Of course, you know I'm going to tell you to install Firefox 2.0 once its released, and I don't have a windows XP machine so no trying out the newly released IE7. By the way, did you see that security vulnerabilities were already found for IE7, less than 24 hours after its release? I'm using a release candidate of Firefox2, thanks to an ubuntu upgrade. While the Safari-like close button tabs are taking a little more time to get used to, there are some noticeable, if not drastic, usability enhancements. The search field, in the top right of the UI, is larger giving you more room too see search terms. I also like the automatic spell-checking in text areas, it already caught one typo as I wrote this post.

Over at the Wall Street Journal, Walt Mossberg has a more thorough comparison of the two browsers. If you've been sitting on the sidelines, you'll get the IE7 upgrade automatically via windows update in the coming weeks. If you can't wait, download Firefox now.

I have been testing IE 7, and I agree with Microsoft that it's much improved. If you are a confirmed IE user, upgrading to this new version makes perfect sense, because it is likely to be more secure and its new features make Web browsing better. But if you are already using Firefox, IE's main competitor, I see nothing in IE 7 that should make you switch. It's mostly a catch-up release, adding to IE some features long present in Firefox and other browsers. The one big feature in IE 7 that wasn't already in Firefox, a built-in detector that warns against fraudulent Web sites, is being added to Firefox in version 2.0.

Who's the genius who thought making students wear color-coded IDs was a brilliant idea? To foster a "sense of identity and security", you should divide people into separate groups. As if there aren't enough ways for students to form into cliques all on their own.  I especially abhor making ESL students where yellow - if English proficiency is one of the requirements, I'd suspect a large portion of the population to get that tag. Ain't that not right?

"I don't like lanyards labeled senior, junior and freshmen because a couple of freshmen got jumped because they wore red," said student Arel Lewis.

I hope the students protest en-masse and refuse to wear them.

Scott Rosenberg draws an interesting parallel between Microsoft's attempt to rewrite Windows, and the Bush administration's foray into Iraq. Of course, the two aren't morally equivalent, but its a good intellectual excercise with more than a shred of validity.

Then he says, "It wasn't executed." Note the passive voice, correct for it: "We didn't execute it." Which means, "We didn't do it." That's, you know, obvious, I'd think.

So its been five years since they started! In that time Apple has delivered, what, 4 versions of OS X? On the linux front, there's been one major kernel revision and a ton of improvements in both the KDE and Gnome camps. And Firefox came out of the ashes of the Netscape browser to provide a compelling browser alternative. And Microsoft has given us, the X-Box.