What’s good

On the positive side, there are some reports that Chrome’s market share has already surpassed that of Opera, coming in at close to 2.5% when I last checked. These results should be taken with a grain of salt, as Clicky’s web analytics might only be used by websites that tend to be visited by those more technically-inclined and thus more likely to try out something like Chrome. (Though Chrome’s visibility on Google’s main page no doubt has some small part in its fast growth)

For what it’s worth, Google Analytics on my lowly-trafficked site amounted to over 4% of hits in the past five days. (Google Analytics has since started identifying Chrome as a specific browser type, no surprise)

Chrome browser share on my site

What’s iffy

While the V8 JavaScript engine of Chrome was reported to be fast (myself included) Mozilla has fired back with their own results when compared to the upcoming Firefox 3.1, which also features a newer, faster JavaScript engine dubbed TraceMonkey.

Even if this only manages to bring Firefox 3.1 to within striking distance of Chrome for JavaScript performance, it’ll still easily hand the win over to Firefox 3.1 considering its much larger established base and support for extensions/addons.

Microsoft, meanwhile, still seems to have their heads in the sand when it comes to IE. True, IE7 still have a substantial margin on any other browser but that lead has been steadily sinking. Though IE8 will likely be a vast improvement over IE7 and seeks to erase all memories of the abomination that was IE6, it looks like Microsoft will have its work cut out with the stiff competition from Firefox and Chrome.

Problems

The release was not without controversy, as since this product was from Google, many privacy concerns were voiced. There were concerns about the “GoogleUpdate.exe” process that is installed with Chrome, which apparently allows for higher privileges to install software, which understandably freaked out some users. Generally, unwanted processes running in the background are just the thing the tinfoil-hat wearers are looking for.

Additionally, some keen-eyed users who perused the EULA discovered that Google had apparently tried to claim ownership of all content posted through Chrome. (Who actually reads a EULA?) Evidently, it was all a mishap, as Google quickly moved to correct the errors in the TOS. Apparently, in the rush to release Chrome, a “standard” TOS was used as the basis for the EULA, most likely similar to the ones covering services like Blogger, etc.

My own experiences

Personally, I’m very pleased with the browser. The “application shortcut” feature is very nice as it makes web apps like Gmail integrate very nicely with the desktop. I can’t wait to setup my Mom’s computer with shortcuts to things like Gmail that will undoubtedly make her life easier.

The JavaScript performance is very fast compared to other browsers, but some things like Flash are still buggy at times. This has caused problems with sites like Google Finance (which uses Flash for the charts) and YouTube, which are ironically Google’s own services.

I guess the “Beta” tag and the lack of a full version number excuse these problems, though it looks as if the list of bugs is already quite extensive. Google’s bug tracker for Chrome lists over a thousand bugs/feature requests currently, though likely many of them are duplicates. (Google is, however, following the trend of using the “Beta” moniker in an increasingly loose manner)

If you’re into web development you’re likely aware of the big news from Microsoft that Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 is now available. This comes less than 1.5 years since IE7 was released, and represents a much faster development cycle than was observed with IE7. (Over five years passed between the initial release of IE6 and IE7)

With Firefox Beta 3 released not long ago and the final version due in the first half of 2008, Microsoft has been feeling the heat and probably has decided to devote real effort towards improving Internet Explorer in order to regain market share lost mainly to Firefox.

However, what’s most interesting and impressive about IE8 is not its fast follow-up to IE7, but its broad support for web standards and other improvements that many did not expect, especially after the poor track record of IE6 that wasn’t improved much by IE7.

Be Ready

Microsoft details the many important changes IE8 will bring in their IE8 Readiness Toolkit. Besides passing the Acid2 test (MS has created a list of CSS 2.1 Test Pages/Cases), the browser also natively supports the hAtom Microformat in order to implement what MS calls “WebSlices”, which are basically portions of a webpage that can be subscribed to, much like an RSS feed. The example shows how to mark up an auction item and its price so that the content can be easily be scraped, organized and read by an aggregator.

Other improvements in the area of JavaScript are also appealing. In the area of Ajax, MS is pushing a Cross-Domain Request model (XDR), which would overcome the same-origin restrictions of the current XHR object. It is claimed that this is secure, but we’ll have to wait-and-see if this also adopted by other browsers. Hopefully it is, if its proven to be an open and robust standard - after all, XMLHttpRequest did start off at Microsoft. Whatever the outcome, clearly a solution to the same-origin XHR policy must be found, since current workarounds (such as injecting a <script> element into the document) are cumbersome at best.

IE8 has also addressed the JavaScript circular memory leak problem seen in previous versions. This problem can occur because of careless coding that creates references and situations that the previous garbage collector could not deal with properly; basically, if two objects referenced each other (with their properties), they would never be considered “dereferenced”, even if no other references existed for them. This has the tendency to eat up memory, and unfortunately, it’s quite easy to do this accidentally in JavaScript. Fixing this problem is especially important now that web applications are increasingly relying on complex JavaScript for features.

From a user point-of-view, IE8 adds a lot of social-web and other features that cut across multiple websites. For example, it’s easy to share a website on Facebook/Digg, or select an address on a webpage and look it up using Microsoft’s Live Maps service with the built-in functionality. What remains to be seen is if IE8 will develop a vibrant third-party plugin community like Firefox has - this has been one feature of Firefox that I simply couldn’t do without, and it allows you to easily add functionality that’s not present in the core.

