But then iTunes for Windows came out and that’s what really made me a iPod fan. Not the iTunes store (which I avoided for the longest time), just iTunes as jukebox software that could manage my iPod. The killer feature for me was the smart playlists. They’ve evolved over time but here’s an overview of a few I have now. Screenshots are from iTunes for Mac but they should apply just fine to iTunes for Windows.

Rating Songs

I rely on the song ratings for some of my playlists so some background is in order. Every song is rated 2 to 5 stars but it’s not true that I like every 5 star some better than every 4 star.

A song with two stars means I don’t like it. It’s probably not synced to my iPod although there are exceptions if I like the song when played as part of an album but don’t want it to play outside the album.

Every song starts with 3 stars. Five stars means I like it more than most for that genre or artist.

Four stars means I liked it more than most. I may rate a song 4 stars instead of 5 if I have too many five stars for the artist.

One star isn’t used for songs, it means it’s spoken word and I’ve already listed to it.

Smart Playlists

Smart Playlists are created by selecting “File -> New Smart Playlist…” from the menu. They can be edited by right-clicking the list and selecting “Edit Smart Playlist”. Click the thumbnails for for full size images.

All Music

For the mother of all playlists I start with one called “Music Only”. This one is set up to only include songs and exclude everything else. If new file types are added I have to change it but at least I only have to change it in one place. All my playlists are set to include only checked items as shown here. If I don’t want a song on my iPod I uncheck it in iTunes.

While “Music” can be selected as a playlist this indicates what iTunes sees as the Music library. In my case this isn’t just songs so I need the Music Only playlist.

List of 5’s (by LRP)

This is an example of a playlist that uses my ratings, the All Music playlist and presents me the songs that I haven’t heard in awhile at the top of the playlist. In this case the “by LRP” means “by Least Recently Played”. The playlist criteria is shown in the screenshot. As you can see from the screenshot it picks files with a five star rating and is limited to my “Music Only” playlist so I’ll only get music.

It’s not checked, but you’ll see it’s set to limit to 700 items based on least recently played. This is a holdover from when my music didn’t all fit on my iPod. Checking the box would limit the playlist to the 700 songs and if this playlist was set as the sync criteria only those songs would sync.

As for the Least Recently Played Piece…

Save the Smart Playlist then sort by the “Last Played” field in iTunes by clicking on it until it’s sorted least recent to most recently play. If you need to add the field right-click the field header bar and select it from the list. The playlist will sync to the iPod in this order (at least it does for my 5G iPod) and any field can be sorted. Click the first column (numbers - no title) to return to manual sort.

I have similar playlists for my other ratings. It’s convenient to listen to songs of a certain rating and change the rating if my tastes have changed.

Best of…

I have numerous “Best of” playlists for specific artists. There are minor differences between the way they’re set up in order to either keep the number of matched songs relatively low or provide enough songs for a playlist. But they’re all basically the same and the screenshot to the left shows the basic playlist. Some artists may be limited to 5 stars while others may include songs from various bands they were in, which is covered in the next section.

Similar to the best of for artists I also have best of genre playlists. Simply pick Genre as the criteria instead of artist.

Grouping

The properties of every song contains a Grouping field on the info tab. This can be used to contain the artist name if they were in various bands. The example shows Buddy Holly entered into a song done by The Crickets.

To create a Best Of collection for Buddy Holly I can use the Group field and avoid some complex nested playlists. Smart Playlists can only “match all” or “match any” which can be limiting at times. The criteria is “contains” because there may be cases where several artists I like are in the same group and I want those songs to appear in each of their own playlists.

Unrated Songs

When I add a song to the iTunes library the first thing I want to do is rate it. So I have a playlist setup to identify unrated songs. This way I can easily play the songs and rate them. No star is selected, if you accidentally click a star you can clear it my clicking at the very left edge of the field.

One thing to keep in mind - if you are playing the list in iTunes and rate a song it will immediately drop off the list, even if it’s playing. If it’s the one playing then all playback stops. To prevent this uncheck “Live Updating” or do what I do and rate the song when it’s done playing. Songs can be rated on the iPod without affecting playback.

Playlist of Selected Podcasts

I like listening to podcasts while driving to work in the morning. I have a smart playlist set up that contains the podcasts I like to start the day with.

Podcasts can be selected by using the Album field.

Amazon MP3 Store

For me, the Amazon MP3 store has become a place to buy music since it’s all DRM-free and in many cases cheaper than iTunes. This smart playlist identifies the music that was bought from Amazon.

