"Speaking of Internet Explorer on Mac OS X, those of you who adhere to Steve's professed "browser of choice" under Apple's latest operating system should probably be aware that the latest release version, 5.1.1, does some... stuff that affects other browsers. Bad stuff. Potentially sneaky stuff. Stuff that the overly-paranoid might even refer to as sabotage.

Basically, installing IE 5.1.1 causes QuickTime to stop functioning in OmniWeb, iCab, and pretty much every other native Mac OS X web browser. QuickTime movies play fine in IE, however, as if you couldn't guess...

We doubt this was an intentional Microsoft 'competition' tactic-- partly because we're naïve twits, but mostly because the source of the problem is the new version of the QuickTime plug-in that IE 5.1.1 installs into the Internet Plug-Ins folder. The new version is 5.0B and appears to work only with IE; the older one is version 5.0 and seems to work with all browsers except IE. Reportedly you can even have both installed at the same time (with different filenames) and QuickTime movies will play just fine in all browsers.

Still, it's tough to deny that Microsoft's 'accidental' crippling of other browsers looks just a tad suspicious. Maybe it wouldn't seem quite as shifty if the company didn't have a history of this sort of behavior stretching all the way back to the early eighteenth century. In any event, if you use multiple Mac OS X web browsers and haven't yet upgraded to IE 5.1.1 but plan to, be warned-- backing up your existing QuickTime plug-in so you can install both the old and new versions as described on MacFixit is highly recommended. And remember, Microsoft isn't out to get you. Really."

Opera claims to be the fastest browser on the planet, and the latest Mac version is a "final beta" -- how's that for an oxymoron? So far, it is indeed lightning-fast, and I'm not distracted by any sad iCab faces (see below). Java is not supported, but big deal; it sucks for the Mac OS anyway. And though it's buggy, there's enough of a community to give one hope that fixes will be made.

But if you're deep in nerd territory, this might convince you that Opera has a future: The Symbian alliance (the ones without the light sabres) has announced that it will be the default browser for supported devices. Read the details here, then get a life, geek!

For everyone else, see it for the hilariously smarmy speech-making and troop-rallying!

But two strange things happened as my school day wrapped up: I got a call from American Express, explaining that my charge card account had been frozen because someone was using my card number for a shopping spree at Home Depot. Since I was hoping to get some air miles reward miles from my iBook purchase, I decided to hold off.

Somewhat disappointed, I got home only to realize that in the interim I'd somehow lost my entire wallet!

I figured that the gods of anti-consumerism were punishing me, so for karma's sake I watched Michael Moore's The Big One, and afterwards gave myself a smug pat on the back.

And a word of advice: If you're offered a jacuzzi suite at the Sheraton Parkway Hotel Toronto North, pass on it. You can get pretty much the same effect blowing farts in a regular tub...

It's been a busy week at nerd school; even with a two-week extension in our production schedule, my group is still working hard to get our prototype up and running for its July première. But if you can find any evidence of a new show on the CanWest Global network called "Dot Com TV" (I couldn't), one of the upcoming installments features The CFC New Media Design Programme, and more specifically, some screen shots of our baby!

Over the weekend I saw The Center of the World. I've seen a lot of movies with the Internet as subject matter over the past few years, and the surprising size of the audience I sat with for this one leads me to believe that my interest is shared. The Center of the World was supposed to examine sexual relationships in the age of the Internet, according to this Salon article. But Salon got it all wrong; the touchy subject of online pornography was only fleetingly alluded to, and what I got instead wasn't much more than a sexually explicit version of Pretty Woman. Thankfully, Sunday's episode of Futurama did a much better job on the pornography issue!

Well, because of my expense tracking on my Visor handheld I need Excel as much as the next guy, but I'm firing a cannon (okay, maybe a pebble) across the bow of Internet Explorer, by installing a new web browser from Germany that's taking the Mac world by storm:

iCab works great, and uses very little memory, but because of it's strict adherence to HTML 4 standards, getting the damn thing to smile ain't as easy as you might think...

Today marks my second attempt at starting an online community. The first was back in the last millennium, when I started a discussion list for owners of a particular Fuji Digital Camera. Now, my goal is to bring some folks together in the cold, impersonal reality of a downtown condo development. To that end...

Join Grangeville!

And let me say one more thing on the gadget matter... One of my more noble reasons for lusting after the new iBook is to test the possibilities of a Microsoft-free machine. If you're wondering why that's important to me, you'll find the answer in my April archives.

And if, after reading Tuesday's post, you're thinking of robbing me, please do! My insurance will cover it, and more importantly, my stuff is already obsolete!

It's not just me that's caught up in the fervour of the new iBook. Here's a post from the <comp.sys.mac.system> newsgroup, with the posters' names deliberately deleted. The original post referred to someone else torn between iBook and TiBook:

"A wise old man once told me, with regard to buying anything, buy the very best; you'll cry only once."

One of the replies, while heavy on model numbers, is an even better illustration of the point I'm trying to make:

"I took the advice of your wise man...

I bought a Mac 512 in 1985 for $3000 because the wise man told me I would only cry once if I bought the very best.
I bought a Mac IIfx in 1988 for $9000 because the wise man told me I would only cry once if I bought the very best.
I bought a Mac Portable in 1989 for $6500 because the wise man told me I would only cry once if I bought the very best.
I bought a Powerbook 170 in 1991 for $4500 because the wise man told me I would only cry once if I bought the very best.
I bought a Quadra 950 in 1993 for $6700 because the wise man told me I would only cry once if I bought the very best.

... After this I told the wise man he was full of shit and started buying products that weren't quite on the bleeding edge."

I'll be the first to admit I've got gadget-itis... In the past two and a half years I've gone through three each of Macintosh computers, digital cameras and Palm handhelds, along with about half a dozen cell phones. The lesson I thought I had learned was this:

When it comes to technology, buy the cheap stuff. By the time you've walked out the store the shelves will be stocked with something better. Also, by buying cheap you'll hopefully be influencing the future decisions of gadget makers, or at least their marketing teams...

Sadly, I haven't been following my own advice: My fancy new dual-processor G4 doesn't really do anything that my old iMac couldn't do (if the piece of shit memory upgrade someone sold me hadn't fucked it up). The screen on my Visor Deluxe is getting scratched up just as fast as the one on my old Palm Pilot Pro. And the photo quality of my Canon Digital Elph is actually worse than that of the Nikon CoolPix it replaced.

Presently I'm finding myself unable to sit through half an hour of anything on TV; my ingenious solution is to be able to wirelessly surf the Internet while channel surfing on my couch. This puts me at another fork in the gadget road: Do I fork over five grand for a new Titanium PowerBook, or settle for the cheaper but smaller-screened and less-expandible iBook?

Can you guess what the right answer is?

If you chose "neither", you're missing the point. Or maybe that's me...

Other housekeeping stuff: The Google bots have made another pass through these humble pages, so that site search feature above can now boast some level of functionality. Give it a try; I've got three months of archives for your reading pleasure!