I was indeed a fool today. Today as in yesterday… as in today. Smashing Magazine reports Internet Explorer 8.1 leak which reveals the new version has full CSS 3 support (heeeell yes!) and support for Firefox add-ons and great performance on the Acid3 test!

“Why would you think I would believe that?” asks Ilana.

“I did” I reply forlornly.

I skipped over the bit about decompiling server-side code because there were too many big words in the heading. Reading that would have given it away sooner, considering the obviously fake screenshot. When I did go back and reread it, I found it wasn’t that hard to understand, but it did freak me out because that would be a major security problem if that were possible.

So, IE supports Firefox add-ons and can render pages like Firefox (or Safari, or or or…). So like… why… what… why not use IE? What’s the difference?

When I got to the website skinning section, I finally asked myself “what is the date today? I think they’re a bit early”. It wasn’t the fact that this would be terribly impossible to implement that gave it away, it was the fact that they included a Mozilla skin. I checked the date, then went to the comments on the site and realized, yes, I had been had. I just wasn’t in the proper timezone.

Had it been today that this article came up in my news feed, you know, I can’t say whether I would have fell for it or not. I feel a bit cheated that it wasn’t the right day, but I also am glad because it was a nicely put together trick, which I have no problem falling for. And I think I’ve probably written in the past about how I quite don’t like pranks on April Fools’ because they are obviously pranks and thus no one falls for them.

Which brings me to another prank — Conficker. Now, no one can say yet whether it was a prank or a dud or a virus yet-to-be-launched, but I quite hope it turns out like Y2k. Some people are saying “oh, oh, I’m disappointed with you, Conficker!”. I say no. They just don’t understand it. It’s done just enough. Hmhmhm, hahaha, ho ho, whahahaha…! (Can you tell I am ready for “Lost” tonight? Probably no, I’m being much too obscure.)

When I first heard about Conficker and the April 1st launch date I thought “great, it shouldn’t do anything”. That’s the best prank it could pull; everyone thinking they’re going to wake up with a dancing cow on the screen, only to find nothing happened. It’s beautiful in its simplicity, really. Except that it blocks people from visiting anti-virus sites, which is suspicious and makes me think it’s actually still just a lame virus.

Another thing that this virus may have intentionally or unintentionally done is gotten people to update their computers. Does IE7 come through Windows update? I hope so. Let’s get rid of IE6, shall we? At least do it for those of us tricked by IE8.1!

The award for the only trick that made me laugh today goes to Reddit — or should I say Reddigg? Very cute, and alright that it’s obviously fake.

In mostly unrelated but sad news, I decided to check Neopets today to see what they would pull. Something about plants. But anyway, I decided to drop by the Secret Lab because last time I was there, it turned my lab rat into an ugly camel-like thing, and I quite want him back to a Poogle.

Of course, I had to go and pick the wrong pet, my baby Acara. And of course, it had to go and make her silver. Which isn’t as bad as changing her species or gender, but honestly, I hardly get colour changes for my other pet which is what I want, and the one time I zap her, bam! Ugly colour. And Baby Paintbrushes don’t cost, what was it, 200,000 NP?, anymore, so I’ve got to suck it up and go to the Trading Post with three times that! Guess I’m back to buying a thousand 15 NP stocks everyday…