I really hope IE6 retires and everytime I learn that the market share for IE6 decrease I treat that as a big win for development team like ours. This is the case with the latest market share reports where IE6 has lost 2.4 percentage points and is considered the biggest loss since December of 2007, yeah that’s good news.

Firefox on the other hand has continued to increase their market share gaining 0.8 percentage points which puts them on 23.3 percent market share. All of Internet Explorer has lost 1.1 percentage points bringing them down to 66.6 percentage points in August. While the numbers seem very low, it should be noted that slowly Firefox has made tremendous progress as they have accumulated 8.6 percentage points for the last 12 months.

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 however has gained 2.7 percentage points in August which is the only Microsoft browser that has done goo since IE7 itself has also lost 1.9 points. But if you think of it IE8 is new and the only direction it should go is up.

Google Chrome is so far behind on fourth place but it looks like they are occupying the 3rd spot in less than a year, overtaking Safari.

I think the browser wars would still be between Firefox and Internet Explorer (hopefully not IE6) in the years to come.

Image from Mozilla.

Post from: EveryJoe

IE6 Falling down, falling down…

Frequently when talking to them about how to get started I begin talking about some other great tools that I use to organize your thoughts and create your posts and pages for your website. Most of these tools are free, or free with premium versions as well. All of them have been incredibly useful to me over the years (or months and days that I’ve been using them).

I’ve written about my use of programs like Evernote, Picasa, IrfanView, Windows Live Writer, Firefox and others on this site at some point or another.

I’m curious though, what other tools do you use regularly that you don’t think you could live without these days. If you’re not a blogger, don’t worry about it. Just let me know what programs you have installed on your machine that you use on a daily basis. Daily would be a good cut-off, perhaps at least every other day at the most.

Looking forward to hearing what you share and giving a few a try if I’m not already using them on my machine.

Image: sxc.hu

Post from: EveryJoe

The Tools of Blogging

Anyways, the browser first came out in public beta last February and Apple has been marketing this browser as the fastest browser in the world compared to Firefox and IE8.

Apple says that the browser is at least three times faster when loading HTML web pages against IE8 and Firefox. The company is touting their Nitro JavaScript engine that is around 8 times faster than IE 8 and 4 times faster than Firefox.

Testing our SharePoint sites across various browsers is already a pain, and another browser named Safari doesn’t put a smile on my face.

Download Safari.

Image from CNET.

Post from: EveryJoe

Safari with 11 millions downloads

I’ve had to use the compatibility feature on a couple of sites, ones that I’ve developed for clients, so there’s so more work for me to take care of and make sure those are up to par.

I’m still using Firefox as my browser of choice. I still say that the main reason I stay with Firefox is because of all of the plugins and extensions that are available on this platform. Hopefully IE8 will get more activity from developers and Microsoft will keep improving this browser. Competition is good for everyone. Let’s hope both of these browsers keep pushing each other.

Post from: EveryJoe

Now Running Internet Explorer 8

During work, e.g., we open a web browser – because we are so used to it – but more importanly have several other programs opened simultaneously. While navigating from Microsoft Outlook to Eclipse to the work folders using Alt + Tab, it is irritating to find Mozilla Firefox in between. Also, the task bar has only this much place.

Still, most of the web browsers like the Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox continue to ignore our need for a “Minimize to system tray” option (Opera provides the option). And we don’t always know the registry hack to minimize Microsoft Outlook. Trayconizer comes to our rescue.

The “Mozilla Firefox” icon sitting in my system tray is not a photoshop gimmick. I used a miniscule utility called Trayconizer.exe to minimze Firefox to the system tray. It is only 10.5 KB in size and, hmm, doesn’t need installation.

All you have to do is invoke the target program, Mozilla Firefox in this example, through the utility. The easiest way to do this is to set the target of a shortcut you use like this:

Replace “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe”
with C:\Downloads\Trayconizer.exe “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe”

It may not be possible to Trayconize all programs and I am not sure if it works on Windows Vista, but it seems to work well enough on Windows XP. You can download it here. The page shows that the utility hasn’t had a newer version in over 5 years.

Image Source: Screenshots taken on my laptop running Windows XP.

Post from: EveryJoe

Trayconize Any Program to System Tray

Do not make the mistake of installing it or upgrading it now.

Firefox’s “Find Updates” in Tools –> Add-ons could not find the latest version 2.9 just like the Mozilla Add-ons website couldn’t recommend it because Site Advisor is not your normal .XPI add-on. One has to download and install a .EXE through the Site Advisor download page.

The latest version is about 3.0MB large, takes a lot of time to install, asks for a reboot, and even then creates annoying problems post-installation until you disable it. The problem is that every time you open Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer, a popup asking you about post-installation settings appears again, asking you to Accept or Decline their EULA. The annoyance stops only after declining.

