Enchanted Island
“Even in Arcadia I am”
Lighthouse
Pathway to the enchanted forest (or, if you get lost, the prison…)
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An ode to IE 4
My cross browser machine runs 5 different versions of IE and is a great lad.
Although some of us thought that IE 4 was a bloated hunk of resource gobbling junk when it was released, it has stood the test of time remarkably well. I’m glad that it’s rare to see an IE4 entry in one’s site usage statistics, but I still like to test my sites in IE4 if possible. I’m generally happy how they come out too – a bit wonky, but usable and retaining the overall visual gist of the site. And we’re talking sites that are completely tableless and all CSS…. no browser sniffers, no tricks, and all browsers using the same stylesheet.
I never thought I’d say this – wait for it – but well done to the developers of IE 4 for their attempt at an implementation of a standards rendering browser. A shame that the momentum of this initiative was lost. Also, it’s too bad about the predatory business practices of Microsoft, but hey.
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Busy busy…
Not much time for bucketFountain at the moment. Have just launched my first big (by my standards) PHP/MySQL site for a client in the UK. The application is OK. I mean, its all CSS, it’s generally fully compliant and accessible HTML, but as its also a CMS so I need to catch a few more things in the way of user input to make sure that it stays that way. Then maybe I’ll post a link here….
Happily I have found a work around for the IE4 issue I was having on my cross browser machine. Simply open URL’s by using ctrl + L, rather than typing them in address bar. I declare that running multiple versions of IE on one machine not only possible but freaking easy (thanks to the fine efforts of sidesh0w and skyzyx)!
National Radio’s Morning Report celebrated its 30th birthday on Friday, and I was surprised to learn that the most excellent Geoff Robinson has been there since the beginning. Well done – I grew up listening to that programme.
Sadly, Papa in Roma is near to the end. Sad although this is, surely we should be paying a little more attention to the appointment of Wolfowitz to the World Bank. He aims to get ‘real success’ in reducing poverty. And with no strings attached, I bet….
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Pop-up blocker in Firefox
I’ve heard that Firefox’s pop-up blocker could be worked around, and W3 Schools have decided to do it. Bloody annoying…. Time to use an alternative?
Update: Wait – it has stopped happening…?
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Browser testing machine is working!
I bought an old celeron on the most excellent trade me and tried the experiment again… so far so good – IE 3, 5, 5.5 and 6 all playing together. I’m a little worried about IE 4 – but I will check out its error message tomorrow.
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World Bank Madness
Some mornings you wake up and the world is even madder than it was the previous day. Yesterday I couldn’t believe it when I heard the news that Paul Wolfowitz had been nominated to head the World Bank. An attempt by the Bush administration to further dominate weak developing countries? If I was from Mars I would think it odd to suggest appointing the current Deputy Defence Secretary to such an important development role. From the Independent Newspaper:
So far, the US has shut the World Bank out of the reconstruction process in Iraq, a decision in which Mr Wolfowitz was almost certainly involved. Much of his credibility in the new job is likely to rest on his ability to bring the World Bank back into that process.
And, the last word to z-magazine:
The respected liberal economist Joseph Stiglitz did bring a fresh air of dissidence to the Bank, but he was quickly shown the door out. That became a typical play during Jim Wolfensohn’s regime at the bank. Other independent-minded people were kicked out or told to tone down their analysis. With Wolfowitz at the helm, the bank’s climate is likely to get worse, not better.”
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Browser testing part two
Yes, Windows 2000 runs OK on a Pentium 166, but don’t try patching it with service pack 4 or 6 – that will srew it. ‘Page down’ on a website took about 10 seconds…. Back to the drawing board!
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Browser testing
I’m setting up a browser testing machine on an old Pentium 166 (with a respectable 64 meg of RAM). Incredibly, I’ve managed to install Windows 2000 on it, and it seems to run quite well.
In terms of browsers, I initially went straight to evolt.org’s browser archive, but then I discovered an article about running multiple versions of IE on a single machine.
I’m getting a network card for the PC today, and then I’ll ‘give it a go’. If it actually works, it should be much simpler than having a multiple boot machine with different versions of Windows 95/98…..
