I wrote about installing different versions of Internet Explorer on Windows XP for testing purposes (simply because each version is so drastically bad in its own unique way that you need to test each one of them separately). I had decided to take that one step further with Firefox today.

Thank goodness for oldapps.com, I was able to get hold of Firefox 1.0 and 1.5 to play with in XP.

Installing on Windows XP (not for the faint of heat, or you can try the standalone versions of Firefox without worrying about going through the troubles.):

1. Download and install an older version of Firefox. When you run the installer, make sure you choose custom installation and install this version in a different directory. For example: Mozilla Firefox 1.0 (in keeping with the default naming convention). Continue installation as prompted. DO NOT RUN Firefox when it’s done.
2. Open Windows Command Prompt and type the following and press Enter:
set MOZ_NO_REMOTE = 1
3. In the same Command Prompt, type cd and find your way to the version of Firefox you just installed. Using the folder naming convention above, it’s probably something like this:
cd /"Program Files"/"Mozilla Firefox 1.0"/
4. Once you are in the directory, type the following and hit Enter:
firefox.exe -profilemanager
5. Firefox’s profile manager should now appear. Now create a new profile and name it accordingly (i.e. firefox1.0). If you want, name the default profile to the version of Firefox you currently have prior to the installation.
6. Now go to the appropriate Firefox folders and make shortcuts from them and put them where you access them the most (The Taskbar in my case).
7. Right click on the shortcuts and select Properties to pull up the Properties window. In it, there’s a Target field. At the end of it (after the double quote), append the bolded typeface in the following:
"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox 1.0\firefox.exe" -p Firefox1.0

Do this with each version of Firefox shortcuts you have with a matching profile name. And you are done. The only caveat is you can't run multiple versions of Firefox concurrently like you can with the "Multiple IE" install.

Here’s what my VMWare Windows XP Taskbar looks like:

Installing on Mac OSX:

The process is similar to those found on Windows XP. But I couldn’t get them to work as advertised. So I can’t really endorse the methods here. But there are standalone versions out there that made my life easier.

The upside of Mac OSX is, multiple versions of Firefox can be running at the same time!

UPDATE: I did manage to get multiple Firefox versions to work without asking for a profile upon launch every time as described by Jeroen Coumans’s blog (PDF). But there’s a trick that you should know about!

For the life of me I couldn’t get them to launch without asking for a profile even though I followed the steps exactly. The problem? I had three versions of Firefox in the same directory labeled:
Firefox 3
Firefox 2.0
Firefox 1.5

That’s a NO to the hack described on the site. In order for the script to recognize the paths, the portion of the name following the word “Firefox” can not be repeated. I have tried “Firefox-” followed by the version number, but that didn’t go. And underscore didn’t do it either. But if you simply remove the space making the names looking like:
Firefox3
Firefox2.0
Firefox1.5

Then all is good.

I will probably install a couple of older versions of Opera as well since they are supposedly pretty simple — simply install different versions of Opera in their own folders and be done with!

via [JiveBay] and [Jeroen Coumans]

1. VMWare to run Windows XP with (and Vista if necessary; but yuck!);
2. Multiple IE app;
3. Conditional commenting using alternate stylesheets if push comes to shove (coding to standards is easy for all other browsers but IE; this is when you don’t want to alter your “standardized” stylesheet just for IE fixes; kudos to Microsoft for making this possible);

But #3 failed me today, and I had to find out why the hard way — Internet Explorers installed via Multiple IE will always default to the latest version of the IE installed (credit). Meaning, if you have IE6 and IE7 installed, even IE6 will always declare itself as IE7 when it comes to conditional comments (but not in browser agent, thankfully). After applying the simple registry hack (oh, the good old Windows registry, you…) and a quick reboot, everything worked as expected.

Here’s the hack (in case the link provided above disappears for some reason):

… by removing the “IE” key in the registry subkey [HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Version Vector], Internet Explore defaulted to respecting conditional comments based on the version number prebuilt in the program.

Engineers who came up with the guidelines for Microsoft IE must have their heads filled with tofu… umm, wait, I like tofu. Their heads must be filled with turd. Simple standards are simply ignored or conveniently misinterpreted by the IE’s rendering engine. It makes debugging a living hell from the perspective of a web developer no matter how much time I’ve already spent doing this for a living.

And then today Microsoft went and made an offer to buy out Yahoo for a cool $44.6B? Give me a f*cking break. How about spending some of those billions on fixing the damn IE and ensure future developments of IE adhere to standards?

The World Wide Web would be a better place without Microsoft. But then again, without scums, how can we appreciate the beauty of all the other standards-adhering browsers? Nonetheless, if I ever meet the guy(s) who was in charge of defining the renderer guidelines, I might just kick him in the nuts. Idiot.

