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MSIE 5.2 for Mac OS X Released
Jarrett writes "MSIE 5.2 now supports Quartz text smoothing and a slew of other reliability/security [hehe] improvements on Mac OS X. Its performance is noticably better, it seems to end the spinning beach ball problems, and is stable. It's available on Microsoft's Mactopia site" Posted With Mozilla(tm) on Mac OS X.
I use MS Office vX on my TiBook for work and school related things (no other program even approaches Excel in maturity and performance for my work and school applications). Anyways, after a searching the internet in vane for an OSX calendar/scheduling program, I came up empty handed. I was tempted by the dark side (MS) and installed Entourage off of my Office CD. It didn't work, giving me a funny error message and then crashing every time I tried to start it.
After checking online, searching for this error message for ~10 minutes, I decided to give the MS Customer support line a call. I didn't have to stay on hold for more than 10 seconds throughout the entire call. After a few voicemail selections, I was dumped to one support guy who, after asking a few questions, referred me to a Mac support guy. The Mac support guy stepped through a few troubleshooting hoops with me, figured out what the problem was and fixed it.
The entire phone call took less than 10 minutes and I was entouraging away. The tech support even told me how to use entourage as a calendar program and *not* an email program.
The point is, MS is a large company. They might break a few antitrust laws and stifle a little innovation here and there, but don't forget that this is capitalism. The consumer rules! Take advantage of what MS does offer. In my case it's good phone support and reasonable software. In the case related to this story, it's IE for Mac. Use IE for the Mac. Use Mozilla for the Mac. Make an educated decision about which is better. Use one or the other, both or neither. The educated consumer is the best thing to be in a capitalistic society.
You are already using a Mac, so you aren't forced to use one thing over another. MS will work hard making good apps for the Apple if they will be rewarded by consumers buying/using them.
Keeping
Looks like the Javascript Prompt bug persists. If you're using any version of IE5 for MacOSX put this in the address-line and see the bug of which I speak:
javascript:x=prompt("This Text Should Appear")
Explorer is getting about one bullet-item per-month upgrade, just to keep us hoping. Meanwhile several browsers are poised to overtake Explorer in standards-compliance and standards-implementation, and have already overtaken Explorer in features we like, like disabling ad banners and popups.
The fact that IE 5.2 sets the Home Page to MSN is a sure sign that MicroSoft can't let go of its old nasty little indulgences. As if switching the whole west coast to MSN didn't get our attention.
-- thinkyhead software and media
OmniWeb is the browser that finally let me quit using IE. Mozilla, in its latest incarnations, is great but it still has little things that bug me. O.W. 4eva, yo.
For some reason, Microsoft's IE/Mac and IE/Win teams are completely different; while IE5/Mac was hailed as having one of the best CSS1 implimentations, IE5/Win was still struggling with the box model (and happily making all your boxes too big, because the IE/Win team can't read, obviously).
So don't go lumping IE/Mac in with IE/Win - they're completely different browsers which happen to share the same name.
A List Apart: Why IE/Mac Matters
I used to have IE to the point where it would set itself as the default browser every time it was launched. I had to search for every file that was changed that day to find where this preference is stored since MS didn't consider that I might want to use another browser. Here is the fix:
t
Edit the file Library/Preferences/com.apple.internetconfig.plis
Look for the key: IEAsDefaultNoBotherPrefKey, and delete the entire key segment. Save it (keep a backup in case). Change the default browser in Internet in System Prefs and then launch IE. When it asks if you want IE to be your default browser, hit no.
Now, why MS had to put this in the internet config plist is beyond reason. A hint to MS: We don't want you junk in the system. It is OK if it is bundled and easily separated, but we want the option to be able to get rid of it all. If it were in the MS Prefs, I would have just deleted those and gone on with my life, but now, I may just delete IE instead and never have to worry about this again.
You see? It's like I've always said. You can get more with a kind word and a 2x4 than you can with just a kind word.
I am a registered user of VISE, and use it for the MacPerl installers. It does not require you quit all applications. That is a preference the builder of the installer may choose. It certainly is not necessary to quit all running programs when installing Mac OS 9 software. Sorry, but the blame is not MindVision's, nor Apple's, unless there is something we don't know about Mac OS X itself that requires Microsoft to enable this feature, which is unlikely.