Internet Questions

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I know in these trying economic times people are always looking for a good deal, so this week we are offering you a twofer. Yep, these two seemingly dissimilar questions actually have the same answer!

Of course, we can’t just give you the answer right away. Where’s the fun in that? So we’ll give you some background first.

What are FLV files? These are Flash Video files, and as you might guess from their name, they are the file format used by any web site that delivers movies using Adobe Flash. Which is just about everybody: YouTube, Hulu, Google, Yahoo, Facebook. The list goes on. Your friend probably downloaded this file from one of those sites.

Now, what are codecs? Permit me to be dogmatic for a moment. Any video file you receive is the end result of a war; the never-ending conflict between video quality and file size. We always want better quality in a smaller package. Codecs attempt to resolve this conflict. They are software algorithms that attempt to compress the highest possible video quality into the smallest possible size.

How many codecs are there? Dozens. You’ve probably heard of some of them too: DivX, Xvid, 3ivx, VP6, Sorenson, Indeo. The list goes on ad nauseam. (“Kind of like this article”, you are thinking).

Anyway, there is no law that says a video file must use a certain codec, and that’s why you get all of those annoying “Windows Media Player cannot play the file” messages. The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file.

You could, of course, download the codec, but first you have to figure out which codec you need, and that is a whole different adventure. Then even if you find the codec, it usually comes with a special player that you must also install. So you end up with a computer with ten different video players, each trying to be the default video player. I stick my tongue out at this.

So, what is the solution? (“It’s about time”, you say). The answer is a single video player called VLC (www.videolan.org/vlc).

I should warn the uninitiated. At first impression VLC is the complete opposite of anything made by Apple. It is ugly, at times confusing, and its French origins make you wonder if you are installing some form of spyware. But if you just want to watch movies, any movie regardless of file type or codec, there is nothing better.

If you spend a few minutes with it, you’ll find the playlist, the equalizer, and most importantly, the ability to download one of over 100 different skins. You can make VLC to look like Windows Media Player, QuickTime, or even your iPhone.

And the deals just get better and better. VLC is not just for Windows, but also available in Max, Linux and Unix flavors! So, you can’t say that we geeks aren’t gracious, what with these multi-platform twofers we’re giving away.

Answer:

Almost assuredly, but not because it may or may not be the best browser. Now whether Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) is the best browser for you personally, that is another question entirely. But first, to quickly answer your actual question, where does BWII (Browser War 2) stand today?

Back in 2005, IE had a 90% share of the browser market. That level of domination is unlikely to be obtained again. Currently, the top 5 are ranked as follows, depending upon which source you use: IE (45-64%), Firefox (21-32%), Google Chrome (5-10%), Safari (4-8%), and Opera (1-3%).

But here is the thing about IE: there are three major versions in use – IE 6, 7 and 8. No other browser is like that. Other browsers’ users are using the latest version of that browser, or are fairly quickly transitioning to it. But a third of IE users are still using IE6, a browser that will celebrate its ninth birthday next month. That’s older than my dog! And that dog needs to be put down (Microsoft’s, not mine!).

I suspect those users are not personal users, but are business users who probably have internal software critical to their business that was designed specifically for use with IE6 (winner of BWI) and does not work in any other browser. Companies are slowly retrofitting those applications, but chances are they are not making them ultra compatible, but instead just good enough to work in IE8. So as long as businesses are entrenched in the IE camp, IE will remain the champion. That answers your question.

But, now let’s turn to that more interesting question of which browser is better for you personally. First, you cannot really make a bad choice amongst these five. Nobody will rag on you for using any one of these browsers, assuming you have a reason to. But if you are just using IE because everybody else does, well, then you deserve to get ragged on.

The four S’s of browser rating criteria still remain: speed, stability, simplicity and standards support. Let’s look at each of these more closely.

Speed – I don’t put much faith in benchmark testing. I like the stopwatch method best. And I went with the top sites people actually use. Google Chrome pulled it out by a tag, but they were all fairly close.

Stability – Google Chrome upped the ante here when they started to put each tab into a separate process for ultimate stability. This means a problem with one site won’t take down the whole browser. IE followed suit, but to me was the clear loser in this category. I would get JavaScript errors when opening new tabs and, gasp, the whole thing actually crashed… twice!

Note that having separate processes for separate browsers does have a negative impact on your computer. The browser will require a lot more memory. So if you have a computer that is already tight on memory, and you like to browse with many tabs open, you may want to avoid Chrome and IE.

Simplicity – This is the hardest category to rate, as beauty (and usability) is in the eye of the beholder. However, I particularly like the way Chrome and Safari handle typing searches and URL’s into the address bar. They offer a nice, organized list of possibilities based on your bookmarks, history and search results for what you have entered so far. IE is the worst in this respect.

Standards – Browsers are behaving better with each version. This means they are supporting more of the HTML and CSS standards and they will render the same page exactly the same as the other browsers with less hair pulling by the author to do so. That said, Opera definitely is the front-runner in standards support, especially in HTML5 and CSS3, while IE is the clear loser.

So, who will win PBWII (Personal Browser War 2)? I think in a couple of years it will come down to the same two competitors as everything else has: Microsoft versus Google. Opera and Safari likely won’t ever go truly mainstream and Firefox is starting to lose some ground to Chrome. Place your bets.

Answer:
The New Yorker ran a cartoon in 1993 featuring a tech-savvy canine sitting at a computer and telling his dog pal, "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Now, thanks to Facebook, lots of people know you're a dog, and where you live, and what you look like. And it's no longer just pre-approved friends who have access to this information.

In April, Facebook (facebook.com) launched "instant personalization," whereby select Facebook partners -- currently Microsoft, Pandora (pandora.com), and Yelp (yelp.com) -- are automatically given access to aspects of your Facebook profile in order to customize their sites for you. Before you even sign up or fill out a form, Pandora will already know what music you like and Yelp will already know where you live, courtesy of Facebook (http://bit.ly/auBi7G).

Web sites customized just for you, with no input required -- why is this bad? Because Facebook has made it their policy to share your information without first getting your permission. They direct you to the new settings post facto, hence the popup messages you see.

Again: Facebook now shares data about you that they had previously kept private. They're the top dog, and they're treating your privacy like a fire hydrant.

If that bothers you, you'll have to change your privacy settings to opt-out, since Facebook opts everyone in by default. One could be forgiven for thinking that Facebook purposely complicates the process of tweaking privacy settings, what with 50 settings and 170 different options spread across multiple pages (helpfully summarized by The New York Times at http://nyti.ms/aAdEgw).

