apology

[choasforages]

company policy forbids me to do anything with the current computer that im using. and my normal fiesty self has almost gotten beaten a few times for disagring on aol and winxp. the fact taht i have to use IE on top of that is hideous

[Orethrius]

Oh, just make sure that the IT manager gets a few dozen copies of every bug notice released for any (or ALL!) of the three for a couple months.  If your boss starts threatening you, bring up the Whistleblower Act.  If he asks how to fix these issues, bring up the alternatives, and conveniently mention that nobody aside from Microsoft can EVER be certain that closed-source has no bugs... and that Microsoft turns a profit off of "upgrades."  

[KernelPanic]

Salvation

[Calum]

that nobody aside from Microsoft can EVER be certain that closed-source has no bugs... and that Microsoft turns a profit off of "upgrades."  

well, actually that's not true, and is misleading. the below are more true.

nobody but the distributor can be sure that there are no bugs in a closed source product, and even then, they cannot be certain they have discovered every single one.

Or you could say that only microsoft has the ability to fix bugs in their own closed source software, and that they make money from periodical updates.

[Orethrius]

It's not misleading at all, it's letting the IT manager draw his own inferences.  If he's too stupid to make the association between Microsoft profitting from its closed source, and distributors really being the only ones who can make some sort of realistic guarantee of the security of a closed source project... well, then he probably shouldn't be running the IT staff, ne?

Although, to your credit, way to pounce on the literal interpretation!

[themacuser]

Use Portable Firefox...
And make sure the admin recieves copies of the bug reports by post (to his home address and work), email, fax and phone just to make sure he doesn't miss anything...

[Refalm]

and my normal fiesty self has almost gotten beaten a few times for disagring on aol and winxp.

AOL is for morons, period. I once installed the Luna theme on Firefox. Looked almost like IE, and the fascist IT department left me alone.