If www browser compatibility is a reflection of the ability of software engineers (as a professional group) to deliver something of value to the public, we have failed at an embarassing level.

Today I read about a download available from Microsoft. It was purported to be free, I just had to register with Microsoft Passport. Unfortunately, clicking the register button in Safari yielded no action at all. So I booted up IE for Macintosh, same problem. Then, I noticed a small link that said "Get one now", referring to a Passport account. I clicked on the link and was able to get almost all the way through the registration procedure until it got to the challenge/response section which was aimed at proving I was a real person, and not a 'robot'. No matter how many times I tried, the authentication scheme always told me that I had entered the wrong number of characters. I even clicked on "I can't see the picture", and got an audio recording of the same challenge. Sure enough, my response to the challenge was wrong: I had "recognized" a "T" instead of the correct character "7". I corrected it, but got the same error message.

I double, triple, quadruple checked my response, and as always, was told I had entered the incorrect number of characters.

So now, I've booted up VirtualPC on my PowerBook to see if Internet Explorer for Windows is up to the challenge of letting me register for Passport.
Yep, worked the first time.

Embarassing.