My Favorite Playlist

This is my most used playlist. I like the constant refresh of the music I listen to even if it does take several months to get through everything. Still, this playlist doesn’t contain every song. It’s limited to 250 songs so I can still do random play and only get older songs. It also excludes Classical and Jazz since I only listen to those when I’m in the mood for them. It also excludes all those lowly 2 star songs. Some people like shuffle but I prefer this list.

As for where I came up with the 250 number. It’s approximately how many songs I’d have to listen to each week to make it through the entire collection in 6 months.

Additional Playlists

Theses playlists are variations on the above themes so don’t really require any explanation once you see the criteria. Hover your mouse over each thumbnail for the list description and double click it to view if your interested.

ShareThis

In Google Reader click on Manage Subscriptions at the bottom of your subscriptions list (or click on Settings long the top).

Then click Import/Export from the settings menu. You’ll see the screen shown below.

Click on the Export you subscriptions as an OPML file link and save the file to your hard drive. If your using Safari or any other browser that auto saves the file will be called google-reader-subscription.xml.

I decided to set up my feeds in the NewsGator web. I already had an account from an earlier trial of their software and I remembered the password.

Once you have the account click on the Manage Feeds link then select the URL & Import tab. Then click on Import followed by the Chose File button. Select the file you saved from Google Reader and click Import. These are shown in the next screenshot. follow the numbers.

The import maintained my Google Reader folder structure.

Each of the clients also has the ability to import the OPML file if you don’t want or need the web service. If you have multiple Macs you can sync using .Mac instead of the NewsGator web service.

The biggest thing Newsgator/NetNewsWire has going against it for me is I “grew up” with Google Reader. I had about a dozen feeds when I started using it and I’m now at 137. So my news reading conformed to the Google way as I expanded. I need to re-train my muscle memory but I found that NetNewsWire for the Mac was more in line with the way I’m used to than was FeedDemon for Windows.

One thing that jumped out at me is the ability to customize feeds in each client since it recognizing each client as a unique location. This will allow the feeds to be tailored to my environment, unlike Google’s every feed every place way of doing things. There’s still a web based feed reader for when it’s needed and everything has stayed nicely in sync so far.

You do not need to create the web account if you don’t want the web reader and don’t need to sync.

Shawn Blanc has a good review of NetNewsWire (the Mac RSS reader), written back in December. It’s based on the NNW 3.1 beta.

I couldn’t find any current and comprehensive reviews of FeedDemon (the Windows RSS reader), just lot’s of “it’s great” type comments. CNet made it an Editor’s Choice back in October 2006 as did PC Magazine in April 2006.

Any one else considering switching to the NewsGator/FeedDemon/NetNewsWire club now that membership is free?

ShareThis

iTunes 7.4.2 addresses an issue with creating ringtones using iTunes Plus song purchases and includes bug fixes to improve stability and performance.

Hey, it’s been over a week since the last update. Maybe all Mac software should have “broadband” as a requirement. It’s needed to download all these updates.

The update is available through Software Update or as a direct download. It’s 38MB for the Mac and 49MB for Windows.

Mac: http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/itunes742formac.html

Windows: http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/itunes742forwindows.html

ShareThis

Now, this morning Apple Software Update wants to push iTunes 7.4.1 to my iMac and it’s also described as an update to handle the new iPods and features. (Click the first thumbnail to see my update history) So there’s been two updates in less than 5 days.

The Apple download website no longer mentions the iTunes 7.4 update. (Click the left thumbnail to see the available download list from the Apple website.)

This leaves me wondering why and there’s no info from Apple’s website. Possibilities I can come up with include:

1. The original iTunes 7.4 update had problems and needed to be quickly replaced. Version 7.3 had problems but even that wasn’t updated this quickly.
2. Apple had to block a hack or vulnerability (are they blocking the ringtone tools now that they’re selling them for the iPhone?)
3. Apple didn’t have all the new features available at once so made a conscience decision to inflict two updates on customers.

Update: Engadget reports that 7.4.1 blocks a ringtone workaround from working going forward.

If I was a iPhone user that used any hacks or workarounds I think I’d hesitate before any update. This one would outright scare me as released to plug a hack.

But as a non-iPhone user I’m getting more than a little annoyed with Apple and all their updates. Two updates for the same software within the same week is either sloppy, incompetent or, if a conscience decision, abusive. Perhaps they should take a page from Microsoft and try to schedule updates to occur on the same day and only once or twice a month. They don’t even have to pick the same day each month. According to the download page at Apple they released 13 updates on 10 different days, often back to back. The 7th, 8th, and 9th each saw patches. This ignores a major security update on July 31st that most people probably didn’t get until August. Click the thumbnail to the left to see the update list.

