Yesterday, Ed Bott posted a great article over at ZDNet (It’s official: Microsoft is out of the Vista doghouse) about how Microsoft has lately been reclaiming its customer satisfaction that it may have lost from Vista.
Showing posts with label internet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label internet. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Setting Bing as Default Search Engine in Firefox
One of my gripes with Mozilla Firefox is that users cannot set Bing as their default search engine without installing an add-on to Firefox. Firefox offers several different search engines options from the get-go, including Google, Yahoo!, Amazon.com, Answers.com, Creative Commons, eBay, and Wikipedia.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Microsoft Security Updates: April 2010
Every month I’d like to publish a post in which describes the security bulletins, to some degree, that Microsoft has released for that specific month. It’s funny, though, that this month, the first month I start, Microsoft issues several security bulletins…11 to be exact. If you want to read more about them, feel free to check out the official site for the security bulletins. Click on the Executive Summary to see a brief overview of each bulletin.
First, you may notice that if you’re using Windows 7 as your operating system, only 2 out of the 11 security bulletins are actually critical while one other is considered to be moderate. This just shows that keeping an up-to-date system, you should be able to avoid certain security vulnerabilities, in this case eight vulnerabilities. (By the way, if you’re still on ole trusty XP, you’ll have to deal with 10 out of 11 updates, in which four are critical, three are important and one is moderate.)
Here’s a quick overview of the exploits:
| Bulletin | Title | Severity Rating |
| MS10-019 | Vulnerabilities in Windows Could Allow Remote Code Execution (98210) | Critical Remote Code Execution |
| MS10-020 | Vulnerabilities in SMB Client Could Allow Remote Code Execution (980232) | Critical Remote Code Execution |
| MS10-025 | Vulnerability in Microsoft Windows Media Services Could Allow Remote Code Execution (980858) | Critical Remote Code Execution |
| MS10-026 | Vulnerability in Microsoft MPEG Layer-3 Codecs Could Allow Remote Code Execution (977816) | Critical Remote Code Execution |
| MS10-027 | Vulnerability in Windows Media Player Could Allow Remote Code Execution (979402) | Critical Remote Code Execution |
| MS10-021 | Vulnerabilities in Windows Kernel Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (979683) | Important Elevation of Privilege |
| MS10-022 | Vulnerability in VBScript Could Allow Remote Code Execution (981169) | Important Remote Code Execution |
| MS10-023 | Vulnerability in Microsoft Office Publisher Could Allow Remote Code Execution (981160) | Important Remote Code Execution |
| MS10-024 | Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange and Windows SMTP Service Could Allow Denial of Service (981832) | Important Denial of Service |
| MS10-028 | Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Visio Could Allow Remote Code Execution (980094) | Important Remote Code Execution |
| MS10-029 | Vulnerabilities in Windows ISATAP Component Could Allow Spoofing (978338) | Moderate Spoofing |
As always, you should make sure to have automatic updates enabled for Windows. Once again, I’d like to point out that although this month looks bad, if you have a recent version of Windows, such as Windows 7, you will not be as affected as an older version, such as Windows XP. Hence, one of the reasons to upgrade to Windows 7.
If anyone has any comments or suggestions feel free to send them to me at tinkeringwithwindows at live dot com.
del.icio.us Tags: Microsoft Windows,Windows 7,Windows XP,Windows Update,Security Bulletins,Security,Office,Maintenance,Update
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Oh no, Google’s changed its name!
Every morning I get up and start perusing the web for interesting articles (typically dealing with Tech and Finance). During this time I often end up at Google’s website at least once…today though, I decided to use Topeka…at least that’s what Google’s apparently renamed itself.
Alright, so what is Topeka? Topeka is actually a town in Kansas, it’s the one that tried so hard to get the new Google Fiber Internet that it actually renamed itself to Google for a while. So, what’s the nicest thing Google could do for the town in return? Rename itself of course.
A blog post by Eric Schmidt himself goes on to explain the reasoning behind the renaming…which also included the following guidelines on the proper ways to use Goog…I mean Topeka:
This is groundbreaking, I’ve never seen a company that has actually moved this quickly to change its name. Want any more info on this? I’ll let you Google Topeka that for yourself. :)
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Mozilla Firefox 3.7 Alpha 4 Preview – A Quick Look
Yesterday, I got wind of an update to Mozilla’s Firefox 3.7 Alpha string. The last time I had looked at this build was during the Alpha 1 release, however, quite a bit has changed since then. Most notably, the current Alpha of 3.7 offers Aero Glass UI, a very nice touch. I took together a couple of screenshots of the browser and felt I had to share them. I’ll add a bit of commentary to the screenshots as well.
