individual with rather poor english skills. This has also resulted in some confusion internally.
As such, as one may realize from the latest press releases, someone with much better english and grammatical skills has now been put in charge of our web-site. The old verbage will be rewritten and the site re-adjusted here and there based on suggestions.
Contrary to what many seem to believe, our investors are often the ones requesting our silence regarding our project. At least this is my understanding of the situation, as I do not get involved in the running of the business unless I overhear something for which I dislike ( and then I can only make suggestions ). Most the times I have dove into the running I begin to learn more and more reasons why the behaviour is the the way it is in the “top brass.”
Months after I had started with yellowTAB I was pretty much ready to leave. I had the same feelings -and then some- as those described in this, and other, forums. What changed my mind was that finally the work lists starting making a show. We now knew what needed to be done (everything on the worklist is pretty much in beta or is done).
Some of y’all may recollect that at the very end of last year there was a great deal of buzz surrounding Zeta and a potential release VERY soon. Well, the product was ready enough for just about a few days worth of going over for release in RC1 to developers, but we suddenly were greeted with an oppurtunity we could not, in good conscience, overlook. The web-site should have been a avenue for noting a postment for the overall betterment of the product, and then a note that a revised time-line would appear in the coming weeks. Unfortunately, this was not done.
This lack of communication and the general feelings of doom about Zeta are entirely the fault of those in command at yellowTAB. Inaction is often as bad as doing something for bad press. At least bad press is free advertising ( trully.. it helps ).
However, in the present and near future, this will change. Zeta is once again ready enough to throw to developers (external, public) in merely a week of going over. But I fear the “top brass” may try to throw in all these new features in the first release (and even relase canidate 1!!). I think this move unwise and will internally and publicly display my feelings in this.
If I were in command of this, it may be another story, as I would be privy to more information. Perhaps the investors said.. hey.. have this.. or no money! I find this entirely possibly as it has happend to us many times (and has become annoying).
I feel that we can get this software out in pre-release form in as soon as a week to a weem and a half. What I mean by a pre-release package is one without all of the apps we have not yet finalized as well as perhaps only a standard OpenTracker. It would simply be a platform to allow developers to test their code, modify if needed, to the Zeta platform. Would also show the press we are not sitting on our duffs.
We have actually done tons of work, some that will not even be usable in Zeta any longer. All we can do is hope some urgency is fealt by those in charge over in Germany and finally say.. okay.. finalize your changes.. you have two weeks to do all bug fixes to your programs if they are near-final. If they are not working, we will not include them.. we are going to RC1.
Speaking as such, I’ve never been told afore-hand to prepare something for a beta release. This would have been a good thing as I am in charge of the Updater, Registration application, decors, and many other items that I have thrown in ( all have been functional since pre-beta 2 (ecept the latest decors of course!!).
So, as for this, I will be pushing the matter internally and will get y’all a new BeOS-based OS! Mark my word, if we do not have a release by the end of April, I will leave yellowTAB and join OpenBeOS and put all of my code ( as it does not belong to YT, it belongs to me ) into their cvs.
–The loon
“I am still appalled at the atrocious spelling mistakes on the site and the bad grammar, it makes me think yellowtab is a pseudo-business”
it probably means that the website is secondary to the actual product, zeta.
Its not at all uncommon for engineering oriented firms to be weak on the marketing/advertising side or to have ugly or just bad websites. They don’t have a lot of people and i doubt that their first language is english. Corrections will be made i am sure.
Nice, to see the Be enthused members of the audience are still concentrating on the important issues like !?!spelling and grammar!?!.
This is the first time I’ve ever seen ye pull-together.
If we could pretend for a minute that english language was C/C++ the community might actually settle on one line of action and get out a decent product.
Looncraz, I’m not trying to “stick it” to YT here as many have done becauseof the language problems at the YT site. However, I do agree with the gist of it all.
Without any sarcasm, I just wanted to say that the two basic points made
are true:
!) The grammar and misspellings – the thing that is so sad about it is that it would be so easy to fix. Just about anyone who comes here would be glad to fix it for free. It really wouldn’t take too much to do at all. The problem is that native English speakers, despite their own possible lack of language skills, can spot this kind of thing a mile away. It’s because we’re so used to excellence in advertising when it comes to that sort of thing. I’m sure the same is true in Germany with German. I took German in high school and college but, if I had to do a site in German, it would be pathetic! I would have to call on a native German speaking person.