By the way, iTunes Update 7.4 (and I assume now 7.4.1) contained a patch to a security vulnerability that Apple quietly stuck in. It’s not mentioned on the download pages or the description of the update. So from a security perspective you should update unless all your music files come from a trusted source. The vulnerability requires a malicious music file.

Is some sanity in the update releases an unreasonable request?

ShareThis

Safari on Windows seems to be targeted to future iPhone users even though Steve Jobs talked about Safari’s browser share and how it could grow. Steve also used iTunes as an example showing that they know how to write software for Windows. But it’s not like people flocked to iTunes to use it with something other than the iPod.

I suspect Safari on Windows has more to do with the iPhone and iPhone related apps than Apple’s attempt to bring their Safari to Windows as a standalone browser. It will be interesting to see if Apple tries to extend Safari as a cross-platform application environment for both OS X and Windows.

I installed Safari 3 beta on a couple of Windows XP SP2 PCs. On the first PC I skipped the option to install Bonjour (Apples file and device sharing). I ran some comparisons on this PC since it has Firefox 2 without any add-ins. Both browsers gave the appearance as having a similar response until I hit CNN.COM. Firefox slowed down and the CPU usage stayed around 16% while Safari’s CPU usage was 0% after the page load finished. From that point on Safari did seem faster. Maybe there is something to Apple’s claim that it’s faster than IE and Safari. I didn’t encounter any problems in my limited use on Windows except when it came time to write this post. I wrote it using Safari and the built-in Wordpress visual editor. It seemed to work OK up until the point of saving the post, where it lost some formatting.

The installation automatically imported all Firefox and IE bookmarks. Each gets their own bookmarks folder so they aren’t mixed together. Apple has kept the metal color scheme and OS X look in Safari. Which means it’s looks out of place and rather ugly on Windows. I also had to tweak the font smoothing and it still has the look of being “just not right” but this could just be a beta issue. While I like the Apple look on a Mac I’d prefer it be more Windows like when running on Windows.

I’ve always liked Safari on the Mac but used Firefox because of it’s cross-platform abilities and available add-ins, although Firefox seems to be developing some bloat and problems of it’s own (like high cpu usage at time). It still remains to be seen if I’ll switch to Safari, but at least now it’s a viable option. What about you, will you be going to Safari on Windows?

ShareThis

Several retailers are offering a competitive upgrade rebate of $40 along with a general CA rebate of $10 which means the $50 bundle can be had for the cost of shipping and tax (if they apply). You have to be willing to go through the hassle of two mail-in rebates and you do have to pay $50 up front. The rebates I’ve seen run through the end of June.

The USB drive is a nice small drive that slides into a credit card sized holder that makes it easy to carry. At least that’s what the picture makes it look like. CA Antivirus software usually shows up in the middle of the pack when reviewed and has passed the VB100 tests on Windows for the past couple of years. I don’t have any personal experience using their software.

CA is also offering additional rebates on other products including competitive upgrade rebates that end up giving you a free product. CA is currently consolidating their brands such as eTrust and PestPatrol and it appears these rebates are only being offered on the “CA” brand products. At least they’re the ones being promoted. It also seems to indicate that they consider the antivirus market pretty mature and they need to take customers from their competitors. They probably hope to make some money from unclaimed or denied rebates and that people will renew when the subscription is up.

CA isn’t software I’ve used and I haven’t purchased the bundle myself, but if your interested and can’t find it locally, or just want more information, it’s available from Tiger direct at CA Anti-Virus 2007 with 2GB USB Flash Drive.

I’m a software junkie so I’ll probably keep an eye out on my local retailer and pick up a copy if I see it. The USB drive itself seems worth the minimal cost and hassle. So, is this something you’d take advantage of to get the USB drive? Would you use theire software because of the deal?

ShareThis

The screenshot below shows the main screen (click image to load full size).

Clicking on a startup item shows you the information about it in the bottom pane. The information is similar to the information in file properties. You can disable a startup item by unchecking it. If Process Explorer is running you can view a startup item in AutoRuns then selecting Entry -> Process Explorer from the menu.

While the amount of information provided can be daunting at first, Autorun is an excellent tool you can use to see why your PC is running so slow or taking so long to boot. You can also easily troubleshoot performance and startup issues by disabling items temporarily.

