I assumed that the majority of folk would be churning away with IE8 by now, but just in case that's not the case... I should complete the set of recent browser posts and options I made recently.

Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 has been available for download since the end of August, and should therefore be a relatively safe and stable option, there's also no hint of when the final version will be along, so there's little point in not trying it. It has a "Compatibility Mode" which means that if you find problems browsing on any sites that don't render correctly - it is supposed to apply the rules strictly - you can activate this, and it will behave like IE7.

I might add that it STILL doesn't work with SeSco - I thought it had done so the first time I tried it. Screen object positions were all correct, unlike IE7, but it took me a while to realise that for some reason, which I simply have not had the inclination to be bothered to track down yet, the FIRST IMAGE on a page fails to appear, but all the rest do.

Now this is just plain silly, since other than actually being the first image on a page, there is absolutely no difference in the code that places it, and any other image on the page. With any luck someone that work on our core code will post something about this, and save me the trouble of tracking down the cause.

Other than that, I don't have any problems with IE8, although the install does suffer from the usual Microsoft bloat, with too many proprietary things to fiddle with. This is something none of the other browsers suffer from since one of their strengths is NOT having all that Microsft rubbish built into them.

Since you have to update IE anyway, may as well do it now

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/default.aspx

More problems with IE8 when it's used in its IE8 mode rather the IE7 compatibility mode - I had read that there were some odd problems, but I really hadn't expected it to misbehave with things that worked fine in all the other browsers.

Oh well... I suppose there will be fixes out there somewhere from someone that's already been there before me.

This one relate to our Google Maps, coded into just about every SeSco page.

This one takes a moment or two to catch, but you find it soon enough when you go to zoom the map view...

The zoom control that should be in the top left corner of the map is... still in the top left corner, only problem is, it's in the top left corner of the whole page!

Clearly this is something I can at least follow Bart Simpson with, and say "I didn't do it", since the Google Map stuf is all provided by Google, I just use it the way they say.

Whether or not the problem is with Google's Javascript - and there's a fix somewhere in their  updates (which I haven't read for months and months), or with how IE8 is (still) mishandling otherwise correct code - I don't know. And since it only affects, or seems to affect, one single option, it could take some finding.

Still, the good news is the zoom control still works just fine, you just can't see what'shappening while you zoom

Oops - spoke too soon.

Just been in the PM section and there as missing smilies and some of the button text is in the wrong place.

Oh dear - back to the old favourites I think.

Why can't Microsoft just make a browser that works like all the rest, instead of messing about. They tried to baulk Java (or was it Javascript - I forget now) and that backfired.