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Norton Security app now lately, every time I type < Ctrl-F > in Chrome or Word or Excel to execute a "find", or even type < Ctrl-F > in PaintShop, Norton pops up with "Norton Security Search Bar", which then fails and plays a ding sound everytime you hit the enter key. The Norton search message needs to be manually removed, and this happens every time I try to do a “Find” in any app. Frankly, I've had viruses that were less annoying than this.

If anyone’s heard of a recent Norton auto-update hijacking < Ctrl-F> from all apps, please let me know.

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I'm really in a pickle. I have been designing a Privatized network that adjusts automatically to resolution and DPI. I do this with a cookie that gets your monitor, TV or Cell Phone resolution and then I display the right size fonts and pages accordingly. I have spent over a decade writing the code and designing the network layout so that we all had a place to go when we moved on to higher resolution monitors and desktops. I have to write my code so that it supports all browsers and DOCTYPES.

FireFox has taken it upon themselves to change the zoom in your browser without your permission. What this means is that all the work I have done to create software that does this on the fly for everyone has been rendered useless because FireFox zooms your page automatically. It does not give you a choice or way to adjust it back. So when you visit my page in FireFox it thinks it is doing you a favor when in fact the software on my page already takes care of displaying things correctly on your monitor and resolution. So what you get is a page that is trashed!

We have standards and FireFox has done plenty of bitching about other browsers taking control away from the end user and then all the sudden they do it themselves and it's okay? It is an insult to the end user in many ways. Are we too stupid to change the zoom on a web page ourselves? No, we are not and they are breaking standards by forcing ZOOM on all of us. Not to mention we have always had the ability to do this by our own choice, the option has always been there in every single browser.

Netscape lost their audience by making some of the very same foolish mistakes. It soon became known as NUTSCRAPE and end users would refer to it as a piece of a shit browser that was not good for anything accept wiping your ass with it.
 

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Right Side Broadcasting Network

Hurricane Irma is about to make landfall in Florida and we'll have LIVE STREAM COVERAGE of the intense wind, rain, and floods from this mega storm.
This is a huge Category 4 storm that will cause massive damage and affect millions of people in Florida, Georgia, and elsewhere.
Join us for LIVE COVERAGE of Hurricane Irma, featuring live footage of Irma as it hits Florida.

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The way hurricanes are tracked has changed a lot since Hurricane Andrew. Check out some of the new technology used to view storms.

The effects of Hurricane Andrew in Florida proved to be the costliest disaster in the state's history, as well as the then-costliest on record in the United States. Hurricane Andrew formed from a tropical wave on August 16, 1992, in the tropical Atlantic Ocean. It moved west-northwest and remained weak for several days due to strong wind shear. However, after curving westward on August 22nd, 1992, the storm rapidly intensified to reach peak winds of 175 mph (280 km/h). Following its passage through The Bahamas, Andrew made landfall near Homestead, Florida as a Category 5 hurricane on August 24th, 1992. Eventually, Andrew struck southern Louisiana before it dissipated over the eastern United States on August 28th, 1992.

Strong winds from the hurricane significantly affected four counties in the state, which damaged or destroyed over 730,000 houses and buildings, while leaving more than 1 million without power. The storm surge impacted portions of Miami-Dade County, peaking at around 16.9 feet (5.2 m) just north of Homestead near the Burger King International Headquarters; the surge caused significant damage to boats and to the Charles Deering Estate. The nationwide maximum rainfall total from the hurricane was 13.98 inches (355 mm) in the western portion of Miami-Dade County. No major flooding was reported in the state. The hurricane caused about $25.3 billion (1992 USD) in damage and 44 deaths in the state—15 directly from the storm's effects and 29 indirectly related. Many other sources, however, estimated that Andrew caused more than $32 billion in damage in the state. Andrew was, at the time, the costliest hurricane in the history of the United States; it was later surpassed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Hurricane Ike in 2008, Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and recently Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

In September 2017, Hurricane Irma was the first Florida storm to surpass Andrew in strength and scope, slamming the same region that Andrew had ravaged.

Some officials in Florida considered Andrew the worst storm in the state since the Labor Day hurricane in 1935. Almost all the damage in Florida was caused by strong winds. Although effects from Andrew were catastrophic, the extent of damage was limited mainly from Kendall south to Key Largo due to the small wind field of the storm. Following the storm, more than 1.4 million lost electricity and another 150,000 were without telephone service. It is estimated that throughout Florida some 63,000 homes were destroyed, leaving at least 175,000 people homeless.

In addition to houses, the storm damaged or destroyed 82,000 businesses, 32,900 acres of farmland, 31 public schools, 59 health facilities/hospitals, 9,500 traffic signals, 3,300 miles (5,300 km) of power lines, and 3,000 water mains. Overall, Andrew caused $25.3 billion (1992 USD) in damage and 44 fatalities in the state of Florida alone. However, other estimates report that Andrew created $32 billion in overall damage. Of the 44 deaths, 15 were direct fatalities, while 29 were indirectly caused by the storm. It was later noted that had the storm been slightly larger or made landfall a few miles further north, it would have significantly affected Miami and Fort Lauderdale, which would have resulted in an even higher damage and death toll.

