IE is not Alone

If you just bought a Windows PC, chances are that the only Internet browser on your computer is Internet Explorer 8 or 9. It’s a better browser than it has ever been. Long ago (before version 7), IE was buggy and prone to virus infections, now it’s secure and fast. It got to this point by taking the best features from other browsers. So, if you want a preview of what the next version of IE will look like you should try some of these other browsers.

There are many other browsers, but just a few front runners. They are all a little less prone to infections than IE, mostly because IE is installed on every Windows PC and hackers and crackers want to reach a large number of people. They all look a little different and all have slightly different features. To choose the one you like you may have to try more than one. You may even use more than one on a regular basis.

Mozilla Firefox

Despite IE being installed on every PC, Firefox is actually the most used browser. As of November 2011, Firefox is used by about 38% of users while IE is in third place with 21.5%. Firefox is used by so many people because it is stable, has a reputation for being secure, and has a huge repository of add-ons and extensions. Regular, nearly invisible updates keep security holes and software bugs at bay. Plus ,you can customize and extend Firefox to behave and look exactly how you want.

Google Chrome

Right now, Google Chrome is the second most used browser, but the way things are going it might overtake Firefox in 2012. Chrome is an operating system unto itself. In fact there are actually netbooks that only run Chrome. The reason they can do this is that Chrome runs Google Docs, Gmail, Google Apps, and just about everything else Google related better than anyone. With the Chrome store you can get an app to do just about anything that Windows or OSX can do. To top it all, Chrome runs really fast and takes up less memory than Firefox or IE.

Opera

Opera built its reputation on being fast and introducing us to tabbed browsing. It has never had a large market share, but those who use it, love it. Tabs are in every browser now, but Opera is still very fast. It is lightweight and can adjust to slower internet speeds if need be. If you are looking for something different, Opera might be the way to go.

Apple Safari

If you are using a Mac, Safari isn’t a third party browser at all. But, if you are using a Windows PC and you like the design and beauty of Apple, Safari is your only option. Apple’s developers have done well making Safari compatible with Windows, it runs quickly and smoothly. Their developers know how to make a great first impression and the top sites page, when you first start Safari, does just that. It gives you a beautifully rendered view of the front pages of all the sites you visit most, so you don’t have to waste time wading through your bookmarks.

HTML5

One more factor you might want to figure into you browser choice is the upcoming switch to HTML5. HTML is the “programming” language of webpages. HTML5 is the latest incarnation of that language. Considering HTML 4 has been in use since 1999, this version is long overdue. Adoption of HTML5 has been slow, but should become the standard in 2012. It’s new features are worth the upgrade. Most sites that need multimedia rely on plug-ins like Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight. HTML5 allows web developers to integrate audio and video without using plug-ins. But, HTML5’s capabilities rely heavily on the browser you use. Currently the browsers above stack up like this in regards to HTML5 support:

1. Google Chrome
2. Opera
3. Firefox
4. Safari
5. Internet Explorer 9

A trio of new devices from Amazon are scheduled to hit stores and be available online November 15^th.  Pre-ordering may be a good idea if you are looking to get a Kindle Fire as the excitement for this 7 inch tablet has been building for some time, and only escalated when they announced that it was going to be available for $199.  The Fire will compete directly with Barnes and Noble’s Nook Tablet (upgraded version of 2010’s Nook Color) and for many people, may be a cheaper alternative to Apple’s iPad.  It will run a very customized version of Android and have access to ebooks, magazines, and video on demand services as well as the Amazon app store.

The other two additions are both new e-ink readers.  Both will sport 6” Pearl e-ink displays and faster page turns than previous version Kindles.  The Kindle Touch will have an infrared touchscreen and 4GB of storage (enough for 3,000 books), and will come in wifi only and wifi + 3G versions for $99 and $149 respectively.  The new basic Kindle will offer a 5-way button for navigation and keyboard input and no 3G option and be priced at $79.

