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Just tried out the new Microsoft IE7, despite my loyalty to the anti-Microsoft camp, I have to say - Microsoft did it again.

Microsoft has built the entire business empire by being the follower of new technology - oh you think they even invented DOS from scratch? They have shown again and again what a couple billions of dollar and a few thousands of software engineers can do to the golden rule of business - the first mover’s advantage.

Here is a quick list of my first impression:

• Tabbed browsing from Firefox - check. A whole-sale copy from the popular open-source browser - shame on the opensource who can’t claim any copyrights, Mwahaha! Microsoft did make the open new tab a bit easier by adding an empty half-tab to the right of the existing tabs;
• Translucent looks, AKA Apple Aqua look - check.
• Ctrl-+ and Ctrl- to magnify web page - inspired by competing product, however improved in my opinion. The magnifying takes place at the page rendering level which makes the whole page proportionally bigger, including the layout and images. For people with poor eye-sights, this is a very nicely improved feature.
• A different layout in terms of menus and tool bars. I can’t really say whether this is an improvement. It is surely different and takes some getting use to.

Overall, hats off to the Microsofties, including our friend Sure who is a proud member of the IE7 team. You guys pulled off another me-too improvement again.

I have successfully installed Ubuntu 6.06 on Dell Latitude D410.

The installation is much smoother than the previous versions. Everything works out of the box. My LCD panel has a native resolution of 1024×768 that Ubuntu detected automatically. What surprises me a little is that Fn-F8 works out of the box by switching the display to the external monitor. However, the display resolution for the external monitor is limited to that of the native panel.

The next step is to simply add the additional resolution the external monitor supports. Just googling “ubuntu change resolution” or simply edit “/etc/X11/xconf.org” and add “1280×1024″ in front of all instances of “1024×768″. After restarting X by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, the display switched back to the laptop. Unfortunately, when the display is switched back to the external monitor, the resolution is still limited by the laptop.
After some panicing, despair and more googling, the solution comes really simply:

Instead of pressing Ctrl-Alt-Backspace after the boot, press it during the Grub selection menu. Than the default display switches to external monitor and Ubuntu will happily comply to the new resolution on the external monitor.