Facebook is no stranger to this bait-and-switch scam. CNET documents their past transgressions at http://bit.ly/aEyiDy. An interactive graph at http://bit.ly/9sh0Hp charts the "Evolution [degeneration, really] of Privacy on Facebook," while http://bit.ly/d4naY5 shows a sample Facebook profile with all public information clearly marked. (You might be surprised.)

What is new is the backlash. ReadWriteWeb reports that some prominent bloggers, podcasters, and conference organizers are deleting their Facebook accounts (http://bit.ly/9Uaa4u), and PCWorld collects more negative industry reactions at http://bit.ly/chsdIT.

Facebookprotest.com is urging everyone to "refrain from ALL Facebook related activity" on June 6, while QuitFacebookDay.com has over 2000 commitments to abandon the site entirely on May 31.

Type "How do I" into Google's search box and their auto-suggest feature puts "How do I delete my Facebook account" at the top, reflecting current search trends. Hint: deletefacebook.com has you covered.

The reaction isn't going unnoticed. It's normal for privacy activists at the Electronic Frontier Foundation to decry this sort of thing (http://bit.ly/azbZeq), and for PCWorld to cover it (http://bit.ly/9kd3hE).

But even mainstream sources like CNN (http://bit.ly/dl2wUC) and The New York Times (http://nyti.ms/c4bz0a) are paying attention this time. Reuters even reports that four US senators have asked the FTC to address the issue (http://bit.ly/9Nwq1Z).

Spurred by the controversy, four NYU students have announced a project called Diaspora (http://joindiaspora.com/), which aims to be a more open, privacy-respecting alternative to Facebook, although they're just getting started.

Elliot Schrage, VP of Communications at Facebook, defends the company's recent decisions at http://nyti.ms/dpgJlf. He makes some good points (many users don't mind the loss of anonymity on the web, for example), but is at times condescending, insisting that part of the problem is confused users.

A blogger at Technologizer (http://bit.ly/aou3AP) put it best: "Facebook has a history of asking for forgiveness rather than permission, and now says the default for everything is 'social' [i.e., public] – so the best way to keep things private is to keep them off the service, period."

If you're hoping to maintain any sort of privacy on Facebook, you're barking up the wrong tree... For more on the changes, the reaction, and the controversy, check out our blog at http://bit.ly/bpKyKD.

Answer:

Weird…my teeth hurt. What’s that about?

With apologies to Sir Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman, safe is relative. So, free antivirus protection may be just the thing for some people.

Subscription-based anti-virus programs, like McAfee (mcafee.com), Norton/Symantec (antivirus.norton.com), Kapersky (kaspersky.com), and others provide good protection at affordable prices, usually about $30 or $40 a year. New PCs often come loaded with a 90-day or 1-year trial subscription. Many are left wondering what they should do when the friendly reminder tells them that it’s time to renew. You could make a lot worse decisions than re-upping for a year, especially if you’ve had no problems. So, no news really may be good news. PC Magazine has written a nice article (http://bit.ly/7T5kDy) reviewing lots of security products.

There are lots of free choices. PropellerHeads like free. By the way, we pay for comprehensive anti-virus protection at our office. The risk there is greater, the downside worse, and office suites have some built-in admin tools that make our life easier.

At home, I think saving a few bucks probably makes sense. For years, as my neighbors and cousins asked me to help them set up their PCs, I have recommended the free version of AVG (avg.com). This is a good security package and supports the virus definition and engine updates that you would expect.

Of course, AVG’s free product is supposed to tempt you to upgrade to their pay-for service. Fair enough. But they have gotten pretty aggressive about it. When a new version comes out, it’s pretty tough to find out how to renew the free version and not accidently sign up for the pay-for one. One hint is to go to Download.CNET.com and search for “AVG free” instead of navigating through the AVG site.

Other very good and free PC security products that might work for you include MalWareBytes (malwarebytes.org) SpyBot (safer-networking.org), and Ad-Aware (Lavasoft.com/Ad-Aware). Be careful where you download any products. Make sure you are at the official site so you don’t fall prey to unscrupulous imitators that might make things worse for you.

There is a new player in town, sort of. Microsoft has released their latest entry into PC home security, called Microsoft Security Essentials (microsoft.com/security) Best of all...it’s free! This is a replacement for their previous products, OneCare and Defender. They also have an enterprise security solution called Forefront. But Security Essentials is great for home use. I have installed this on a few computers and so far so good.

It installed very nicely. What I like best is that the default settings are all pretty well thought-out. For instance if it detects an attack while you’re away from your PC, after 10 minutes of no response from you, it will take the default protection action. That usually means it will delete the bad guy after taking a system restore point. The only setting I changed was to do a weekly full scan instead of the quick scan it recommended.

MSE will run on XP, Vista, and Windows 7. Microsoft says this will protect you from the bad stuff out there, including viruses, spyware, adware, rootkits, worms and trojans. Time will tell how well this protects our PCs, but overall I have been impressed. It’s basically, install and forget about it. Unlike some products I have used in the past, it doesn’t seem to eat up all your computing power to do its job.

So, bumping into Nazi dentist/diamond smugglers is definitely not safe. But good PC security protection is and is priced right. Hey…you got any oil of cloves?

Answer:

Such a simple question. I really wish I could provide a simple answer. Given how much time I have wasted, ahem, I mean invested, in ensuring websites look the same in the Fab Five (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari and Chrome) I’ve had a lot of time to reflect upon this question.

My pondering has, ironically, led me to five answers. 1) Some browsers are slower to reflect the standards than others. 2) There is a level of backward compatibility so previous bad interpretations of HTML are continued. 3) Each browser has a different approach for handling poorly written HTML. 4) Something has to set them apart (i.e. my web browser is better than your web browser, nah, nah, nah, naahh, nah!) 5) HTML and CSS are still changing.

Now to me, and the legions of other web developers out there, that last point is the most interesting.

It seems just yesterday (sniff) but it has actually been a full decade since HTML4 was officially released. That version is still the standard today. But as the browser dark ages came to a close (circa 2001-2004, when there was pretty much just Internet Explorer), the enlightened overseers of the Internet started work on HTML5.

The first draft of HTML5 was released in 2008, and it remains a work in progress. Don’t expect it to become official for a number of years yet. But just like its predecessors, browsers have already started to support it. In fact, HTML5-specific tags and attributes are already in Opera in great abundance, a little less so in Firefox, and pretty much completely ignored by Internet Explorer. I swear; if web browsers were together in school, Internet Explorer would be in permanent detention.

So what’s cool and clever in HTML5? First, there are a bunch of new elements, or tags. Now, almost all of these are organizational constructs. For example, identifying which HTML is for navigation, standard footer-type stuff, sidebars, or the stuff we really want: content. These won’t look any different to you in your web browser, but they will greatly assist the search engines in identifying what is what so they will return more relevant results to your queries.

