Microsoft released the first beta version of Internet Explorer back in first quarter of 2008.  I was still using IE 6, and yes that shows how successful IE 7 was.  2008 was certainly a disappointing year for IE. Mozilla stole a lot of IE users when they released Firefox 3. Opera had its share of internet explorer users with their 9.5 release and of course Google’s browser Google Chrome.

I don’t think the picture is going to change much with this new release.  Because there is nothing new.  IE is still updating, they are not creating anything new and that’s why there is no big fuss about this version of Internet Explorer.

Internet Explorer has now less then 70% of market according to Net Applications.  They haven’t done anything to IE 6 for five years and still about 20% is using IE 6. So other browser like Firefox and Opera didn’t have hard time getting IE users switch to their browsers. Firefox crashed the idea of IE being the dominant browser (technically, IE is still dominant). Firefox has now over 20% of market.

What’s next?

Opera 10. I’m really looking forward to this new generation of Opera. As I blogged about it last month, they have a new engine which is faster comparing to other versions. Opera 10 aims to get a lot of IE 6 users.

Google’s Chrome certainly deserves some attention at this point.  It has about 0.7% market share which is more than Opera. Even though they have released the first non-beta version of Google Chrome, it’s still missing a lot of common browser features (such as RSS). I’m sure they are going to gather little more attention when they improve the browser.

What’s the problem with Internet Explorer?

Well, there are many.  They are still catching up. Maybe that 5 year break was too long.  Go ahead and check out the features that will be in IE 8. Most major browsers (like Safari, Firefox) already has those features for long time.  So nothing new.  I don’t think features like compatibility view is going to grab a lot of attention.

Also, another point I want to talk about is the installation process that you have to go through.  This goes same for most of Microsoft’s products. If you install IE, you would have to restart your machine to get the program running.  They should also offer whether the user wants to replace his/her current IE installation.  Default installation will replace your current version with IE 8. It didn’t make much sense to me since the software is in beta.  It just makes it harder to test.

Stumbleupon Addon on IE 8

I was also able to use stumble upon on IE 8.  If it’s not just my installation, there is a big problem with the add-on.  But I’m certain that Stumbleupon will fix it as soon as a non beta version of IE 8 arrives.

Problem is when you click on stumble button,  it will not register for about 2, 3 seconds.  At first I thought it was just the software being laggy. But it’s not. There is something wrong.

So what’s going to happen in 2009?

I don’t think IE is going to start getting new users from other browsers at all. They are going to loose more of their users to Firefox and Opera. They will probably release IE 8 in first half of 2009 and they are going to have the same problem as they had with IE 7. They won’t be able to get majority of  users update their browsers.  Also I don’t think Firefox is going to stay quite with all this happening and I think a lot of people are expecting Firefox to show how good Firefox is to other browsers once again with a new release, especially Google Chrome as sort of a response.

One thing which is good for all internet users is that competition will result with better products. So we all win.

A lot of people already set up what they are going to do in 2009.  It’s good to know what your goals are so you could concentrate on the things that you really want or need to do.  A lot of blogs have already posted their plans for the new year.  I don’t usually plan for longer periods.  So here is what I’m planning to do for this blog for the first quarter of 2009.

• Release two wordpress themes by the end of January.  BorderPx (ver 1.5) and a magazine theme.
• More research on Browser systems and informational posts on web browsers.
• More “How to” posts on CSS, HTML, PHP
• at least 300 more subscribers.

I’ll make another post on the first week of April to talk about this check list.  Stay tuned.

I wish everyone all the best for the new year.

If you head over to the plugins site of wordpress, you will notice that the amount of blog statistics plugins are many.  One of the most popular one is Wordpress.com Stats plugin.  It allows you to use the stats system that they use over at Wordpress.com on your self hosted blog which is pretty neat because plugin is pretty accurate compare to the other stats plugin.

Once it’s running it’ll begin collecting information about your pageviews, which posts and pages are the most popular, where your traffic is coming from, and what people click on when they leave. It’ll also add a link to your dashboard which allows you to see all your stats on a single page. Less is more.

The reason I use this plugin is its accuracy on collecting pageviews.  For my new three column wordpress theme design, I thought I would put the most popular posts according to “Wordpress.com Stats Plugin” in my right sidebar. Plugin doesn’t have any specifications on how you can managed to get those posts listed in your template.So  I google searched it to see if anyone created a plugin to achieve that and couldn’t find anything.  I tried better keywords and I have found Wordpress.com Popular Posts.  It’s widget supported so you don’t have to know any PHP for those who are not familiar with Wordpress templates.

If you click on that link that I provided above will take you the plugin’s homepage at author’s site, here is the link to plugin’s page at Wordpress.org.

How to use it in your template?

<?php if (function_exists('WPPP_show_popular_posts')) WPPP_show_popular_posts(); ?>

This will list the first five most popular posts. You might want to try to visit the plugin homepage at author’s site to see how you can add different specifications like posts views or to read the comments if you are having a problem with the plugin. There are some other parameters you can use as well.

What do you use Internet for? Internet has certainly became a major part of people’s life that they can not live without.  Some people goes online for information, some for fun and most for both. Here are some common occupations that people spend their time with when they are online.

1. Ego Surfing:  It’s basically searching yourself  (your full name, nicknames, screennames and etc)  on popular search engines and browsing through the results.  Some times this can turn into stalking.
2. Youtube Narcissism: Putting up personal videos on yotube to be discovered and to grab attention from other people.
3. Photolurking: People who browse through people’s MySpace, Flickr, Picasa, Live Journal pages to see pictures of others.
   
4. Cyberchondria: Instead of going to see a doctor, if you are going online to see if you are sick with a serious sickness, congrats to you.
5. Google Entourage: Googling what other people (people you know) to see what they do.
6. Google Stalking: Trying to see what your ex is up to by googling her/his name
7. MySpace Impersonation: Creating new profiles under different names, basically giving yourself a new identity and interacting with other people with this identity.
8. Wikipediholism: Reading, creating, editing pages on wikipedia.
   
9. Infornograph: A person who is hungry for information. They believe pretty much everything they read on the web.
10. Cheesepodding: Downloading so many songs that you can’t even possibly have time to listen.

Only one that fits me is Ego Surfing. Sometimes,  I would search my full name to see how much information it can be found about me.   Other than that, I don’t do any of these. There are probably tens of others that can be added to this list.  If you have one that you want to add or share, let us know by commenting this post.