You’ll be getting Internet Explorer 7 pushed to your PC from now on
Posted on December 5, 2006, by Conor O'Neill, under Technology.
If you have Windows XP and if it hasn’t happened already then Microsoft appear to be pushing out the new release of the Internet Explorer Web Browser. They are making it optional so you have to agree to install before they do (the security centre logo in the bottom right hand corner of the screen that looks like a shield will be yellow with an exclamation mark in it).
For almost all web users who don’t use Firefox as their browser, IE7 is a big improvement over IE6. The most obvious visible difference is that you can now use tabs to browse. This just means that you can have many sites open within one browser window rather than in multiple windows. Middle click using the mouse wheel on a link should open up a new tab with that link.
One unfathomable change is that the menu bar at the top is turned off by default. If that freaks you, as it did me, just right click at the very top of the IE window and there should be an option to turn it on.
There are two utterly broken sites that I use with which you cannot use IE7. The first is Enterprise Ireland whose site is just badly designed and non standards compliant and the second is Ulster Bank Online Business Banking. I’ve ranted enough about how embarrassing the Ulster site is. They have upgraded home users to something designed in the 21st century, we’re still waiting for them to do that on the business side.
Most people should install it and will be happy with it. The more people who do, the more designers of badly written web-sites will be forced to learn a few standards.
Technorati Tags: Internet+Explorer+7, IE7, Enterprise+Ireland, Ulster+Bank, Anytime,
16 Replies to "You’ll be getting Internet Explorer 7 pushed to your PC from now on"
Ruairí on December 5, 2006
I have notified the appropriate person in EI that the web site does not work with IE7. thanks!
conor on December 5, 2006
Thanks Ruairí. By making the site standards compliant it’ll hopefully finally work with Firefox too.
conor on December 5, 2006
Actually, it’s a lot better than it was a few weeks ago, maybe they have been working on it already?
Whoops, it now works better in FF than IE7. Only a small glitch on the home page so far.
Well done to the EI web dev people!
Now just Ulster Bank.
Kav on December 11, 2006
One unfathomable change is that the menu bar at the top is turned off by default. If that freaks you, as it did me, just right click at the very top of the IE window and there should be an option to turn it on.
I too was at a loss as to why they did this. It also took me about five minutes to find the Refresh button. Yes, a bit slow, I am.
JD on December 13, 2006
Installed IE7 this morning in work but for some reason it has interfered with my Goldmine CRM and is making the emails unreadable. Have reverted to IE6. Will have to look into this, but not being of a technical mind I will let the missus loose and listen closely to what she has to say… I’m still getting to understand the Commodore 64 (of which I have a working unit of still….sad.)
conor on December 13, 2006
I don’t use any apps that embed the IE engine so I haven’t seen any breakage.
There is info on Goldmine and IE7 here.
Pah I laugh in the face of your puny C64!
Owner of Still Working ZX Spectrum 48K.
Ruairí on December 13, 2006
We had an Apple II - now that was a real computer - complete with a floppy drive!
To be more accurate, the school my Dad was head of had the Apple but it was too valuable to leave in the school and was in our house except for the once a week when there were computer classes…:-)
JD on December 14, 2006
In my grainy neighbourhood growing up in Cork there seemed to be a split between the ZX and C64 amongst the kids at the time. To be honest the C64 was an expensive games machine (Daley Thompson’s Decathalon has to be legend). In school circa 1980-81 there was an Apple II in the lil’ computer room that you could ‘book’ time on - it had a metal plate under the angled keyboard (all one piece) and the odd time this gave off an electrical shock, if frazzled memory serves me correctly.
FYI http://www.c64.com is nostalgic!
conor on December 14, 2006
And then of course there were the loaded people who had BBC Micros. The way to annoy them was to point out that their games were rubbish even if the hardware was awesome.
I assume you know about the whole world of emulation? I have all the old games I wrote in 1984-1986 running on a Spectrum emulator on my PC, Palm Tungsten and Nokia N70!
You can get ones for C64, Amstrad, BBC, Atari 400/800/ST etc etc too
JD on December 14, 2006
I used to have some ‘emulated’ Arcade (Taito etc)games on a diskette but lost it in the move from Dublin to Cork a few years ago. Space Invaers etcThese days I am a Playstation 2 addict - and yes, I am painfully aware of my age! Tiger Woods golf is just grreat.
conor on December 15, 2006
In all the years I’ve tried golf games on PCs and consoles, none of them have ever worked for me. Maybe because I don’t play it in real life!
I’m afraid I’m solidly in the first-person shooter brigade. It’s why I doubt I’ll ever join Second Life.
Santa nearly got a GameCube for 2of5 but Nintendo must have stopped production as they are impossible to find anywhere. Santa thought it might be a good stepping stone to the Wii for 1of5 on his next birthday. Of course, then this could happen.
The Travelling Biffo on December 15, 2006
Conor,
Did I give you Doom for your fone while you were still looking over the cubicle wall at me?
you can get aracde emulators for that Nokia of yours as well!!
Game Cube stopped being retailed a good while now!!
conor on December 15, 2006
Never worked righr for me for some reason. Must have another go.
No bargains to be had on GC on eBay which is odd. Alex on Diggnation swore that the Wii was just a reboxed GameCube with a new wireless controller. He figured Nintendo were geniuses compared to Sony who spent billions on the PS3. Reports today putting Wii sales at 3x PS3.
JD on December 18, 2006
My MD has me looking for this Nintendo Wii for his kid. I spend 2wks a month working in Dublin and he reckons Dublin is a large urban eBay where the streets are paved with bargains and unlike the rest of the modern developed world everything is always in plentiful availability… Bah!
Anyhu, I also prefer 1st person shooters;the Tiger Woods game for the PS2 has a skills arcade on which I spend most of my time. I not particularly good at golf.
Found my old copy of HalfLife for the PC at home the other night. What a hoot. Best opening sequence ever! The missus (who’s a software engineer) hates the game. In fact she hates all computer games… except the BrickBat game on my Blackberry.. which is an awful game. One would think that Research In Motion would apply some gaming thought to the handheld.
conor on December 18, 2006
Good luck with getting a Wii. I hear they are impossible to get in Ireland.
Our house is still addicted to Snood and its rip-off Frozen Bubble (which I also play on my phone).
Ben on December 5, 2006
Yes, I got my update this morning. The changeover is on!