Hope for the future

All of this may come as a shock to web developer, who for years have had to deal with IE’s hopeless inadequacy when it came to following web standards. Far too often, the development cycle would look something like this: 1) Get it working in a standards-compliant browser (like Firefox or Opera); 2) “Hack it” to get it to work properly with IE. Though I have not had a chance to properly look at IE8’s beta, it appears that this version will finally get things right, making things much easier for us all. Microsoft has claimed this to be part of their interoperability push, but I believe it’s a push to be more like Firefox to slow the flow of users who are switching from IE to Firefox.

The biggest change, and perhaps the most recent, to IE8 was Microsoft’s reversal of how they’d handle standards mode. Previously, they had decided that true standards-mode would only be invoked on the browser’s rendering engine if the web page specified it. That is, by default, IE8 would use a quirks-mode compatible with how IE7 had worked. This was utterly stupid and contrary to the nature of web-standards. A standard should be used by default!

Furthermore, the only reason behind this decision was that MS did not want to “break” how IE8 worked with websites that were previously designed to work with IE7’s not-so-standards mode - a problem that they had created by not following standards in the first place. This sort of reasoning effectively slows adoption of standards, since it creates a chicken-and-the-egg problem - if the dominant web browser doesn’t properly follow web standards, neither will a significant number of websites. Thankfully, Microsoft decided that the chicken’s (or the egg, if you will) time has come, and that IE8 will support standards mode by default - the way it was meant to be.

Some things do concern me, for example, the way “Activities” are implemented. Currently, a website can add in an activity with the following code example from the IE8 site:

<button onclick="javascript:window.external.addService('GetMap.xml')">Add Map Activity</button>

The “GetMap.xml” file points to XML that describes the activity’s functionality. So as long as other browsers/plugins aren’t prevented from implementing support for this, things should be okay. Otherwise, we risk a disturbing slide back towards the day when sites were “best viewed in “.

(As a side note, I understand that the example code was for brevity, but the best way to invoke JavaScript on a page is not using an inline call like that, but in a separate JavaScript file using proper event handlers. Also, one should test for the existence of a method that may not exist, before calling it. Checking for user-agents/browser versions is a big no-no. As far as I know, window.external.addService is IE8-only right now.)

Looking forward

Overall, I’m very pleased with what IE8 promises. It’ll be interesting to see how fast it is adopted by the masses and how this measurement compares with how fast IE7 was adopted. We’ll also get to see if Microsoft’s adoption of web standards has an effect on its share of the browser market.

If you’ve been reading the news today, you’re likely aware of Microsoft’s $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo!. When such rumours were discussed last year, I doubted the validity of the claims; however this time the hearsay was truth. Yahoo’s declining stock price and current business troubles may have also played a role in the bid actually taking place this time.

The obvious goal of this acquisition is to take on the behemoth that is Google. Steve Ballmer describes this tacitly in his e-mail to MS employees about the bid. Without mentioning Google, it’s clear that when he talks about being competitive in the online advertising arena, this means beating Google. Ballmer also noted that while Google has a 75% share in the paid-search advertising market, this also prevents them from acquiring Yahoo because of antitrust laws - how ironic of someone from Microsoft to note this. (Though they’re not completely in the clear.) Clearly, this leave Microsoft as the front-runner in a list of potential firms looking to buy Yahoo!.

I have mixed feelings about this development. Yahoo! is struggling to maintain confidence in its shareholders and likely needs the support of a larger company to continue on. Yahoo! has provided a lot of quality support to the open-source community through sites like their Developer Network. Resources like these are indispensable to web developers and also serve as a good starting point for someone looking to self-learn. It would be a shame to see these resources die or whither away because of the demise of Yahoo!.

On the other hand, I hope that under Microsoft, the same does not occur. In particular, I wonder about what Microsoft’s stance will be towards their use and embrace of open source, from PHP to their own JavaScript YUI Library, which has been released under a BSD license. Additionally, their Developer Network also has a wide range of tutorials and resources on many languages not under the Microsoft sphere-of-influence, such as PHP, Java, Python, Ruby, etc. All of these are great starting points to developing web services in those languages. Seeing these deteriorate under MS leadership would be no better than seeing them perish under a dying Yahoo!.

It’s been almost seven months since Windows Vista was released to retail customers, and so far, sales figures haven’t been that good, with an estimate of two years before Visa sales overtake those of XP.

Why all the trouble? With Vista being Microsoft’s first major OS release since XP debuted over five years ago, one would expect that people would be desperate for a change. Turns out, however, Vista doesn’t really offer much more in the way of practicality over XP. Furthermore, performance issues are perhaps the biggest flaw in Vista that is preventing its widespread adoption, despite other claimed reasons. For the average person, upgrading to Vista just isn’t worth it - and with the recent problems with WGA servers, people may end up having more than just resentment for Vista.

Performance

From a personal experience, performance thus far is the major reason I haven’t switched to Vista yet. There is a clear disadvantage to running games within Vista, which translates over to general use as well. Whether it’s due to immature drivers or Vista itself is debatable, but the end result is the same: a less-responsive experience for the user. When you’re paying money for something, getting less is a smack in the face.

From my own personal experience, Vista was noticeably sluggish on a three-year old system of mine, consisting of an AMD Athlon XP 2500, 1 GB of RAM and a Radeon 9500 Pro. After booting up, the OS would continually access the HDD, for reasons unknown. Applications felt less responsive, and I generally felt that I had moved to using a slower computer. This computer ran Windows XP with SP2 perfectly fine - no sluggishness and no constant HDD thrashing. I did, however, lose the Aero interface and the new window-switching-preview features.

