Bill & XP’s Windows Closed

This week marked two developments for Microsoft, and both of them were monumental : Bill Gates called it quits (apparently), and XP was forced to call it quits…

The former World’s Richest Man will still be the associated with MS, but would divert his energy to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He, who inspite of being on top of the world has pledged all but 1% of his wealth to humanity, was a great man indeed. Though many would call him a pilferer for ‘stealing’ Apple’s ideas, but he was the man who made all the difference to our worlds… Imagine going 100 miles to a University or Lab to gain access to Internet!! He brought the PCs within our reach, and made the software industry what it is.

And now to the second one :

Microsoft won’t be marketing any new XPs in the main market after they took it off the shelves on 30th June, and so forcing new buyers to go with Vista. Many people see this as a bad thing, giving ‘lame’ reasons like Slower OS, new interface, and even AERO!! Isn’t it ridiculous how people go on cursing Microsoft for all of their curses, but still not move on to Linux so quickly?

I myself have used Vista for a month now, and it is very stable… Not crashed on me once… And about hardware problems : They have largely been resolved by SP1… And Vista is not a very BIG memory hog… 1 GB is sufficient, but 2-3 gigs would be great. About the rearrangement of items like in Start Menu and Menu Bar (in folders), I can say that it has been made much cleaner and easier, add to that the excellent readability and usability, here is a very good OS.. Just marred by bad publicity…

Take my word : If you hate it, Give Vista a try and you’ll feel different.

The URI schemes in Browsers

You must be very familiar with the page :

about:blank

So what do you think this " about: " is??? A protocol?? A URL?? Nopes... Actually its one of the URI Schemes(Uniform Resource Identifier).

Here are some more about about:

Browser : FIREFOX

about:	See the info about firefox... (Same as clicking on Help>About Mozilla Firefox)
about:blank	A beautiful white backgroung with the fox in pure white ashes... (some people call this as a blank page)
about:mozilla	Verse from The Book Of Mozilla... Read it and you'll see.
about:plugins	See info about all installed plugins
about:about	Lists all the about: addresses. (Not in FF3 as far as I know)
about:logo	See the Firefox Logo
about:cache	One of my favourites... It lists the cache entries on disk and memory... The reason it is my fave is because through this I can Download any song/video from ANY site... (Follow this link to read more)
	DOWNLOAD MUSIC/VIDEOS
about:license/about:licence	See the Official Mozilla Public License (Licence in British English).
about:config	The most useful about:, It lets you configure every inch in firefox... But just don't change anything without thought... It may crash the Browser.
about:blocked	Shows you the page which comes up if FF considers a Web Forgery/ Attack site... But the about:blocked page itselt is harmless...
about:robots	Added in FF3, try it yourself
about:credits	See the FULL credits... See what a big thing this fox is...

Browser : OPERA

Most of the Firefox's URI Schemes are also supported in Opera, but you'll have to replace the about: with opera:

Like :

opera:plugins

One exception is about:blank which is universal.

Browser : IE7

about:tabs shows information about Tabbed browsing (which was MS added in IE7 for the first time)

about:NoAddons displayes list of disabled addons...

There are many more... Try searching for them yourself...

Firefox 3 RC2... One Step Closer

Mozilla has made the Release Candidate 2 of Firefox available to download. This RC sees over 40 bugs fixed which surfaced in RC1 (which was very stable in itself). By doing this, Mozilla further ensure that the end product is a high quality product, which will attract more users.

Firefox is much more faster, secure, reliable... there's malware protection, a web forgery protection page, checks for add-ons and plugins, protection against cross-site attacks, and the ability to see information about a particular web site simply by clicking on its icon in the location bar, and an intelligent "Most Visited" button. Firefox's JavaScript engine has been boosted significantly, and memory leaks are supposed to be tightened up. User data (such as bookmarks, cookies, and preferences) are stored in a more secure database format so that, even if the browser crashes (which is becoming rarer with every update) they'll be protected. Plus, a whole host of features have been added which are supposed to make FF3 easier to use, including better password management, simplified add-on installation, full page zooming, tab scrolling, and better integration with Windows and Mac.

All-in-all, Firefox is much better than IE7, even IE8 beta, which I checked out a month or so ago. And even slightly better than Apple's Safari. It's ease of installation and use, combined with the myriad options provided by add-ons and extensions make it the best choice on the net. I use firefox nearly all the time (unless there's a site which says it just won't work if I don't use IE 5.5 or better... dumb demand), and the memory footprint, though not low, is satisfying, as FF uses a greatly improved memory allocation technique, which makes it's memory footprint stable. Even multiple tabs (10 or above) don't hog too much memory even on my lowly 384 MB RAM-system.

Though FF isn't the most-used browser (in fact many people haven't even heard of it), there is no particular reason for it to stay so. I think Firefox may soon take over the majority of the Browser market.
I still remember when I first used Firefox (maybe it was 1.5 or something), it had an option like Rander the Page as viewed in IE/Opera... And now, in IE8 beta, there was an option to Render the page as viewed in Firefox!!! Changes are in the air...

Windows 7 Next Year?

With falling on its face, and the phenomena seeming to overwhelm even , Microsoft need a very strong and reliable successor to Vista. And what I have gathered from the Web, Windows 7 may turn out to be a LUCKY ONE for MS.

".....Vista is the most compatible version of Windows that Microsoft has ever shipped....."

Though Vista's Service Pack 1 is launched, the real impact wil take some time in manifesting itself. I think Vista faced much 'bad' publicity and overblown compatibility issues, the MAIN problem which I think was its complexity... (I had read somewhere that Vista's kernel was about 5000 files or so).
But things have stared turning out a bit better of late
Paul Thurrott (http://www.winsupersite.com) had concluded that

"...Vista is the most compatible version of Windows that Microsoft has ever shipped..."

See : http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_100days.asp

Also, I got Mandriva (A Linux Distro), and guess what the magazine said as an introduction??

".... With Vista-like looks and... blah-blah..Mandriva is a ... good option..."

And also personally, I am fed up of people lynching Vista from its birth via articles such as :

"THREE REASONS WHY VISTA SUNK LIE A ROCK"
"THE ELEVEN PILLARS OF FALIURE"

I think Vista was engulfed by prejudice more than anything else.

Now, going over from Vista to 7, if Microsoft can fulfil all, or atleast, some of the failed promises which it planned to offer with Vista, like WinFS...
And Windows 7 takes a bold step forward by NOT offering Backwasrd Compatibility... That means all you old goodies will not run on Windows 7. But then, there is the Virtualization support in Win7.
Another step forward, though troublesome in some respects, is the Multi-Touch LCD support which may not be mainstream for another 2 years or so. A 19″ touchscreen LCD monitor is not available for less than $699 at Newegg currently.

And also, for Win7 to succeed, it must learn from Vista's mistakes.
I have some words for guys @ MS :

1. Not more than 2 versions
2. Familiarity must be a key point... Just look back on Windows ME II...
3. Increasing usability by decreasing complexity
4. Keeping the OS fast and informative

Well... I'm over... I felt like I was writing Vista's obitu... Nah! Not Now... Maybe Vista is surviving out there...