IE 9 with a lots of usefult new features

Microsoft has released a preview version of Internet Explorer 9 with improvements in performance and adoption of standards like SVG, CSS, HTML5 and more.

Performance

The performance results that Microsoft has released for IE9 preview, show that its JavaScript engine is faster than Firefox and IE8, but still lags behind Safari and Chrome:

Browser	Sunspider Result Average (ms)
IE8	3825.53
Opera 10.10	2491.93
IE9 PDC 2009 Demo	834.00
Firefox 3.6	699.80
Firefox 3.7 Alpha2 Pre-Release	610.20
IE9 Mix 2010 Platform Preview 1.9.7745.6019	598.80
Safari 4.0.5 (531.22.7)	407.93
Chrome 4.0.249.89	373.87
Chrome 5.0.342.2 (dev)	293.47
Opera 10.5	285.20

New JavaScript Engine

To cope with the ever-increasing demand for faster JavaScript engines, the IE Team has developed a new one code named Chakra:

The IE9 Platform Preview includes the first release of our new JavaScript engine, codenamed Chakra, which fundamentally changes the performance characteristics of JavaScript inside Internet Explorer 9. Chakra includes a new JavaScript compiler that compiles JavaScript source code into high-quality native machine code, a new interpreter for executing script on traditional web pages, and improvements to the JavaScript runtime and libraries.

Chakra alongside IE9 has several valuable features like:

• Background Compilation
• Type Optimizations
• Fast Interpreter
• Library Optimizations

Hardware Acceleration

With Internet Explorer Platform Preview, Web developers can now take advantage of hardware-driven rendering of graphics and text:

Internet Explorer Platform Preview uses the DirectX family of Windows application programming interfaces (APIs) to enable several advances for Web developers. The starting point is moving all graphics and text rendering from the CPU to the graphics card using Direct2D and DirectWrite. Graphics hardware acceleration means that rich, graphically intensive sites can render faster while using less CPU. Plus, you’ll take advantage of these changes automatically while continuing to author sites with the same standards you’re used to.

AMD has publically “applaud” Microsoft for taking advantage of the underlying hardware in IE9. For AMD the benefits of such an approach are:

·         The MSHTML rendering layer has been enhanced to use Direct2D and DirectWrite instead of GDI.  Direct2D enables GPU accelerated 2D graphics and text, and allows sub-pixel positioning.  In addition, the GPU is used for scaling (bitmaps are mapped to textures), which is ideal for zooming and moving images around the screen.  This GPU support translates directly into improved readability of pages, more precise placement of text and images, and smooth scrolling and zooming.

·         JavaScript performance is greatly improved from older versions of Internet Explorer, and should be competitive if not better than competing browsers.  In the past, JavaScript in IE was interpreted and not compiled into native processor instructions.  The JavaScript engine now includes a JIT compiler which emits x86 instructions and compiles the code before it runs, resulting in a dramatic performance uplift.  Instruction generation can also be tailored to the underlying processor to take full advantage of the underlying platform.

·         IE9 is more standards compliant than previous versions, with new support for HTML5 elements such as

NVIDIA had a similar reaction:

Today, with introduction of Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft gives us another milestone for visual computing. Internet Explorer 9 includes a new JavaScript engine, support for HTML5 and hardware accelerated graphics and text. Internet Explorer 9 is the first browser designed to take advantage of modern hardware, resulting in graphics and performance improvements throughout the browser including the first to deliver hardware accelerated scalable vector graphics( SVG); the first to enhance JavaScript engine performance with the benefit of shifting from the CPU to the GPU; and the first to deliver GPU-Powered HTML5.

It is important to note that this is not the first time that a beta/unofficial version of a browser has had support for GPU accelaration.

SVG support

The Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format, is becoming a first class citizen in IE9. It seems that SVG will be a strategic choice for Microsoft in order to support vector graphics in the next generation of web apps:

We expect SVG, supported by good user and developer experiences, to become an integral part of the web. SVG has many advantages over raster images. With our hardware-accelerated graphics, the time is ripe for a rich and interactive graphics-driven web.