2) I also agree about the “coyness” of the site, not saying what it is, but rather what it isn’t. Sometimes advertising campaigns will do that for just a brief period of time, to catch people’s attention, but they can’t string it out as people then get angry at the game of hide and seek. It is time for Zeta to simply state what it is on the site.
I hope the best for Zeta – when it comes out, I will buy it. In the meantime, these are just some thoughts to help things along. The language really does matter in advertising and presentation. All you need is a native speaker of English to correct the errors in spelling and sentence structure and you’re in business.
it’s not “engrish”.
it’s “dinglish”.
so, the doesn’t seem to be very net+ friendly. logging in yields ‘you are not logged in, please log in” over and over…
(yes, cookies are enabled. yes, i’m using the right username and password, it’s not an authentication error)
nonetheless, zeta’s still kinda the interim great white hope for beos users until OBOS2..
Well I hope Bernd Korz (the CEO of yellowtab) is reading this.
Bernd Korz,
Hire a professional design company. Make them do something flawless for you. Hire a German-English translator if you can not type English good enough. I also think you should reconsider your market strategy, you should take advice from someone professional in that area too.
Make the BeOS users proud.
Regards,
Daniel Mark
Yellowtab must be that Good because these linux users feel so threatend they have to bash Yellowtab every time news is posted about Zeta.
I know that Tracker and Deskbar were released as an Open Source project. The license on that part of the BeOS code is pretty clear. See
http://opentracker.sourceforge.net/license.html
As Be was disintegrating, there was talk of BeOS as a whole being open sourced, but it was not due to code licensed from third parties. There were also likely some provisions in the agreement with PalmSource that prevented open sourcing. The only mention I found of BeOS on the PalmSource website was a listing on names on their Intellectual Property page:
http://www.palmsource.com/about/prop_rights.html
If yellowTAB is using any pre-release BeOS 6 code, are they not using code owned by PalmSource? I have not found anything on their website beyond a statement that there was an agreement with Be to distribute copies of BeOS 5 PE. If that is true, does that agreement also cover modifications made to the distribution?
Rather than bash yellowTAB’s website for spelling and grammar errors, would it not be a good idea to ask if they have any legal right to do what they are attempting?
They do have a license from Be inc and Palmsource. However, they are very much un-professionals, and have not stated this in a legal kind of way.
Go Looncraz! Tell them, if they want their eye dotted then OK!
I still would like a new distro and even more work to continue on an R7 release.
Seems a fella/gal could write to Yellowtab and offer some help if they are qualified to proofread. From what I have read here there is also some general lack of skill. I will not point out whom that might have been.
“Hire a professional design company. Make them do something flawless for you. Hire a German-English translator if you can not type English good enough. I also think you should reconsider your market strategy, you should take advice from someone professional in that area too.
Make the BeOS users proud. ”
if yellowtab works well then they’ve done enough for now. Plus who cares about the website as long as the product works? I don’t. This thing will take time and the pieces will come together.
If you read along I think you notice that alot of people cares about the website.
Personally, I don’t care about grammar and spelling. We all get what they try to say, and that’s enough for me.
But I will have to agree that YTAB needs to get a professional *UI designer* (which is not the same as the *graphics artist*)
If it was just me, I wouldn’t care either. But to many…I think the majority of people…proper grammar and sentence structure is important. It is the “sign” of professionalism, for good or ill. It is in the same vein as Eugenia talking about a UI designeer – I want YellowTab to succeed and “looking good” is important.
The website is quite OK. There are spelling language mistakes, but I can live with that. The screenshots look clean and very BeOS-like.
I think YellowTab really did a major job and I think a little patience is in order.
I just want to express my support for YellowTab. Correcting the typos and make some better screenshots and I think the web is in good condition.
Good UI developers / designers that knows about ‘Engineering Psychology’ and ‘Human Performance’ would also be a good resource, but if not to many things have changed from BeOS R5 Zeta will probably be in very good shape.
Besides Tracker / Deskbar is open source and does much of the ui-work. Also as I understand you can build your own decorator-themes.
