This looks interesting. Google is jumping into the browser game with a browser called “Chrome”. They have some good ideas, I hope their product stands up to their hype. This has been in the works for quite a while, but I for one never thought they’d ever release it. I’ll be happy to be wrong if this is released as expected.
Google Ignites a New Browser War With Microsoft By Unveiling One of its Own
In its most frontal and aggressive attack on Microsoft yet, sources with knowledge of the project said Google is preparing to unveil a new browser – ready for download to users as early as tomorrow – to try to loosen Microsoft’s iron grip on the most important piece of software to navigate the Internet.
Also interesting is their form of news release… a comic book. Didn’t see that coming.
Update: The beta is available – Google Chrome
Now this is just hilarious. – BannerBlog : Apple: Sign
Matt Heaton is talking about Microsoft again. It’s not flattering.
Microsoft has done this to themselves because they are either incapable of producing a quality product or they don’t care anymore if their product is great. Either way its not a company I will do business with.
Do you disagree? Show me where I am wrong… I didn’t think so! – Matt Heaton / President Bluehost.com
I have to agree. Due to client requirements I’ve been using Office 2007 and MS SharePoint Designer a bit lately. Now I can see that 2007 is an improvement over previous versions of Office, but that really doesn’t take much. SharePoint Designer however, is in a whole class by itself. It is far and away the worst piece of supposed design software I’ve ever seen. The user interface is convoluted, the code it produces is crap. I’m really going to enjoy dumping it in the trash when this project is over. I won’t be using it again. I can see some benefit to SharePoint for people who need to collaborate and don’t share a workspace, but that’s the best they could do? I think Mr. Heaton is right, “they don’t care anymore if their product is great.” It’s a shame they’ve managed to corner so much of the computer OS market. It’s time someone took that away from them.
Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, The Amboy Times, Allie is Wired, Adam’s Blog, and The World According to Carl, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
I’ve been using two monitors at work for five or six years now, so I can relate to this one. Last month I added a second monitor at home though, so now I can be an evil genius at home too! If I could just get that third monitor I’ve had my eye on for work…
I have absolutely no need for an Ironkey, but I want one none the less.
Their thumb drives hold up to 4 Gigabytes of data, but includes a hardware encryption chip that scrambles the data so as to be completely unreadable without a password
I’m fascinated by the work currently being done by steampunk artists and craftsmen. In a lot of cases they are taking something that’s modern, and to my eye ugly, and making it into something that looks timeless and beautiful. Here are a few of my most recent favorites.
I saw a short video of a fascinating Steampunk artist the other day. Beautiful work at his personal site, Datamancer too. If I had the money, I’d buy something from his workshop. The laptop is gorgeous, and the scanner and keyboards are just damn clever, but the flat screen monitor is my favorite.
What a fascinating idea. Unfortunately it’s a Microsoft product, but the technology behind Surface seems like something that might stick around.
The implications for design seem quite immense. It would sure give layout a more hands on feel. I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes, and who besides Microsoft is looking to build on this technology.
and none of those opinions are good.
Microsoft, take note!
This is what I really wanted to say in my blog. I WILL NEVER EVER IN 1,000 YEARS USE A MICROSOFT PRODUCT FOR BLUEHOST! NEVER!
Microsoft whores out its customer experience at every turn. – Matt Heaton / President Bluehost.com
Somehow I don’t think that Matt Heaton likes Microsoft… I’ve been boycotting their products as much as possible for years, but I’m unfortunately not in a position to throw them out entirely. Good luck to you Matt, keep up the good work.
Monday is here again. How’s everyone doing? Nice weekend?
I’ve always been fascinated by gadgets, regardless of their usefulness. Here’s one that I recently noticed, though I won’t be buying a $1500 keyboard any time soon.
A $99 mouse doesn’t seem so unreasonable though.
Seen any good gadgets lately?
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Contrary to what you might think, I haven’t stopped blogging or anything. It’s just been busy around the office, and around the house. Here are a few things I’ve seen this week that I thought were worth passing on.
Somebody e-mailed this to me this morning. I couldn’t resist posting it.
A helicopter was flying around above Seattle yesterday when an electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircraft’s electronic navigation and communications equipment. Due to the clouds and haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopter’s position and course to steer to the airport. Seeing a tall building, he flew toward it, circled, drew a handwritten sign, and held it in the helicopter’s window. The pilot’s sign said “WHERE AM I?” in large letters.
People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign, and held it in a building window. Their sign said “YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER.” The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map, determined the course to steer to SEATAC airport, and landed safely.
