Google tells users to drop IE6

Saw this today when looking at some Google Stock history and thought I'd post it here:

Article Source: TGDaily

Following recent release of Chrome 1.0, Google is increasing the visibility of the browser. In addition to a direct download link on Google.com, YouTube and within the Adsense advertising program, the company is now advising Gmail users who access the service with IE6 to ditch the browser and upgrade to Firefox 3 or Chrome. Google claims the two browsers run the popular webmail service "twice as fast".

Interesting eh? I do highly suggest using Firefox or Chrome. I use Firefox at home and have installed it at multiple family locations. My suggested installation of Firefox includes the AdBlock Plus addon as well as IE Tab.

I personally can't wait until Chrome gets addon support. Hopefully that will be soon!

Windows XP Extended until May 2009

Quick simple post as many people visiting this blog are running Windows XP:

With Windows Vista not living up to Microsoft's adoption expectations, hardware vendors are now able to deliver computers with new Windows XP licenses until May of 2009, rather than the January 2009 that was the original cut off date.

Maybe by May Windows 7 will be released and that will take off like Microsoft wanted Vista to. In my opinion, Vista isn't that bad once you get used to it. But some people just like the look / feel of XP more. 

Maybe this announcement will mean more XP service packs / bug fixes?

Top products you might not know about...

With the holidays coming up and some potential time off from some projects, I figured it might be a good time to throw out some links to some great programs available online that you might know about and maybe you might not know about them too. I plan on doing this at least once a month to spread the word on some great programs.



VisNetic MailFlow - VisNetic MailFlow is an Email Management system. Think of it as an enhanced email client.

What does it do?

Lets say your running an online business and you have created a few generic email addresses in your Mail Server for your site like sales@domain.com, support@domain.com, bugs@domain.com for example.

MailFlow will be able to collect these messages, and place them into Ticketboxes for easy sorting and allow for anyone who is designated to answer these messages, to answer them from a Web Page (hosted by IIS) rather than an Email Client. MailFlow also keeps a history of all of your emails with a contact.

All in all, MailFlow is a vast superior email solution when compared to having to sort through all your messages in a regular Email Client.

Where can I get it?

Click HERE for information regarding MailFlow.













SongBird - From the same team that brings you Firefox and Thunderbird, comes SongBird. SongBird is an Open Source Music Player much like iTunes but offers the ability to make it your own with Addons you can download directly from within the program.

These addons allow you to view lyrics to the currently playing song, show all the Album Covers for songs in your playlist (like an iPod shows) and much more. You can even download an addon that lets you broadcast your music online to become your own radio station!

Where can I get it?

You can download Songbird HERE



Chrome - Chrome is a new Web browser, developed by the fine folks at Google.

What Makes it so special?

Well its fast. Thats quite special by itself. LifeHacker has a great article on ways to tweak Chrome to suit your needs HERE

Since Chrome came out. I've been using it for this blog exclusively. Unfortunately it does lack a few things that still have it running 2nd on my list (behind Firefox) but Plugins and Adblocking are coming soon (hopefully sooner).

Where can I get it

You can download Chrome from HERE

Stay off Internet Explorer

According to the BBC in a story seen HERE

A serious security flaw has been detected in Internet Explorer. This flaw could allow hackers the ability to steal vital information such as passwords and also give them the ability to take control of your computer!

"In this case, hackers found the hole before Microsoft did," said Rick Ferguson, senior security advisor at Trend Micro. "This is never a good thing."

Here are some download links to other browsers to use:

Firefox

Chrome

How to configure a Web Site in IIS

A good majority of computers come with a Web Server pre-installed on the Operating System. All versions of Windows 2000 have the ability to run IIS, as do Windows XP Pro, Windows 2003, and Vista.

This blog post will dive into IIS version 6 running on Windows 2003.

To start, you will want to verify that IIS is installed on the operating system. The easiest way to verify this is to right click on My Computer and select Manage. From there expand Services & Application. Internet Information Services should be listed here.

If IIS is not listed, click here to find out how to install IIS.

Now that IIS is installed, we need to configure the site from within IIS. To do this, right click on My Computer and select Manage. From there expand Services & Application. Internet Information Services should be listed here. From here, expand IIS and then you should see 3 folders:

Application Pools
Web Sites
Web Service Extensions






From here, expand Web Sites. You will now see Default Web Site. This is a starter page that IIS comes pre-configured with. From here you can really do everything you need to. No need to create another site (not yet anyway).

So, now to see what IIS gives you out of the box, open your WebBrowser and type in the website address http://127.0.0.1

This should bring up the default IIS page.

Now its time to look into the Site itself and its properties. From the Properties menu, we can change the path the site is saved to.

So back in the IIS Manager, right click on Default Web Site and select Properties. The Web Site tab shows up first and this shows us a few important options. Description, IP Address and Port. These three options can be left alone for now. Click on the Home Directory tab.

This is where the meat and potatoes of the site is stored. Local Path is where the HTML files are specified to be saved at for the Default Web Site. By default this should be c:\inetpub\wwwroot. Feel free to change this to where ever you have saved / or will be saving, your HTML files for your site.

Thats it! Of course you will need to know how to create your site. There are many HTML Editors available. You can also go here for a tutorial on HTML coding.

How to Enable POP3 with Exchange 2007

Many users use Exchange as their Mail Server of choice and might not realize that POP3 isn't enabled by default. To enable and start the POP3 Service in Exchange, follow these steps:

1. From the Control Panel go to Administrative Tools then select Services
2. In the list of services, locate and right-click Microsoft Exchange POP3, and then click Properties.
3. On the General tab, under Startup type, select Automatic, and then click Apply.
4. Under Service status, click Start, and then click OK.

Now POP3 is enabled and will start automatically. However some email clients might receive a message stating "Err Command is not valid in this state".

This is meaning that the client is sending authentication in a way that Exchange is not configured to accept. Likely the client is sending in Plain Text. By default Exchange will not allow Plain Text logon. To enable it, follow these steps:

First you will need to open the Exchange Management Shell:

1. Click Start, click Programs, and then click Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.
2. Click Exchange Management Shell.

With the Management Shell open enter in Set-PopSettings -LoginType PlainTextLogin
then you will need to Restart the POP3 service.

Now, Exchange should be able to accept connections from any POP3 client. 

Hope this has been helpful!

To further enhance your business / email correspondence, check out VisNetic MailFlow: