Microsoft’s IE turns 15

Image via WikipediaBy Balasubramanyam Seshan

Software giant Microsoft’s internet explorer turned 15 years on Monday. The company recently said it would launch the internet explorer 9 public beta version on September 15, 2010.

Microsoft would launch the new version at a special event in San Francisco and confirmed the browser would only function with Windows Vista and Windows 7.

In July 2010, Internet Explorer has a combined market share of 60.74 percent and Firefox is at 22.91 percent, followed by Google's Chrome with 7.16 percent, Safari with 5.09 percent, and Opera with 2.45 percent, according to the latest data from Net Applications.

The software giant launched the first version of the browser internet explorer 1 on August 16, 1995. It was a revised version of Spyglass Mosaic, which Microsoft had licensed from Spyglass Inc. The first version came with Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95 and the original equipment manufacturer release of Windows 95.

Internet explorer 2 was released for Windows 95, Windows NT 3.5, and NT 4.0 on November 22, 1995 (following a 2.0 beta in October). Internet explorer 3 was released on August 13, 1996.

Microsoft internet explorer 4, released in September 1997, deepened the level of integration between the web browser and the underlying operating system. The traditional Windows Explorer was replaced by version 4, when installed.

Internet explorer 5 was launched on March 18, 1999. Also, with the release of internet explorer 5, Microsoft released the first version of XMLHttpRequest, giving birth to Ajax. Internet explorer 6 was released on August 27, 2001, a few months before Windows XP. Internet explorer 7 was released on October 18, 2006.

“The company's Windows 7 should benefit from the corporate PC refresh cycle, which is in its early stages and the release of Windows Service Pack 1 (SP1) in the first half of calendar year 2011. The much-awaited corporate PC refresh cycle is underway and should drive Windows 7 sales for at least the next year,” said David Hilal, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets.

Internet Explorer 8 "Final" was released on March 19, 2009. On March 5, 2008, the first public beta (Beta 1) was released to the general public. The second public beta (Beta 2) was released on August 27, 2008. Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) RC1 was released on January 26, 2009.

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Move Window Buttons Back to the Right in Ubuntu 10.04

One of the changes in the Ubuntu 10.04 that has annoyed me the most is the Mac OS-inspired change to have window buttons on the left side. I didn't spend my whole life using Windows and now Ubuntu to start pretending that I like anything about Macintosh!!! In this article I'll show you how to move the buttons back to the right.

As of the final release of Ubuntu 10.04 the maximize, minimize, and close buttons appear in the top left of a window.

How to move the window buttons

The window button locations are dictated by a configuration file. We’ll use the graphical program gconf-editor to change this configuration file.

Press Alt+F2 to bring up the Run Application dialog box, enter “gconf-editor” in the text field, and click on Run.

The Configuration Editor should pop up.

The key that we want to edit is in apps/metacity/general.

Click on the + button next to the “apps” folder, then beside “metacity” in the list of folders expanded for apps, and then click on the “general” folder.

The button layout can be changed by changing the “button_layout” key. Double-click button_layout to edit it.

Change the text in the Value text field to:

menu:maximize,minimize,close

Click OK and the change will occur immediately, changing the location of the window buttons in the Configuration Editor.

Note that this ordering of the window buttons is slightly different than the typical order; in previous versions of Ubuntu and in Windows, the minimize button is to the left of the maximize button.

You can change the button_layout string to reflect that ordering, but using the default Ubuntu 10.04 theme, it looks a bit strange.

If you plan to change the theme, or even just the graphics used for the window buttons, then this ordering may be more natural to you.

After

After this change, all of your windows will have the maximize, minimize, and close buttons on the right.

Now that we have this annoyance fixed, what do you think over all of the new Ubuntu 10.04 look and feel?