Let’s take a look at the wonderful claims being made by the peeps at IE8, text referenced from screen shots taken by Chris Messina (factoryjoe ← my favourite flickr stream) on the 19th and 20th of June 2009, (here: 19th and here: 20th).

Security (IE8 only)

Internet Explorer 8 takes the cake with better phishing and malware protection, as well as protection from emerging threats.

Ok, first problem, by only placing a ‘tick’ next to IE8 they are essentially claiming that Firefox and Chrome have no security features, especially to someone who just skims down the list and doesn’t read their provided explanations. They do this on 6 or 7 of the other “reasons” below too.

I haven’t been a full-time Windows user for almost 3 years, but back then most of the “malware” and “emerging threats” had more to do with the fact that 99% of the viruses that the scum out there were writing and distributing only targeted machines running Windows, than it did with the actual browser. Yes the browser can add an intermediate step to help prevent some of these “threats” but in many cases the user themselves should be more responsible, if they want to visit dodgy sites and download, umm, “screensavers” and other sorts of “entertainment” then they should be aware that they are putting their lovely Windows machine at risk of infection. Maybe if Microsoft had plugged all the security holes in their swiss-cheese operating system sooner it wouldn’t have become as big an issue.

Even better get a Mac, you won’t have to worry about IE and its highly unlikely you’ll get any viruses.

Privacy (IE8 only)

InPrivate Browsing and InPrivate Filtering help Internet Explorer claim privacy victory.

Claiming victory because you left out the competitor that includes the features doesn’t make you the victor. Safari has had “Private browsing” mode for a long time, and Firefox is introducing something similar in version 3.5 which should be out soon.

Ease of Use (IE8 only)

Features like Accelerators, Web Slices and Visual Search Suggestions make Internet Explorer 8 easiest to use.

Ease of use is not won by adding features that 10% of people will use, its achieved by making the software, uh durr, easier to use. From what I can tell IE8 still looks and feels like IE7, with its odd arrangement of menus and buttons splattered all over the top portion of the screen in a completely different manner to most other Microsoft software. Although they’ve at least continued this trend in the latest version of Office with that stupid ‘ribbon’ menu/palette crap. A web browser is core to many computer users need, there should be no learning curve.

Web Standards (IE8, FF, GC)

Yes, two quotes, they changed their text… wonder why.

It’s a tie. Internet Explorer passes more of the World Wide Web Consortium’s CSS 2.1 test cases than any other browser, but Firefox 3 has more support for some evolving standards.

…or one day later…

Firefox and Chrome have more support for emerging standards like HTML5 and CSS3, but Internet Explorer 8 invested heavily in having world-class, consistent support for the entire CSS2.1 specification.

Oh, this is priceless, anyone got a camera I’d like a photo of little IE8 playing with the grownups. Its like a high school basketballer claiming they are better than players in the NBA because they have a better free throw percentage. In other words, its bull shit.

So yes, you’ve FINALLY got CSS2.1 support, welcome to 5 years ago. IE8 is still so far behind its not even humorous anymore, its just sad. They (now) say that IE8 invested heavily in having world-class CSS2.1 support, great but that would have been a nice thing a few years ago, real browsers have moved on to this radical thing called CSS3, and you Internet Explorer are holding the world back by not implementing even the most basic parts of it.

For starters, border radius, Safari and Firefox (although it took until v3 for it to be ‘nice’) have had this for a long time, and yet with this first new version of IE in years we still don’t get it. Why?

Declaring a tie is a bit of a cop out, I’m pretty sure I could put together a page that would look perfect in Safari, Firefox, Chrome and Opera and would still need some dirty, dirty hack to look ‘right’ in IE8.

Internet Explorer is the mortal enemy of web developers and designer across the world, and with version 8 it doesn’t make things better it makes them worse. Now we have three fucking versions of IE to fight with. Wonderful.

Developer Tools (IE8 only)

Again two days, two quotes, and this time they even changed which browser they awarded a ‘tick’ to.

Of course Internet Explorer 8 wins this one. There’s no need to install tools separately, and it offers better features like Javascript profiling.

…or one day later… (IE8, FF3)

Internet Explorer 8 has the most comprehensive developer tools built in, including HTML, CSS and JavaScript editing, but also JavaScript profiling; other browsers have developer tools available, but either require you to download the separately, or aren’t as complete.

