Microsoft released Internet Exporer 7 this week. You can download it now if you are so inclined . If you’re using an earlier version of IE, I would heavily suggest it, as IE7 supposedly has much better standards compliance.

Within 24 hours, the first security warning went out:

Internet Explorer 7 “mhtml:” Redirection Information Disclosure - Advisories - Secunia

A vulnerability has been discovered in Internet Explorer, which can be exploited by malicious people to disclose potentially sensitive information.

Some are jumping all over Microsoft for this. I’m not. Here’s why: There’s always bugs in a codebase this large. Firefox has them, too. The reason Firefox is so successful, though, is that they fix the bug and issue a patch to fix it within a day or two. “Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.”

In the past, Microsoft hasn’t done that. They’ve waited for pre-arranged dates to come to release service packs and the like. It isn’t so bad that IE7 has a flaw in it. It would be bad if Microsoft doesn’t jump up and fix it and issue the fix within the week.

This is the true test of IE7 for Microsoft.

We’re halfway through the fall’s batch of episodes already, can you believe it?

Dicsuss at will in the comments section below — spoilers are flying for everything up to and including this episode. Please don’t discuss the coming attractions for next week’s episode, though. Many of us ignore that on purpose, so as not to be spoiled.

• Nope, still haven’t watched HEROES.

• THE CLASS is just getting silly now. The scenes of the wheelchair-bound woman trying to make it through the day in her office might make for a nice stab at the kind of physical comedy that sit-coms today ignore so much, but instead just came off silly. Actually, most of the show has devolved into the just plain silly, the unbelievable, and the hackneyed-for-the-sake-of-plot. I’m not going to last much longer on the show if it keeps up like this.

• GILMORE GIRLS, on the other hand, is getting better. I was wary after the first episode, but the third and fourth really picked up steam, and I think the writers are starting to capture the voice of the show a lot better.

• Bob Saget looks horribly uncomfortable hosting 1 vs. 100. It’s a decent enough show, but he can’t help but look like he’s embarrassed to be going through the motions on it. Maybe he’ll grow into it. Right now, he looks like he’s trying very hard not to be self-conscious.
• The Groucho Marx episode of THE DICK CAVETT SHOW is repeating on Turner Classic Movies on Monday afternoon. Check your cable listings for details. I know my TiVo is set up for it already.
• Loved the episode of PROPERTY LADDER that aired this past weekend, if just for the blindness the mother showed. Her 25 year old daughter decided to flip a house and do it on her own. Of course, she was in way over her head and her parents had to come in to get the contractors to do their jobs and get all the details right. In the end, though, Mom was proud of her daughter for flipping the house all on her own and for becoming her own woman. Yeah, I don’t get it, either.

• DANCING WITH THE STARS shocked nobody by not eliminating anymore. Poor Jerry Springer has to compete another week. Anyone who’s watched reality TV over the past five years saw this coming on Tuesday night when all the wording related to the “results show” carefully danced around the word “elimination” or DANCING’s favorite pet phrase, “go home.”

There’s something I don’t get. You are high volume, low profit margin businesses. You have to be, given the competition surrounding you. Seriously, there are three large supermarkets within five minutes of where I live right now. It’s ridiculous.

But there’s something I don’t get, and I’ll give you a sample. Tastycakes makes a delightful sugar free soft chocolate chip snack bar. They also make a sugar free orange snack cake. There’s always the same three boxes of the orange snack cakes on sale on the shelf. The s-f chocolate chip bars sold out twice in two weeks and were thereafter replaced with regular sugary snack bars that haven’t sold since. Meanwhile, the orange snack cakes have never sold.

Why don’t you restock the items that sell, instead of replacing them with items that don’t? Why offer varieties of products that don’t sell?  That can’t possibly help your high-volume-dependent profit margins.
I used the Tastycakes as one example, but I could give you others. Take the Wheat Thins 100 calorie packs, for example. They’re on the shelf next to the Oreo 100 Calorie Packs and the Chex Mix (or something close to it) 100 calorie packs. The Wheat Thins sell out first and are never in stock. The other varieties lie on the shelves until the Wheat Thins sell out and then begrudgingly start to very slowly disappear until the Wheat Thins show up again.

So why not just stock extra Wheat Thins and less Oreos?

This isn’t rocket science. Your computers have to tell you how much certain varieties outsell others, yet you persist in ordering the wrong kinds. It’s a little annoying.

Oddly enough, in the Tastycakes examples — two of the other supermarkets that I checked don’t stock the sugar free bars I like at all. Brilliant move, people. UGH

Your friend in food,

-Augie

Those of you visiting from the world of comics might want to check out this week’s Pipeline Podcast that I just posted last night. Besides the usual weekly look at the week’s top ten new comic book releases, this podcast features an 18 minute interview with Image Comics President and SAVAGE DRAGON creator, Erik Larsen. We discuss THE SAVAGE DRAGON ARCHIVES, coloring, lettering, and more in a tightly-packed chit chat.

You can find all the show notes and the podcast, itself, at ThePipelinePodcast.com

Comments and questions can be posted over at The Pipeline Message Board.

Go to Best Buy. There’s a sale in their circular this week for the Wacom Graphire 4 tablet.

It’s only $80 after an instant rebate.  Nothing to mail in.  It’s normally $100, and they’re rarely on sale.  This is the beginner’s level smaller tablet (4 x 6 inches) that I use at work on a daily basis and has saved my wrist.

It also comes with a wireless mouse that you can use on the tablet, in case someone else needs to use it and can’t figure out your pen.  Very handy.