In terms of interoperability between the various vendor implementations:, Microsoft states that it will work with the SVG Working Group in order to ensure that its implementation will be interoperable:

Though the first edition SVG specification received “Recommendation” status years ago, that specification still has some loose ends. As a result, the current SVG implementations in major web browsers vary both in scope and in behavior. Our goal is to make the lives of developers easier by aiming for interoperability. For the portions of the specification that we are implementing, we adhere closely to the spec. In some cases, our decisions were informed by other browsers’ behaviors and the direction of SVG’s future.

With the current preview release, developers can inline SVG inside HTML and create scalable graphics:

You can insert vector images using inline HTML...

   

   

   

    Colors!!

At this time the SVG features that are supported are:

• Basic shapes: rectangles, circles, ellipses, lines, polylines, and polygons
• Coordinate systems, transforms, and units
• Document structure, metadata, and extensibility functionality
• Paths, including full capabilities of the path element and d attribute

HTML5

Several features from the HTML 5 spec have been implemented in IE9 and Microsoft claims that as the spec gets finalized there will be more additions:

Support for some features of the HTML5 Draft Specification was introduced in Internet Explorer 8. These included DOM Storage, Cross-document Messaging, Ajax Navigations (by using the window.location.hash value), and ononline and onoffline event handlers. Internet Explorer Platform Preview adds to this by supporting several HTML5 APIs and making changes to the way it parses HTML.

CSS

IE9 preview has improved support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) compared to version 8 that was compliant with the CSS2.1 specification. It has added several many components of CSS3 and more are planned.

At this time, the new CSS3 features that are supported are:

• Rounded corners via border-radius property
• RGBA color model
• opacity property
• CSS3 selectors

Notable things missing

It should be noted that several the features that are part of HTML5 or have already been implemented in Firefox and Chrome, are missing from IE9 like:

• Canvas element,
• Web Workers
• Open web font support
• Ogg Theora for video (only H.264 video codec is supported)

Also the release notes clearly indicate that IE will not be an option for Windows XP users and will require Windows Vista or 7 to be installed.

Office 2010 to be released by June

Come June, Microsoft will launch the latest version of its Office Suite - Microsoft Office 2010. The software, which is currently in beta, would have gone through all the necessary checks to be given the go ahead, by then. The beta was released back in November 2009

The revelation was made by the Chairman of Microsoft Corporation in India, Ravi Venkatesan. The latest version of the Office Suite will include online versions MS Word, Excel, Power Point and OneNote. The main idea of this being to curb the growing influence of Google Docs as an online alternative to MS Office. The announcement of Office 2010 will also signal the end of the Microsoft Works platform. Works will be replaced by Office Starter 2010, a basic home productivity software.

New features included in Microsoft Office 2010 are Refined Ribbon interface and Backstage View across all applications, a background removal tool, new templates, jump lists in Windows 7 and set if new animations in PowerPoint.

It was earlier this month that Microsoft unveiled Windows Azure for the first time in India, it's offering in the cloud computing arena. That was, however, targeted more at the corporate sector and was a technology that promised companies a dramatic 50 percent cut in the IT expenses.

We will need to wait and see if Microsoft's promise to make MS Office available by June turns out to be true.

Visit the bellow link to download the  beta version of the Office 2010.
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Microsoft-Office-Download-58321.html