There are also <audio>

Answer:

Always good to hear from someone who has their priorities straight! You must be a PropellerHead. While some would argue that the federal government usually "fixes" something in the same sense that a vet "fixes" a dog, we get your point: The feds make sure your mail gets delivered no matter how remote your home, so why not e-mail too?

You’ll be thrilled to know that in March the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) made available its 376-page National Broadband Plan at www.broadband.gov. This document, which outlines a plan for providing broadband service to the entire country, was mandated by Congress as part of last year’s stimulus bill.

The commission’s research showed that 35% of adults in the country did not have high-speed (“broadband”) Internet access at home (http://bit.ly/bKQqpy). They interviewed over 5000 “non-adopters,” which they grouped into three categories. “Digital hopefuls” lacked computers or found broadband service unaffordable, while the “digitally uncomfortable” said they lacked the necessary skills to use the web. Lastly, the “digitally distant” thought the Internet “was a waste of time.” Clearly, they’d never heard of YouTube.

Of the plan’s six stated goals, Goal 3 is that “every American should have affordable access to robust broadband service, and the means and skills to subscribe if they so choose.” The FCC is hoping for a 90% broadband adoption rate by 2020.

And the FCC thinks that if you already have broadband service, it should be faster, according to Goal 1, which calls for “ways to download the movie Spaceballs at ludicrous speed” (paraphrased slightly).

The other goals are aimed at upgrading wireless networks, equipping schools with faster connections, aiding communications between emergency first responders, and improving energy consumption patterns.

Now let’s talk funding. The plan calls for “reforming” – politician for “raising” – the “Universal Service Fund” fees, which are taxes on phone usage that subsidize phone service in “high cost” areas (like yours). Consult the “miscellaneous fees” section of your phone bill to see what you’re paying for this. These fees would also be added to current broadband subscribers’ bills.

But don’t go dumping beverages into the harbor just yet, Sam Adams, because at least some of the plan’s costs are designed to be “budget-neutral.” The hope is that money will pour in from private investments and spectrum auctions (in which the government sells the rights to transmit wireless signals to the highest bidder). And seriously, when was the last time the federal governement went over budget on something?

We have to admit, though, that as technology fans who get paid to build web sites, we’re a little giddy at the thought of high-speed Internet access being as ubiquitous as telephones, electricity, and “snail mail.” The fact that the feds successfully expanded all these services into rural areas is not lost on us, but what are stamps up to nowadays? And will they ever stop Saturday delivery of my e-mail too?

For more on the non-broadband aspects of the plan, like what it means for on-line health records and government transparency, see the links on our blog at http://bit.ly/bQ6BuP. It's fun reading, even for the "digitally distant."

Answer:

For those who missed it, be sure to visit our website (www.askthepropellerheads.com) to read about my favorite Firefox add-ons. This time we are going to cover Thunderbird add-ons. Thunderbird is the Mozilla alternative to Microsoft Outlook.

In review, what are add-ons? They are something extra beyond the normal browser or e-mail client functionality. They are intended to make our lives easier, quicker, and friendlier. The cost is that each one you add on will cause things to slow down a little bit.

To see which add-ons are installed, which are available, and to install them, simply go to the Tools menu and select Add-ons. Or, you can go to addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird.

If you are replacing Outlook with Thunderbird, the first thing you will notice is that there is no calendar. Thunderbird by itself is just an e-mail and newsgroups reader. But of course, the add-on of all add-ons, Lightning, fixes that. With it, you get everything you need for proper event scheduling.

You get multiple views: day, week, or month. You can set alerts, customize the schedule for repeating events, and invite others to join events. It even works with Outlook so that event reminders sent from Outlook are recognized by Lightning and vice versa. Simply put, Thunderbird would be pretty ineffective without the Lightning add-on.

Of course, I cannot access my Thunderbird calendar from work, so there I turn to Google Calendar and then use the Provider for Google Calendar add-on to keep myself synchronized. In this case, all my events are stored at Google so I can access them from anywhere. But at home, I can still use Thunderbird and any events I add or change will be immediately updated on Google as well.

Speaking of Google, if you have a Gmail account and want to keep your contacts there synchronized with Thunderbird, look no further than the Zindus add-on. It works great with Zimbra too, not just Google.

One more calendar-related add-on that I employ is ThunderBirthDay. This takes the birthday information that you enter for your contacts and displays it as events in the Lightning calendar. No more missed birthdays, Ma!

If you are as obsessive-compulsive as I am, you will get annoyed that Thunderbird will gladly suck up disk space, but then not release it even after you delete that 10MB e-mail loaded with pictures of your nephew. That is why I like Purge! Purge will compact all of your e-mail file folders and nuke the e-mail loitering in your Junk folder to boot. It feels good to purge.

Finally, what if you are multi-lingual? (I like to think I am, although others seem to disagree.) When drafting e-mails, it is nice to spell-check those with the proper dictionary. To add a dictionary, go to the add-ons site listed earlier and search for “German dictionary” or “Spanish dictionary” or whatever language you happen to be fluent in.

Beannachd leat!

Answer:

Oh boy, can I! But before I jump to it, let’s define add-ons for the uninitiated. An add-on is what the name implies, something extra beyond the normal browser or e-mail client functionality. They are intended to make our lives easier, quicker, and friendlier. The cost is that each one you add on will cause things to slow down a little bit. For this reason, my installed add-ons are kept to a minimum.

To see which add-ons are installed and which are available, and to install new ones, simply go to the Tools menu and select Add-ons. Or, you can go to addons.mozilla.org. I would not recommend add-ons that are not listed on this site.

First, Firefox is awesome at handling those pesky popup windows. But what about all those other annoying web widgets like advertisements and flash animations that hold your browser hostage? For these we turn to Adblock Plus and Flashblock.

Adblock Plus does just that, blocks advertisement content from being downloaded at all. This really speeds up web pages. It uses a list of partial URL matches to perform its magic. For example, on a typical weather.com page, 11 of 60 images or scripts don’t get downloaded. It’s fully customizable, of course.

Flashblock is my next favorite. It will disable all Flash animations on a web page. Again, this speeds up page loading and prevents those full-screen Flash ads from infuriating you. It leaves the place holder for the animation there, so you can play it if you want, and naturally you can disable it on sites that require Flash, like YouTube.

Next up, I personally don’t appreciate Firefox’s Download Manager popping up in a separate window. Therefore, I utilize Download Manager Tweak to have this show up in a tab instead.

I love tabs … so much so that I don’t want them to live depressing, rudimentary lives. Therefore I have ColorfulTabs. This add-on doesn’t do anything but make Firefox look prettier. My one vanity, if you wish.

