I use Internet Explorer for two purposes only: testing new web pages I’ve written, and running Windows Update to patch all of the security vulnerabilities detected in Microsoft products each month. Beyond that I use Firefox for everything. Frankly if I could ditch Internet Explorer altogether I would.

Today I stumbled upon something I didn’t know about, a browser plug-in called WindizUpdate. According to the site this plug-in allows users of Mozilla Firefox 0.9.3+, Netscape 4.0+, Mozilla Firebird 0.7+, Opera 5+, and K-Meleon 0.9+ (whatever that is) to enjoy the benefits of Windows Update without needing to use Internet Explorer.

Forgive me if the rest of the world already knew about WindizUpdate, but I’m really excited about the prospect of trying it out. The only downside is that my PCs are currently up-to-date, so I’ll have to wait another month or so to try it…….

This is neat! This site offers 40 “template” layouts for a site using valid CSS and HTML. They have been tested in all reasonable versions of Internet Explorer (5.5 to 7), Opera, Firefox and Safari. You can download and use the templates if you wish. Very good work!

I just got a new update that I had not seen before. It was a tool to look for Microsoft Products on my computer that have “GDI +” and according the the advanced install, that would allow them to suggest updates to those other products as well. While I understand that many users will blindly click on updated and not look at what they are doing, I am bothered by this update. It may, of course, lead to a more stable and secure system — however, that update actually does not update my operating system in the truest of senses. When I did check what it was, the information given was cursory at best. It did not answer the questions I would have wanted answered, and I did not see a link for more information. I am not so certain I like these automatic updates.

TiVo is expensive. I have considered in on several occaisons. Every time I have, the idea of paying a flat fee of $299 and receiving service for “life” has always appealled to me. Of course the small print means that is the life of the receiver, not the life of the purchaser, to my understanding. They have decided to drop that service in the coming week. So the question: should I run out and buy it?

I bought directTV’s dvr service for $4.99 a month recently. It works well. It would take 5 years to get ahead (assuming no price increase … and directTV is doing a price increase in many areas this very month) on the TiVo plan.

Choices, Choices and Choices …

We run our server ourselves and ran into a significant difficulty after a recent upgrade of the server. As a result you may have noticed that we have been up and down. Cost is always a factor as this is a hobby site for both Franki and me. Donations do help us fund the site, so feel free to drop five or ten dollars with us using the link at the bottom of each page.

I rely on this site daily … using our own on-line tools, like email masking. It was inconvenient when it was down for me and I guess it was inconvenient for you as well. If so, that means that we mean something on the web front. Sorry for the inconvenience.

In an article that I find hard to follow at MSNBC, it appears that a judge has ruled that Google may be infringing on another’s copywrite by showing certain thumbnails in response to image search requests. I don’t find the article clear in that it appears what we may be talking about is thumbnails of wrongfully acquired copies of the images by third parties? I’ll hunt for more information I guess when I get a minute.

I happen to like the Wuhan WordPress Theme and have found it works pretty well, even with WordPress 2.0 and 2.0.1. I have found difficulty using it with the page fold menu. Anyway, it doesn’t look too swell in Internet Explorer 7 beta. I have decided it is time to give in and start using Microsoft proprietary code to get my stylesheets. I used a bunch of the hacks previously in order to be proud, but … many are now broken with the advent of version 7, that seems to act suprisingly like it should instead of like a Microsoft Browser.

If you have gotten the Wuhan Theme from Alex King’s wonderful site, you got a broken Wuhan as it doesn’t have the proper stylesheet for Internet Explorer. So go to the theme author’s site and get a copy instead and upload the ie stylesheet. It will be obvious which file it is as it has ie in the file name: style-ie.css.

Next, edit the header file to insert this:
<link rel=stylesheet type="e;text/css"e; href="e;<?php bloginfo(‘stylesheet_directory’); ?>/style.css"e;>
<!–[if lt IE 7]>
<link rel=stylesheet type="e;text/css"e; href="e;<?php bloginfo(‘stylesheet_directory’); ?>/style-ie.css"e;>
<![endif]–>

In place of the existing coding that has conditionals for Internet Explorer:
< ?php if (eregi("e;MSIE"e;,getenv("e;HTTP_USER_AGENT"e;)) || eregi("e;Internet Explorer"e;,getenv("e;HTTP_USER_AGENT"e;))) { ?>/style-ie.css"e;>
< ?php } else { ?> /style.css"e;>
< ?php } ?>