Month: August 2006

You can’t have it your way

Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1 was announced a couple of days ago. I’ve been trying out the various betas over the past few months, so I downloaded RC1.

I think the betas have been pretty good from both a user and a developer point of view, so I was about to install the RC. Then I read through the comments on the announcement post at the IE7 blog.

Some very unhappy people writing about their negative experiences with installing RC1. This comment by MikeJ best sums it all up:

I installed IE 7 and it not only can not be installed to a directory to run from separate from previous installs, but it messed up many of my other system settings dealing with the browser. I didn’t even get asked “Would you like IE to pompously assume it is the be all end all and hose everything you’ve setup on your system”? Add that to the fact that the browser doesn’t even accomplish a fraction of what other modern browsers are offering for standards, compliance, extensibility and reliability and you have a very shaky offering, imo.

This is incredibly disappointing. I had hoped that Microsoft would’ve been willing to take things a bit more seriously for this round – apparently that’s not the case. The more you alienate developers like this, the quicker it will be until IE is largely unrecognized.

Writing in the announcement post, Dean Hachamovitch, IE General Manager, says:

[…] Depending on your feedback, we may post another release candidate.

Good idea, Dean. I’ll be staying with Firefox in the meantime (although Mozilla has its own problems with developing the next version of that browser).

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Get used to the new air travel experience

jfkdutyfreeArrived back in Amsterdam late morning yesterday on a direct overnight KLM flight from JFK. It was a really great trip to New York even though there was no time at all for anything remotely social. All work and no play.

Some thoughts on that trip from the travel perspective:

– As when I departed Amsterdam last Sunday, I was expecting to see visible and increased security in the departures area at JFK airport. Maybe machine-gun-toting police everywhere such as you see at Heathrow. But none of that. A very normal atmosphere. I would guess that enhanced security was in place but covert.

– KLM has an excellent online check-in system. Flying from the US with KLM, you use partner Northwest Airlines‘ system. I’ve done that before. (One great feature: if you can’t print out your boarding pass, you can enter a fax number and the system will fax your boarding pass to you.) I didn’t have time to check-in online on this trip so did that when I got to JFK using the self-service machines. Big row of them. You swipe your frequent flyer card to retrieve your flight info. Wasn’t working. So you swipe your passport. That took a good half-dozen attempts. I wasn’t the only one having a problem with that. (As an aside, you wouldn’t normally think about the software running those check-in systems. It’s Windows, as I noticed on my last trip where all the terminals were showing a blue screen.)

– With the prohibition on taking liquids of any type on board the plane, I wondered how that would affect one’s purchase of duty-free booze. No affect at all – everything was allowed including liquor, unless you were heading for a UK destination: click the image to see a larger version where you can read the two lines of text at the bottom.

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