Unfortunately, not all web pages are accommodating for people who use a web browser other than Internet Explorer. So sometimes I am forced to use IE for certain sites. But, actually clicking on the IE shortcut invokes a violent spasm of detest, so I utilize the IE Tab add-on instead. Although everything else is good ol’ Firefox, that one tab uses the IE rendering engine. There, I feel better already.

My next group of add-ons might not be for everybody. These are really useful for web development. An absolute must is Firebug. It helps analyze the HTML structure of a web page and also diagnose why that celestial CSS that you wrote isn’t working as intended.

Finally, if you ever have to write documentation that references a lot of screen captures of web pages, give FireShot a shot. It not only captures the visible portion of the screen, but the entire page, which I can tell you is way better than pasting them together in Photoshop.

Ooops, it looks like I’ve run out of space to mention Thunderbird add-ons. I’ll have to cover them next time. Until then, have a colorful, pest-free browsing experience.

Answer:

I'd be more concerned about how they knew you were single! Maybe they took control of your webcam and figured anyone who combs his hair like that must live alone? Okay, calm down: the Internet is still the place where "nobody knows you’re a dog," as they used to say.

For now your marital status is somewhat safe, but it’s open season on your whereabouts. On the Internet right now it’s all about location, location, location.

Your ad probably used "IP geolocation" to determine where you were. Internet connections are assigned "Internet Protocol" addresses, which are sets of numbers separated by periods, like "99.18.50.219" (see whatismyip.com for yours).

Internet providers allocate ranges of IP addresses to different localities. Companies like MaxMind (maxmind.com) sell databases of IP-to-location mappings. Punch your IP into http://bit.ly/cFXn2r to see where they think you are.

IP geolocation is only accurate to the city and is wrong about your state 15% of the time, according to locationaware.org. Good enough for cyber-personals, but insufficient for turn-by-turn directions, "hyper-local advertising," and alerting you when your buddies are nearby.

These are some of the uses envisioned by the World Wide Web Consortium (w3c.org), which added geolocation capabilities to HTML5, the upcoming version of the computer language used in web pages. The Big Five browsers – Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome, and Apple’s Safari – announced support in upcoming products, while Loki (loki.com) plugs into existing browsers to "location-enable" them.

How do they find you more accurately than IP geolocation? Some phones use their built-in GPS chips. Others phones and some computers gather information about nearby cell towers and Wi-Fi networks.

Skyhook Wireless (skyhookwireless.com) operates a service used by the iPhone, the latest Macs, and some Dell netbooks. The phone or computer sends the MAC addresses (unique IDs) of nearby wireless routers to Skyhook, which maintains a database of router locations. They’ve paid people to drive around the country with special equipment that records location and data about nearby routers. They can combine this with information from GPS and cell tower signals to pinpoint devices within 10-20 yards.

Microsoft and Yahoo use Navizon (navizon.com) for their location-based services. Navizon relies on "crowd-sourcing," offering cash to people who download their products and submit location data back to them to build a "collaborative database."

These "hybrid positioning systems" are more accurate than IP geolocation, but don't cover rural areas as well. They also work better for laptops, since many desktop computers don't have wireless connections.

A lower-tech approach used by some sites currently is just to ask users where they are in order to provide more targeted services.

So privacy nuts are going to find it increasingly difficult to carry mobile phones or work on laptops without being found, because when it comes to The Next Big Thing on the Internet, location is "where it’s at." Now, about that comb-over...

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Many Gmail users were surprised this month to find a link to "Buzz" right there next to their inboxes. So what is Buzz? And why did Google create it?

The short answer to both questions is "Facebook and Twitter." But we're not paid to give short answers, so let us explain. [Editor's Note: These guys are getting paid? Who keeps sending them checks?!]

Buzz (google.com/buzz) is Google's answer to Facebook and Twitter, their latest attempt to jump on the "social networking" bandwagon. Like those other two, Buzz lets you "share what you're thinking" and "post a picture, video, or other link" for others to see. Those others are your "followers" (a term popularized by Twitter).

Besides "updating your status," as the Facebook kids call it, you can also connect your Buzz account to Flickr and Picasa for sharing photos, Twitter for sharing "tweets" (short messages), and Blogger for sharing blog posts. There's a mobile version too, and messages posted from your phone can automatically be tagged with your location.

"But wait," you say, "I never signed up for this!" You didn't have to. Making Buzz part of Gmail automatically created millions of users without requiring anyone to sign up. Got a Gmail account? Then you've got a Buzz account too. That’s one way to compete with Facebook and its huge lead in membership numbers.

But why did Google enter the fray? Again, “Twitter and Facebook,” but mostly the latter. It turns out that Facebook had more US visitors than Google on New Year’s Eve, and that was the third time in a week that Facebook took the top spot from the search giant. Reports from Internet traffic monitoring firms (like hitwise.com) show a trend that Google isn’t happy about.

There are also rumors that Facebook is building a competitor to AdSense, Google’s cash cow program that serves up most of the web ads today. Remember all that personal information you handed over to Facebook when you signed up? That’ll help them determine which ads to show you. Facebook versus Google could be the next Google versus Microsoft.

The Buzz launch was somewhat controversial. Google irritated users by publicly disclosing their followers and followees, a big privacy no-no for some. Buzz also assigned followers to each user automatically, based on who had sent them e-mail in the past. This didn’t go over well either, so the “auto-follow” feature was changed to “auto-suggest” instead.

Meanwhile, lawsuits and complaints to the FTC have been filed, claiming that Google’s integration of an e-mail service with a social networking product violates privacy and computer fraud statutes.

We’re a bit perplexed. Computer programmers are notorious for being antisocial, so why do they keep cranking out newfangled ways of interacting with others? We’re happy with our two Facebook friends and our one Twitter follower, and everyone else can just… well, “buzz” off!

Answer:

You sure you are not my wife? There are better ways to get me to pay attention than writing me at work. I told you, “I already took the trash out.”

Since I am obviously on the defensive, let me state that while I may waste a lot of time surfing while watching a movie or eating, others are doing just the one thing. So, I am multi-tasking. If you ask me, you are the one wasting time.

Here’s the real test. Turn over your keyboard. Tap it on the desk. Recognize dinner? You’re just as sick as me.

But now, I need to turn this into a useful article. So, how about I talk about some of my favorite time-wasting websites? To me, these website fall into three main categories: reference, aggregator, and amusement. I will talk about them separately.