How the iPod was really born - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

In case you needed reminding, the iPod’s 5th birthday is coming up next week, which explains why the Mac web is paying even more attention to the iPod than usual.

That makes next week the most logical time for Apple to pull a surprise announcement of the true video iPod with touch screen controls and wi-fi transfers.

I bet I can get a Digg or two with this spurious unverified blue sky shot in the dark.

This belongs in the Nintendo Link Dump, I know, but I discovered it too late.

Check out the listing at Amazon for CLUBHOUSE GAMES.

Halfway down the page is a list of suggested accessories to go along with your Nintendo DS game purchase. It includes a DS Stylus, adaptor, power pack, carrying case, and –

Pimpjuice Premium Energy Drink, Extra Strength Formula, Case of 24- 8 Ounce Cans (192 Ounces)

I couldn’t make that up if I tried.

• Toys R Us starts taking Wii pre-orders on the 29th? Hey, that’s a Sunday! I can make that one!

• Wii Will, Wii Will Rock You.
• Elite Beat Agents sounds like a really cool DS game. The link will take you to the complete track list for the game. Brian Setzer must be making a mint off licensing Stay Cats songs to Nintendo to include in all these music games.
• Here are some questionable boxers that Nintendo once sold. “Bigger is Better”? “Everybody Loves A Player?” And more. . .

Full list.

My highlights:

• American Dreamz (widescreen) (2006)

OK, but this one bombed, right? I may have been wrong about CLICK last week, but this horrible satire on election politics as AMERICAN IDOL didn’t do well, did it?

YES! It earned a whopping $7 million domestically.

• Big Love: Season One (5-disc set)

…because what the world needs now, is love sweet polygamous love.

• The Break-Up (2006)

This is the one from earlier this year with Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughan. I actually liked it. I think the best thing about it is the ending — and I don’t mean that in the snarky way. I mean that the writer really took a chance with something there and it worked.

• Over the Hedge (2006)

I want to see this one, if only for William Shatner.

• Reds: 25th Anniversary Edition (2-disc set) (1981)

I know some people really really love this movie. I’ve never seen it.

And next week: More unnecessary special releases. Batman Beyond and Justice League Unlimited and Krypto. More Creature Comforts. Monster House. And a lot more besides that.

In the first game of bowling last night, I converted the following spares all in the first game:

• 3-10

• 5-7

• 7-9-10

Yes, you read that right. The seven-nine-friggin-ten. That, my friends, takes skill.

And just a little itty bit of luck. ;-)

• Shana Hiatt has turned back up. She’s cute, but her stage presence is a little stiff and her interviews were never sterling stuff. Hosting her own show, though? That might not be cute.

• “The cases are real. The decision is final. The judge is nuts.” Jon Lovitz is hosting his own Judge Judy-style show. This will either be hilarious, or crash-and-burn. I’m thinking the former.

• There’s not enough Steven Wright in the world, and I’m afraid a whole generation has missed out on him. In the meantime, here are some Steven Wright quotes to brighten your day and warp your mind.

• One man’s theory on how Stonehenge was built. Can we figure that similar techniques were used for the pyramids, too? It’s so simple.

The number of acts listed on the tour for ROCK STAR: SUPERNOVA baffled me. By the time you have Dave Navarro’s group sing and the House Band play and an assortment of runners-up do their bit, the concert would be nearly two hours old, right? And that’s all before the new “supergroup” took the stage.

Well, it looks like they’ve downsized the tour, due to financial reasons. I guess that’s as good a reason as any. If they can cut down the number of people they’re carrying with them and get some cheaper talent — Toby’s band instead of the House Band — they stand to make a profit more easily.
More Problems for Rockstar Supernova - TMZ.com

With a tour scheduled to begin on New Year’s Eve in Vegas, the bill’s opening act was to include The Panic Channel, host Dave Navarro’s latest band, as well as, fellow contestants Toby Rand, Dilana, Magni, Storm Large and the program’s House Band.

But now TMZ has learned that due to financial reasons Magni, Storm Large and the House Band have been kicked off the tour. Toby and Dilana are still on board (thank God!), but will now be backed by Toby Rand’s Australian group Juke Kartel. Evs!

My TiVo2 downloads RocketBoom and C|Net’s video podcast thingy for me, automatically placing it on my play list right alongside all the other TV shows I have season passes for. An off-line friend of mine is interested in a topic that RocketBoom recently covered, so I thought it would be a nice thing to burn the episode to DVD for her. RocketBoom — ever the pioneer of forward-thinking mass media — has blocked TiVo users from burning their episodes to DVD.

Fooey.

The more video podcasts I get into — including Cranky Geeks and DL.TV — the more tempting the idea of hooking a Mac Mini or older computer into my TV begins to sound. I wish TiVo would expand its offerings, or add the functionality in so that we might manually subscribe to those feeds, at the very least. Maybe with the LOST podcast moving to video format, they’ll start getting pressure to do that. Only time will tell.

(Right now, the LOST Podcast is still featured in TiVo’s podcast directory, but you can’t subscribe to it, as it’s changed to video format.)

Plane explodes into home of woman knocked out in Macy’s parade - Newsday.com

A Manhattan woman who was knocked into a coma by a lamppost during a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade years ago was thrust into the limelight again, when the plane of New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle crashed into her bedroom.

At least Kathleen Caronna was unhurt this time. But she, her husband and 9-year-old son _ who was a baby at the time of the parade mishap _ can’t go home for awhile.

Clearly, some people should just move out to the suburbs before the city kills them.