So my Zeta installation will have an excellent UI.
Yellowtab has a difficult job. Step one is getting a product out the door that works. That is quite a task in itself. Now the first target market for yellowtab should be the existing Beos user base. The website is not that important for that market.
As yellowtab moves beyond the existing beos users to new users then yes presentation and grammar will become far more important but one thing at a time. They just raised money and they will hopefully begin to have a revenues stream soon.
Don’t be so hard on them. This is one step at a time.
ryan, I agree with you – people like us would not be put off by typos and that kind of thing, if we know what the product is.
Yeah, they’ve put work into their site, and yeah, they may actually be releasing something.
But marketing is at least half the battle (ask Be), and the ridiculous, half-assed, amateurish look of the site complete with spelling errors and nonsensical grammar is LETHAL.
If you’re going to DO a site in ENGLISH, hire a NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKER to at least have a look at it. Sheesh, even a native-English-speaking wino. If you don’t speak English, and you don’t want to GET someone who DOES to do your page, do the page in a language you understand.
As it is, Yellowtab really sort of screams “GeoCities BeOS”.
Jeez… What the hell is wrong with the YellowTab site? I think the design is pretty good – simple, clear and direct – and a hell of a lot better than many ‘professional’ sites out there. I can’t understand the venom that some people put into bashing German peoples’ gramatically challenged English, something I’m sure they’ll sort out given half a chance.
Personally, I was skeptical about the project at first but I’m really looking forward to seeing RC1.
(Posted from NET+)
I’m sorry, I haven’t read through even half of the comments yet, but I can’t sustain myself any longer.
“Please tell us someting about yourself
I am a 17 years old student, live near Zürich (Switzerland) and want to study computer science.”
hmm…need i say more”
Excuse me? I’m 15 (16 in May, but that’s not important). I’m a LOT younger than most people in _ANY_ computing community. I’ve used Linux. I’ve used (and still use) BeOS. I’ve used AtheOS. I’ve used QNX. I’ve used FreeBSD (and actually still run it on my server, a 120MHz monster with 32MBRAM. Nothing but a power and ethernet cord hooked up. Yay for SSH
). But I suppose all my computing knowledge doesn’t matter, I’m just a stupid 15 year old idiot that does nothing but break the law, do drugs, have sex, and drink liquor all day long.
I mean, my intelligence is obviously not important, because I’m ONLY 15. I only scored 80% higher than every sophomore in Verbal Skills on my PSAT (_AND_ while having an essay due the next day, a constitution quiz, and probably more stuff that I’ve forgotten) among other results I’m far too lazy to check. But no, I’m just 15. I’m automatically an idiot.
It’s not like I’ve been contributing to the Be community at all. Oh no. I’ve only spent hours of my free time on getting the OBOS Network Preferences pixel-perfect (or as close as possible, anyways. I’m still a bit of a newbie to BeAPI, but for reference:
New: http://absolutelliot.dyndns.org/images/newnet.png
Old: http://absolutelliot.dyndns.org/images/network.png
I know it’s not much of a contribution, and I still have a lot to finish up [the Services tab and all the BButton stuff], but hey, it’s something. But I’m only 15, so I’m automatically an idiot.), writing an online RPG engine (It’s on BeBits, but it’s so alpha-quality I’m not going to bother linking to it), and other stuff. Let me also note that Baxter and other popular BeOS software was primarily written by a 11 to 12 year old (I’m sorry, I don’t remember right now, but the Abisoft guy was really young when writing those apps; BeDope has an interview with him).
Really, just… ugh. I can’t stand this “I’m older than you” attitude. Is _MY_ age really THAT much of a deciding factor as to my intellectual abilities? I understand that most people my age aren’t as mature, but not _EVERYONE_ is.
Whatever. Rant over. I’m not even going to bother to spellcheck this. As a sidenote, would you have been able to guess my age had I not told you?
Yes age discrimination is not fun. I think everyone probably agree that as long as the job gets done well, the age of the webdesigner/webmaster does not really matter.
Even if there are exceptions, most educated webdesigners does a better job than uneducated school students, but not always.
Hower in this case the author clearly thinks the website sucks and blames it on the 17 year old webdesigner.
