I have been using the Firefox 4 versions since it release and noticed quiet a few improvement to both performance and design. The one major issue I had were few crashes where the browser disappeared completely from Windows task bar. I didn’t notice the issue in most cases and I thought that I have closed the Window with it collection of tabs accidentally. Turns out, after minimizing the window, Firefox could crash in some cases. If you are not keeping “tabs” on your open windows, you could easily miss it. Since it doesn’t happen very often and I could easily get the sites/pages I was on, it was mainly an annoyance.

Beta 7 update was the big bummer for me. The Status Bar has disappeared from the it usually location (bottom of the window), where major browsers have it, and moved to elbow the address bar, here.

There are a few problems with this approach:

- Security. There are more bobby trapped websites with malicious content or copycat of genuine website that will easily benefit from the user not knowing what links are clicking on.
- Average user will not notice the change and some of them will end up living “without” status bar, reducing the effort of security awareness many are trying to convey.
- For those who have noticed the change: on long URLs, you either don’t see the full site address where you are going, or you loose track of what page/URL you are in before moving.

There are already scores of complains regarding this specific change on Firefox feedback page.

For now, there are a few add-ons that will plug this critical visibility feature, although I try to avoid as many as possible.

Fingers crossed for Beta 8. For now, I’m going back to Firefox 3.6 – the latest stable version.

A recent article published on BBC website reveals that researchers have discovered why the same food will probably taste differently depending on the background noise level. It does shed some light on why most people complain about the blandness of airline food.

I personally agree with the findings based on experience. Background noise such as loud music, busy street or chatty people during the meal has always influenced my ratings on how tasty my meal was.

The noise level is likely a destruction to the brain and the taste to prevent it from indulging the full extent of the various components and ingredients that the dish may hold.

The fact remains that the food itself has to be tasty to be enjoyed in quieter environment, but doesn’t explain why a increasing number people, mostly the young generation, enjoys fast food in busy and noisy streets. Maybe the hunger level plays another factor.

Microsoft has recently announced at Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) that it will be making it Microsoft Office 2010 available online. A lightweight verison of Word, Excel, PowerPoint ad OnNote will be released next year. This is part of Microsoft initiative to win back the web after it seemed to have lost the battle to big G a couple of times.

My first name is Redouane and I’m an IT professional living in the UK. IT is only one of my many interests, but it’s the main one. I was meant to setup this blog a couple of years ago, but kept getting stuck with various things to do and just managed to get the time for it.