IE7? No way, definitely not. There is no doubt that dealing with IE8 is less frustrating, but it still has issues. Once you've trained yourself to avoid common IE pitfalls you can generally hack out javascript and css that works sufficently well in IE8, but there are also many CSS3 properties that aren't supported such as border-radius, box-shadow, even for opacity you have to resort to the IE only "filter" attribute. Full support involves resorting the old hacks of yesteryear, usually involving lots of images for borders, shadows and gradients and much cursing.

IE9 can be supported with minimal effort (or none at all once you learn to avoid the few quirks), and IE10 will finally be on par with other browsers.

So IE has improved drastically from IE6, the problem is a significant number of people still use IE6, IE7, & IE8, usually unknowingly or because they don't have a choice (company policy, running XP, etc). You can generally assume that people aren't using Firefox 2 anymore unless they explicitly chose to do so, with IE many people are using browsers that are several years up to a decade out of date.

Wrong, I've licensed dozens of photos for anywhere from $2 to $90. At $500 a year, you've eliminated almost all of your potential customers, and anyone with the budget to spend that on a single photo probably already has other sources or their own photographers. You're certainly free to ask for ridiculous amounts, I just don't see who's buying unless you happen to capture some historic event or Tom Cruise picking his nose.

Asking $500 would likely result in selling zero licenses ever, for that much I could buy a nice digital camera AND a round trip ticket to Houston to take my own picture.

Not only that, a limited term license would mean that you would have to relicense or remove the image in a year, every year. I can't see why anyone would choose this. A $50 one time fee seems more reasonable to me.

A la carte? Abso-fucking-lutely. But perhaps you enjoy paying for 300 channels you will never watch.

No, they are in the situation they are in because of who they are and the choices they made.

Yes, if only the 4 billion lazy brown people who live in poverty would put down the wine bottle and get a job...

Can you image if cashiers had to figure out your change without the register telling them how much money to give back to the customer

So it's hard for you to imagine someone using basic math? Did you know they do still teach math in school? Most people surely can handle basic subtraction by 3rd grade, including cashiers.

I can't figure out who is supposed to benefit from it. I hear plenty of bitching about it, much of which is my own muttering as I wade through the mostly stupid "jokes" plaguing virtually every website. Are there droves of silent users out there who just love spending the day playing "fact or fiction" on the internet?

Granted it's just one day a year, but that's not a justification. If millions of websites all switched to a pink wingdings font every June 7th for no other reason than someone else is doing it too, that it's only one day a year wouldn't explain who is supposed to be appreciating it.

I'm glad /. toned it down this year anyway.

In other words, don't dress like a whore if you don't want to get raped.

After the hack job they did to windows explorer with windows 7, I can't forsee myself everever considering upgrading windows again, and what I've seen of Windows 8 just strengthens that opinion. In fact I still haven't ruled out downgrading back to XP Pro.

After over 6 months I still regret upgrading from XP every day, particularly when I try to search for a file and then proceed to bang my head against the desk to pass the time. This happens several dozen times per day at a minimum, I just really can't fathom how it happened that the fast, intuitive, customizable xp search ended up being replaced with this abortion. There were meetings where they decided the old search wasn't good enough, people had to design this, code it, test it. Managers had to demo it at board meetings and sign off on it. How the hell did every one of them say "yep this is better"?

And that's just the start, everything was dumbed down for no valid reason. Why is the "navigate up a directory" arrow gone? Why was all useful info removed from the status bar? Why can't I get rid of that library toolbar? Why can't I have the same view for every directory anymore? Why were the options for configuring how different file types are opened completely eliminated? What the fuck were they thinking or drinking when they were "improving" the control panel? Why remove the classic start menu completely?

I can't find a reason for any of this to be gone., windows 7 lost more than it gained by a long shot. And more than just being frustrating as hell, this is all productivity affecting stuff.

I really, really want an alternative because I'm fed up. Unfortunately Linux isn't the answer for me until Adobe ports their creative suite, or a viable competitor emerges on Linux. No, Gimp doesn't cut it. I've tried, but so many tools I use every day are tied to windows that it's just too much of a hassle to switch back and forth constantly.

A year ago I would say I was a fan of Microsoft, today I never plan to give them another dime. My dealings with XBox Live certainly haven't helped either, but that's another story.

If you had bothered to RTFA you'd know that much of his rant focuses on Photoshop.