Fair or unfair? You decide.
I personally care a great deal about spelling and grammer. Proper language use shows education and attention to detail. However, I couldn’t care less about how it looks, as long as it’s clean and functional. Thus, I don’t see YellowTab’s website as a deal breaker at all. I also buy from webstores with crappy websites (much worse than this one) as long as they have good prices and decent service. In the end, what matters is product quality and service. Everything else is secondary.
PS> Of course, I’m also human. I can understand perfectly well that English is not the native language of this webmaster, so I’m willing to cut him some slack. Similarly, YellowTab is a tiny company in a niche market, and I’m perfectly willing to understand that their website isn’t their highest priority. Some may disagree, but I personally don’t care what the MTV generation has to say…
You would admit though that you are not the average 15 going on 16 year old.
I am sure your high IQ is coupled with good comprehension skills. That should allow you to deduce that his comments reference the typical 17 year old web designer and not the exceptional 15/16 year old.
Now his comments may or may not be accurate regarding the the typical 17 year old web designer but that is a different story.
Anyway I agree that we there is no reason to bash any age group. It is enough to say that parts of the site are unprofessional.
I sent an email to YellowTab concerning some spelling issues, and they fixed it within hours. There is no reason to complain here, just send them a nice little email with the issues so they can address them. It is pretty simple. They seem to have cleaned up alot of the spelling/grammar issues, so please give them a chance. As for the design, I think it looks clean and professional. Much better than the old site.
-G
To all the people that say, “They have more important things to worry about than the website’s grammar right now,” I have a question: what does this imply about YellowTab’s release process?
I think the design is fine for now; not the best, but certainly usable. Simple is good. But for a company (to give them the benefit of the doubt) like YellowTab, the website is pretty much the only form of communication with their potential customers, and it’s littered with horrendous grammatical errors. I’m sure we’ll all agree that if you were to pick any random three native-English speakers, they’d be able to find the majority of them.
So a simple question: Why didn’t YellowTab “beta test” the website on a few users before posting it to the world at large? There’s certainly no new information there that required the unveiling of the website right now, so why “release” it without even the slightest bit of testing?
Good software testing is hard, and requires talented people and a lot of time. To “test” their website would have been easy; just have two or three native speakers spend one hour reading through the site and offering corrections. They didn’t bother to do even the most simple form of testing you’ll ever see in the software industry before making themselves look like complete amateurs, yet I’m supposed to pay money for their product and trust my data to it? You’ve got to be kidding me.
” yet I’m supposed to pay money for their product and trust my data to it? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Are you buying the website or the OS? Let’s try and keep it real here huh.
And as far as comments relating to the webmaster’s age goes..how many of you are able to read and write in multiple languages at the age of 17? Ok..the grammar and spelling isn’t perfect, but these are small issues for now and will be fixed up pretty quickly from what I have read.
Geez, if I had a dollar for every typo or grammatical error I’ve seen on websites (particulary Linux app sites) I’d be bigger than Bill.
Personally, I can’t wait to see what these guys come up with. It already looks like they’ve got some real potential and it can only get better…
The remarks I made about spelling and grammar I made because I want to see them succeed, not to bash them. It is interesting to see the varied opinions about this because it shows something. It shows that people feel differently as to what is important. knowing that the author of the YellowTab site is not a native speaker of English, it doesn’t bother me personally that there are errors. My God, if I tried to do a site in another language, it would be pitiful beyond belief. But, I want them to be successful and I know there are many people who will judge Zeta by the spelling and grammar at the site. It is true, we should write to them with corrections. I’m willing to do that.
By the way, I too like their new site much better than the old one.
Spelling and grammar are important. Also the screenshots section could use some real help. I like the clean Zeta feel to the site layout and it keeps the site simple which is what the OS is about isn’t it?
Now I just hope for GF4 and DSP24 (audio) driver support, then I’ll be a very happy camper.
Are you buying the website or the OS? Let’s try and keep it real here huh.
As I said multiple times in my comment, if they can’t (or won’t) test something as trivial as a website, on what basis should I trust them with something extremely difficult–namely, operating system code.
Do you read whole comments before you reply, or are you merely attracted to text in bold?