Let me set the scene. We are watching a period movie. There are tons of references to historic events and people. Because the movie has Debra Winger, Molly Ringwald, or Cameron Diaz, I have already written it off. So, now I need to entertain myself. At the first mention of Catherine the Great or Spain’s King Charles II, I jump into Wikipedia to find out if the writer/director is making stuff up. Not that I think www.wikipedia.com is a great reference, but it is a great time-waster. Once into the article, I quickly forget why I was there and find myself clicking one link after another filling my head with useless information. Before I know it, I am fascinated by related article on the Internet Movie Database site (www.imdb.com). Once I get to Kevin Bacon, I start over.

Then back to the movie screen, Paris Hilton makes some sort of pop reference or uses misplaced slang, so I jump into www.urbandictionary.com to find out what she meant to say. It seems like I never leave without checking out a few more words or sayings. They’ll even email you a word of the day.

Aggregator sites collect links from other sites and summarize, categorize, and rank current content through visitor submissions, commentary, and votes. Two popular sites are www.digg.com and www.reddit.com. For a little variety, visit www.fark.com. Similar sites include www.delicious.com or www.stumbleupon.com. You may have seen little icons near the end articles which let you easily submit what you just read to these aggregators. You can spend untold hours going from one article to another, catching up on plenty of useless web postings. But because you are looking at articles others found useful, it feels like you are just keeping up with important stuff.

Amusement sites let you browse content intended to make you laugh or play. So, just as J.Lo starts getting all Gigli with Ben, consider visiting www.cracked.com. Warning: some of their stuff is not office-friendly. Www.dontevenreply.com has fun at the expense of outrageous classified ad responses, and www.funnyordie.com is sort of an all-comedy YouTube. For made-up news, www.theonion.com is a must-see. Need to play? Try www.bored.com or www.games.yahoo.com.

Have I convinced you there’s a lot out there to while away the hours? For the sake of your marriage, take the occasional break to comment on the movie or to complement the dinner tacos. Then, clean your keyboard

Answer:

 Before I answer your question, I want to tell you about an amazing place called The Mystery Hole, near Ansted, WV. We used to see this roadside attraction on our way to Charleston, WV. It was nestled in the mountains amongst the hairpin turns and near-vertical inclines that comprised that stretch of Route 60. Although not for the faint of heart, we drove Route 60 because the alternative, the old West Virginia Turnpike, was too horrible to contemplate.

We finally visited The Mystery Hole in the late 80’s, and it fulfilled all expectations. However, we never saw the place again. No, it didn’t burn down or disappear, but Interstate 64 was finally completed, making Route 60 obsolete for our purposes.

Now, if you were paying attention, I just answered your question. Why build a search engine? For the traffic! We never visited The Mystery Hole again, but frequently stop at a service station near Beaver, WV, just off the new stretch of I-64. The same principle applies to the Internet. If you can capture the search market, there are many opportunities to make a buck, and Microsoft can smell a greenback like an old hound dog can track a raccoon.

How do you compete with Google, the king of search engines? By building a better mouse trap, uh, search engine. Let’s face it, the Internet is a mess of information, and you must use a search to find anything useful. All current search engines do a pretty good job of finding the right things. So Microsoft is concentrating on presenting the results in a more useful way.

Is Bing (www.bing.com) better than Google? Well, besides giving me a predisposition to ask rhetorical questions, The Mystery Hole may have affected my mind, because I believe it is. Bing organizes results into categories, which are listed to the left, along with related searches and search history. You can often see a synopsis of the web page by hovering the mouse to the right of the link. The intent is to provide the answer to your query without having to click on any links.

Bing is not brand new, but is based on Microsoft’s Live Search engine, and some of the best features from that software were ported to Bing. Take the Bing Maps. Along with the aerial view, there’s a cool “bird’s eye” view that is like Google’s Street View, but a few hundred feet in the air. You can even “fly” around a location using the rotate function.

The Bing Travel site benefits from Microsoft’s purchase of Farecast, which makes searching for flights and accommodations a snap. Finding images and video is easier with Bing, too. Both are presented as a page of thumbnails. Hovering your mouse over an image presents you with a slightly larger version and other details. Do the same for a video, and a mini-preview of the video will play, complete with sound.

Of course, Google is still used by the majority of people doing searches, and inertia is always against the newcomer. But the gains Bing has made has caused Google to add some Bing-like features to their search engine, like adding images to location search results. So even if you stick with Google, you will enjoy the benefits of the competition.

Do you want to learn more? Visit my favorite tech sites, PC Magazine (www.pcmag.com), PC World (www.pcworld.com), or CNET (look in the news section: http://news.cnet.com) if you want more details. Or just try Bing for yourself.

And The Mystery Hole? It still exists, and you can get a feel for the place by visiting their web site: http://mysteryhole.com. But I’ll bet they wished their stretch of Route 60 had a bit more traffic.

Answer:

You are not alone. Although Vista has been pre-installed on most new computers for a couple of years, there are many holdouts like yourself who saw no compelling need to upgrade from XP. This was especially true in the business world, where demand ensured that XP continued to be an option on new equipment.

Now Microsoft is preparing to release a new operating system, named, in keeping with the former convention (which included 3.1, 95, NT, ME, 2000, XP, and Vista), Windows 7. Why “7” and not “Floyd” or “2010” or “XYZ”? Who knows? Perhaps Microsoft hopes that 7 will be their lucky number.

Is Windows 7 an improvement over the buggy Vista? Early indications are that it is. Since the “Release Candidate” build of Windows 7 was released in April 2009, it has been scrutinized by industry experts. Many of them are mildly impressed by their findings.

For starters, 7 is a leaner, meaner OS, requiring less memory than Vista and loading faster. In fact, it boots 7 times faster that Vista! OK, I just made that up, but the truth is that 7 requires fewer system resources, and even installs quicker (20 minutes compared with over an hour for Vista). This alone is a radical departure for Microsoft, which has tended to produce ever more bloated software as processor speed, disk storage, and memory performance for new computers increased.

Microsoft has tried to make 7 easy to use. No, really they have! For example, hovering the mouse over minimized programs in the task bar provides thumbnails of the application along with the names of any open files. Start menu programs display a “jump list” of the files most often used by the program when the cursor is over them. Clicking the top of an open window and wiggling the mouse back and forth minimizes all other open windows. The file system has been enhanced by the addition of “libraries”, which allow you to group similar files together regardless of where they are located on your hard disk or network.

Improved networking features promise an easier and more stable connection to wireless networks. Windows 7 can automatically reconnect you to your home or work networks without forcing you to re-enter credentials. Another neat upgrade is the new Windows Media Player, which allows you to access media on a different computer that’s attached to the Internet. So you can listen to music stored on your home computer while pretending to work on a spreadsheet for your boss at work. If you would like more details, it’s easy to find reviews online. Some of our favorites include CNet (http://tinyurl.com/cwxt3m), PC Magazine (http://tinyurl.com/l6sncx), and PC World (http://tinyurl.com/nyue2k).

