I am a web developer I spend a lot of time using web browsers. I primarily use Firefox 2.0.x as my main browser but I spend time in IE 7 and to a lesser degree Safari. Lately I have come to realize that the UI for IE 7 is not the monstrosity I initially took it to be when it first came out. Here is shot of IE 7.

I have found that the user experience of IE 7 is pretty nice. I really like having the reload and stop buttons to the right of the address bar. It makes me wish I could reorder the toolbar in Firefox. I like the compact toolbar in IE 7 and the way it compacts the menus into a button.

What I don’t like about the IE 7 UI is are the tabs.  They take up to much space they are big and ugly.  The current tab doesn’t stand out enough from the other tabs.

I wish that Firefox 3 would have learned something from IE 7 rather than just changing the toolbar graphics and layout slightly.

Until today I was using an unofficial Dilbert comic RSS feed to read Dilbert.  My unofficial feed shutdown with the notice that there is now an official feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/DilbertDailyStrip.  I am loving the official feed so far because the daily strips are in color.

It looks like Twitter is broken again.  I am not getting updates via the web site or rss.  I have been getting into Twitter more as people I actually know are starting to use it.

My iTrip Mini was unavailable and the place I ordered it from can’t get any more.  I poked around a bit and found another cheap Monster FM transmitter for $10 with free shipping from newegg.  I ordered two of them, one for me and one for my wife.  I really hope they don’t suck.

Last night my son had his first baseball practice of the season.  The park district isn’t getting off to a very good start this year.  They told the coaches our age group could practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays at a certain park but they did no more scheduling than that.  Our team ended up practicing off in a corner of the outfield on one of the diamonds.  We were in a high spot of the park and the wind was blowing steadily the entire time.  I thought my ear was freezing off.  When we were leaving my son got into the car and said his hands were numb.  I really hope we don’t have any more practices where it is that cold again.

My second iTrip mini died last week. The first iTrip Mini lasted almost two years. The second one died in less than six months. I ordered another one from an Amazon affiliate because they have been obsolete for a couple of years and you can get them really cheaply. I really hope this one lasts until I can get a new iPod.

I attended our local DotNet users group meeting last night. The users group had set our own little Microsoft Launch Event for Visual Studio 2008, Windows Server 2008, and SQL Server 2008. We had speakers give a presentation on each product and they were all pretty good. Because of the time constraint I didn’t learn anything new about Visual Studio 2008 but I feel like I got at least a basic introduction to both of the other products.

At the end of the meeting everyone got a set of disks with Visual Studio 2008 Standard and at least evaluation copies of Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008. After they handed those out they held the drawing for the regular user group give aways. Before last night the most I had ever gotten was a yellow water bottle. When they did the drawing my name came up first and I got first pick. I chose Vista Ultimate with Service Pack 1. I am looking to build a new PC this year and I wasn’t sure if I would install XP or Vista. Now that I have a free Vista Ultimate I will going with Vista.