Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on July 30, 2007 by CyberNet.

Microsoft is taking a new approach to Microsoft Works 9 by offering it for free (was $49.95), but with advertisements. The suite of applications that come with the Works are an address book, calendar, database (like Excel), dictionary, PowerPoint Viewer, Word (basic functionality), and templates. Doesn’t sound too bad, huh?

Mary Jo Foley was the first to announce that an ad-supported version of Microsoft Works is coming, and she heard it straight from Satya Nadella who is the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Search & Advertising Platform Group. Although Microsoft Works 9 hasn’t been released yet, it looks like it will be pretty soon. File sharing networks, such as The Pirate Bay, have had Works 9 posted since yesterday, and by this time there are plenty of people sharing it.

I didn’t download Works 9 (which at this point would be considered illegal since Microsoft hasn’t released it), but I quickly began thinking whether Microsoft was going to make it look more like Office 2007. I did some searching and came across this support site which provided some insight as to what you can expect. Here are the things that I noticed:

• Office 2007 file formats will now be supported, but the stupid thing is that they still let you save a Works document in the Works file format. For goodness sakes Microsoft, remove that option! People don’t know how to open a WPS or XLR file (which are the document and database file formats, respectively, for Works).
• The instructions on performing a mail merge make it sound as though Works 9 will retain the classic File Menu structure, instead of adopting the Ribbon from Office 2007.
• XP 32-bit and 64-bit are both supported, but to my surprise only the 32-bit version of Vista is supported. Not to mention you need 256MB of memory if running it on XP, but you need 1GB if running it on Vista Basic and 1.5GB on Vista Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate. What!?! 1.5GB of memory for Microsoft Works? And according to the page these are the minimum requirements, not the recommended ones!

I have never been a die-hard fan for Microsoft Works, and I’ve hated it for more reasons than I’ve loved it. If people ever told me that they were using Microsoft Works I frequently pointed them in the direction of OpenOffice, where you can do much more at no cost (and no ads). Unless Microsoft really did some great things with the Works Suite I don’t think that my opinion will be changing, but I won’t make my judgment until it is officially released in final form.

I’m really curious as to how they plan on implementing the ads into Microsoft Works. I’m guessing it will be something placed in a toolbar towards the top of the screen, or a big banner ad along the side. What happens when a user isn’t connected to the Internet? Will the ads still be served? Your computer will more than likely be reporting back to Microsoft quite frequently when connected to the Internet, and if you don’t like the idea of that you probably shouldn’t use the software when it is released.

Is Microsoft doing this to compete with the free online suites, such as Zoho and Google Docs? Do you think it is going to be successful, or will Works continue to be a flop?

Microsoft Works Homepage (not yet updated to version 9)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on June 17, 2008 by CyberNet.

Windows only
Being able to use Alt-Tab (or Command-Tab on Mac) to switch between running applications is something that I don’t think can ever be replaced. It’s just so simple and fast that it’s pretty hard to beat… unless you’re the type of person who keeps one hand on the keyboard and one hand on the mouse. If that sounds like you then maybe you should checkout the tiny application called AltTab Fingertips.

AltTab Fingertips requires no installation and is completely portable. When it’s running you can press the F10 key to initiate a popup menu similar to the one shown in the screenshot above. It will list out all of the open windows, and selecting one will switch over to that particular application. The thing that makes this really nice is that the menu always appears in the spot where your mouse is currently located, meaning you won’t have to shift your focus (or mouse) to a different part of the screen to switch between windows.

To make this a little nicer the developer has made it possible to change the keyboard shortcut that displays the menu, and you can also exclude specific applications from appearing in the list. These two things can both be configured from the System Tray icon.

I think the only thing this is missing would be displaying the icons for each of the different applications in the menu. That’s something many people use for quick identification, and it would help make this a must-have app for any Alt-Tab user.