“Of course”? Are they serious? Apparently not, since they removed that bit.

Heaven forbid that us developers need to download a browser addon to check css and a js errors… regular users don’t give a toss, so why clutter up their experience and add unwanted confusion by making it a bundled “feature”? Why Microsoft, why?

I’m also pretty sure that Safari’s web inspector shits on, and then sets fire to, whatever rubbish tools IE8 has added.

Abuse and insults aside, it has to be better than what was in IE6/7, especially in regards to javascript errors. “Error at Line 1, Character 0” - gee thanks IE, that’s useful for debugging my 4000 line javascript file, thanks. If they’ve fixed that issue alone it will be an improvement.

Reliability (IE8 only)

Only Internet Explorer 8 has both tab isolation and crash recovery features; Firefox and Chrome have one or the other.

And what about the reliability and crash recovery features of the operating system the people have to use if they want to use your stupid browser? Oh, they don’t have any, ok…

Customizability (IE8, FF, GC)

Sure, Firefox may win in shear number of add-ons, but many of the customizations you’d want to download for Firefox are already part of Internet Explorer 8 - right out of the box.

More features does not a better product make.

Especially features that 90% of people won’t use. What about the features we do want though, things that are included in Safari and Firefox “out of the box” things like CSS3, and “being not shit”, are there at least IE8 plugins for those?

Compatibility (IE8 only)

Internet Explorer 8 is more compatible with more sites on the Internet than any other browser.

omgroflmaowtfbbq

Are they serious? Must be, they haven’t changed the wording yet. Wake up and smell reality you idiots, Internet Explorer is not compatible with websites, websites are compatible with IE.

If the world hadn’t spent the last 8 years building websites and then fixing them to work with the fucked up web standards implementation in IE6/7 then nothing would work in IE8.

Also, adding “IE7 compatibility mode” or “render as IE7” or whatever the hell its called achieves nothing, we still have to test everything in all those modes because there is no way of knowing what the user is going to have selected as their default.

Internet Explorer, you are the cause not the solution, please crawl into a hole and die. Thanks.

Manageability (IE8 only)

Neither Firefox nor Chrome provide guidance or enterprise tools. That’s just not nice.

…or one day later…

Neither Firefox nor Chrome provide guidance or enterprise tools.

Someone at Microsoft must have found out they had a 5 year old writing their promo material and stepped in the make that small wording change.

How about this for a reason. Regular people aren’t enterprises, so enterprise tools are pointless for a large percentage of the population.

What is with Microsoft’s fascination with “enterprise” anyway, its like they think it makes them sound better or something. Either that or they are just closet Star Trek fans.

Performance (IE8, FF, GC)

Knowing the top speed of a car doesn’t tell you how fast you can drive in rush hour. To actually see the difference in page loads between all three browsers, you need slow-motion video. This one’s also a tie.

Another tie? really? Ok, if you say so.

Reports say that IE8 is definitely quicker than IE6/7, but its not nearly as fast as Firefox (which itself isn’t always that great, FF3.5 is apparently a big improvement though), and if this were a race into outer-space, Safari would be beyond Pluto before IE8 had reached Mars.

IE8 you’re not fast, you probably never will be. Get over it, or simply switch to cross platform rendering engine that works. Y’know something like Webkit.

The points I’ve discussed above are based on what their “browser comparison chart” said on the 19th and 20th of June 2009, you can see the list here, no doubt its probably changed again, and if it hasn’t it will, just give it time.

But wait there’s more

The good folk at Microsoft also provide a set of 8 reasons to install IE8, they even put them under a heading of “What’s so great about Internet Explorer 8?”

In summary, because if I go into detail I’ll write another 2000 words, the 8 reasons are: it’s faster than ever, it’s easier than ever, it’s safer than ever, keep up with the stuff that matters to you, see any site easily, recover from crashes quickly, surf with more privacy and make it yours.

I agree with about, umm, zero of them, but you can check out their reasons for the reasons here.

As I see it the only reason you should install IE8 is if you’re currently using IE6 or IE7, and are too brainwashed to switch to a real browser. People who actually like using the internet need not bother.

What next?

Well from Microsoft we can probably count on seeing Internet Explorer 9 in 2013, and it probably still won’t support CSS3 or HTML5, if we’re lucky we might get that for IE10 in 2020 by which time Firefox and Safari with have release a dozen major upgrades none of which Microsoft will see as important enough to implement themselves for another 10 or so years.