You won’t use it a lot, but if you run or support Windows you’ll want AutoRuns in your toolkit. You’ll be amazed at how much garbage many applications load themselves when your Windows PC starts.

ShareThis

…a generic host process name for services that run from dynamic-link libraries (DLLs)

This isn’t much help. But Process Explorer For Windows is a free utility from Microsoft (that they inherited when they bought SysInternals) that can answer that question. Process Viewer for Windows can tell you what processes are managed by that process, and any other process. The screenshot below shows the main window with the lower pane enabled. The lower pane is off by default and can be shown by selecting View -> Lower Pane View from the menu or hitting <CTRL-L>.

(Click the image to view the large image)

Hovering your mouse over a process in the upper pane will show the services the process is using. Selecting/clicking a process will show it’s DLL’s <CTRL-D> or handles <CTRL-H> in the lower pane.

Double-clicking a process in the upper pane displays a multitude of properties about it.

Hitting <CTRL-I> displays System Information which is similar to task manager.

The Porcess Viewer for Windows provides more information that I’ll probably ever need, but maybe just enough to satisfy my curiosity. It’s another application worth having in the toolkit to troubleshoot a problem windows PC. It’s been updated for Windows Vista and is Vista compatable.

ShareThis

1. Start Avast AntiVirus
2. Select Settings from the menu
3. Select “Sounds” from the settings dialog
4. Click the “Settings” button (or just check “disable all sounds” and be done with it, if that’s what you want.)
5. In the “Program Events” window, scroll down until you find “avast! abtivirus”. These are all the Avast sounds. (Speaker icon means enabled)
6. The first one “Automatic VPS Update” is the “…database…updated” message I (and others) find annoying. Highlight this one and then select “none” from the sounds dropdown.
7. Make any other changes you want. Use the play button next to the sound dropdown to listen to the sound.
8. Click OK all the way out to save.

This is just the Windows XP Sound and Audio Device applet control panel so you can go through control panel to get to it.

If you want to later restore the sound it: C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\English\vpsupd.wav (assuming you use english and installed to the default location)

Here’s a screenshot…

This is for Avast 4.7.981 (although it’s been configurable on earlier versions too) running on Windows XP (but I suspect other supported OS’s are the same).

Avast AntiVirus is free for home, non-commercial use. They do require registration and a valid e-mail address (to send a registration key). The registration must be renewed every year. I’ve used the software for several years and do not get spammed by them.

ShareThis

You need to register to get a license key which is then good for 14 months. I’ve used the product for over two years and re-registering wasn’t a problem. They sell a full line of AV products so I assume they consider this a marketing expense. I give them credit and my thanks for making such a full featured product available for free.

They do offer a “Professional Version” for sale but the free version is not at all nagware or a severely limited product. A comparison with the Professional version is here. I’ve never run into a “You need the pro version for this, buy it now” type message when using Avast. The only mention is a “Buy Professional” menu selection. The online help does mention Professional only features but they aren’t identified as pro only which can be confusing.

Features includes:

• Resident scanner for for checking files and programs as they are accessed
• On-Demand scans of hard drives, network drives and removable media
• Resident scanners for E-Mail (Outlook, Outlook Express and others). Instant messaging, P2P, Network shield (protects against internet worms) and Web browsing.
• Scans inside .zip and other compressed files.
• You can’t schedule scans but there’s an anti-virus screen saver that will scan when the screen saver is activated.
• Virus definitions and program updates are downloaded automatically.
• Scans can be run a boot-time. They use the term “schedule” but this really means “set to run at next boot”.
• A virus recovery database is available. This collects information about your files (when your PC is inactive) on the theory this information may help repair an infected file.
• There’s logging and most other features you’d expect to find in a commercial product.
• Skinnable interface

The best thing I can say about this is that it works without being noticed. There’s no impact on performance which isn’t something I could say with Symantec when I used that. I don’t typically run into viruses but Avast successfully detected the Eicar test virus and then aborted the connection with the web page. It also correctly identified it as a test virus and not a real virus.

Check out Avast before spending money for AV on your home PC. Just because Symantec (or something else) comes with you PC doesn’t make it the best, just willing to pay your PC vendor the most for the privilege.

Links:
Avast (Alwil Software) Web Site: http://www.avast.com
Avast Personal Edition Page: http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html

ShareThis

The install was straight-forward but the Windows Defender installer again wanted to validate my copy of Windows. The license agreement is pretty short (as it’s a supplement to the XP license). It says you can only run on a licensed copy on Windows and that if the software breaks something or fails to remove spyware Microsoft isn’t liable. I chose the option to install definition updates only and not to join SpyNet. I let it scan my PC after installation. No reboot was needed.

