Yahoo & Google learning to search for Flash-based content

Finally, Adobe, Google and Yahoo are working to enable search for Flash-based content. Me thinks Adobe is a bit slow in optimizing their Flash player technology.

One reason why most sites refrain from using Flash exclusively is because of its file size overhead. The other reason is SEO - it’s impossible to crawl Flash content. Read more »

Firefox 3 Download Day a questionable success

Mozilla dared the world to be counted… and apparently Mozilla is not prepared for it.  All of their sites were unavailable.  So what did they really want to achieve - a Guinness world record or a denial of service situation?

A funny thing happened last night (or this morning).  It was already 12:56 am, Philippine time, so I decided to log-off and sleep.  I really am not into world records unless I earn money from it (which is unlikely).  Anyways, just before closing my mail client, a feed alert reminded me that at 1:00 am Philippine time, the Firefox 3 download day will commence.  Four minutes to go… I decided to wait and download out of curiosityI already have Firefox 3 RC3 after all. Read more »

Firefox 3

I’ll put my geek hat on for a while.

I hate it when sites like microsoft.com use buttons, instead of links, for their download services. Here in the Philippines, when you download a 300+ megabyte file, you will need a download tool like Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) because, chances are, you will get disconnected from the Net from time to time and your download gets broken.

DAP, of course, can resume broken downloads. DAP can catch your download clicks and make the request itself. However, when a particular site’s download link is not a link but a button, DAP doesn’t quite catch it. I don’t know if this is possible but I tinkered DAP for about 5 minutes and I couldn’t quite figure it out. Read more »

tidbits: AVG 8.0, XP SP3, Maria Ozawa

Internet Explorer 8 Beta

ie8beta_logo.gif

I just installed IE8 beta hoping to see visual improvements, especially on the toolbars. I would prefer the refresh and stop buttons on the left side where it should be. I know I could have just googled the browser screenshot but I wanted to try it out anyway. I guess I’ll also mention that I was hoping I could skin IE8 and add add-ons ala Firefox.

Anyways, I also have been planning a browser shift from Firefox to IE7 or IE8 for the longest time. My Firefox keeps crashing on me (I’m using Vista Ultimate). I have long suspected Firefox to crash when a lot of Flash movies are being loaded in the browser. The IE8 beta release seems to have finally made me do the shift. I’ll have to admit there’s no real improvement in my browsing except that my browser won’t crash that often.

For now, I don’t care about 2 new significant features introduced by IE8 - Activities and WebSlices. I’m sure their product page can explain those features much better.