Keystone Blog

Firefox seems to always be striving to keep up with their big rival, Internet Explorer. With the release of Internet Explorer 8 just 3 weeks ago, Mozilla returned with an updated version of their current browser, now called Firefox 3.5.

The Mozilla Web browser is second most popular in the world, even though Firefox has the market share of about half that of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Firefox 3.5 has adopted a lot of the same features as Internet Explorer is so well known for. A new tab feature allowing you to manage your tabs easier than Firefox 3. Also like Internet Explorer, Firefox 3.5 offers a Private Browsing feature allowing you to conceal all history, cookie, search information, etc. for a particular site like your were never there. You can also manage your history much easier on the new Firefox by offering easy to use select history erase. Probably the most talked about improvement of Firefox 3.5 is its speed. Because Mozilla created a new JavaScript engine, they claim it has improved Firefox’s speed times three from Firefox 3 and times ten from Firefox 2.

Being available for Windows, Mac, and Linux gives Firefox a leg up on Internet Explorer (which is not available for Mac users). The new Safari 4 claimed 11 million downloads after just three days. Today, Firefox 3.5 hit 4.3 million downloads and still rising. That might seem like a huge number but Firefox has seen much bigger before. When Mozilla launched Firefox 3, it received 8 million downloads in the first 24 hours setting a world record.

Mozilla has done a great job at keeping up with its competition, but the new Firefox 3.5 isn’t much different from Firefox 3. Speed, privacy, and tabs are really the only new features worth talking about. Only time will tell if this new version is as great as Mozilla claims.

Texting and driving has been a long debated issue for some time now but has finally been deemed illegal in Tennessee. The 106^th General Assembly passed a law back in January that prohibits reading or sending text messages while driving, taking effect today, July 1, 2009.

One of the main problems this new law poses is the possibility of law enforcement confusing a driver typing out a text message with a driver dialing a phone number. The Attorney General of Tennessee, Bob Cooper, said that it won’t matter either way. He said that pulling someone over “whenever unsafe operation is caused by cell phone use, text messaging, applying cosmetics or any other activity that prevents the driver from operating the vehicle in a safe manner,” already exists. Therefore, if you violate a rule of the road while texting or dialing, the outcome will be the same either way.

However, there are still no restrictions on using a cell phone to call someone while driving so law enforcement officials will have to try their best at distinguishing between the two in the absence of any unsafe vehicle operations.

Safety Department spokesman Mike Browning said to The Tennessean Newspaper, “Motorists should be aware that texting while driving is a dangerous behavior that can result in an injury, crash, or even death to the driver or other motorists.”

Other laws that will take effect starting today include a law allowing school districts to sell advertisements on school buses, a law allowing wine to be delivered to a customer’s home, a law that requires increased energy efficiency in state buildings and vehicles, as well as seven others.

Microsoft has announced their decision to use Word 2010 to compose and view e-mails in their new Outlook 2010 despite its failure to render HTML content in e-mails. Basically this means that any e-mail sent from an Outlook user and opened in anything other than Outlook will be distorted. Any HTML code that instructs text to be indented, or floating, or any other position will not translate on another e-mail host.

Last Wednesday, Microsoft became aware of a Twitter campaign called Fix Outlook opposed to Microsoft’s decision to use Word 2010 in the new Outlook. The campaign has built up to over 23,000 (and rising) followers using Twitter to complain about the new Outlook. The goal is to bombard Microsoft with enough complaints to make them change their product. The Email Standards Project said in their blog that they “are in no way advocating that Microsoft shift from using Word to create or render HTML emails. We’re asking that the HTML produced by the Word engine be standards compliant. This in turn will ensure that the engine will correctly render standards-based emails.”

The request seems reasonable for the majority not using Outlook. However, Microsoft continues to stand by their decision to keep Word as the rendering for Outlook 2010 and not change Word’s HTML production to be standards compliant. They claim that the Outlook user will value the assortment of tools and features that Word will provide over the concern of formatting for those not using Outlook. You can find an overview of the battle between Email Standards Project and Microsoft here.