Get AltTab Fingertips

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Panasonic has been kicking around the idea of a tricked-out Android-based in-flight entertainment system for awhile, and now it’s ready for airlines to start retrofitting their livery. The system, dubbed eX3, runs Android, relieving restless fliers with news, live television, games, and what the company calls on-board social networking, but that’s mostly a nod to the Facebook app. Other amenities include broadband internet access and GSM service, touchscreen controllers, capacative screens, proximity sensors, and, in some cases, 3D displays. Not going to front — we’re stoked on the idea of tuning out on-board babies via multi-hour Angry Birds sessions, but we’re seriously hoping the airlines ignore one of the system’s marquee features: in-flight video conferencing.

Panasonic gives its in-flight entertainment system an Android makeover, adds 3D displays originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 10:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If app developers have a pattern of going after the iPhone first and Android second, well, the same is apparently true of the folks who write software for the code monkeys. Novell just announced Mono for Android, the first set of tools that lets devs write .NET and C# apps for Android phones and tablets. Novell already lets developers do the same for Linux, iOS, and Mac OS X and, as always, lets coders continue to use Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 to write applications — if that’s the testing software they’re used to. In addition to the Visual Studio plug-in, you get bindings for native Android APIs and the core Mono runtime. It’s available now, starting at $99 for students (minus the ability to, you know, send finished apps to Android Market) and $399 for everybody else. Already developing for the iPhone? Prove that you own MonoTouch (essentially, the same Novell product for iOS devices) and get 50 percent off an Android tool kit.

Continue reading Novell’s Mono tools let devs create .NET apps for Android devices

Novell’s Mono tools let devs create .NET apps for Android devices originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 09:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on July 09, 2009 by CyberNet.

Ever since we did a browser comparison test last year there have been a lot of emails and comments asking if we were going to update the article to reflect new releases. I thought about adding in the new browsers as they came out, but decided against it for one reason or another. Instead I thought it would be better to just do a fresh article, and include even more stats than last time.

The main reason that I thought this was worthy of its own article was because a lot has changed in the last year. Since March 2008 we’ve seen major milestone releases from each of big browser makers, and to top it off Google Chrome has come onto the scene. These browsers have also shifted focus from adding nifty new features to diving deep into the code trying to squeeze out every last ounce of performance.

We’ve got a lot in store for you today ranging from JavaScript speed tests to memory usage comparisons, and we’ll even throw in some Acid 3 coverage. Lets go ahead and dive right in.

Notes about testing:

• All of these tests were performed on the same Windows XP SP3 machine that is wired into a network to eliminate the effects of wireless disturbances.
• All browsers started with a clean profile and no add-ons/extensions were installed.
• All browser data, including caches, were cleared before each test was run.
• Only one browser was open at a time, and no other applications (other than standard XP services) were running.
• Internet Explorer 8 was used in the native rendering mode (“standards compliant mode”).
• No plug-ins (Flash, Java, etc…) were installed on the machine to ensure that slow performance wasn’t due to the loading of a plug-in.

–JavaScript Tests–

The main speed test that everyone seems to use for JavaScript is SunSpider. Last year we compared the browsers with the SunSpider test prior to writing our first comparison, and so we wanted to try something different. That’s when we turned to the MooTools SlickSpeed Test. It tests various operations against a lot of common JavaScript libraries including MooTools and JQuery.

So which one did we go with this year? Well, we did both. We ran each test, SunSpider and SlickSpeed, a total of three times each. Then we averaged the results together to get the pretty little graphs you see below. For both of them the goal was for the browser to complete the tests as fast as possible, and so a lower number is better.

Sunspider Test:

1. Safari 4: 603ms
2. Google Chrome 3.0 ^Beta: 636ms
3. Google Chrome 2.0: 720ms
4. Firefox 3.5: 1278ms
5. Opera 10 ^Beta: 2975ms
6. Opera 9.64: 3931ms
7. Internet Explorer 8: 5441ms

MooTools SlickSpeed Test:

1. Opera 10 ^Beta: 330ms
2. Safari 4: 355ms
3. Opera 9.64: 375ms
4. Google Chrome 3.0 ^Beta: 464ms
5. Firefox 3.5: 580ms
6. Google Chrome 2.0: 763ms
7. Internet Explorer 8: 1901ms

–Website Rendering Tests–

I used the same method for testing website load times as I did last year. It’s a website called Numion Stopwatch that uses some fancy JavaScript to monitor when a page has finished loading, and then spits out the amount of time it took to complete.