All of Amazon’s e-readers now come with “special offers” – ads that appear as your screen saver, but do not appear when you are actually reading.  You can opt for the ad-free model for an additional $30-$40 depending on the model.

As Microsoft looks to kill off Internet Explorer 6, the Redmond software giant made official the launch date for IE9: March 14th, 2011. The final code will be available for download from Microsoft’s servers starting at 9 AM PST on Monday, making good on Microsoft’s promise to deliver its next generation browser in the first quarter. There are several changes in IE9 compared to previous versions, including hardware-accelerated text, video, and graphics. There’s a new tab page, improved integration with Windows 7, a streamlined design, pinned sites, and a host of other new features.

The improvements to Internet Explorer are as much about what you don’t see as what you do see. Internet Explorer 9 has a streamlined design, fewer dialog boxes to click through, more intuitive navigation, and many new features that speed up your web browsing experience. Features like Pinned Sites let you pin your favorite website directly to the taskbar for one-click access. Other features, like hardware acceleration, deliver an all-around faster browsing experience. With Internet Explorer 9, websites perform and feel more like the programs you use every day on your PC.

Here’s what’s new:

Streamlined design

The first thing you’ll notice when you open Internet Explorer 9 is the compact user interface. Most command bar functions, like Print or Zoom, can now be accessed by clicking the Tools button, and your favorites appear when you click the Favorites button. Otherwise, Internet Explorer gives you the basic controls you need, and lets the web take center stage.

Pinned Sites

If you visit certain webpages regularly, Pinned Sites allows you access them directly from the taskbar on your Windows 7 desktop.  Pinning a site is simple: click the icon to the left of the web address in the address bar (or the website icon on the New Tab page) and drag it to the taskbar—the website’s icon will stay there until you remove it. When you click the icon later, the website will open in Internet Explorer. Whenever you open a pinned site, the website icon appears at the top of the browser, so you have easy access to the website home page (you can also add multiple home page tabs in addition to the primary home page). The Back and Forward buttons change color to match the color of the icon.

Download Manager

Download Manager is a powerful new feature that keeps a running list of the files you download from the Internet and notifies you when a file could be malicious. It also lets you pause and restart a download—if you have a slow internet connection—and shows you where to find downloaded files on your computer. You can clear the list at any time.

Enhanced tabs

Tabbed browsing allows you to move easily between multiple open webpages in a single window, but there might be times when you want to look at two tabbed pages at the same time. Tear-off tabs allow you to drag a tab out of Internet Explorer to open the tab’s webpage in a new window, and Snap it for side-by-side viewing. Tabs are also color coded to show which open webpages are related to each other—to give you a handy visual reference as you click between tabs.

New Tab page

The redesigned New Tab page displays the sites you visit most often and color codes them for quick navigation. A site indicator bar also shows how often you visit each site, and you can remove or hide the displayed sites anytime you like.

Search in the address bar

You can now search directly from the address bar. If you enter a website’s address, you’ll go directly to the website. If you enter a search term or incomplete address, you will launch a search using the currently selected search engine. Click the address bar to select your search engine from the listed icons or to add new ones. When you search from the address bar, you’ll have the option of opening a search results page or the top search result (if your search engine supports the feature). You can also get optional search suggestions in the address bar—but they are off by default, in case you don’t want to share what you type with a search provider.

Notification Bar

The Notification Bar that appears at the bottom of Internet Explorer gives you important status information when you need it, but it won’t force you to click a series of messages to continue browsing.

Add-on Performance Advisor

Add-ons, such as toolbars, can enhance your browsing experience, but they can also slow it down. Add-on Performance Advisor tells you if an add-on is slowing down your browser performance, and will then allow you to disable or remove it.

Hardware acceleration

To speed up performance, Internet Explorer uses the power of your computer’s graphics processor, also known as a GPU, to handle graphics-heavy tasks like video streaming or online gaming. By tapping into the GPU, Internet Explorer delivers a faster and more immersive web experience.

