IE 8 Standards Compliance Test

[There's an Update at the End of This Post]

I downloaded Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 from here. I just had to test Microsoft's claim about Standards Compliance.

First, an explanation of how I'm testing it. I'm using the acid test from webstandards.org. You load the page in a browser and you should see the following (this is in Opera 9.5 Beta, which passes with flying colors).




Firefox 2.0.0.12 gets close, but no cigar.




Internet Explorer 7 fails miserably.



Now for IE 8 Beta 1



Well, well, it passes. I then switched on IE 7 Emulation mode. I had to restart IE 8 for that to work. That's more than a little annoying. They couldn't just rerender the page?

But here's the acid test on IE 8 Beta 1 in IE 7 Emulation Mode:



And of course, it looks like IE 7.

So, Microsoft's claim of Compliance seems to be true. But really guys, why do I have to restart the browser to turn compliance on and off. Can you say annoying!

Oh, and check out the system requirements. Notice the difference between Vista and XP.



That's an eight fold difference. Nothing says "My OS is bloatware" like an eightfold memory requirement difference from one version of the OS to the next.


UPDATE: I only tested IE 8 on Acid Test 2, not aware of the existence of Acid Test 3. So I ran that test, and it failed. But then again, so did Firefox and Opera.

Twhirl Review

Twhirl is an application that allows you to monitor and post to Twitter with ease. It also allow you to post to Pownce and Jaiku. It runs on the Adobe Air runtime, and works with Mac OS X (both Intel and PPC), and Windows. No Linux yet, but according to the Adobe Air FAQ, a Linux version of Adobe Air will be available in the second half of 2008.

Twhirl comes with various skins, so there's probably something there for everyone. With Twhirl you can view the Timeline, just see replies (those you've made and those made to you), an archive of your previous tweets, and direct messages. It also lists your friends, and your followers, lets you lookup people by screenname, and allows you to search the public timeline for specific terms. When twhirl is not the active window, it becomes semi-transparent (using alpha transparency) and looks very nice. You can shut this off, of course, to save resources.

While I like this program, I have 2 beefs with it. First, you can't just watch the public timeline, which I like to do from time to time. You're stuck with just searching it. Secondly, it consumes system resources on my machine way out of proportion to the program's functionality. I think it's likely that Adobe Air is the beast that sucks up the resources. (And I believe this is true because other Air apps on my system do the same exact thing). The list of system requirements specifies 512 mb of ram, but I have 1 gig of ram and still notice lag in other software as soon as Twhirl is up and running. I'd be interested in hearing if other people have this issue, or if it's specific to my machine's configuration.

So, would I recommend it? Well, I've been using it everyday since I installed it. It makes monitoring twitter easy. I like that you can also post to Pownce and Jaiku (though you can't monitor those timelines). But I wouldn't run this on a system without at least one gig of ram. If you're not a twitter nut, the web interface is probably fine. But if you like to monitor Twitter often, a program like Twhirl is a necessity. If they added the ability to watch Pownce and Jaiku at the same time (in a seperate window, or even the same one will color coding), it would be a killer app for me.

Digsby Review

For those that aren't aware of Digsby, it's a multi-protocol IM client with a few added features. Digsby is currently in private beta. I've had the opportunity to use Digsby for several weeks now, and I have to say up front, I love this app. (Please note that the screenshots here have any identifying information removed, except for those things from public streams like Twitter.)



The added features I'm talking about are webmail, Facebook and Myspace integration. Integrated email isn't new to the IM world, but the Social Network integration certainly is and it's very handy.

Digsby supports a nice subset of IM Protocols. At this point they support AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, Jabber, MSN, and ICQ, which just about covers everybody. For email support, they cover Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, Gmail, AOL/AIM mail, Pop 3 and IMAP.





The pleasant surprise for me was that my Google hosted domain mail worked just fine as a Gmail account (rather than setting it up as IMAP). Very easy to set up and use. Basically, you get several notifications of new mail. It shows up as a window on the left hand side of the screen, and I also check the number of messages in my email box at any time by looking at either the buddy list window or the tray icon.

Both mail messages and new IM messages pop up on the left, and if you see a new IM message, rather that switching to the chat window, you can simply click the text input box underneath the message in the notifier, and type your response right there. That's a very cool feature, and lets me to continue to work on whatever I want and chat at the same time, even with multiple people.




As far as social networking integration goes, I don't have a myspace account, so I can't speak for that, but the Facebook integration is wonderful. It notifies you immediately whenever something happens with one of your friends pages (like, they change status, get a wall post, etc) or when you have new mail.

There are of course some negatives to multiprotocol IM clients. Like most of them, Digsby doesn't support cams or voice chat. Since I use neither, that's not an issue for me, but if you're big on either, this isn't the client for you. Also, as it is Beta software, Digsby is a tad buggy, but that's to be expected, and the development team rapidly responds to Bug Reports. Digsby pushes out new builds often. The Digsby blog clearly spells out what changes are made to the software, so you can always check to see what's happening.

