Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Now Available

re: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Now Available

techboy2000 — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 06:26:25 GMT

Inline search! Yay.

re: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Now Available

johnbaxter — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 05:41:08 GMT

mikegalos,

Thank you for your check and recheck of the Macworld site (above).

I did the following: download IE8 Beta2 again; download Registry Mechanic (8).

Remove IE 8 beta 2.

Install, register, and run Registry Mechanic (nearly 600 "repairs")

Install IE 8 beta 2.

Suitable shutdowns/restarts along the way, with a couple of extras tossed in.

The Macworld site now displays properly for me in IE 8 beta 2.

Still have the networking problem--will work on that tomorrow.

Now to do a nuke and install upgrade to Vista from XP on the alternate boot on my iMac. (All of this has been on my laptop.)

We now return to a discussion of IE 8 beta 2, which I--Mac user since Jan 1984--like a lot.

re: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Now Available

mikegalos@msn.com — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 19:05:39 GMT

subzero

"Granted its a beta, but this beta will eventually be used by millions of Windows users who are Apple's top customers. "

If the IE8 beta follows the response of earlier IE betas then this beta will end up being used by more people than the entire installed base of Safari.

re: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Now Available

mikegalos@msn.com — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 19:00:54 GMT

johnbaxter

Still working fine for me. Vista SP1, HP desktop, nVidia 8800GTS graphics, current drivers.

I'm guessing it may be a bug in the beta rather than a bad page. Probably worth reporting to Microsoft since it's not easily repeatable.

re: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Now Available

johnbaxter — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:22:22 GMT

Interesting, Mike. For me about 5 minutes ago (show and tell) the Macworld news page was still garbled. The list of times and dates was at the top left, in microtype overlapping vertically. Then the headlines below. Vista, SP1. Sony laptop. Intel 945GM graphics.

re: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Now Available

subzerohitman721 — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:14:52 GMT

@Lindy,

If you want Microsoft to change behaviors, people have to do what government should be doing and thats compromise. Okay, so you don't like IE 6. Fine with me. You don't like I.E. 7. Curious. I.E. 8 that will fully complies with web standards and has stronger security than Mobile Me is not supported? Unreasonable.

If you want Microsoft to change its behaviors, then the otherside must bend and flex. How difficult would it to make it compatable with I.E. 8? Just enough to get function and give Windows users a better doorway to Mobile Me. Granted its a beta, but this beta will eventually be used by millions of Windows users who are Apple's top customers. Just on the fact the old rule of customer service, "The Customer is Always Right."

Apple has to realise that going against Windows users is not in the company's best interests. Now we as Windows users have the power to leverage Apple in ways that older or more extreme Mac users will dislike to the extreme. Thats what happens when you CEO puts the competition's OS on its own hardware and attempts to cater to those billions of users. I simply call it assimilation by attrition. Now Apple is under the gun, because they have to deal with the otherside of success called responsibility.

re: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Now Available

mikegalos@msn.com — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:19:25 GMT

johnbaxter

I was able to see www.macworld.com/news.html fine in IE8b2 in IE8 mode. Both the list of headlines and when I clicked on one I was able to read the story of Apple being charged with abusing their monopoly by tying OS X to Apple hardware by Psystar.

Acording to the article (www.macworld.com/.../psystar.html), Apple has code in OS X that triggers a Kenel Panic (Apple's name for a BSOD) if it detects non-Apple hardware.

It's amusing that the defense raised in the article is that Apple is only a tiny player in the PC market so they should be allowed to be a 100% monopoly in the OS X compatible market without penalties for tying.

Looks like somebody needs some Apple CrashyTime Tea.

re: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Now Available

mikegalos@msn.com — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:12:10 GMT

johnbaxter

Or, as the IBM Jargon Dictionary used to call it, ROJ. (Retired On the Job)

Of course, it could still be the work of an intern. I never said an intern programmer. Maybe an intern in Marketing.

re: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Now Available

re: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Now Available — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:10:35 GMT

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re: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Now Available

johnbaxter — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 06:30:00 GMT

A page that does an even worse job than MobileMe with IE8 is <www.macworld.com/news.html> (it's OK--you won't see much content unless you scroll, although the ads work).