The most obvious comparison is Microsoft’s MSN Live Messenger and Apple’s new iChat 4.0. The differences in the interface design is stunning. Notice how Microsoft tries to show off all those features that it has on the UI of MSN Live Messenger! Are they supposed to compensate for something else that’s lacking? And notice the ad at the bottom of the contact list — how annoying! I guess they just can’t stand giving something out free for nothing… When I installed it to play with, I had to download a third party app (MSN Live! Plus) to “clean up” the UI to get rid of 90% of the UI clutter.

Now compare that to iChat since 1.0…. Ah~~ clean and soothing… Elegant.

There’s something about the way Microsoft’s applications operate and how things are integrated that seem so… repulsive. It’s like they are begging not to be used. I don’t mind ads as long as they are not in my face like most of Google’s.

Another thing about MSN Live Messenger is the lack of tab support. I mean, Apple itself is late to the “tab” party, but through a plugin, its previous version was able to have tabs for multiple chat sessions. And the latest iChat also has a great way to support tabs. Looking at MSN Live Messenger though… If you are unfortunate (or fortunate?) enough to get hit up with more than a few simultaneous chat sessions, you can say goodbye to your spacious desktop real estate…

I have no idea why, but my virtualized Windows XP just started bitching about svchost crashing and started acting all weird on me — and this was on an installation that’s only used (or turned on, even) when I needed to test my code on various versions of IE. At first I thought maybe VMWare got corrupted, so I did a fresh install of VMWare. Then I thought maybe I could revert Windows XP back to its previous known good state. None of these helped, of course. So I did what any sane Windows user would do — complete re-install of Windows XP from scratch! Hah hah! I feel sorry for the poor souls who have to deal with this kind of crap all the time.

Thank god VMWare makes Windows installation easy and fast (at least 1/2 the time it takes for a fresh install on a real PC!). The first thing I do is to get rid of all the fluff out of Windows — games, MSN Explorer, Accessibility programs, Windows tour, Outlook Express (officially dead program by Microsoft’s definition)… etc. Then I started installing various versions of IE (5.01, 5.5, 6.x & 7) and other perceived “goodies” including MSN Live Messenger. Then Windows XP complained again in its own cute little way — it’s looking for msoert2.dll… WTF!?! It’s a fresh install! It couldn’t possibly have something missing that MSN Live Messenger needed!

Then Google said it was a library that was removed when I got rid of Outlook Express. So why is it that MSN Live Messenger 8.5.xxx, the latest and greatest from Redmond, needs to depend on a library from a program that’s supposedly extinct? Locating and putting back the msoert2.dll file back to Windows/system32 directory made it happy again though. And that’s all I cared.

I am guessing it’s a hook for MSN contacts to appear in Outlook Express and Outlook so that people who spend way too much time in those programs can start up chat sessions without having to look for the MSN Live Messenger contact list.

All this crap brought back the good old days of Windows tech support and having to decipher cryptic Windows errors. “Good” times.

Fast forward to a few months later, now he proclaims he’d never EVER go back to Windows ever again — NEVER! Having been a Windows fan boy for so long, he explained why (almost) everything on a Mac is simply more superior and simple to use:

1. Everything just works;
2. Superior and more stable 3rd party apps; he said on Windows, you have to “figure out” how some apps work if it came from a 3rd party. But on a Mac, you just expect everything to work without you having to know how or even to 2nd guess why… Now, this was exactly what I was talking about. You miss out quite a bit of fun just by using Windows even if by some godly divine intervention your Windows box somehow never crashes or catches a virus/malware/Trojan.
3. Mac OSX is rock solid; can’t say that about Windows XP or even Vista; he had to use Vista for 2 days and was ready to throw it out of the Window at the end. He ended up IMing another friend about how to install Mac OSX on his IBM laptop — that’s how much he loves Mac OSX.
4. He proclaims that eventually people will see the light and start using Mac OSX;
5. He’s in so far as to ponder on getting certified as a Mac OSX support guy!

So I guess the lesson is, shut up and stop whining about Mac OSX if you’ve never even used it for more than a few minutes in an Apple Store. Once you’ve understood it like Norris has… well… once you go Mac, you can never go back!

On a related note, I took Bryan to the mall the other day and saw that, again, the Apple Store was pack house… while the stupid Dell “booth” got a few tumble weeds strolling by and was dead as ever. I wonder why Dell does that — setting up a booth to fail. It seems like they tried to put up some kind of physical presence to demonstrate how “great” Dell computers are… But even die hard Dell/Windows fan boys I know would be embarrassed to be seen interacting with the ugly booth.

Another huge problem I had when supporting Windows running on PCs was drivers — often when I reinstalled Windows on any machine, the first thing I had to do was to go to the PC vendor’s site to download drivers. That was painful sometimes because they weren’t always clear on which drivers you had to use (yeah, part numbers and version numbers are really helpful… NOT).