Installation
Installing the Alpha version was very simple, and very similar to the overall installation of previous Firefox versions. The biggest difference between the Alpha prerelease and the current version of Firefox is the prerelease is labeled as Mozilla’s experimental browser, Minefield. As time goes on, and Mozilla gets closer to the final release, they’ll rename the final version Firefox 3.7.
Note the Minefield name reference in the setup dialogue box...this will change once the final release ships.
Installing under the "Minefield" folder type allows the user to continue using their previous version of Firefox, very useful if you have extensions or add-ons that may not work yet with this prerelease.
Most extensions and add-ons won't work with the pre-release. As time goes on developers should start making these compatible with FF 3.7.
Finally, after the installation you should get this nice screen. Notice the new Aero Glass UI and lack of the Menu Bar.
Changes since Firefox 3.6
The most noticeable feature change in this prerelease is the addition of the Aero glass UI. To compare the new UI, I took an older screenshot of Firefox 3.6.
Firefox 3.7's new UI...quite a bit has changed.
Firefox 3.6.2's UI. The UI looks old and out-of-date when compared to other browsers.
This UI change is both a pleasant and welcome experience. After-all, many other competing browsers have already switched to this style, first with IE, then Google Chrome quickly followed suit. Another noticeable difference is the lack of a menu bar. This is primarily due to the addition of the glass UI; however, you can still get the menu bar back by simply tapping the ALT key on your keyboard, this will bring up the familiar menu.
I haven’t spent a whole lot of time on this version to really point out every possible feature since this is just a preview; I’ll look a little more in detail with this version as it comes closer to the full release time. Look out for a full review on this site around its official release. You can also pick up the pre-release version over at the Mozilla labs to try it out for yourself.
As always, you can contact me via Twitter (@jctierney) or leave a comment below. I’ve also started a new e-mail address for this site, tinkeringwithwindows @ live dot com. Feel free to drop me a line every now and then. I welcome anyone who has a question, comment, suggestion, etc. to feel free to e-mail me at that address.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Why Google Chrome Is Gaining Momentum – My Thoughts
While perusing Ed Bott’s Windows Expertise Blog (as I often due) I came across one of his most recent posts “Chrome takes a bite out of IE and Firefox” detailing a dramatic increase in Chrome usage:
I haven’t taken a close look at this site’s browser stats in nearly two years. The last time I looked was in mid-2008, shortly after the release of Firefox 3. At that time, Internet Explorer had a 57% share among visitors to this site and Firefox was just over 38%, with Safari and Opera fighting for scraps.
Things have changed a lot since then. Firefox is now up to version 3.6. Microsoft released Internet Explorer 8 roughly a year ago. And most important of all, Google Chrome entered the lineup. Google has a hit on its hands, and according to my stats Chrome’s success is coming at the direct expense of not just Internet Explorer but also Firefox.
When I first started reading this I thought that the findings were very interesting, almost shocking. Then I started to actually think about it for a moment. Of late, I’ve probably been using Google Chrome more than any other browser. (If you check my Wakoopa account you’ll notice that I’ve been using IE8 quite a bit lately, this is primarily due to me preparing myself to compare IE8 and IE9. Otherwise, I primarily use Google Chrome.) There are several reasons for this, but for the most part, I believe that Google Chrome is a faster and simpler browser to use. I believe many other people have found this to be the same for them. I’ll first take a look at some Chrome statistics, and then backtrack and try to explain why Chrome might be gaining popularity.
