After five beta’s and a final release candidate, Internet Explorer 7 has launched. Grab your own copy and test, but understand that like all prior IE Browsers, it will replace your version of IE6. That is problematic for developers as we now need to keep two machines running side by side, one for IE6 that is still in most common use, and one for IE7 as it will become more and more common. When Vista launches around the first of the year, it will expand even more in use as it is the native browser with Windows Vista.

I’ll be the first to admit I’m not on the podcasting bandwagon. I don’t own an ipod or anything like one. I probably won’t anytime soon either (see my beef with Apple). But the whole emphasis by Apple on protecting the name podcast presents me no issue at all. There are several suggestions on how to rename the concept (instead of the protected thing), and even some suggesting that people nominate a successor term to be used. I’m like Scoble on this one, videocast, audiocast and perhaps mediacast for both audio and video (ironically if you go to mediacast.com you find that they are called netcasts, webcasts and cybercasts …). Then we can add fantasycast (or is that already taken?) for when we add in aroma and other senses like misting etc. (you laugh, some are actually working on such concepts). Anyway, they are all descriptive, in fact more descriptive than podcast anyway.

It is good news that Vista will ship on a single disk. Expected to reach consumers in January 2007 (only a year late I guess), the product key given will control how much access you actually get to Vista.

I have run several of the Vista betas so far and have yet to see what is so wonderful about it. The main claim to fame is that it is secure … but shouldn’t the old versions be secure? Widgets don’t excite me a bit. Transparent windows don’t excite me a bit. Internet Explorer and Outlook Express updates don’t excite me a bit. I’m sure the only thing likely to excite me is the amount of money I have to shell out when they quit supporting my 2000, NT and XP versions.

This discussion of current Microsoft Updates (8 critical in June including one that was re-released because it didn’t work right) is totally boring. They really don’t have much to say, do they? I guess they are saying that Windows has holes the size of Bill Gates Foundation’s wealth after the Warren Buffet donation. The message is patch every time you can … unless it’s a bad patch like that one apparently was.

Scoble, soon to depart Microsoft himself just broke the news that Bill Gates is stepping down from a full time role at Microsoft. Wonder what he is planning. We’ll know soon enough. I wonder if it is distract us from the delay in production on Vista.

Update: there is a press release that talks of a two year phase out to July 2008. So the news may be a bit overstated by the Scobelizer. It starts out thus:

REDMOND, Wash. — June 15, 2006 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that effective July 2008 Bill Gates, chairman, will transition out of a day-to-day role in the company to spend more time on his global health and education work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The company announced a two-year transition process to ensure that there is a smooth and orderly transfer of Gates’ daily responsibilities, and said that after July 2008 Gates would continue to serve as the company’s chairman and an advisor on key development projects.

While Australians almost never use the stereotypical Crocodile Dundee flavour of Australian English, It seems Microsoft have seen a pressing need to adopt “dinky-di ‘Strine” (translation: native-born Australian spoken English) in the Australian version of Office 2007.

According to News.com.au “Words such as g’day, sickie, jackaroo, dag, dinky-di, ute, sanga, wuss and cooee were among the list of words selected by a panel of Australian experts, who considered them to be most relevant to everyday Aussies, Microsoft said.”

A panel of Australian experts??? Who on Earth were they? Paul Hogan and Steve Irwin? Was Microsoft paying by the hour? Is Microsoft satisfied with the manufactured outcome that it sanctioned?

As an Australian resident for most of my years (I migrated from the US at age 2), I can reliably attest to Microsoft being waaaaaay off base on this one. While “g’day” is a common form of the greeting “good day” and a “ute” is simply a “utility vehicle” (pick-up truck), most of the other words are not spoken by Australians in every day life. Or “any-day life” for that matter! It makes us cringe to hear words like “bonza, ridgy-didge, dob, galah, cockie, onya, and motza”, but fortunately we only hear them in media targeted at US and UK audiences.

Microsoft you’ve gotten it wrong again, and now you’re embarrassing yourselves as well as the “fair-dinkum Aussies” that you want to sell your product to. Crikey!

I wish I had a xyle scope! I was reading today how Mike over at MikeIndustries.com spiffied up a myspace page. He used his “xyle scope” that allowed him to look under the hood. Now I have parts of this functionality thanks to my Web Developer extension in Firefox, but it appeared as though this might just be slicker. Unfortunately I swore off any hope of a Mac after they mistreated me a few months ago with my daughter’s new but not working right i-Pod. To think that I had to use up my free consultation … without them asking me if I wanted to … to fix a problem that the item shipped with. Jerks!