Microsoft Employees Rage As Internet Explorer Ship Sinks
Posted on 12/29/2005 @ 16:39:49 in Browsers.

No way to build a market: No more Mac users. No more Dell users in the UK. HP’s shipping Netscape. Internet Explorer 7 is the ultimate “me too” knock off. And nobody’s madder than Microsoft employees and fans.

Microsoft employee Rory Blyth:

I think IE is horribly behind the times. When every other browser on the planet that’s worth a damn supports tabbed browsing, it’s just crappy that I still have to have different copies of IE open to have multiple sites open at once.

As of right now, my favorite browser on the planet is Apple’s Safari.

Windows Live developer and creator of RSS Bandit, Dare Obsasanjo laments:

We haven’t innovated in the browser for almost a decade. Given that Microsoft views IE as a defensive option to make Windows an enticing product, there is less incentive to make it the ultimate browsing experience as products whose bread and butter is the Web browser. Why do you think there are so many Google employees working on Mozilla?

Microsoft should either cede innovation in the Web browser to Mozilla/Google or make IE more than just “icing on the Windows user experience cake”by transfering the product to a team whose bottom line depends on browser innovation.

A bewildered ex-Mac IE developer Jorg Brown recalls a conversation with a Microsoft superior:

Over the whole sad journey, the single most surprising thing I ever discovered was from a small conversation that went:

Me: “Look, if it makes sense to devote dozens of people to WinIE, then surely it makes sense to devote half a dozen to MacIE!”

Higher-up: (confused look) “There aren’t dozens of people on WinIE. WinIE had some great people on it! We need those great people on products that make money!”

Me: “Then why on earth did we pursue IE in the first place? Just so that the DOJ would sue us?”

Higher-up: (confused look)

Some day I hope to get a proper answer on our motivation to do WinIE and MacIE in the first place. It seems to be that we were scared of not having control of the HTML standard. And indeed, now that Firefox is gaining traction, Microsoft has added more people to WinIE again.

Epilogue: All of this made it a lot more easy for me to quit and go work at Google.

Microsoft Exchange partisan and leader of Orlando SBS IT Pro Association, Vlad Mazek, rages:

There is a 0 day exploit of another Microsoft file format that makes your Windows XP system wide-open for hackers if you made some bad decisions. On top of those is still using Microsoft Internet Explorer to surf the Internet – what in the world are you thinking? How many times do you have to stab yourself to bleed to death? If you know the answer to that please download Firefox today and say goodbye to IE-borne online threats.

The IE team dropped all development of Macintosh version of IE, then outright said it would not develop anything for XP anymore and everyone would have to upgrade to Vista, then they slacked away on security work and instead focused on visual issues while they got spanked on features by Firefox (which is why I switched). The Internet Explorer team needs to be punished, severely, for slacking away and compromising your computer and data security. This is not the case with almost any other Microsoft product. Will Bill fix it? Not as long as you continue to take it and not vote with your feet or at the very least tell them you are not happy with the risk they are placing on your computer.

And Linux Apple BSD Lotus Firefox users thought they were mad at Redmond…

(via Email Battles)

I’ve been contracted to create a streaming text server/client. The main goal is to have instant updates to a web based application. It will also include a simple chat system for users to communicate to operators.

Javascript can’t do sockets by it’s self. It will take some type of application running on the user’s browser to communicate with the socket server. There is only a few choices out there to do this.

First I tried the Java way. I created a simple Java app to connect to my socket server and pass messages to the browser. It worked great on the Mac, but fell down on Windows. The main reason why it fails on Windows is because MS doesn’t integrate Java with their OS. They can’t because they lost their license to do so. So the users will have to download a very large application and install it. The users for this system just can’t figure that out.

Next I tried AJAX polling. This would work for all platforms, but it was slow. If you adjust the polling for less delay, the server load goes up. This would not be a problem except that I’m sending a lot of data through the line with many clients attached.

Last option I’ve tried is Macromedia Flash Player 8. It provides a way to connect to a socket and feed the info to Javascript. This works basically just like the Java applet but is a much smaller download for the user. It works perfectly and this is what I’m using now. The draw back is that it’s Flash 8 and nobody has it installed on their systems yet. So the users need to download and install it for my application to work. You wouldn’t think this would be a problem, but it is. The users have many problems installing software. Also there is a situation where the latest MS update would remove Flash 8 and install Flash 7 making the users have to re-install version 8 again.

One of my main goals is to make the application available on all platforms and browsers. Using AJAX and Flash, it is possible to cover most of the browsers and platforms. Currently Mac OS, Linux, FreeBSD, and MS Windows are supported. Safari, FireFox, and MSIE are also supported.

Well, Christmas has come and go for another year. Jane and I enjoyed family in CA this year. Everyone was there. It was a blast.

The drive over was great. We just few up there. No traffic, no snow, and it was a really nice day for driving.

Once we were there, we stuffed ourselves with really good food. Lots of candy and other treats were plentiful. I think I ate way too much.

Christmas day felt like three days. We opened presents in the morning. Then we opened more presents in the afternoon. Then that night we played the swap game and opened even more presents. It was fun.

Then monday we started our journey home. It was a long drive because some of the roads were closed while others were flooded with cars. But we made it home and boy were we glad to be home.

For Christmas I received a great jacket from Jane. It’s an awesome leather race jacket. I really like it. I also got a few shirts and pants, a few lights, tire air pump, tools, a set of classical music CDs, and other stuff. I made out well this year.

