I have been reading about the recent proposal of Microsoft to cease manufacturing stand alone versions of the Internet Explorer web browser. In a nut shell Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1, or IE6 SP1, which many of you are probably already using to view this page, will be the last release on the Windows platform.

From now on, in order to use new versions of Internet Explorer, we will be required to upgrade our computer’s OS, or Operating System, as Microsoft intends to more closely integrate the browser with its Windows OS. Now I, like many other computer users, do not trade up to the latest Window’s OS the instant one is released.

For example I am still quite happily running Windows NT4 (I hear you sniggering) and have no intention to update until I replace my PC. Though no longer in the first flush of youth, it still serves my requirements quite adequately, and I don’t see the need to shell out thousands of dollars on a new PC, together with a new OS, just to have the latest version of Internet Explorer.

There’d be plenty of others in the same boat. To say nothing of the corporate world where operating system upgrades are almost the exception rather than the rule. Big companies especially, often go to the lengths of forming separate IT project teams just to roll out a new operating system. In my experience this only happens about every three or four years.

It makes you wonder just what Microsoft is up to. Surely they’d be aware that users are generally slow to upgrade their OS, and only a certain, relatively small, number would have done so even a year after release.

I was speaking with an IT technician a year ago, who was rolling out Windows 2000 (up, incidentally, from Windows 95), and he mentioned they were one of the first big companies in Australia to do so. This in 2002, some considerable time after Windows 2000’s release.

And the thing is, upgrading to Windows 2000, or even XP, will not be sufficient to run new versions of Internet Explorer. Rather we will be required to purchase the successor to these operating systems, currently code named Longhorn (whilst in development), to enjoy any new Microsoft browser.

Given the number of computers worldwide, running on Window’s operating systems, the implications for web development are significant. To say the least. This move almost heralds a return to the cold war like days of the browser wars.

What level of technology do you develop your website to? The level the majority of your users can support of course, that is, IE6 SP1. Too bad you won’t be able to take advantage of the features of Cascading Style Sheets 3 and beyond, plus an array of other web technology advances, unless everyone else is also capable of using the appropriate Windows based browser.

Just when we thought the web had finally come on to some sort of level playing field…

K10k, the good vibe provider, is looking for new news authors. I was thinking there appears to be a very poor representation of down under designers on their news feed, with the possible exception of Emme Stone. Any Australian (or New Zealand) designers care to be nominated?

I shall be happy to suggest you, if you’d prefer someone else to propose your good self. Hurry though, I believe submissions close very soon!

The Australian INfront is holding another drinks gathering this Thursday, June 12, at the YHA bar in Glebe. In my experience, they tend to be very friendly affairs and I usually get to put a name, to a URL, of at least two or three people each time I go along. Check out the INfront site for more details.

I enjoyed a fine lunching experience the other Friday, at Sydney CBD eatery the Blue Olive. Do not confuse the images on the website which seem to convey a more rural, family owned dining room, these images are of the Canberra version of Blue Olive.

The Sydney CBD version is a typical CBD affair, polished floors and sleek minimal lines. Rather crowded when we were there, but Friday lunch is probably their busiest time of the week. Some of the suits were getting very rowdy indeed by the time we left!

Praise be her majesty the Queen, for in Australia we celebrate her birthday today. I think her actual birthday is in April, but it seems to be the Australian thing to mark the occasion on the second Monday of June.

I speak as an avowed republican here by the way, and accordingly worked most of the day; I only had the morning off.

On the subject of back to basics rock, U2’s guitarist, the Edge, has been talking about their new album, the follow up to 2000’s All that you can’t leave behind. In a similar vein to the Metallica hype, he too is describing the upcoming U2 release, as being yes, back to basics rock, presumably reminiscent of their very early work, and some of the “best songs we have ever written.”

Speaking personally, I thought U2’s work of the ’90’s was their best, Achtung Baby, Zooropa and even Pop. Sure, while I liked All that you can’t leave behind, it’s still the former three albums I still listen to quite regularly.

The impression I gain from the way people speak of returning to their roots or getting back to basics is that they are trying to disown what they did after they started out. That they are in reality a one track horse, and variation and experimentation are not the norm.

But it could be they don’t mean that at all? Anyway, I invariably and eventually, like anything that U2 do.

Soooo… the release of the much anticipated new Metallica album, St. Anger is imminent. We have been waiting literally months for this one, haven’t we? Nice ploy by the boys though, inn’t? Especially since the last couple of efforts, I refer to Load and Reload, didn’t exactly meet expectations, did they?

I read a review in Total Guitar magazine way back in August 1996, at the time of the Load release, where the writer was gushing about how experimental the album was, and how certain members of the band had been known to have both country and blues “leanings” for “sometime”.

Ok, Total Guitar were obviously more interested in Metallica’s guitar work, rather than their “orientation”, but the sentence did say a lot about the boys new “direction”. It would seem the rest of us were not so taken by this “experimentation” though.

So back to the suspiciously extended gestation period of St. Anger. How many rumours have we heard about this new release? We’ve all heard how “hard core” and “back to basics” it will be. Dark, hard, and fast, in fact.

St. Anger has been festering, and carefully cultivated at that, in our collective conscious to the point of, well, release, if you will excuse my crudeness. Apparently work was completed last year, so why wait this long for the release? Yeah…

In short, all the band driven media hype has gotten me so excited, that yes, at midnight on the appointed day, I’ll be down at Central Station Records… er, which I am sure will be part of the late night fun?!?