(Photo credit to Freshview on Flickr)

The internet is starting to appear more and more common in our lives these days. If you need the show times for a new movie, you can turn to the internet for a list of times. If a plant of yours is being eaten by a mysterious bug, you can turn to the internet for a remedy. Even if you missed your favorite TV program and didn’t TiVo it, you can go to Hulu or TV.com to watch the episode at your convenience. But would it be surprising to find out that it costs more to advertise on The Simpsons online than on regularly broadcasted television? Well, that statement is true. A difference of $20 to $40 per one thousand viewers is found between an online broadcast versus a television broadcast.

Online advertisements run for about $60 per thousand viewers on average. As opposed to the $20 to $40 charge per thousand viewers on a television broadcast, this seems a little ridiculous. However, online ads are more expensive because of less allowed advertising time and guaranteed viewing. The average advertising time for an online show is about 37 seconds. That is nothing compared to the 9 minute average for television. Also, once a viewer has clicked on an online episode, that viewer is guaranteed to watch the episode. Now I know that some people may get bored in the middle of the particular episode, but when you want to watch something online you typically know what it is that you want to watch and you seek it out. This process gives some assurance that you will watch the show and the ads embedded in it, instead of changing the channel while the commercials are on.

If all these numbers hold true, why don’t advertisers switch over altogether? This hasn’t happened yet because the internet still isn’t the most used source of show viewing. With other resources like TiVo, DVR, and even timers on TVs, online viewing is a long way from being the most popular form of viewing. March Madness, for example, attracted about 7.5 million viewers online over the entire tournament. Compared to the 17.6 million viewers of the championship game alone on regular TV, the internet was a small opponent.

It may be possible for online viewing to be the default way to watch shows one day. But that day is still very far in the future.

Looking for a job has turned in to a real struggle these days. But with networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and others, it is getting easier to meet other people, some of whom may be in authoritative positions. Job seekers in Bozeman, Montana, have been faced with a difficult decision between privacy and job seeking. The city of Bozeman created a policy asking all job seekers in the area to hand over their usernames and passwords for social networking sites such as those listed above.

The policy has created much uproar against city officials who support it. Announced just two days ago (Wednesday) on a local TV station, the news caused concerned citizens to bombard city officials with e-mails and phone calls. The city defends itself by saying that it would only be for verifying information listed on an application and that they don’t expect everyone to follow through with the request. They believe it will be most helpful in the hiring of public officials, police officers, and other positions of public trust.

The only thing that makes this situation a little less serious than it seems is that citizens are not held to this. They don’t have to do it. And the city won’t hold it against those who decide to not take part. I can say that I, personally, would not be one to hand over such information to city officials. That’s for sure. It’s a form of censorship at an early stage, which could lead to who knows what.

Bing has made a big name for itself since its launch back on May 28^th. Just a week after it was opened to the public, the new search engine came in at number two among all search engines.

New statistics from comScore show that Bing is still holding on to its numbers. The latest study compares the last week of May, the first week of June, and the second week of June. Since the last week in May, Microsoft sites have increased from 9% to 12% in share of search result pages. And in the average daily searcher penetration, have increased from 13.7% to 16.7%.

This is all interesting of course, but what about Google’s numbers for the same period? ComScore did not and would not reveal Google’s numbers for the beginning of July, saying those results would be put out at the end of the month with all other Search Engines’ stats. However, according to StatCounter, Google had also increased results in this period. They reported an increase of 0.43%.

Google’s numbers make me think that Bing continues to be on the rise solely due to curiosity and major advertising. But it is pretty obvious that Google isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

We have all been guilty of it at one point in our lives. Some stopped when others were caught and fined. Others continued on because they claimed it was “sharing.” But in official terms, it is illegally downloading music and it has affected one Minneapolis woman in a huge way.

You may remember a high profile case back in October of 2007 in which Jammie Thomas-Rasset was found guilty of illegally sharing 24 songs online. This initial case, however, was determined a mistrial, letting Thomas off the hook for having to pay a $220,000 fine. You may think that she got a break back in October, but the illegal music came back to bite her this year.