Today I read a funny post on the experience of dealing with a Sony Vaio. Sony’s one of the computer vendors I absolutely hate to support for the reasons explained on Steve’s blog… but that was during 2000 and 2004. I can’t believe people are still stupid enough to keep buying computing crap from Sony as if they were really superior products. “Idiots!” I say.

I’ve told quite a few people that running Windows on my Mac has been a much pleasant experience than it is on an actual PC box designed with Windows in mind. Steve’s experience pretty much reflects that of my own (as do a few dozen comments left on that entry). Too bad BioShock is probably never coming to the Mac… But it’s good to know that at least Windows boxes are good for at least something other than doorstops.

Further reading here.

This CNet article covers some pretty basic benchmarks for using Parallels and Fusion v.s. Apple’s Boot Camp. My own experience echoes that of CNet’s results.

Parallels
Pros: Nice touches on providing Windows Task Bar when in Coherence mode. I find myself needing access to the Windows desktop from time to time. I also like the fact that I can access the full “Start” menu from the Dock. Boots and runs fairly fast.
Cons: Somewhat awkward to use when Mac’s Exposé is invoked. Fusion does a much better job at this; seems to slow down the overall performance of the machine somewhat. But I can’t prove it scientifically.

Fusion
Pros: Excellent integration with Exposé — each window that belongs to Windows actually scales! Supports both cores of my MBP! Virtual Appliances can be really helpful!
Cons: Poor implementation on giving user access to the Windows Desktop or the Task Bar when in Unity mode. Awkward “Launch” tool bar — I wish I can make the damn icons smaller. Instead of the “Applications” menu, Fusion should implement what Parallels does, full access to the “Start” menu from wthin the Dock.

It was relatively easy to enable my MacBook Pro’s iSight to use it with Windows Live Messenger (I hate it) on both softwares. But I did have to get iSight’s driver for Windows (stripped from Boot Camp) to get it to work.

Overall, my experience on both Parallels and Fusion is a pleasant one. Windows seemed to install faster on my virtual machines than they ever did when I had a real PC hardware to play with. Actually, it took longer to get Windows Updates to run and complete than the initial installation process. Oh, the ironies… I hope Microsoft continues to crank out crap ware like this for as long as they can afford to. The world just loves more crap ware shoved down its throat.

It’s documented here by Eric Appel. Basically, I just need to type in a one-liner Javascript in IE’s URL to show the source.

javascript:'<xmp>' + window.document.body.outerHTML+ '</xmp>'

In case you didn’t already know, viewing generated source is quite simple in FIrefox via an addon appropriately called Web Developer. In Safari 3, the closest thing is to right click and select “Inspect Element” from the contextual menu.

I am still stunned at how far IE has fallen behind in feature set for both users and developers in its seventh iteration of the software (having zero development effort since it drove Netscape into ground). But I am still thankful for conditional comments the IE team has decided to support. At least it’s made life with IE using CSS a much more straight forward task.

How can people tolerate this kind of B.S. from the largest software maker in the world? Don’t they spend billions a year on R&D? Here’s an idea, spend more of that resource on better software… I can’t believe I am writing two entries on Microsoft in one day…

Some people claim MS is all goodies under the hood for developers. Com’on, where are the goodies? I haven’t met a web developer who doesn’t hate IE.

People who continue to use IE by choice are idiots. There. I’ve said it. Idiots. Idiots. Idiots. Start using better browsers from companies who care so that the World Wide Web can be a better place!

Ok. I feel better now… Back to dealing with crappy IE for idiots who prefer it.

Microsoft should change their marketing tag line to: Your Misery. Our Passion.

Granted there are actually a number of other browsers not listed there, given IE’s lion’s share in the market, I found it amusing that they chose not to mention it at all. Considering Microsoft bailed out Apple at the brink of its demise back in the days, perhaps Apple ought to be a little nicer to Redmond even if they know Microsoft is just making bad copies of whatever Apple makes anyway…

One of the problems of testing web apps under Parallels with IE is, instead of testing development URLs such as http://localhost/, usually IP addresses have to be used, like such http://192.168.0.100, to reach OSX’s localhost server (because localhost on Windows would entail having an actual web server running under Windows). The problem with that is that some applications such as WordPress need to have a full absolute path in order for it to work properly (especially when dealing with themes). I’ve tried a couple of workarounds, but nothing is as simple as using Apple’s own Bonjour technology.

I found a post that explains how to set it all up. Even though his example deals with running Ruby on Rails, the idea is exactly the same for other development environments such as PHP and Java (enable port 80, 443… etc). Now I am a happy camper…

via [the naked brain]

The Delivery Status Widget is one of those apps that’s just way cool. This is something I’d never expect seeing having written on the Windows camp (the snobbish Apple side of me speaking)… On Windows, I used to hate having to install unnecessary applications because you just have no idea what it’s doing to your system (“fantastic” DLLs, “awesome” registry keys… etc). Sometimes uninstallers even screw up the system… But of course, that was back in 2004, how much has changed… Now Windows is more stable than EVER before… (yeah, right).

