Three browsers on the web, the archaic Internet Explorer, the featured Firefox and the Gusto Chrome, compete for what could change the dynamics of web for ever. The browser war was earlier between internet explorer and google backed mozilla, which was more of a turf war between two industry giants. Now google has introduced its lethal weapon, which if hits the right spot, could simply kick out microsoft out of the web world.

Contest

You can join this browser war and make it colourful by making and emailing your imagination in the form of images of a browser war to sk.insync@yahoo.com

Keep the subject as "Browser War Logo" and email it and I'll feature it on Techreef.

Related posts

• Chrome on day one
• Chrome of the day

Microsoft opened up testing of Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 on Wednesday, putting the company on track for releasing by the end of the year what will be only the second major overhaul of Microsoft's Web browser since 2001.

Internet Explorer 8 adds a plethora of security, usability and manageability features over previous versions aimed at keeping Microsoft on top of the browser market share list ahead of surging Mozilla Firefox, and the new beta builds on those new features with several new usability and security capabilities that weren't available in the previous beta.
"If you look back 10 years ago, the Web was a very static place," Microsoft senior product manager James Pratt said in an interview, reiterating Microsoft's new policy of regular releases of new versions of Internet Explorer. "Fast forward and we've seen this amazing change in the Web."

Security has become an important feature of Internet Explorer in the last two versions, as Microsoft had been attacked for gaps in Internet Explorer 6. The new beta includes a number of new security features, including protection against cross-site scripting attacks and a phishing and malware filter called the SmartScreen filter.

Related Post : Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta : The Blogger review

Microsoft® Virtual PC 2007, you can create and run one or more virtual machines, each with its own operating system, on a single computer. This provides you with the flexibility to use different operating systems on one physical computer.

Save time and money as Virtual PC allows you to maintain the compatibility of legacy and custom applications during migration to new operating systems and increases the efficiency of support, development, and training staffs.

Download

Microsoft on 20 th may (Tuesday) let their advertisers display the banner ads to mobile users of Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Hotmail.

This move by Microsoft is a after following other companies who had started supporting mobile ads.

The Mobile users in France, Spain, U.K. and U.S. will see these banner ads while using the Microsoft services.

Google had made an announcement in April, inviting AdWords advertisers to display their banner ads.
Google, initially displayed tonly text ads on mobile phones.

Yahoo, Third Screen (owned by AOL) and AdMob, are among other companies that display ads (banner) on mobile phones.

Microsoft security advisory: Blended Threat from Combined Attack Using Apple’s Safari on the Windows Platform

Microsoft

Microsoft on May 30, 2008 issued an advisory that warned windows users to not use apple's safari web browser until a patch is available that could stop the attackers to hack computers.
Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) issued a security advisory, which it called a "blended threat".
It is caused by a combination of a bug in Apple's Safari Web browser and the vulnerability in the way the Windows XP and Vista handle executable (exe) files on the desktop. This allows the remote execution of malicious code on all supported Windows XP and Vista when the Safari web browser for Windows is installed. This bug was disclosed 2 weeks ago by a researcher Nitesh Dhanjani.

Safari lacks an option to require a user's permission to download a file. Attackers, could populate a malicious site with a code that Safari that would automatically download to the desktop, which is the default location.

Nitesh Dhanjani

A combination of the default download location in Safari and how the Windows desktop handles executables creates a blended threat in which files may be downloaded to a user’s machine without prompting, allowing them to be executed. Safari is available as a stand-alone install or through the Apple Software Update application.

An attacker could trick users into visiting a specially crafted Web site that could download content to a user’s machine and execute the content locally using the same permissions as the logged-on user.

Microsoft

Windows enthusiasts hungry for details about Microsoft 's next operating system will have to sit tight.

Microsoft is staying quiet on many of the details of its Vista follow up, dubbed Windows 7, until the company gets closer to its expected January 2010 launch date, blog post.

Microsoft is careful and has decided to strategically decided to share information on Windows 7 as it says that talking about the planes for Windows 7 significantly impacts partners and customers.

The developmental process of the Windows 7 is on and it will shipped approximately 3 years after the general availability of Windows Vista. The early releases and builds of the Windows 7 will be released for feedback prior to its general availability.

The Live Mesh service that Microsoft unveiled Tuesday night is a peek of what Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie has been working on all these months

In announcing Live Mesh, a broad software, services and development platform that aims to use the Web as a vehicle to synchronize and share data and content among devices and people,Microsoft has finally admitted that the PC is no longer the central element of everyone's computing experience.

Read the whole post here

Microsoft said it has finished work on the third and final service pack for its Windows XP operating system and that the update will be available for public download on April 29
Read the complete post here

Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta: Overview

This beta is aimed at web developers and designers to help them take advantage of new features in Internet Explorer 8 that will enhance their websites.

