Wednesday, Microsoft made the first beta release of Internet Explorer 7 available to partners and MSDN subscribers. I've been keeping up with Chris Wilson and the other developers at the IE Blog, and I've been doing my damnedest to give them the benefit of the doubt. I was starting to get excited at the prospect of an IE release that took substantial steps toward compliance. I was all of a sudden an IE Optimist...

Installation:
When I first installed the app, I was greeted by the questionably titled "Microsoft Genuine Advantage" verification system. Sound familiar? Since Microsoft didn't exactly publicize this particular feature, the first time many will have heard of it is when someone figured out how to crack it within 24 hours of it's debut. Having legitimate software and wanting to know more about the experience than the avoidance of it, I went ahead with the process. .. Or at least I tried to. Genuine Advantage tried to open my default browser through which it would validate my software. My default browser is, of course, Firefox, so that didn't work. I was then prompted to download a seperate app, mid-way through my IE7 install, that would be able to validate on it's own. Not wanting to bother with that nonsense, I pasted the URL from Firefox into Maxthon and finished validation.

When I finally finished the installation process, I learned that it would require a full system restart. That means two things: poor user experience, and obtrusive browser OS integration. Wondering what I'd gotten myself into, I restarted.

Rendering:
Bootup took an extra minute or two as I watched a dialog window saying things like "Desktop Update". I knew was that I was getting a gang of "features" I did not sign up for, but I was still excited to see what this new rendering engine could do. Before I could test it, though, I had to open the browser, which involved several minutes of watching it flicker epiliptically on my screen. "Still in beta," I could hear Chris Wilson explaining in my head. When that was finally done I opened up this very blog. Due to an IE6 z-index problem, the tabs on my right sidebar currently have a white border between them and their content. I was disappointed to see that IE7 had not repaired this problem. In addition, the first paragraph of each entry, the first line of that paragraph, and the first letter of that line should have special type treatments, thanks to the CSS2 :first-child, :first-letter, and :first-line pseudo-selectors. These were also unsupported.

I was starting to get annoyed, so I opened Trillian so I could complain to my friends. I got a dialog that said Trillian was crashing at startup. Several more tries and a system restart later, I realized that it was the Trillian MSN Messenger plugin that was crashing, do to some part of the IE7 installation. I managed to disable the plugin and get Trillian running again, but now I can't use it to speak with MSN users.

Impressions:
Beta or not, this is ridiculous. The rendering engine is unrepaired and the app itself is more obtrusive than ever. Having won their latest court battle, Microsoft announced that IE will now be a "feature set" in Windows Vista. Not a standalone app, not a packaged app. "Internet Explorer" will be the name given to the ability of Windows to view internet content. IE is going to be with us for a long time.

Epilogue:
To be fair, IE has made several important improvements, including supporting :hover on all elements, supporting PNG alpha transparency, and showing up late to the HTML 4.01 party with <abbr>. This is all well and good, but these should never have been issues in the first place. Neither should any of the other "improvements" touted so proudly at the IE Blog. These are bug fixes, not enhancements, and there aren't enough of them to make running this bloated clusterfuck worth running. Browse Happy, everybody.

Update:
Just thought I'd chime in and mention that I'm currently unable to run IE7 at all, it just keeps flickernig and not allowing me to focus or select anything. Good thing there are still other options out there.

Two of my favorite web design blogs closed their doors this week. Two of the sites which have most educated and influenced me in the ways of standards compliant design are no more. I am absolutely loathe to say goodbye to Dunstan Orchard's 1976design blog and John Oxton's Joshuaink.

I was fortunate enough to spend some time with Dunstan in Austin at SXSW this past year. Just enough time to tell him how excited I've been about so much of his work and to congratulate him on his new book and his new job. Dunstan was also one of the innovative minds that brought both NiceTitles and Ajax LiveSearch to the blogosphere at large.

I've never met John, but was absolutely thrilled to have him as an occasional visitor and commenter here at Receptacle. I certainly hope that an archived version of Joshuaink finds it's way to the interweb, as it was easily one of the most gorgeous layouts around. I was sure to steal every tidbit I could from that site, from input element background styling to faux png transparency.

Dunstan has left his site up for perusal, but John's Joshuaink address currently returns nothing but a link to his flickr page.

