CyberCoyote — July 1, 2009

NEWS and NOTES
Firefox 3.5

Apple, Google, Opera and even Microsoft have been working to make their browsers faster. Mozilla has been busy too, and has just released the faster, more-advanced Firefox 3.5. [what's new?] [download]

Windows 7 prices

Microsoft recently announced pricing for Windows 7, which will be released in October. Special pre-release prices are what's interesting right now. (They are about the same as what you'd pay for Windows 7 as part of a new computer.) [via SuperSite Blog]

Microsoft Security Essentials

You'll find all sorts of reports online about Microsoft Security Essentials, Microsoft's free replacement for their OneCare security suite. Although favorable, most of them only take a superficial look at Microsoft Security Essentials.

Protection is what counts in security software. Not how easy it is to install. Not how simple it is to use. And not how well behaved it is. Early MSE test reports are promising, but I'll wait until I've seen how it fares against zero-day attacks before I get too excited. ;-)

TECH TOPICS
IC wafers

Early transistor radios had 6 or 8 individual transistors. They were used the same functions that vacuum tubes performed earlier. Those functions were known as analog circuits. I had a great deal of fun designing all kinds of those in a previous life. :-)

These days most electronics is digital. Most transistor radios today use a digital integrated circuit (IC), which incorporates a few thousand transistors. That IC is smaller than just one of those early transistors. Most personal electronics, including PCs, would not exist if it weren't for the incredible shrinking transistors that you find in ICs.

PC's have a huge capacity for transistors -- they contain billions of them. The CPU may incorporate a billion or more itself. The number of transistors in an IC has increased faster than size of transistors has shrunk. That imbalance has been offset by increasing the size of wafers used in IC manufacturing.

Wafers were 6 inches in size when PCs first appeared in their current form. They grew to 8 and then 12 inches (300 mm). Now 18 inch (450 mm) wafers are emerging.

Here's where that word billion comes in again. It takes billions of dollars to gear up to build ICs on 18 inch wafers. However, you'll get about 10 times as many ICs from an 18 inch wafer as you did from a 6 inch one.

Wafers aren't going to get much bigger though. A one meter (1,000 mm) wafer seems like an outside limit to me. Current ICs are essentially two-dimensional structures. Future growth will likely be in the third dimension. A few emerging digital devices are now based on bulk mass, not just surface area. Although they aren't primarily electronic, today's hard drives already use vertical instead of surface magnetic domains. That allows nearly a ten-fold increase in storage.

The secrets of Vista / Windows 7

Microsoft tried to make it easier to find what you're looking for in Vista, and largely succeeded in Windows 7. One of the ways they did that was with better context menus and tasks in context. The other secret is better search within Windows, but that's something I'm saving for later.

I don't think Microsoft made these improvements obvious though. Anyone less than ten years old will discover them instinctively, but the rest of us will need to consciously develop new habits to get the most out of Vista or Windows 7. That's why I call them secrets.

The context menu secret

Right-clicking (click an object with the right mouse button) is the first habit to cultivate. Almost every object or region of a window produces a context menu when you right-click one. The content of the menu changes for different objects, or regions on an object. The menu at the right is for shortcuts in the start menu. They're just what you might need right where you'd hope to find them. Some of them will be an unexpected bonus.

Windows 7 and Vista context menus are more extended and relevant than those in previous versions of Windows. Right-clicking is often the quickest way to get to the next task in your workflow. You'll find them in Windows or any program you're working in. There are even some unexpected ones when you right-click the title-bar icon of a system console window (older versions were not mouse-friendly).

I made a collage of Windows 7 context menus to show a few more examples of what's available. Going clockwise from the context menu for the Recycle bin, you see the context menu for a shortcut, for the desktop itself, for the taskbar, and finally the Firefox icon. That one lets you open recent files, open Firefox, close the Firefox window, or unpin the icon from the taskbar. As they say in Chicago, right-click early and often. ;-)

The related tasks secret

The second secret is to keep your eyes open for promising details and hotspots. Vista and 7 hide some tasks in plain sight. In this case, you'll left-click to activate them. The taskbar calendar makes a simple example. The image at the left is what you'll see if you click the clock/calendar at the right end of the taskbar.

The tiny left and right arrows will take you to the previous or next month, but what if you want to go further faster? Notice in the image above that hovering the mouse pointer over the June title reveals that it's a link (blue). As shown below, clicking that and subsequent hidden links lets you zoom out to a time frame that suits your need. Nifty. Exploring with your eyes open will reveal much more magic like this as you use Windows and various programs.

[via digital inspiration]

WEB PICKS
Eye candy

You probably know that Microsoft rewickered their search page, and called it Bing. Maybe they're dreaming of a White Christmas {sorry}. Bing has some nice features and seems to be well received.

The no-doubt-expensive background images that Microsoft is using for Bing are a nice touch. There's a new image every day. Long Zheng created a gallery of recent background pictures for your viewing pleasure. Click the X with a circle around it to return to the gallery.

Meanwhile, Google hasn't been sitting idly by. They still have a minimalist start page, but they've added a link to expose their own quiver of features. Google also has some good ideas for better searches, but About.com's tips might be better.

ODDS and ENDS
Caught in the act

Many years ago, a bunch of us walked out of a nearly empty restaurant in Kirkland, Washington (across I-5 from Microsoft). After waiting for ten minutes, nobody had come to wait on us. It was weird. There were several people in the bar watching the TV, but nobody even looked in our direction.

As soon as we got out to the sidewalk we knew why. We could see the second big Mt. Saint Helens eruption right down Lake Street. It would not be trite to say it was awesome. BTW, a while later I ate chippino for the first time at another restaurant down the street.

The image above is from another fortuitous encounter, except this time the view was from space — and no, I wasn't there. ;-) [via Astroengine.com]

Question of the month

How many witches in a coven? [answer]

Table manners

Don't talk with your mouth full.

That's all, folks.