Centauri's Thoughts

Microsoft Corp.'s Internet browser lost a notable number of users during the last half of 2008, according to recently published data, a trend that underscores the growing competition in a market long dominated by the software giant.

Maybe because its buggy and a security problem?

According to data from research firm Net Applications, Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser registered a 68 percent market share in December, compared to a nearly 74 percent share as recently as May.

Thats still 68% too much

Firefox captured a 21 percent market share in December, compared to 18 percent in May, according to Net Applications, while Apple's Safari captured a nearly 8 percent share in December, compared to a 6 percent share in May.

Good for you, Firefox!

Reference

And its about time!

Serious flaw in Internet Explorer not fixed yet

The flaw lets criminals commandeer victims' machines merely by tricking them into visiting Web sites tainted with malicious programming code. As many as 10,000 sites have been compromised since last week to exploit the browser flaw, according to antivirus software maker Trend Micro Inc.

Many security experts, meanwhile, are urging Internet Explorer users to use another browser until a patch is released.

I say use ANY other browser and give up on IE completely. Its too tightly bound to windows, and always will be because M$ made it that way on purpose in the Netscape-IE browser wars eons ago.

Reference

Its frustrating to wake up one day, find your PC locked up, only to discover that something is seriously wrong and it wont boot up.

After searching for a way to recover the system (in vain), I took the hit and re-installed linux and re-compiled my apps. One and a half days later I am back with almost ALL the functionality I had before.

This is actually faster than I remember considering the number of apps that were NOT in the install distro.

*sigh*

I loaded up firefox 3 today. It does seem faster and to use less memory. It added a new folder on the toolbar called "most viewed" which I renamed "recent" to save space.

Using the left arrow to go back works as before if you just click on it, but I sometimes like to go back in the history sometimes more than 5 to 10 visits, and left clicking at the right edge of the left arrow no longer does this. Never fear, the ability is still there, just right click on the left arrow, and a drop-down contains the history.

Many ask me for links to various things, and I seem to collect and store them over the years, organizing every so often when the main list gets too long, because of a curious habit I had in the early days of the Web.


You see, in the old days, there was no search engines, and links were found and followed by word of mouth, existing links from other pages, or outright guessing the URL.


Its the following the long chain of links, which would eventually lead to my habit of collection. While reading and exploring, after a while, there would be no way to follow that path again tomorrow. What led you down the path today as your thoughts wind around with the link reading, that train of thought may be impossible tomorrow. So I borrowed a technique from two rather well known children in fables, who left bread crumb trails as they walked through the forest so as not to get lost.


As I navigated the web space, if I got to a page that had a lot of links, or was good in its own right, a quick control D and I was on my way (control D saves a bookmark, and it has worked in just about every browser on the planet since Mozilla, the original).


In this way, if the browser crashed, or I wanted to pick up the next day
where I left off, I had a quick and easy way to do that. Eventually, these saved links became jumping points for each of the various categories I was interested in.


Here then, is a link to my best links: Centauri's Best Links

I finally got my machine back on the net and acting mostly normal. the Browsers are working (including Mozilla and firefox).


xmms is running (sound mp3 player)


so, its going better than I hoped