Along with important improvements are what I would call fluff, like more themes, icons and sounds. More importantly, most testers report that this Windows 7 is more stable and less buggy that Vista (official Microsoft motto: “We’ll get it right…eventually.”)

Microsoft says that Windows 7 will be available by October 22, 2009, so I’m guessing sometime in the first quarter of 2010. Pricing has not been announced, but it will probably be $77.77. OK, I’m kidding again. If you need to buy a new machine with Vista before then, chances are that you will be given the opportunity to upgrade at a discount. Perhaps 70% off?

Answer:

Moi?! Exploit your technical curiosity for a quick buck? Well those home theater components we're looking at aren't going to buy themselves, you know.

The real motive behind all those bitly this and tinyurl that addresses is saving space. Oh, and the environment: you are printing out all our columns and distributing them to friends, right?

It turns out that TinyURL (tinyurl.com) and Bitly (bit.ly) can take unwieldy URLs like http://www.data-directions.com/atp/Blog.aspx?page=windtunnel (our blog) and turn them into manageable URLs like tinyurl.com/n8eam5 or http://bit.ly/NoOXS.

These URL shorteners are free and easy to use. The next time you have a gargantuan Google Maps link to send through e-mail, paste the link into TinyURL first. It will convert your URL into a shorter one you can send out instead.

When people follow the shorter link, they're taken to TinyURL, which uses the code on the end to look up the original URL you entered and redirects visitors to that address. This prevents e-mail programs from splitting URLs across multiple lines and breaking the links.

It's also great for URLs that are going into print, and is used extensively on Twitter, which limits messages to 140 characters. They're useful for instant messages, chat rooms, on-line forums, blogs, and FaceBook – any place a whopping URL might cause problems or look ridiculous.

TinyURL was one of the first shorteners, and is one of the most popular. Another fairly simple one is "Is Good!" (http://is.gd), but several have started to add more features recently.

Bitly tracks URL statistics, like hit counts and which countries people are visiting from. This is handy if you're monitoring your FaceBook traffic in Germany, Mr. Hasselhoff. Trim (http://tr.im) provides a timeline of link activity, and even shows the web browsers used to view each URL.

Some, like Doiop (http://doiop.com), let you choose the code that's appended to the short URL. Or add a message to the top of target pages with http://msg.is. One site (http://url.so-smart.be) is sponsored by Smart cars ("park large URLs into tiny spaces"). See 90 more at http://is.gd/12mkW or 68 others (with some repeats) at http://msg.is/3wl.

For something a little different, try hugeurl.com, which turns puny URLs into jumbo addresses, or dickensurl.com, which converts them into links containing passages from Dickens. Crotchety cat fans will cheer icanhaz.com, and bacon fans (aka "humans") will love http://bacn.me, which can serve a side of bacon with your link (more shorteners, and bacon, at http://bacn.me/7om).

But these sites are not without problems. If TinyURL or Bitly were to disappear, Twitter would become a dead link wasteland. And what happens if a service expires a shortened URL?

They also let people mask links to sites owned by Internet scammers or worse (more at http://is.gd/12nxX). Some shorteners display a preview of the link before redirecting users, which helps alleviate this problem. Qwix (qwix.com) even checks URLs against a database of suspected fraudulent sites.

So no, we don't make money using TinyURL or Bitly – even those sites are seeking ways to profit from their services. But if you do think of a way to get rich shortening things, let us know. Who else can explain URL shorteners in just 600 words?

Answer:

In order to reliably deliver the good 3%, email service providers automatically filter suspected spam based on the content by searching for keywords and certain patterns. They also filter messages that may contain dangerous attachments. In addition, they keep track of past spam behavior so they can filter emails based on the sender.

Filters are running at several checkpoints (think post offices) along the way to your computer. Server administrators can adjust the filtering software to be more or less aggressive. If they tweak it right, you get very little spam. If they go too far, legitimate emails get filtered out. It’s like if you were the security guard at the backstage entrance to a Barbra Streisand concert. So many want to get in, so few can. It means that occasionally Nathan Lane gets turned away. That might be what happened to your mail. And you thought I would never get around to answering your question.

This problem is not getting any better soon. So, despite the high odds, the Internet email system is remarkably reliable.

What should you do to mitigate this? First, get in the habit of replying to emails to confirm receipt. Even if you aren’t ready to respond, just send a quick reply saying you got the email. Don’t enable the automatic “read receipt” feature on your emails – that service can actually help out the spammers, so some recipients will block the receipts from being sent back.

Of course, don’t open or reply to email from people you don’t know, or open attachments you weren’t expecting. And use the junk email reporting or filtering features of your email program.

Another problem is that folks are inundated with emails, so they let them build up like so many unread tech journals and never get around to responding. You can help by avoiding the "reply all" button unless it’s warranted.

You should also stop sending those chain emails predicting the second coming if you break the chain. And get in the habit of unsubscribing to newsletters you never read to cut down on overall email traffic. For more, search “top email tips” at www.about.com. Their tips are reliable, even if they are free.

Answer:

To paraphrase an oft-quoted engineering maxim: You can have quick, inexpensive, and hassle-free. Pick any two. You have several e-commerce options, each with trade-offs. Which option you choose will depend on what you're selling, your available resources, and what kind of on-line presence you want to create.

You might start by purchasing a classified ad on your local paper's web site, or by posting on the popular classifieds site craigslist.org. This is about as quick and easy as advertising on a grocery store bulletin board, but it's still advertising on the web. As for selling on the web...

At the lower end of the spectrum is the vast on-line marketplace and auction site that is eBay (ebay.com). Creating a seller account is straightforward, and you're charged a fee both for listing items and when they sell. EBay is like a garage sale: quick and cheap to set up, but you won't establish much of a brand. Their "eBay stores" feature can help with branding, but their logo still tops every page.

CraigsList and eBay provide tips for avoiding scammers – be sure to read them!

Next we have collective storefronts like Etsy (etsy.com), which looks more organized but restricts you to selling handmade or vintage goods. They charge for listings (and again when items sell), but offer innovative features for buyers (like shopping by color).

Amazon's "Selling on Amazon" service (tinyurl.com/pb4tya) has fewer restrictions on what you can sell, but the fees are steeper and you'll compete with more sellers for buyers' attention. These are like flea markets – you hawk your wares alongside other sellers, but the high traffic compensates for it.

Climbing the Ladder of Bad Analogies we arrive at e-commerce hosting services like Homestead (homestead.com), Yahoo! Merchant Solutions (store.yahoo.com), and WebStore by Amazon (webstore.amazon.com), where costs are a little higher. Yahoo! starts at $26/month plus a 1.5% transaction fee on sales. Amazon's pricing is $60/month plus a 7% referral fee, but this includes credit card processing fees (unlike most competitors).

