http://dean.edwards.name/weblog/2008/01/ie7-2/

This is a script that Dean created several years ago to make IE6 more standards compliant. It was interesting at the time, but I never got around to using it.

This past week I’ve been dealing with some very annoying IE6 issues, and I’m thinking this is really the way to go from now on. You don’t even need to download the .js file, as you can now link directly to it from Google Code:

http://code.google.com/p/ie7-js/

This is also a major update and Dean did something fairly ingenious, IMHO. The IE7 script is a script that fixes all the bugs in IE6 that IE7 (the browser) fixes. That will make IE6 and IE7 about as close as one can get. But then there’s also the IE8 script, which does everything IE7 (the script) does, but adds some other fixes that even IE7 (the browser) didn’t get around to fixing.

That missing feature was being open source. With that checked off, I expect adoption to pick up and for Connector development to pick up rapidly.

I’ve always thought Connector would make a great extended family address book. It’s just about time to find out.

[1] I still want to use my trusted iCal, Mail, Address Book, Finder combo – with Connector synching things up in the background. I prefer to use Connector – and all browser-based productivity apps as a point of reference, not a point of origin.

• Adobe Illustrator. Of course, this is the one Adobe is trying to hook us all up with. “AI has a great personality” they say. I’m not buying it*. It’s just the ugly, mean step-sister of Freehand, IMHO. (* And by that, I mean, yea, I probably will buy it at some point. Can’t live with out the CS suite, right?)
• Inkscape. Open source! I want to love this one, and have been fooling around with it on the side even while I was committed to Freehand. It has a lot of potential. It’s no where near Freehand’s level at this point, but seems to have a lot of momentum–some great features on the horizon based on the Inkscape Roadmap include: PDF export, AI import, CorelDraw import, CMYK support (!!), multi-page (not sure what that means, but hope it’s like Freehands multi-page support), and some tech-drawing enhancements.
• LineForm. LineForm is a new player on the field, and seems to have a lot of Buzz and a robust feature set (according to their handy chart). OSX only.
• Stone Works’ Create. Stone Design was one of the first companies to offer OSX-native DTP applications. Alas, I’ve never heard much about their programs. They do suffer from some horrendous application icons, but the promise of ‘free upgrades for life’ seem to outweigh that minor issue.
• Corel Draw. Corel Draw was always the 3rd place finisher behind AI and FH. That said, it seems to have a very loyal fan base. They no longer offer OSX versions (maybe the death of FH will get them to reconsider?) but it’s definitely a mature product. It also comes with a large font library, which is always nice. It also seems to have a little-mentioned ability to create fonts. Huh.
• Xara Xtreme. I don’t know a lot about Xara, other than I hear it suggested often when the topic of alternatives to Freehand pop-up. Windows only.
• Canvas. Another application I don’t know much about, but hear mentioned quite a bit. Comes in both OSX and Windows flavors. It also appears to have custom feature sets targetting cartographers and tech illustrators.

If you’ve used any of the above, please share your thoughts. If I’ve missed any, please mention them!

Update:  Thanks for the comments thus far. I have a few more potential options to add:

• Cenon. Jesse mentioned this open source option in the comments below. It appears to be a bit more CAD/CAM centric moreso than DTP centric, but, that said, it does have a Desktop Publishing module, so it’s likely worth a look-see. Interestingly, it also has a dedicated Astrology tool. I imagine that’s fairly unique in the vector illustration world. ;o)
• Microsoft Expression Design. I had completely forgotten about Microsoft new weapon in the Adobe vs. Microsoft wars. The Expression line of products is based on software MS aquired about 2 years ago. It comes in a couple of flavors (‘Web’ being DreamWeaver’s opponent) and Design is the one focused on vector illustration (amongst other features).

If you managed to miss this somehow:

http://www.adobe.com/creativelicense/

Go ahead and Preorder today, but I don’t think they’ve made any promises about when it will actually arrive yet. I’d hope it will show up before Flashbelt.

They have gone as far as telling me my plan to upgrade a copy of Flash 5 that I bought off a guy for $40 on Craigslist and planned to upgrade to Flash CS3 will not work.

Personally I’m most intrigued by a new flash feature that attempts to make the designer to developer workflow easier by allowing us to export tweened animation in Flash as Actionscript code…

Anyways, these are typically photos straight of a digital camera and these days, that means JPGs that are several MBs in size. No need to upload all those MBs for on-screen viewing, so I thought I’d track down a simple image resizer that the folks in charge of uploading the images could use.

I spend several minutes hitting the download.com and like sites finding a variety of semi-useful options that may or may not have included spyware or nagware. Picassa was considered and was about to try that out and then someone pointed me to Microsoft’s own freebie resizer. This is one of those products that reminds you that Microsoft can do really great stuff when their marketing department isn’t involved. Once installed, this app allows you to select one or a whole group of photos and then just right-click on them to resize them en masse. It does one thing and it does it well!

Here’s household income based on the 2000 Census – zoomed into the Twin Cities

Fulfill both your giving and greedy side by purchasing a MacHeist software bundle. 8 great free applications from independent software developers. And as a bonus, if they raise 50k and 100k total, they’ll toss in two additional apps for everyone. 25% of your purchase goes towards one of 8 different charities of your choice.

I haven’t been posting many useful utilities lately, feel free to suggest any you’ve come across!

Another new option I just ran across is aptana. Aptana is still in beta, but already looks quite promising. It’s an open source port of the Eclips JAVA IDE designed specifically for ‘web 2.0′ HTML, CSS, and Javascript, with PHP support coming.

The MacBook is great, and has that nice built-in iSight camera. Fun! Alas, I can’t record any video on it. Why is that? Well, as usual, that feature is only available if I fork out a few bucks and pay for QT Pro. What’s the deal with QT Pro? Are they a separate business unit and only get funding from whoever actually pays for the license? Why does Apple give us this fully featured multi-media laptop with plenty of bundled software but then expect us to fork out an additional $30? I don’t know.

Apparently, I’m not the only one annoyed by this. Amateur is an open source project attempting to write a free, uncrippled clone of QT Pro. They haven’t gotten around to adding video recording yet, but I will be paying attention to this project.

While I’m at it, here are some other random links. I’ve been woefully lacking in my blog postings as of late. Hopefully this will make up for it a bit. ;o)

I think I’ve mentioned this one before but never got around to downloading it. Seashore is a Mac OSX-ified version of The Gimp.

Not open source, but RapidWeaver appears to be a bit of a clone of (what else) DreamWeaver and Apple’s own iWeb.

Logopond is just like a (not original) idea I had to start a free version of logolounge. I, of course, was too lazy to build that site which is probably for the best, as logopond has done a very nice job. Sign up and show off your logos.

Songbird appears to be progressing along nicely. Songbird is a mozilla based replacement for MP3 players like iTunes. Not only is it shaping up to be a great app, it also has the unique honor of the Open Source project with the greated logo ever: a farting bird. Koshi, also does a commendable job with weekly illustrations featuring said farting bird. A fun blog to watch.