Download IE 8

Features

Activities
Activities are contextual services that provide quick access to external services from any webpage. Activities typically involve one of two types of actions:
* "Look up" information related to data in the current webpage
* "Send" content from the current webpage to another application
WebSlices
Web sites can expose portions of their page as a WebSlice that users can subscribe to and bring that content with them on their links bar wherever they are on the web. Users receive update notifications when the content changes.
Internet Explorer Developer Center
For everything a developer needs to know including technical documentation, white papers, tutorial videos, and sample code.

Opera's antitrust complaint with the EU

The complaint describes how Microsoft is abusing its dominant position by tying its browser, Internet Explorer, to the Windows operating system and by hindering interoperability by not following accepted Web standards. Opera has requested the Commission to take the necessary actions to compel Microsoft to give consumers a real choice and to support open Web standards in Internet Explorer.

More on the Microsoft, opera's history of problems

Modern browsers (including IE, Firefox, Safari, and Opera) sport multiple content-rendering modes – including ones supporting strict interpretation of certain web standards as well as quirks modes needed to offer compatibility with pages that pre-date modern standards.

MS is now going to use IE8 standard as default. Developers who want their pages shown using IE8’s “IE7 Standards mode” will need to request that using a meta tag. This mode switching approach has been criticised by rival developers, such as Opera.

Microsoft's legacy of not sticking to web standards as closely as, for example, Opera, in the past has left it with more problems than other developers in sticking to standards.

Finally, after much dilly-dallying, Microsoft has publicly conceded to stopping making HD DVD players for its Xbox 360 gaming console.

However, the company said it will continue to provide standard warranty support for its HD DVD players.
With this move, the last of the support to the dying (now dead) HD DVD format has ended. During the time the format lasted, Toshiba, Intel, NEC, and Microsoft were arguably its main proponents.

Actually, HD DVD's downfall began quite some time back when major Hollywood studios, including Sony Pictures, Walt Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, and Warner Bros Entertainment chose rival Blu-ray over HD DVD for distributing their high-definition content.

This was followed by nearly all of USA's major retail chains, the likes of Best Buy, Target, and 'last but not the least' Wal-Mart Stores, pledging support to Blu-ray over HD DVD

With Toshiba's public withdrawal of the format, the fate of HD DVD was more or less sealed, leaving Blu-ray the unchallenged victor.

Now that Microsoft has said it will stop making HD DVD players for its Xbox 360 console, Blair Westlake, a Corporate Vice President with the company's media and entertainment group, further said they will continue to give consumers the choice to enjoy digital distribution of high definition movies and TV shows directly to their living room, along with playback of DVD movies that they already own.

Just how are they planning to do this?

With HD DVD players firmly out of the way, is Microsoft now going to make attachable Blu-ray players for its Xbox 360. In any case, Sony's PS3 gaming console already has built-in Blu-ray playback capability.

Or is the company now going to increase high-definition downloads on its Xbox Live service, as it said earlier.

Guess we'll just have to wait for the official announcement...
Source: techtree

Microsoft has revealed that hackers have found a way to infiltrate older versions of its Excel program to take control of infected computer systems.

Earlier in the week, the software major said it's investigating reports of such attacks though hasn't yet determined whether it will go ahead and patch the bug, and if so, when.

Q) How will it infiltrate the anti-virus cordon and how can you protect your PC from it ?
Ans) The modus operandi is: you may either get a specially crafted Excel file as an email attachment or may end up visiting a compromised Web site -- either ways, you could be inviting hackers to arbitrarily take control of your PCs for furthering their malicious cause, be it stealing passwords and other personal information or sending out spam.

Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Service Pack 2, Excel Viewer 2003, Excel 2002, Excel 2000, and Excel 2004 for Mac, are all vulnerable to this form of attack, Microsoft said.

The way to go for users, as advised by Redmond, is to use a tool named 'Microsoft Office Isolated Conversion Environment', which scans files for bad code before opening them.

Meanwhile, more recent versions of Excel such as Excel 2007, Excel 2007 SP 1, and Excel 2008 for Mac are believed not to be vulnerable.

To begin with what exactly is the MacBook Air?
It’s Apple’s entry into the lightweight portable computer market known as the subnotebook

The 10 characteristics

1. Cost
• The base 1.6GHz model costs $1,799, $300 more than the top-of-the-line 2.2 GHz black MacBook, and $200 less than the low-end 2.2GHz 15-inch MacBook Pro
2. Weight
• 3 pounds
• MacBook weighs 5 pounds, the 15-inch MacBook Pro, 5.4 pounds, and the 17-inch MacBook Pro, 6.8 pounds.
3. Size
• The wedge-shaped laptop actually tapers from 0.76 inches high at the back to 0.16 inches at the front. In terms of its width and depth, it’s actually almost identical to the MacBook, at 12.8 inches wide and 8.9 inches deep.
  
4. Trackpad
• The trackpad is capable of recognizing multi-touch gestures, similar to using an iPhone or iPod touch.
  
5. Ethernet
• MacBook Air doesn’t have it. If you need Ethernet connectivity, Apple will sell a $29 10/100BASE-T USB Ethernet adapter that connects to the USB port.
  
