We recently downloaded the Beta Version of the New Internet Explorer 9 (IE9). Whilst it’s not the final version for release it gives us all a good idea of what to expect from the final release of the software. Here’s a our views on the program and a little bit about what’s new!
First Impressions (click image to enlarge)
Much more aesthetically pleasing than previous versions of the program. Rather than looking its usual dated and cluttered self, IE9 has taken a huge leap into the 21st century having previously drastically needing an injection of botox and a tummy tuck. This has lead to a cool, calm, simplistic finish which appears to be much more user friendly. The overall speed of the web browser also seems considerably improved.
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Last month’s poll asked our readers…’Which TWO Microsoft Office Applications do you use the most?’ The diagram to the right (click to enlarge) shows how our readers voted. As you can see Microsoft Office Word, Excel and Outlook were the three applications to receive the most votes, which to us isn’t surprising as the applications are commonly used worldwide due to the overall quality, simplicity and flexibilty of the software.
PowerPoint and Publisher again are commonly used pieces of software but it is rare that the ‘typical’ home user requires them for their general computer usage. Whereas Access is a far more specialist application for those who need to create/manage a database system.
Office 2010 is set to be released in June (2010). Many companies are doing a deal whereby you purchase Office 2007 and can download 2010 for free when it comes out so have a look around on the internet for such deals! For example…Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Student from Amazon (PC)
Picnik is a brilliant free online photo editing tool and ideal for all users (from novices to pros). The website has a wide variety of features which can help you make ‘average’ photos look ‘amazing’.
Free features include rotate, crop, flip, re-size, exposure options (including exposure, contrast, highlight, shadow and brightness adjustments), colour options (including saturation and temperature adjustments), sharpening options (including sharpness, radius and strength options) and red-eye adjustments for humans and animals. All you need to do is register with the site and then you’re ready to start editing!
If you want to use more features you can sign up to their premium package from just $2.08 (£1.30 at time of writing).
A feature explained…
Rotate
Select rotate from the features panel (click image to enlarge)
You can then press left or right to rotate the image anti-clockwise or clockwise respectively (click image to enlarge)
The image can also be angled by moving the ‘Straighten’ slider adjustment (click image to enlarge)
Finally, the image can be ‘flipped’ by clicking either of the two buttons to the right of ‘flip’ (click image to enlarge)
Today we have a few simple but very nice features of Windows 7, starting with the show desktop…where is it…it is no longer part of the QuickLaunch that people are used to but now instead it is on the far right of the taskbar where there is a small rectangle…click this and it takes you to the desktop, or alternatively hover over it and it shows you the desktop until you move away and then it takes you back to the program you were using. Very nice touch!
Wireless Networks – In Vista I always found the connect to a network icon down by the clock a bit annoying, sometimes it would bring things straight up, other times it wouldn’t. In Windows 7 you click it and immediately get a list of available networks along with the one you may be connected to. From here you can easily connect to another one. Nothing revolutionary, just something that worked made to work better!
Icons – Again this nice and simple touch is related to the task bar, the little icons that appear you install so many applications these days are now grouped in one area. All you have to do to view them is click the arrow and a box appears with them in, see the image on the right to see what I mean.
Tile Windows – If you’re anything like me then you will often want to have two windows open at one time and be able to see some or all of them. Commonly I use this for transferring files from one folder to another. Arranging the windows like shown in the picture below can take time and if you are not used to using the mouse to do this it could be a fiddly process. Now all you do is drag the windows to the left and then the right respectively and they align themselves as shown in that picture..nice and easy!
And on a similar note, if you drag a window that is not fully maximised to the top of the screen and let go…it maximises it!
Windows 7 really has been designed to make mundane tasks so much easier, it’s great!
Acrobat.com is a brand spanking new site with some breakthrough and exciting features! Acrobat.com is from Adobe and it provides a variety of online services such as; Word Processing, PDF Converting, File Sharing, Instant Messaging, Online Conferencing, File Managing and much more! The five main features that Acrobat.com provides are:
Buzzword
Share
ConnectNow
Create PDF
My Files
To use the website’s services you need to Create an Acrobat Account which is completely free! To do this just go to the Acrobat Website then select the services you would like to use then click ‘Begin’ and then select ‘Sign Up’.
Over the past week I’ve reviewed the top three Web Based Email Providers, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and Live Mail/Hotmail. In my opinion they are all good providers have their pluses and minuses. For example; Hotmail/Live Mail is the most user friendly and has the most stylish layout, whereas Yahoo! Mail has unlimited storage space, although with a gmail account you can use loads of great features like Calender, Documents, Photos, Reader, Images, Maps, Books, Shopping and much much much more! In this last review I’m going to do a comparison between the three providers. To save all the confusion, I am only going to refer to the free editions unless I mention otherwise.
On Monday I started the series of Web Based Email Reviews. Over the series I am reviewing who I consider to be the most popular Web Based Email providers, Microsoft Live Mail/Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and Google Mail. Today I am going to review Yahoo! Mail.
The Basic Free Yahoo! Mail has many features for example:
Yahoo! Mail will automatically check for new messages.
You can drag and drop items into folders which makes organisation easier than ever!
Access your email on your mobile phone
Also, recently Yahoo! have developed and integrated a way to send/receive Instant Messages, to friends that are online, straight from your Yahoo! Mail account.
10MB Message Size
15 Spam Filters
SpamGuard (Spam Protection)
There is also a features page which you can visit to see more!
Yahoo! Mail Plus has the features above, plus the following:
20MB Message Size instead of 10MB.
50 Filters instead of 15.
SpamGuard Plus(Spam Protection) instead of just Spam Guard
No account expiration
However…this all does come at a price! On the website it is down as $19.99 a year which is just under $2.00 per month. This works out at the current exchange rate to be around £10.00 a year which is under £1.00 per month!
All this is for $35 a year which is less than $3 a month! At today’s current exchange rate that works out at around £17.50 a year and less than £1.50 a month!
Finally Yahoo! Business Email has pretty much all of the previously names features and more:
At today’s current exchange rate this will cost you for the basic package just under £5 a month. However you will need to pay a set up fee of around £12.50.
From looking at all the Yahoo! Mail products I have discovered that they provide a package that can suit most people’s needs, however the downside of it all is that some of it comes at a price. It’s just down to the user to decide if they really need all the extras or not, as the basic package is adequate for most people.
We recently downloaded the Beta Version of the New Internet Explorer 9 (IE9). Whilst it’s not the final version for release it gives us all a good idea of what to expect from the final release of the software. Here’s a our views on the program and a little bit about what’s new!
Icons – Again this nice and simple touch is related to the task bar, the little icons that appear you install so many applications these days are now grouped in one area. All you have to do to view them is click the arrow and a box appears with them in, see the image on the right to see what I mean.
