This is just a test post with perks: I get to see if Image Manager by Per Søderlind solves my little problem with IE not being able to show the WordPress image uploader. And it does, so nana-nana-booboo, Mr. Gates. My readers (all seven of you!) get to see my great-niece, Alexa. All snowy and cute. And perky.

And it works! The crowd goes wild.

Extended geeky navel-gazing follows…

I had been somewhat puzzled by the fact that at home, I could upload images via either the WordPress built-in uploader, or via ecto, but I could not upload images while at work. I thought it was something to do with a firewall or other security feature at the office, but no, it's something gone horribly wrong with the way a particular plugin I use called WYSI-Wordpress  interacts with IE and vice versa. Also, there are other problems for users who don't have this plugin, because the image uploader works differently in IE than it does in Firefox, requiring a rather hairy-eyeballed hack. The solutions to both of these problems are often found in support threads that include comments like "Well, your users should be using Firefox" or "IE6 is horrible, don't use it. Why update for something that may be fixed in IE7?"

IE7? Isn't that like the Second Coming?

Apparently, the good people who update WordPress, more or less as a labor of love, are so lacking in love for the product of the otherwise hugely philanthropic Bill Gates that they never bothered to test the latest version (2.x) with IE. And neither did the good people who make the otherwise excellent, excellent plugins.

Oops. That wasn't very nice.  But it's all fine now, because there's always another plugin you can throw at a problem.