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I suppose we will never really know who the real asshole involved in the cluster fuck creation of Microsoft Internet Explorer is!

Internet Explorer Is Bad For The Web And For You

I have had several recent conversations about why not to use Internet Explorer, and they prompted me to make a handy list so that I could refer people to it.

I use and recommend Chrome.

As technology is in a constant state of change and flux, certain proprietary software types can't, or won't, keep up. Because they don't acknowledge the malleability of the internet, they encounter problems when you try to use them.

So what are some concrete reasons behind my recommendation against Internet Explorer in general, and my not wanting to design for any version earlier than IE7? (And my reason for not wanting to design for future IE versions at all.)

Common Internet Standards Ignored

The internet works as a cohesive unit only because all makers of browsers and websites adhere to certain commonly accepted standards of design and use. Microsoft consistently ignores these standards in favor of being proprietary. this means they would rather everyone be forced to use their software model than change their model to meet fast changes and increasing demand for cross platform and cross browser compatibility.

This makes Internet Explorer the hardest browser to work with. If I design a web site and it isn't working in Chrome, FireFox or Safari, for example, the tweak to fix the error is small, because they both accept the same standard of design and use. If it doesn't work in IE, forget it. The tweak to make it happen in IE is massive and time-consuming. I already spent huge amounts of time designing the page and getting it to work in four common browsers, I don't want to spend additional days on end trying to make IE "see" it.

Chrome supports MP3, Wav, and Ogg formats when using the HTML 5 player, and Internet Explorer currently supports MP3 only, hence the possible invalid source error message people are always seeing.

Web developers are required to convert all their wav and ogg files to mp3 in order to support all browsers! This is pure and utter horse shit and it would take little effort for IE to support the other file types with extended mime support. The programmers are a bunch of baphoones! 

ActiveX Is The Devil

Safety is another huge issue with IE. Other browsers do not use or accept ActiveX and Active Scripting, two Microsoft applets that allow people to access your browser for various programs. These two programs allow someone else the possibility of controlling your computer and opens a huge barn door for viruses, adware, spy ware, malware, and phishers to come strolling leisurely through.

Go ahead and use your virus software and your firewall - as long as you also use IE, you may as well give it up. You will continue to get malware on a regular basis, clogging your computer's arteries, causing slowdown and crashes and possibly putting your data at risk. Of course, any virus or malware can still get on the machine of someone using one of the other browsers. The main difference is that the users of other browsers more often have to actually open a file or interact with it in some way to allow it in with them, and IE lets malware in for you.

Does Not Accept Extensions and Add-Ons

No software can accommodate the complete wishes of its user base. It's impossible. Other browsers, like Chrome, FireFox, and Safari, acknowledge this by allowing third party programmers to build extensions and add-ons that handle the missing features, making everyone happy. Internet Explorer demonstrates great hubris by not allowing their user base to create or add features that address issues with their software and its lack of compatibility with so many things.

I'm not the only one who thinks IE's hubris is damaging. There have been several suits filed in various places wanting IE to no longer be tied to Windows, and to be forced to be more compatible with web standards.

Ugly Web Spaces

Have you ever viewed a web page designed solely with IE in mind in another browser? They are hideous, nonfunctional, clunky pages in every case, on every other browser. Safari does the best job of "fixing" the looks of an IE page, but it can't do much to fix the way they work (or don't). Thinking the web has to be hard to use and ugly is just wrong. The moment you switch to any other browser, your mind will be opened to a beautiful looking, easy to use, functioning the web.

Overwrites

When you install IE, you allow it to overwrite your system DLL files. The files it installs are not 100% compatible in many cases, mainly because it not only refuses to be compatible with much of the web but with its own operating system as well. This can lead to system slow down and crashes. Add in the malware issues mentioned above and you have a real morass on your hands.

Java Issues

Did you know that Microsoft Java is not the same as the Java everyone else uses? I would be willing to bet you didn't. I'd also be willing to bet you've experienced the frustration of going to the page with Java applets on the recommendation of friends or colleagues who have been using it flawlessly in other browsers, only to find it doesn't work right for you.

this is just another example of IE refusing to comply with the standards everyone else uses. They want you to have to use Microsoft products and Windows, and they think shutting you off from most of the web's functionality will convince you that is necessary. It just isn't so. You can use FireFox and still use your Microsoft programs. Changing browsers won't blow up your computer - it will just open new doors to you online.

Linux Incompatibility

This makes no sense to the average web user, but Internet Explorer's continued incompatibility with Linux is an issue for a very tech-savvy sector of the online market.

There are so many reasons not to use Internet Explorer I had some difficulty putting them on a list. In fact, there are so many I keep thinking I forgot a few. Did I? Let me know if I did.

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