Tracking Protection

Some content on websites can be used to track your activity as you browse the web. Tracking Protection allows you to limit the browser’s communication with certain websites—determined by a Tracking Protection List—to help keep your information private. Anyone can create Tracking Protection Lists, and there should be many to choose from in the near future.

ActiveX Filtering

ActiveX is a technology that allows web developers to create interactive content on their sites, but it can also pose a security risk. Internet Explorer allows you to block ActiveX controls for all sites, and then turn them back on for only the sites that you trust.

Many small businesses are still using Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, and generic Gmail accounts as their primary email accounts.  A more professional approach is to use your own domain name.  Instead of yourbusinessname@comcast.net, use yourname@yourbusinessname.com.  With cheap to free email hosting plans, there is no reason not to use that domain name you already own for your email.  You get full control over the accounts and won’t be forced to use an email address with a string of extra numbers after your name, i.e. jeff3482@genericprovider.com.  Let’s look at one of the easiest and most popular services out there – Google.

Benefits

You can get exactly the email address you want, no more johndoe384756@aol.com.

Backup – Many small businesses are using a cheap POP3 email hosting account.  In most configurations, the storage size of the account is small and if you are using an email client like Windows Mail, Outlook, or Mozilla Thunderbird, you are just downloading the mail from the server to prevent your account from getting full.  In this scenario, if you are only downloading those messages to a single computer and aren’t diligently backing up, a hard drive failure could cause you to potentially lose years of correspondence.

Spam filtering – Gmail has some of the best spam filtering available.  It’s built into every Gmail account at no extra charge.  You would likely pay more than $50/year for a quality anti-spam solution alone.

Administration costs – 5 years ago, even small businesses were hosting and managing their own email servers.  Microsoft Small Business Server includes Exchange and is priced affordably for smaller offices and would allow them to have all the functionality that large companies enjoy regarding email and calendaring.  Hosting your own server as a small business can allow you much control and functionality, but if you don’t already have an in-house IT staff to manage it, can easily cost hundreds or thousands of dollars per year for administration, patches, and unforeseen problems.

Plan comparison

Google offers two basic hosting plans – Google Apps Standard and Premier.  The setup is the same for both, but there are a few differences.  Here we will take a look at those differences and briefly touch on what you need to know to set them up.

Price - Standard is free, Premier is $50/year per user.

Storage – 7GB per mailbox for Standard, Premier gives you 25GB per mailbox.

Number of addresses – While Premier allows and unlimited number of users and mailboxes, Standard is limited to 50.

Security – Premier gives you control over forcing SSL encryption and password strength requirements.  With Standard, you have to use the Gmail defaults.

Integration – In addition to price and storage, this is the other big difference.  While you can still set up Outlook or an iPhone or Android device to check any Gmail account, the Premier accounts add what are essentially full hosted Exchange services.  This means that instead of just downloading your messages from the server into Outlook or your phone, all of your contacts, calendar, and email are synchronized in both directions.  For example, if you add a new contact on your iPhone, it will show up on your home computer and laptop both running Outlook with the Gmail sync app.  The same is true for calendar items, and sent items in your email.  Can’t reference an email you sent because you sent it from your phone, and now you’re working on your computer at home?  This is why – no synchronization both ways.  If you need all your info available on all devices in all places or are a Microsoft Outlook user, Premier is most likely the option for you.  If you have ever put off buying a new phone because you were afraid of getting all your contacts and calendar info moved over, this will solve your problems.  Spend a couple of minutes keying in your account info on the new device and everything will sync to the new phone OTA (over the air) in just a few minutes.

Setup

Some of our clients have set up Google Apps accounts on their own and we have set up many.  If you prefer to have someone set this up for you, call our office at (970) 226-1577 or email us from our contact page and we will handle the details.  Most configurations take 2 hours or less, start to finish. 