Since its inception in September of 2008, Google Chrome has grown significantly in market share. In just a mere one and a half years, Google Chrome has grown from 0% to a modest 6.08%. Below is a chart depicting browser market share from six different leading market sources:
| Source | Internet | Firefox | Chrome | Safari | Opera |
| Clicky | 49.92% | 32.80% | 8.09% | 7.54% | 1.41% |
| Net Applications | 61.58% | 24.23% | 5.61% | 4.45% | 2.35% |
| Stat Counter | 54.50% | 31.83% | 6.71% | 4.08% | 1.97% |
| StatOwl | 66.99% | 19.48% | 3.98% | 9.00% | 0.24% |
| W3Counter | 48.70% | 32.10% | 6.80% | 5.60% | 2.10% |
| Wikimedia | 50.29% | 30.96% | 5.28% | 5.27% | 3.29% |
| Mean | 55.33% | 28.57% | 6.08% | 5.99% | 1.89% |
| Median | 52.40% | 31.40% | 6.16% | 5.44% | 2.04% |
Ok, so Chrome fairs well against its competitors, in fact it’s the number three used browser of the top five browsers. Here’s a bit more information about Google Chrome taken from one of my more favorite stat companies, Net Applications:
| Quarter | Internet Explorer | Firefox | Chrome | Safari | Opera |
| 2010 Q1 | 61.89% | 24.34% | 5.40% | 4.49% | 2.37% |
| 2009 Q4 | 63.67% | 24.46% | 4.04% | 4.41% | 2.29% |
| 2009 Q3 | 66.80% | 23.06% | 2.86% | 4.13% | 2.07% |
| 2009 Q2 | 68.06% | 23.00% | 2.13% | 3.67% | 2.05% |
| 2009 Q1 | 69.13% | 22.67% | 1.56% | 3.58% | 2.18% |
| 2008 Q4 | 71.99% | 20.78% | 1.16% | 3.11% | 2.15% |
| 2008 Q3 | 74.93% | 19.07% | 0.37% | 2.73% | 2.06% |
Since its debut in 2008, Google Chrome has significantly gained in popularity, going from 0.37% to 5.40% market share in just under two years. Now, 5.40% may not seem like much right now, but considering that it did this in a mere one and a half years is quite mind-boggling to say the least. It looks, however, that it takes most of its market share from Internet Explorer, for whatever its worth, as Safari and Opera (why?) continue to grow in market share. The stats show another more frequently occurring trend with Firefox, which recently has been losing market share.
Why is Google Chrome becoming so popular? From what I’ve heard from other dedicated Chrome users, it’s the simple fact that it’s easier, more reliable, and faster. In fact, one dedicated reader when asked why they continued to use Google Chrome after I initially recommended it, told me that it was “much easier to use than other browsers” and that “it didn’t cause as much of a headache.” Didn’t cause a headache? Well, I would probably stick with Chrome too.
I think the majority of the population that has tried Google Chrome has probably continued to use it for these simple reasons. Why wouldn’t someone want to use a browser that is both faster and easier to use? It just makes sense.
Why is it easier to use? This poses a good question, and from personal experience I can say that it amounts to several different reasons. The best reason, I think, is its basic user interface. By having one box for both searching and entering a specific address serves as a great way of making browsing the web so much easier. With Chrome, the same text box is used either for search or for a direct address to a website. Simple, yet effective. With other browsers you have a dedicated search box and a dedicated address bar. In Google’s case, the less is more approach really works better, and I think the majority of the population somewhat agrees. Overall though, I think that the browser has a much more intuitive design, even if it does still look like a typical browser.
Why is it faster? This question is a little bit more difficult to answer. I have no proof that it’s actually faster, and even using benchmarks to test a browsers speed only does so much. Ultimately, I can only say that it seems faster when I load different pages, especially anything that deals with flash video, such as YouTube.
Getting back to Ed’s post here, the discrepancies between Net Applications statistics of 5.40% and Ed Bott’s 10.86% is also easily explained. The majority of Chrome’s market share probably comes from tech enthusiasts, which are predominantly the ones that would be stopping over at Ed Bott’s Windows Expertise Blog. Thus, a more concentration of computer geeks equals a higher market usage of Google Chrome.
Putting everything aside, Google Chrome has still made some very significant strides in the browser market. I’ll continue to use it as one of my primary browsers and highly recommend this browser to most anyone that uses the Internet on a daily basis (isn’t that everyone now days?).
On a side note, according to Ed Bott, IE6 usage share has dropped to less than 8%...that’s still pretty high, but at least more people are staying away from IE6 and moving to something else.
As always, you can contact me via Twitter (@jctierney) or leave a comment below. I’ve also started a new e-mail address for this site, tinkeringwithwindows @ live dot com. Feel free to drop me a line every now and then. I welcome anyone who has a question, comment, suggestion, etc. to feel free to e-mail me at that address.
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