PC News Digest

The Yahoo! Toolbar is one of my favorite browser add-ons, providing quick access to my bookmarks, alerts, calendar, contact list, groups, and other frequently used applications.

But since the last update for the Firefox version (2.0.0.20090605061254), there’s been a glitch (not manifest when using the toolbar in Internet Explorer).  The right click context menu pops up as usual until the user right-clicks in a text or input box in a form.  Then it’s disabled until the browser is restarted.

Disabling the toolbar solves the problem, but that’s not a work-around for folks like me who depend on it.

Nobody likes a kvetch.  But hey Yahoo!, I’ve got complaint about the new, unimproved version of Yahoo! Mail Classic.

Yes, I’m one of those fuddy-duddies who still uses Mail Classic (Pro version) because it’s faster, more reliable, and more readable.

And because it used to show me, across the top of the page, all the folders containing unread mail.  See, I really am a fuddy-duddy.  I use filters and folders to sort incoming mail automatically.

It used to be that all I had to do was glance at the folder preview to see what needed attention.

Now I get to see my face or my Avatar (as if I didn’t know what that looked like) and I have the option to edit my Profile (as if that changed every day), or to check out my Connections (I’m not lonely; I don’t use connections).

I know, I know.  It’s all about social networking.  But this is about email.  When I want to to connect I go to LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Dear Yahoo! please stop trying to be all things to all people and stop sissifying my email. Please put folder preview back in mail!

If PC World were free, I wouldn’t mind the bad advice.

The problem is that the PC World staff, under the pressure of compiling and publishing a magazine every month, puts out a product that is repetitive, often biased, and sometimes just plain wrong.

First about that bias. While I understand that folks in publishing tend to use Macs and to be Apple-centric, when I want to read about Macs, I’ll buy PC World’s sister publication Macworld. Hey guys and girls, let’s stop proselytizing and start reviewing. And while you’re at it, please stop the childish Microsoft-bashing. It’s so 1990s. Review, not stew. We want food for thought, not clever jibes.

And then there’s the formulaic repetition of boring content. I don’t need more articles about what’s wrong with Vista. Or column after column about the latest “holes” in Microsoft products. You only know about the holes because Microsoft patched them, and guess what. They’re patched on my PCs, too. And frankly, I’ll scream if I you spend yet another page exhorting me to be careful opening emails, and not to visit unfriendly websites. Geez, am I the only nerd in the world who’s kept his or her PCs virus and malware free by safe-surfing and by choosing and using competent software?

Now it is true that almost every techie product out there includes a microprocessor, but cameras, HD TVs, and audio are NOT PCs. Really. When I want competent and complete reviews of these products, I go elsewhere. Reviewing these products just isn’t your forte.

But most insidious of all is just plain getting it wrong when it comes to products and software. Particularly software. In the last few months, I’ve installed more than a few applications that didn’t come anywhere near performing as described. It’s obvious the reviewer never tried them. And ditto for websites. I know you’re not responsible for sending readers to a website that delivers a viral payload — but surely you can tell whether a website actually lives up to its press releases?

PC World feels a lot like a high school science fair. Lots of projects done to get a grade. The rare project that makes it all worthwhile.

Being a self-starter and self-refresher myself, I’ve never been on a retreat. But maybe that’s what the PC World staff needs. A little time away from the grind to review their mission and renew their means.

Take ten.

AOL could take a lesson from our lame-duck President and go out in style.

In its favor is the fact that AOL email can now be collected via IMAP. Yeah! (No folks, I don’t use AOL myself, but I still have clients who believe they’ll lose contact with the world if they close their AOL accounts.) But on the negative side of the ledger is the way the Information Technology Specialists that populate AOL’s decimated Virginia offices have phased out their webhosting services.

Once upon a time, every AOL subscriber got “free” software, dial-up access, and “free” webhosting at http://members.aol.com/Screenname. Over time, that free software became bloated adware, laden with network problems, and PC “maintenance” tools that slowed user’s machines down to a crawl. Meanwhile, the dial-up service that propelled AOL’s growth became a Model T, found only in extreme backwaters.