Those additional costs buy a site that is unmistakably yours – your "signage" (graphics, colors, fonts) and your merchandise only (no competing sellers on your pages). Some of the site URLs will begin with "www.your-company-name.com," and you have greater control over the shopping experience. Want a small, low-key storefront like a lemonade stand? Or one that hangs in there with the big boys, like a shop in the mall? Site customization lets you decide how customers see your business.

Finally, we arrive at the on-line equivalent of owning your own stand-alone retail building: the custom site. If you're a programmer and want to build it yourself, consider shopping cart programs like the ones at tinyurl.com/62uprm or search the web for "shopping cart software" – there are many options, including some free ones.

Can't tell your HTML from a hole in the ground? Find a web design or software company that has experience building e-commerce sites. Look for local companies or search on-line, and ask other business owners or web hosting providers for recommendations.

As with real-world stores, you might start small and work your way up. E-mail us once your products are on-line – we're anxious to see what you're selling. Unless it really is lemonade, in which case you might want to re-think your business model.

Answer:

I know what you mean. I used to carry a thumb drive with all my “essential” files, and copy them to each computer I used. This worked well as long as I always remembered to copy changes to the thumb drive so they could be replicated on the other computers.

Now I have retired the thumb drive, because Microsoft has introduced a better solution for multi-machine synchronization. It’s called Live Mesh, it’s in Beta release, and it’s free (for now).

Live Mesh was developed to let you share files, like documents, photos, and music, between multiple computers or other devices. The goal is to allow you to connect your digital camera to your computer and have it automatically copy any new photos to your hard drive and any other computer in your “mesh”. The computers do not need to be on the same network, they just need to have an internet connection.

I set up Live Mesh on both my home and work computers, and selected the folders I wanted to synchronize. When I update a spreadsheet at work, my copy at home is updated immediately. If I add a Word document to a synchronized folder at home, it magically appears in the same folder at work. How does Microsoft do it? Word is they have perfected the teleporter from Star Trek, and they use it to “beam” the document to your hard drive.

OK, I made that up. The Live Mesh just monitors the folders you have set up to synchronize, and replicates changes to your entire Mesh network. You have to have a “live” (broadband) Internet connection with all your machines, so that the changes can be shared, and be running Windows XP or Vista, but those are the only restrictions.

You can also specify folders you want to share with others, and those folders are automatically synched as well. This can be a wonderful tool for collaboration when the users are not connected to the same network.

There are a couple of other neat features of Live Mesh that make it worthwhile. Every Mesh includes a Live Desktop that exists only on the web. You automatically synchronize with this virtual computer, too, so it can be used as an online backup of important files. For now, Microsoft provides each account 5GB of online storage.

Another neat feature is that you can remotely connect to any of the computers in your Mesh without using Remote Desktop or VPN. I can log on to my work computer from home and control it just as if I were sitting in front of it. This can be handy if there are tasks you cannot perform on your home machine and you do not feel like driving to the office.

You can learn more about Live Mesh at the Microsoft web site: www.mesh.com. You can watch a slide show that guides you through the process of setting up your own Live Mesh Account at PC Magazine: http://tinyurl.com/cy9ds7.

I can’t guarantee that Live Mesh will remain free, or if Microsoft will wait until we all start depending on it to charge us. But hopefully they will not make a mesh of this nifty new tool.

Answer:  I hear you. Keeping up with all those IDs is as hard as finding a country band at the Obama inauguration.

Many websites require that you establish a sign-on ID, which makes sense when they store sensitive information, as with shopping sites or financial institutions. Others want you to register so they have an excuse for spamming you later. You signed up at Moveon.org for the O-man t-shirt too? Man, that was a mistake.

Each site changes the rules for creating an ID. Some want your email address, while others require a mixed character set with different length requirements. And don’t get me started on passwords. Every site thinks they have the magic formula, insisting on weird combinations of letters, numbers, and special symbols. Later, if you do remember your password, it takes a dozen attempts to enter the thing. Sounds like the inaugural ticket holders at the Purple Gate, doesn’t it?

But what happens when your email address changes? Suddenly all of those sites need new IDs. Most IDs can't be changed once they're established. What if your ID is compromised? Now all sites where you used the same ID are susceptible. You have to visit each one and make changes.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a single ID that worked on all of the sites? This is change we can believe in.

Welcome to OpenID (www.openid.net) – an open (meaning free), decentralized user identification standard that allows users to log on to many services with the same digital identity. As of November 2008, there were over 500 million registered OpenID users and approximately 27,000 OpenID-enabled sites, including America Online, Yahoo!, Flickr, Facebook, and WordPress.com. Google, Microsoft, and IBM have announced upcoming support for this standard.

Because OpenID is a web community property, there is no single repository for the accounts. Rather, each of the OpenID adoptees, called service providers, follow the standard, allowing their credentials to form the basis of sharing an OpenID across the net. This is probably how Barack got to keep his Blackberry.

For example, Yahoo! started supporting OpenID on Jan 1st (openid.yahoo.com). Simply enable OpenID under your Yahoo! account, then you can sign in to any site that supports OpenID without creating a new account. Yahoo! verifies your credentials for the new site, using your existing Yahoo! ID. Presto!

If you decide to change your Yahoo! password in the future, the change follows you to the OpenID sites you use. The cool part is that your credentials are only stored at Yahoo!. So, to get started, pick a provider you trust to be your OpenID home.

Is this ready for prime time, or is it just another tech trend soon to be forgotten, like so many campaign promises? (Lobbyists need jobs too!) I dunno. But with some of the big boys joining in, we may have reached the tipping point.
I plan to use my OpenID for all new accounts going forward, to see how this plays out. If it looks like it has staying power (Obama in 2012!?), I’ll adopt it for more of my accounts.

Answer:  Yes, it’s known as Zen computing. You sit at your imaginary desk in front of your imaginary computer and type on your imaginary keyboard. Then you collect your imaginary paycheck.

Ha! Don’t you love PropellerHead humor? OK, drop that baseball bat and I’ll tell you what it really means.

The Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is the latest twist on an old idea. When this PropellerHead began working in IT, we didn’t have fancy-smancy PCs. We had ugly beige monitors called CRTs (pronounced “see are teas”) and keyboards. The monitor background was black, and the text could be any color you wanted, as long as it was green. And we liked it that way! Ah, the great green programs I wrote on those old beige monsters.

Anyway, we called the monitors "workstations," not computers, because they were all connected to a huge mainframe computer somewhere else. The programs ran on the mainframe, and the monitors let us control the mainframe so it would perform tasks for us.

