Microsoft released its official version of their latest browser, IE 8, on March 19th.  Web developers around the world know from experience that this may or may not be a good thing.  It’s tough to design web pages and applications that are suppose to render the same, no matter what browser you use, when one of those browsers for multiple reasons wants to do their own thing.  Web developers have been fighting browser incompatibilities for as long as we can remember.

One of the worse browsers for non-compliance has been…you guessed it Internet Explorer.  Almost every web page out there has to have it’s work around for those viewers that use Internet Explorer.  The browser compatibility issue became such a pain, and not just Microsoft as the culprit, that an independent advocacy group was formed, the Web Standards Project, to try to point out the differences that existed between browsers in hopes of getting some conformity in everyone’s web experience.

The Web Standards Project developed a test suite, called Acid,  to see if a browser was compliant with what they considered to be the major standards from various sources for web development.  For a web developer and web user, this is important for an enjoyable web experience.  The current default test that every browser should be able to run is Acid2.  You can check your browser out, and take the Acid 2 test yourself.  If your browser runs correctly, you should get the below image displayed correctly.   Seems like a simple test, but every previous version of Internet Explorer has failed this test miserably, until now that is.   Internet Explorer 8 has decided to join the rest of the world’s browser experience and now passes Acid 2.   Now all we have to do is wait until all previous versions of Internet Explorer die of old age, and we can forget about all those special IE workarounds in our web pages.

By the way, there is a much more strenuous Acid 3 test.  This one counts to 100 and depending on how far you get in the count determines how standard compliant your browser is.   So far Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari browser are the only ones to reach 100.

In the meantime, we applaud Microsoft on its latest effort, and bid all you Internet Explorer browser users to hurry up and upgrade.

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Acid2

I feel compelled to write about all-in-one printers.  I have been using these multifunctions printers for some 20 years now, and always an HP.  After all, HP invented the market.  The multifunction printer does it all, fax, scan, copy, and of course, print your computer documents.  If you get a network ready model, you can print through your wireless network, and run one all-in-one printer for all the computers in your home or small business.

These printers last four or five years before they go out of alignment, a belt slips, or the paper feed messes up.  When your printer died, it use to be a no-brainer.  You go out and buy the latest HP.

But after my six year old HP died, I wanted to rethink that logic.  Since I end up doing the maintenance on the printer, I knew the HP printer well.  I only ever owned an HP, so I was use to their quirks, but I was dissatisfied.  What didn’t I like about the HP.  The HP seems to be built with ill fitted plastic parts.  It feels and looks like plastic, and what I wanted was something that looked like a high-quality printer, think Lexus versus Chevy.  The HP ink cartridges are the highest priced on the market.  Everyone knows HP makes money on the ink cartridges, not the printer.  I never liked having to pay for cartridges that seem to run out of ink just when you had an important job to print.

And finally, the final straw was the software.  HP software ranks low in my eyes, right alongside Symantec software.  (Don’t get me started.)  It’s not the drivers themselves, it’s the way the software application works: how it installs, how the network installs, how sometimes the driver just disappears and needs to be reinstalled, the scanner never worked properly, and still doesn’t to this day.  These quirks were exasperated with the change to Vista.  Generally, HP software is a pain to install and use.  It makes you work to get your printer up and running, and in the end, I got tired of it.  It has trouble installing on a wireless network.  My thought was maybe there is a better printer than HP on the market.

I looked, and started reading the reviews.  I almost bought a Kodak.  The plus was the low price of its ink cartridges.  Yep, $12 versus the HP’s $35.  The reviews said you needed special photo paper to print high-quality color, a minus, which brought me to Canon.
The Canon MX850 had the highest Amazon ranking of all network all-in-one printers on the market, 4.5 stars from 145 reviews, wow.  The HPJ4580 only made 4 stars with 14 reviews.  I took a chance, gave up my HP problems, blew all my HP software off my computers, and went with the Canon, and I’m glad I did.

