Mozilla Firefox 2.0 was released this past week. Alex Iskold at Read/Write Web has a short review highlighting new features.
I like it if for no other reason than the built in spell checker. Firefox will highlight misspelled words as you type your text into form fields (such as the one I am using to post this blog). I'm sure those of you who know me realize I really need it :-)
Firefox 2.0
Ha! I just noticed the built-in spell checker. AWESOME. Actually, I really like the Safari-like "x" that now appear on the right of each tab. True, there was an add-on you could get for the old FF to do this, but it's much better to have this as part of the standard.
I'm not sure how the new FF compares to IE 7, though. I haven't had a chance to try out IE 7 because we're not ready for it at SCSU (apparently it's incompatible with our LMS, Desire-to-Learn), but from what I hear it's a "catch-up" program. I'd gladly put it on my home computer, but, alas, "Windows Genuine Advantage" has prevented me from getting any updates for this machine for the past 6 months or so.
Check out Barton's gaming blog at Armchair Arcade.
a plus with RSS
FYI: I just switched over to Google Reader for my aggregator from Drupal because Firefox makes it very easy to subscribe now to website feeds.
IE 7? No interest here really. I hardly ever use IE. I use it more to preview how my web design looks in it than anything else. I can wait a while before downloading 7.
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Charlie | cyberdash
firefox and email
So far I'm not too happy with how my web-based email works in firebox. I hate to say it here (don the asbestos!), but IE does a better job there, at least for what I want. I'll have to decide if that's bug-a-boo enough to make me use IE over firebox, and right now, the jury's out.
Gotta admit though, the spell check, or the red squigglies that tell me I'm a lousy speller, is a god send when blogging. That might be feature enough to get me to use firefox despite the email clunkiness.
bradley || bleckblog.org
an alternative webmail client: RoundCube
As an alternative, I've been thinking about seeing if I can get RoundCube installed on my webhost or use the Drupal RoundCube module so I can use it for my institutional email. I really hate GroupWise's email client, and I have enjoyed using RoundCube with my commercial hosting account.
Try out the Drupal module demo (takes a minute to load). You can login to your email and see what RoundCube is like.
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Charlie | cyberdash
Gmail
What I've been impressed with is how well Google apps are working with Firefox. We have a web frontend here for Outlook that er, well, let's not discuss it. I don't see how you can go wrong with a Google personalized homepage, gmail, google calendar, notebook, google docs, zotero, even. The only Microsoft app I find myself booting up these days is Word to use the comments and autotext features. I'm frankly surprised that some long hair at Google hasn't worked this out yet.
If we can read the human genome, I don't see why getting those little sticky notes to show up right is such a problem.
Check out Barton's gaming blog at Armchair Arcade.