As of now, if you got to Mozilla's page and choose to download Firefox, you get version 3.5 :

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/upgrade.html

TABLES have nasty cross-browser issues when combined with CSS, and it's ridiculous to program without CSS for formatting. I recently had to return to my old table-layout ways for an HTML newsletter (HTML mails have to be done the old fashioned way because CSS support in mail programs and webmails is 'less than stellar') and experienced long lost pain and anguish from it.

I used to do real complex layouts with tables, graph paper and a simple text editor (even before Photoshop sliced images for table layouts) and I'm glad I have CSS now. The only exception would be using a table with a single cell for vertical alignment now and then, but that's just a small hack. Everything else can be done simpler with CSS.

As for the main topic, I say: not yet... I'm all for replacing Flash with DHTML and do so every chance I get... but it's still to slow and jerky compared with flash animation for smooth scrolling and fx.

Not that I know if that 2.5 factor is correct, but "Make a profit" doesn't mean "no losses"... it means having the move perform adequately as an investment given its risk. Investors need at least as much money as they would have gotten in some other comparable (risk-wise) investment. If the returns are too low it would have been better to put the money in safer investments that would have yielded the same profit.

I've cleaned a couple of computers of malware where the owners didn't know they had malware installed... but complained that either their internet connection was slow, and blamed their new ISP. When I opened a traffic monitor and took some measurings I realized that even idle the computer was maxing the available bandwith.

Networking is being seamlessly and transparently integrated in the computer... where I think a different approach should be taken. People need to have more direct and present feedback of processes and network connections in their computers... even if simplified, iconified, graphed or whatever. The consequences of running malware are very real at the OS level, and this should become more evident to users. ... This way people will start noticing when things go wrong, and start taking measures to keep everything OK. As long as some aspects of the computer are voodoo, it's voodoo all the way.

Normally I just test for IE6, and in some special cases I might test for 5.5... I've never been asked to support IE4 yet, but installing it along the rest wasn't any harder.

And what's wrong with obscenity?

I understand obscene material bothers some people, but as long as they're not forced to watch it, I don't see why I can't.

Just minutes ago I had to fix a bug where IE7 will place misterious bullets on "ul" elements which had the bullets removed through CSS... but the bullets only appear in some of the pages, and dissapear when you scroll or force a redraw of the browser (i.e. by minimizing and maximizing).

Browsershots is also useless when checking JS code, animation, DHTML and AJAX... which amounts to a good percentage of what I do.

Yes, it's possible:

http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

I do web developing professionally and can say that a service with a 3 hour queue is only marginally useful. When your site has a rendering bug under some browser it takes quite a bit of trial and error while fiddling with CSS until you come up with a different way of expressing the same layout that is compatible across the board. IE6, particularly, has numerous rendering bugs that sometimes call for this "do the same, but differently" route and some bugs that require hacks to be put in place. While looking for the rendering bug you also need to find out what exactly is going on... for instance, IE6 will double an element's margin in some cases, but you need to find out which element first, which can be done with a bit more of fiddling with the CSS. ... So anything but an interactive solution is worthless in this cases. A service like browsershots is useful to check the state of a site, but once you find it has errors, you probably need something else.

I have a single VMWare VM with side-by-side installations of IE3 through 6, and IE7 in my main OS, along with Opera, Safari and Firefox.

The bible is non factual and hasn't seen progress but theology and catholic dogma have seen changes AFAIK, since not all dogma comes from the bible. ... But I don't think these are problems, since Scientology is new and might be evolving for all I know, and yet it doesn't seem any better than catholicism at explaining anything. The problem with religion is that is not scientific, i.e. it doesn't play by science's rules.

Science has nothing to do with "using our own minds". I can't determine the existance or non-existance of the Higgins Bossom and my opinion about it is completely worthless, as well as any conclusions I might reach on my own using my studies, judgement, rational thought, whatever... ... because I'm not a physicist, nor do I work, investigate or experiment in the field.

That's the crux of the problem when creationists say "we want both theories to be taught, so the kid can choose for himself". The kid doesn't have the tools to prove or disprove any theory on scientific grounds, and nor should he... ... ultimately, to the common joe, science requires faith. So what's the difference between science and religion then? Science constantly delivers tangible results (as shown by the existence of cloned sheep and the Nintendo Wii) transparently, and is willing to unfold it's full body of knowledge and possibilities to anyone willing to dedicate to it.

There is a grocery store within walking distance, not sure how to carry the 12 bags they use to bag my $60 of groceries but it is there.

It seems you say it as it isn't possible without a car. I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which is a very big city with decent and cheap public transportation and expensive cars.

I'll tell you the different ways in which I cope with carrying 12 grocery bags home from my supermarket of choice, which is an 18 minute walk:

- I take my wife along and we split the bags.

- I make a smaller purchase I can carry by myself and leave the heavy bulky stuff (e.g. mineral water, fruit, etc.) to shops which are closer to my house.

- Supermarkets in Argentina can deliver your groceries. Usually within 2-5 hours from buying them in the store.

- A couple of years ago I bought most groceries on-line to save time and avoid carrying them.

- Since mineral water was the worst offender, I ended up buying a water filter. This made it enormously easier to shop for groceries and saves me quite a bit of money. ... When you have the need, there's obviously a way, if not many.

I've used the IE renderer embedded as a COM object in my own C++ programs as well as the ActiveScript Javascript parser which can also be used as a COM object and allows you to inject other COM objects in the Javascript context.

For many years now I've successfully developed with a multi-language model in Windows...

I do my low level code in C++ and encapsule it in a COM/ActiveX object, which I then can call from a Javascript script launched by the OS (through WScript.exe), server-side ASP pages and client-side DHTML pages or HTML Applications (HTA files). Both the "classical" COM/DCOM/ActiveX architecture and the new .NET were made to support integration of different languages and low level and high level code.

It's also possible to integrate Windows COM components and DLLs through Python scripts.

Through this model I developed quite a number of reusable parts which in practice I was able to integrate to a variety of projects. Having this separation between low level code and high level scripting as "glue" works great for me... it forces a layered design, makes for smaller binaries and cuts a lot on compilation times.

I won't stop doing it because:

A) Some users don't have the fault of being clueless about how to change browsers. Some might even be using Windows 98 for all I know...

B) I won't take that decision for my clients, which care nothing about my convenience or web standards. If I have to charge them a bit extra for spending three or four extra hours fighting with IE6 support, they'll pay it (they do) and that's all they care about.

C) I even took a couple of jobs were I was specifically asked to make an existing site IE6 compatible because the original programmer couldn't do it.