Tech Talk: XP users to miss out on IE version 9; HTML-5 takes on Flash
by Bill Dusty
“Tech Talk” is a new feature at the Springfield Intruder. As some of you know, I’ve been concentrating on a new career in the multimedia field, and working on projects, building up my portfolio, and getting experience-time in with a range of multimedia applications has kept me away from writing much at either the SI or Masslive. Having always been sort of a tech geek – I used to be a certified PC technician (another thing my friends know, as I routinely gets calls for computer help) – I’ve always wanted to write occasionally on tech issues, but never felt the Intruder was the place for it. Until now. As my career path changes, I think the SI, as long as it survives, should reflect that change. And so I’ll be including period “Tech Talk” articles on tech news and issues – hopefully including information of interest to the general public and not just the geek crowd.
NO INTERNET EXPLORER-9 FOR WIN-XP USERS
Get ready, Windows XP users, to be left behind in the browser world – at least as far as Microsoft is concerned. The software giant who gave us XP – the most widely used OS in the world – will reportedly not be supporting it with the next version of Internet Explorer. IE-9 is promising to feature a slew of new goodies, including support for HTML-5 and new graphics hardware acceleration support. But long-time users of WinXP have argued – convincingly – that abandoning XP support with the next IE version will only succeed in leaving millions of PC users with no other choice but to continue to use IE-8 (as it is unlikely that many people – particularly overseas – will be swarming to buy Windows 7 just to get the latest, otherwise freely downloaded, Web browser).
According to Computer World, Microsoft is thus far the only browser maker to announce tossing support for XP. It’s ironic, then, that the maker of XP is the first company – and so far only one – to bail on it, even as the venerable OS continues to dominate PC use worldwide. Meanwhile, other browser makers have announced the ditching of other OS’s, according to Computer World: “Mozilla said it would not support Apple’s Mac OS X 10.4, known as ‘Tiger,’ in future upgrades to Firefox. Google’s Chrome for the Mac, meanwhile, only runs on Intel-based Macs, not on the older PowerPC-based machines that were discontinued in 2006.”
I, for one, am not a fan of Internet Explorer, and so I won’t be missing it in my browsing adventures. It will, however, hamper my website development efforts until I can afford to buy a Windows 7 machine. (I currently use Firefox as my primary browser, but also have IE-8, Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome, and Opera as comparison browsers for Web design.)
HTML-5 CHALLENGES FLASH
I’ve been an avid fan of PC Magazine writer John C. Dvorak for several years, now, and a regular watcher of his video-blog series “Cranky Geeks.”
In his latest episode (March 17 – the video show streams live each Wednesday), Dvorak and his guests discuss the coming of HTML version 5, which will include support for playing video and multimedia, sans Flash. Dvorak believes HTML-5 will “kill” Flash. I’m a bit more pragmatic on the issue. The big HTML-5/Flash debate is really all about browser players, not development software. Early reports show that neither technology has a performance advantage, thus far. Flash, the development software, meanwhile, will indeed take a hit once HTML-5 dominates the browser player market – which it inevitably should. Flash would find itself dueling against much less costly (and sometimes free) animation development applications. But I don’t see why it can’t weather that storm. After all, there are plenty of affordable (and sometimes free) photo editing applications out there, yet the $700 Photoshop still dominates as an industry standard.
The “Cranky Geeks” group also discusses the “silly” notion that iPad sales may adversely affect the Mac (this, according to a PC Mag story). Dvorak is an avid critic of “notepad” computing, and is skeptical about iPad’s future. The group roundly dismisses at any notion of iPad threatening Mac’s popularity.
Check out the videocast here (Episode 210).
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