There are things in life where you ask yourself “why?”  This post is a small complaint on my part, but these types of things seem so obvious.

We have supported numerous e-mail programs over the years.  Microsoft Outlook towers over it’s competitors and rightly so.  The open source community has not come close to the functionality and intuitiveness of the Outlook interface.  Not all users are willing to spend $107 for the retail version of Outlook though.

Enter Mozilla Thunderbird for free.  Yes free.  Don’t let this sound cheap and low quality.  If Thunderbird is suited up with options it can take Outlook on pretty well.  There are options that provide Google Contacts look up, tasks, calendaring and newsfeeds.

Now my gripe with Thunderbird is more how it is packaged and not the functionality.  By default Thunderbird doesn’t display any graphics.  Pictures are stripped out of messages and only show text.  The reason is for security.  Computers can become infected with malware by the pictures.  So Mozilla goes to the extreme to employ safety.  Nice thought, but most of our customers dislike this.  You can get security and virus protection to get around that concern.  You already have that on your computer.  Right?

To fix this inconvenience you have to go into the advanced mode, look up some dork verbiage and change the boolean statement from true to false.  In other words, it is very inconvenient and will take a while before you locate a solution.  Usually the solution is to call us, St. Louis’ premiere technology solution provider Net-Net Tech, LLC (cheap plug) , or go to this website that has a very clear illustration on how to fix the problem.

This entry should go under the complaint category, but there isn’t one for that.

Mozilla upgrades a Firefox service that scans your computer for security updates on existing Internet browsers installed on your computer.  This security checker scans third-party browsers such as Internet Explorer (IE), Safari, and Opera.

The Mozilla checker is similar to Microsoft’s Windows Update that checks your computer on the first Tuesday of each month.  However, Windows Update only checks the Windows operating system and Internet Explorer.  If you manually start Windows Update, you often grow five o’clock shadow while it scans your computer.

We performed a scan on our test computer.  The service was very fast and reported needed updates.  The test reported updates for the Adobe Flash browser plug-in and release 17 of Sun’s Java run-time engine.

Run the scanner on your computer.  What do you bet your computer will need an update or two?  Be proactive and update your computer before you have to repair your computer.  If you do, you know who to call for St. Louis service and repair. 

Firefox version 3.5 is now available for download.  The upgrade is worth installing for better performance and security against the typical weaknesses found in Microsoft’s Internet

The larger improvements (verbatim from the website) are as follows:

• Smaller Memory Footprint - Short and sweet, Firefox uses less of your computer’s memory while it’s running.

• Memory Management – With a new management function in place, Firefox keeps memory usage under control. The XPCOM cycle collector continuously cleans up unused memory. Plus, hundreds of memory leaks have been remedied.

• Faster Page Load – A redesigned page rendering and layout engine means you see Web pages faster—and in the way they were meant to be seen.

• Colour Profile Support – improved The colours in your on-line photo albums will be sharper and more brilliant than ever, thanks to improvements to our graphics engine.

Repair your computer now. If you have Microsoft’s Internet Explorer it must be broken, in my opinion. 

Source: Mozilla and you can find the download here.