After using IE 9 for couple of days now, I have to say that I’m pretty impress with it. I know it’s only a couple of days, but seriously Microsoft finally did a good job on improving Internet Explorer.

Internet Explorer 9 comes with a new UI, clean and simple. As you can see below, by default it only has an address bar, IE tabs, and 5 buttons (back, forward, home, favourite, and settings). This of course very similar to Google chrome UI, just some re arranging of the controls, but still a welcome changes.

Similar to Google Chrome, the address bar in IE 9 is also serve as a search bar. It uses Bing as its default search engine, but this can be changed to other search engines.

The best thing that is greatly improved by IE 9 is speed. Internet Explorer 9 is a speed king. It’s comparable of that Google Chrome. The old days of slowness of Internet explorer is gone now thanks to IE 9. I have no actual data to prove this, but I’m pretty sure you can find them on the net. Just by using it, I can tell speed improvement is there. A LOT!!

With IE 9, Internet Explorer now a better HTML5 Web Browser than IE 8. Why better? because it partially supports HTML 5. For some reasons Microsoft only implemented parts that they think are most important. Of all the web browsers that supports HTML 5, Internet Explorer 9 scores the lowest in HTML5 Test. Considering how people are fuzzing about HTML5, I think IE 9 should fully support HTML 5.

The only problem with Internet Explorer 9 is that it’s only available for Windows 7 and Windows Vista SP 2. This means for XP users, they have to settle for other browsers (IE 8, Chrome, Firefox, etc). This’ a big blow for Internet Explorer 9, or Internet explorer itself. Windows XP still owns more than 50 percent of OS market share, if XP users want to use Internet Explorer, they have to use IE 8. Lets face it, Internet Explorer 8 could not compete with Chrome or Mozilla. They really need to consider to support Windows XP too.

RWendi

A few years ago Microsoft released a program called Microsoft Bizspark that help tech startup companies getting started with their business. This program allows its member to own and use Microsoft software commercially during the duration of the program (which is 3 years). As long as your business’ qualified (privately held, less than 3 years, and earning below USD 1M), you will get the following for just $300:

• Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN subscription
• SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard, Enterprise,Workgroup, and Web Edition
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard, Enterprise, web edition
• BizTalk Server 2009 R2 Branch, Standard, and Enterprise Editions
• SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites Enterprise
• More

Last night when I was considering to join the program, I found out that Microsoft had released a similar program called Microsoft Website Spark. This program is targeted for web professionals and it offers different set of softwares, as follows:

• Visual Studio Professional with MSDN subscription
• Expression Studio (1 user) and Expression Web (up to 2 users)
• Windows Web Server 2008 R2
• SQL Server 2008 Web Edition

Unlike Microsoft Bizspark program, Website Spark cost nothing. All you need to do is sign up, fill in some details, and voila, you can start downloading visual studio right away. It is the easiest and free way to own Microsoft Visual Studio, Windows Server, and SQL Server. I joined this program in a heartbeat, and has started using Visual Studio 2010 for my next project. I think this is a very good approach by Microsoft to broaden exposure of its development software. Highly recommended!!

RWendi

I think it’s been a year or more since I last touch the IT world. It amazes me how things revolved so quickly. Some list that I’ve discovered so far:

• Windows Azzure went live.
• Release of ASP .NET MVC 2.
• Release of ASP .NET MVC 3.
• Nokia drops Symbian for Windows 7 Phone.
• Release of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010.

Well The title says it all.

When I finished reading "The Purple Cow", one thing that came into my mind is that, I’ve got to find myself a purple cow. Since my passion is in programming, my purple cow would be to build/develop something remarkable.

I remember the author says that its better to focus on niche market of a big market, than on the big market itself. The biggest market in the world wide web would be Search Engine (google) and Social Networking (facebook).

Developing search engine is complicated, so I’m definitely not going to that direction. If the thousands of developers that Microsoft has couldn’t get it right, what chance do I have?

This leaves me to Social Networking. Despite the fact, this market has been dominated by facebook, I think there should be some undiscoverable purple cows in the market. If one ever find the purple cow in social networking market, its a guarantee success as long as you get it right.

The success of twitter and foursquare are perfect example of purple cow in social networking market. Twitter and foursquare can be considered as a social networking website, but it’s nothing like facebook or myspace. Twitter focuses on sharing status, and foursquare is geo based social networking.

On the other hand if you try to build a facebook esque website, like orkut, it won’t be as remarkable. It will be ordinary, just another social networking website.

I think it’s worth looking at social networking to see if there’s unexplored ideas, I believe people are still hungry for more remarkable social networking sites.

RWendi