Tag Archive for: Technology

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Please Stop Using Internet Explorer

Dear Internet Users Across the World,

Please stop using the horrible piece of software that came pre-installed on your PC known as Internet Explorer. Not only do you make the job of web designers a lot harder each and every day you use it, but you also leave yourself more open to attacks from malicious websites. I recently spent several hours over a few nights fixing a computer for my sister and brother-in-law because they were infected with a nasty bug that they got while using Internet Explorer. If they were using Firefox they would not have installed the ActiveX and gotten the bug, but they weren’t so they did. IE fails at security and fails at complying with web standards.

My beef used to be with the people who still use Internet Explorer 6, even though 7 has been out for well over a year now. Now my beef is with anyone who continues to use IE at all. I’ll tell you why. Microsoft had the chance to make IE7 standards compliant. What that means is it would properly render pages that were coded to the standards and rules set forth by the web development community to make the best looking and most usable websites possible. They didn’t. While it was better than 6, it was far from the other web browsers, such as Firefox or Safari. The first release candidate of IE8 recently came out. Again, they had the chance to make it standards compliant. They failed again. That makes the job of web developers harder. Now they have to support 3 versions of IE, each one supporting different standards that Microsoft decided it wanted to follow, and not true web standards. Please do yourself a favor and see the web the way it was meant to be seen. Use Firefox (or Safari, Google Chrome, Opera, etc). Thanks.

Your friendly neighborhood Web Developer and Family Computer Help Desk,
Mike Schepker

The Future of Television

It really is an interesting time for television. The traditional way we watch TV has changed over the years. We started out with over the air programming to cable and satellite programing, and now we have internet TV and on-demand programming at the touch of a button. I can see why the TV networks were scared of this future. It’s hard to create a pricing structure for traditional TV when more and more people are using alternative methods to watch their favorite shows.

I recently installed the beta version of Boxee to see what all the twitter hype was about. Boxee gives you a true entertainment experience to enjoy your movies, TV shows, music and photos, as well as streaming content from websites like Hulu, Netflix, CBS, Comedy Central, Last.fm, and flickr. No longer are we confined to what the cable companies give us. We have many options to choose from, with more and more being added everyday. Tv.com is becoming a huge portal for on-demand streaming content and I wouldn’t be surprised to see that service added to Boxee. We also see more and more dvd players and TVs with Netflix streaming ability built in. I think it’s great that the major networks are finally jumping on board with the on-demand streaming of programs. What have they got to lose? They are gaining advertising dollars. Now people have a legal place to watch their favorite shows. Hulu was an excellent start and ABC’s HD streaming of Lost is fantastic.

I think we will see more and more televisions and media devices (such as DVRs, game systems, and DVD players) with built in streaming technology in the very near future. Eventually, I envision a TV with a single DVD player box that allows for all the services like DVR, Netflix, and internet streaming all tied into one. It will be exciting to see where all the technology goes.

Windows 7

Microsoft is releasing a beta version of Windows 7 for public download today, but this post isn’t about that. This post is about what Microsoft needs to do when Windows 7 is officially launched.

It is no secret that Vista was a failure. Businesses have held off on installing Vista, so much that the big PC manufacturers have gotten Microsoft to extend the life of XP several times. Consumers, many of whom only got Vista because it was preinstalled on their new PCs, have been unhappy with Vista’s performance. It has turned me off of Windows so much that my next desktop computer will be an iMac, and I already have a MacBook. Microsoft needs to do something to please the customers or many more will jump ship.

Since Microsoft has said that Windows 7 will fix all the complaints with Vista, Windows 7 should be an extremely cheap (less than $100), if not free, upgrade for Vista users. Really, when you see how terrible of an OS Vista is compared to XP, Microsoft should look at all Vista users as beta-testers for Windows 7, because essentially, Vista was no better than a beta product. So, when Microsoft releases the “best version of Windows ever” (which they also said about Vista), they need to hand it out as a free upgrade to all Vista users. If they don’t do something to save the public image of Windows, they are going to create many more Mac users.

Outlook 2007

I use Microsoft Outlook 2007 at work for our work email. It’s an exchange account so I had to use it over other mail clients. I’ve grown to like it over the past year, but I never used it for anything other than email. I don’t keep a calendar at my work, nor do I save contacts in the address book, no I never used the program to its full potential.

Last week my Gmail account was hacked (still not sure exactly what happened) so I wanted to create a new email address to start using to replace Gmail. I will probably never stop using my Gmail account, but I will use the new email address I created for my more pertinent information. I decided to sign up for a Mobile Me account. I never would have even considered paying for an email account in the past, but since I got my iPhone I’ve been looking for an easy way to keep my calendars, email, and contacts all in one place. I could sync the calendar on the iPhone with Google Calendar, but only if I synced it with my MacBook first. I wanted something that would sync my calendars over the air. Mobile Me became that answer. I still have to open up my MacBook for it to sync with Google, but I don’t have to sync my iPhone to it anymore. Now my iPhone syncs with my PC only.

I decided to setup the Mobile Me account on my PC in Outlook and have it sync my contacts and calendars as well. While the Mobile Me website is a nice looking website, I don’t want to have to log in to webmail whenever I want to check email. In the past, using Gmail, I didn’t mind because Gmail login was integrated with all my other Google services and I have a Gmail notifier installed in Firefox. Outlook 2007 is much better than I would have ever thought. After all, it is a Microsoft product and I am beginning to loathe everything about Microsoft. They actually did do something right for once though. Outlook 2007 is better than 2003 by leaps and bounds, and Mobile Me works quite well with it. There were a few weird inconsistencies with deleted items appearing with just a line struck through it, but I believe I fixed that issue and everything should be working great now.

Customer Service

My MacBook developed a crack along the wrist rest due to the lid’s impressions on the surface. It was a common problem with the model that I have and is covered under the AppleCare plan. The same thing happened to a friend of mine and several other people on the internet. It was one of those flaws that were just cosmetic and didn’t inhibit the use of the computer.

This past weekend I finally had time to take it to West County Mall’s Apple store to get it fixed. I made an appointment with a Genius and they took a look at it, gathered information and grabbed the part from the back before anyone else could. The Genius told me it would be ready in 2-3 days. I was kind of bummed because I heard reports of it taking 20 minutes if they have the part in stock. Apparently they were quite busy with repairs. So, I leave expecting it to take 2-3 days. 3 hours later I get a call from the Apple store telling me it’s ready to be picked up. I hate fanboys as much as anyone, but I can see why people like Apple so much. People rave about the customer service they experience when buying an Apple product and now I can too.