Whats New in PHP 6

 PHP 6.0 looks to be an exciting release. Nothing is
absolutely fixed yet, but it looks like it will see the demise of three
of my pet peeves: register_globals, magic_quotes_gpc and safe_mode. The
first was just a big security hole, the second messed with the data and
made changing environments potentially nightmarish, while the third was
a misnomer that nobody really understood, and provided a false sense of
security. There's also quite a lot of work scheduled to do with
Unicode. Here are some of the changes:
The register_globals, safe_mode and the various magic quotes options
will be removed.
The ereg extension is removed, while the XMLReader, XMLWriter
and Fileinfo extensions are added to the core, and by default are on.
Another addition I find particularly exciting is that APC (Alternative PHP Cache)
will be
added to the core, though will be off by default. APC can provide
serious performance benefits.
All E_STRICT messages will be merged into E_ALL, another
positive change that will encourage good programming practice.
ASP style <% tags will no longer be supported.
Addition of a new 64-bit integers. The current integer type
remains as is, 32 or 64-bit dependent on the platform.
Use of foreach with multi-dimensional arrays, for
example foreach($array as $k => list($a, $b)).
A new switch in php.ini will allow you to disable Unicode
semantics (by default they will be on).
There will also be various string improvements related to
Unicode.
The microtime() function will return the full floating point
number, rather than microseconds unix_timestamp, as at present,
probably making the function more readily useful for most people.
The {} notation for string indexes will no longer be supported,
while the [] version will get added substr() and array_slice()
functionality. Previously [] was deprecated, but most developers,
including myself, seem to use [].
FastCGI will always be enabled for the CGI SAPI, and will not
be able to be disabled.
The ancient HTTP_*_VARS globals will no longer be supported.
Everyone should have had more than enough time to remove any traces of
these.
var will alias public. var was
permitted with PHP4 classes, but in PHP 5 this raised a warning. In PHP 6
var will simply be an alias for public, so no warning
is necessary.
The ze1 compatibility mode, which tried to retain PHP 4
behaviour but had some bugs, will be removed.
Dynamic functions will no longer be permitted to be called with
static syntax.

List of Windows 7 Secrets

Bellow are some useful tricks while using windows 7 which will help you out a lot.

1. Windows Management. By now, you’ve probably seen that Windows 7 does a lot to make window management easier: you can “dock” a window to the left or right half of the screen by simply dragging it to the edge; similarly, you can drag the window to the top of the screen to maximize it, and double-click the window top / bottom border to maximize it vertically with the same horizontal width. What you might not know is that all these actions are also available with keyboard shortcuts:
   • Win+Left Arrow and Win+Right Arrow dock;
   • Win+Up Arrow and Win+Down Arrow maximizes and restores / minimizes;
   • Win+Shift+Up Arrow and Win+Shift+Down Arrow maximizes and restores the vertical size.

   This side-by-side docking feature is particularly invaluable on widescreen monitors – it makes the old Windows way of shift-clicking on two items in the taskbar and then using the context menu to arrange them feel really painful.

2. Cut Out The Clutter. Working on a document in a window and want to get rid of all the extraneous background noise? Simply hit Win+Home to minimize all the non-active background windows, keeping the window you’re using in its current position. When you’re ready, simply press Win+Home again to restore the background windows to their original locations.
3. Multi-Monitor Windows Management. The earlier tip on window management showed how you can dock windows within a monitor. One refinement of those shortcuts is that you can use Win+Shift+Left Arrow and Win+Shift+Right Arrow to move windows from one monitor to another – keeping them in the same relative location to the monitor’s top-left origin.
4. Starting Explorer from “My Computer”. If you spend more time manipulating files outside of the documents folders than inside, you might want to change the default starting directory for Windows Explorer so that it opens at the Computer node:
   
   To do this, navigate to Windows Explorer in the Start Menu (it’s in the Accessories folder). Then edit the properties and change the target to read:
   %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /root,::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
   
   If you want the change to affect the icon on the taskbar, you’ll need to unpin and repin it to the taskbar so that the new shortcut takes affect. It’s worth noting that Win+E will continue to display the documents library as the default view: I’ve not found a way to change this from the shell at this time.
5. ISO Burning. Easy to miss if you’re not looking for it: you can double-click on any DVD or CD .ISO image and you’ll see a helpful little applet that will enable you to burn the image to a blank disc. No more grappling for shareware utilities of questionable parentage!
   
6. Application Locker
   

   If you are usually sharing your computer with someone else, then you might want to restrict their access to your applications, files or documents. Using the AppLocker tool, you have a few options to do this by blocking other users to access Executables, Windows Installers, Scripts, a specific publisher or path.

   You can simply do this by pressing the Windows key then typing Gpedit.msc. Then go to Computer Navigation -> Windows Settings -> Security Settings -> Application Control Policies -> AppLocker. Right click on one of the options (Executables, Installers, or Script) and create a new rule. That should save you from a lot of headaches.

7. Run a Program as Another User Windows 7 comes with the possibility to run a program both as an administrator or another user, by right clicking on the executable or shortcut while holding down the Shift key. Then you have to select “Run as another user”.