IE Loses More Ground to Firefox and Safari October 11, 2006
Posted by techgrrl in SharePoint.1 comment so far
According to the latest browser statistics, Internet Explorer’s market share has fallen to 82.10 %, a drop of almost 5 percentage points from this time last year. Firefox has 12.46% and Safari’s at 3.53%.
On page 3 of the book CSS Web Design For Dummies, the author, Richard Mansfield boldly declares the end of the browser the wars. He declares that users of non-IE browsers
“are accustomed to the penalties for sticking with a fringe browser.”
I don’t think so.
Of course, IE could correct itself when IE 7 releases later this month. Either way, Microsoft has worked hard to make IE 7 more standards compliant. Microsoft has listened to its corporate customers who tell them they want to build standards compliant Web sites. And that’s why IE 7 is more standards compliant and software like SharePoint vNext works in IE, Firefox, and Safari. Even Microsoft knows that alienating site developers isn’t the way to endear itself to the community.
Get the Beta While the Gettin’s Good October 10, 2006
Posted by techgrrl in SharePoint, Windows Vista.add a comment
You will no longer be able to download the Office 2007 beta bits from the Office 2007 preview site after October 25. That’s the date Microsoft has announced it will release Office 2007 to manufacturing. If you want to check out any of the new Office clients or get a sneak peak at Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, I suggest you download it now.
I imagine the same advice goes for Vista.
There’s a New Feed Reader in Town October 10, 2006
Posted by techgrrl in Web 2.0.2 comments
I’ve been in the market for a new feed reader for a while now. A feed reader is software that can display the posts from a Web site or Web log. The Web site or Web log publishes its posts (usually the most recent) to a file using a special format called RSS. A feed reader subscribes to the RSS file and displays its contents. I prefer readers that display feeds in an Inbox, similar to e-mail.
I started out using Outlook 2007. Too buggy. Then I switched to NewzCrawler, which has some neat features. But I’m not convinced I want to pay $25 for them and besides, I really want something integrated with my existing software. I started using IE 7 last week, and I’ve been quite pleased to have feeds, favorites, and tabbed browsing all in a single interface. Enter Google Reader, the newest entry to feed reading and I find myself tempted.
Google Reader’s interface is similar to Gmail, which I’ve been using for the past year or so. I definitely liked Gmail better than Yahoo! Mail beta, but I ultimately switched to Outlook 2007 from Gmail. In the end, I didn’t like reading e-mail in a Web browser. For starters, I wanted my e-mails on my local hard drive. Secondly, I don’t like having all the noise of a Web browser framing my e-mails.
I’m currently reading feeds using a browser. IE 7’s organizing capabilities aren’t as strong as Google Readers, although I wish Google Reader had a way to do folders. The feature that really stands out for me is the ability to share feed posts on a public Web page. (Check it out.)
I’m going to give Google Reader a whirl and see if I like it better than IE 7. If so, it could be too bad for IE7. I actually stopped using FireFox for about a week.
