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Family and Friends is my everyday journal. Captain's Log is where I pontificate on religion and politics.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Web Browsers

I have four e-mail accounts. One is through the school and is for work only, wink wink wink. APS uses microsoft's e-mail for this and I hate it.
My other three accounts are through yahoo. When I check those accounts I use a different browser for each account. It's easier than logging off and logging back in on the same server. Here are my likes and dislikes for each server:
Microsoft Explorer -- It has one really nifty feature. At the bottom right hand of the screen there is a magnifying glass and you can resize your screen. Since most stuff on the internet is practically microscopic this is wonderful. It's so nice to read the blog or e-mail without having to squint or put on glasses.
Downloading pictures and videos is a snap. Up pops the box, find your destination (pictures, videos, downloads, etc) choose your file or make one and download. The only hassle is that if you want to switch to a different file you have to go back to desktop pick your destination, find the file and then save. It would be so nice if you could just back space out of the file you are in and either create a new file or go to another file in the same destination. Safari used to let you do it this way, then I made the mistake of upgrading that version to a newer one where they really mucked up everything. I've found Explorer to come up and go to whichever site you want fairly quickly depending on your modem and wi-fi speed.
One feature I wish it had is a spell checker for e-mails and blogging. It's friendlier on manipulating pictures on your blog page.

Google Chrome -- It has a screen which displays your most used sites and all you have to do is click on the screen instead of a tool bar. It looks nice, but sometimes there are other people around and you don't necessarily want them to see the picture of your favorite sites. Try being in a room full of preachers and you're trying to show them something on an overhead and up pops the pictures of your favorite sites with one of them being Playboy Cyber Club. Talk about a whoops moment. It claims to be faster than explorer, but I haven't been able to tell. It asks if you want to have it automatically save your passwords, not the best idea if someone else somehow gets their hands on you computer. Convenience can be costly in some situations. I use this mostly at school. Jumping from screen to screen is helpful here.
If you want to download something, and at school there are all kinds of downloads for various forms and other stuff. A stupid blank screen comes up a big blue arrow drops down and you have to click on the bottom left hand side of the screen that says "download" for it to come up. What's up with this? Explorer just has a screen that asks if you want to open, save or cancel. What's with the stupid screen and arrow? If you want to save it will only save in downloads and you have to move it into the file you want it in. This part of it sucks.
It doesn't have a screen enlarging feature.

Safari -- Apple's browser adapted for PC's. It advertises that it's faster than Explorer, but it's nearly twice as slow. It really has a hard time opening up. It has a nice favorites bar at the top or an option to have the screens like Chrome. You can also manage the favorites bar easier than explorer or chrome, but it does have a nasty habit of closing down suddenly. All of a sudden a screen comes up saying it lost connection. You have click disconnect, another screen comes up you have click on something and then its gone. Then you have to reboot.
Downloading it has the same stupid blank screen and arrow as Chrome, but you can at least save to the file you want instead of just in downloads. It doesn't have a screen enlarging feature like explorer, but it has one really great selling point: A spell checker.
When I'm posting on my blog having a spell checker is a godsend. It doesn't catch everything, no spell checker does, but it drives me crazy if I'm writing in explorer and I want to use a word, but am not sure of the spelling I have to stop and look the word up, pray I spelled it right when I guess or switch to safari. The problem with safari on blogger is that it lets you download pictures, but not move them around.

Anyway that's my take on the browsers. I've also tried Firefox, but didn't think much of it and don't use it.

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