So… I have gotten a few funny CAPTCHAs recently as I have signed up for some services online. CAPTCHAs are those extra parts of sign up forms on websites that ask you to read and type in some sort of distorted-looking word. You probably think they are annoying (and I happen to agree with you), but they are a good way to reduce the amount of spam on websites due to attacks from spambots and other automated programs. reCAPTCHA is one of the more secure (and accessible) CAPTCHA services available. In fact, it is so secure sometimes that I even have a hard time signing up for things when they are protected by reCAPTCHA. The few I have had recently have either been completely unreadable or have contained characters that you can’t actually type. I mean, you can get them by using the Windows character map, but who wants to do that? Here are a few hard ones:
Umm… I think the first word is the name Gwinn followed by a period. The second word? Not sure at all. I think it might be something like “höara”. Anyone else have a better idea?
Ten years ago, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator were still fighting each to be the most popular web browser. Internet Explorer won the battle… easily, in fact. Support for Netscape finally ended in 2007, and since then Netscape has only been a byword. Shipping with (and being a fundamental part of) Windows has given IE a near monopoly over the web browser market. Is it the best web browser? Back when it was just IE and Netscape, I preferred IE. Now I would take any of the other browsers over IE. Ever since Firefox emerged in 2004, we’ve seen a change from what browsers were, to what they can be. We’ve seen innovations like tabbed browsing, speed dial, useful extensions, greater web standards support and faster JavaScript engines. It is also no surprise that these innovations are not coming from Internet Explorer; they are coming from all the newer browsers. Because of this, the market for these other browsers are growing.
My new favorite thing to do on Facebook is to have discussions on my wall via the comments. I propose a question or thought as part of my status update, and then everyone else supplies their opinions by leaving a comment on my status. It’s fun. This past week I asked about Gmail and web browsers. I took a screen shot of both discussions. Read through and feel free to comment here if you didn’t get a chance to on Facebook.
I have been using Gmail since 2004 (the year it started) and I have always felt that it has been way ahead of the competition in terms of features, usability, and speed. However, I also have a Yahoo, Hotmail, Live Mail, and a few other accounts. I use these all for specific things (like handling spam). Gmail has always just worked well for me. It has features that I can’t live without anymore like labels (better than folders), search, filters, chat, labs, themes, todo list, etc. You can read more about Gmail on their blog. Let’s see what everyone else said.
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