While it may be a little more involved than setting up a Hotmail or Yahoo account, setting up Gmail to host mail for your domain is not an overly complicated process.  You will need access to the admin account where your domain is registered or hosted (think Godaddy.com or wherever you were searching for that perfect website name).  As part of the process, you’ll need to prove that you own the domain by creating a DNS txt record and change your MX server settings (this tells the rest of the internet where email for your domain name should be sent) – there are detailed instructions for this on the Google Apps site for most domain registrars.

Once you have your email account(s) created, you can have your new account check your old account.  This makes switching from an old email account easy.  Moving to a new email address is a daunting task for many people because they think no one will be able to find them or maybe you still have 700 business cards with the old address on them.  In just a couple of steps you can set up Gmail to pull any new emails from your other account, this ensures that if someone contacts you at your old address, it shows up in your new Google Apps email account.

Apple finally announced the iPad 2 this week.  It will be available at Apple stores and online March 11^th – no preorders this time.  You can’t order it from the website until release day and units won’t be available at the Apple Store until 5pm.  Walmart, Sam’s Club, and Best Buy will also be offering the new pad on launch day.

The specs are pretty close to what was expected.  Here are the major differences from the original iPad:

Processor – The new iPad has a dual-core A5 processor.  This should give it roughly twice the number crunching power of the previous generation and promote faster app load times as well as better performance for most apps.

Cameras – Both front facing and rear facing cameras appear on the new model, as expected.  The front camera is VGA (640x480) and will make Skype video calls and Facetime possible.  The back camera is only listed as 720p and seems to be mainly aimed at video, since no megapixel specification is given.

Size and weight – In typical Apple fashion, the new model is thinner and lighter.  At 33% thinner than the first generation iPad and 1.3lbs vs. 1.5lbs, it should be noticeable.

Video – Although hard specs are not available at this time, the iPad 2 video chip is supposedly 9x more powerful than its predecessor.  This should open up some new options for game developers.   It will be interesting to see what happens in this arena over the coming weeks and months.

Carriers – Keeping step with the iPhone4, the new tablet will be available for both AT&T and Verizon – different models, same price.

Gyroscope – The addition of a 3-axis gyroscope will probably be most noticeable in games, using the entire device itself to steer or fly or move something around on the screen.

What hasn’t changed

As we expected, the screen resolution has not changed.  The addition of a retina display would have made it impossible to hit the $499 price point on the cheapest model.  While other slate tablets have been released with cameras, dual-core processors, Flash compatibility, etc. since the first iPad came out, none have been able to compete on price or features for that price.

Battery life is rated at the same 10 hours as the first model and is still better than anything else out there.

Prices are in line with the older models with the 16GB wifi-only version at $499.  32GB and 64GB wifi models are $599 and $699 respectively, add $130 for the 3G flavor of your choice.  As with iPhone refreshes, the previous low-end model will drop $100, making the original wifi-only 16GB iPad $399.

The iPhone4 has finally, officially come to Verizon.  Many have been waiting for years for Apple’s popular handset to be released on “the nation’s most reliable network”.  Many people will be switching for better coverage, some because they aren’t happy with AT&T’s customer service, but everyone will benefit from having some added competition and another carrier option for this device.

The phone is identical to the version on AT&T with three exceptions:

1. The metal band around the edge of the phone has gaps (just like the AT&T model), but they are in slightly different places.  This is not an upgrade; simply the band - which is actually the phone’s external antenna - is optimized for Verizon’s CDMA network.
2. The Verizon iPhone4 cannot simultaneously receive voice and data information.  This is a limitation of the CDMA network rather than of the phone itself.  AT&T’s GSM network can do this, and when Verizon, AT&T, and and other carriers move to next generation LTE technology, this limitation will no longer be an issue for any service provider.
3. Verizon’s iPhone4 will have a wireless hotspot feature.  This lets you use your phone as a wireless modem for your laptop, iPad or other wifi device.  Verizon’s iPhone4 ships with version 4.3 of iOS and rumor is that when AT&T’s iPhone gets updated, it will also have this function.  The simultaneous voice/data difference will affect the Verizon phone with this app as well.  If a call comes in while you are using it has a hotspot, your internet service will stop and the phone will ask if you want to answer the call.

