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  • IE7 vs. Firefox: The Follow-up

    It's been a few days.  In that time, I upgraded to Firefox 2 Beta 1.  It also locked up on most starts, requiring me to kill it in Task Manager.  So, I decided to fix the problem since it was obviously not the browser.

    I created a new profile, copied my bookmarks, cookies, passwords, etc. over one-by-one, and then manually installed the extensions that I use most.  Since doing that, I haven't had any odd behavior.  So, there's obviously something busted with my old profile.  I have no idea what that problem is, but at this point, I'm just happy having a stable version of Firefox.

    So how's IE7?  It's quite nice, actually.  Speedy, tabbed, and very usable.  It took some convincing to make it work with my favorite desk bar (Dave's Quick Search Deskbar) due to some security changes, but that was the only hurdle, other than the first install problems mentioned in my last post.

    After using them both for the past several days, however, I think I've decided to stay with Firefox.  I like extensions.  IE lacks anything like it. Additionally, I find IE's title/header area too bulky.  I don't know why I can't dock the address bar, menu bar, and tab bar/tool bar into just 2 bars in total.  The third bar chews up space for no good reason.

    I do like the Quick Tabs preview feature of IE7, but the same feature can be added to Firefox via a browser extension like foXpose.

    They're both on their way to being great new versions.  I would like to see IE7 do something radical to the browser like Firefox, Opera and the rest did in their own way, but I don't think we'll be seeing that in this release.
    Posted Jul 20 2006, 05:22 AM by Brian Peek with no comments
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  • Dell 2407WFP

    I broke down and bought a Dell 2407WFP monitor on Monday. It arrived this afternoon. I have read plenty of complaints and negative things about this monitor, and while some of them are true, it's still a gorgeous piece of equipment.

    I have an A02 revision, which is the version that fixes the color banding and blurry text issues that have been widely reported. I've only been using it for a day, but I have not noticed a hint of banding or blurred text in my daily use. And no dead/stuck pixels to boot!

    The problems that do exist are not deal-breakers for me. First, there appears to be a bug in the firmware that makes it impossible to display 1600x1200 mode without stretching to fill the screen. I'm not a PC big game player, and the monitor runs natively at 1920x1200, so I can't imagine this would affect me.

    Secondly, the video display using the component inputs is pretty horrid. I hooked up my HD cable box via the component input, and it's ugly. Very ugly. However, I bought this to be a PC monitor using the DVI-D input, so again, I can't imagine this will affect me much, though it would be nice if it gave a nice, crisp image.

    Finally, the monitor lacks an HDMI input, and there are conflicting reports as to whether it actually supports a 1080i and/or 1080p source. Again, since it's a PC monitor for me, and I'm not watching DVDs or any other HD content, it doesn't affect my decision.

    The picture-in-picture rocks, the brightness is blinding, and overall I'm quite happy. If you're planning on using the display as a PC monitor and you can stay out of 1600x1200 or don't mind the stretching in that one resolution, go buy one.

    Posted Jul 14 2006, 04:30 AM by Brian Peek with 4 comment(s)
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  • Slow Toolbox Population in VS2005

    Everyone else in the universe has probably already figured this out, but in case they haven't...

    I'm currently consulting on a farily large C# project using Visual Studio 2005. By fairly large, I mean about 27 projects in the main solution.

    There are over one hundred custom controls contained across these projects. When the application is built and I go to a design surface, VS2005 likes to update the toolbox with every possible drag-and-drop control it can find. As you might imagine, this takes a very long time complete, even on my 3.6GHz dual-core HT processor (Intel 840 EE).

    Well, I finally figured out how to stop it from happening: From the IDE's main menu, click Tools -> Options -> Windows Forms Designer -> AutoToolboxPopulate = False . Additionally, there's an option there to turn off the refactor when renaming a control, which also used to piss me off to no end.

    So there. You probably already knew this. And if you did, well, screw you for not telling me.

    Posted Jul 13 2006, 03:57 AM by Brian Peek with 1 comment(s)
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  • IE7 vs. FireFox

    Ok, it's on.

    For the past 2 or 3 weeks, FireFox has decided to start randomly locking up on both my desktop PC and my laptop. It sometimes takes 3 or 4 tries to get it up and running from a closed slate.  I'm sure it's just some unhappy extension breaking it, but it's given me a reason to try something new.

    So, I've decided to try the latest beta (beta 3 for those of you keeping score at home) of IE7 for a while to see how it fares against what I've come to know and love about FireFox.

    After the IE7 base install, the stupid thing wouldn't even even allow me to navigate to a page. After clicking the new "Reset..." button from the Internet Options control panel, things started up and are now running.

    I tried the original IE7 beta and liked it. Microsoft finally decided to catch up to the rest of the world. But I'm very curious to see if it will get me to switch back permanently.

    Here goes nothing...

    Posted Jul 13 2006, 03:32 AM by Brian Peek with no comments
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