Posted by Angela | 0 Comments
Firefox 3.5 Pulls Ahead of IE7
The browser world is a continuous battle for the top spot. And Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has always been the leader. However, according to StatCounter, Internet Explorer has been beat out by Firefox 3.5 for the month of December!
You can see the actual data in the picture above and if you look closely you’ll see that (yellow) Firefox 3.5 is above (blue) Internet Explorer 7.0 (click on the picture to see a larger version). The two browsers following IE7 are also Internet Explorer (IE8 and IE6), so overall Internet Explorer is still above Firefox by a land slide, but the fact that Firefox 3.5 is more popular than Microsoft’s largest browser, IE7, is definitely worth recognizing.
The rest of the standings are pretty much expected. Overall, the order is Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera. But the fact that, individually speaking, Firefox 3.5 has the momentum to push IE7 out of the top standing shows how 2009 has been an excellent year for Mozilla.
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Posted by Angela | 0 Comments
Tomorrow’s the Day!
October 22, 2009. Not an important holiday or Presidential birthday, but it is the release of Windows 7! I know you’re excited and have been waiting for this day since its release to manufacturing this summer.
If you need more information on how to install, upgrade, or have compatibility questions, there are some new tools available on the Windows website to help with these specific needs. If you have Windows Vista on a qualifying PC, Microsoft is offering a free upgrade to Windows 7. The qualifying PCs include Dell, Samsung, Sony, Gateway, and many others. You can find the complete list here.
So go out and celebrate! An OS much better than Vista is almost here!
Read MorePosted by Jeremy Scott | 0 Comments
Texas Judge Orders Microsoft To Stop Selling Word
Wow. A judge in Texas has ruled that Microsoft is infringing on another company’s patent and that, as a result, they’re not allowed to sell Microsoft Word anymore. i4i is the name of a company that holds the patent in question, and the court case hinges on Microsoft’s customization of the XML coding language.
The company has been given 60 days to comply with this ruling, which also carries the additional penalty of a $40 Million fine. Ouch.
Like most surprising court rulings… this one will be appealed. Besides, it’s not likely that Microsoft would start giving Word away for free, even if the ruling stuck. It’s much more likely that they would simply develop a new way to code the program that doesn’t infringe on i4i’s copyright.
Read MorePosted by Angela | 5 Comments
The Bing-Yahoo! Deal to Take on Google
Microsoft and Yahoo have finally reached an agreement on their long rumored search partnership. The 10 year deal gives Microsoft exclusive access to Yahoo’s search technologies and to the second largest pool of searchers and advertisers.
The deal will allow Microsoft’s Bing to power the joint search engines while Yahoo is the salesmen behind the two, responsible for relationships and sales. Yahoo predicts a $500 million increase in annual operating profit resulting from increase in searchers. Also, they expect a $275 million savings on expenditures every year from no longer investing in their own search technologies.
The money side gives the impression that this will be a great decision for Yahoo, who is trying to earn back losses from recently plumiting stocks. However, stocks have not responded. In fact, some may say that Yahoo’s stock disagrees with the deal between Yahoo and Microsoft. Yahoo’s stock, which you would expect to be up, is down over a dollar and a half this morning after the deal was announced. Another down side that Carol Bartz, Yahoo’s CEO, revealed this morning in a conference call with Microsoft is they will be scaling down their size and so an unspecified number of jobs will be lost.
Microsoft and Yahoo have created a joint website where they have outlined specifics of the deal and given investors a reference page and access to each company’s SEC filings.
Read MorePosted by Angela | 2 Comments
Microsoft Security Updates: July 28, 2009
Microsoft will be releasing two out-of-band security updates today for potential threats. Because Microsoft is releasing these two bulletins outside their monthly patch cycle, we can assume that the security issues at hand are quite severe.
The notification that Microsoft posted on Friday says the two bulletins released today will give solutions for issues within Microsoft Visual Studio product line and Internet Explorer. The bulletin for the Microsoft Visual Studio product line will address an issue that has negatively affected some kinds of applications. The Internet Explorer update will address issues deep in Internet Explorer that are independent of the Visual Studio issues. Internet Explorer’s issues have been classified as ”Critical,” and solutions will provide extra protection against the security problems found in Visual Studio. Microsoft is being very limited on details until the announcement is made later today. When you keep your system up to date (in the area of security) you will avoid attacks related to these threats.
The bulletins are set to be released on the Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary today at 12:00 noon, Central Time [Update below]. There will also be two sessions for questioning Microsoft by users later today at 3:00 P.M., CT, and 6:00 P.M., CT. Both are available online if you register.
Update [July 28, 2009, 12:30 P.M., CT]: The Microsoft security bulletins MS09-034 and MS09-035 have been released to address problems within Internet Explorer and Visual Studio Active Template Library (ATL).
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