How the web works – even during festive holidays…
Filed under: Conversation, New Web Creations, Web services
Happy festive holidays and thank you for reading and subscribing.
We take the internet for granted now, having information, email and web access to everything we think we want to know.
It is a very new experience. If you worked in an office in 1989, the experience for connected colleagues is very different now than just those few years ago (some web users do remember those times!)
When we are relaxing after our seasonal lunch or sitting on the train home daydreaming about our targets for next year, will we think of how the internet works?
Probably not, but in those moments when all of us who connect without a thought do think about how it all works there is howstuffworks.com.
This is a great site for explaining loads of concepts and technical developments and is designed to present complex ideas in a clear and concise way.
The internet is no different, the howstuffworks.com article on How Internet Infrastructure Works is a good example. Visit these pages to find out how your own computer fits into the hierarchy of the web, or how your router or network connects to the backbone of the internet. Complete with diagrams too.
However, not everyone is connected to the web, even during the festive holidays. The Worldometers site has a running clock which clicks through a count of pc’s purchased around the globe.
According to research by Gartner Dataquest it states that there are currently over one billion laptop and desktop computers in the world today. By the end of 2015 this figure will have reached 2 billion.
These enormous numbers need to be tempered by the population of humans who could theoretically access these machines. This ibiblio.org site has a running population clock for the world. It is ticking inexorably towards seven billion. (The population in 1989 was only 5.14 billion – see the site for more historical population data).
In truth, despite our passion for technology, we are still a long way off being a connected world – even at holiday times.
However, to all our readers and subscribers to whom we are connected, do have a happy festive season – your web and email communications will be running – from the Third Sector Web team.
You can visit the home page of Third Sector Web here.
Mozilla Thunderbird 3 – quietly launched
Filed under: Conversation, New Web Creations, Web services, Webmail News
Thunderbird, Mozilla’s Open Source webmail client has quietly slipped into the e-world.
Updating our XP and Vista driven laptops went without a hitch. The revised interface for Thunderbird looks good and the new features add real functionality and ease of use to what was already the best webmail client available.
The introduction of tabs, just like a browser, means you can clearly identify multiple open messages. You can right click message folders and have them open in separate tabs too.
The new archive function provides one click archive for those messages you don’t want to delete, but which you want to store safely. A great simple and effective feature we think.
Thunderbird now has a sophisticated search function, using the auto-index and timeline features to help you search better for the email you want.
The mail account set-up wizard really simplifies adding new accounts. Before you needed to know all about IMAP settings and the rest, now Thunderbird consults the Mozilla database and asks you to simply input your name, email address and password. A nice feature for users who rely on email but don’t wish to poke about under the hood of their systems.
Finally, the address book has been updated – simply click the star icon in your arriving emails to add the person to your address book. With two clicks you can also add photo’s birthdays and wider contact data.
We use Thunderbird as our default email mechanism and like the updates. It is a fast, intuitive alternative to Outlook. Check out Mozilla Thunderbird if you are a new user. if you’re a regular – hit the update button.
You can find the home page of Third Sector Web here.
Microsoft release public beta of Office 2010
Filed under: Conversation, New Web Creations, Web services
Microsoft have finally released a public beta version of Office 2010 for access by users interested in trying out the new suite of applications.
We installed the beta version of 2010, requiring a high speed web connection, on a colleagues home laptop, with perfect ease and with no apparent conflicts on the machine with an existing licensed version of Office 2007 – the two running in parallel.
As this ‘web connected’ version of Office 2010 is a beta, with a final fully polished version yet to come, this was a useful test.
The interfaces for the user, the new ‘ribbon’ and the additional effects and utility in Excel and PowerPoint were easy to use and added real impact to the test documents and analysis we produced.
You can save documents online and access them from any machine. Microsoft say that a final version for the home user will be available through Windows Live, which will be free but supported by advertising.
The Beta trial offers a great way to experiment with ‘cloud computing‘, with the promise that a full suite will be available eventually for free through your Windows Live account.
Microsoft Office 2010 Beta – real productive power, online. Read more here.
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