This past weekend we updated our site to Drupal 4.6.1, which institutes some minor functionality and security fixes.

In addition, returning visitors will have noticed that we redesigned our website. Those keeping track will note that this is the second major redesign since we launched pingV.com. We do what we can when we can. It's hard to find the time, though, when client work keeps things busy.

What I find especially frustrating, though, is how Microsoft forces me to spend so much time pampering their software. Yes, I'm talking about Internet Explorer, the iconoclastic web browser that refuses to acknowledge web standards.

How much online productivity is lost trying to get websites to look and function properly on Internet Explorer?

That would be an interesting question to explore. Talk to just about any web designer, and they will tell you that, for every 100 hours they spend on design, 50-60 hours are dedicated to actual design, and the rest is devoted to creating xhtml and CSS hacks to get it to work on Internet Explorer.

The problem we as web developers face is that Internet Explorer has the dominant market share for web browsers worldwide, thanks to Microsoft's practice of forcing computer manufacturers to bundle Internet Explorer with Windows operating systems. I mean, let's face it: If people had to download Internet Explorer, as they have to in order to use Firefox, Opera, etc., IE would be a minor player indeed in the browser world. And my feeling is that efficiency, productivity and growth in internet-based business and communications would grow at rates far greater than they do today.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not an "evil empire" rhetoritician. I use Microsoft-powered computers for various applications, and find some of their releases to be quite stable. (My Windows NT-based workstations are as rock solid as any PC or Mac I've owned or used.) But when it comes to browsers, and measuring up to worldwide web standards, Microsoft falls short.

They're promising to fix a lot of these bugs and design flaws in Internet Explorer 7, whose release was pushed way up to summer 2005. Let's hope so. I'd rather be designing than carrying water for Bill Gates.

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