My guess is that is the product of something like

IE? yes, 7? no, OK must be 6.

(And yes, they have been informed.)

Works fine in compatibility mode (but if you turn that on you'll see--shudder--Apple-related content).

As to MobileMe, even "whatever you're using we don't support it" would be better than claiming IE 8 is IE 7. I do disagree with Mike about one thing, though: that's not the work of an intern--that much carelessness comes later in one's career--possibly just before what the British so nicely call a redundancy.

re: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Now Available

mikegalos@msn.com — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 04:29:01 GMT

Lindy

Supporting a beta is a good idea. It's how you work out the bugs so when the product ships you actually work. I know beta testing your products so they interoperate correctly at ship is a novel idea for Apple but I'd assumed you'd heard of it. And IE 8 has been out for developer testing for several months and I can guarantee that the Microsoft team that works with Apple has repeatedly pointed them to the "How to change your web page to work with IE 8" documents that are freely available both on the MSDN sites and on the partner sites.

Now, if your criterion is that Apple services need to only work with Apple products, fine. They'd be giving up most of the potential market but that would be their choice. But they don't do that, they advertise the product as supporting non-Apple products. And that means they actually have to do the work to get interoperability.

Having a broken UserAgent string routine is just flat out bush league stuff that's embarassing. It's the kind of mistake I'd expect from an intern at best and something that should never have actually made it out the door. That it did is an indictment of the quality of coding, testing and code review in the product.

Seriously, this is one step above misspelling your product's name on the web page.

re: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Now Available

mikegalos@msn.com — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 04:19:25 GMT

DRWAM

It's not that they need to explicitly state that IE8 Beta 2 isn't supported (although, they realisically should), it's that they incorrectly identify it as IE7 even though it's browser ID says that it is IE8.

Every browser sends a "UserAgent" string to the server as part of its request.

IE 8 sends something like: User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0; Trident/4.0; SLCC1; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 3.5.21022)

Notice that "MSIE 8.0" in there. That's not being processed correctly. My guess is they're testing for MajorVersion>6 as a test for IE 7 which is a beginner's mistake since you break when a new version comes out. Which happened to them.

(BTW: When IE 8 is running in compatibility view it sends MSIE 7.0 instead.)

Basically, where they've got

If IE, check MajorVersion

If MajorVersion < 7

Display unsupported version message

Else

Display snarky message about IE7

What they should at minimum have is:

If IE, check MajorVersion

If MajorVersion = 7

Display not fully supported message about IE7

Else

Display unsupported version message

(Although there are better ways than that)

re: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Now Available

Lindy — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 03:49:43 GMT

Why would Apple, put a line of code into MobileMe to support a beta MS browser?

I am going to bet that if IE8 will be fully supported by MobileMe soon after it is RTM.

Yes IE8 is a beta, and that is why it wont work with lots of stuff, to include Microsoft stuff. MS browser, MS applications....should work there if anywhere.

Safari works with MobileMe. Apple browser, Apple product.

re: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Now Available

DRWAM — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 00:16:19 GMT

Actually Mike, I don't think they need to state that beta software is not supported. Now full release software, well that's different.

My PACS browser Active x control still gets a pop up that only up to IE 5.5 or so is supported, but at least IE 6 and 7 works. In fact, Vista SP1, IE7 on this Mac Pro Tower gets images at lightning speeds. I just have the residential Comcast broadband which tops out at 8Mbps, and I can tell you that Bill G and Steve B would have a smile from ear to ear watching it.[ Barring any HIPPA violations for showing patients private records] Also, I have to go off topic and praise that default desktop background. The entire household admires it, even my father-in law, so that's ages 7 to 84. If you know the designer, tell we said kudos times six.

re: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Now Available

mikegalos@msn.com — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:30:12 GMT

RaaJ,

Sorry. Missed the point about the fruitheads putting it back in. I, personally, am not sure they ever actually took it out. I suspect they issues a press release with the intent and didn't bother actually doing it since image is everything.