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MS Internet Explorer
by elysia2003
When it comes to things I own, I'm a rather fickle kind of person. I have to have the best that I can afford, and things regularly get replaced as a newer version comes out. To my friends and family I am affectionately known as gadget woman - I love technology and embrace it wholeheartedly. Technology doesn't like me much though; it has ... to be simple and effective, or out it goes.
Being fickle, I employ nearly all the web browsers available on my personal computer. If there's a download available I'll download it, I'm not fussy. They tell me it's needed, and I'm there.
Internet Explorer has been the browser I come back to time and time again, no matter what the latest browser to have is. Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, I have them all, but none of them compare to the ease of use of Explorer.
I had seen the adverts that Internet Explorer (IE) 9 was coming, in fact I'd been pre-warned by my father who had downloaded it in its preliminary state, to help check for bugs in the program. He rated it highly and told me I should download it once it became available.
With IE being my main browser, with the help of Download Manager, I have my computer set for automatic Microsoft updates, and so when asked to install said updates, I did what I was asked and rebooted my computer upon completion. Installation took a matter of minutes, and in all honesty, I think rebooting my computer afterwards took longer.
When all was set, and ready to go, I immediately noticed some changes. Now I'm no computer expert and don't pretend to be. The most noticeable change to me was my favourites bar and list had vanished. Ok, not vanished exactly, just hiding somewhere. The favourites bar is hidden by default, to give a more streamlined look. I found my favourites list, a few moments later at the opposite side of the screen, and hidden under a star icon. It was good to see they were all in the same position and not in some random order or alphabetised. Everything was where I put it, so I could relax. Phew. I don't know how I'd manage without my favourites list.
The next thing that worried me slightly was the tabs. I took me a while to work out how to open a new tab, and initially I was just closing down and reopening the same page over and over. I suddenly thought that this is a step backwards, not forwards, and took my time to study the online tutorial available. It was a great help and I have tabs open right, left and centre now. It's great.
Another benefit with these tabs, if you are running Vista, as my daughter does on her computer, is that you get almost the same effect as you do with Windows 7 that I run on mine. She is now able to open up multiple tabs and view them on the same page. Switching between the different tabs is easy and convenient, and makes things run so much smoother.
It was while before I noticed the final major change. Who stole my Google search bar? Google was and is, my preferred search engine of choice, and it was gone. I soon realised that by typing my query into the web browser bar at the top left of the screen, where you would normally type a web address, that this then became my search engine too. Obviously running a Microsoft web browser, it used Bing by default, but this is easily rectified by typing Google, and searching for what I wanted via the Google site directly. It is often simpler to use the Bing search engine, and unless I definitely need Google for some reason, I'm happy to report that it serves its purpose well.
A pop up bar at the bottom of the screen is a new addition. This only appears when the web page I'm trying to view is running slow. It merely is trying to ask whether I would like to disable add-ons which lessen the performance of the browser and slow things down. By disabling said add-ons, my viewing is so much quicker and the browser is so much more responsive.
With the streamlining of the features and a more simplistic overall design, IE9 offers a speedier experience. Things are easier to do, browsing is easy, switching between two (or multiple) tabs is easy and overall, for a basic computer user like me, I find it simpler, and more effective to use. I love the look and feel of it now, the first day I was none too impressed but stick with it, and hopefully you'll be impressed, just like I was.
I don't confess to being a computer genius. This review is written solely by, and for, a computer user who just wants a computer to do what it needs to do quickly and efficiently.
I do hope this review can be of use to you and many thanks for reading.
This review may be posted on other sites under the same username
© elysia2003 July 2011
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Dropbox
by thunder_hammer
== What you get ==
* 2GB of Free online storage space (upgradable to 100GB for a fee)
* A secure place to keep your files.
* Cross platform access (you can use your files on Windows, Macs, Linux, IOS devices (i.e iphones), Android phones/tablets and Blackberrys
* Share folders with friends or colleagues
== ... My Experience ==
Dropbox and cloud storage changed everything for me. With using computers at uni, work and on the go I wanted my most used files wherever I went. Before I discovered Dropbox I kept everything on various flash drives, most of which I misplaced or lost.
Dropbox is reliable, my files are accessed via the internet but they're saved offline once they've downloaded.
A feature I absolutely love is the sharing folders. My friend and I make sections of music and drop what we've done in Dropbox for the other person to pick it up and continue working on it. It has really helped increase our productivity.
Another feature that I think is great is the ability to restore deleted files or to revert back to previous versions of files.
Since using Dropbox and quickly falling in love with it I showed my friends how good it is and invited them to use it and so received bonus space to store more files.
I genuinely cannot imagine using my computers without this, I hope it always remains free to use.
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