Normally I wouldn’t even be using Internet Explorer, particularly not the long dead Mac version of IE 5.2. The wife still has it installed on her iMac as she needs it for one of her professional organization sites (the sheer design idiocy of which often baffles the mind). I had launched it because I was hoping to sneak past the lame ass browser sniffer used by my employer’s equally lame ass employee self serve site to check for my W2.

(I didn’t make it, as it is specifically tailored to look for Internet Explorer 6.x and that alone. Using a Firefox user agent spoofer got me through the front gates but I still was unable to access anything but a cryptic error message.)

In the process of trying to get inside I was redirected to Microsoft.com to look for a nonexistent update to my IE browser. Microsoft’s website also uses yet another lame ass browser sniffer to serve up CSS. As it turns out, not even their own ancient browser made the list and what you get when you log in using IE 5.2 for Mac is a stylesheet-free pile of poop that looks like it might have been developed for Mosaic.

Don’t happen to have the decaying corpse of IE 5.2 Mac cluttering up your hard drive? You can see a very similar effect if you try to join “The Social” over at zune.net using Camino. (Tip o’ the hat to Grotto 11’s Peeve Farm by way of Daring Fireball for that one.)

You know, I do try my best not to be guilty of excessive schadenfreude when discussing Microsoft and their Zune — Oops! I mean Zune. I really do. Microsoft, however, seems to be committed to making it as difficult as possible for me to resist.

Naturally, I’m biased. I’m not biased against Microsoft, mind you. I’m a big fan of their Xbox and their mice. I’ve got nothing against Office. I’m not particularly fond of running Windows, but I do find myself wishing I could run a Windows program or two every now and then. I don’t relish hating Microsoft like so many on the Internets seem. I’m just biased pro-Apple. . . which includes their iPod division. I’d really like to see some serious competition there — so long as it doesn’t fragment the market too painfully seeing as I’m pretty much stuck with the iPod now that the Rio is dead.

But Jesus! Microsoft! What do you think you’re doing?

• Exhibit A: The Zune commercials suck. I saw this one during Heroes last night. Here’s the problem with this ad: Nobody — aside from people glued to their RSS readers knows what the fuck their selling here. I asked my wife what she thought they were selling and she just shrugged tiredly. Okay, it’s something to do with music. . . probably. To be fair to Microsoft here, these sort of vague would-be viral ads are endemic. Call me old-fashioned, but when you’re launching an expensive new gadget it might help to let the non-obsessed public in on exactly what this gadget does aside from a few split-second clips of what I presume is the file sharing ability.
• Exhibit B: The installation bloat Windows users are all too familiar with did not go away with the introduction of classy minimalist packaging. When installing some new hardware I’m willing to give the installer an awful lot of leeway. After all, I just spent a good chunk of money to get this thing and I want to use it. I’d have a hard time justifying the painful Zune install. This screen in particular would have really tested my patience:
  
  (Props to Engadget for the screenshot. Hit them up for the full process.)
• Exhibit C: It doesn’t work with Windows Media Player. You need to install a totally new media management suite despite the fact that you probably already have one set up — one with the MS logo on it. So stupid. So annoying.
• Exhibit D: WiFi. How awesome would it be to buy songs at any hotspot in the country? If that’s too ambitious, why the hell no WiFi syncing? I know it’s not the speediest way to go, and it’d just run down the battery. . . but I’d still use it to put that hot new track I just bought on there.
• Exhibit E: The shady deal with Universal. I’m sure it was Universal’s doing, but it rubs me the wrong way just the same.
• Exhibit F: http://www.zune.com/

As I said before, don’t mistake this for a Mac zealot’s mindless bashing of all things Microsoft. Up until today, Microsoft and Apple were never in direct competition (Apple makes its money in the hardware market, not the software market). I don’t want to mock the Zune. It’s just too easy to not do it.