THOMPSON

[inspic=29,left,,0]This Sunday, March 11 2007 at 1:59am begins Daylight Saving Time (DST)!
Unfortunately, this years arrival of DST may have mild affects on your computer. Unless certain updates are applied, the time zone settings for your computer’s clock may be incorrect during the new extended four weeks of DST.

Attention PC user:

• New computers running Windows Vista are not affected.
• All computers running the most recent version of Windows XP – Service Pack 2 (and have “Automatic Update” turned on) will have already received Microsoft’s ‘daylight-saving patch’ and are updated and protected.
• Computers with “Automatic Update” turned off should download the patch from Microsoft.
• Computers not running Windows XP – Service Pack 2 should make sure that the automatic DST is turned off in the control panel. The clock will have to be manually adjusted when needed.

Very Important!
If you’re using a desktop-based calendar program (ie: Microsoft Outlook) to store your appointments, you will need to download and install patches to correct appointment times. However, appointments entered before a patch is applied may still be off by an hour.
Microsoft advises heavy calendar users to download a small program called Time Zone Move that will adjust all previously booked appointments to the new daylight-saving rules.
Microsoft also suggests using caution with regards to scheduled meetings between March 11 and April 1!

Attention Mac users:

• Computers running Mac OS X 10.4.5 (released February, 2006) are not affected.
• Computers running Mac OS X 10.3, 10.4 should run Software Update to get the latest fix. Apple recommends that you should install the updates even if your computer is used in a time zone that is not affected.
• Computers running Mac OS X 10.2.8 or earlier should turn off automatic DST and adjust your clock manually using Date & Time preferences.
• Applications that run in Classic mode will abide by the Daylight Saving Time setting in Mac OS X.

If you’re not sure if your computer is updated, or just need assistance applying the latest DST patches, call or email me and I’ll be happy to help.

[inspic=19,left,,0]Firefox 2.0 was officially released to the public on October 24. If you’ve been using Firefox as your bowser you already know how cool it is. If Firefox is new to you, you’ll be happy to know it’s one of the best, most stable web browsers around and this new release makes it even more secure.

Firefox 2.0 now sports new crisp, clean graphics for easy and eye pleasing browser navigation. It also has some new tab features. The older version had only one place to close tabs located to the far right of the browser window at tab level. The new version has the tab closer located on each tab (similar to Safari). In addition, you can now use the new left and right tabs to horizontally scroll through your open tabs. There is also a new vertical scrolling tab located to the far right of the tab locations. This may not seem like a very exciting new feature, but it does make it easier to manage your tabs. There is even a new feature that lets you recover recently closed tabs. This is very useful if you’ve ever closed a tab by mistake or if something caused Firefox to close and lose any open tabs.

Firefox 2.0 features new anti-phishing protection as well. This feature is meant to protect users against fake sites that try to trick users into entering their personal information (passwords, bank accounts, etc.) on a site that looks legitimate.

Unlike the latest release of Internet Explorer 7, Firefox can be used by Mac, Linux and Windows systems. As usual, the Firefox 2.0 upgrade for me was exceedingly fast and painless. If you haven’t done so already, you can link from here to upgrade your Firefox. There are also plenty of add-ons to extend and customize this slim browser.

[inspic=18,left,,0]Microsoft finally released Internet Explorer 7 for public download a few days ago.

The first thing I noticed after downloading and starting the install were the usual dire warnings the likes of making sure all of your important documents have been backed up prior to running the installation, make sure your anti-virus is turned off, make sure you’re not running any other programs, etc. Next was the unbelievable amount of time it took to finish installing. Just under 5 minutes! (this may take less time on machines faster than mine) I have performed numerous Firefox installs, all taking about 2 minutes (including bookmark importing).

After the completed install, a reboot and jetting through the Welcome screens, I was greeted with IE7′s new clean look. The first thing you’ll notice is that the menu bar is gone (you can bring it back in Tools if you so choose) and that most of the familiar navigation icons have been relocated to the right side of the browser window (these can’t be rearranged, I’ve tried). Then, of course, there is the newly designed IE7 logo in the upper left corner.

After the immediate visual aesthetic bombardment I noticed some of the long awaited “new” features: Tab Browsing; RSS Feed Reader; integrated Search Box; integrated Pop-up Blocker. These features have been available in other browsers (ie: Mozilla Firefox) for a couple of years now and have finally made their way into IE7.

The tab browsing feature works pretty much as I had expected and it is very easy to adjust the settings once you know where they are (Tools » Internet Options » General » Tab Settings). The very cool new feature that also comes with IE7 tab browsing is Quick Tabs. This feature allows you to view all of your open tabs as web page thumbnails on one page, where you can then select which tab you’d like to view full size.

Unlike the familiar Tab Browsing feature, the RSS Feed Reader took some getting used to. The RSS Feed Reader in Firefox adds a feed to your bookmarks when you subscribe, where you can just mouse over the feed folder and view any new titles. The RSS Feed Reader in IE7, however, requires that you first click the very familiar orange RSS Feed icon to ‘view feeds on this page’ before selecting ‘subscribe to this feed’ and organizing its location. That’s just the subscribing part, now the reading part. To read the saved rss feed you have to open the Favorites side bar and select the desired feed which then loads any or all new posts in IE7′s custom RSS Feed Reader. Only if you click on a post title will you finally arrive at the website that actually posted the feed. This took a little getting used to and I don’t think I’ll become comfortable with it.

The integrated Search Box and Pop-up Blocker work as you’d expect. The Search Box resides in the same spot as it does in Firefox and is customizable with various search providers. The Pop-up Blocker is easy to configure and has been long awaited. The days of downloading the Google Toolbar for these features have finally come to an end.

Next are the touted improved securities including the anti-phishing filter to help ensure users are not providing personal information to known phishing sites. The anti-phishing filter uses Security Badge icons to indicate whether a site you’re visiting is suspicious or known for phishing.

Lastly is the new printing feature. By selecting the print preview from the printer icon drop down menu, you can see how the web page content automatically shrinks to fit on a page. There are also additional customizable printing options allowing you to adjust margins, customize page layouts, remove headers and footers, and change print space.

Overall, if you did the smart thing and dumped Internet Explorer years ago for another browser like Firefox or Opera (as I did!), I say stay the course. IE7 will just take up space on your hard drive. However, if you’re devoted to IE and have stuck with it I think you will find IE7 a feature filled, long awaited and well deserved upgrade. If you’re one of the latter, you can download IE7 here from Microsoft’s website or wait until it is forced upon you in one of Window’s automatic updates sometime in November.