Last month, Window's Internet Explorer launched Carbon Grove, a green campaign designed to mobilize internet users to pursue reductions in their personal carbon footprints. Today, we are excited to announce that the campaign is expanding to France, and in partnership with American Forest we are taking steps to make the virtual forest a reality through the planting of up to 250,000 real trees in deforested regions across the globe.

Carbon Grove is a carbon footprint reduction reminder service that empowers users to reduce their impact on the environment, and through the use of Windows Internet Explorer 7 with Dynamic Security Protection, users can also help improve the internet environment. Internet Explorer 7 is architected with security features that help defend against malicious software (also known as malware) and better protect against the theft of personal data by fraudulent websites.

By participating in Carbon Grove's campaign, internet users nurture a virtual tree seedling and after six weeks of continued commitment to carbon reducing efforts, Internet Explorer will then sponsor the planting of a tree in a region of need around the world. 

To participate in the campaign, users register at www.carbongrove.com and follow the simple steps to plant a virtual tree.  Users can then visit their tree once a week and watch it grow. As part of the campaign, Carbon Grove will send weekly reminders to users with updates on their trees' growth and how it has become shelter for virtual animals.  The weekly email reminder will feature a link to the user's tree, as well as "green" tips on ways to help the environment in simple but meaningful steps. 

Carbon Grove is built on Windows technology and Silverlight, and works with Internet Explorer 7 or Internet Explorer 8 Beta.  If IE7 or IE8 Beta is not already installed on the user's PC, both are available as free downloads. You can download IE7 here and IE8 Beta here. With a Beta version of Internet Explorer 8, users can also take advantage of IE8's new WebSlice feature to monitor their tree's progress no matter where they are browsing.

Microsoft encourages employees, customers and partners to understand and embrace sustainability and learn how to improve the Earth's environment and foster a safer internet ecosystem.  To plant your virtual tree and help our eco-system, visit www.carbongrove.com.

Two weeks ago, I talked about the new Web Browsing capabilities in Origami Central, one of the three apps in the Origami Experience 2.0 software. That was Part 1 of a 4-part series showcasing the new features of the Origami Experience 2.0 software for Ultra Mobile PCs. Here in Part 2, I am going to talk about the new RSS features also in Origami Central.

In browsing the web in Origami Central on my UMPC, I can quickly subscribe to a RSS feed on any website.

Origami Central uses the Windows RSS Platform and the Common Feed List from IE7 for its RSS feeds. Feeds I subscribe to in Origami Central or in IE7 will appear in the Common Feed List. What this means essentially is that Origami Central and IE7 share the same RSS feeds.

When accessing my subscribed feeds in Origami Central, I'm brought into the All Feeds screen. The UI uses large graphic icons making it better to use the touch features when navigating between feeds and folders with feeds inside them. The black icons are folders with feeds inside them and the white icons are individual feeds. Origami Central comes pre-populated with feeds in the Origami Experience folder. I also get a toolbar similar to the one in the browsing experience except the title bar for the RSS experience does not auto-hide. On the toolbar I get a circular-arrow-type icon I can click on that will refresh my feeds.

When I browse to a specific feed, I am presented with the unread posts within that feed in a UI other than a simple list. Instead of a simple list of unread posts - I'm presented with "squares" for each post.  The toolbar at the top lets me know how many unread posts I have for the specific feed. And on the top right-hand side I have a button to mark all as read if needed.

When I read an unread post - the post then becomes grayed out showing me it's been read.  

For a specific post - I can read it right in the RSS experience of Origami Central or browse to the post in the browsing experience in Origami Central. But I never have to leave the Origami Central application.

For audio and video podcasts subscribed to - the RSS experience in Origami Central will play both audio and video directly within the Origami Experience software making for a great experience with podcasts. Here I am looking at NBC Nightly News which is a video podcast:

When I am reading feeds - I can flag a specific post I want to read later on.

I then went back to the All Feeds page (via the link in top toolbar) where there is a folder for any post in a RSS feed that I've flagged. Here you can see my flagged posts:

With Origami Central - I get all the great basic RSS feed reading features as well as the ability to view audio and video podcasts and being able to flag posts. But I never have to leave Origami Central application. RSS feed reading is another new aspect of the Origami Experience 2.0 software.

Stay tuned for Part 3 where I look at the Media capabilities of Origami Central.

Internet Explorer 7 is currently the most used browser worldwide, according to statistics made available by Net Applications. Released over a year ago for Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003, the browser has grown as of December 2007 to a market share of 40.61%. With the end of 2007 also comes the dethroning of Internet Explorer 6, from the dominant position on the browser market. IE6 currently accounts for 35.18%, and is the second most used browser in the world, followed by Firefox 2.0 in third place with 15.80%.

However, despite the consistent evolution that Microsoft is delivering with Internet Explorer 7, in contrast to IE6, users have failed to take an immediate shine to the latest version of the IE browser. (more…)

Microsoft is nothing more than a simple spectator at Mozilla’s Firefox spectacle of releases. A new version of the open source browser is now available for download. Mozilla has delivered Firefox 2.0.0.10, a stability update announced as early as last week. Firefox 2.0.0.10 can be grabbed immediately via this link, but Mozilla will also serve the refresh via its update infrastructure, and in this sense, users will be alerted of the new build. With this release, Mozilla has plugged three security holes in the browser. A referer-spoofing via window.location race condition flaw, jar: URI scheme XSS hazard, and holes involving memory corruption are the vulnerabilities fixed with Firefox 2.0.0.10.

“As part of Mozilla Corporation’s ongoing stability and security update process, Firefox 2.0.0.10 is now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux for free download. (more…)

Firefox, Firefox 2.0.0.10, Firefox 3.0 Beta 1, ie7, IE8, Internet, internet explorer 8, mozilla, open source browser, Web, Windows

It does a number of very useful things to Internet Explorer 7.0:

1. Enhanced IE’s Tabbed Browsing
Too numerous to mention.
2. “Super drag & drop”
Open new links by dragging and dropping them on the page.
3. Mouse gesture support
Execute common tasks by drawing simple objects on the screen with your mouse.
4. Crash recovery
Automatically restored opened pages after a crash occurs. (more…)

ie7, Internet, internet explorer 7, Plug, tabbed browsing, Web

While completely failing to breathe a single word on Internet Explorer 8, Microsoft is still focused on the copy of the browser that originally shipped with Windows XP. In this context, the Redmond company announced that it is introducing an update to Internet Explorer 6 running on the 64-bit editions of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, in order to alter the browser’s behavior when managing ActiveX controls.

The 18.9 MB update dubbed WindowsServer2003.WindowsXP-KB912945-x64-ENU.exe is up for grabs since November 13, 2007. “This update includes minor changes to how Internet Explorer handles some web pages that use Microsoft ActiveX controls. Certain webpages will require users to manually activate Active X controls by clicking on it or using the TAB key and ENTER key. This update contains all previously released security updates,” Microsoft informed in the overview of the release. (more…)

64 bit, ActiveX, activex controls, ie6, ie7, IE8, Internet, internet explorer 8, microsoft, Web, Windows, windows server, windows xp