Reviews

A collection of my thoughts on the latest gadgets and software releases

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Review: Internet Explorer 8February 20th, 2009

The next version of Internet Explorer will be with us before long, bringing us improvements in security, privacy, search, and usability. And I know people will give me funny looks for this, but I actually rather like this version. For once Microsoft are making an attempt at following standards, and the browser is more stable than ever before.

New features as listed by Microsoft include:

  • Quicker performance— Both with quicker page loading, quicker javascript, and better ways to navigate around the application
  • Better security — As well as domain name highlighting which makes it clearer if you are in a phishing site, IE8 provides “SmartScreen Filter” which will give you a warning if you are visiting a known unsafe website. Although warnings were given in IE7, this warning is much more obvious and looks similar to Firefox 3′s warnings.
  • Webclips and Accelerators — Which shows portions of a website on the click of a menu option or bookmark link

When it comes to standards compliance, IE8 is better than the previous version, but still isn’t perfect. When running the Acid3 test (the latest test for standards conformance), Internet Explorer actually performs worse than other current browsers with a score of 20/100 (Safari managing 75/100 and Firefox 71/100).

The newest CSS standard — CSS3 — is another way of comparing browsers, albeit a slightly unfair one since the different browsers are introducing different elements of CSS3 and the code in your CSS file differs between browsers.

So, what CSS3 elements do IE8 have? Sadly, not many. The only feature in IE8 is box resizing, which in my opinion isn’t that useful. Although this might sound like a reason to start saying how IE8 is rubbish, it shouldn’t really be. Agreed, IE8 is behind the times when it comes to the latest and greatest technologies, but CSS3 is presentation that isn’t widely used, and so in the great scheme of things isn’t very important.

So, what do I think of IE8? I actually think it’s quite nice. Admittedly there’s a long way to go until it catches up with Firefox and Safari, but we need to realise that a large percentage of users will still use Internet Explorer. Giving them a version that’s at least half decent with security and usability and which isn’t painful to create sites for is better than nothing, and at least Microsoft is finally sitting up and taking note.

There are however a couple of things that I don’t particularly like, one being the URL domain name highlighting. I know it has a security purpose and so it’s actually good to have, it just looks untidy. I can’t think of any solution, but I’m sure there’s a better way of doing this. Now that the idea is out there, hopefully the other browser manufacturers will be able to build on top of this feature.

IE8 also really is quick: I was surprised at how fast it was. Pages seem to load quicker than Firefox 3, so there must be some very good changes to the engines behind the scenes. I also like how tabs automatically restart whenever a site crashes the browser, so that you don’t even realise that a crash has happened. This is a real step forward for software development in general, and my hat goes off to Microsoft for managing this.

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Review: Windows 7January 23rd, 2009

Screenshot of Windows 7Microsoft have finally allowed the general public to beta test Windows 7, so hoping for an improvement on Vista, I downloaded it and checked it out.

I didn’t really get to play around with the operating system too much, since Windows 7 requires a hefty 1 GB of RAM. I was only able to dedicate half of that amount to my virtual machine, so things were extremely slow. This is not an upgrade for people with older machines.

First of all, the install. Microsoft seemed to have finally learnt lessons from Apple and make the install simple; all I had to do is boot up, tell it I wanted a regular install thank-you-very-much, and leave it going. After about an hour (keeping in mind I had half the recommended RAM) and a few configuration questions, I was all set to go. I’ve also been told that installing hardware is a lot less painful than in Vista, with no issues with drivers.

First of all, the things I like. The new taskbar and behaviour of the windows is much nicer: the taskbar now acts more like Mac OS’s dock, showing application icons rather than a tab for each open window. Commonly used programs also now look no different to active programs (again, just like the Mac OS dock), which looks a lot better than previous versions. Windows can now be more intuitively maximised and minimised, presumably a side-effect of introducing touch-screen support.

Gadgets are no longer confined to a sidebar, and instead can be placed anywhere on the desktop. This is a good step in my opinion, since I was never the biggest fan of the sidebar. I’m undecided if I prefer this to the Mac’s Dashboard; I guess they’re both good ways of showing small applications.

I’m unsure on the new window chrome, although I think this is a personal thing because other people have mentioned how they like it. It’s certainly clean, but it’s a bit too clean and rounded for me. It’s certainly not bad (it works), I just think they could’ve done a better job.

One thing I don’t like at all is the new Start Menu. Just as with the new menu system, the whole Start Menu now changes when you press buttons such as “All Programs”, rather than using the classic drop-down method. To me, it seems to require more clicks, which is a bad thing.

Windows 7 is certainly an improvement on Windows Vista, and certainly looks and behaves a lot better than Windows XP. However, I’ll be sticking to XP for now, primarily because of the large amount of memory required to run the operating system. I would recommend people upgrade if given the choice, since it does appear to be a better and more stable OS than Vista.

