Great, so IE7 finally launched and it doesn’t work with work’s Exchange 2003 OWA setup. I try to send email and it crashes. Let me just restate that:

If you try to use Microsoft’s flagship browser with the current version of their web-based email application, the program will crash.

I know two people who have tried this — me and another guy. Both of us saw the exact same issue. Is it just me or are these people on the ropes? I mean, damn…the new browser doesn’t work with OWA? How can you miss that? Is that considered minor by any stretch of the imagination?

So I’m left using Firefox (a free program) with OWA because if I use Microsoft’s own brand-new browser (with a vulnerability released on the same day it launched) it doesn’t work.

In. Sane. The best programmers in the world and billions of dollars, and I have to use a free product to get mail from OWA. The fall of Microsoft is upon us.

Kind of hard to deny it’s part of the OS when it’s actually listed as one. And yeah, that’s a very recent screenshot from MSDN. Ah, good ol’ IE…a never-ending source of entertainment.

The time has come to dump Internet Explorer. I know, I know — you may have heard the same thing before from those that think it’s cool to hate Microsoft; but I’m not one of those guys. I’m actually an MCSE and I happen to like quite a few of Microsoft’s products.

Rather than lump me into the Microsoft-basher category, consider for a moment why you use the browser you use, and humor me by entertaining the notion, if even for a second, that switching to another might be worth your while…

Link: Why You Should Dump Internet Explorer

So I finally did it — I’ve moved the main page (the one you’re on) over to the new layout. It should look pretty much the same, but this version is tableless XHTML 1.0 Strict, and the header/navigation portion isn’t all borked up anymore.

It’s not all done, of course (it never is), but I’m at least to the point where I can relax for a bit. Oh, and yes, I do know my logo looks gimpy in IE. It’s all greyed out and such. I figure I shouldn’t be in any rush to fix it, though. That’s the punishment for using IE.

Link: Why You Should Dump Internet Explorer

A visitor to the blog recently asked the following of me:

“Please whip up a generic letter that people can send to webmasters why they should stop being such a gay turd head.”

I thought that was particularly poignant, so I wrote up the following as a standard response to send to webmasters whose sites are all borked up in browsers other than IE.

I encourage anyone who gets treated badly, i.e. the site looks like ass when visiting a given page, to send this (or something like it) to the webmaster. It’s like the voting thing; we can’t complain if we don’t at least make an attempt to be heard.

(Edit: My writing authority (Jason) is going to comment that I need to reduce this to roughly half its length, so if you have any editing ideas on how to clean this up I’d appreciate it.)

Dear Webmaster,

Upon visiting your site I noticed that it is not fully compatible with the Firefox web browser. This in itself isn’t such a bad thing, except it’s an indication of a larger problem, i.e. that the site is not compatible with W3C standards.

In the past it has been common, and almost forgivable, to code a website for Internet Explorer exclusively. Up until the last year or so, so few people were using other browsers that it didn’t make much sense to spend extra development time ensuring that a given site worked in anything other than Microsoft’s browser.

That time has passed.

A significant percentage of users are now surfing the web using a browser other than Internet Explorer, and this trend is only going to increase as more and more people are exposed to options such as Firefox, Opera, etc. As such, I would offer to you that it would be in your best interest to bring your site into the age of standards compliance. Not compliance with Firefox or Opera, mind you, but compliance with the W3C standards themselves.

In fact, the reason that your site does not work properly in Firefox (which is one of the most standards compliant browsers out there) is because in developing for Internet Explorer your site has been literally “broken” in terms of standards. Microsoft has, for whatever reason, steadfastly refused to make Internet Explorer render code in an accepted way.

As such, sites that are developed for Internet Explorer alone don’t tend to work correctly in non-IE browsers. But a careful eye will notice that the trend is to move away from this sort of “hobbled” website. Look at Bank of America’s site, or E-Bay, or Amazon. They all code according to the standards first — and then add any code they have to to make it look the way it’s supposed to in Internet Explorer.

When properly developed, Internet Explorer users will still see the site as they always have, but the site will not be broken (as it is now) for non-IE users. Ultimately this approach will take very little time and energy relative to the benefit you will gain from the effort. By allowing everyone to view your site in a seamless manner you will quite simply have a larger number of happy users.

Below is some information about the W3C, and some information about how you can go about making your site compatible. I enjoy your site and very much would like to return. Please make it easier for me to do so by welcoming standards-compliant browsers rather than offering them a sub-par experience.

Thank you,

The W3C Website: http://www.w3.org/

The Web Standards Project: http://www.webstandards.org/about/

A standards-compliant checklist: http://www.maxdesign.com.au/presentation/checklist.cfm

Windows Guru Calls For IE7 Boycott

Anonymous Cowherd writes, “Paul Thurrott, a journalist that usually writes about all things windows related (and sometimes about Apple affairs too), made a call in a recent article to boycott Internet Explorer, due to Microsoft’s approach (continued in IE7) of not supporting web standards”:

“My advice here is simple: Boycott Internet Explorer. It is a cancer on the Web, and must be stopped. IE is insecure and is not standards-compliant, which makes it unworkable for both end users and Web content creators… You can turn the tide by demanding better from Microsoft and using a better alternative Web browser. I recommend and use Mozilla Firefox, but Apple Safari (Mac only) and Opera 8 are both worth considering as well.”

(Source: Slashdot)

One of the comments “How To Fix The Internet” article that’s circulating is the notion of a central organization (like the BBB) maintaining a database of information that sites would presumably dish out to users upon them requesting a page for the first time.

Well, how about a standalone security tool to do this?

This tool would have a couple parts:

1. A list of attributes with associated risks (think Bayesian adjustment of a risk level) e.g.: -Hosted in Russia / China -IP address for a URL -Immediately redirects you to somewhere else -Cert doesn’t match DNS -Webserver outdated (versions vulnerable to known exploits) -Recent bad activity for this site ** Assigns a score to the site

2. A client for the user’s system (to pull updates) and a plugin for their browser -Pulls down updates, checks visited sites vs. information

–

So here’s the idea — we create this system and serve the constantly updated data out to whoever wants it. They could pull it down weekly/daily/hourly or whatever (depending on how often there are updates).

From there, when they go to a website it checks the current “risk level” of the site against their current security settings. So, if it’s between 6 and 7, don’t run ActiveX on the site. If it’s between 1-4, don’t even load it — etc.

The key here is customizing the local security settings according to a semi-dynamic repository of information hosted by security enthusiasts. We don’t need the BBB for this.

This is very early thinking, and it could be utterly lame to me in 10 minutes, but it sounds good in my head right now.

Thoughts?