Posted by cwdjrxyz@yahoo.com on 11/22/05 05:26

Stan McCann wrote:
> Toby Inkster <usenet200511@tobyinkster.co.uk> wrote in news:vf5n43-
> a0i.ln1@ophelia.g5n.co.uk:
>
> > code_wrong wrote:
> >
> >> can we stop using activex?
> >
> > I can't. But that's because I never started.
>
> Lucky you. I'd never used it until preparing for a class I'm teaching
> this semester. The book has an on-line component using ... You guessed
> it. I don't like it and some of my students have had difficulty with
> it because even the firewall in SP2 doesn't like it. This is a novice
> level course; some of my students had never used a computer. And first
> thing we do is to teach them to open their computer to the world and
> have to field all of the calls of "I can't get it to work."
>
> About half of my students are now using some simple PHP pages I put
> together for them.

Many people tend to think of ActiveX as something associated with web
pages, especially those written for Windows IE browsers and relatives.
But the web is just the tip of the iceberg for uses of ActiveX. It
often is used at the program level even on computers that may never be
connected to the web. For those who use a Microsoft OS such as the XP,
you likely have dozens of ActiveX subprograms and plugins on programs
that you use. This is especially the case for media programs. For
example the very popular Roxio and Nero media program sets are loaded
with ActiveX plugins. I recently installed a GoldWave sound editor so
that I could work with 24 bit, 96kHz PCM audio files such as are used
for DVD-Audio standard. This program has a tool on a menu that searches
other programs for ActiveX plugins that it can use, if you need them.
It finds about 40 on my computer, with the bulk of them in Roxio, Nero,
and several other media programs.Heaven knows how many other non-media
ActiveX applications are on the computer. For example, the McAfee
antivirus programs use ActiveX controls. When there is a major program
upgrade, McAfee often asks you to allow downloading a new ActiveX
control which it needs for the upgraded program. Make no mistake,
ActiveX is very powerful and very useful, especially on a Windows OS
based computer. I don't know how much the Windows OS to replace the XP
will use ActiveX. However until and if most people are not using
Windows XP and earlier Windows OSs, ActiveX likely still will be used
very much, especially at the program level on the computer.

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