Monthly Archives: December 2007
Browser Wars #1
One of the most commonly used applications in the modern world is the humble Internet browser.It is therefore unsurprising that such a large amount of attention is focused on the current ‘browser war’ which currently encompasses a number of big players, including Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera.
To understand the importance of these developments, we need to look back at the first browser wars which began back in the mid 1990’s, just as the World Wide Web started to receive a huge amount of mass media and public attention.
At the time Netscape Navigator was the dominant player, and had been for many years after improving on the reliability and usability of the Mosaic browser that had been created in the early 1990’s.Netscape had gained such widespread use of their product by offering evaluation copies of Netscape either on CD or via download free of charge so that users could … Read the rest
Launch Music Site
One of the most fantastic websites that I’ve discovered this month would have to be one called ‘Launch’ which has been bought to us by Yahoo – seemingly, out of nowhere came this excellent Internet site which allows you to pick from hundreds of music videos, MP3’s and artist interviews all completely free of charge and for a change this is available completely legally.
As I really don’t know where to start with this site, we’ll begin by looking at the music videos section which immediately presents you with a long list of artists or allows you to search and quickly find the artist you’re looking for. Once you’ve found you’re desired artist, the site will list all music videos that it has in its comprehensive database for you to view at your pleasure completely free of charge. To fully take advantage of this area of the site it would … Read the rest
New Years Resolutions
It’s that time of year that we start making a list of resolutions for the coming year and as such I’d like to be bold enough to suggest a couple of things that you may like to adopt in to your computing lives of 2008.As these are mainly bullet points I’ve included links to previous articles that can be used to obtain further reading material.
To make things more interesting I have decided to separate my readership in to two extremes – one designed for regular computer users, and one for the hardcore.This may prove more beneficial than reading off ‘one size fits all’ list and we’ll start with the ‘regular’ users.
Backup your hard drive – Why not start with the most obvious point which is also the one that’s most likely to be ignored.We all know we should backup but yet none of us do, myself included.Head to … Read the rest
FoxIt PDF Reader
At some point in our computing lives we will almost certainly stumble across a PDF (Portable Document File).These are extremely useful for transmitting a document, including any associated diagrams or pictures, in one single file which should look identical to the original on any compatible computer or mobile device.The fact that practically any modern day machine can use these files, coupled with the maintenance of the original appearance, has made this format extremely popular.
The possible applications are fairly obvious.For example, most modern day hardware and software doesn’t come with a printed manual but rather an electronic copy stored in PDF format on an accompanying CD.In the office, we send invoice copies in PDF format via e-mail as you can be sure that the recipient will view the document exactly as intended.Transmitting a complex document in an alternative format such as .doc would mean that the recipient would be unlikely … Read the rest
64 Bit Computing #2
Last week I started talking about 64-bit computing and the possible advantages that it could offer.For those of you that missed my last article, you’re probably best off downloading a copy at www.computerarticles.co.uk as otherwise this one article by itself may seem incomplete.
I focused specifically on the speed increase that could potentially be realised by installing a 64-bit Operating System if you’re lucky enough to have a 64-bit processor inside your machine.This is because such an OS would allow the processor to address more memory and handle more data per clock cycle than a 32-bit equivalent.
It is true that there have been 64-bit versions of Linux around for a while now along with a fairly unsuccessful 64-bit version of Windows XP.It is most likely however that you will be considering Windows Vista as your next Operating System we’ll focus on the 64-bit version of this OS today.
Along … Read the rest
