Well, well, well. If it isn’t some good news today. Internet Explorer’s market share is now down to just 67.55%. Firefox, as always, continues to scoop up a swath of new users each time the survey is run, now pulling in numbers that put it over 21%. Also on the positive is Apple’s Safari, scoring more than 8% for its market share. Great to see the better browsers finally starting to take over the monopolist.
There is, of course, much talk, about why Apple doesn’t get busted for including a web browser packed in with its OS. However, there are a few differences between Apple and Microsoft’s styles. First off, Microsoft has a much larger market share–that alone makes Apple less of a target. Secondly, Safari is not tied in to the OS. It can be removed if you want and no harm will come to you or your computer, unlike IE which is deeply rooted into many of the core functions of most of the Windows operating systems. Finally, if your OS didn’t come with a web browser, how would the average user be able to get online to download the web browser of their choice?
[Thanks to DownloadSquad]
The Question/Answer space on the web is swimming with dozens of sites that most people don’t really care about. We’ve got ChaCha, Mahalo Answers, Linkedin Answers, WikiAnswers, and Yahoo Answers, just to name a few. But it looks as though Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is primed and ready to bless the internet using populace with another.
That’s right. Wikianswers has launched. That’s with a lower-case a, mind you. It’s a Question/Answer site founded in the spirit of Highlander where there can be only one true answer for every question on the site. Just like Wikipedia.
But what’s with that name? How many Wikianswers, or is that WikiAnswers, does the internet need? They certainly sound the same at first gloss, but a quick glance at the URLs will show that one is http://answers.wikia.com and the other, http://wiki.answers.com/. I would say which one is which, respectively, but at this point, I really don’t know and I really don’t care.
Running Windows 7 beta? Then you’ve probably found that when you first load up the operating system, it asks if you want to upgrade an existing Windows installation start with a fresh install. But that upgrade feature only works for Vista users. Want to upgrade from Windows XP? You’re SOL.
Now, is this the be all and end all that Microsoft won’t offer a lower priced upgrade at home versions of Windows 7 for Windows XP users? Doubt it. What will probably happen, though, is that you won’t be able to fire up Windows 7 on a computer running XP without losing a lot of the stuff you’ve amassed that interfaces directly with Windows, including your personal data, programs, and settings. But all of you “lucky” Windows Vista users will find that Vista is similar enough to 7 that Vista users can easily install the newer operating system while leaving just about everything intact.
Yawffer, a rather strangely named Windows app, can freeze programs in their place like an ice ray of death, letting you shut down other running applications without them crashing, you losing your work, and all that nastiness.
Yawffer, technically a system monitoring tool, actually provides its “killer feature” (no pun intended) in a rather obscure way. Right-clicking on the tray icon and choosing “Freeze a Process” will present you with a list. Just click on the process you want to kill and “Freeze” it.
I’ve been using Bokeh for some time on my Mac, and this should be a worthy Windows counterpart to that fantastic app. For a more automated solution, however, try checking out Process Lasso.
Yawffer [thanks to Life Rocks 2.0]
SpeedCrunch. Sounds like some kind of new candy bar laced with hard drugs. Instead, it’s a fast, lightweight calculator for people who need something with a bit (read: a lot) more power than Calculator.app. Tired of entering in your equations one line at a time? SpeedCrunch lets you pound the whole thing in with lightning speed (get it?) all at once.
Even better, SpeedCrunch works its magical calculations in the background while you’re busy entering more and more equations. This helps you find errors while you’re working.
SpeedCrunch even supports syntax highlighting like a text editor. And it supports neigh unlimited variables with ridiculously long names. So get ready to make yourself some monster variables, if you’re so inclined.
To top it all off, SpeedCrunch includes a magnificent library with oodles of constants, variables, and equations so you can plow through common calculations without even breaking a sweat.
But the best part is the price. SpeedCrunch is totally free, and totally cross-platform so you can engage in power calculations on Linux, Mac OS X, or Windows.
