I go here, I go there, I go pretty much everywhere.
Since I’m going to spending some time over here using the Eee PC, I figure I might as well make the most of it. that end I’m going to be talking about a few things for the next little bit. Things I’m trying, using and maybe think are a little weird, much like the like placement of the right shift key on this keyboard. But more like:
- Firefox vs. Webkit (safari/chrome) vs. IE
- Windows Live Writer
- Open Office
- Video processing
- Using different kinds of media
Watch this space for more. and don’t mind the odd uncapitalized word here are there. especially if the letters come from the left side of the keyboard.
After a brief email exchange with Mr. IE6 earlier this morning, I decided to cruise through the server logs here, here and here to see what browsers all y’all have been using to access everything. And, if I’m honest, I was shocked.
There are still more of you that are using out of date browsers than not. And, not just IE. Over at WRR, the bulk of IE users (20% of the 37.8%) are still using IE6. 3.5% of IE users are still using something older than that, but I have a feeling those might be bots that haven’t updated their user-agent string.
For Firefox, it’s 9.1% of the 11.8% that are using version 3 or better. That’s a little bit better. Opera (less than 1%) does not report it’s version, neither does Safari (5.8%), but Netscape (less than 1%) does. Honestly, Netscape 5?
I don’t mean to beat a dead horse here, but there is a reason internet browsers get upgraded, and there is a reason why you should take the few minutes to upgrade yours. There are patches that keep bad guys off of your system. There are stability improvements. Rendering improvements. UI improvements. All of these things are done to make your internet experience better and safer.
If you are stuck in an office with Internet Explorer v6 or older, you are stuck. You can ask your admins for Firefox since an IE upgrade will probably break an application used by your company. If you are a home user running Windows that is not XP or Vista, then you are also stuck with IE6.
Follow the jump for some suggestions. (Read on…)
In case you missed this over at TUAW this morning.
A zero-day vulnerability in Safari that could litter a user’s desktop (or downloads folder) with arbitrary files is a serious security flaw, argues ZDNet, and not a mere “annoyance” as Apple claims.
In theory, a user must click a link to visit a malicious website that can begin downloading arbitrary files (including applications) to the user’s computer without their permission. The problem affects both the Windows and Mac versions of Safari.
If you are using Safari (Mac or Windows), just be careful where you click. And be sure to pass this along to your other Safari using friends that you know don’t read any of ‘the blogs’.
The Lad’s mom was just here for the weekend. What a nightmare. But, instead of dredging that up, I shall instead take this time to tell you why I’m not going to be able to use Safari full time. It’s pretty easy, really. And I can sum it up for you into one word.
Gmail.
Huge fan of the Gmail I am. In fact, it’s the only thing that I have found that can actually manage the volume of email I have to sort through. Including the over 15K pieces of spam I receive every month. Nothing else even comes close.
Well, Google, in their infinite wisdom, has been making changes. Changes that are actually pretty cool but, and you probably saw this coming, don’t work with Safari. The big one is auto-complete.
I use auto-complete exclusively for filling in the To:, CC: and BCC: boxes. Without fail. 100% of the time. But one of the changes in Gmail has made that feature no longer work in Safari.
That’s ok, since I’ve been using IMAP and Mail.app, right?
Not so much.
IMAP in concept is a great idea. All of your email stored on a server and you can access it with a client on your desktop. Bonus with Gmail is that you can access with a kick ass web client as well. The problem, for me, is that is too slow. Or I have too many labels (folders for you desktop app users). And Spam is handled weird.
I can deal with the slow. But when I’m not notified of a new message because it is in the bottom of my label list, that is a bit of a pain in the arse. But, I do now exactly how many spam messages I have, always staring at me from the dock. Sure, I could turn that off and only have notifications about messages in my inbox, but what about the labels? This is problematic for me.
So, what I have done, is turned firefox into my web-based application running app. I’m still using Safari for general browsing, but for email (Gmail), news (Google Reader) and FTP (leave me alone about anything because I have tried them all and they all suck), I’m using FireFox. All set to tabs that open when it starts.
Now if the Mozilla guys could make FF run as fast as Safari under Leopard I would be a VERY happy guy.