The slowdowns and performance issues reported with Vista are not FUD by MS bashers - they are real, for the time being. Furthermore, the benefits that Vista offers, such as DX10, are of no direct benefit to me currently. (Gamers will also wonder why Vista is needed for DX10, when games currently run slower with it)

The future holds promise

With Vista SP1 in the works, things are looking better. A review of a leaked pre-release version yielded some interesting results. Generally, performance was increased quite a bit, with this quote summing it up:

There’s far less hard drive thrashing and in general the system seems much smoother and more responsive.

Though you could argue that MS should have corrected these flaws before the original release and not leave it for a service pack, it’s still nice to know that Vista will have this major error corrected. Unfortunately, it probably won’t be released until 2008.

Though, one should remember that XP also took a while to mature. It was only with SP2 that XP really gained the stability that an OS should have. I guess that’s an inherent problem with computer hardware being as complex and varied as it is nowadays - it can be hard to have an OS run perfectly on every single configuration. Hopefully SP1 for Vista won’t be delayed so that early adopters don’t have to suffer from sluggish performance and compatibility problems for much longer.

If you are using a web-based e-mail provider, chances are you’re using either Google’s Gmail, Microsoft’s Windows Live Hotmail or Yahoo!’s Mail, or a combination of the three. These are the “big three” when it comes to web-based e-mail services. Microsoft and Yahoo’s offerings have been around for about 10 years or so, with Gmail, the upstart, only being about three years old. Together, these services boast millions of users and bring in huge advertising revenue for their respective companies. But which one is the best for you?

Before Gmail, web-based e-mail was anemic: storage was limited to only a few MBs, and functionality was limited. Indeed, you probably couldn’t get by just using a web-based service, and probably just used it for temporary stuff, relying on your trusty desktop e-mail client and POP3 service for most stuff. Gmail spurned innovation with its announcement of 1 GB of storage, later upgraded to 2 GB and beyond, and made web-based e-mail a viable alternative to desktop clients. There was no question at the time that Gmail was far superior to both Microsoft and Yahoo!’s offerings. However, things have changed in the three years since then, and Microsoft and Yahoo! have both fired back with new and feature-filled web-based e-mail services that offer serious competition to Gmail. How do they stack up against the young champ?

Gmail

Before we start, I’ll admit that I’m just a little biased. I’ve been using Gmail for close to three years, and it has served me well. I forward most of my POP3 accounts to it, since they have low limits on how much e-mail can be stored server-side, and this has the added benefit of allowing me to access my e-mail anywhere. (Though this can be said of any web-based e-mail account) Gmail, for me, offered a quick, clean interface that was refreshing.

Ease-of-use

Having said that, there are some true benefits to Gmail beyond the fact that I like it. Firstly, ease-of-use - Gmail excels in this area. As mentioned before, the interface is clean and to-the-point. When you log in, there’s no “Today” screen that forces you to click another link to get to your inbox; your inbox appears right away. Gmail also supports keyboard shortcuts, to make things easier.

The one shortcut I really liked was CTRL-S saving your composed e-mail as a draft. Since this is such a common shortcut in desktop apps, it only makes sense that it should work with web-based e-mail as well. Furthermore, Gmail also will automatically save your e-mail while you are typing, so even if you forget, you’ll be safe. Another protection built in prevents you from accidentally navigating away from the page while you’re composing an e-mail. This is pretty much a necessary feature for e-mail services, as it’s all too common to accidentally hit the “Back” button or click a link.

One fundamental difference that Gmail implements is the use of “Conversations” rather than just listing all the e-mails you’ve received. Basically, e-mails you’ve sent and replies you’ve received from a particular person, originating from a particular e-mail are grouped together, very much like a threaded conversation on a forum. This takes some time getting used to, since all other e-mail clients do not organize mail messages like this, but the learning curve isn’t that steep, and it is a superior method of organizing e-mail since it reduces clutter.

Another different aspect is the use of labels. Gmail doesn’t support folders, but rather allows you to “label” each e-mail with a different tag. While you lose the ability to have a folder hierarchy, labeling works just as well for most purposes. Additionally, mail messages can be assigned more than just one label - something that can’t be done in a traditional folder model. This allows you to group messages in a dynamic way - for example, a mail message might fall under the label of both “work” and “bills”.

Interface - Look & Feel

Gmail is fairly spartan, and while it may not super pretty, it’s very usable. The colours are all pastel and light on the eyes, and selected messages are highlighted. The background colour also changes depending whether you’re viewing all e-mails or just ones that fall under a certain label. Searching is easy, and so is the action of adding labels to messages - you don’t have to create the label before adding it, as once you add a label to a message it will be automatically created. Furthermore, messages that you’ve selected stay selected even if you navigate to a different page. This saves you the headache of having to re-select a bunch of messages because you accidentally clicked “Back”.

And, while we’re talking about the “Back” button, Gmail does a great job of preserving its functionality. While this seems like a minor point, it’s actually a big problem with Ajax application, and furthermore, an impediment to usability. Remember, all of these clients operate within the confines of a web-browser, and in a web-browser, the Back button has certain functionality that’s expected of it. Breaking this functionality will only confuse users and is a big no-no.

Space

Gmail currently offers something ~2.8 GB of space. I think this is somewhat of a mute point, since how many of us will actually accumulate that much e-mail? Just for reference: I have kept every single e-mail I’ve every received through any POP3 account since I started using the Internet, probably back around 1995-96. The size of all of this e-mail? (Measured by the size of Thunderbird’s database files) A paltry 800 MB or so. That is over 10 years of e-mail. Mind you, some people receiver more e-mail than I do, but I have found that e-mail correspondence usually becomes irrelevant a few weeks or so after it’s been received and read. After that, it’s just good for a nostalgic trip down memory lane.