I finished installing and setting up the Canon MX850, and I am gushing over the Canon.  It’s print quality is superb, it’s color quality is superb, it handles 17-28 lb paper.  The HP sometimes struggled with lighter copy paper.  It’s parts go together precisely, like Lexus, not loosely like the HP.  It looks and feels well engineered.  I get smooth noise on print, not clunky noise with the HP.  The ink cartridges go in smoothly with a click and a light to signify proper install, not a plastic catch that forces the cartridge, like the HP.  The ink cartridges cost about $20, not bad, compared to $35.  The printer is easy to use.  The menus make sense and are logical laid out.  And finally, which prompted this article, the software is a joy.  It installs easily.  it takes care of a lot of things behind the scenes.  it installs quickly.  The HP seemed like it took forever to find the printer on the network.  The Canon found the printer quickly and just said finished with the install.

Right now, I’m a happy camper.  I wish I had gone with Canon six years ago.  Of course, I don’t think they were available back then.  It looks to me like Canon built a better mousetrap in the interim.

Micorsoft Security Updates?   Lets take a completely different perspective.

What if Microsoft didn’t make my operating system like a *&%$* vault, and some baddies somehow laid some malware into my machine.  That’s right, somehow penetrated all my non-Microsoft firewall, anitvirus software, spyware program, registry cleaner, and file change detection programs.  Yep, just suppose this malware got through all of those third-party apps, and really messed up my system.  It messed it up so bad, I couldn’t recover, and I had to buy a new computer.

Wouldn’t Microsoft make more money from the sale of a new operating system and office tools on that new computer I’d be forced to buy.  Get a clue Microsoft, stop these idiotic security updates, and ultra pain in the butt security measures that clog our systems, slow them down, and let us pay you more money.

Along those lines, since we never know what is inside, the now infamous, Microsoft security updates,  I have a sneaky suspicion, that has nagged at me many a time, as my system reboots from yet another securtiy update.   What if Microsoft security updates for XP, and its other older operating systems have a little extra functionality built-in.  Maybe, they have a couple extra loops in the code of each new update.  This would gradually slow your older operating system down.  We, of course, would call these updates, “security updates.”  Of course, the extra loops wouldn’t be in the updates for their latest operating system.

Why? Well, to sell new computers, and with each computer, new Microsoft software.  Can you say money?  Get rid of that super slow clunker you’ve had for a couple of years, and buy a new “speedy” computer with Vista on it.  See how quick your new computer runs.  “Wow, Vista looks really good!”   Nah, Microsoft wouldn’t do that, would they?

I’m running Windows Vista SP1, and it’s now infamous UAC for User Account Control, barf.  Well, I just downloaded a program I’m trying to install with a .msi extension.  A .msi extension is a file type that is meant to be installed by the Microsoft Windows Installer program.  The Windows Installer program manages the installation, and removal of programs on the Microsoft Operating System.

Well it just so happens this program sometimes will not run, gets corrupted, or a setting in windows, like not having the UAC turned on, may not run.  In which case, you can’t install your program.

So here I am trying to get some work done, and I find on my Vista system I cannot run files with an .msi extension.  Why?  Who knows.  I have now spent four hours trying to figure it out.  I’ve been up on the Microsoft site, and they have a replacement program that is supposed to fix the problems with, our you ready for this joke, a new .msu extension which also doesn’t load.  What happen to good old .exe extensions?   A lament, why does Microsoft have to make everything so difficult?

News Flash!  IBM to buy Sun.  It appears IBM is trying to consolidate the market for servers by purchasing Sun Microsystems for a whooping $6.5B in cash.  This is probably a knee-jerk reaction to Cisco systems announcement just this week that it will start selling servers.  The Internet giant, Cisco, entering the market is a serous threat to the existing market competitors.

That market before this week was mainly Dell and HP on the low side, Sun in the middle and IBM at the high end.  Both Dell and HP had been in pricing wars, and have been gradually reducing server pricing to gain market share, thus reducting margins.  We believe IBM is trying to consolidate the market, surround Cisco with both the high end and middle end systems, and at the same time increase IBM dominance in the market, before Cisco can gain a toehold.

IBM in the past had dominated the large mainframe market, but we think this market is gradually subsiding, just like it did when Digital started coming out with minicomputers to replace IBM mainframes.  In this case, IBM probably sees Cisco as a threat to their high end market share, and are afraid history may repeat itself.

We see Dell and HP continuing to occupy the low end with IBM and Cisco, with instant credibility, taking over the high end.  Although obviously not without a fight from IBM.  It should be an interesting battle, for those in the middle are doomed to eventually die.