Here’s the Windows Defender page on Microsoft’s Website.
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

The website promotes two free support incidents but I couldn’t find any information on what the incidents cover. Does it only cover issues with the program, would it cover spyware removal if Defender fails and would it cover repair if Defender breaks something? I would assume it covers the first and doesn’t cover the last. The one in the middle is a toss-up but I’d bet it doesn’t.

I’m glad to see Defender is still free now that it’s out of beta. The “Windows Genuine Advantage” really bugs me in general and really, really bugs me that it had to do it twice for one installation. I’ve never had Defender (or any other anti-spyware utility) find anything on my Windows PC so I can’t say how well it works. Maybe after the holidays I’ll go hunting for spyware to test it out. But I suspect the fact that Firefox is my browser and I don’t use Outlook Express or other Microsoft apps has more to do with the lack of spyware than anything else.

ShareThis

The client is version 2.2.29 and the server is version 0.920.

FileZilla Client Installation

I downloaded the install executable from the website and ran it. The first dialog boxes asks me to pick a language. The next asks me to agree to the GNU GPL Version 2, June 1991 license. Then I’m asked to pick my install type and I pick standard. Full and Custom are also available. The following installation options are available. The ones installed as part of a “Standard” install are in bold.

• FileZilla (required)
• Documentation
  • English
  • French
• Additional language files
• Source Code
• Start Menu Shortcut
• Desktop Icon
• Debug Files

According to the installer it will need 12.5MB of space which proves to be accurate.

Then I’m asked to pick the destination folder. I keep the default (C:\Program Files\FileZilla). I also keep the default for the Start Menu folder which is “FileZilla”. There’s also a check box to not create the shortcuts. Then the following screen is displayed.

I fire it up (no reboot was needed) and see the main screen. I enter in my sites address along with my ID and password along the top, click the Quickconnect button and get the connection. Port 21 was used by default, I didn’t have to fill it in. Moving files is as easy as drag and drop between the windows. My PC is on the left (Local Site) and my ftp site is on the right.

(Click the above picture to see it full size)

My needs are simple so I didn’t need to do a lot of digging around. But there’s extensive help available that covers using and configuring the program.

FileZilla Server

I download the install executable and run it. I’m asked to accept the GNU GPL on the first screen. The next screen presents the install options. They are:

1. FileZilla Server (Service)
2. Administration interface
3. Source Code
4. Start Menu Shortcuts
5. Desktop Icon

The “Standard” type installs everything except the source code. “Service Only” installs the Server Service and the Start Menu Shortcuts. “Interface Only” installs everything except the Server service and the Source Code. Full and Custom select everything for install. All types of installs allow selecting/deselecting any item. I pick the Standard Install which it says will take 7.5MB which proves to be accurate. I like the low disk usage, but since it’s a file server it’s rather meaningless as it’s the data files that will matter.

Then I’m asked for the destination and I keep the default C:\Program Files\FileZilla Server.

The I’m asked to pick the start up type:

• Install as service, started with Windows (default)
• Install as service, start manually
• Do not install as service, start server automatically (not recommended)

I accept the default recommendation.
The same server asks me to pick the port. I keep the default of 14147. The same screen let’s me pick whether or not to start the server after setup. I chose to start the server.

The next screen asks me how the server interface should be started. The options are:

• Start if user logs on, apply to all users (default)
• Start if user logs on, apply only to current user
• Start manually

I accept the default recommendation. I also chose to start the interface after setup completes.

The install then runs and I click close when it’s done.

Having selected the option to start the interface after setup I expected something to pop up. Nothing does. I have a “FileZilla Server Interface” icon on my desktop and a new icon in my system tray.
I click the Question mark icon and see the following screen:

I accept the defaults. The Server address is the loopback address (the PC I’m on). The password defaults to blank and the port is the same that was entered during the install. The following screen opens.

I pick “Edit -> Settings” from the menu and make the following changes:

• I change the Admin password (from blank)
• I note that the admin console can only be accessed from the local box (127.0.0.1) or by specific IP addresses listed and keep it that way.
• I enable logging and set it to use a new log file each day, deleting old files after 14 days.

I pick “Edit -> Users” and add a user.

I don’t see any mention of anonymous users in the settings. I try an anonymous connection and it fails. (Good)
In the setup I never saw a mention of a home directory. I also didn’t see any directory created on my PC. So I try connecting with the ID I just created (using the FileZilla client) and sure enough, I get a “550 Could not get home dir!” message and the connection fails.