Ads

Gmail is probably the best for this, since the ads are textual and non-intrusive. I’ve also found them to be the most relevant to me, which may or may not creep you out. Despite all the concerns, I’m really not worried. If you’re really concerned about privacy, you should not be using a web-based e-mail provider, period. In fact, you should not be using e-mail for communication, unless you’re using something like PGP for encryption.

Security - Spam

Gmail automatically blocks and prevents images from showing up in e-mails so that spammers cannot confirm your e-mail address exists. This is a good practice, and I’m happy to report the other two providers also do this. Gmail’s spam protection also seems to be quite good - I rarely get a spam e-mail showing up in my inbox. Instead, most of it automatically diverted to the spam folder, where it can all be deleted in one click. Gmail also has a nice “Report Spam” and “Report Phishing” feature, to allow it to improve its service.

Other features

Gmail allows you POP3 access to your account, without any workarounds or hacks. This is a big plus, since the other providers don’t offer this since they want you visiting their site for access, so that they gain advertising revenue. POP3 access also allows you to backup your e-mail locally, and still keep the original on Gmail - a great idea!

Gmail unofficially “supports” extensions such as Gmail Drive, allowing you to use it as an online storage medium. Here’s where the extra space might actually be useful. It also has a built in MP3 player, so you can e-mail yourself MP3s and then play them at work, or wherever you might be. I consider these to be minor additions, since there are other services if you’re really into online storage.

Conclusion

Though it sounds like I’m a Gmail fanboy, it’s really just because I’ve been using it for so long and am used to it. Gmail hasn’t been perfect, of course. There have been some horror stories, and if you learn anything from this, it’s that you can never truly trust a third-party provider to keep your e-mail safe. After all, it’s a free service, right? The best practice would be to use the POP3 access to backup e-mail locally, periodically.

Windows Live Hotmail

Microsoft’s e-mail service has had somewhat of an identity crisis. When Microsoft acquired Hotmail, they just added “MSN” to beginning of the name since Hotmail already had such a huge user base. However, with its Windows Live Initiative, Microsoft renamed the service to “Windows Live Mail”. Apparently, this created somewhat of a confusion amongst users, so Microsoft reneged somewhat, and renamed it again, this time to Windows Live Hotmail - again keeping the “Hotmail” term that has been around since 1995.

If you remember, I wasn’t too impressed with Windows Live Mail (back when it was called that), but that was almost a year ago, so let’s see how it’s doing right now.

Ease of use

Thankfully, the checkbox-problem I complained about in my original review of the service has been fixed. Checkboxes now behave like normal checkboxes. All normal e-mail functions are within easy reach, but keyboard shortcuts are nowhere to be found. CTRL-S does not save a message when your composing it, and instead you must click a button to do this. I also did not note any form of auto-saving. Furthermore, while Hotmail does protect against lost composed messages if you click on another link, it doesn’t prevent you from accidentally closing the browser window.

A nice feature is that the interface is very much like a desktop client, so for most users, there won’t be any time to “get used” to it.

Interface - Look & Feel

The interface is fairly easy to use, and much more responsive than before. It doesn’t feel too slow. There are many colour schemes, and they are all good for readability. Windows Live Hotmail chooses to use the old folder model, which isn’t bad, but after using labels, I find it just to be a bit outdated.

One big problem is that the “Back” button’s functionality is broken by Hotmail. Using the “Back” button will give weird and unpredictable results. This will unfortunately make it harder for users to adapt to the system.

Space

You get 2 GB of space, which again, is way more than enough. Users who are still using the ‘old’ MSN Hotmail, with its old interface, only get 1 GB, to give some incentive for people to voluntarily upgrade to the newer service. Microsoft is not forcing the upgrade on people, for obvious reasons - any huge forced change in interface would surely confuse and upset too many people and potentially cause Microsoft to lose advertising revenue if people were to leave.

Ads

When you first log in, you’re brought to a useless “Today” screen, and you must click your inbox to get access to the “real” e-mail part of the site. This is all in an effort to generate more ad views, as there are two big flash ads on this page. When browsing messages, or anything else, there is always a big flash ad at the top of the page. These are distracting, and often not very relevant, from my experience.

Security - Spam

I haven’t used this service enough to truly get an idea of it’s spam-block capability, but it seems on-par with the other two. Disabling of images and scanning of attachments in messages is also done, so there’s not really any danger in using Hotmail.

Other features

Like Gmail, and Yahoo! Mail, you get access to you instant messenger contacts from within the service, so this will be helpful when you’re at a computer that doesn’t have the desktop IM client. There’s no POP3 access, however, unless you use Outlook, or a clever software tool.

Conclusion

Windows Live Hotmail is much better than before, and I applaud the efforts of Microsoft. However, it’s not enough for me to recommend it - in fact, if you’re using it and are heavily entrenched, I’d even go as far to say that you should consider moving away from it to Gmail. The ads and sub-par interface may make the trouble of switching web-mail providers worthwhile.

Yahoo! Mail

Like Google’s Gmail, Yahoo!’s Mail service is also branded with the “Beta” tag. It seems that nowadays, “Beta” means available for widespread voluntary use, and that we could add/remove features at any time, basically allowing for a service to be in perpetual development while people are still actively using it. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s a change from what “Beta” software original entailed.