One really neat feature I like about Digsby is that all of your account information is kept on their servers, and I thought I'd mention it because that might be a privacy issue for some people. For me, it's just darn convenient. I installed Digsby on another machine and just typed in my Digsby username and password, and I was automatically logged into everything. Very nice.

Of course, now that I'm moving over to Mac, I'll have to run Digsby in virtualization if I want to use it, since it's Windows only for now. They are promising both Mac OS X versions and Linux versions, and I suspect it's only a matter of a few months before we see one or both.

Now if they would only add Twitter, Pownce and LinkedIn support....Oh, and python scripting support would be nice.

Google Mail and Hosted Domains

{Disclaimer: This blog is hosted at blogger.com, owned by google.com The ads are delivered by Google's Adsense. Since I haven't received a cent in revenue from the Ads yet, and since I receive no compensation from Google at this point, I feel I can be totally unbiased in this post. However, here's the disclaimer, just in case someone wants to pick a fight. :-) }

I'm curious as to why more people don't use gmail? Okay, the lack of folder support is a tad bit annoying, but labels pretty much make up for it, and the ability to apply multiple labels to the same message is very handy. I have a gmail account, and two of my domains use Google Hosted Domains to handle mail. I really like gmail's interface, and the 6 gigs of storage is really nice too.

But I think the really killer feature of gmail is IMAP support. For those that aren't familiar with IMAP, it's a different way of delivering mail. Here's how it works. IMAP is synced with the host, no matter how I access it. Whether I use the webmail interface, my email client, my mail checking software, or the mail interface on my iPod Touch, the changes are reflected on the server.

So what does this mean in a practical way? Well, if download my mail, and then realize that something is spam, and I drag it to my spam folder in Thunderbird, it notifies the gmail server, and it also marks that message as spam. If I create a label in gmail for a message, it creates a folder for that label in my email client (and it shows up in my iPod Touch mail app). If I flag a message as important, it gets "starred" in my gmail account, and if I "star" a message in gmail, it gets flagged as important in my client.

I do have some complaints. For one thing, in gmail, I can add colors to my labels. But even though my Hosted Domains use gmail, that feature isn't available yet. I wish that my gmail contacts would sync automatically with Plaxo (right now, Plaxo can only READ my gmail contacts, not actually sync with them.) I'd like more powerful filters at the webmail interface, but I can get over that hump with filters in Thunderbird. All in all, the limitations are minor compared to the advantages.

Now if only I wasn't so weirded out by Google accessing my mail to deliver targeted ads based on the mail's contents, but it's a small price to pay for the convenience of free IMAP and the large storage capacity. And Ad delivery is the reality of the internet. Until I set up my own mail server, or pay for IMAP, I'm going to have to look at ads. And like most internet users, the ads have become almost totally transparent to me.

Why I'm Making the Switch to Apple OS X

I'll be the first to admit it: I have Mac Envy. For years I would say "Windows sucks, Linux is too hard for normal people, and Mac is a toy." But secretly, I looked at Mac OS X and said "Pretty!" Okay, I said more that that. I watched Macs change from toys into full fledged workstations. Macs, like the rest of us, grew up.

And Macs are pretty. Beautiful in fact. But more than that, they're functional. Unlike Windows based machines, you plug most things in and they "just work". I've seen it time and time again. The days of SCSI Voodoo notwithstanding, Macs are simply easier. Mac OS has it roots in Unix, and it shows. All the power of Unix is still there, but made simple, and elegant.

So why now? What could have possibly motivated me to switch now? One word: Vista. I don't have Vista installed on any of my machines. I wasn't in the mood to upgrade to a high end graphics card, to add tons of memory, to fight with U.A.C., all to get a system that doesn't work the way it's supposed to. Vista is a great example of Microsoft's dedication to bloatware. Microsoft has single handedly created a beast that slows many of the world's fast machines down to a crawl. Well not here. If Vista is the future of PC's, I want out.

And this is where the Linux evangelists say: Join us, get Linux. Sorry guys, I love Linux, I really do, but when I spend a week trying to get a wireless card to work, and it just won't, that's too much. I'm a programmer, not a techie. I want to turn my machine on and start coding. I don't want to have to spend hours configuring hardware to work. I don't have that kind of time. Linux is great. It's fast, it's secure, it's scalable, but it's not for wimps, and I guess I'm just feeling too wimpy to deal with its idiosyncrasies.

I'll miss accessibility to cheap hardware. I'll miss the plethora of available software. But otherwise, I'll be all right. The future of PC's is Windows consuming as many resources as I can throw at it. I just don't feel like playing catch with Microsoft anymore.

And I'd like to send a special shout-out to Cali Lewis, whose Vodcast Geekbrief.tv is part of what convinced me the time was right. Watching her enthusiasm over Mac made a believer out of me.

If you're not familiar with OS X, you should definitely take a look at the Guided tour at Apple.com