dotone, a year old

It was on “October 23^rd ‘05″:http://dot1ne.com/article/hello-world-im-blogging when the first blog entry was published on dotone, v3. The first time ever I try bloging, yet another section to add to my old portfolio website. Over the year, that web-portfolio transformed into a blog and the portfolio disappeared. dotone’s on v4 now. And it’s one.

I’d like to thank you all for reading the blog and commenting on posts. So what do you like in dotone, if you do come back every now and then, what is it? Things you hate, and things you like about dotone, please let them out. Loads of thanks.

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IT Weekly to become fully online

IT Weekly Middle East to stop the print version of the weekly publishing for the favor of online-only digital version. Today’s issue(31 Dec ‘06) is the last print issue. I’m going to keep this copy, it’s the last one.

Published in today’s issue:

When we did our ‘Next Big Thing in Technology” special feature this week we left out what may just prove to be the biggest thing of all — the move towards digital publishing. As part of this shift, IT Weekly will become the first digital title produced by ITP Digital. Next year will see IT Weekly shift to an online format, giving you, our readers, more choice over how and when you access and read IT Weekly content and allowing us to make sure that content is more timely and informative.

Read further in their own release here.

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IE7 switch, the follow up

Two months ago I replaced my Firefox 2.0 with IE7. I wrote about the switch three weeks later, so I’m used to it now, used most of the features, learned the UI and shortcuts. So what was the benefits of switching? The downside, and the funny annoying stuff.

The new MS UI convention

One of the catchiest stuff in IE7 is the interface style, that is the windowing system style which has moved from classic windows(3.1, 9x,2000, and XP) to the new style(Vista), that has been used on the new Office family applications as well. The idea of tabbing and grouping functions and GUI/toolbars. IE7 is no exception, so menu bar is removed and only appears if you want it to, if you press ALT key the menu appears highlighting the File item.

Having most of the page activities grouped under a menu item on a separate toolbar with the label page that holds: saving pages, faving them, viewing source, zooming, textsize mod, etc… On the same bar there is the tools, help, print icon, RSS indication and home menu which is completly customizable. And this bar is on the same row that window-tabs aside.

T to the A to the B to the S

Opera, Safari and Firefox2 all have their close buttons on every tab. In IE7 the close(x-button) appears only on the tab that has focus so you can’t point-click-close a tab with one click. On the other hand, you can access what is called Quick Tabs which is a screen with a grid of all the open tabs with their screenshots, and every screenshot has a close button on the right-top corner.

Links bar and Favorites icons

I can’t open a browser window and start dialing URLs that I visit on daily basis, so I place them on a bar with full of links with big icons, thank god for the favicons that can save you reading and point click the icon that you want. Below is a screenshot of my browser while writing this.

Since I am a del.icio.us user, I wouldn’t need the Favorites stars, at least for now, so I was looking up a way to remove them from the UI, didn’t get there yet, taking the space that I don’t want to give up.

Performance, interaction and x-browser compatibility testing

I’m running on a 1GB ram + 2GHZ single Core, an IBM Thinkpad t-43. It is a little slower to start IE7 than starting FF2. Comparing to options you could get on FF2 such as spellcheck on texareas, and the wide range of extensions, IE7 comes short although some add-ons are available.

IE7 lets you know if you have Flash active-x objects on the page and informs you that you have to shift the focus to the active-x object before using it, I take that as a safe and clean way of informing users what they’re doing protecting them from sudden and unexpected clicks.

While I’ve taken IE7 for granted and been using it for testing my current designs and mark up I’m still not convinced that I could use it as my primary testing browser, FF2 still wins my heart on that.

One last thing I noticed while using IE7 is the fact that it is really slow on pages that send/receive many HTTPRequests, an example is a Netvibes page filled with RSS feeds that get updated on short intervals. FF did a better job on such pages and it was always light even while updating all my panels at the same time. Just a trade off that I can live with.

On another note I’m getting a little love back for Opera. I’ve been using the Opera Mini on my mobile, it’s flirting with me.

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Music while working?

I usually have my Winamp on, I keep on listening to music while I’m at my desk. But what kind of music suits your work envirionment? Or better put, what type of work would take music and what type wouldn’t? I can’t listen to music while I’m designing not even jazz or ballad, it just doesn’t work. But I could listen to whatever while I’m coding/programming. I’d enjoy listening to blues and jazz when i’m biting on my e-mails and reverting back. I could listen to Hiphop, rock, and even electro when I’m documenting or writing a piece of copy.

I know it depends on the mood, the time, etc… but what kind of work takes what kind of music for you? And how’d you like to listen to music while working? Using speakers or just the headphones? Are you allowed to listen to musc at work or you’re forced to listen to music due to the crowded office that you’re in?

Don’t just read this one, please comment and share.

I’m on Red Hot Chili Peppers – Hump De Bump now.

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AMEInfo RSS Adverts

Once again, AMEInfo is ahead of the game. By launching Windows Vista last month at Gitex, more and more people in the region are going to be exposed to feeds and syndicated content–IE7 exposure. AMEInfo has geared up for the game with MediaFed to deliver feeds that support adverts.

A couple of months ago Feedburner and Text-Link-Ads announced their partnership in deliverting RSS ads, but this one is an exception since it is in the Middle East.

Here you go advertisers, you’ve got another channel a different type of delivery through RSS readers and browsers. Let’s not forget MS Outlook 2007’s RSS support, how big is RSS going to become in 2007 when the home users get Vista as well?

You still wonder why I still like that crowded dark portal?

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