Author: Ed Bott

Tech journalist. Author of 25+ books. ZDNET Contributing Editor since 2006. Contact info: https://edbott.com/contact-me/

IE7+Vista = IE7+

The version of Internet Explorer in Windows Vista has a new name. According to Microsoft’s IE Blog:

With the release of Windows Vista Beta 2, I want to announce that we will be naming the version of IE7 in Windows Vista “Internet Explorer 7+”. While all versions of IE7 are built from the same code base, there are some important differences in IE7+, most significantly the addition of Windows Vista-only features like Protected Mode, Parental Controls, and improved Network Diagnostics. These features take advantage of big changes in Windows Vista and weren’t practical to bring downlevel. The IE7+ naming gives us an easy way to refer to this version. (“The version of IE7 in Vista” doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily…)

It also has the marketing side-effect of making the version of IE7 in XP the equivalent of IE7–minus.

Ie7-plus-logo

My problem with the new name is that a reasonable nontechnical observer running Windows XP will hear about it and think that the “plus” part is an add-on that they should be entitled to as well. Given that the changes relate to features in the OS, I would have preferred a naming convention that reflects that reality: IE7/XP and IE7/Vista.

But nobody asked me.

More on Word 2007 Blogging Problems

Brad Kellett read my earlier post in which I mentioned that Word 2007’s new blogging feature seems to send posts into the WordPress ether. Brad says there’s another explanation:

I don’t believe that this is a problem with posts disappearing, just that they are getting a post date of far into the past – in my case, it was December 1969. For everyone having trouble posting from Word 2007 to a WordPress blog, fire up your admin console and head to Manage > Posts and change the browse month dropdown to whatever is the abstract date.

Absolutely right. In my case, on a notebook running Vista Beta 2, the posts were dated November 1999.

Not sure I want to go back to either of those dates, to be honest. Thanks for the pointer, Brad!

Free AV for Vista beta testers

If you’re experimenting with Windows Vista Beta 2, you’ve probably already noticed that many antivirus programs are incompatible. Computer Associates has just announced that it’s offering a free one-year subscription to eTrust EZ AntiVirus for Vista beta testers. I’ve installed it here and it appears to be working just fine.

I tried posting this entry using the new Publish to Blog feature in Word 2007. No luck. It’s able to communicate with the WordPress back end, but the posts just go off into the ether, never to be seen again. Bummer.

Update: Trend Micro has a free Vista-compatible beta version of its PC-Cillin software, too.

E-mail I never finished reading…

This one made me laugh:

Dear @ FIRST NAME@,

If you’re interested in learning how others are integrating new media into the marketing mix, you are invited to download a new white paper we’ve just released with extensive research on the latest trends in online marketing, blogs, podcasting, RSS, email and database marketing. You can download it …

I’ll spare this marketing company the embarrassment of naming and shaming them. But if you’re a company that uses a third-party service to send out press releases, you should make sure they’re at least minimally competent.

Next, they’ll be telling us Clippy is the Antichrist

I’m sure by the time you get to this entry at Digg, the number of Diggs will have gone up. But still…

Word_exploit

I don’t want to make light of this issue, but I haven’t really had a chance to look closely at it yet. One big reason is that every one of my e-mail accounts has server-based virus protection and anti-spam filtering, which strips any infected documents or completely blocks the messages containing them.

In addition, every antivirus software provider appears to have updated its signatures to stop these attachments from getting through. ZDNet and eWeek are reporting that Microsoft recommends running Word in Safe Mode until a patch is available. That’s a pretty extreme solution.

It’s so easy to slip

Via PCWorld.com comes a report that Windows Vista might not be ready in January after all:

The operating system was due to be launched this year but in March the company said it wouldn’t get broad release until January 2007. Ballmer said Wednesday that the planned January launch may slip further based on feedback from a beta release program and the product road-maps of hardware vendors.

“We think we are on track for shipping early in the year. We’ve talked about the month, but we get a chance to critically assess all of the feedback we’ll get from this beta release then confirm or move [the launch date] a few weeks,” he said at a news conference in Tokyo.

We’ll see. Until we’re within the six-month window, I take any tentative date with a grain of salt.

The headline, of course, is an homage to the late, great Lowell George. The definitive version of “Easy to Slip” is on Little Feat’s 1972 release, Sailin’ Shoes. Sadly, it is not on Waiting for Columbus, which is possibly absolutely the greatest live album ever.

Vista Beta 2, up close and personal

Over at ZDNet, I’ve put together a gallery of 30 screen shots digging deep into Vista Beta 2. I’ve dug up some stuff I guarantee you won’t see anywhere else.

For instance, there’s the new Performance Diagnostic Console, which is like Task Manager’s Performance tab on steroids.

Eb_vista_beta2_118_crop

If you’ve got questions about Vista Beta 2, post a comment here or in the Talkback section at ZDNet. I’ll do my best to follow up.

Oops, the Office download servers broke

I don’t know how many people have been slamming Microsoft’s servers today (and those of its online partner, LTG), but I’m guessing a huge number of people want that Office 2007 beta. I was able to download my copies just fine this morning, as soon as they were available. But for the past few hours, I’ve received a variety of errors when trying to reach the servers. Just when I thought I had finally made it, the server surrendered completely:

Broken_server

It must be incredibly hard to engineer a website to handle surges of traffic like this.

Anyway, you might want to wait a day or two.