This is the nearest we’ve been to an update to BeOS in years and people are worried over the spelling, grammar or whether there are blinky lights on the page???
If you want spelling and grammar, try the website of your favorite university. For pretty colors and blinking lights, try http://nick.com .
So they are not web designers. Who cares? If the finished product sucks, then we’ll have good reason to blast away.
Come on! A professional company CAN’T have a site as the YT one.
Even the OpenBeOS site is better than the YT one… and OBOS isn’t even a commercial effort.
YT, you can do better than this.
A company I once worked for as a consultant (aka. Contractor scum) launched a new intranet site to a whole big trumpet fanfare. ‘Super site’, ‘All business will find is usefull’, and other such accolades were made. I browsed it for 5 minutes, drilling down through some of the info, and found a page that was something like this:
<bold>
IT Support
What is IT Support?
hdjgdskjgkjdsgfkjsagfagkjfasgkjfsadgkfadsgkjfasgkjfasg
fsgfksajgfkjfg fshgkjfsagkjfs fsgjksfagkj
What roles and services do IT Support provide to the company?
kldjhlkfd fdhlfshdl dhldshol dhlsdhlk dhlhdslk dhlksdhlkdshlksdhkldshdlkshdlkhdslk dlhsshdlk dhslhsdlkds lhkds lkdshlk
How do I log an IT related problem through <corperate_intranet_site_name_removed>?
jsljdslkjhlkdskl dslkdshlkds hldshlkds lhksdhdslk dshlkdhsl hdlshdslk dshlkdhslkdhsl dshlkdsh lk dslhds hlkdshlkdshdlkshdlks dlskhdslkdsh lkds h
</bold>
Boy did we laugh!!! Remember, these guys were native English speakers too.
It just goes to show, it the developers are dictated to by the management, and the management don’t listen to the feedback, stuff goes wrong. I’d rather have what little info we have than no info at all. The YT site used to be a lot worse than it is.
Also: Some of us seem not to be able to grasp the fact that not every one speaks English (shock horror!) Coming from the UK, this is a lot more apparent to me that most US Citezens, I guess. But hell when your own president, when a congressman, blocked a bill to put Spanish into the Texas curriculum because “English was good enough for Jesus”, then what else can we expect of you?
ROFL!!!
Web sites? Who the hell cares?
The remark about the MTV generation was most certainly right on the mark. No-one regards web sites as anything but a necessary evil, save people working as “web designers”.
Web sites are always out-sourced, because no-one cares about them. They’re just there, for no apparent reason.
Web sites aren’t pamphlets, folders or brochures. They’re just a collection of hastily thrown together HTML files, and anyone who cares about how a web site looks or about its spelling needs to reconsider his scale of values. No sane person takes a web site seriously. And they say absolutely nothing about the company they’re said to represent. After all, only a minority thereof are produced in-house, and very seldom by the engineers or programmers of said company. And their web design skills say very little about their other skills, unless we’re talking about a web design firm. If the company sells anything but web sites, be it lawnmowers or operating systems, the web site is about as useful in an assesment of their skills as whether the boss has a moustache or not.
Oh, how I’ve enjoyed reading the posts of native speakers of English this day! Their poor grammer shining bright in the sunlight! Yes, brave they must be! To take on the hideous YellowTAB Germans and their less-than-perfect English, O! To glory they ride!
How many of you think that Germany is fairly awash in native speakers of English? Can I see some hands?
Does anyone have a link to ISO’s or any idea when we will be able to get CD’s?
whatever
I am getting so sick from all the comments I read here, you guys are all so smart and so good in your English, proud Americans probably?
If the Linux community can attack another OS (or their site) they all come together, but oh my god don’t touch our Linux!
At least their is a European company that is picking up the development of BeOS and name it Zeta, great or not?
Why is it that all people know so good how things should be done to develop a OS, how to do the marketing, website design etc but do nothing more then give comments on a forum?
If you are all so much better then the YT people why didn’t you start the new life from BeOS yourself then?
So to be short, if you can do nothing more then give comments on a new product and you do nothing yourself in this area, then please write nothing at all.
Zeta looks good and YT has a nice website which is only getting better.
They have a good and direct contact with their customers and react very fast on question and/or comments.
I can not remember my last email from Linus or Bill !!!