One can only wonder what the Internet Explorer crew will “invent” next? In IE7 that ‘invented’ this new thing called RSS… or not, but for Joe Average IE7 was probably the first time he’d encountered this new fangle thing, so to him its a Microsoft invention. This time its ‘Web slices’, which sounds an awful lot like Safari’s web clips. Just saying.

But don’t just take our word for it. Download Internet Explorer 8 today to see for yourself.

But don’t just take my word for it. Don’t Download Internet Explorer 8 today and save yourself the headaches.

Hello and Wilkommen, today we must consider The Roger Federer Equation

Neat little ad that Nike put together in celebration of Roger’s victory at the 2009 French Open, which gave him his 14th Grand Slam title finally passing equalling Pete Sampras… having Nadal out of the way was definitely helpful, and very ‘wilkommen’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgUIDtGUeNE

iPhone 3G S …is for speed

Yes there is the the new 3.0 iPhone OS, yes it now comes with32GB of storage, yes the camera is better and has focus, yes it shoots video, yes it has a voice recorder, yes its faster (about the only thing I find really interesting) and yes it has a compass (woo…). But.

The camera is ‘only’ 3.2MP, and while this what I was expecting, and it has to be better than the current 2MP I still feel let down. Nokia have been squeezing 5MP cameras into their high-end phones for years, as have Sony, and Samsung recently upped the ante shoving a 12MP camera into is latest phone. Sorry Apple, but for your “most advanced phone in the world” 3.2MP is a little lame. I’d love it if my iPhone could replace the need for carrying around a decent camera to take happy snaps (which I don’t currently do because my digital camera is too bulky), maybe the 3.2MP with auto focus will cut it, maybe it won’t.

When 3G arrived back whenever that was, one of the big “selling points” in Australia (despite the fact that you had to actually live in a capital city) was video calling. Using Nokia as an example again, currently even their most basic 3G phone has two cameras to facilitate video calling, yet the iPhone… nope. I’m unlikely to ever even use video calling but it would be nice if I had the option.

The fact that its taken until the 3rd generation iPhone to get MMS is a little ridiculous considering even my 7 year old Sony Ericsson could handle MMS. And video recording sounds great, but how good are the VGA quality videos actually going to be? People were saying a few weeks ago that and iPhone with video could challenge the Flip Mino, I have my doubts, but would like to be proven wrong.

So, I’m not really seeing anything that is screaming “buy me, buy me now!!!”, and I’m thinking I might be happy enough with the free 3.0 update for the time being. Besides, just going on what people are saying about AT&T, it sounds like existing iPhone 3G owners who want to upgrade are going to be screwed over anyway, and Optus won’t be any better here.

Also, whats the fugly diagonal stripes they’ve added to the phone, ipod and sms icons? The default homescreen icons are an inconsistent mess… Just so you don’t get the wrong idea I honestly do love my current iPhone.

Two more things. MacBook Pros and Snow Leopards.

The MacBook Pro got an update, which seems odd since it took so long for them to update them before and now less then a year after the unibodies were released they’ve updated them again. Overall the 15-inch MBPs are cheaper (good thing), the ExpressCard slot has been swapped for and SD Card slot and they’re also the recipient of the non-user-replaceable battery thats already found in the 17-inch.

While the 17-inch is also cheaper but retains the ExpressCard slot. And the 13-inch unibody MacBook is now officially a 13-inch MacBook Pro and a bit cheaper, it also has the non-user-replaceable battery, SD slot and FireWire 800 ports added. The MacBook Air also received a more than decent price drop.

And lastly Snow Leopard, it seems to be getting the least attention, so did it get only minimal air time in the keynote? Anyway, good news is that is going to be so cheap that no-one is going to have a decent excuse not to update, only $29 in the US (and apparently only $14.95 here in Australia) which is even lower than John Gruber was expecting. From what I’ve read on apple.com its sounds like its going to be a great update full of things to makes other things go faster and stuff… I mean lots more 64-bit goodness across the core native apps and better multiple processor processing.

