Internet Explorer for / on Mac: Test Bed Edition

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Sometimes you have companies that use and rely on dinosaur software archetypes. When you end up working for one, using a MacBook Air, iPhone or iPad just makes life that much more difficult. In this example, Microsoft's ASP and Sabre Corp's reliance on IE.

Good thing there's Google. Looking up testing platforms and easy to use one click solutions that enable you to run Internet Explorer resulted in OS X Daily's post. From the looks of it, it's been properly maintained a dis current. Along with the amazing people contributing on GitHub, we have the answer you've been waiting for.

I chose NOT to install every iteration of IE but instead went with IE 9. One of my classmates with a PC was still running into a compatibility problem with IE 11 but I guess that's not surprising. The over reliance on "Compatibility Mode" is out of proportion these days. What's the point? It just doesn't work.

If your interested in the full details, head over to OS X Daily or just follow these shortcut instructions.

  1. Download & Install VirtualBox. http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
  2. Launch the Terminal (located in /Applications/Utilities/)

  3. Since I decided that IE 9 works well, copy and past this into the Terminal Window and the download will begin.:

    curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/xdissent/ievms/master/ievms.sh | IEVMS_VERSIONS="9" bash


  4. Launch VirtualBox and boot the Windows & Internet Explorer partition.

There are lot of little details that are left out e.g. Admin Password = "Password1" [without the quotes] and the fact that the installation takes 11GB for a single instance / version of Internet Explorer. Have fun but I guess I wouldn't associate this process with "fun."

I wanted to call this article "ASP is the new Flash", but being that ASP will continue to be used in the foreseeable future, we'll have to endure. 1

  • The use of ASP pages with Internet Information Services (IIS) is currently supported on all supported versions of IIS. The use of ASP pages will be supported on Windows 8 for a minimum of 10 years from the Windows 8 release date.↩

    • Movable Weather Radar for the iPhone and iPod Touch

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    Finally a solution for an animated weather radar.  (thanks Zaphu)  There currently two applications that can do just this, but it requires a nominal fee of $0.99.  With the current reviews nearing the low 2 stars, I'm a little hesitant.  The author of Radar-In-Motion has mentioned that he will accommodate the quirks that others have been complaining about which might make it worth it later on.  

    iWeathr

    iWeathr is the best radar app for the iPhone that I have found so far. Navigate to iweathr.com and locate your nearest radar location. Note that you won’t be entering the city where you live but rather the location of a radar installation. For help finding the nearest one to you go here. This implementation allows both rotation and zooming in - very nice!

    iWeathr.com

    Another nifty weather iPhone web application can be found at http://iphone.my-cast.com/ It's a basic forecasting web-app but all that more powerful and simple.

    *Update: kurt mentioned below that he prefers i.wund.com for it's simplicity and the mass information that is displayed on the iPhone screen for that particular location. I have to say that it definitely does show great information, but the moving map on iweathr.com is the basic one that is hosted by the government's weather website: http://adds.aviationweather.gov/radar/ which is the one that prefer using when scoping out the weather prior to flying. Thanks for the comments!