There are a few other things to consider if you are thinking of making the switch to Verizon for the new iPhone.

1. Contract fees – AT&T’s fee for breaking a new smartphone contract is “$325 minus $10 for each full month of your Service Commitment that you complete.”  Most other carrier’s fees are similar for smartphones, so make sure you know how much it is going to cost you to break your existing contract.
2. Do not cancel your service before you switch.  You will want Verizon to be able to port your existing phone number – if you cancel your existing service beforehand, your number may become unavailable.
3. A new iPhone will be coming out in this summer.  Apple traditionally has these devices on a one year release cycle, making a new handset around June more than likely.  Rumors are flying about a dual band GSM/CDMA chipset for the next iPhone revision indicating that the same handset will be released to both carriers, and probably at the same time.
4. The iPhone4 is not an LTE device, therefore the “new 4G network” Verizon is advertising won’t make any difference to you.

A common complaint among laptop owners is short battery life.  Unless you are using a tiny netbook with a giant battery, or an expensive ULV (ultra low voltage) processor based laptop you could probably use some extra time between charges.  Let’s look at some cheap or even free ways to gain more power cord free computing time.

Dim your screen

The biggest power draw in any laptop is the LCD screen.  You will be surprised by the amount of extra battery time you can get by making an adjustment here.  Most laptops will have set of brightness up and down buttons (usually with a picture of the sun on them) among the function keys at the top of the keyboard.  Holding down the <Fn> key and hitting one of these buttons will let you adjust the brightness of the LCD backlight.  Set the display as dim as is comfortable and your battery will last longer.

Get a bigger battery

While this option isn’t available for all models, many laptops will accept an extended life battery pack.  If your laptop came standard with a 6-cell battery, you might be able to get a 9 or even 12-cell pack for it.  Larger batter = longer life.  This will add some weight and may not seat flush with the back of the laptop, but if you need more time, this is the most potent option.  In addition, some laptops may have a combo slot where a second battery can be installed instead of a CD or DVD drive.  Not many models offer this, but it is worth checking into.

Upgrade to an SSD

Screaming performance is not the only benefit of having a solid state hard drive.  While these are still expensive in terms of cost per gigabyte, they can boost your battery efficiency as well.  No moving parts means they don’t need as much power.

Adjust your power settings

Many manufacturers include power saving modes that will automatically reduce energy usage when the laptop is not plugged in.  If not, Windows has its own.  You can have the laptop dim the screen, power down the hard drive, throttle the CPU, or turn the screen off after a period of inactivity.  You can also have the system go to suspend or hibernation mode if it hasn’t been used for more than a few minutes.

Turn off your wifi

If you are not using the internet or any devices over your network, turning off the wireless radios will also help you gain time.  Most laptops will have either a small slider switch on the front or side of the unit, or a button above the keyboard for this.  Some may have a <Fn> button similar to the brightness control.  If not, you can always disable the wireless network adapter in the Network and Sharing center in Windows 7 or Vista or in the View Network Adapters screen in XP.

Cycle your battery

While the current generation of lithium ion batteries doesn’t develop a “memory” like the old NiCad models did, you can still lose some life after many partial charge/discharge cycles.  Once a month, let you battery run all the way down until the system shuts down and you may regain some life from an older battery.

Regardless of what kind of laptop you have, you should be able to squeeze some extra time out of it if you use one or more of these suggestions.  If your battery is 1.5 – 2 years old, it is normal for the life to be reduced to some extent and may need to be replaced in extreme short life cases.

The new service would be an extension of the Prime membership, an $80/year subscription that offers shipping perks such as free 2 day shipping and $4 per item overnight options.  The streaming service would offer 5000 titles commercial free at 480p resolution.