When setting up the user I had seen a tab for “Shared Folders”. I had interpreted this to mean I could create aliases to have multiple users access the same folder. I thought that FileZilla might create the users home directory automatically. I guess not. So I go to Windows explorer and create a home directory for my FTP data and sub-directory under that for my user. Sure enough, as soon as I save I notice a button that says “Set As Home Directory” was just enabled. If I had noticed it earlier it would have been obvious. There’s already an “H” by the name of the directory I just set up so I’m done. The default permissions are read/list and +subdirs. I give my ID all other rights (add/delete/append). I’ll be needing these to do my backups.

I try the connection again and it works (using the FileZilla client on the same PC as the FileZilla server).

Now it’s the time for the real test. I head into my Mac and try a connection. No joy. Then I remember the windows firewall. Back to my laptop. I open up FTP port 21 in the Windows Firewall, but just for my local subnet. I try the connect again and I’m in.

I’m not really concerned with security. The Windows Firewall limits access to my local subnet and my home router doesn’t all the FTP port in from the Internet. If someone gets by all those they have to do it at a time when my laptop is powered up and running. And they all run DHCP so IP addresses change on a whim.

ShareThis

• Automatic Phishing Filter which is off by default. I turn it on.
• See Web Pages Clearly which is off by default. I turn it on. This is cleartype. The description says I can use the Cleartype Tuner to optimize the display. When I clink the tuner link it brings me to a web page to download and install. Seems to me it should already be part of the installation. I cancel and go back to the settings page.
• It wants my location and language and is prefilled with “English (United States)” which is correct.
• It asks if I want to be part of the “Customer Experience Improvement Program” which I decline. It claims to only send anonymous information to Microsoft. Considering their privacy policy says they can change it anytime, and their past history of not disclosing what they’re doing to collection information joining won’t give me anything and can only cause problems.

I save these settings. I’m then presented with a screen asking if I want to view a tour on IE 7, download add-ins or start browsing. I take the tour. It’s nothing more than a few screens. It mentions tabbed browsing, the “Favorites Center”, RSS Feeds and Security. It’s lacking in detail. I then go to the Add-ins. I was surprised on how many of the available downloads cost money. Many were free but many were from third parties and many of those had a cost associated. I’m used to Firefox where the extensions are free (at least the ones available from the Firefox site). I don’t install any add-ins. I shut down and restart IE and it displays the same homepage I had used in IE 6.

I imported my favorites from Firefox using the import feature in IE. (Firefox favorites are in \Documents and Settings\YourID\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ProfileName\bookmarks.html)

IE includes menu items to import cookies and feeds but neither of these can be imported from Firefox. I ran Microsoft Update. IE was released two days ago and there weren’t any updates, I’ll withhold comment on the user interface as it is different and I should use it before passing judgment. But some observations.

• The menu is off by default. To display it press the key. It can be permanently display by changing the configuration. It also takes getting used to the menu not being at the top of the window. Instead the address bar is at the top and the menu displays below it. I don’t see anyway to change this.
• Tabbed browsing is available. One difference between IE and Firefox is there’s a button to create a new tab right next to the tabs themselves. This seems a just a small bit easier for people using the mouse as it’s seems a bit easier to zero in and click it.
• There’s a “Favorites Center” which puts Favorites, Feeds and history in one sidebar. Seems like a good idea if you have the screen real estate to pin the sidebar so it’s always open. But if you lack the real estate I would think it would be cumbersome unless you always display the menu.

I haven’t come across anything that would cause me to replace Firefox as my primary browser. At least the tabbed browsing makes it bearable to use. I decided to use IE7 to do my web browsing for the next day or so. Here’s a couple observations:

• I went to one site that wanted Flash Player 9. It popped up a box asking of I wanted to install. I said yes, it seemed to install as a quick progress bar displayed, but no picture. I hit refresh and it wanted to install again. So I went to the same site I used to trigger the install under Firefox. In this case a pop up appeared before it displayed the site. It said Flash was needed and asked if I wanted to install. I did and the site soon displayed with Flash installed. Back to the first site and it was also using Flash now, not asking for an install.
• Clicking on “New” to create a new Doc in Google docs and then trying to change the title results in a message “This website is using a scripted window to ask you for information. If you trust this website , click here to allow scripted windows.” I clicked there and my only choice was to temporarily allow, which I did. I then clicked the Title again and changed it.

ShareThis