Ease of use

Yahoo’s client is very easy to use. Part of this is due to its interface, which is probably the closest of the three to resembling a desktop client. Everything pretty much operates as it would in a desktop client, and this functionality has been accomplished with JavaScript - quite an achievement. Keyboard shortcuts are nicely supported, as is CTRL-S for saving a message that you’re composing. Furthermore, there is robust protection against losing an e-mail you’re composing - if you try to close the window on an unsaved message, you’ll get a prompt to ensure this is what you want to do.

Folders are used for organization, and messages can’t be tagged. (Though they can be “flagged” for follow-up, like in traditional desktop clients) It’s easy to select messages, and search for them. All of the buttons to perform actions are large enough to be easily clicked, and the preview pane is a nice feature present in most desktop clients, but missing from Gmail. You can also open messages for a full-view by double-clicking on them in the message list - another nice feature copied from desktop clients. Overall, Yahoo!’s mail client is very easy to use.

Interface - Look & Feel

With the client emulating the look & feel of a desktop one very well, there isn’t much to dislike here. If you’re familiar with using a desktop client and are reluctant to move away from that, Yahoo!’s client does a great job of maintaining the continuity of a desktop client in the environment of a web browser. Opening a message or composing a new e-mail will create a new tab at the top of the screen in a sort of multiple document interface. Thus, you’re not forced to navigate away from your inbox while you’re composing a message or reading one - a deficiency with Gmail. If you find yourself reading multiple e-mails at a time, Yahoo!’s client will excel in this area. Though, some might frown upon this multitasking.

As expected, organizing e-mail is as easy as clicking the column headers at the top. You can even right click on messages or folders to bring up a context menu of actions that you can perform on the item - just like in a real desktop client. With all these JavaScript enhancements, you might expect things to be slow or sluggish - but on the contrary, I found the client, in its current version, to be quite fast. I guess that all the experience Yahoo! has gained from developing their User Interface Library in JavaScript has paid off.

Yahoo! has also gone to great lengths to preserve back-button functionality. Though you might expect the “Back” button to have a somewhat ambiguous function in a traditional desktop e-mail client, it worked well in Yahoo!’s client and didn’t do anything unwanted, like navigating away from the mail site.

Space

Yahoo! somewhat surprised everyone by announcing unlimited e-mail storage back in May. (It’ll be rolling out to all users soon enough) While this may seem like a “one-up” on Gmail’s previously-leading capacity of near 3 GB, for me, it’s not really that big of a deal. Again, I just don’t see the need for so much e-mail storage, when a digital pack-rat such as myself has only managed to accumulate 800 MB of e-mail over > 10 years.

Ads

There’s basically one big image ad on the right-hand side. From my experience, it was a static image, and not a flash animated ad. This is less intrusive than Hotmail’s, which is usually a flash-animated horror at the top of the page, but still not as peaceful as Gmail’s textual ads, which also seem to be more relevant. (I only saw eBay ads at Yahoo! Mail) Also, Yahoo! forces you to view a “Today” screen after you login - you must click on your inbox to open it, as it’s not displayed automatically.

Security - Spam

Again, though I’ve had my Yahoo! Mail account for some time, I haven’t really used it enough to come up with a good conclusion. From my experience though, the spam detection is pretty darn good. Images aren’t automatically displaced in e-mails, and you’re pretty much safe while using the site.

Other features

You get access to Yahoo! Messenger, and so you can IM your people on your contact list from the mail client. An RSS reader is nicely integrated with the client as well, and since it’s more and more relevant nowadays, you’ll be able take advantage of these services from any computer that has Internet access. A calendar is also nicely integrated with the service.

Like Hotmail, you cannot access the service through a POP3 client, if for example you wanted to backup your e-mail locally. There are workarounds, of course, but having native support for it like Gmail would’ve been preferable.

Conclusion

Yahoo!’s Mail is a great service. They’ve put a considerable effort into making it as close to a desktop client as possible. While some people may not like that within the confines of a web browser, I think it’s great - especially when it’s executed as great as Yahoo!’s implementation. Things are fast, and there isn’t really any sluggishness like with some poorly-implemented Ajax web-apps out there. If you’re thinking about moving over to a web-based e-mail service, and are too familiar with a desktop client to abandon it, Yahoo!’s Mail service is for you. This, combined with the ease-of-use and unlimited space pretty much make it a serious competitor to Gmail.

The verdict

As I’ve said before, I’m a bit biased. Gmail has been my client of choice for many years, so I’m not keen on switching anytime soon. Having said that, Yahoo!’s client is a great alternative - but the two take different approaches. Yahoo!’s tries to emulate the desktop experience as much as possible - this can have its pros and cons. Though it’s easier to adapt to using it from a desktop client, it doesn’t feel as “simple” as Gmail’s. Gmail aims for a slick, clean, and new approach to web e-mail as, it does away with folders and the traditional message list in favour of labels and a conversation (threaded-messages) approach.

My advice would be this - if you’re heavily entrenched into Gmail, stay with it. Same goes for Yahoo! Mail. However, if you’re using Windows Live Hotmail, you may want to consider your alternatives, however painful switching e-mail addresses might be. I just can’t recommend it, at least not when compared to the alternatives. If you’re not heavily using a webmail client and would like to, take a spin with both Gmail and Yahoo! Mail and see which one works best for you.

If you’re looking for an easy-to-use, well-designed and functional PC gamepad that works well across many games, the Xbox 360 Controller is a good choice. Besides fitting well in your hands, and offering the standard feature set, it’s got the backing of Microsoft, ensuring that it’ll work well in all of the games that come out with the new Games for Windows branding. Quality is top-notch, (as expected, since the controller is in wide use with the Xbox 360 system), and it’s available in both a wireless and wired version. I decided to buy the wired version over Christmas, and here’s my quick review on how it’s been since then.