6. Keyboard
• It’s a full-sized MacBook-style keyboard, complete with square keycaps, in black. The keyboard is backlit, similar to those on the MacBook Pros
  
7. Display
• The MacBook Air also has a 13.3-inch widescreen display with 1,280-by-800-pixels resolution. It also includes a built-in iSight camera
  
8. Micro DVI ports
1. Though the MacBook Air uses the smaller micro-DVI port rather than the MacBook’s built-in mini-DVI, the computer otherwise has the same video capabilities as the MacBook: it will drive external displays as large as 1,920-by-1,200 pixels, including Apple’s 23-inch Cinema Display, and can use that display as either an additional display or as a mirror of the laptop screen’s contents. The MacBook Air also uses the same Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics processor with 144MB of shared memory as the MacBook.
   
9. Optical drive
• Apple’s guess is that you’ll have another computer in your house or office with a built-in optical drive. That’s why it’s included the new Remote Disc software with MacBook Air.After you’ve installed Remote Disc on any Mac or PC with a CD or DVD drive, the MacBook Air can connect to that computer and read the disc in the drive as if it were its own. When you click on the new Remote Disc item in the Finder’s sidebar on the MacBook Air, you’ll see a list of all the computers on your local Bonjour network that have Remote Disc installed. Click on a computer and one of two things will happen—either you’ll just take control of the drive, or (optionally) the user of the other computer will be prompted to allow you to take control.
  
  If your MacBook Air has a catastrophic problem and you need to reinstall Mac OS X, you can even do that via a Remote Disc. As for watching movies, Apple suggests you use an iPod, iPhone, or iTunes to watch movies instead of playing a DVD.
  
10. Internet connectivity
• The MacBook Air includes 802.11n wireless networking, as well as Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR for mice and the like.

Also Read

• Stylo-Mania : The right? choice
• MacBook Air - The slimmest Video
• MacBook Air - Pros n Cons

Microsoft has hired another outsider to fill a key executive role--one more sign that the software giant's promote-from-within culture is fading.

The company said Thursday that Disney and General Motors (nyse: GM - news - people ) veteran Tony Scott will become its new chief information officer starting next month. The announcement comes just a week after Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) tapped Stephen Elop, chief operating officer of Juniper Networks (nasdaq: JNPR - news - people ), to replace company veteran Jeff Raikes in the high-profile job of business division president.

For years, Microsoft prided itself on promoting from within. But industry experts say that the pace of innovation and competition in recent years has forced the company to bring in outside talent with fresh ideas. Last year, for instance, John Schappert, executive vice president of Electronics Arts, was named corporate vice president of Xbox Live, Microsoft's interactive entertainment division. In 2006, Microsoft hired Ask.com Chief Executive Steve Berkowitz to head its online services. And in 2005, Microsoft acquired Groove Networks and named its founder, Ray Ozzie, as its chief technical officer.

Indeed, half of the top 10 slots are now held by people who have worked at the Redmond, Wash., software giant for fewer than four years. Strict software experience is no longer required: These new Microsoft executives hail from a wide range of industries including retail, technology and entertainment.

A Microsoft spokesman said the company is "committed to both developing internal talent as well as recruiting great talent from outside the company." Even so, the list of outside recruits goes on and on.
n his role as chief information officer, Scott, 56, will manage the Redmond, Wash.-based company’s global information technology organization, which oversees worldwide sales, marketing, services businesses, enterprise systems and business applications.

Microsoft said Scott has more than 25 years of experience running global information technology operations for major corporations. Most recently, he was senior vice president and chief information officer at Disney, where he was the first chief information officer to manage companywide IT. Prior to Disney, Scott was chief technology officer at GM and vice president of operations at Bristol-Meyers Squibb. At Microsoft, he will report to Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner.

Tony Scott replaces former chief information officer Stuart Scott, who was ousted several months ago for "violation of company policies." Microsoft wouldn't provide details about what policies were violated or how. The two men are not related, but Stuart Scott was also an outsider, joining Microsoft in 2003 from General Electric (nyse: GE - news - people ).

Rob Helm, director of research at Directions on Microsoft, says the chief information officer position is critical at Microsoft. Unlike other companies, Microsoft's CIO deals with both internal and external issues. At Microsoft, "the CIO is the first reference for customers," says Helm. "He has to go out and convince them Microsoft products are ready to use."

On paper, Scott looks like he has the right experience, Helm says. "He has done a lot of public speaking," he says. "A good public face is important for the Microsoft CIO."

Helm also said Scott appears technically proficient. At GM, he consolidated SAP (nyse: SAP - news - people ) systems, which should give him more clout with customers "Microsoft has wanted to be viewed like IBM--a strategic enterprise vendor," Helm says. "Customers rely on overall high-level guidance, not just 'sell us your parts and go away.' "

Microsoft wouldn't disclose details about the chief information officer search. Helm says GM is a very large Microsoft customer, and Scott is likely to be well-known to other Microsoft senior managers
Source: forbes