/misc/ramblings/techno/geek

Internet Explorer 7 Beta

I'm on a machine that has the IE7 beta installed on it. I've had a brief chance to play around with it and have already settled on a list of what they got right and what they got wrong. While I do realize that this is beta software, something tells me that this list of things, is here to stay.

Right:

1. The rendering engine. I've always found IE6 to render pages faster than any version of Firefox. IE7 doesn't disappoint there.
2. Tabbed browsing. Microsoft finally decided to make tabbed browsing part of IE7. However, it's not all peachy (see the Wrong list).
3. Anti phishing. I haven't had a chance to test it, but it looks like IE7 has a built-in anti-phishing component. It appears to want to check a Microsoft website against the URL.

Wrong:

1. Toolbars. Microsoft, why oh why do you insist on telling me YOU know best where to put my toolbars. In IE7, the menu bar has been moved below the address bar and the tab bar. You're stuck with the address bar and the tab bar where they are. You can't move them. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
2. Tabbed browsing. See #1 under Wrong.
3. Bookmarks. You still don't have the ability to highlight and move or delete more than one bookmark at a time. I have hundreds of bookmarks! Why is it that bookmarks seem like an afterthought to you?
4. The links toolbar. The buttons for the links toolbar don't auto resize depending on what the link says. For instance, if I have a button on my links bar to digg and I name it "digg", the toolbar button is just as long as if I'd named it, "digg - a very cool website that I visit often". Come on.
5. Mouse gestures. Don't exist.

As you can see, the list of wrongs is certainly longer than the list of rights. I could have made the list of wrongs even longer, but I decided that it boiled down to extensibility. IE7 just isn't extensible. Us Firefox users are spoiled. I've gotten to the point where Firefox does exactly what I want it to do. It handles bookmarks the way that I want it to, it handles toolbars the way I want it to. In short, it does what I want it to. I can live with a slower rendering speed.

Microsoft are you listening????

Are any of you using Gamefly? What kind of turnaround times are you seeing? I believe that Gamefly is located in Southern California. I live in Oregon. UPS Ground consistantly shipped things from Southern California to my home in Oregon in two days. Netflix total turnaround time from the time that I sent movies back, to the time that I received a new one was 3-4 days TOPS.

You know how long it's taking with Gamefly? 6 days. Come on! 6 days?!?! They've started a thing called "FastReturn". FastReturn basically means that the post office notifies Gamefly that you're returning mail to them and they're supposed to get the next game in your queue out to you before actually receiving the game. So in essence, the games pass each other in the mail. Gamefly also warns you on their website that FastReturn is not available everywhere. Grrrrrr. I've written them an email inquiring about it.

It's very frustrating when you're paying $21.95 a month for two games out and their turn around times eat up that much time. Let me know if you're using Gamefly and what you're turnaround times are.....

UPDATE: Here it is...Saturday, October 29th. I mailed my games back to Gamefly on Monday evening....still no new games. This is beyond ridiculous. I also haven't heard a peep about my inquiry into "Fastreturn". I wish Spunel was around still. They had a button you could click in your queue indicating that you'd popped your games in the mail back to them and they would go ahead and ship you the next ones in your queue. It was the honor system.

What I hate about Digg...

Ever visit digg.com? It's a technology website where the readers promote stories to the front page by "digging" them. To borrow from their website,

Digg is a technology news website that combines social bookmarking, blogging, RSS, and non-hierarchical editorial control. With digg, users submit stories for review, but rather than allow an editor to decide which stories go on the homepage, the users do.

This in and of itself is a great concept, but what Digg lacks is some type of moderation. Some of the people that populate Digg (anyone can submit stories and comment on other stories) are downright rude.

My "member overall ranking" is currently at 127 out of over 30,000. I'm a frequent contributor in that I submit stories, I comment, and I digg stories. Basically I consider myself a useful participant of the digg website. That being said, it seems to have an inordinate number of people that are just worthless. For instance, I've been called a "stupid fucking retard" for submitting a story that happened to have been duplicately submitted on digg. When you submit a story, digg, supposedly searches it's archives and lets you know whether the story you're about to submit is a duplicate story. Well the Digg search functionality is borked. It doesn't work. I've resorted to searching google instead. I do this for every story that I submit and will NOT submit a story if I find a duplicate.