I tried this (by mistake) on a friend’s and my laptop and the problem was persistent. On one of the two, the pop-ups stopped but McAfee Site Advisor no longer had its search bar and it wasn’t showing whether a site is safe or not. That is because one has to “Decline” to get there in the first place.

I couldn’t find any fixes online yet. Let me know if you have any.

Image Source: McAfee Site Advisor Screenshots taken on my laptop.

Post from: EveryJoe

Do Not Install or Upgrade McAfee Site Advisor

Meanwhile, Michael Howard, a principal security program manager at Microsoft, made a clean post about what they have learnt from the latest bug and why they couldn’t detect it in the first place. It is a very interesting read, especially if you can put aside your demands for infallibility of security engineers and appreciate the honesty.

Whenever a security threat becomes known, Microsoft gets a lot of attention that it would prefer not to. This is leading to the exodus of the Internet Explorer users to other browser options. Gregg Keizer of ComputerWorld covers a story that says that IE’s European share fell under 60% for the first time. A more interesting part of the story is that Firefox’s user share has stalled too, after the release of Google Chrome.

Brad Linder on Download Squad discovered a tool to backup the Internet Explorer Settings. Also in the post are links to tools that can backup Firefox profiles and Opera data.

After finding Symantec Ghost distasteful in imaging Windows Vista, Brian of Reich Consulting finally tried the Windows Deployment Service and wrote about his first impressions on it.

Image Source: Internet Explorer Logo from the Microsoft Website.

Post from: EveryJoe

Internet Roundup About the Internet Explorer

There is a Firefox trojan that is trolling around stealing passwords. Read the Larry Seltzer’s post for the story and a suggestion.

Friend Brian got numerous cases with a variant of Win32/FakeSecScan virus in the last couple of weeks and so compiled a helpful one-page PDF called “Beware of Fake Antivirus Programs” (PDF link warning). I have one more thing to add. When you see that popup message, open the taskmanager and kill the browser. Some of the uglier ones of this kind don’t have a better solution.

Computer World has a very alarming story. McColo Corp., a webhosting firm, was taken down a month ago resulting in a 42% drop of spam volume. Slowly, actually quickly, the spam levels are catching up again.

McAfee released its Virtual Criminology report recently. It accuses the governments of turning a blind eye to cybercrime, according to PCWorld. I agree that there is a damn lot to be done, but McAfee’s bombastic style takes away a little credibility, not of the report itself but of the accusation. If say the US government were turning a blind eye, there wouldn’t even be talking about a Center for Cybersecurity Operations, would they?

Blizzard has introduced two-factor authentication in World of Warcraft. On top of the usual password, there will be a six-digit authentication code generated by the %6.50 worth keyfob on-demand for each login.

Post from: EveryJoe

Internet Roundup On Security Awareness

Pirates of Amazon is a Firefox add-on. Whenever a user visits a media page in Amazon (movies, TV shows, games, music), the add-on gives alternate torrent links from where the same product can be illegally downloaded for free.

IMDB Pirate Version is another general script that crossreferences titles on IMDB allowing users to search directly from the imdb page for subtitles, torrents and http (rapidshare,megaupload, and other hosts) movie releases, and view the movie trailer directly. I don’t mind the subtitles and movie trailer really; they are useful functionalities.

A few years ago music industry lost billions to piracy and has recently limped back to apparent normalcy. There are many who don’t give a damn one way or the other about piracy and those who justify it do so by claiming that the stars get paid way too much for their work. As a writer who reads more publishing news than any other kind of news, I have been reading about thousands of people losing their jobs in the publishing industry. Behind the highly-paid stars are legions of faceless people whose livelihood is at stake in any industry. No part of the economy is immune to the current slowdown and this is a worse time for irresponsible cheating of one another than any other. Please show restraint.

Post from: EveryJoe

Two Bad Open Source Add-ons

Gmail With Google Gadgets: To run the official Gmail Google Gadget, you will need Google Desktop 5 or above installed on your computer. The gadget is tiny (79KB) and offers all the basic features of Gmail including reading, sending, searching and starring messages; keyboard shortcuts; and contact auto-complete. But it doesn’t yet have the sound notification for new messages received. The gadget has been released only yesterday and is bound to have bugs though I hope they are fewer than in iGoogle.

Gmail With Mozilla Prism: Mozilla has been working on a project called Prism (add-on) which can be used to convert any website into a stand-alone desktop application outside the browser. Prism is available as a Firefox add-on, and is easy to use. You can read my opinion on Prism in greater detail here and let me know if you need any help with creating your own desktop app of your favorite website. I’ve tried this five months ago, so there is a good chance that the technology has gotten better.

Post from: EveryJoe

Gmail on Your Desktop