Psychowire

A install uninstall review of IE 8

2009-09-06T07:09:00.000-07:00

There are many reviews of IE 8 so I'm
going to add what is important
to me install uninstall.

After the download I "Choose
my settings" (default basic)
so that I can add newer features
at a later time. This will sometimes
make installing a newer program smoother
and hopefully avoid some possible nag screens
just after the install.

If your using IE 7 the interface will be about
the same as 8. Which is great as I can install
it quickly and start surfing.

My surprise:
IE 8 was removed through Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs, IE 8 didn't need a file/disk or put up a fight when I uninstalled it.

Still have IE 8 installed on another computer. This computer I'm writing this review on has several 3rd party (paid - licensed)
programs "Web Research" (for indexing/editing online files) and
"Snag It" (to show others what I see) they wouldn't work. That was the biggest disappointment as I need both of those programs
to for work and would need to purchase a newer updated versions.
That's how I know the uninstall work so well.

If you have 3rd party browser tool that works with previous versions of Internet Explore and wish to continue using them, before installing IE 8 would check
the with developers to see if they are compatible.
I would be willing to make the purchase on MS OS 7 with IE 8 but not
just for a browser update.

Overall I found 8 to be stable in the weeks I've been using it hasn't crashed more that a couple times, easy to use when surfing and the speed about the
same, maybe a little better than IE7.

Tested on Dell XPS 420 XP SP3 Home and Dell XPS 630 XP SP3 Professional

Freeware Apps for your browsing experience

2009-08-15T02:26:00.000-07:00

Top 12 Tiny Freeware Windows Programs that Save tons of time

I found this review on YouTube of the programs
for saving time and decreasing frustration
when browsing with muliptle windows also using these
freeware programs to speed your browsing experience.
Not all programs are for web browsing but most
are very useful.

Programs that I found most useful from the above review:

Always On Top allows you to choose which Apps or
browser windows to stay on top or in focus.
http://www.fadsoft.net/AlwaysOnTopMaker.htm

Foxit Reader is faster than Adobe Reader.
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/

Sizer has three ways of letting you resize a window (mostly for developers) a shell extension lets you resize a window from its main menu, there is a taskbar tray item to resize any window, and lastly, a popout menu from the resizing grabbable area of window corners.
http://www.brianapps.net/sizer.html

Allows you to download a Web site from the Internet to a local directory, building recursively all directories, getting HTML, images, and other files from the server to your computer. HTTrack arranges the original site's relative link-structure. Simply open a page of the "mirrored" website in your browser, and you can browse the site from link to link, as if you were viewing it online. HTTrack can also update an existing mirrored site, and resume interrupted downloads.
http://www.httrack.com/
# Note: please be kind with
this application as it be a drain on smaller websites that have
limited bandwidth - also some webmasters use robots.txt to block
this application as it is consider by some to be a robot attack.

PDFCreator easily creates PDFs from any Windows program.
Use it like a printer in Word, StarCalc or any other
Windows application. Allows you to save web pages
or other types of files viewed in your
browser to be saved as a PDF file.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

Browser Statistics Month by Month

2009-07-05T09:34:00.000-07:00

From the statistics below, you can see that Internet Explorer and Firefox are the most common browsers.

2009 | IE7 | IE6 | IE8 | FireFox | Chrome | Safari | Opera
May 21.3% 14.5% 5.2% 47.7% 5.5% 3.0% 2.2%

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

June 2009
Internet Explorer 7.0 30.54%
Windows XP 69.09%
1024x768 38.04%

http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php

Microsoft IE 8 Puke Video lets see some chunks

2009-07-05T03:00:00.000-07:00

Microsoft's attempt to appear hip and cool, the vomit
looks like a mouthful of pudding... lets see some chunks.

Given my primary OS is WinXP SP3 I'll migrate to IE 8 but
this Ad says I wanna be cool like Apple or Google.

Microsoft needs to stick to their core audience (MS Office)
keeping their Ads simple - stick with the "Bing.com" theme,
then build from that IMHO.

I'm not a Microsoft hater - rather just skeptical of being the first
to jump into any new product, as I feel anything new is always beta even
if they claim that it's past that stage.

Being 2nd isn't always a bad thing.

add Adblock Plus

2009-06-13T05:05:00.000-07:00

For more secure and less Ads "Adblock Plus" and block banners, the filter subscription will block most advertisements fully automatically.
http://adblockplus.org/en/screenshots

Version: Adblock Plus 1.0.2 (time of this review)
by Wladimir Palant

Combined Noscript and Adblock Plus to speed up surfing with just a bit more security.
Both Add-ons work with SeaMonkey and FireFox.

NoScript - Less Ads - More Secure

2009-04-19T01:20:00.000-07:00

I was amazed how easy this proggy is to use setup and install.
Very straight forward, just as the author says.

