Microsoft's "Wow" Factor

It's been a long time coming, but Microsoft is "getting groovy." I read nearly daily news about new software, improved software, new hardware, new partnering, new acquisitions, and more key apps for more operating systems.

• Office 365
• Office Now
• Office Monitor
• Delve
• Mix for PowerPoint
• Editing via multiple OS
• Office Now
• OneClip
• Cortana
• Flow
• Revolve
• Hello
• Sway
• Hyperlapse
• Continuum
• Hololens
• Music app improvements on the way
• Acquisitions (September 2014 - May 2015)
• Wunderlist. German To Do list app.
• Datazen. Mobile business intelligence leader
• Sunrise. Creator of an innovative calendar app for mobile devices
• Revolution Analytics. Helps customers find big data value with advanced statistical analysis (R programming language)
• Equivio. Israeli text analysis company
• HockeyApp. Leading mobile crash analytics and beta distribution service for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone
• Acompli. Provider of innovative mobile email apps
• Aorato. Israeli Cybersecurity Firm
• Mojang. Minecraft developer

IE 7 Add-ons make surfing better

Internet Explorer 7 is a nice browser, but certainly not perfect. I also have Firefox installed on my PC, though I routinely use IE7. Among other things, online Blogger post editing seems to come out better than Firefox. No browser is perfect.

Case in point -- spell checking. I like the Firefox spell checking feature. Well, if you are an IE7 user, there's a free spell check add-on (but I like the Firefox implementation better). Actually, there are different add-ons that let you add features or customize IE7 more to your liking.

Here are a few IE add-ons that I wish Microsoft had included in IE7:

• IE Spell (See IE7Pro below, though). Note that this spell check is only for form fields and similar ares to be filled in -- not for general web page views. It works fine within the Blogger post editing area, for example, though you have to manually force the check.
• Inline Search (from IE Forge. See IE7Pro, below, though.)
• Add Search Providers (surprisingly, from Microsoft)

Other handy Add-ons:

• IE7Pro. IE7Pro adds several features, including Spell check and inline searching. The IE7Pro spell checks as you type, unlike the spell check on request method of "IE Spell" (above). That can be a blessing or a curse -- you decide.
  Note: IE7Pro didn't function well on my system, perhaps due to a couple of other browser helper objects installed. It crashed on use.
• Web Developer Toolbar
• Feed Folder. I prefer the IE7 Feed display in the left pane, but if you like Firefox's feed display better, check out Feed Folder.

Microsoft Malware Protection Center

Microsoft offers a security portal page called "Microsoft Malware Protection Center". It lists and links to the top 10 most active malicious software families, most active family variants, most active email threats, and spyware/adware removed from PCs.

The site officially launches in "early July", but the links to threat information are already active.

Vista's here -- what next?

Paul Thurott's Windows SuperSite is an excellent source of information. He has started a page on Windows "Vienna" (a.k.a. Windows 7 or Windows Seven). If you're the curious type, surf away and enjoy.

Paul also mentions that Windows Vista SP1 will amount to a major release -- it will include a kernel update to the operating system (OS) and will coincide with the release of the Longhorn server OS.

Both Vienna and Office 14 (current codename) look like a 2009 release.

Paul is also a columnist for Windows IT Pro magazine.

Microsoft leads patch pack

Symantec has issued its semi-annual report on Internet Security Threat Trends for the last half of 2006. One finding is that Microsoft offers patches for vulnerabilities faster than the other four vendors checked.

In decreasing order of fast response (1 = best, 5 = worst), they are:

1. Microsoft
2. Red Hat
3. HP
4. Apple
5. Sun

User Agent String Utility gives IE7 access

Some web sites don't respond well to Internet Explorer 7. That's usually because they have hard-coded various browser versions into their web page code and have not updated it to add IE7 to the list.

So though many (most?) web sites have updated their code or never hard-coded the browser versions to start with, some present challenges. On the other hand, I have not run into any public web pages with this problem yet.

As a temporary workaround (until those sites fix their code), you can use Microsoft's special User Agent String Utility to let IE7 access sites that currently block it.

You need more than automatic updates

Windows' "Automatic updates" only downloads "critical" updates. Windows Update and Microsoft Update, which has MS Office updates too, both have a ton of security patches plus added features you can download. The optional updates and hardware-related updates do not automatically download.

So periodically manually surf to the Update site (Windows Update or Microsoft Update) and check out the other two categories of updates -- "Software Updates [optional]" and "Hardware updates".

Update your PC clock for new DST

Here's an update listed as optional that I'd prefer to be mandatory -- update the system time to reflect the new dates for Daylight Savings Time (Microsoft Knowledgebase article 928388). In case you didn't recall, the U.S. and several other countries have decided to change the start and stop dates for DST.

Since your PC clock has the "old" rule, you really do need this update so that the system can change the time automatically when DST arrives and departs.

Zoom vs. text size in IE 7

Internet Explorer 7 has many new features to help you as you surf. One I like is the "Zoom" feature.

First, let's be clear. "Zoom" is not the same as "Text size" in IE 7. Changing the text size does only that -- increases or decreases the size of the text on the page. If what looks like text is really part of an image, it does not change. "Zoom" make the entire page enlarge or shrink. That also means that as you enlarge the page, it will (usually) eventually exceed the window area and the left and right parts of the web page will be "cut off" in the view.

So text size and zoom each have their uses.

In the lower right of the (bottom area) status bar, you see a zoom percentage. You have several options to changing the "zoom": level

• Click on the zoom number. This rotates through a three zoom levels (125%, 150%, 100%).
• Click on the down-arrow to the right of the zoom percentage, then select one of the set levels you want to view or choose "Custom view".
• If you have a wheel mouse, hold down on the keyboard's "Control" key (often marked "Ctrl") and rotate the mouse wheel. Rolling toward your body decreases the zoom by 10%. Rotating the wheel away from your body increases the zoom by 10%.
• Hold down on the Control key and then press the plus (+) or minus (-) key to zoom in or out by 10%.