Now it’s time to get back to work.

So I’ve been trying out Skype for a last few days. It actually sounds better than my Cell Phone…

Anyway, a friend I was chatting with told me about Gizmo. So I downloaded it and started the install. I wasn’t really paying attention to the install until I seen a message that said something like, please wait while we send email to your friends….

What happened is that it started sending emails to everyone in my address book. I started clicking on the “Cancel” button, but it just kept going. I managed to get it stopped. So there is like only 10-20 people that got the email.

That’s kinda embarrassing when 100’s of customers get this stupid email. Lucky for me, I don’t think it was more than a few.

So anyway, I have Skype and Gizmo running right now. I’ll probably stick with Skype because it’s more popular.

Edit: It’s Gizmo… It works with my chat program also, so I’m going to use it.

So one day I was trying to think up some new domain names for my family. I go to BulkRegister.com and see that they offer .shop domain names. So I happily register art.shop, webdesign.shop, and quilt.shop. I’m thinking that these domain names will be great for business and my family.

Little did I know that it was a total SCAM. Nowhere on their site does it say that the domain names belong to new.net. No where on their site does it say that anyone wanting to access these names needs to install a plugin or have their IPS make a change to their systems. Not even in the fine print on their web site.

You have to actually click on the “New.net Policy” link at the bottom of the order form, then click on the links to new.net to actually see what the deal is with them.

BulkRegister isn’t just a regular domain registrar. You have to pay a $50 membership fee, then you get to use the system. This is like paying for a membership at a golf club, then they recruit you into AmWay to steel your money.

Not only do they take your money and not tell you that the product your buying does not work. They also don’t give refunds for the names. I’m out $60.

They say on their site that 174,661,619 million users worldwide can see the domain names. I have yet to find someone that can access my new domain names. This is totally ridiculous. They say this on the page titled, “Guarantee You Will Reach Your Market With These Distinctive, Easy-To-Remember Extensions!”

It’s a scam, don’t register any .shop domain names. In fact, steer away from Bulk Register. Use someone else for your domain names. I’ll be transferring all mine away as they start to expire.

Can you spot the problem with this picture? Check out the movie for more.

Why don’t keyboard manufacturers “get it”? Some of them have keyboards that are almost perfect. Some have keyboards that just suck.

You may know that I’ve been searching for the perfect keyboard for a very long time. I have yet to find one that I totally like. If I did find one, I’d probably buy two or three just so I have them later when I wear them out.

What is the perfect keyboard for me? That’s easy, but first let me tell you about the keyboards that almost make it.

The Apple keyboard. It has USB ports for the mouse and other devices. It’s small so it does not take up too much room on your keyboard tray. It even has a decent price. But, the key caps are old style and the layout is non-ergonomical.

The Macally Icekey. It has USB ports. Scissor action short key caps. But, it’s a bit on the big side. It’s USB ports are on the very outside left and right. So if you plug a mouse into it the mouse hits the USB plug. It wears out very fast. And it’s not a ergonomic layout.

Type Matrix. This is a great keyboard. Small, slim key caps. Ergonomic layout. But it does not support the Mac so well. It does not have USB ports. It’s not even a USB keyboard.

Kensington Slim Type. It has the scissor action short key caps. It has a small foot print on the desk. It has media keys and a power/sleep button. This is almost perfect. But, the Delete and Home keys are in the wrong place. There is no USB ports so I have to use a USB extension for my mouse. Still not a ergonomic layout.

OK, so what keyboard would I make if I could make a keyboard. Well, I would take the Type Matrix and add Apple keys to it. Make it USB and have two USB ports on the back. Then stick a few media keys and a sleep/power button. That would probably be the best keyboard ever.

So, hello keyboard manufacturers… Get a clue!

Yesterday, in the snow, we had to pull the pump up again. This time due to a short in the splice. Once we fixed that the well preformed very good. We even had showers last night!

It took about four hours for the water to clean up and settle. Now we have good water flow and I hope more water.

Now I can finally get back to work and finish up my current projects.

All in all, Thanksgiving was a blast. It was great to see everyone show up. We even got a bit of wheeling in.

The day before Thanksgiving, our well died. At first we had very low water pressure. Thinking it was the pressure valve, we replaced it. Then we had no water at all. After checking it out for a day, we found out that only air was being pumped up. So we just hooked into the neighbors water for Thanksgiving week end.

Thanksgiving day we feasted on Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and all the trim’n’s.

The day after we went wheeling. Almost broke Tim’s rig again. It was a mellow day of wheeling.

Saturday we just stuck around the house. Randy and I put together my engine, transmission, and dual crawler case. Now it’s ready to be mounted in the chassis. It’s going to be so cool! I can’t wait to get it setup.

Sunday we fixed the well. After pulling the pump out and finding it was cracked we decided to buy a new one. Looks like it was cracked when they put it together in the first place. We also measured how deep the well was. We found out it was 130 feet. The old pump was only down 100 feet. So we were able to drop the pump 20 feet more.

New pump, wire, hose, and pressure valve later. Everything is great!

Now I have to get back to work and finish the program that was suppose to be done last Wednesday.

This week will be awesome! The Gear Mashers will be testing our skills at the proving grounds. It will be an all out rock rash bash. First one to the top will be king of the mountain.

Video coming on Saturday.