Introduction

Let’s face it - not all PC games work well with just the defacto keyboard and mouse combination. Don’t get me wrong - the vast majority do, and for these, the keyboard and mouse is more than enough. In fact, PC gamers have always looked at consoles with disdain because of a lack of control options. Many of us (myself included) could not imagine playing an FPS on a console because of the lack of keyboard and mouse control. However, there are certain game types that do work better with a gamepad, and when a good one comes along, you don’t want to be stuck fiddling with your mouse and keyboard in a vain attempt to enjoy the game.

For me, this moment came when I got Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy. Admittedly, this game could’ve been designed to work better with a keyboard and mouse, but the way it was made just made it damn near impossible to play without a gamepad. So, I decided to get an Xbox 360 Wired Controller to improve the experience.

But why wired? Clearly wireless is better, is it not? Well it depends on your needs. I knew I wouldn’t be using the gamepad all the time, but only occasionally. Thus, the benefit of going wireless for me didn’t outweigh the additional cost, and additional trouble of having to use batteries. Also, to use the wireless Xbox 360 controller with a PC, you must buy a separate wireless receiver that plugs into your PC - adding another dongle to the mix. For me, it didn’t make sense for something that wouldn’t be used that often - however, if you are going to be using it constantly, wireless is definitely the way to go. And, of course, if you have an Xbox 360, either one of these controllers will also work with it - consider it an added bonus.

The gamepad itself is pretty much standard as far as PC gamepads go. There are two analog sticks, one in the top left corner and the other just right of the bottom center. Both can also be pressed/clicked for another button function. The standard four-button group of thumb-buttons is unchanged from the original Xbox controller. However, the black/white buttons have been redesigned as left/right buttons above the front analog triggers, so your index fingers have a little more work to do. This is a better setup, as it reduces the number of buttons your thumb has to work. Lastly, there’s also the start and select buttons, which are in the top center, just around the Xbox “ring of light”. While the “ring of light” button is useful when used with an Xbox 360, it’s less so on the PC, unless used with titles with the Games for Windows branding.

How it plays

I have been using this gamepad for several weeks now, mostly with the previously mentioned Lego Star Wars II, and with Need for Speed: Most Wanted. These are ideal games for gamepads. I’ve also tried in a little bit of Flight Simulator X, but that’s more of a joystick game and it wouldn’t go well with any gamepad.

Installation is easy, as it just connects to any USB port. You will, however, need to download the drivers for it, which are available at Microsoft’s site. (I’m not sure if you need this if you’re already running Windows Vista)

The first thing you notice is how comfortable the controller feels in your hands. The shape and fit are definitely top-notch. My hands aren’t that big, but I had no problem reaching any of the buttons or triggers. If you have huge hands, it might feel a little small. Microsoft has sure learned a lesson or two about design and functionality, when you compare this controller to the original gigantic Xbox controller that many people did not like.

In games, all of the buttons and analog controls worked well and were responsive. About the only complaints I had was that the D-pad could be a little to control. For example, when pushing left or right, it’s easy to accidentally activate one of the adjacent diagonal directions. This isn’t a problem most of the time, but if you’re using the gamepad for retro gaming, say in an emulator for an old console system, this could be a problem. Many of those older games require precise D-pad control. However, this is a problem I have noticed with many PC gamepads, and the 360 controller is actually not as bad as some of them. My second (minor) complaint was that the buttons can feel squishy. Though they provide good tactile feedback when they’re pressed, if you push too hard you can feel them squish down more. This, however, is inevitable with type of contacts used, which I assume are the rubber push-button type.

Other observations

Another good reason to get the 360 controller may be due to Microsoft’s weight in the PC arena - they have the ability to effect changes in the market. Something that is sorely needed for PC gaming is some sort of standard controller. This will help game developers to make interfaces that they are sure will work across a wide variety of systems.

Since Microsoft has a near-monopoly on the PC market (at least those used for gaming), they are best poised to introduce something like this. While the standard DirectX inputs for controllers have worked well for games, (thus removing us from the ancient days where controller support had to be specifically built into the game, much like soundcard support back then), it still leaves many unknown variables to the game designer.

Default controls don’t work well across a wide variety of game controllers, forcing designers to include customization options. While this isn’t bad per se, it adds an extra level of complexity - something that shouldn’t be required for playing games. Complicating the situation further is the fact that many companies provide configuration software for the game controllers they make - adding yet another level of configuration.

Conclusion

One thing that consoles have had that PC games were sorely lacking was a unified, default controller that game designers could count on. This seems like something simple, but it goes a far way to making games easier to play. While I used to decry the lack of control customization in consoles (the “if it’s not complicated, it’s not worth it” argument), I’m leaning the other way right now. The Xbox 360 controller could be the thing that brings a default controller to the PC finally, since it has the weight of Microsoft behind it.

Furthermore, most gamepads for the PC generally offer the same features nowadays. The Xbox 360 controller takes these features, and puts them in a standard package that is, most importantly, comfortable, easy-to-use and quality-made.

Lastly, when you go to the store, you may notice that they are selling an Xbox 360 controller “designed for Windows”, or something to that effect. It may even cost more than the “standard” 360 controller. Don’t worry about this - get whichever one is available and cheaper. There is no difference between the two. The only thing to keep in mind is that with the wireless controller, you will need the receiver as well.

While everyone (myself included) has applauded Microsoft for making moves towards supporting standards, a mere slight improvement over IE6 is not enough this time. I mean, come on - they’re Microsoft, one of the largest software companies out there. Why can’t they seem to get things right?