We used two extremely popular sites for these tests: ESPN and the Wall Street Journal. Each site was loaded up three times in each browser, and then the results were averaged together. Obviously we were targeting which browser could load the websites the fastest, and so a lower number is better:

ESPN Load Time:

1. Safari 4: 1.936 seconds
2. Google Chrome 3.0 ^Beta: 2.194 seconds
3. Firefox 3.5: 2.380 seconds
4. Internet Explorer 8: 2.604 seconds
5. Opera 10 ^Beta: 2.605 seconds
6. Opera 9.64: 2.651 seconds
7. Google Chrome 2.0: 2.873 seconds

Wall Street Journal Load Time:

1. Google Chrome 3.0 ^Beta: 1.612 seconds
2. Opera 10 ^Beta: 1.989 seconds
3. Opera 9.64: 2.141 seconds
4. Safari 4: 2.166 seconds
5. Google Chrome 2.0: 2.552 seconds
6. Firefox 3.5: 2.886 seconds
7. Internet Explorer 8: 3.292 seconds

–Memory Usage Tests–

I’m sure this is what many of you were looking for. As geeks we like to have a lean browser that knows how to handle itself without us having to keep a watchful eye over it. That’s why we ran numerous different tests to see just how well a browser controls its memory usage when loading a decent number of sites, and also whether it’s able to release that memory once you’ve closed the tabs.

Here’s a rundown of the order in which we ran the tests to collect the stats:

1. We started the browser, and took a memory usage reading.
2. Loaded 10 predetermined sites in tabs, and took a memory usage reading after all the sites finished loading.
3. Loaded 15 more predetermined sites in tabs (totaling 25 sites), and took a memory usage reading after all the sites finished loading.
4. Let the browser sit for 10 minutes with the 25 tabs open, and then took a memory usage reading.
5. Closed all the tabs except for Google.com, which was always the first site opened. Then we took a memory usage reading.

And here are the results. The best browser for each test is highlighted in green, and the worst is highlighted in red.

–Acid 3 Tests–

Last year we also took a look at how the various browsers scored on the Acid 3 test. At the time a Safari nightly build was the closest to perfection by reaching a score of 86 out of 100. Today, however, is a different story. A few browsers can handle the test perfectly, some are very very close, and others (yeah, IE) have some work cut out for themselves.

Note: Click on any of the thumbnails for a full-size rendering.

1. Safari 4 (100/100) – It gets a perfect score and renders everything correctly.
   
2. Opera 10 ^Beta (100/100) – It gets a perfect score and renders everything correctly.
   
3. Google Chrome 2.0 (100/100) – It gets a perfect score, but not all tests are executed successfully.
   
4. Google Chrome 3.0 ^Beta (100/100) – It gets a perfect score, but not all tests are executed successfully.
   
5. Firefox 3.5 (93/100) – It gets a near perfect score.
   
6. Opera 9.6 (85/100) – This is the oldest release we tested, and it comes as no surprise that it doesn’t pass the test. It should be noted that the next milestone, version 10, does pass the test perfectly as seen above.
   
7. Internet Explorer 8 (20/100) – While they still have a ways to go before they get a perfect, I do have to give them credit for at least making the image look halfway normal. You know what I’m talking about if you remember what IE7′s rendering of the Acid 3 test was like.
   

–Conclusion–

So which browser is the winner? I wouldn’t really say any of them outshine the others. The problem that we are going to face with performance tests from here on out is that the browsers will all come very close to each other in the standings… often within a fraction of a second from one another. As the browsers continue to get optimized we will see these times get even closer, and performance might become less of a concern which picking which one we want to use. So I’d say to pick the browser you feel the most comfortable with, because it’s getting hard to distinguish one browser from another when it comes to performance.

What’s your take on the stats? Anything stand out to you? Will you be switching browsers based upon anything you learned here?

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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