Friday May 20, 2011
If your answer is yes then I recommend you immediately jump ship. Dubbed as one of the 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time, Internet Explorer 6 or IE6 has been riddled with security flaws, lack of standards compliance, and abandonment by web developers and companies on the web.
Internet Explorer 6 was originally released by Microsoft in 2001 shortly after Windows XP. About 4% of my site visitors are still using a 10-year-old piece of software to browse the web. Are you one of those users?
Upgrade or Find an Alternative
IE6's lack of standards support and leaky code gave alternative browsers like Firefox and Opera a huge boost in user base, eventually Google released their own browser dubbed Chrome, which brings simplicity and standards compliance to a new level.
To combat the growing popularity of alternative browsers, Microsoft set out to release a new streamlined, standards compliant browser which they introduced to Windows users earlier this year as Internet Explorer 9.
Upgrade Internet Explorer
If you choose to head towards the upgrade path, that is stick with Internet Explorer. You will need to make sure that you are using at least Windows Vista (no support for XP) with the latest security updates.
To upgrade you can download Internet Explorer 9 manually or you can run Windows Update and get IE9 with other updates.
Alternative Browsers
If your computer is still Windows XP-powered or you are looking to try a different browser, you will find that there are four great alternatives to Internet Explorer for Windows.
Whichever choice you make it does not matter, so long as you stop using Internet Explorer 6 to browse the web. I personally use all browsers above and prefer Chrome on my Mac and Internet Explorer 9 on Windows.
Which is your favorite?
Monday May 16, 2011
If web searches on your Windows PC are powered by Bing you're going to find Bing's latest search results a bit more social. Today Bing announced the inclusion of what they call the "Friend Effect" into their search results.
This essentially means that whenever you search for something using Bing, you will be presented with a list of results that include social cues from your Facebook network.
If your uncle "Liked" a particular hotel in Facebook where he stayed last year during Memorial day weekend, and you happen to stumble upon the same hotel while searching for hotel deals, you will see your uncle's "Like" appear next to the search result.
The same applies to other search results for companies, restaurants, and places that your social network has "Liked."
Research shows that 90% of people seek advice from family and friends in the decision-making process, so tying Facebook's social graph to Bing's search results makes a heck of a lot of sense.
What do you think? Should search results be influenced by what your family and friends "Like" on Facebook?
Friday May 13, 2011
If you are a huge fan of Windows 7's theme feature, you are going to love a crop of new themes available for download from Microsoft in commemoration of Spring.
Themes range from the Small World Theme that showcases blossoming buds, leaves, and foraging bees - to a theme chockful of biodiversity from the Galapagos island chain.
If you prefer to surprise yourself twice a week, then you can sign up for Bing's Dynamic RSS theme which changes your Windows 7 wallpaper twice a week. Currently the feed contains over 50 different images and counting.
Once you download one of the linked themes, you will need to follow the instructions in the How to Change Your Windows 7 theme guide to use the themes.
Tuesday April 12, 2011
Are you looking for a way to run your favorite Android Apps on your PC? Although it may seem that running Android on a PC is not an optimal solution, you may want to consider this scenario if you're using a computer with limited system resources i.e. slow CPU, small amount of memory, etc.
In this scenario porting Android Apps to Windows solves that problem because you get to use your favorite Android applications on your PC without taxing the system's resources.
So if you like the idea of running Android on your Windows PC to get some more life out of your old computer or because you think it would be cool to run Android outside of a phone, then you should check out BlueStacks.
BlueStacks is a Windows application which allows you to run a virtualize copy of Android on your PC. The neat thing about this software is that it allows Android to share drivers between Windows and Android, this means that you can print from the Android OS or make calls using Skype's Android application with VOIP drivers in Windows. BlueStacks should be available later this year.
Other than the enthusiast who would want to run Android on a PC for the sake of running it and Android developers, I can't see a reason why anyone would run Android on their PC's. What do you think? Would you want to run Android on your Windows PC?
