Internet Explorer 7 has been out for about a week now and my head is already spinning. For those of you who are not using this <sarcasm>fabulous</sarcasm> piece of software and can’t see the horrible mess my website has become, have a look for yourself. Isn’t it fantastic?. As you can see, the lists in the right sidebar are stepping left and overlapping the content. Yes, I’ve been using the beta for quite some time now, and yes, I’ve known about this irritating little bug for a couple of months, but I kept telling myself that Microsoft would never release a browser with such obvious shortcomings. Guess what…

This site uses a lot of CSS and is written in xhtml (transitional), both of which comply with w3c standards. Validate them yourselves if you wish. BUT WAIT! Before you do, I should mention that though the site code complies with w3c standards, some of the content may not always validate properly, e.g., when embedding videos from Youtube. So to validate this site, click on this to leave the front page and then click on the two buttons below.

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Needless to say, the site renders perfectly when using Firefox, Opera, Netscape, Safari, Konqueror, and even older versions of Internet Explorer. Grrrr. I’m so disappointed. I was really looking forward to this release.

So what now? I could block all IE7 users from my site. That’s just mean. Not to mention that in about one months time IE7 is going to be included in Microsoft’s automatic updates – which in turn, means that the majority of Window’s user’s will be upgrading to IE7. That’s a little under 50% of my visitors. Yeah, I thought that was a crazy statistic too. That obviously means that about half of the people that visit this site are using something other than Internet Explorer. Although, I’ve always assumed that people who read and/or write blogs were more likely to use an alternative browser to Internet Explorer, but I never would have guessed 50%. My faith in humanity has just doubled.

Maybe I should just wait for Microsoft to fix this problem for me. (you may now take a moment to laugh). Done?

No, I think my only viable option here is to find a CSS expert who can write me an IE7 hack of some type. If it’s even possible. I really don’t want to do a complete site redesign just because of one stupid company that can’t play nice with the rest of the kids in the yard.

To help clarify my last statement:

• kids = web standards
• yard = the internet
• stupid = Microsoft

Alright, I don’t think Microsoft is stupid. In fact, I think they can be down right brilliant at times. So why, then, can’t they get something as simple as this correct? Why, oh why.

Anyways, I don’t plan on doing anything drastic for a while. Maybe Bill Gates is a frequent reader of my site and will be appalled with what he sees and go back to Redmond and personally fix the problem himself. Thanks Bill! I owe you one.

Enough blabbering. What is the moral of this story ladies and gentlemen? For the love of god, download Firefox.

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