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One Browser, One World (5/30/01)
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And speaking of Internet Explorer on Mac OS X (yep, masters of the segue, that's us), those of you who adhere to Steve's professed "browser of choice" under Apple's latest operating system should probably be aware that the latest release version, 5.1.1, does some... stuff that affects other browsers. Bad stuff. Potentially sneaky stuff. Stuff that the overly-paranoid might even refer to as "sabotage." (Just kidding. Like there's such a thing as "overly-paranoid"!)
While faithful viewer Daniel M. Dreifus just reminded us of the phenomenon, news of the quirk first surfaced last week; we saw it on MacFixit, though we didn't think much of it at the time, since it didn't directly affect us. Basically, installing IE 5.1.1 causes QuickTime to stop functioning in OmniWeb, iCab, and pretty much every other native Mac OS X web browser. (QuickTime movies play fine in IE, however, as if you couldn't guess.)
We doubt this was an intentional Microsoft "competition" tactic-- partly because we're naïve twits, but mostly because the source of the problem is the new version of the QuickTime plug-in that IE 5.1.1 installs into the Internet Plug-Ins folder. The new version is 5.0B and appears to work only with IE; the older one is version 5.0 and seems to work with all browsers except IE. Reportedly you can even have both installed at the same time (with different filenames, duh) and QuickTime movies will play just fine in all browsers.
Still, it's tough to deny that Microsoft's "accidental" crippling of other browsers looks just a tad suspicious. Maybe it wouldn't seem quite as shifty if the company didn't have a history of this sort of behavior stretching all the way back to the early eighteenth century. In any event, if you use multiple Mac OS X web browsers and haven't yet upgraded to IE 5.1.1 but plan to, be warned-- backing up your existing QuickTime plug-in so you can install both the old and new versions as described on MacFixit is highly recommended. And remember, Microsoft isn't out to get you. Really.
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SceneLink (3084)
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 5/30/01 episode: May 30, 2001: The battle for education sales is raging-- so why is Dell ducking out of Harvard? Meanwhile, Office for Mac OS X isn't due until this fall, but at least you can listen to somebody talk about it at Macworld Expo, and Mac OS X users beware: Internet Explorer 5.1.1 disables QuickTime functionality in all other browsers, unless you know how to introduce plug-in harmony...
Other scenes from that episode: 3082: Dell Ain't No Crimson Fan (5/30/01) Well, it may have happened three weeks ago, but you know our motto: "If we haven't seen it, it's new to us!" Everybody following our little drama here is well aware of the years-long ongoing catfight between Steve Jobs and Mike Dell, just as you all know that the latest battleground in this epic struggle of mercurial vs. mediocre is the education market... 3083: Utilize Proactive Synergies (5/30/01) Hey, we're relatively rational people; despite our personal distaste for most things Microsoft, we're willing to accept the harsh reality that without Microsoft Office, the Mac platform would be deader than the Macarena by now...
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