Mat Bowles

Have I mentioned on here how much I like my deputy at work? She's really cool. Also, she's 8 months pregnant, and when I get back from my holiday, she'll have gone on maternity leave, so I won't be in the office with her again for ages...

Anyway. ( Booking my tickets )All I need to do is get there two hours before check in opens, and the flight leaves at 4.30ish. So, the coach leaving at 7.30am (ouch) getting there at 2.20pm is perfect, right?

I mentioned Zoe was cool, right? Y'know why? ( Oops, nearly did it again... )

5.30am! This is me, damnit!

So, if I go to sleep tonight, there is a snowball's chance in hell of me waking up on time, even if I book a taxi and ask them to ring. So, um, I'm pulling an all-nighter. First cup of coffee already drunk. Expect random spam posts from me all evening, sorry about that. ( Luton Airport=shed )

Firefox 2.0, theming it up good

Right, so many people I know love Firefox simply because it's not IE, right? Now, I'll admit, that's a good reason to like Fx, but despite this, there are some out there, people who seem to know what they're talking about, that still use IE, and actually like it. I have got used to the idea that sane, rational, intelligent people sometimes have strange ideas. This does of course mean that my friends list, who aren't really that sane or that rational, will have even stranger ideas. But I still don't understand a preference for IE. Ah well, YMMV, competition is good for us anyway (does anyone out there think IE7 would have been anything but a POS maintenence release if not for Fx and Opera? If you do, go get a stronger brand of coffee, please?)...

( Musings on the history of Firefox, Netscape and this old farts opinions... )
So, to me, Firefox isn't new. It's not about being better than, or different, to IE. Firefox is based on the original Netscape code. The Gecko rendering engine that runs it (and the now Seamonkey suite, and also the new Netscape) is based on the old Netscape source. Browser wars? Meh, this old fart likes to stick with what he knows. Firefox isn't new, it's just what I learnt the net on, with shiny add ons and a better logo.

ETA: a lot of cuts, co's this one is huge, sorry bout that, mebbe shoud've been two posts.

theweaselking here:

Windows XP: $100
Running IE7 through 5 years of development and 5 beta versions before releasing it: Billions of dollars and a full 15% of the browser market.
Finding a new critical security flaw less than 12 hours after its release: Priceless.


Some things, money can't buy. For everything else, there's Microsoft.

I DL'd it earlier, and haven't gone through attempting to install it yet. I was going to, but reading the linked article, I may delay a little. Anyone know:

1. Do I need to have installed and run Genuine Advantage in order for IE7 to work?
2. If so, and I try to install it without, will it kill my IE6?
3. Is there a way to install it without Genuine Advantage
4. Is GA still obnoxious peice o shit spyware that will auto connect to Redmond every day or have they fixed that?

I only want to run IE7 as a test copy, so I can see what sites look like with it &c, I have no intention of giving up on my plug-in laden FireFox just yet thankee, although Fx 2.0 isn't looking good at this stage for this end user...

In other news, I've not been well last few days. There may be a post on that later, but, well, not immediately.

Also, does anyone know where I can get a Driver for my DVD-Rom, or alternately what might be wrong with it? I want to run some DVDs through it, but both Real and WMP way that the DVD rom itself is sans driver, after they've DL'd the codecs they need. I've tried the ssytem install disks, and the fujitsu-siemens support pages, to no avail. All I want to do is make some screencaps damnit!

(yes, I may have watched a little too much Battlestar Galactica last few days, and yes, I do want umpteen Adama icons, but meh, it had to happen eventually, right?)