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Review: Opera 10 alphaJanuary 16th, 2009

A couple of months ago Opera released the alpha release of the latest version of their web browser. Among the touted updates are:

  • Updated rendering engine with better standard support and faster speeds
  • Inline spell checking
  • Web fonts (a way of embedding fonts using CSS without resorting to image replacement tools
  • CSS transparency
  • More CSS3 support

I’ve never had any problems with Opera in the past; I’ve never been a fan, but I’ve never felt it was a bad browser. However, having played around with Opera 10 for a bit, I can’t say I’m very impressed.

Despite what they’re saying, I actually found the new rendering engine appears rather slow. I’m not sure what it is that gives this impression (obviously they’re not going to say ‘fast engine’ if it’s not), maybe I’m just too used to Safari.

Something else that I’m too used to in Safari is the chrome itself and lack of smooth scrolling. I’m sure this doesn’t bother current Opera users, but I would find it too irritating to start using the software permanently (in fact, it’s the reason I stopped testing Opera 10).

What I also didn’t understand is a dashed horizontal line appearing across the window where the fold was when I scrolled down occasionally. If anyone has any ideas what this is, then please let me know!

It may seem that I hate everything about Opera now, but that’s not quite true. I can’t remember if it’s in Opera 9, but I like the autocomplete from the history. Unlike Safari which only completes the entire URL, Opera will complete from anywhere within the address. So if you type example.com and have subdomain.example.com in your history, the latter will also appear.

I’m sure Opera 10 is a big change, especially for the rendering engine. However I’m just too used to Safari to be able to change the browser that I use. There are some important and useful updates, but even with these I still can’t really see Opera as anything much more than “just another web browser”.

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Adobe CS4 (part 2)November 14th, 2008

The second part in a series of articles about Adobe CS4. (Part one)

Earlier this month I attended the Adobe CS4 tour, where I learnt about all of the cool new features in the latest release of this multimedia suite of applications. It’s all very exciting stuff, and I hope to be able to upgrade soon.

So, last week I left you all in the lurch by talking about only two of the 13 applications within the suite. Obviously I’m not going to talk about them all (on a weekly release schedule, I might be finished by the time CS5 is out), but in this part I’ll be talking about Illustrator and Flash.

Illustrator CS4

I don’t use Illustrator often, but it’s a very useful tool when I’m having to make logos. There’s some cool new features though, here’s the ones I think I’d personally use the most:

  • New gradient tool — I could never get the gradient in Illustrator.. it was completely lost on me. So I think this is probably the best improvement of the lot. Rather than use that really complicated dialogue box, you can now create your gradient on-screen, a little like in Photoshop. It also has opacity control, which I’m very surprised it didn’t already have
  • Blot brush — A brand new paint tool, I think this is one you need to play with before you realise the true value of this tool. It looks interesting, and if it’s as clean a paint tool as the sales blurb suggests, this should be one mighty fine tool

Flash CS4

I’m the first to admit, I haven’t done much Flash work. But the way the web is going, I need to start taking it seriously. And with the release of CS4, I think my life has suddenly been made much easier.

  • Object-based animation — Known to the rest of us as “animation suddenly got easier”. Rather than animating using key frames, you can now create a path that the object follows. It’s all very intuitive, and this is another one of those “why wasn’t this done earlier?” features
  • Motion editor and presets — Working alongside object-based animation, this cool little feature gives you even more control while animating objects, giving you a choice of presets to save you even more time
  • Bones tool — When I first heard of this tool, I wondered what on earth it could be. I mean, bones? But then I saw it. ‘Bones’ is a bit of an odd name for a really funky tool. Objects can be given kinematics physics rules, and can be moved around easily by either the author or the end user. Ideal for moving around characters and just about anything else that has joints
  • Adobe Air — As I was saying earlier, the web is going multimedia and offline. Adobe’s answer to this is Adobe Air, and you can create your own Air applications quickly and easily using Adobe Flash. Certainly one to look out for, I think
  • Pixel pusher — There were a few times during the demos where the Adobe guys had to say “We’re not cheating here folks, this really is happening!”. Bitmap images and videos can be transformed, skewed, pushed, squeezed, pinched, poked, and prodded. In real time. Without any kind of lag. This is something you have to see to believe

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Adobe CS4 (part 1)November 7th, 2008

Part one in a series of articles about Adobe CS4

Earlier this week I attended an Adobe CS4 tour, to check out the cool features of this new release. After picking my jaw off the ground for the fiftieth time, I decided that I really must upgrade, as it’s a fantastic release.

So, the new stuff. Bearing in mind I’m a web developer by trade, I’m only going to be going into those products that affect (and therefore excite) me personally. These are Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks.

Photoshop CS4

There’s three things that excite me about Photoshop: the new smooth zoom which looks simply brilliant, the on-image adjustments, and the canvas rotation.

