Freeze 'n' Breeze

The subject line might be confusing but to say really IE 8 Beta is back with an impressive update for a software that stagnated in Microsoft for the past years. Its more elegant and easier to use, while adding many of the missing features.

“The brand-new implementation of Standards mode in Internet Explorer 8 offers the best viewing experience of web pages created according to the latest web standards.” That means many of the web pages that include code custom tailored for IE won’t look very good, so you need to enable a compatibility view (for some reason, intranet sites are rendered in the compatibility mode by default). A post from March has more information about Microsoft’s decision to apply the standards mode by default.

IE8 adds support for suggestions in the search box and this is not restricted to Live Search. Microsoft lists many search providers that can be added: Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia and others. The new interface makes it easy to switch between search providers by clicking on the icons displayed at the bottom.

Another feature that should have been added to IE7 is inline search: now you can search inside a page from an elegant bar similar to the one from Safari.

Notepad wasn’t the best software for viewing the source code of a page, so IE8 includes a simple text viewer like Firefox and safari with syntax highlighting. Too bad that you can’t view the source code for selections.

A great feature from Google Toolbar allowed you to select some text from a web page and send it to Blogger, Gmail or other services. Microsoft added this feature and calls it “accelerator“. “Tired of cutting and pasting information from one website to another for everyday tasks? Now there’s a better way. Accelerators give you ready access to the online services you use everyday—from any page you visit.”

Firefox’s microsummaries didn’t become popular even if they solved an interesting problem: subscribing to frequently updated information like stock quotes or weather reports. IE’s web slices, based on the hAtom microformat, are more visually appealing, but I couldn’t find any interesting example in the gallery. Internet Explorer lets you add to the favorites bar heterogeneous subscriptions: bookmarks, feeds and web slices, even though the subscription process is not uniform. Like Firefox 3, the latest version of IE adds one-click bookmarking, visually represented by a star icon.

IE8 includes a security feature that will be rarely used for non-adult sites: private browsing. “InPrivate Browsing in Internet Explorer 8 similar to safari Private browsing that helps prevent your browsing history, temporary Internet files, form data, cookies, and usernames and passwords from being retained by the browser, leaving no evidence of your browsing or search history.” To use it, you need to click on Safety > InPrivate Browsing, which opens a new window where you can browse privately. To permanently use private browsing, edit IE’s shortcut and append -private in the target field (you could also type iexplore -private in the Run dialog or Vista’s search box).

Overall, this is a highly recommended update for IE7, even though you’ll find some sites aren’t displayed properly. Google Maps finally works well but igoogle sucks and some Google services like Gmail have minor interface problems. IE looks good again and I’ll probably try to use it again ….

But still all i want to ask one thing to the IE developer community
“What does IE8 have ” new “that I would have to leave Firefox for? “

Its always nice to see the search engine gaint comes up with new doodles on every special day in this world . Google is not only famous for their search engine but also for their Google Doodles which are cartoon modifications of the Google logo to commemorate special holidays, birthdays of famous people, and major events like the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.This is the new way to cover the viewers by changing logo. Even if we forget to search the on going Olympic result yet the logo remind us to search the Olympic news because the styles of the logos have been designed simply attractive and enjoyable as the Olympic Games.

However, these logos do not make any different in us but it is sure that it will deprive some seconds of us. Although changing the logos doesn’t make any different for Google yet they are doing to attract the viewer and Olympic fan is a great job.

Who is behind all this ?

These logos are created by Dennis Hwang , a 29-year-old Korean computer artist in the United States, who has been drawing the face of Google for almost eight years, creating a buzz of sorts with his simple yet witty designs.
if you want to know more of him visit http://artkami.blogspot.com/2008/01/dennis-hwang-google-logo-designer.html

HI friends i am back again after almost a month gap from my previous post . This time i am not going to discuss anything techie but all about my worst experience that i had in my brand new laptop.

Yup! Here the story begins . I brought a HP Compaq laptop a month ago in India ( Compaq presario C700 ) . I took it with me to Australia . For the first two days, it was perfect in all aspects but it was on the third day ,when i was editing the word documents, all of a sudden my laptop went on to the blue screen ( Blue screen of death ) and got shutdown .

For those who haven’t known whats is “blue screen death” …

“The Blue Screen of Death (also known as a stop error, BSoD, bluescreen, or Blue Screen of Doom) is an error screen, frequently displayed by certain operating systems, most notably Microsoft Windows, after encountering a critical system error which can cause the system to shut down to prevent damage.

Bluescreens on NT-based Windows systems can be caused by poorly written device drivers or by a malfunctioning hardware. In the Win9x edition, incompatible DLLs or bugs in the kernel of the operating system could also cause bluescreens. Sometimes, when the CPU is hit by any meanss, the computer may restart and shows the BSoD.”

To my suprise , i didn’t install or update any software, still it sucked. I rang the customer care and i explained the issue to them and i was said there was a fault in the Hardware ( some driver ) and they assured me to replace the faulty part with a new one. It took 5 days to get my laptop serviced.

Should i be so proud saying that Compaq services were so good that they didnt charge me ,neither for the service nor for the replacement of the faulty part or rather should i think why such a brand new laptop would get faulty which was hardly 2 days old ? .

HP being one of the most popular competitor in LAPTOP market has produced a question in me whether it could really go for its product quality in the future to come or Myself towards good quality laptop manufacturers.

Testing a products basically involves two major things .

Verification testing - has the functionality been implemented correctly ?

validation testing - has the correct functionality been implemented ?

I feel testing deparment should concentrate on the products before they are into the market or HP can never win the trust of its band among the people. Its not wise to blame all the manufacturer associated with HP . Its all under the name “HP” and its HP who should take the complete responsibility . Quality can never be compromised at any point , big or small ,an issue should be taken seriously.

Lesser the calls in customer service better the product in market .

Hope HP takes this seriously. comments welcomed