Right, so this monkey decided “hey, i’ll whack this on mum’s laptop for browser testing” (she uses firefox, you know “mum, that fox looking thing, that’s the internet, not the blue e thing”).
I jump onto the IE7 site (an easy enough thing, since it tops the IE7 search in google) and hit the “let’s go” button. Get a “small” installer. OR what I thought was a small installer. Turns out its just the installation manager. 14.8MB for an installation manager, very much much “W-T-F” coming through my head. I mean, how big is the complete firefox package again (for those wondering, you can get a shiny Portable FF 2.0 RC3 for 5.7MB or Portable FF 1.5.0.7 for 4.9MB. That’s the complete package. Know what’s going through my head right now? Yeah, that’s right “Can Microsoft spell ‘code bloat’”.
But it gets better. I open up the installer. After signing my life away that it’s ok to know precisely what’s on the computer yadda yadda yadda I get to the install. Can someone tell me what the bloody hell that little blue dot that runs left to right (and then starts back at the left and goes right again) in a silver channel is actually doing (see above – it’s in the teleporter at this point)? Because it’s not telling me how much longer is left. Erm, note to Microsoft, the reason people put shiny things moving left to right into any installer or preloader or what not is to give an indicator to the user (you, know, the monkeys who end up using your products) as to how you’re shiny bloated installation manager is going. Whilst the lovely blue dot is doing laps (well, it’s not really laps because it magically teleports to the left after reaching the finish on the right), I’m being told that the installation files are being downloaded (yes, that’s right, your 15MB file isn’t actually doing anything but taking care of the downloading of the files to install).
So, I go along and update a few other things at the same time – as the computer requests this monkey, a windows update, the lappy doesn’t get out too much, and the update to the antivirus, again, lappy doesn’t get out much. Dum, dee, dum. The two of those chewed through about 50MB and the IE7 installer is still installing. That’s another thing, while our teleporting-lapping blue dot is running left to right, there’s not too much information coming from the installer. No “XX.XXXX of YYY.YYYY Downloaded”. No percentage indicator of the download. Nothing. Information black hole. I go make a cup of tea.
I get back with my tea and am wondering where we’re up to. Apparently downloading is finished and we’re going through the install. Does anyone know exactly how big this bloody thing is? Also, why the hell not make it a new browser entirely – built up from scratch like the successful new products of the XBOX and (maybe) the ZUNE? Why does it have to overwrite the existing software?
Eventually, well after my tea had been finished, it finally asks me to do a reset. Ok, sounds normal. Microsoft usually likes the monkeys to turn things off and on to get things to work. So I do it. Back on. IE6 is still there. No IE7. Mum needed the laptop and I’d had enough so I’m guessing (hoping) something went wrong somewhere. I suppose updating things like the Operating System at the same time as something that shouldn’t be integrated into the core system (a program called IE6) may have done something (anyone confirm this?) but not liking that idea.
So I’m yet to play with apparently superior product of IE7. It’ll have to wait a week but had to put it down.
Finally, for your amusement, more monkeys.
Photos: windows installer courtesy of John Kimble at flickr and cup of tea courtesy of Jeremy Keith at flickr.
J03L,
This is more like it!!!! A classic schooner rant from none other than Joel Dubya Courtney, High Chancellor for the Department of Bureaucracy, Red Tape, and Militant Naysaying!!!! Were you drunk at the time of writing? This is INSPIRED stuff!!!
Now it’s time to get political. Enough of this geek business. I’m including you in my book, so I need more ramblings.
Regards,
The Wombat
Hi Joel,
You’re right, we’ll change the programming immediately.
Yours in L33t0,
William “Foster the Imposter” Gates
Who posts photos of an installer on their flickr account?
thanks for editing my post joel,
i see that preserving the expression of independent media (ie, my post) is top on the list of your priorities!!!
but then again, you are High Chancellor for the Department of Bureaucracy, Red Tape, and Militant Naysaying!!!!
and stu, i know who posts pictures of windows installers on their flickr sites:
VIRGINS
In answer to your question stu, John Kimble
wasnt he in Kindergarten Cop?
excellent film.
That’s Detective John Kimble
i hope youve got room for my fist, broadbent, cos im going to ram it into your jap’s eye!
Ha! Good ‘rant’ Joel. Worthy of an Investagative Journalism award! Definitely needs to be pursued further. Maybe someone from Microsoft Sydney may care to comment!?!