Apple have cut 6GB (!) from the installation, I would imagine most of that was gained by cutting old legacy crap out of the core and apps like Mail, iCal etc. Safari 4 is available now minus the stupid title-bar tabs (lol), Microsoft Exchange support is now available out of the box which Apple says isn’t even available on Windows machines, Quicktime X also gets a new shiny interface and updating basic editing controls, Finder has apparently been rewritten in Cocoa to suck less, Stacks have been improved (making them useful) and Exposé has been tied into the dock which seems a little Windows 7-esque.

So the Snow Leopard info maybe wasn’t as plentiful as some were expecting (although digging through apple.com there is plenty of info there), the iPhone info was a little disappointing (sorry Apple, when you’ve got the most advanced phone in the world you start to expect really, really awesome things all the time) and the MacBook updates were unexpected.

I’ll watch the keynote when I get home tonight (as I’ve already used my lunch break to write this) and see if it changes any of my broad, sweeping opinions.

The past year has seen the end of numerous shows, either because they wound things up, were dropped by their network or a combination of the two. A couple of promising newbies also showed up, and a few old favourites (and less favourites) continued on. The question for some of those is how long do they have left.

First, lets take a quick look at what departed

Prison Break

Prison Break received two finales and a conclusion thanks to the couple of extra episodes they were given to wrap things up following the end of the 4th season. Personally I actually thought this season was a little better than the last, but seems like many (including FOX) seemed to disagree given its falling ratings, truth is that after four season it was probably a good time to wrap things up.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

After the first season it was fair to say that TSCC was standing on thin ice and probably pretty lucky to get a second season. Perhaps they took note because the second season was a lot better, and mid-season it was probably looking hopeful for a third season. That was until the season ended and FOX chose to renew Dollhouse and not TSCC I’m sure they cited a drop in ratings (they usually do) but they couldn’t expect too much given they stuck them both in the Friday night slot which seems to be notorious as the spot where you send a show to die.

Scrubs

Wait that’s right it didn’t end, did it. Well it was supposed to, but then it was also supposed to end at the end of the 7th season last year, but instead jumped from NBC to ABC and continued on a good as ever. However, now that the majority of the main cast have all but confirmed that they won’t be returning for season 9, it means that while Scrubs will technically be returning for 2010 it won’t really be Scrubs as we knew it.

Reaper

I don’t think its cancellation has been officially announced anywhere yet, but with the writers signed up with FOX to produce a new show, and at least one of the main cast starring in a new show this year its not looking promising. Real shame, because on the whole Reaper is great (ignoring the disappointing finale), maybe we’ll get lucky and it receive another chance, but I’m not holding my breath. It’s only hope may be, if you believe the rumours, a move to the SyFy channel, rumours which were squashed almost as soon as they surfaced.

The noobs

Dollhouse

A lot of hype, a long wait, it started off very slowly, improved slightly, had a couple of good episodes and then fell in a hole again. And it still somehow managed to get picked up for another season. Go figure. There are those out there that praise Joss Whedon like a god, and yes the couple of episodes that he said would be good were good, the fact is the rest really weren’t up to the same standard. For season two he either has to be more involved in the story telling of every episode or find better writers. I want to like Dollhouse, but I’m just not feeling it, yet.

Fringe

Personally I was always going to like Fringe, it has JJ Abrams at the helm, and if Whedon is some peoples TV ‘god’, then I guess Abrams would be mine. It started out ok, but I really wanted it to develop some sort of deep, weird and wonderful mythology in the vein of Alias and Lost. After it returned from its mid-season hiatus, this deeper mystery started to develop more, yes each episode was still a mostly self contained story but it was all tied back into the bigger picture. And after the number of things that were revealed in the finale, I’m really keen for the next season and hopeful that it continues to get better so that I have a possible replacement for Lost.

Better off Ted

I’m not even sure how to describe Better off Ted. It’s odd humour, but that’s what I liked about it. It’s not likely to have the longevity of something like Friends or Scrubs, but it does fill a small gap. It may have only had a short run (although the first season isn’t actually over, it just been off screens for several weeks), but it sounds like it’ll also be back in 2010.

Old dogs with new tricks (and old ones too…)

Lost

It’s no secret, I’m kind of obsessed with Lost, and it will be sad to see it go. Season 6 will be the end for Lost, and its been known for a couple of years which is great because they’ve been able to build things up and answer questions more frequently over the past couple of years. The way that season 5 ended with its ‘white out’ leaves the possibility for almost anything to happen in the final season, best of all was that most of the fan theories were (quite literally) blown to pieces by the end of season 5, its just a shame that we have to wait almost another 7 months until it continues. oh, and if we don’t get the answers we seek there will be trouble.