After they were on the ground, the co-pilot asked the pilot how the “YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER” sign helped determine their position in Seattle. The pilot responded “I knew that had to be the MICROSOFT building because, similar to their help-lines, they gave me a technically correct but completely useless answer.”
The Dangers of Modern Automotive Conveniences – Popular Mechanics
And I thought how much safer I was, driving in my 50-year-old Jaguar XK120–with no side windows, no radio, no distractions–than these women were in their new truck with its ABS, airbags and other modern tech.
Why? Because I was paying attention. – Jay Leno, Contributing Editor
Yes, that Jay Leno.
I see this sort of driver on the road every day. They are no longer in control of the technology, but the technology is in control of them.
I also see this sort of thing in design. I see an advertisement and I can identify the software used to lay it out because the designer used default settings or the free clip art that came with it. The designer is no longer in control, they are letting the software control the design. Now most people wouldn’t be in a position to recognize software, but that’s not the point. If you’re letting your software make your decisions for you, that is a problem. While the chances of a tragically fatal graphic design accident are slim, the chances your career will be mangled are much higher. Take control, make the software work for you. Then when somebody sees one of your designs and says, “How did you know to do that?” You can honestly say, “Because I was paying attention.”
Slashdot and others are now reporting that IE7 has been included in a high priority Windows update. Expect to see it installed soon.
Internet Explorer 7.0 is now a high priority update on Windows Update. Unless you setup the respective blocking script, expect IE 7 to be installed on your systems if they are configured to retrieve and install high priority updates from Windows Update. – Internet Storm Center
I was hoping to be out of the office the day this was released.
IE6 is giving me fits today. Something that seems to have been included in an automatic update last week is causing IE6 to fail on a site that I work on. Pages not loading, forms not loading, freezing up after loading, a whole list of problems. Driving me nuts. It only effects IE6, and not every computer seems to be effected. No idea what’s going on here. If I don’t see a solution soon, something is going out a window.
Sidenote: If you’re less than 150 lbs., and would in some way fit out of a 2′ x 3′ window, you might not want to walk into my office right now.
Why does Microsoft include a web browser with their operating system? Due mostly I think to Microsoft’s insistence on making IE an integral part of their operating system, IE is and has been one of their biggest security vulnerabilities, yet they keep including it. Why not let Firefox or Opera, or anybody else have the browser market. What would it cost them? It’s not like they charge for the browser. If they stuck to making a stable reliable operating system, and skipped all of the other junk, I think they’d have a better product. If nothing else, they could split it away from the Windows OS, making it less integral, and therefore less of a security risk.
Just blathering today. I don’t know whether it’s IE7′s release or just a coincidence, but I’ve been dealing with a lot of MS fanatics this week. How do you tactfully explain to someone that MS Word isn’t an appropriate piece of software to design with? I had trouble not using obscenities in my explanation. I know it’s been a long week when my verbal filter isn’t working very well.
Now this is something I’ve been waiting for. Firefox 2 Released! I haven’t tried it yet, we’ll see how it goes. Unlike IE7, I haven’t tried any of the Beta versions yet either.
Update: Everything seems to work as expected. They rearranged some things, combined the theme and extension windows in one for instance. Several of my extensions don’t work, but most of those are made obsolete by new features in 2, the spell checker for instance. Didn’t expect a failure, but it’s nice to see that everything seems to work.
I’m not a big fan of Microsoft, but I’ll give them this, their fans are really, really loyal.
Someone I e-mail on an almost daily basis recently suggested I change my e-mail client to MS Outlook from Mozilla Thunderbird. Their reasoning? All of the e-mails she received from me were being flagged as spam and filtered by Outlook.
I suggested she should change her filter settings so that it didn’t filter people in her address book: done. Make sure I’m in the address book: done. No change, I’m still being filtered. I suggested that her Outlook seemed to be having a problem: Can you change to Outlook to stop it from doing this?
Hmm… You software isn’t functioning properly, so you want to alleviate your problem by having me install the same software that’s not working for you on my computer. Let me think… No!
Sad maybe, but very loyal.
This is quite funny actually. Microsoft has several products in the top ten.
The 25 worst tech products of all time – InterGovWorld.com
These products are so bad, they belong in the high-tech hall of shame.
At PC World, we spend most of our time talking about products that make your life easier or your work more productive. But, it’s the lousy ones that linger in our memory long after their shrinkwrap has shriveled, and that make tech editors cry out, “What have I done to deserve this?”
I thought Internet Explorer 6 might rank higher, but being the eighth worst tech product of all time is pretty bad.
How insecure? In June 2004, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) took the unusual step of urging PC users to use a browser–any browser–other than IE.
h/t Random Bytes