The bane of web developers and designers

It’s a well-known secret among those involved in making websites that IE6 is horrible when it comes to supporting CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), a format for defining how webpages should be presented. Provided you’re not doing everything in Flash, and care about web standards, you’ll quickly find that you have to learn CSS in addition to (X)HTML if you want to properly design a website, possibly in addition to server-side technologies.

Designing your first website using CSS for the presentation, you’ll quickly find that IE6 is the odd one out, and hardest one to “make things look right” in. Out of all the selectors in CSS 2.1, IE6 only supports a few of them. Additionally, many of the pseudo-selectors, such as :hover, only work on certain elements. Boo-urns!

As most web developers/designers have switched over to a different browser, either by choice (Firefox/Opera) or because of necessity (Safari), they’ll quickly find themselves always having to refer back to IE6 to “fix” the site once things are already looking great in the other browsers. Thus, IE6 has been the target of many a web designer’s curses throughout the course of history. (Perhaps similar to how Netscape 4 caused many headaches years ago - but maybe not as bad as that!)

Corporate lethargy

Some would suggest this is merely the result of Microsoft growing too large and becoming a dinosaur of sorts, not able to respond to changes in the marketplace. A good example of this is their Live-series of web-based services and applications, most of which seem to be inferior to competing products offered by other companies. In this respect, it seems that Microsoft caught on a little too late to this trend.

However, I don’t think this is the case with IE7. Microsoft, by all accounts, has talented people working for them - there’s just no way they could have become so successful without talent. Microsoft research in particular has some really smart people working for it - an MS researcher recently visited our lab last month, and I was impressed not only by his depth of knowledge in his field, but also his breadth of knowledge. He seemed to know, in quite some detail, about each of the areas the people in my lab were engaged in.

Shunning standards?

Therefore, it seems that solving a problem like making IE7 standards-compliant can’t be that big of a problem. I mean, they have had five years - and other companies like Mozilla and Opera have made browsers that fairly standards compliant, with Opera being a bit better than Firefox at standards support. One argument could be that they don’t want to release a browser that’s so different from IE6 that sites will “break” on the new IE7. This isn’t accurate though, as they’ve already made enough changes to virtually guarantee that sites “made for IE6″ will break on IE7.

As much as I hate to say it, some believe that IE7’s lack of support for standards is something that’s been deliberately “implemented”. HÃ¥kon Wium Lie, of Opera software, best sums it up in an interview on Slashdot:

It’s quite clear that Microsoft has the resources and talent to support CSS2 fully in IE and that plenty of people have reminded them why this is important. So, why don’t they do it? The fundamental reason, I believe, is that standards don’t benefit monopolists. Accepted, well-functioning, standards lower the barrier of entry to a market, and is therefore a threat to a monopolist.

From that perspective, it makes sense to leave CSS2 half-implemented. You can claim support (and many journalists will believe you), and you also ensure that no-one can use the unimplemented (or worse: buggily implemented) features of the standard. The only way to change the equation is to remind Microsoft how embarrassing it is to offer a sub-standard browser. And to use better browsers.

What he’s saying is certainly plausible - Microsoft has been known to engage in anti-competitive practices, and after all, anti-competitives practices are really sound (but perhaps not ethical) business strategies that only become available when you’re the clear market leader. And, when you have shareholders always squeezing you to make more money, sometimes business strategy can take a more sinister direction.

I want to stop short of actually declaring MS to be engaging in anti-competitive strategies here (though a compelling argument could be made for this), but I will say that the effects of their actions, for whatever motivations, are horrible for web development. Internet Explorer 6 was a big enough problem, as since it’s the majority market holder, professionals in website development had to account for it - there’s just no saying “Screw non-standard browsers”, when your expected client base is 80% (or higher) IE6. And, with the release of IE7 (to be pushed to users automatically), more problems will be created: sites made to work with IE6 will probably not work too well in IE7, and vice-versa. Clever tricks, whether through CSS or JavaScript will eventually provide work-arounds, but all of this adds substantially to the development time for a site.

So much for the chant, “Developers, developers, developers!” Microsoft, please fix IE7 before it’s widely released, and you’ll be sure to receive heartfelt thanks from many formerly-frustrated developers out there.

Slow

First of all, Windows Live Mail is quite slow to load - considerably slower than Gmail or even the previous Hotmail - the main page takes quite a while to load before you can even do anything. I’m not sure if it’s because of the server-side scripts they’re using, or whether it’s due to the potentially huge amount of client-side scripting they’re doing - I didn’t bother to look, and why should I? The fact remains that it’s slow to load, and this detracts from the “rich experience” quality significantly. Microsoft is obviously concerned about making this web application perform more like a regular desktop app, with all their Ajax-like features in the interface. However, the first thing they should be concerned about is responsiveness - no one’s going to care about anything else if things are slow to load.

Usability

I don’t like the default right-pane preview, but thankfully the preview pane can be moved to the bottom or turned off completely. However, you can’t resize the ratio between preview pane and message list, unless you’re using, you guessed it, Internet Explorer. I thought this sort of underhanded action was a remnant of the browser wars of the late 1990’s, but apparently not, as this is the case with other Live services, it seems. I refuse to believe that Microsoft doesn’t have developers smart enough to work through compatibility issues; thus this must be part of the bottom line to increase Microsoft market share. (However, note that I have issues with offline e-mail clients such as Thunderbird as well)

Another problem is that it’s hard to select multiple messages. Normally in web-mail clients, standard checkboxes are used to select messages; even the old Hotmail does this. Microsoft, however, elects to use JavaScript-enhanced checkboxes that, when not checked, or hovered over, look like envelopes. While it’s nifty, it violates the usability rule of commonality, and furthermore, they messed it up, bigtime. In order to properly check a message, you must click right in the middle of the scriptized checkbox. Click just to the left or right, and you end up selecting the message for the preview pane, which coincidentally, results in only that message being checked off, and all others being deselected. At first I thought this peculiar problem was a result of using Firefox, but in IE, the problem remains. Imagine my dismay when I had checked off a dozen or so spam e-mails for deletion, only to miss the checkbox on the last one, and be forced to recheck all of them again.

