If you are able to code with standards, and know the ins and outs of the major browsers, you don’t even need hacks for your layout to look good.

To me you are just jumping in the “ie is bad because other ppl say it is” boat.

While i do agree that ie is a security hazard, because its so tied up with the os and updates for it are handled by the update manager for windows. also, unfortunately, updates for it are slower than in other browsers.

Extensions are the selling point for firefox, its heavy memory usage compared to opera, or google chrome is rather large. If opera had good interpretation of tables and firebug, adblock+, etc i would change to it in a second.

Try viewing some css3 in firefox, lulz ensured. zz.

Try viewing some HTML5 stuff in IE8 – lol. google “chrome experiments” to view some.

I’m really not sure what the furore is over the browser, if Chris also checks out the mail and the calendar gadgety thing that’s built into windows, and there are other, better, 3rd party options available, it still doesn’t stop him from commenting on it, as its also part of winSe7en, is it not?

I guess Chris is trying to cover as many aspects of using the OS as he can – by using it and seeing the bits that jump out.

ps- i’m not that savvy and apologize for the implication that i was. i should have said, ’savvy users (not necessarily meaning me)…’

Here’s a massive annoyance we’ve just had on our two new iMacs (well, old-new, as they’re 24 inchers!):

We bought them with the extra AppleCare warranty package – we need to if we want to shunt them over to our new Managed Service when it goes live in March – and one of my guys has just spent a VERY frustrating 20 minutes trying to get the mandatory details in. The details page worked out he was in the UK right enough, but wouldn’t let him add anything to the ‘State’ (yeah, because we have states here…) field – no option in the drop-down list, no ability to type, nothing! So he moved on…

Apple had helpfully auto-filled the phone numbers – but missed off the ‘0′. Couldn’t add it either, until it was worked out that Apple had helpfully omitted the first digit of the area code and added the first two of the number, thereby making the box hit its 6 character limit! So, all the numebrs got changed, all checked to make sure everything was ok, except for the state.

Wasn’t expecting four errors!

At least now he could add the county – manually.

But the numbers were all still invalid, it reckoned. We double-checked – all had the correct 5-digit error code and 6-digit number, but nope, still wrong according to Apple. We tried it with the ‘+44′ instead of the ‘0′, although there wasn’t enough room, tried it without the ‘0′ in case Apple didn;’t want that, but nothing. Zip. Nada.

Eventually, we just removed all the numbers to see what that did and lo and behold, their previous status as ‘Invalid numbers’ was gone!

But Apple don’t appear to like UK numbers for the registration of a UK warranty on a UK product and there’s very little guidance given – the red lettering at the top makes it seem as though the information is mandatory and you cannot proceed without its input, yet you enter correct numbers and it tells you it’s wrong!

After he went through that rigmarole, it asked my guy if he wanted to register any other Apple products onto AppleCare. He said yes, to do the other Mac. The page returned a message saying ‘This product is not suitable for this warranty’! Same iMac type, same warranty type, purchased at the same time, with the same info added!

Very user friendly user-experience all round and I will most definitely recommend iMacs on this basis to all my friends and family. Did I mention I hate them?

Yes, PC OEMs can do similar things, but that’s up to the OEM – and I’ve installed and registered warranties for HP, IBM, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, Acer, Asus, Mesh, RM and Samsung computers and I have NEVER come across a more obtuse, unhelpful system.

Yes, possibly the wrong place, btu I needed to vent and the AppleCare registration form is basically a web page, so this kinda fits!

I prefer Firefox for daily browsing, mainly because of NoScript and FlashBlocker

Oh please. That’s like saying that two different TVs are exactly the same because they can all get a 480i signal (for those of you whom are clueless, 480i is /very/ low resolution compared to HD).

TV “A”, for example, is a small square box (aka “tube”) that receives channels just fine but has a bad remote that sometimes doesn’t work and it drains the battery life a lot. TV “B”, however, is a 720p (aka “HD”) resolution TV with many, many options for cables (multiple RCA, Component, HDMI etc. ports), a great picture, and a solar-powered remote!

Which of the two seems better? Sure, both of them can receive channels, but TV “B” (aka ‘every browser besides IE almost) can not only do more but can do it all better. Might I mention the fact that IE doesn’t support HTML5 audio/video but Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Chrome do?