This was made possible by software called Time Sharing Option, or TSO – a program so popular they named a Chinese dish after it (General TSOs Chicken). TSO made it seem like each of us controlled the mainframe, but really we were sharing its processing time.

In the 1980s, the PC began to replace the old CRT workstations. Word-processors and spreadsheet programs ran on the PC itself. This is the model with which you are familiar.

But there are drawbacks to this set-up. PC software costs are based on the number of PCs, making it expensive. Also, Tech Services departments are run ragged installing upgrades and fixing machines after users download twitchy, unauthorized software from the Internet. If only there were some way to share one copy of a program among several users, and keep them from making catastrophic changes to their machines.

Enter VDI (pronounced vee dee eye), an idea similar to the old TSO model. Word processing and e-mail software run on central servers, to which the PC connects through a network. It looks like the software is running on the PC, just as it looked like the CRT workstation controlled the entire computer.

VDI probably appeals to your stingy – uh, I mean "cost-conscious" – company, because it can be a huge money-saver. Fewer software copies need to be purchased, and the Tech Department can prevent any twitchy changes. Finally, since the server is doing the processing, the PC will probably last longer.

The same concept is coming to your home computer too, in the form of “Cloud Computing”. It’s like VDI, except that the network is the Internet, and the server is on the World Wide Web.

To learn more about VDI, read eWeek's article at http://tinyurl.com/7k38s6. To see how the old CRTs looked, check out http://tinyurl.com/bresxk. Read more on Cloud Computing at the PropellerHead archives (www.data-directions.com/atp/index.html). If you want to buy me dinner, here’s my sentimental favorite: http://tinyurl.com/2ukt89.

Answer: Which version of Internet Explorer? Version 7, or the new version 8 that is in beta right now? You might have guessed that Microsoft would not ignore a new browser from an Internet giant like Google. Seems the only way you can get the folks in Redmond to upgrade their browser these days is to threaten them with competition.

And make no mistake, the new Google browser, named Chrome, is a threat, and the newest player in a growing list of competitors for the browser market.

Right now, there are several excellent browsers that you can download for free. Mozilla’s Firefox, the most popular browser after IE, is currently offering version 3 (www.firefox.com). Opera, a distant third on the Windows platform, is in version 9.5 (www.opera.com). Apple’s Safari browser, version 3.1, is now available for Windows as well as the Mac (www.apple.com/safari).

So why did Google introduce Chrome into this crowded field? Because the Internet is where it’s at, baby! Whoever controls the portal to the world-wide web wields enormous power. That’s why Microsoft has rushed to provide their updated browser to the public.

The “world wide web” is evolving, and may soon be where you go to run popular applications like word processors and spreadsheets, or even store your digital photos. Everyone is trying to guess the direction that the Internet is heading, and all that frenzied speculation makes for some very swift innovation.

So, how does Chrome stack up to Internet Explorer? Pretty well, actually. Google has incorporated a lot of the neatest features of the other browsers into Chrome. You can download your own copy at www.google.com/chrome. The first thing you will notice when you start Chrome is that the interface is simple and elegant, just like the Google home page. The browser loads web pages very fast, and contains several nice features, such as “incognito mode”, which allows you to crawl the web without storing history and cookies on your computer.

I like the way you can save your favorite web sites as small buttons across the top of the browser, and the crash control that prevents an errant web page from completely closing your browser. It also imports you favorites and saved passwords from IE (as well as other browsers), which saves a lot of time. If you want to search the web, you just type your search terms in the internet address box. Chrome can distinguish between a URL and a search.

To test this feature, I decided to conduct a search for “creepy Microsoft ad”. Sure enough, the first listing in the results s a link to a video of Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld in a shoe store.

If you would like to compare Chrome with the Internet Explorer 8 Beta, you can download it at http://tinyurl.com/3242ra. You might not notice any differences between IE7 and IE8 until you open a new tab. Then you’ll see a typical Microsoft design annoyance: the overly helpful feature. “What do you want to do next?” the helpful banner asks, helpfully. Unfortunately, there is no “Leave me alone!” option.

But IE8 does include some useful features, such as a list of recently visited sites or closed tabs, and Microsoft’s version of stealth mode (called “InPrivate Browsing”). An “Accelerator” function allows you to select text on a web page and use it as input to mapping software, or a reference site such as a dictionary.

So, will Chrome challenge Internet Explorer’s dominance in the browser market? It will probably develop a small but loyal following, like Firefox. I predict that most people will stick with the browser that comes with their operating system, which will likely be Windows, so that means IE. But if the only impact Chrome has is to frighten Microsoft into improving their browser, then we’ll all benefit.

Answer:  Good guess, but I don’t think you’re ready for 1vs.100. Cloud computing is what angels use to keep track of raindrops.

No, seriously, cloud computing is just a new twist on an old idea known as “distributed computing”. The main idea is that the computer processes you invoke occur on a remote computer or group of computers, rather than on your desktop PC. The “cloud” is an old networking concept that refers to a public area outside the boundaries and control of the regular network, like the Internet.

Why a cloud? Because, like a cloud, it could be anything. You might see a ducky, or a horsie, or “the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor.”

In this new paradigm, the cloud is a network of computers that dish up data or fairly hefty processes, like an operating system. A Swedish Company called Xcerion (to be a really cool tech company, you have to have an X in your name) is doing just that, with their OS in a browser application, named XIOS (there’s that X again). You can read more about it at xcerion.com

Other companies, like Xicrosoft and Xoogle, uh, I mean Microsoft and Google, are working on providing cloud data storage. Rather than keeping all your documents on your hard drive, you can store them in the cloud. That way, every time you access that spreadsheet, you can be bombarded with ads.

You can preview a beta of the Microsoft data storage cloud at http://skydrive.live.com. Your cloud is limited to 1GB, but it’s free (for now). Google provides 2.8GB of free storage with GMail accounts, with an option to purchase more at $20 per 6GB (www.google.com/accounts). Apple’s iDisk (www.apple.com/dotmac/idisk.html) gives you 10GB, and costs ($99/year).

Will it catch on? Will the crowd love the cloud? Some proponents think that cloud computing is the Next Big Thing. It will solve all our problems and teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. It will buy the world a Coke and… oh, sorry, I was having a 70’s flashback.

I think the cloud concept for processes has a better chance with business than with home computer users. Running everything from a central location has definite advantages. In fact, it’s such a great idea that it has already been done. They called them “mainframes” back then. As for cloud data storage, it’s a wonderful idea for backing up those critical files you can’t afford to lose in a hard disk crash. But can they make it absolutely hackersafe?

Until we’re sure the process is secure, Thomas Eakins and I are going to keep our programs and data right here on Earth.