Today, the software’s been discontinued. No loss. AOL as ISP is history. No problem. AOL no longer charges for its “services,” having long since morphed into an ad-supported business model. Nothing for nothing. And as of 10/31/2008, AOL’s webhosting has shut its doors.

And there’s the rub. AOL didn’t just shut down the servers and disappear. That wouldn’t have been nice, but it wouldn’t have been awful either. And AOL didn’t offer subscribers with websites on their servers a forwarding service. That would be the professional thing to do. No, the folks at AOL decided to send all links to Hometown Has Been Shutdown (HHBS).

The problem with that is twofold. People who have the old AOL address for a website won’t know if it’s moved or defunct. And if they use a search engine to locate a moved website, the results page will continue to show the AOL address, leading folks back to HHBS. Round and round we go …

Dear AOL. I know it’s probably too late and/or too much trouble to provide the folks who paid the bills all those years with forwarding for moved websites. But it wouldn’t be hard to deliver an error 404 page for removed websites. That’s the standard protocol and would eventually get search engines to drop the defunct AOL website URLs. Delivering a live and changing page (HHBS is a live blog with comments) causes search engines to maintain the erroneous listings.

So, dear AOL, if you can’t provide forwarding, and won’t follow WWW protocol by delivering error 404 pages, how about writing the search engines — heck there are only a handful left — and asking them to stop indexing any URL that includes members.aol.com or users.aol.com or hometown.aol.com?

Geez, if Bush can do it gracefully, so can AOL.

Like many website designers, I used and relied upon Ipswitch’s WS_FTP file transfer software for many years. It’s the “industry standard.” It’s modestly-priced — now about $55 — shareware that’s frequently updated, versatile, and secure. And over the years, I tried other freeware and shareware file transfer clients, mostly for clients with less rigorous needs, and found them slow, lacking features, or just plain ponderous.

Recently, faced with rebuilding my primary desktop and another Ipswitch paid upgrade pending, I decided to sample the alternatives again. I looked at CuteFTP, SmartFTP, Core FTP, and for a while even used FireFTP, a Mozilla Firefox add-on. All were suitable for limited-duty. But none satisfied this old nerd’s hunger for a speedy, well-behaved, small footprint FTP client with just enough features and security.

As you know from the title of this post, that was then. FileZilla is now. It’s well-supported (wikis, forums, bug and feature requests) open source software that’s lightning fast to load and to function. Hey, fast is important when you’re updating more than one or two files at a time. It’s frequently updated with security patches, bug fixes, and small new features. That’s like tweaks, not bloat. It’s intuitive for both right- and left-brained types. It never crashes. And did I mention, it’s fast?

Three things I especially find helpful in FileZilla:

• Cross platform support means I can use the same client on pretty much any machine I’m working on.
• Easy to use site manager makes adding a new site simple, selecting an existing site, simpler.
• Remote file editing so I can do quick fixes for a client on the fly.
• Drag and drop support is built-in, not quirky like some, and not slow

If you try FileZilla and find yourself loving it as I do, don’t forget to support it. It’s free to use, but not a throwaway. It’s a thoroughly professional project whose developers deserve to get paid for their efforts.

Google has taken its eye off the ball with its too-hasty release of the Chrome browser. While its handling of each tab as an independent entity is just what’s needed in an imperfect Web 2.0 world –and hopefully will be emulated by IE and Firefox developers — Chrome falls short of implementing the usability that has long attracted users to Google products.

Because of a non-compliant proprietary JavaScript engine, Chrome does not work with many websites that IE and Firefox handle gracefully. For shame!

But the deal-breaker for me is that Chrome doesn’t work with the widely-used Roboform password manager. Yes, Chrome offers to save passwords. But I’ve got literally hundreds of site-specific passwords and (a) I need portability from browser to browser and PC to PC, and (b) I’m not trusting my passwords even to the worthies at Google.

Chrome is clean, and quick. But without Roboform, it’s stupid.