Web And Say All we have to say about the Web

Firefox 4 has finally been released after an amazing number of Beta versions and 2 Release Candidates. It's about time! And while everyone has its idea on the number of Beta versions needed and how often a major version must be released - some find it reassuring that Firefox has had so many ones when others find it annoying and wish for a shorter release cycle - Mozilla said that Firefox 5 should be available in June 2011 after only 16 weeks of development. And we have been reminded why Mozilla has shortened its release cycle: they want more cakes from the Microsoft Internet Explorer team!

A few web based operating systems have emerged the last few years including Jolicloud and EyeOS with many more to come such as Google's own Chrome OS but none of them have the "cool" factor of Michael Vincent's Windows 3.11 browser edition. How cool is it to use the old calculator, play YouTube video on the 3.1 media player and even browse the web through the integrated Internet Browser or use the MS-DOS Prompt. I think a tear just fell down my face while seeing this oldie again, and for that, congrats Michael.

Through Ajaxian, the following 12 characters code seems to be the shortest way to detect any version of Internet Explorer, including IE 8. This is the result that came from a comment in a post from the Web Reflection blog. Very interesting!

IE='\v'=='v'

Even though Microsoft promised the final version of Internet Explorer 8 for last year, it is only today that the first release candidate of Internet Explorer 8 is available for public download in 25 languages for Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server customers. Changes between Beta 2 include platform completeness, reliability, performance, and compatibility improvements and security enhancements.

According to ZDNet, Microsoft Senior Vice President of Online Services and Windows (what a mouthful), Bill Veghte, just told attendees of the Microsoft's Financial Analyst Meeting (FAM) that Microsoft will release the final version of Internet Explorer (IE) 8 to the Web "later this year".