RC1 is probably the final beta version of Internet Explorer 7.0, which Microsoft plans to roll out everywhere by the end of the year.

While you wouldn’t want to install it on a mission-critical computer where IE is your main browser, it’s certainly stable enough to install elsewhere and play with. Lots of people have been using earlier versions for months now.

New features include anti-phishing, tabbed browsing, support for rss, and an instant search that defaults to Google and allows multiple search engines. It appears they’ve studied FireFox carefully indeed, as most of this has been in FireFox for quite a while.

The interface is cleaner, better organized, however there’s nothing new or startling here, nothing that will cause people to leave FireFox. I’m sort of underwhelmed actually. Basically, IE7 is nice but unspectacular.

Download IE 7 RC1. Note: It checks to see if your copy of Windows is legal and won’t download or install if you’ve been naughty.

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The UN is backing away from such measures so the neocons naturally want to ignore the UN (again). Russia opposes sanctions which would be dumb for two reasons, 1) Iran will retaliate by cutting off oil exports and 2) large amounts of trade could still flow in via the Caspian Sea and surrounding countries. But then, the neocons always have been long on bluster and short on brains.

Maybe the neocons want to insure their place in history

Nuremberg prosecutor: Bush and Saddam should both stand trial for war crimes

Condi, Rumsfeld, and Cheney too.

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This just-uploaded version is on Google video. They allow uploading larger files than YouTube (where the other versions are) thus this version is way larger and better quality than previous ones.

From the counter-protest called by ANSWERLA.org to protest a Minutemen march in Hollywood on July 8, 2006. LAPD officers clubbed two videographers to the pavement then kept clubbing them.

Watch the video on Google Video.

The three versions on YouTube have now been viewed over 16,000 times.

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The United Church of Canada is urging members to avoid bottled water, saying it is the “thin edge” of water privatization, part of a larger trend of huge companies controlling water resources to the detriment of everyone else. Plus, they add, municipal water is often healthier because impurities leach from the plastic bottles into the water and the bottles themselves are just more plastic clutter that ends up in garbage dumps.

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A Pennsylvania court has ruled against Green Party Senate candidate Carl Romanelli for a quick resolution as to how many sigs he needs to qualify to be on the ballot. His signature drive was financed virtually entirely by supporters of right wing incumbent Rick Santorum.

The case now goes to the state Supreme Court. “Of the 16,569 signatures reviewed so far, nearly 60% of them have been ruled invalid.” If that percentage holds, or even drops to 33%, Romanelli will not qualify. He got close to 100,000 sigs and needs 67,000 to be on the ballot.

For that high a percentage of sigs to be disqualified is unusual, to say the least.

[tags]Carl Romanelli[/tags]

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Vista, the next version of Windows, will make a startup sound when it boots. You will not be able to turn it off. Microsoft has given this ponderous thought and has paternalistically determined you must always listen to the startup sound - even if you don’t want to or are in an environment, like a seminar, where Vista announcing itself would be annoying to everyone else.

Nope, Microsoft says you will listen to it, as they’ve presumed to know what’s best. Me, I think they’re running out of new ideas and getting weighted down by tedious minutea  instead.

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