Over the last few months I have installed more beta software on my main machine than I should have. This is always a risky proposition and on occasion this glut for knowledge can back fire. The two worst beta offenders have been IE8 and the now obsolete Silverlight 2 beta. Both products have combined to waste hours of my time during the initial use and subsequent uninstallation process.

As you can imagine I have been very reluctant to put any more new beta software on my PC (I should really start using Virtual PCs). One ray of light in the recent installation wars has been my adoption of Google Chrome. I have been really impressed by how snappy it is and when I saw that it has a task manager for plug-ins that are running in the browser there was no looking back!

I  have been convincing myself that this is not a beta because it does not say so in the about screen. However, any version number under 1.0.0 cannot surely be anything else. Either way Chrome is giving me significantly less problems than IE8 and may actually be better than FireFox, and for that I will remain eternally grateful.

During the WWDC Steve Jobs announced that it will be launching a a version of its Safari web browser for windows. I think it is a logical step for them with iTunes software on so many machines out there it seems like a reasonable base from which to spread a browser into the Windows space.

Performance claims suggest that Safari will be twice as fast as IE running on XP and Vista. I am wondering if we have room for another browser in the Windows arena, there are so many already. My anecdotal beliefs are that FireFox has had much more direct impact on its predecessors than directly on IE, and if someone wants an alternate to IE then FireFox, and not Safari, will be the choice.

Working for Corillian\CheckFree our clients directly support Safari on Macs I am wondering if this will automatically be the case for Safari on PCs.

IE7 has a reassuring color scheme dedicated to those users who just want a gentle safety reminder for the sites they visit. I have noted previously of web sites that spoof the real thing. This could be catastrophic for someone logging into, for example, PayPal. Even if the site were simply for your email, Imagine the havoc that could be unleashed if someone were to get your email password for just 12 hours. So all IE7 users should bear in mind the following security color schemes:

Red
The certificate is out of date, invalid, or has an error.

Yellow
The authenticity of the certificate or certification authority that issued it cannot be verified.

White
The certificate has normal validation. This means that communication between your browser and the web site is encrypted.

Green
The certificate uses extended validation. This means that communication between your browser and web site is encrypted and that the certification authority has confirmed the web site is owned or operated by a business that is legally organized under the jurisdiction shown in the certificate and on the Security Status bar (a nice extra step).

It should be noted that even if the connection between your computer and the web site is encrypted, it does not guarantee that the website itself is trustworthy. Any knuckle head can get a URL and pay for a secure certificate. Your privacy can still be in jeopardy if the web site owners are fraudulent or simply do not take the time to secure your information.

"We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits." - W. Somerset Maugham

I had my prayers answered when Don sent this link. IE Inline search is here and works just like Firefox. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever" To be fair they should have released this with IE7 but I will not complain in this post!

IE7 is officially cool...I think it is ok to simply say IE7 is a good browser. I had been holding my breath waiting for the inevitable security update that would herald IE as just another piece of garbage teetering on the border between security and anarchy. Alas IE7 seems very solid.

"Books, the children of the brain." - Jonathan Swift

I still like it ... I really do. In my last post I wanted to be able to import my feed list from FeedReader, after a quick export of the OPML file, importing to IE7 was really easy.

I found this step-by-step process for backing up\importing feed lists to\from an OPML file in IE7:

- Click on the Add button (the star and plus button next to the Favorites Center button -- Alt-Z is the keyboard shortcut).
- Click on Import and Export in the menu.
- In the wizard, select Export\Import Feeds from the list of options and click Next (You will need to export a list from you current aggregator)
- Select where you would like to (put\get) the file to be import.
- Finish up the wizard.

Upon installing it the second time I also noticed that I agreed to install the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool. A vision of a Microsoft Tool used to detect malicious Microsoft software sprung to mind. Software originating from the same company rejecting itself as malicious ... maybe not but how hilarious would that be?!

Also be advised that this new version is set to be forced down our throats as automated update. While this may be fine for most casual users it is important to realize that many companies may want significant testing before letting this IE7 lose in the wild. Microsoft has provided a toolkit to stop the automatic delivery of IE7.

"My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of the pessimists." - Jean Rostand

I think I may be the last person with any "tech sense" to use IE 6 for personal use. I have stuck with it mainly because of some twisted sense of allegiance. However, I have come to the conclusion that unless IE gives the ability to do inline searches I will have to assiduously (I have been trying to use this word for weeks) avoid it.

Firefox has the page search feature perfected. As soon as you hit CTRL-F it brings up a Toolbar at the bottom of the page that does not disturb the natural flow of your work. As soon as I begin to type, it begins to highlight the first instance of the search or goes red to indicate that the search has no hits.

It just makes sense. Does IE7 have this, I doubt it ... I just doubt it.

I have always carefully selected the home page of my preferred browser, and the choice for me represents an alignment, almost like choosing sides in a playground scrimmage. It is a daily reminder on who I have informally decided to support in those office discussions on what services you prefer.

I should start by giving a brief history of my home pages, and there have been only a few.

1. www.AltaVista.com - Coming out of college this was the standard in our Coventry (England) office for web searches.
2. www.Yahoo.com - I quickly realized that there were superior search engines in play and upon arriving on the shores of the US Yahoo quickly became tops.
3. www.MSN.com - After getting a Hotmail account it just seemed like a logical step ... this only lasted a couple of months though. I was able to pull together information that MSN endorsed but the overall choice was limited and the search engine was garbage.
4. www.Google.com - I think most techies are still on the Google band wagon, and as a pure search engine it is still the defacto standard.
5. www.Google.com (Customized home page) - With the advent of Web 2.0* Google really started pulling all my information needs together. It gave me complete choice of what information to pull in ... Good times, good times.

I have recently been looking closely at the live.com experience and I must say that it is truly awesome. Its use of Ajax is slick, I can create gadgets and macros to pull information from disparate sources. I do not have to wait for someone else at MS to have a good idea, I can search what other people are using, or do it myself. For example, I wanted to still access my Google mail account (which I intend to keep), well some one created a gadget that would allow me to preview Gmail from live.com. I love it! I am hoping to create a dictionary widget so that I can query directly to dictionary.com, no one seems to have done that yet.

Coupled with the vastly improved search engine (there is also a gadget for Google search) I am almost completely back in the Microsoft camp ... almost!

* - I will not worry about a true definition of Web 2.0 no one can seem to agree.