I have no doubt that John and Dunstan will continue to influence Web Standards and design, in whatever capacity they choose. Thanks for letting me rip you off, guys.

Last night IFILM released a fancy new registration process and also soft-launched a new messageboard system. These projects have consumed my days (and occasionally my nights) for some time now, so the launch is a considerable relief.

Why is the registration noteworthy? It behaves a bit differently than most. Firstly, when you type information in a field, such as zipcode, and then move on to the next part of the form, you will receive instantaneous and unobtrusive feedback on whether you've entered a valid zip code. This is nice, but can do little more than determine whether you've entered the right number of characters. When entering a desired username, however, the form first checks that the username is valid (4-12 characters and starts with a letter), and then runs a remote script on the server to check the database for the existance of that username. The user will know almost instantly if that name is already registered and will have the ability to try a new one before submitting the form.

Go ahead: Try it out. Try entering my username, jcarlin, in the username field and click away. Pretty cool, huh?

This means no more submitting a long form only to find out the name you chose at the beginning is unavailable. No more clicking the back button and hoping that your browser has retained all your form data.

Here's another reason that this release is very important to me: This is my first product for IFILM.
I started at IFILM around two months ago. I am full time here, not consulting, and my role is hands-on, not advisory. Immediately after being briefed on the registration project, I demanded that we use Ajax to check for username and email availability on the front end. Some people got it and others are still wondering why I went to such great lengths to incorporate this feature into the registration process. I think it's turned out very well. I also did all of the creative, much of the IA, and all of the HTML/CSS, DHTML and Javascript you see on the page, so quite a bit is riding in this for me.
Here's to first impressions...

This last bit is somewhat technical and addresses the technique used to achieve this functionality. Suffice to say that it's not Ajax. If that interests you, read on. If not, go on ahead and register at IFILM and spend some time in the forums.

So, we didn't end use Ajax for remote scripting. Although the definition of Ajax has been argued over ferosciously, one thing that seems to be a requirement is the use of the XMLHttpRequest object. Instead, we used a JS RPC technique that IFILM had already been testing out. This was not very clean, but readily available. The end result looks to the user to be as transparent as Ajax might be, but required some DHTML tomfoolery that purists might frown upon.

Podcasting is a pain in the ass.
Then, once you've gotten a handle on the process, finding the content is no picnic. Enter ODEO, a podcasting community and software package that makes finding the very best podcasts as easy as you please.

ODEO is the brainchild of Blogger creator Evan Williams and has been in invitation-only beta for several months. As of today, however, you're all welcome to "Discover, Create, and Subscribe to original audio content for your iPod or MP3 player."

An elegant site design, smooth interaction between the site and the desktop synching software, and beautiful Ajax-enabled functionality make odeo.com a pleasure to peruse. Open tagging and a plethora of search/sort options make finding new content easy and enjoyable. This site is a case study in effective social media archiving.

Active content providers already include Engadget, Suicidegirls, MAKE Magazine, IT Conversations, Daily Source Code, and Dawn and Drew. All hits, kids.

I've been using it for a few weeks now and I must say I'd probably still be distantly behind the podcasting curve if my interest hadn't been piqued by ODEO. Give it a shot. Maybe this podcasting thing is cool afterall.

So, my friend Jonathan and his brother Ross have made a short film.

Impressive, right? Did they do it for art? For expression? Did they do it in an attempt to revitalize the ever-withering flower of film?

No, my bitches. They did it for a free car.

Audi enlisted the Brothers Levine and two other filmmakers to produce short films that somehow involve their new car: The Audi A3. These films will be voted on by the public at large, and the winner will receive generous prize packages the likes of which nerds who have blogs could never imagine.

Jon and Ross's film is Love Bytes, a documentary (of sorts) about internet dating and hatchbacks. It's funny, clever, and has many sexy shots of both Jon and the car (and one of Ross).

Visit Audi.com/A3 and vote for Love Bytes.

As I type, Love Bytes is in the lead by about 4%. We need you, my loyal reader, to widen that gap.

Visit to A3 Microsite and click on A3 Films at the bottom, then click VOTE HERE to watch the films ot just vote.

That number, once again, is
1-800-getoffyourassandhelpmyfriendswinafuckingcar