Treats all websites as possible security threats as well as ads. Makes browsing more secure, it also makes it faster and blocks flash ads, again I want more speed when browsing this does the job.

Also, something recently added the ablility to stop "clickjacking"

"Clickjacking is a malicious technique of tricking web users into revealing confidential information or taking control of their computer while clicking on seemingly innocuous web pages. A vulnerability across a variety of browsers and platforms, a clickjacking takes the form of embedded code or script that can execute without the user's knowledge, such as clicking on a button that appears to perform another function."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickjacking

I use this with Seamonkey.
The [S] icon control which appears clearly in the right
corner of the browser window.

You'll then see and you have full control of NoScript controls.
So, if you want to change the setting your just a few clicks away,
including a whitelist of websites that you choose a safe.

Version 1.1.9 includes several changes such as extra QA for release, menu rendering speed optimizations, emulated TLD Effective service up to 100x speedup, and other improvements
http://noscript.net/screenshots

by Randomweirdo on February 14, 2009

Browser for each surfing experience

2009-04-04T17:33:00.000-07:00

With the rapid developments in the flavor and
choices of Web Browsers. I use many of them for
work (organize) and enjoy enhance my surfing experience.

I put together a list of browsers
that I use in my daily web experience while
utilizing their strongest features for my needs.
Will add to the list as there many newer ones
being developed as well as newer features
in various stages of the established builds,
prefer stable rather than alpha builds...

This is not a "whose better than who" but rather
what can each offer me while making the most
of my multitask life more enriched.

The browser list is put together
in order of how often I use them and why.
As well as adding some resources and a
good bye to an old friend Netscape.

The List at moment includes:
http://www.psychowire.com/browsers/
Seamonkey (I don't understand the naming processs)
FireFox
Opera
Chrome
Avant
Safari

All offer Bookmarking, RSS and a variety
of Add-Ons and will leave that to the user
as which they like.

Windows 7 could be ready by Spring 2009

2009-03-29T10:31:00.000-07:00

MFST might have a new OS by this spring.

Rumors are popping up on some tech websites
about the Release Candidates no longer being uh... released.

Windows 7 Client Software Logo Program MSFT is has prepared their
new logo for developers:

"Overview
The Windows platform has a broad ecosystem of products and partners that supports the platform. Displaying the Windows logo on your product represents a relationship and a shared commitment to quality between Microsoft and your company. Customers trust that seeing the Windows brand on your product ensures that it meets compatibility standards and performs well on the Windows platform.

The Windows 7 Software Logo program is made up of policies and requirements that help ensure logo’d applications are easy to install and reliable on PCs running Windows 7.

The purpose of this document is to outline the technical requirements and eligibility qualifications an application must meet in order to participate in the Windows 7 Client Software Logo Program."

For some preview and new news on Microsoft® Windows 7:
Windows 7 Logo Program Toolkit: Alpha in March, Beta in May 2009
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-7-Release-Candidate-RC-Drops-in-May-2009-107911.shtml

Shinobu Takahashi, developer, Microsoft Japan - variety of newer programs for Win7
http://blogs.msdn.com/shintak/default.aspx

Microsoft® hints at Windows 7 Release Candidate for May
http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/03/26/microsoft-hints-at-windows-7-release-candidate-for-may
Another hot spot for latest updates

Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows
Screenshots of "Home Basic Edition" Home Premium Edition" "Starter Edidtion" "Professional Edidtion" and latest updates

I'll look forward to giving it a try as I never migrated to Vista...

Search MetaCrawler 4 queries with one click

2009-03-28T16:09:00.000-07:00

MetaCrawler - Search

Search Google, Yahoo, MS Live and Ask - all in one!

Simple & Secure Password Management in tack bar

2009-03-27T14:36:00.000-07:00

Password Safe allows you to safely and easily create a secured and encrypted user name/password list. With Password Safe all you have to do is create and remember a single "Master Password" of your choice in order to unlock and access your entire user name/password list.

http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/

preview image above

XnView (v1.96/1.70) is an efficient multimedia viewer, browser and converter.

2009-03-24T02:26:00.000-07:00

XnView (v1.96/1.70) is an efficient multimedia viewer, browser and converter.

Come to discover XnView, a software to view and convert graphic files, really simple to use ! Support of more than 400 graphics formats ! It's free, so do not hesitate !

http://www.xnview.com/en/download.html

This is one of my favorite image viewer's which has a clean
interface and ability to view video as well,
plan vanilla - play/pause button.

Has simple easy to use editing as well for those who want a camera-to-web ready tool.

A nice add-on is the explorer shell extension:
XnView shell extension (v2.60) is an extension for windows explorer.
You can right click on any image to get a thumbnail size preview.