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Run IE on your Intel Mac, if you absolutely have to

If you're a Mac-based web developer, a sysadmin at SomeBigCo, or an Outlook Web Access user, you might find yourself needing to use MS Internet Explorer from time to time. No, not IE for Mac OS X, frozen in amber within Applications folders around the globe; I mean IE for Windows, the hairy scary Active-X enabled browser that for better or worse represents a huge chunk of the web-surfing world.

Getting 'real' IE on the Mac, up until now, has meant OS emulation (Virtual PC), virtualization (Parallels/VMware), API translation (Wine/CrossOver) or remote access (RDC). Now there's another option for Intel Mac owners: ies4osx, a Mac port of the ies4linux package. Built on top of the Darwine version of the Wine Win32 API translation layer, ies4osx downloads and installs an official version of IE (you pick from v5, 5.5, 6 or 7) and then runs it inside the X11 environment on your Mac.

The resulting browser looks a little weird -- almost like a Bizarro version of IE, with the slightly altered type and menu look of the X11 windowing system -- but this bear can dance. OWA runs nicely, with full rich-text editing and message search, and the administration pages for MS Virtual Server also work pretty well. I wouldn't depend on ies4osx in a production role, at least not with the current build, but for one-off testing of websites in IE it's worth the (free) download. The ies4linux developer plans to roll the Mac-specific fixes back into the main package, so the next version of ies4 will probably support both Mac and Linux users from the same codebase.

[via MacApper]

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Internet Tools, Apple

Is Apple aiming at Firefox?



John Lilly, COO of Mozilla, has a bone to pick with Steve Jobs and Apple. As you might imagine, John keeps an eye on the browser market space, and he was interested to see Apple port Safari to Windows. This was a big deal, but the slide above had John worried. As you can see the pie chart shows Internet Explorer's market share and what Apple would like Safari's market share to be. Notice anything?

That's right, Firefox is no where to be found. John Lilly argues that this wasn't an oversight on Apple's part, but rather a glimpse into their intentions. They want Firefox users to switch to Safari and have the web controlled by 2 dominant products coded by the two dominant OS makers. John seems to think this would be a bad thing, and I agree with him. Having a choice of browsers is good for the web, and good for people who use the web (like you!). As John points out, Safari for Windows is a good thing since it offers uses another choice, but if Apple hopes to use Safari to stifle competition... well that's not very good at all.

What do you all think? Is this a paranoid dream, or a valid worry?

[via CNET]

Filed under: Video, Internet

Wal-Mart adds insult to injury with IE-only website

We've known all along that the Wal-Mart Video Downloads service was going to be a Windows-only affair. It's sad, but that's the way that goes sometimes. Is it really necessary, however, to lock the website to Internet Explorer 6+ only? On Tuesday, TechCrunch reported that some coding mistakes on Wal-Mart's page prevented the CSS from loading in Firefox; today, Design by CSS reports that rather than fix the errors, Wal-Mart chose to block other browsers from even trying to load the page. Classy.

Other XP-only movie sites like Movielink or CinemaNow have accessible home pages, or at least a universal splash page to let you know that you can't have the sweet, chewy filmic center without IE. Naturally, Amazon Unbox is accessible with any browser, even though the downloads are locked to XP... and, in a quick reality check, one guess which mobile video player (compatible with none of the above, but only with iTunes) shows up at #1 on the bestseller list. The current ranking for the best-selling portable player (Creative Zen Vision: M) that works with Amazon Unbox movies? #63 -- and behind such barnburners as a 50-pack of CD-Rs and the iPod Power Adapter, for crying out loud.

OK, Wal-Mart, go ahead and hide your light under an IE-only bushel. Not only will we not know what we're missing, most likely we won't care, either.

[via Digg]

Filed under: Humor, Software

Firefox commercial pokes fun at the competition



A viral Firefox commercial poking fun at its browser competition features the anthropomorphized icons of Internet Explorer, Netscape and Apple's own Safari acting, well - somewhat silly. No matter which browser you're a fan of, it's a pretty funny spot and one of the better offerings I've seen from the Firefox Flicks campaign.

[via Netscape]

Filed under: Odds and ends, Internet Tools

Safari need not apply to Yahoo's preview



Downloadsquad reports that Yahoo! is previewing their new look. Click here to check it out, as long as you are using Firefox 1.5. At the moment Yahoo! isn't supporting any browsers other than IE 6 and Firefox 1.5 (not even Camino, which is just a Macish Firefox).

I know it is just a preview, but it still irks me. Feel free to mock me in the comments.

Filed under: OS, Software

No IE in Tiger

firefoxWell, imagine that!  You end-of-life a program on the Mac and BOOM, Apple stops including it with the release of their newest OS.  According to readers of Accelerate Your Macintosh, who received their copies of Tiger early, there is no Internet Explorer included in the installation.

My take:  thank you, Apple! I don't have much use for a browser that U.S.-CERT considers a risk.

There's also unconfirmed rumblings that both Stuffit Expander and Acrobat Reader are missing from Tiger as well.  Can anybody confirm?

ps—I've included a subtle subliminal message in this post. Can you spot it?!

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