  • Smooth zoom — It may be little more than eye candy, but there’s something about it that draws me in (pun not intended). I’ve always found the zoom in CS2 to be a lot to be desired, and finally it’s been improved and looks good in non-standard zoom levels. I also really like the new grid that is shown at deep zoom levels
  • On-image adjustments — is probably the feature I’ll make the most use out of. I’ve always been a tad scared by the graphs in some of the adjustments, and now it can all be done on-screen. I’ve yet to actually play with this feature, but going by the demo it looks extremely cool and very easy to make changes

Dreamweaver CS4

What can I say, this is the update that excites me the most. In the past, Dreamweaver has always been a so-so application for me, with my preferred editor being Komodo Edit. However, this new update contains a ton of updates that I really am very excited about: stuff that Komodo can’t do. I think the only thing holding me back from going completely to Dreamweaver is Komodo’s superior auto-complete.

So, what are these cool new features I’m so excited over?

  • Live design view — Webkit (the engine behind Safari and Google Chrome) is now used to show the design view, which means that things such as javascript now appear and the view is standards compliant. Personally I might not find much use behind it because I mostly write webpages in php, but still, it’s nice to have
  • Live code view — How was this never thought of before? How did we ever accept not being able to view the changes to HTML that javascript makes? Amazing stuff
  • Smart Objects — This one made me wow. If you’re importing a graphic into Dreamweaver, you now no longer have to go through the hassle of loading up Photoshop, exporting for web, going back into Dreamweaver, importing the graphic… you can now do it all inside Dreamweaver. What also makes it great is it also exports it to the size you want: if you only need a small thumbnail, then a small thumbnail file you will get
  • Subversion integration — Every web developer knows that we should be using versioning control, but it just never happens. The applications are just too complicated, and it’s such a pain having to check in and out all the time. This wasn’t demo’d on the day, but I’m still very excited by this feature and I really do hope it works intuitively. Maybe this is the kick I need to actually start using subversion

Next time

In the next article I’ll be taking a look at some more of the CS4 suite, including Illustrator, Flash, and maybe even Fireworks.

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Late 2008 MacBook/MacBook ProOctober 24th, 2008

Another new generation of Apple notebooks, another little older my trusty iBook looks and feels. I never thought I could love a laptop more than the previous cute little black MacBooks, but I was wrong. This time the MacBooks don’t look cute — they look stunning. Carrying on with the trend of highly recyclable aluminium and glass, these notebooks look like the portable version of the iMac, which isn’t a bad thing at all.

With a Unibody enclosure which Jony Ive is visibly proud of, this makes both MacBook and MacBook Pro thinner, lighter, and stronger. Rather than sticking parts of aluminium together which could result in failure, why not take one big block of aluminium and machine cut it? Both laptops have large trackpads which is one big button and includes why-didn’t-I-think-of-that four finger gestures, both have even more improved sleep lights and battery indicators which makes my iBook look like an airport runway, and both have a slot which lets you not only easy take out the battery but take out the hard drive as well.

For the geeks out there, the MacBook comes in a 2.0GHz or 2.4GHz variety, both with 2GB of DDR3 RAM. Both come with brand new GeForce 9400M graphics, which I’ve been reliably informed by Mr. Jobs is Very Impressive (and why would he lie?), and will set you back £950 and £1149 respectively. For those without an arm and a leg to spend on literally shiny tech, the old White MacBooks are still available, for a more sensible £719

The MacBook Pro comes in 15- and 17-inch flavours, with speeds of between 2.4 and 2.53GHz. Memory this time is up to 4 GB, and both 15-inch MacBook Pros come with more graphics than you can shake a 3D rendered stick at. At up to £1950, you do need to sell your house in order to afford one, and with the smaller environentally friendly packaging you don’t even get a box to live in.

I won’t be getting one, but I will be very jealous of anybody who does. Once more Apple has made me fall in love with an inanimate object, with some amazing product design. They really need to get rid of those horrible side grills on the MacBook Pro, though. What do you guys think? Are you tempted enough to buy one yourself?

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FLIROctober 17th, 2008

An alternative to sIFR called FLIR (Facelift Image Replacement) was mentioned on Boagworld recently, and I only just got around to checking it out.

I was never a fan of sIFR, mostly because it required using (and owning) Flash. So not only does that mean you need to own a flash player to see the text, you also needed to own a Flash composer to create the font file.

FLIR uses php and javascript only: the javascript calls the php script, which changes text into an image. It’s all controlled in CSS and a couple of config files (which you rarely ever have to touch), and if you have javascript disabled (or your browser doesn’t have javascript) you wouldn’t know the difference. Even if you do have javascript enabled, to the reader the sites looks just like you have an image with the text in.

Personally, I’m rather excited by FLIR. Being a big typography fan I was always disappointed by the small number of web safe fonts out there, so I’m looking forward to using FLIR a lot. It’s a little buggy, but it’s still new, and I’m sure these will be ironed out in time.

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