We love us some Opera. We’ve been advocating the Opera 10 web browser since the first alpha version was released last December. We even wrote about it in March. We’ve been faithfully using it through the beta releases and release candidates. The final version was recently released and it’s stellar.

Today, we were routing out a fairly pernicious installation of – what else – Adobe Flash on one of our Windows 7 test machines and decided to reinstall Opera 10. After removing and reinstalling, we were presented with the following error message.

Error initializing Opera: module 9

We tried several times to clean out whatever remnants of previous installations might be causing problems, as well as a fair amount of Googling to find resolutions to the problem but our efforts were to no avail. We finally found a post on the My Opera community forums where user markcs pointed us in the right direction.

The solution lies in the operaprefs_default.ini file that can be found in your installation directory. Ours is located at

c:\Program Files (x86)\Opera\operaprefs_default.ini

After our fresh installation, the file contained the following lines.

[User Prefs]
Language File=C:\Program Files (x86)\Opera\locale\\.lng

The language file needs to be specified. Adding ‘en’ in two places in the line fixes the problem like so.

[User Prefs]
Language File=C:\Program Files (x86)\Opera\locale\en\en.lng

Hopefully this patch works for you if you experience the Opera 10 module 9 error on Windows 7. Remember, this is apparently a rare issue with the Windows version of an otherwise trouble-free, lightning-fast, feature-complete browser that you should take for a spin if you haven’t already.

Last October, we shot out a heads-up regarding an out-of-band update from Microsoft. An out-of-band update is one that is released outside of the patch Tuesday update schedule, the well-known pattern Microsoft has established for releasing updates to its products on the second Tuesday of each month.

Today, Microsoft has released another out-of-band update. This update fixes a critical security hole in Internet Explorer that could allow an attacker to compromise a system and gain control over it. Microsoft doesn’t release out-of-band updates often, so when they do you can know that they’re fairly critical.

Read more about today’s critical update from Microsoft’s website.

Just because you’ve switched to Opera or Safari or Chrome or Firefox and don’t use Internet Explorer regularly doesn’t mean you should ignore this update. It’s our belief that IE is so integrated into so many parts of Windows that it’s much better to be safe than sorry. Updates are easy and you should check for them frequently and install them immediately. Here are a few tips.

• If you’re still using XP, go to update.microsoft.com and install all available updates.
• If you’re running Vista, congratulations. Windows Update is a start menu item and can be accessed from there.
• If you’re running IE7, upgrade to IE8 even if you don’t regularly use Internet Explorer.

Microsoft isn’t the only company that releases updates. Last September, we wrote about a great service called Secunia that you can run to tell you what other programs on your computer have updates that are available. It would probably be a good idea to run their free web scan to check if you’re using an outdated version of Flash, Java, iTunes or any other program that has recently patched security holes.

Microsoft officially released Internet Explorer 8 yesterday.The first Internet Explorer to pass the Acid 2 test, a test to verify that a browser renders web pages correctly, it boasts improved speed, better security and a few new features.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, pre-release versions of Opera and Safari are already bragging a perfect score on the Acid 3 test, IE8 ranks dead last among the most recent generation of browsers when speed is concerned, and a hacker going by the name Nils hacked IE8 on the day it was released (yesterday – though, to be fair, Firefox and Safari were also hacked yesterday).

Microsoft has an uphill battle for adoption. While greater than 70% of Internet users use Internet Explorer, there is still a significant amount of users of Internet Explorer 6. AuctioneerTech has under 6% of its traffic from Internet Explorer 6, but auctioneer Purple Wave has nearly 20% of its traffic viewed with Internet Explorer 6. While most technology sites have much higher numbers for newer and alternative browsers, the rest of the web still has to contend with legacy versions. Now, developers have three versions of Internet Explorer against which to test their websites. This issue is made even more difficult now that IE8 defaults to a web-standards mode that will actually render websites differently, albeit more correctly, than either IE7 or IE6. Users at least have the option of hitting the panic button when pages appear broken in IE8, causing it to fall back to the broken way IE7 rendered pages that most designers accounted for when building the pages in the first place.

New features included in Internet Explorer 8 are accelerators, web slices and developer tools. Accelerators are mashups of sorts that allow direct integration with services like email and mapping. Web slices allow you to monitor updates to a portion of a website without actually going to it. The developer tools, our favorite new feature, are similar to the ever-so-popular Firebug extension for Firefox that allow you to view the HTML, CSS and scripts behind the page and see how they interact by watching changes effect the page in real time.

It’s true that IE8 may be more standards-compliant, faster and more secure than IE7, and that web slices and accelerators are neat new features, but without the plugin community of Firefox or the raw speed of Chrome or Safari or the all-in-one nature of Opera, it’s both something for everyone and everything for noone.

Even if you’re a user of alternative broswsers, it’s important to upgrade your version of Internet Explorer. Get IE8 from the download links on the Microsoft Internet Explorer website before its released as an automatic update in the next month or two.