The now 32-year-old mother of four was found guilty (again) of copyright infringement for the same 24 songs on Thursday. This time she was found guilty by a Minneapolis federal court and ordered to pay $1.92 million! That comes out to a whopping $80,000 per song! By federal law, Thomas could have been ordered to pay up to $150,000 per song. The RIAA reported that Thomas had been given the chance to settle the case earlier for $3000 to $5000 and say they are still willing to reach a settlement.

I think it’s safe to say, if you are someone who still “shares” music online, you might want to reconsider that choice.

Microsoft’s attempts at advertising Internet Explorer obviously aren’t doing the trick if they are reduced to attracting customers through empty promises. Just a week ago, Microsoft announced a new campaign to donate ten meals to Feeding America with every download of Internet Explorer 8. The promise bought them advertisement and an angel halo.

The ad promised that with one download, you would be responsible for the donation of ten meals to the charity of Feeding America. That sounds like a great promise! Definitely easy and rewarding. However, when you read the fine print on the rules of the promotion, it says that with one download, Microsoft will donate $1.15 and only up to $1 million. Yes, one million dollars would be great, but $1.15 does not buy ten meals. Probably not even one.

The Feeding America promotion must have not been very successful… at least not in Australia. Microsoft is focusing on a new promotional “game”similar to a treasure hunt. They claim to have hidden $10,000 somewhere on the Internet, but you can only find it if you’re using Internet Explorer 8. If you are the first to find the money they will notify you by email. There is still one other catch. You must be following @tengrand_IE8 on Twitter to be able to win.

But the best part has to be at the bottom of the page it says, “Tell your friends. It’s not as stupid as it sounds.” All these flaws make me question the legitimacy of this contest.

The fifth most popular Web browser, Opera, re-opened its virtual doors today after claiming to be reinventing the Web for some time now. The big wow factor of their updates is what they call Opera Unite.

Opera Unite is a new take on servers. By a new take, I mean a plan to avoid servers. Opera Unite allows a customer to share information and data without the middle man (a server). A YouTube video on the site explains this concept in simpler terms, although it also tends to point a finger at servers as being the bad guys that cause all computer problems. A product analyst for Opera software, Lawrence Eng, wrote that Opera Unite makes your computer “truly part of the fabric of the Web, rather than just interacting with it, and it’s something anyone can use.”

Eng is right. It is very easy to use. In fact it only takes three steps to turn your computer into a piece of web fabric. Install Opera Unite, give the location of your Web site file folder, and then start sending URLs. Even though a user who wishes to be their own server must use a version of Opera 10, other people can view the same information from any outside Web browser. It may sound ideal, but safety is definitely not a piece of cake. Any sending of URLs to relay information is only protected by passwords. Just be aware that by making your personal computer a server, other information and documents stored anywhere on your computer are susceptible to hackers.

Overall, the concept is groundbreaking and the technology is there to back it up. Just be a bit cautious until all the kinks are worked out.

Looking for a Father’s Day present? Hillcrest Labs put out its new Loop Pointer just in time for the Hallmark Holliday. Imagine a computer mouse that is wireless and surfaceless. The Loop Pointer is an in-air mouse that can be used for computers and TVs that are connected to a computer. A cross between a Wii remote and a computer mouse, this new invention goes for only $99.

The device is easy to hold and allows movement of your pointer by moving the Loop; this is made possible with Hillcrest’s patented Freespace technology. When navigating through a website on your TV, you can do anything that a normal mouse would let you on your computer screen. If you need to type in something, a keyboard appears on the screen, similar to a Wii yet again. It is compatible to be used with a KODAK Theater HD Player, a Play Station 3, and certain Apple TVs.

Hillcrest is also trying to promote their toy in the office for things like large presentations. It is no secret that the Loop would be a great tool to grab your audience’s attention. It is also very simple to use. Just like a wireless mouse, a USB dongle needed to be plugged into an open drive and some batteries is all it needs. After about ten minutes of playing around with it, you should be used to it.

If your father has a little geek in him, I think this would be the perfect Father’s Day present. Very original and totally surprising. Happy shopping!

(Photo Credit to Hillcrest Labs)