It’s been just days since Microsoft released the second preview version of its flagship web browser that shocked me in disbelief, turning my negative expectations on Internet Explorer down. Now, we heard that Google just released its own browser dubbed as Chrome. For Google and its followers, it sounds like an exciting, business tool; for other browser developers, it’s less than a threat; for web developers like me, while it performs good, it’s also another piece of crap.

Continue Reading »

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 deserves the spotlight. I strongly confirm that without any doubt now.

One day after Microsoft released IE 8 Beta 2, and after scratching the features, stability and reliability of the new Internet Explorer for 24 hours, it is clear that the Microsoft IE8 Beta 2 is an eye-opener for Microsoft and Internet Explorer pessimists like me. I’m pretty sure hardcore Firefox fans would not (or just hesitant) to believe this, but give Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 a try and you would believe how great this browser would be when its full version will be released — especially to web developers and Internet-savvy persons like me.

Continue Reading »

Thank heavens! Did Microsoft finally address all our complaints with their flagship web browser? Something great just happened to me today when I updated my Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 to Beta 2, the second preview version of the upcoming major release of the world’s most popular web browser. I’ve already known for a fact that Internet Explorer 8 is now more standards compliant than its predecessors, but I wasn’t awed with the performance of IE 8 Beta 1. Today’s release of IE 8 Beta 2, many things have changed — it came with new features, new speed, new look — and it made me forget Firefox for the moment.

…it came with new features, new speed, new look — and it made me forget Firefox for the moment.

Continue Reading »

Aspiring 3D artists and enthusiasts rejoice: thanks to Microsoft, TrueSpace software finally goes completely free for everyone. Now, you can do 3D modeling, 3D animation and 3D production without incurring any cost at all!

Continue Reading »

Last February 4, I was glad when I heard Microsoft announcing the finalization of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 in their website. They released the documentation of the service pack in Microsoft Download Center describing the service pack’s overview, notable changes, and installation instructions, along with the new features to be encountered when on the looming Windows Vista SP1 release.

Of course, the news got me excited as I am a Vista lover myself despite the odds that were brought about by its original package. I am certain that many patient Vista users are hopeful that the service pack would deliver solutions to the major issues of the operating system and improve further significantly its overall performance. I once posted in this blog how I love Windows Vista but I also pointed out some gray areas that I wished to be improved. The service pack most likely would address them.

Continue Reading »

It’s already been six months of nice Windows Vista experience but it felt like I haven’t played enough with the value added things Microsoft launched alongside Windows Vista. I’ve started to explore recently about Windows Live services and software, and it was quite worth everyone’s attention.

Well actually, Windows Live services are not really attached to any Windows operating system, although Windows Vista may appear to be a “little bias” with the timing of the release. Windows Live constitutes some desktop but mainly web applications that are meant to extend and improve the Windows user experience. These experiences are grouped by Microsoft into three categories where Windows Live services and applications fall in: informed, connected and protected.

The first thing I scrutinized is the Windows Live Messenger, Microsoft’s instant messaging (IM) client previously known in its early versions as MSN Messenger. It is one of the services and software that belongs to the “connected” category of Windows Live. So, without further ado, here are the good, the bad, and the worst things (yes, they exist) of Microsoft’s flagship IM.

Continue Reading »

We saw last year how intense the search engine battle was. Big companies like Microsoft, Yahoo and Google spent billions of dollars in efforts to gain market dominance in their online advertising business. At the end of the year, we saw that Google reigned supreme, with Yahoo, Microsoft, and other competitors closely trailing behind. Proofs were evident of Google’s victory: they acquired 17 innovating companies to call their own and with hopes to extend or penetrate further the online marketplace. If you don’t care, bloggers do – and they predict outright that Google’s glory will begin to fade in 2008.

Last year and until now, Google actively wipes out the PageRank (PR) of many blogs and websites they believed to have involved to link farms and other schemes designed to “artificially” inflate PageRank. PageRank is Google’s view on how important a web page is, thus favoring more important pages in their top Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Many observations reveal in totality that most penalized sites are those who joined networks offering paid reviews or links. For bloggers, PageRank is significant because many ad network companies (major source of blog revenues), begin to follow Google’s standards. Higher PRs somehow contribute to the continuous existence of most blog sites in the Internet.

Continue Reading »