Speaking of widgets, it seems like Vista has some cool stuff going on albeit being just copies of the Mac OSX Dashboard widgets in looks and functionalities. But it’s like this… what do you expect out of Redmond nowadays anyway. Chee-hoi claims that “under the hood” Vista is going to really kick ass. That may be the case if whatever Microsoft promises can be fully materialized before people just start walking away and do themselves a favor by getting a Mac…. that or before Microsoft’s bloatware and vapor ware just implodes.

Yeah, I know… It’s Wednesday… and my snobbish Mac side has already taken over… Bad Mac, HEEL!

via [Gizmodo]

So in essence, when a company thought they paid for a cheap machine, they are actually getting ripped off because of the extra time spent reinstalling the OS and supporting its inferior hardware/software. This drives home a point — Windows (and by extension, Microsoft) still sucks three years after I’d abandoned it from my home.

Take, for example, many people I know blindly think Windows Live Messenger is like the SH*T. So they’d use all those weird features on me not knowing they are not supported on the Mac version (a blessing, I must say). So one day, I decided I’d take a look into it by installing it on my PC emulation software. Five minutes after playing with it, I was ready to get a ticket to Redmond and strangle Steve Ballmer for the worst instant messenger app ever written!

I continue to wonder, how can such crappy software, bundled with crappy hardware, keep such dominance in most homes and businesses? Do people NOT see they are just wasting time and money on such crap? Or am I just having a chip on my shoulder being such a Mac snob? Hah!

Nonetheless, simplicity rules — in design, computing or otherwise.

Unlike Gmail or Yahoo, where junk mail filtering success rate is practically 98+%, Hotmail is the exact opposite. Talk about being a miserable failure.

Microsoft seems to be producing a bunch of flops lately… Everything from Hotmail, XBox game console, Zune music player to Windows Vista is pretty sucky. Unfortunately, millions of people still use its products willingly or not. Many businesses are locked in to Microsoft’s products partly because the only kinds of applications they need only exist on Windows (though that’s been less likely the case since the resurgence of the Macs).

I hope Microsoft loses enough market share to Apple and other competitors in all markets to make them feel vulnerable and start innovating again. I mean, com’on, five years and five BILLION dollars on a copycat of Mac OSX is NOT innovation. But of course, the culture for innovation just isn’t in Microsoft’s blood. So it’s kind of oxymoron to put the word “innovation” and “Microsoft” in the same sentence…. there, I just did it again…

Though I have no way of verifying this report, I am sure that in the coming weeks, I can expect to see systems, no matter how low end and ill equipped, are going to be shipped with Vista despite analysts’ warning on how little value it brings to the PC computing platform. On the other hand, I think this is also a matter of economics for most PC manufacturers. The more computers they sell with Vista pre-installed, the cheaper they can get Vista for in bulk. An since Vista is such a buzz word now, it helps to slap that OS on all shipping PCs to qualify for a cheaper volume rate from Microsoft.

I suppose this is another reason why Linux, by the virtue of economics, is doomed. It gives no incentive for PC manufacturers to ship systems with Linux when they can put on another copy of Vista to get better overall rates from Microsoft! Oh, the irony.

Where’s that cat from Apple again? I am ready for it…

More features of Leopard (OSX.5) is to be unveiled on Jan. 9th, 2007 with Steve Jobs’ keynote speech at MacWorld Expo. I look forward to seeing what Apple’s been hiding for the past five months…

This list has a bunch of “proposed” inventions/innovations supposedly led by Microsft (or so Microsoft claims) over the years. But the truth is, even withough doing research, I was able to mentally cross out a few simply because I have followed the OS and related software industry for long enough…

The best example why I think Microsoft is not an innovator though, is Microsoft Internet Explorer. When IE was competing fiercely with Netscape in the mid-90’s, the heat was on for both companies to come up with better iterations of their browsers. But when it became apparent that IE was dominating the browser war, that was when new features stopped showing up in subsequent releases of IE. New releases from IE 5.0 and on were all about bug fixes and security patches. Essential support for standards like CSS is still broken even with IE 6. It wasn’t until Firefox started making some dents in IE’s market share that Microsoft started talking about including tabbed browsing, better support for CSS 2.x and other nifty “modern” features worthy of the new millennium (which IE 7 now has — released in 2006!).

But it’s easy for me to be critical of Microsoft. Let’s see what it’s got now the resurgence for innovation is happening again on, seemingly, all fronts where Microsoft has businesses interests in — search engine, web mail, Microsoft Office suites, game development, browsers… etc.