24

After a very long, writers strike induced wait, 24 was finally back. Many moons ago Kiefer signed on for 5 more seasons and 2 movies (or something like that) and from what I can work out next years season is the 5th year of that deal. So, will 24 continue past season 8? I’m not sure, I always thought season 7 would have been a good end point (7 days in a week), but I’m not complaining if we get to keep seeing Jack have the worst day of his life. again.

Heroes

I think about 15 minutes into the start of this season everyone was thinking “god, I hope this is the last season”, and things didn’t improve. There were perhaps only 1 or 2 episodes that were any good, but the repetition and reuse of storylines is getting very old, even bringing back the old writers didn’t help. Heroes steep decline started with its monumentally disappointing season 1 finale and hasn’t achieved a whole lot since. This was all summed up when once again the three most powerful characters on the show were about to come head to head in an epic battle… and… they closed the fucking door and all we saw were some flashes of light from beneath the door. LAME. Please NBC, when this next season (which has been cut back to ‘only’ 18 episodes) sucks give Heroes the axe. Even the recent casting announcements like Robert Knepper (T-Bag from Prison Break) are unlikely to help.

Supernatural

Season 4 was different, Angels stepped in to try and ‘help’ Dean and Sam stop Lucifer breaking out and just like Lost it ended with a ‘white out’. Apparently there was talk that season 5 would be the end, but apparently they’re contracted for a 6th season as well. However I’m guess season 5 will be about putting Lucifer back in his box, which leaves what exactly for season 6?

Dexter

Lastly, I can’t not mention Dexter, everyone’s favourite serial killer, behind Lost its close to being my favourite show on TV. It returns for season 4 late September making it one of the first shows to return. It’ll be all over before Christmas though being only a 12/13 episode season, not to worry, its bound to be a good, short season.

What does that leave for 2011?

Dollhouse and Fringe (although based on the seasons past Fringe probably has a better chance) could still be around for a third season. Scrubs probably won’t survive it rebirth, Lost will be gone, 24 might be gone, Heroes should (hopefully) be gone and Supernatural might be back for its final fling. That’s not leaving a lot worth watching, with the exception of Dexter which will be back for season 5.

Does 2010 hold anything of real promise?

The major networks have already announced their schedules for the next year, so is there anything that might fill the gaps. Here are few that could potentially do just that, so long as the networks give them a chance, either that or they’ll be shit, guess we won’t know till we watch them.

V

Today, the world woke up to find spaceships over every major city. The Visitors claim to have come in peace, bringing gifts of medical miracles and technological breakthroughs. They promise to do no harm. They’re lying.

Flash Forward

A mysterious global event causes everyone to black out simultaneously for two minutes and seventeen seconds, and each person sees a glimpse of their lives six months from now. When they wake up, everyone is left wondering if what they saw will actually happen.

Human Target

Based on the popular DC Comics comic book and graphic novel, HUMAN TARGET is a full-throttle action drama centered on CHRISTOPHER CHANCE (Mark Valley, FRINGE), a unique private contractor/security guard hired to protect.

Day One

In the aftermath of a global event that devastates the world’s infrastructures, a small band of survivors strives to rebuild society and unravel the mysteries of why the event took place and what the future has in store. Told from the point of view of an eclectic group of neighbors in a Van Nuys, California apartment building, this journey of survival will show us that hope is found in the smallest of victories and heroes are born every day.

Update 2: Nope scratch that, you can’t even view the video, apparently its now a private, password protected video… lamer.

Update 3: Right. Youtube to the rescue, until they take that one down too…

Update 4: Ok, I give up. The youtube video is gone too now.

If you ignore the bit with Bumbleebee crying like a girl, there is actually some good “giant robots blowing shit up” action in this new 2 and half minute teaser thats been released by Michael Bay. The next couple of months are going to be awesome as far as movie releases go.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYFmyjxP2pA.

This was just sent to me be my Mum and Brother, I thought it was too hilarious not to post. It was created by Jose Maria Andres, and you can check out some of his other work here: http://alzhem.com/

Source: http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=132&t=738483