Recently in Microsoft Category

I seriously dislike Microsoft products for the most part.  Especially their browser.  As a web designer, Internet Explorer has been a thorn in my side for the better part of a decade.  But, as sad as it is, the world needs Microsoft.  What we no longer need is IE6.

If you've read any of this blog, you know that I am a big proponent of using the next best thing.  Moving forward with technology, ideas, solutions, and standards.  Right now, supporting IE6 specifically is the biggest hurdle I have to overcome on a daily basis.  It's old technology that doesn't support current web standards, yet 15-20% of web users still use it as their primary browser.

No one wants to build a site that doesn't work properly for 1/5 of their target audience, but the time and money wasted on building a site that holds up in today's markets and is IE6 compatible is ridiculous.  It's 2009!  Designers and programmers should not have their creativity and ingenuity handcuffed because people still choose to use a browser that doesn't support advanced CSS or XHTML.  The research, the hacks, the workarounds, the extra lines of code, the extra processes that slow the site down... they aren't worth the money spent by companies and developers. Especially when their user base can upgrade their IE browser for free.  Yeah that's right, it's FREE.

Afraid of upgrading your IE browser? Upgrading your OS to Vista left a bad Microsoft taste in your mouth?  I don't blame you.  OK, here's another solution then. Download Firefox... it's FREE.  Download Chrome... it's FREE.  Hell, download Safari... that's also FREE.   No it's not just for a Mac.  They all support the latest web standards and make an attempt to continue upgrading on a semi-frequent basis.

If you won't do it for me or the benefit of the designer community, do it for the economy.  Abandon IE6 so clients don't insist on being compatible, and designers like myself can charge them less for development time.  If you'd like to further support bringing down IE6,  check out this site to get involved.

I found an interesting feature of Bing this afternoon.

First, go to Google and do a search for Bing.  My search found about 47,800,000 results and displayed the first 10.  Now do a search for Yahoo!.  This search turned up about 2,460,000,000 results for me.  That's a lot of real estate Google allows for other search engines in the market, and rightfully so.  A search in Google gives you everything you could possibly want that it has in the index in a fairly logical order of importance.  The user gets to choose what to ignore.  Sounds like a true search to me.

Now go to Bing and search for Google. I don't know about you, but I get 1 result displayed.  It says it found 184,000,000 results, but only opted to show me 1.   No supporting stories, no news listed underneath, no other websites, just Google.  You have to click the link below to "search for other results containing Google" in order to see more.  Now search for Yahoo!.  Again, I get 1 result displayed.  It's the same for Ask.com.  However, if you search for Bing, you get a full display of the first 14 of 6,270,000 results.

I also found that a handful of news sites are treated the same way.  CNN, Fox News, ESPN, The New York Times, and probably more.  Thankfully my main source of news, BBC, has been excluded from this treatment, which actually helps me prove my point.  A search for BBC gives you a ton of results on the first page including, sub sites, news articles, and video clips.

Seems like Bing has restrictions built into it that greatly limit the exposure of certain competitive companies in its search results.  I'm not sure who the genius is behind that one, but come on Microsoft...  do you really have to be that petty?  You want to be the next best search engine next to Google?  Then take a page from their book and treat just about every search the same.  Find everything you can, lay it all out there for us in an order that makes some kind of sense, and we'll figure out what we want from the results. Hell, we might even learn something new a few pages down.

I haven't had much time until yesterday to actually play with some of the new features of the improved Xbox 360 interface that was released a few weeks ago.  One of these improvements is the ability to now stream Netflix movies right to your console for your viewing pleasure (once you have an account of course).  Seeing as I'm on vacation, I figured it would be a decent time to check out the two week free trial.

So...  I log into my Xbox 360 and search for the Netflix area.  I click through a few menu options and supply my email address and password, and then end up on a screen that tells me to "go to netflix.com/xbox to create my account".   So now I have to get up off the couch, stroll over to the computer and punch in a url.  I do so and go through the regular hoops of setting up one of these trial accounts, including choosing a service that I can cancel anytime over the next 2 weeks for no charge (of course), and giving them a credit card number.

But now... it sends me back to the Xbox.  I go back to the couch, ready to watch a movie, press a few buttons and then my Xbox gives me an activation code and tells me to go to netflix.com/activate to activate my streaming account. Again I get up and go back to the computer, plug in the code, and boom, I'm ready to watch movies on my Xbox, Right?

Wrong.

Maybe I was a little too eager, or maybe the frustration was already kicking in and I had ignored a direction somewhere, but I went back to the couch assuming I could browse through lists of movies on my Xbox, hit a button, and spend the next few hours watching something I wouldn't cough up 11 dollars for at the theaters a few months ago. What greeted me at the couch was nothing. I tried to find some way I could choose a movie on my Xbox, but the option just isn't there.

After paying attention to a few more messages, I realize I have to go back to the computer and set up a que under the "Watch Instantly" tab.  Then from this que, I can go back to the Xbox and select the movies I have already selected and start the streaming.

As I browse for a movie to watch, I reach an even greater level of disappointment.  In my opinion, the selection of movies for streaming stinks. You know those old Mom and Pop rental stores that used to be around before Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, and Tommy K's squeezed them out?  Remember how they had only ONE copy of every movie no matter how popular it may be?  Remember getting there late on a Friday night and having to sift through old classics because everything you wanted to rent was already spoken for?  This is what I felt like looking through the list of available streaming movies.

Now don't get me wrong, I was able to find some gems.  I sat down and got my sci-fi/alien fix with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and The Day the Earth Stood Still (the 1951 classic, not the new one Keanu is butchering in the theaters right now).  I also have 20 Million Miles to Earth and Forbidden Planet waiting in the que for later this weekend, and I think I may have seen one of my child hood favorites 20000 Leagues under the Sea (1954) available as well.

However, hardly anything remotely recent was available.  Like I said, I wasn't going to pay 11 dollars at the theater to watch the 3rd installment of the Mummy series, or Will Smith flying around in Hancock.  But, I would spend time watching them if they streamed right to my living room, especially during a free trial.  Sadly that doesn't look like an option for a long time.

Unless there's some drastic improvement in what's available, I'll most likely be looking for that "cancel subscription" button before this trial is up.