I've also been called "jerk" for submitting a duplicate story that was submitted some 157 days earlier than mine. I've got pretty thick skin when it comes to things on this interweb thingy, but when I'm trying to participate in a website which I think has a lot of potential and is extremely valuable for learning new things, yes it bugs me. I have to wonder how many people don't participate in the digg community because there are so many assholes on there anymore??

Yahoo Music Service....too good to last.

I just received this in my mail box from Yahoo..

Dear Yahoo! Music Unlimited Subscriber:
We want to let you know about an upcoming change to the Yahoo! Music Unlimited service regarding the transfer of subscription music to compatible portable music players. If you do not transfer subscription music to a portable device or do not plan to do so in the near future, this change does not affect you.
Currently, the Yahoo! Music Engine software lets you transfer two types of music to compatible portable music players: (1) subscription music, which is available to you for as long as you remain an active Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscriber, and (2) music you've purchased, including both downloaded music you've bought from Yahoo! and music you've ripped from CDs you own.
On November 1, 2005, the cost of transferring and playing subscription music on a portable digital music player will increase from $4.99 to $9.99 per month for an annual subscription ($119.88 billed annually) and from $6.99 to $11.99 per month for a monthly subscription. Despite this increase, Yahoo! Music Unlimited will
continue to offer the lowest price anywhere for transferring subscription music
to a portable player.
If you transfer Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscription music to a portable music player, or you plan to do so in the future, you may upgrade to an annual subscription by October 31, 2005 and lock in the current low price of $59.88 for one more year.
If you do not (and have not) transferred subscription music to a portable device, your subscription will continue to renew at the current monthly rate of $6.99 for the base package of Yahoo! Music Unlimited. All features will remain the same except for subscription music portability.
Visit Yahoo! Music Unlimited Help to learn more about compatible portable devices.
If you have further questions, you may contact Customer Care.
We are committed to offering our customers the most competitive pricing possible for digital music and we hope you continue to enjoy your experience with Yahoo! Music Unlimited.
Thank you.
Yahoo! Music Customer Care

The debate over privacy goes on and on. How much do you value your privacy? Does any company have the right to read anything on your computer (not related to their software) if you use their services? Check out this horrific article over at rootkit.com about just how much your privacy is being invaded while you're busy playing WoW.

The things that companies get away with anymore is just incredible. I refuse to purchase W0W for this reason. I was on the fence about playing this game. Now I'm no longer on the fence....

The new Yahoo! email beta.

Honestly, I was excited at first to witness the new Yahoo! mail beta first hand. I logged on and changed from the current interface to the new one and waited with baited breath. And waited. And waited.

My very first impression was that it was slowwww. My second impression, once it loaded, was pretty cool new interface. But pretty cool new interface and usability, at least in this case, are mutually exclusive. There is enough lag in the beta to be bothersome. I get some screen rendering anomalies and it will render Firefox useless while it's logging on (Firefox acts as if it's locked up). I will post screen shots of my screen rendering issues if I get a chance. I'm also going to time the logon process so that you'll get an idea of what it's doing to my browser.

Incidentally, the new beta doesn't render in Opera. Yahoo! will default to the basic style even though the beta is my default. I assume that at some point, support for Opera will be there.

After using the Yahoo! mail beta for a good couple of weeks, I can assure you that it's no gmail killer. What's the use of all the fluff if it slows things down noticably?

Peace out...

Exchange Server 2003 - Service Pack 2

Check out this article over at msexchange.org (Is it just me or does this seem like it says "m" "sexchange"?????? It's supposed to be "ms" "exchange" *grin*) for more about the upcoming SP2 for Exchange 03.

Some highlights included:

• Increased mail database limit size from 16GB to 75GB for Exchange Standard (wo0t wo0t!)
• Improved Public Folder management
• OAB enhancements
• Allow/Block MAPI per user
• Improved SPAM prevention (i.e.: Sender ID)

As well as some other fixes, etc. This looks to be a huge SP install and hopefully won't take more than a couple of hours on one of my weekends to accomplish. This service pack is still on track for a 2005 release. We've only got a few more months dudes, until 2005 is 2006.

One thing that I'd like to see implemented, is more control over Outlook clients via Exchange rather than GPO's, but then that is just me.

Well my site was hacked even though I had the latest version of Drupal installed. I'm back to Blogger for good. I'm a little disappointed at the hacking, but that's the nature of the internet. Bastards....