*sigh*
Seems only some monkeys have such difficulties.. or will find any excuse for such ranting.
I hypothesised that your attitude at pre-installation had contributed to the difficulties experienced (See Psychology’s self-fulfilling prophecy) . So, I decided to test it out myself…
The entire process was nice and easy for non computer-savvy monkeys such as this one. I clicked once for installer, kinda big but whatever, click once to agree, then yes, the install bar is a little silly coz it doesn’t give precise progress, but at least it gives a nice little, constantly updating summary sentence of what its actually doing – (perhaps details missed by tea-drinking monkey).
A whole SIX MINUTES (precisely of course) later the entire process was done, restart, and what do you know, a nice new flashy ie7 up and running with lots of instructions to play with my new browser, which i must say, so far is quite likeable (should I actually be one to care for reading such boring information).
Perhaps some monkeys are just technology challenged when it comes to microsoft products. The present findings suggest support for my hypotheses, however further testing may be necessary.
You know Kellie, there’s a fair chance that the High Chancellor for the Department of Bureaucracy, Red Tape, and Militant Naysaying is going to have you censored, bagged, hogtied (mew) and disappeared for exhibiting such outrageous dissent!!!
Not all of us are in air-conditioned concrete and glass boxes all day, sunshine!!
Join Joel’s Patrol and make him an internet celebrity!!
censored! again!
i thought i could slip in in there (mew) while he was out on patrol!!!!
huh?
I originally said you’d been outsmarted by a girl!
How do ya feel???!!
Really? Wasn’t me.
Sure you hit the “reply” button? Nothing came through anywhere…
hahaha
virgins
could have missed it…i am after all a monkey
also there’s a problem with the formatting, it cuts off the left of the page by about 2cm
but i am using IE and im sure its optimized for mOZILLA!
Yeah, ditto Joel. I lose the lefthand 2cm of the page also. Unlikely though that work is going to switch over to Mozilla.
How’s that?
IE’s rendering system fails (once again)
Pffft. 2cm that was once lost, returns upon use of IE7. For me anyhow.
Does it show a dark blue border on the left hand side? I had to remove that to get IE to play nice (haven’t got a copy of IE7 yet to try).
My comments should appear with light blue background and dark blue left border (4px)
Yeah your comments show light blue background with 4px border at left n nothing cut out. Everyone else is borderless.
Well, whatever you did, it’s all back and working, and I have the pleasure of reading the first few letters of each line again. Yey!
Joel! Where is the next schooner rant!?!?!??! It’s neem a long time between drinks…
Has it ever occured to you that the reason your site doesn’t work in internet explorer is that Bill Gates hates you? And all his software has anti-Joel-seeking devices?
Obviously not.
For the record, installing IE7 was about 5-6 minutes for this monkey :p
Dear Mr J03L,
I put it to you that your article contains misleading information. In fact, I think that, if you’ll investigate closely, that photo wasn’t of you making a cup of tea after all! In fact, it’s clearly of someone else, in a paisley shirt, _pouring tea from a pot_. Please rectify this inconsistency immediately.
Regards,
J03L from the future.
Department of Naysaying &c. &c.
Internet Explorer 7…
After staring at Joel’s classic anti-IE rant every time I’ve visited his site for the past 6 weeks or so, I decided to test his assertion that Internet Explorer 7 is useless. But this time, I’m going to do it……
[...] I thought that, in the interests of good debate, big business and corporate tyranny, I would stand up to the rampant militant naysaying and “….nup” attitudes propounded by my friends J03l and Stu, respectively, with regard to Microsoft’s recent release of its IE7 juggernaut. Accordingly, I decided to write my own cogent riposte. Beware. It will blow you all away like a fart from a 600 pound woman eating cabbage! I feel that I am highly qualified to defend the supreme quality of IE7, because like all the greatest champions of big business, I know nothing about it. In fact, I have decided not to bother downloading IE7 at all. Who needs science when one has philosophy? After all, in the words of the amazing neo-con John Bolton, recently resigned and highly successful US ambassador to the United Nations, “I don’t do carrots”. [...]
[...] There are photos of the races,Oktoberfest and the Halloween party in the photo gallery, so have a look. Also, for all those non-mac users out there, have a read of joel’s rant for yet another reason to leave the dark side [...]