For the rare times I use the windows machine at work to surf the web I always use the latest version of Firefox. So should you. Really. PLEASE!

[start pleading rant]

The sooner we can either get rid of Internet Exploder or light a fire under MS's butt to get them working on it again, the better for everyone. IE has been languishing under the same partially implemented features, lack of standards support, and rendering bugs for over three years. Web developers have had to work around these issues and often can't take advantage of the cool things that modern browsers have been able to do for years. Some sites have been designed by folks who only use IE, which makes the site buggy in other browsers. The other browsers get the bad rap when in fact it's IE.

Do yourself and everyone a favor and download firefox right now. It's a great browser. No, it's an awesome browser. Works on Windows, Linux, and Macs.

[end pleading rant]

I've been toying with the idea of using Firefox on my Mac as well. Safari is great but there are some nice plugins for Firefox that make web development easier. And there are other features as well.

One of the new features I discovered over the weekend is the new find pane which opens above the status bar. It used to open a separate window. This new way just make sense. You can find and/or highlight text in the page quickly and easily.

The other feature is the subscription button. If a page, like this one, has Atom or RSS feeds you'll see a little yellow button in the bottom right corner of the status bar. Clicking the button brings up a menu to let you subcribe. It's like bookmarking except that bookmark is live. In other words Firefox connects to the weblog, and fills the bookmark "folder" with the titles of recent entries.

You have to try it to appreciate it. And it's not limited to just weblogs. The iTunes store has an RSS Generator which lets you setup subscriptions for new music or audiobooks. Adding these types of subscriptions is tougher, or at least I haven't found an easy way yet. The best way to do it is to duplicate an existing subscription, open its properties, and paste the new name and url in.

I did manage to turn all of the weblogs I used to have in the sidebar into live subscriptions. Time will tell if it's as convienent, but here's how it looks in Firefox.

I was having so much fun with this that I implemented an Atom feed for The Jer Zone. To do this I grabbed the source from here and then whittled it down to just the parts needed for this funky homemade blog-o-mine. Hey, it validates.

And now for the subliminal part...

dump IE...dump IE...IE gives you warts...dump IE...dump IE...IE makes your mother sad dump IE...dump IE...IE gives you hiccups...dump IE...dump IE...IE makes your dog blue dump IE...dump IE...IE gives you hives...dump IE...dump IE...IE makes your computer run slow dump IE...dump IE...IE gives you pimples...dump IE...dump IE...IE makes you stupid

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