Just some random thought's on the matter that are barely strung together.

It is a strange problem when people clearly want to buy new technology, but they don't want new software on it.

I had this 12 year old car, it had a lot of problems... but I knew how to deal with every problem that came up, and and i just never could get used to the idea of changing it for a car that was 6 years old. It may have half the problems... but if they were unfamiliar they they take forever to fix.

Getting rid of the car would mean getting rid of the useful knowledge that I had.

I think that MS are making a mistake in the way that they are continuing to monetise their software. the everyday the os and office is as essential as the office chair. Essential, but by no means should it cost £500, and yet more to upgrade down the line.

If I were in an the boardroom at MS I would be trying to think or way of keeping the gravy train running for as long as i can.

In the end, the computers you do business on will be like the portable radios that buy on holiday and you don't care when you drop it in the pool.

In my neck of the woods... the next battle will be lost for MS when when Google Docs word processor gets an outline mode.

if by 'most' you mean all the indie music played on TV and radio and in record shops.
This has more to do with publicists that push on to the airwaves rather than the meaning of 'most'

Let me assure that (IMO) there is some is mighty fine alternative music out there that has no Major Label affiliation...

http://www.southern.com/southern/

In every SEO conversation i have had, it still interesting how people think it's better to make a page interesting for some unseen calculating computer in Google head office. rather than making a page that is interesting to people and tagging it accurately at straightforwardly.

No matter how limited human review is, I am sure that the notion that real people evaluating a page for relevance is a good thing for all concerned.

In reality I think that most of this review activity will be directed at the 'to good to be true' red flags that are being thrown up by all this blogging that is been done by marketeers with laser beam strategy to capture topical traffic.

This was something that I have had to address a couple of times. The simple truth is that a IE6 website takes me more time. I'm happy to do it, if your happy to pay. I have found that the most compelling argument for clients is the 'SEO' and the suggestion that Google indexing favours valid mark-up.

This is how i address it the issue for my customers in my FAQ's or if i need to email a reply on the subject

21. Will my web site work with Internet Explorer 6 (IE6)?

You may have noticed that this web site does not look right if your are viewing on Internet Explorer 6. IE6 was a good browser in it's day, but it it is almost 9 years old now. When any company has a web site created it must make the choice as to whether it will render on old technology or whether it must be standards compliant for future technology. We could have used any amount of little tricks and hacks to get web site to look closer to as it intended in IE6, but this would have been at the expense of standards compliance and valid code. We have made the decision to inform IE6 users why the site is not rendering as they expected (a situation that probably doesn't surprise them).

Please note that we can create web sites that render on a 2001 browser. But we cannot guarantee 2009 functionality and security. And given that an IE6 focused development is based around creating 'valid code', and then hacking it to work in the browser the ultimate result is a longer development process with compromised functionality for the vast amount of users.

Both Google and Facebook are sending the same message... you can use out site with IE6, but with limited functionality. We don't think continued support is viable given that web trends suggest that less than 4% of web surfers will be using this browser by the end of this year. In short we feel that the tipping point for support for this old software has passed in preference for stability in future browsers. And we are advising our Clients of the same.

However we recognise that statistics can be misleading, just because a small amount of people use IE6, it could be a significant amount of people that you are trying to target. Sometimes focusing development to a browser could be your best strategy. And we will do all we can help you with that.

It is worth pointing out that Microsoft themselves admit that IE6 is 'less safe' than later browsers
We urge you to use and encourage your employees to use a W3C Standards compliant browser such as Firefox, Safari, Opera, Google Chrome or Internet Explorer 8. These Browsers are free, and all are easy to install on any computer they are continually updated to be secure and more reliable they have more function and they are faster.

Agreed. I kind of want to than MS for a product that does this. But it would of kind of be like thanking God for inventing chemotherapy. It obviously begs the question...why the cancer?

Exactly! So it is thought crime for those that are best able to express their thoughts.

Being that infringement of copyright could get someone the wrath of RIAAs frivolous claims of damages and stealing something of low value as a first offence will get them a warning and a suspended sentence. Semantics is something they would be willing to argue.

Sometimes it is difficult when people ask questions that clearly show their unwillingness of figure something out for themselves. Usually it is the passive aggressive relationship people build up with their office "nerd". Most people know when they ask "how can I" they are really saying "I cannot be bothered to do it for myself".

Can we all say that we are guiltless? Maybe at sometime you have asked a question like "how do you iron a shirt so it comes out good again?".

I friend of mine went to see NIN. He told me that during quiet part of âSomething I can never haveâ(TM) someone shouted âoeTIMMY!!â in the style of South Park, a large part of the audience burst in to laughter. I just like to tell that story on NIN fans before I play them some Sun O))).