IE (Internet Explorer) 7 Released

Microsoft's latest and *greatest* browser IE 7 has been released. Several people I know have been running beta versions of the software for some time but I'm not a big fan of running beta software in a production environment.



Upon initial review of the browser it seems like a rip off from the Mozilla Firefox browser that has been out for a while but digging deeper reveals some pretty trick features. Tabbed windows have been added to minimize the number of windows that need to be open on a desktop which is a huge plus for single screen systems (I have three monitors on my computer at work =). A search function has been added but your not stuck with Microsoft/msn's search. From the start you may select a multitude of other search providers including the almighty Google search engine. You may add multiple search providers also allowing you to search from any page which is a nice feature and will eventually allow smaller sites to drop ugly search boxes altogether. Site maintainers such as myself can use opensearch functionality so users may search a site's content from the search bar using google or several other providers but I would imagine it's going to take some time for end users to become accustomed to this new feature.



Microsoft's new browser also allows for adding various syndicated feeds directly to it's browser almost eliminating the need for 3rd party rss readers. Usability features have been added such as auto magnification of text on pages that need it. An anti-phishing feature has been added though I have already shut this sucker off because it was just slightly annoying in my opinion. Other security features have been added but I will leave it up to you if you want to learn more about that kind of geek stuff.

Copyrighted Music & Movies - YouTube, Myspace, etc...

Ever since the Napster rise and fall there has been an on going debate in regards to copyrighted material being shared across networks with peer to peer (P2P) applications and popular social networking websites. I know from my school and work that technology exists that may analyze network traffic and determine what content travels through a connection. The content may be stopped dead in it's tracks if deemed a violation of copyrighted materials. One problem that occurs is what if a student is simply transferring a song or video from home to their email account so they may upload it to their Ipod. Corporations have tons of red tape for it's employees so they may be exempt from many of the free speech debates that arise. University's on the other hand, at least public university's have a large student body to please, and furthermore these students have rights. Also technology can be very expensive if a third party is used to thwart sharing of copyrighted materials.



Another hot topic are the social networking sites such as myspace.com and youtube.com which contains quite a bit of copyrighted material. The content is placed on the sites and shared by the person users but ultimately the site is distributing the music. The music and videos help a lot of newer bands that are just starting gain popularity without spending tons of money on advertising. The same technology that may be used on college and corporate network may also be used on the networks that have web servers that distribute non-copyrighted material in order to find items that shouldn't be shared.



A final interesting note for those who don't pay attention to the news (of any sort), google.com purchased youtube.com. This move for Google is a huge step since they spent 1.85 billion dollars on youTube which is already having issues due to the amount of copyrighted materials that the artists are complaining about.