heads-up members MS Patch Tuesday heads-up

In a previous, but similar thread, I mentioned that with the constant introduction of betas, by Chrome and, in particular, Firefox. Statistics can be misleading. Firefox also have, recently, begun changing there homepage "picture" from time to time.
As all the browsers are free, the only way statiistics can be ascertained, is through requests on the pages, or customer survey. IE/Microsoft, does itself a diservice by not promoting their product by either means.
I would not dare to dispute the excellent article and graph reproduced by Jeffrey, but would suggest that,by another means of calculating, the figures could be manipulated to present quite a different picture.
I browsed to get some more lucid explanation and support for my argument. The main source was productive enough. Keep in mind, though, that wikipedia is also sunscribed to by independants, and is not the overiding authority in its presented opinions.
Read in particular, the "underestimation" para.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_s...f_web_browsers

davehc,
thanks for pointing this out,too true as you have mentioned,I have read that wikipedia article and another tech net article,Measuring browser usage in the number of requests (page hits) made by each user agent can be misleading.if you read between the lines,Microsoft & Goggle,Fire fox all of the browser makers are facing the future,Mobile phones and internet HDMI Digital 3D TV's are all at present waiting for THE BROWSER so the article you have directed me too and thank you has now cleared the way a little as we are today IT users knowing that the average computer is today a mobile phone,HDMI internet 3D TV's,Ipods,Wiis,just about all the computer market is morphing into what our kids will be using in say 2020.

I also point out that with the many browser's out there to use can alter any website as pointed out in the Microsoft user-agent (user agent sniffing) refers to the practice of websites showing different content when viewed with a certain user agent. On the Internet, this will result in a different site being shown when browsing the page with a specific browser.

An infamous example of this is Microsoft Exchange Server 2003's Outlook Web Access feature. When viewed with Internet Explorer, more functionality is displayed compared to the same page in any other browser.[citation needed] User agent sniffing is mostly considered poor practice, since it encourages browser-specific design and penalizes new browsers with unrecognized user agent identifications. Instead, developers[who?] recommend to create HTML markup that is standard, allowing correct rendering in as many browsers as possible, and to test for specific browser features rather than particular browser versions or brands.[4]

Websites specifically targeted toward mobile phones, like NTT DoCoMo's I-Mode or Vodafone's Vodafone Live! portals, often rely heavily on user agent sniffing, since mobile browsers often differ greatly from each other. Many developments in mobile browsing have been made in the last few years.

thanks davehc for you very interesting post

respectfully
jeffreyobrien

Jeffrey showed me the originals last night, I can't say that the figures are totally wrong, but I can say that they're a little off. I've been a member of several forums, way before 7 was even a thought in Bill Gates's mind. IE6 does not have that large of a following (nearly one fifth of Windows users?). A journalist can manipulate things and charts around to make the world see things as it is in his/her mind. No one can convince me that IE6 has a larger following than Firefox does. I have an office suite on this computer and a printer, I suppose that if I wanted to mislead the world, I could create graphs and charts of my own, making whoever is my favorite (or better yet, who's paying me off) the #1 browser, or whatever other product we're discussing. Having been a operations manager for over 10 years for bakery product sales (prior to my becoming disabled) there were times that sales figures had to be manipulated "to make things look good", to my superiors, and to my employer. This journalist has his point to prove, and will do whatever is necessary to prove it. That being said, his agenda suggests that Microsoft is about to stick the shaft to XP users, while the opposite is true. XP has been, and by the time it's over, will have been the longest supported OS in the history of computing. We have to move forward, and can't allow XP, or even Vista, hold us back. I look forward to challenge, XP doesn't provide that anymore, and really hasn't for the last four to five years. I used it as my main OS after Vista was introduced, not because I had to, but because Vista had such negative publicity, and I didn't feel the need to change. But after eight years of using XP Pro, I was ready for a change. And I was rewarded greatly for moving forward. Using a computer is now challenging again, and not the same old thing over and over again. Not to mention the many times my computer was infected the last year or so of using XP. I say that it's time to move forward, and not stay stuck in the past. I believe that this journalist is very stuck in the past, because I just don't believe his numbers are accurate. Most likely, he'll be one of those who will push for an extension of support for XP, as this was mentioned earlier in the thread. It won't happen.