Spam

Which brings me to my next point - the spam filters on Hotmail or Windows Live Mail don’t seem to be as good as on Gmail. However, this may be just because it’s been around for much longer than Gmail, and hence, is targetted more by spammers.

The memory remains

Thankfully, there is a “basic” version of Windows Live Mail that resembles the “old” Hotmail. No fancy JavaScript-enhanced checkboxes, just a plain-old list that you click on to see an e-mail message. Plain, simple, and easy to understand, and no blatant use of Ajax just for the sake of it. It actually looks a little more simple than Hotmail, and you can guarantee I’ll be using this version of Windows Live Mail on my accounts when it comes out of beta, or sticking with Gmail. (I opted on of my Hotmail accounts into the Windows Live Mail beta program for this test.)

I was wrong

I’ll be the first to admit that I recently said that I thought this wouldn’t happen - I was quite wrong, and I guess I’m still surprised at it. Though it had been announced many months prior, I remained skeptical until today.

In retrospect, it looks like a good move on Microsoft and Yahoo’s part. After years of trying to overtake AOL’s AIM by themselves, I think they’ve realized that it can only be done through a combined effort. Obviously, some ad-revenue sharing terms have been agreed upon, as I pointed out before - there’s just no way they would have joined hands this peacefully.

This move also had more to do than just with wanting to overtake AIM. In recent years, Skype has taken off fast - Skype is pretty much the program to use for VoIP, and their offer of free calls to the US/Canada at least until the end of this year (along with other promotions) is only going to increase their market share. While Skype and Microsoft or Yahoo’s clients are certainly not mutually exclusive, I’m willing to bet execs at both of the companies involved in today’s deal were at least somewhat worried about Skype eating into their user base. (Both Microsoft and Yahoo’s clients offer some form of VoIP.)

So how does this translate?

For the end user, it doesn’t mean too much, other than not having to download another client to communicate with your buddies on the other network, of course. But, many people will be quick to point out that their have already been other clients offering this inter-network compatibility for some time. (GAIM, Trillian, Jabber clients etc.) These people will say that because of this, today’s announcement means little.

Perhaps to them, but to the vast majority of the online world, (who don’t use GAIM, Trillian, et al.) this does mean quite a bit, provided Microsoft and Yahoo do their best to promote this new functionality. As I mentioned before, the end user won’t have to care too much about the changes, but the implicit effects it’ll have could be huge. Instant messenging is one area that is particularly susceptible to the network effect, and this new, larger user base will certainly help Microsoft and Yahoo in the end.

While you may not have any contacts on MSN or Yahoo (or both), that doesn’t mean this merger isn’t important. (I personally only use MSN and then only when I’m free to - I turn it off during studying or when I’m trying to concentrate because I think they cause me to waste time, and promote constant short-term attention, but that’s another story.) The combined user base of this new IM network is going to be a huge source of ad revenue, one that hopes to grow even more due to the snowball effect.

I also wonder how the makers of AIM will respond to this. Years ago, they purchased ICQ and quietly made it the two compatible, but did little to promote this. Once the worldwide leader in active users, ICQ has since fallen, now having fewer active users than either AIM, MSN or Yahoo.

Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger is one of the first of the “Live” services to come out of beta - most of them are still in the development or testing stage, but it’s all very clear that these services are targeted at those offered by Google or Yahoo. Windows Live Messenger hopes to also serve as a starting point for promoting some of these services as they go “Live”. So far, Windows Live Today (a news/portal site) is promoted, as well as Windows Live Favorites, Microsoft’s take on online bookmarking. Integration with MSN Spaces (to be rebranded as Windows Live Spaces) is also present, as it was on previous versions of MSN Messenger. None of these services offer anything particularly ground-breaking, and there are better alternatives out there. (Windows Live Favourites doesn’t even come close to del.icio.us.)

But one good addition to Live Messenger is the new filesharing feature. Previously, if you wanted to share a file, you had to send it over MSN Messenger to your buddy; all too often, transfers were slow and often dropped out, and there was also the “back and forth” where different versions of the same file had to be sent back and forth as it was updated. With the new version, you can share a file with a buddy, and it creates a folder where this shared version is stored; any changes made by either side will cause the shared versions to be updated, so synchronization is a breeze. Offline messenging was also finally added.

The Yahoo announcement was perhaps a bit bigger of a deal, since they also announced they would be releasing a developer kit to allow for creation of plugins. Yahoo seems to be better than Microsoft in the area of supporting developers, and so they didn’t disappoint with their Messenger 8.0. The messenger is also heavily integrated with Yahoo’s services, such as their new 360 service, which looks like it’s centered around blogging. Though I mainly use MSN Messenger (since almost all my contacts are on it), Yahoo’s Messenger looks better because of the plugin support.

All of this is of course, intended to get users to use more web services, in the hopes of increasing ad revenue. That’s the big thing on the Internet nowadays, creating a service that people will use and like, thus creating an incentive for them to return to your site, view ads, and maybe click on a few of them.