Chad's News

Ars Technica reviews the Internet Explorer 9 beta in the linked article. Major changes include a streamlined interface that’s highly reminiscent of Google Chrome. The new tab page also borrows from Chrome, displaying thumbnails of your most visited pages. Microsoft has added a download manager and some HTML5 support, and has increased the security, reliability, performance, and standards compliance. All in all, IE9 looks to be a contender. One real problem, however, is that it requires Windows Vista or later. Windows XP users are out of luck.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/…

Microsoft released a record-breaking number of security updates on Tuesday, and it sounds like it’s a good idea to run Windows Update if you haven’t already done so.

Link #1: http://www.google.com/…
(via Kim Komando)

Link #2: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/…

UNIX and Linux users have long been familiar with file system links, both symbolic and hard, which act for most purposes as if they were the files they point to. Windows came late to the game with shortcuts, that are akin to symbolic links but only really work in Windows Explorer. Microsoft, however, has seen the error of its ways and added true links to Windows starting with Vista. The linked article explains how to create them via the mklink tool.

Link: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/…

Here at the Chad’s News network command center, we’ll give up Windows XP when they pry it from our cold, dead fingers. But for those power users who’ve taken the plunge to Windows 7, we introduce “GodMode” to make your life easier. And for those who really want to explore the intricacies of Windows system administration, there’s even more.

Link: http://news.cnet.com/…
(via Slashdot)

Today Microsoft released an emergency out-of-cycle patch for Internet Explorer. The vulnerability exists in IE6 and above, but so far it’s only been seen in the wild for IE6.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/…

Firefox has reached a milestone: its market share for October beat that of Internet Explorer 6 (24.07% vs. 23.30%). What I find most amazing is that IE6 still has a 23 percent share. Security holes, standards noncompliance, and lack of features are all good reasons to upgrade to IE8. I’ve heard that much of the IE6 use is from corporate computer systems that are locked down by their system administrators, such that they can’t be upgraded.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/…

Over at UserFriendly, artist J.D. “Illiad” Fraser lists five movie concepts that will terrorize your inner geek. My favorite is “Windows Me: The Rebirth.”

Link: http://ars.userfriendly.org/…

Lifehacker has posted the ultimate guide to Windows 7. If you need to know it, then the linked article probably has it.

Link: http://lifehacker.com/…

Windows 7 is now available for purchase. Apparently it’s much better than Windows Vista. PC World has a review with things you need to know about the new release, and Kim Komando also has some information. For the power user, Lifehacker has a list of tweaks that still work. If you’re planning to buy an upgrade version, be aware that there are limitations, and make sure that your existing hardware and software are supported.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/…

According to the linked article, Microsoft has plans to include a 128-bit version of Windows 8 (not to be confused with Windows 7 which will be released next week). Here at the Chad’s News network command center, we weren’t aware that 128-bit CPUs were even on the horizon, so this is somewhat of a surpirse.

Link: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/…
(via Slashdot)

Lifehacker performed some non-scientific speed tests on the latest versions of popular browsers. As expected, Google Chrome completely destroyed the others in the JavaScript category. This is why I use Chrome for Facebook—Firefox just can’t handle it on my underpowered machine. The only reason I stay with Firefox is because of its wide variety of extensions. Note that I was a bit surprised to see that Apple’s Safari also had very fast JavaScript processing.

Link: http://lifehacker.com/…

Windows 7 will be available on October 22^nd, 2009. The retail versions (which account for less than 5% of total sales) will be slightly less expensive than the corresponding versions of Windows Vista. There will be at least six versions of Windows 7, but Microsoft is focusing on only three for retail purchases: Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate. For those interested, here’s a feature comparison page.

Upgrading from Vista will be relatively painless, but Windows XP users will have to perform a clean install of XP before upgrading. This means you are responsible for saving your data beforehand and restoring it afterward. Clean installs are also necessary when converting between 32-bit and 64-bit versions (and vice versa), as well as when you downgrade from a better version of Vista to a lesser version of Windows 7.

Run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor to determine if your system is compatible with Windows 7.

Link #1: http://arstechnica.com/…

Link #2: http://www.maximumpc.com/…
(via digg)

Link #3: http://www.pcworld.com/…
(via The Consumerist)