catilley,
I myself worked with NSW Government railways as an assistant station master for 26 years until I was disabled in famous Granville disaster,I also use to see figures and graphs manipulated by the NSW Government to show either the positives or negatives of ticket sales etc which in my original thread all information and graphs were from reliable zdnet and tech net websites.below is the author's name and email address as for the actual figures I myself do not believe them as seen by the Microsoft linked tech net site and information from Mary Jo Foley: Microsoft members she has over 20 years experience in dealing with Microsoft I am 99% convinced that the figures are made to look good for Marketing strategies all of which we will see the outcome very soon .

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft


Yesterdays graphs and all information copy & paste from the Editorial Assistant please feel free to email him anytime about this thread and he will give you his source of which is Gizmodo.com



Editorial Assistant:
Kyle VanHemert

Jeffrey, you really stay on top of things, I see. I thought that I read the latest internet news most of the time, you have me beat. Mary Jo Foley has been around for awhile, in fact I remember when she was blacklisted for some time. Surprisingly, she got her foot in the door again. Most who has crossed Microsoft receives no second chance, but she did. She exposed all of the security flaws in Win 2K years ago, there were many, according to her. But 20,000 of them? I don't know about that. I used it for almost two years prior to XP Pro, never was infected once.

Catilley,
I try very hard to keep track of what Microsoft are doing mainly because in last 15 years computers have become my Life totally being vision Impaired (Blind) has caused me to rely somewhat on my computers for all the Normal things that we all take for granted,I talk to my computers and they respond very well especially now in win 7.

My other secret mate is that all the newsletters etc from tech net,zdnet,Microsoft all arrive just 1 day earlier than yourself for obvious reasons mate we are a day ahead of you in USA LOL if only Australia would catch up to USA regarding technology and fast optic fiber connections we would be better off.

Mary Jo was blacklisted however she was right with the security flaws of which took a lot of guts to take them on, she did, she won in long run she earned the respect of Millions of Microsoft users especially Microsoft themselves,and so I trust what she comments about to be honest she is always 99% on the ball Like yourself catilley.

Have an awesome weekend catilley
regards
jeffreyobrien

I agree with you, Jeffrey, Mary Jo is a reliable journalist. She must have really worked her butt off to get that second chance. However, I still believe that her numbers regarding Win 2K were off. In my two years of using it exclusively, I was never infected with a virus, nor did I have any other security related problems. The main reason that I moved to XP Pro so soon was the fact that Win 2K is a known RAM hog, the more you feed it, the more it uses. This laptop has 2GB RAM, on the same exact laptop with 1GB RAM, very little, if any, difference in startup times. So in 2001, I had XP Pro installed on my laptop (not this one) as a dual boot setup. I can't remember the model number, but it was a Dell laptop, with a Pentium III processor with 256MB RAM and 40GB hard drive. At that time, it was considered modern, as I bought it at an auction, this company went bankrupt, and I got it for $550. It was only two years old when I bought it, and very well taken care of, not a scratch on it. At that time, that was cheap for a business class laptop. This much I remember, the C640 took it's place, I had one of those, too. But it was plagued with heat problems. But back to Mary Jo, I have read thousands of her articles, and between her and Rafael (I forget the last name), they are two of the best in the business. I'll tell you another reliable one, Paul Thurrott. His predictions are nearly on the money, too. And you can learn from him, he really knows Windows, inside out. Nibiru turned me on to him. All right Jeffrey, have a good one!

Looks like we have a "Love Fest" going on here! LMAO!

My best guess at the reason there seems to be such a huge use if IE6 still is really because of businesses. What I mean is that untold hundreds or maybe thousands of businesses bought their computers with XP installed and beyond the critical updates for the core OS, all these computers are not being upgraded when it comes to browsers....as to why is anybodies guess as most of these same businesses allow the company computers to access the internet and having such a security hole of a browser running makes me shiver.