Newer, faster browser rendering engines are all the rage. Google released Chrome based on Webkit and V8; Firefox uses Gecko and is going to be using TraceMonkey for JavaScript. Apple made some noise a few weeks ago by releasing a beta of its Webkit-based Safari 4, now using Apple’s new Nitro engine for JavaScript. The improvements Microsoft has made to Trident and JScript are going to be a generation behind by the time Internet Explorer 8 finally officially drops in the next week or so.

All browsers have problems. Google Chrome is fast, but it completely botches the back button. Hitting the back button to return to a dynamic page – search results, for instance – and the browser asks you if you want to resubmit the page. It’s a recognized bug in Chrome that renders the browser useless for most daily browsing. The new Safari is the prettiest browser, and it’s fast, but it copied the Chrome bug and is unusable for that reason. Neither Chrome nor Safari runs on Linux. Internet Explorer is a good browser, when completely patched, but is usually the slowest. Firefox runs slowly on Linux, and its bookmark synchronization component is in beta and doesn’t work on 64 bit Linux, forcing users to rely on a plugin called Foxmarks.

One of the most exciting browsers that hasn’t been getting much press lately is Opera. Opera claims its Presto 2.2 rendering engine presents web pages 30% faster than the last version. Its Futhark is admittedly dated, but the Opera team is working on a new version called Carakan that will be much faster. Many of the most popular add-ons to Firefox are built into Opera, including web developer tools, the ability to block JavaScript and Flash, and bookmark synchronization. The new Opera is completely cross platform and supports synchronization and socialization through the My Opera community.

We’ve been using the new Opera 10 alpha for months now, and it’s performance is markedly better than Firefox 3. The only difficulties we’ve noticed is that when using Opera on Linux in conjunction with Synergy, some Flash objects viewed in Opera can cause Synergy to stop responding. If you’re a frequent user of apps that rely on heavy JavaScript rendering like Gmail, Opera may not be quite as fast as other options. If, however, you subscribe to our belief that JavaScript and Flash should be turned off unless needed, Opera will be much faster than anything else.

Try the latest development version of Opera, available at www.opera.com/next, and let us know what you think in the comments.

Windows 7 desktop, image from Wikipedia

We got our hands on a copy of the public beta of Microsoft Windows 7, the planned successor to Windows Vista. From what we can see so far, it’s very fast on our test system, though we haven’t tested it with graphics drivers since our old video card isn’t supported.

Hardware support is an issue for Windows 7, at least as it was an issue with Vista. Windows 7 is based on Vista, so the odds are if a product wasn’t supported by Vista, it won’t be supported by Windows 7. For modern hardware made in the last few years, that limitation shouldn’t be a problem. Indeed, Windows 7 actually includes much better support for touch interfaces and multiple core processors than did Vista.

The interface is a further departure from XP than was Vista. An enhancement to Aero, the visual effects that made Vista beautiful, called Peek now allows a user to quickly make all the windows transparent to see the desktop. The widgets that were for the resource-hogging and now-gone sidebar can now be used directly on the desktop, so Peek could be used to quickly see news and IM widgets while not having to minimize the spreadsheet. The task bar at the bottom has been merged with the Quick Launch toolbar, so now each of the shortcuts becomes a menu for the like-kind windows and programs that you have open. We never liked the Quick Launch bar, nor the grouping of windows, so it will be interesting to see if this change is actually an improvement.

We’re certainly glad there will be no more Sidebar. Windows Mail, Windows Calendar, Windows Photo Gallery and Windows Movie Maker will also be gone, replaced with Windows Live Essentials, which will pretty much do the same things but with an emphasis on the cloud.

The new version of Windows Media Center has a few more options and ways to view items, but doesn’t seem like a large update. The final version of Internet Explorer 8, a beta of which is available for download and testing for XP and Vista now, will be shipping with Windows 7 and features better web standards compliance by default. The compliance isn’t perfect like that of Opera 10, but it’s better and the only side effect is that it will not display most websites properly.

Homegroups will make setting up a network easier, though we’re looking forward to seeing if they make it more secure. From what we saw of the randomly generated password we were shown on installation, it seems this may be the case.

Windows 7 does allegedly support faster startup and shutdown times, as well as longer battery life. There is a planned version for netbooks, which means Microsoft will finally be able to retire [read: bury] the aged XP.

Windows Vista is currently the exiled ruler of Microsoft’s operating systems. Sure, it’s smarter and more experienced and would bring world peace were it in office, but some pretty powerful rabble-rousers have kicked it out of the kingdom and replaced it with the old leader, XP. While the silent majority of computer users are happy with Vista, the vocal minority of either XP-lovers or change-haters has caused Microsoft to push out a new operating system sooner than it should have. Microsoft was working on a new file system called WinFS for Windows Vista that never made it, and now it looks like it won’t be included in Windows 7 either. Right now, Linux’s Compiz-Fusion is king of slick-looking, fast-acting and productivity-enhancing desktop visual effects, and while Microsoft could have made some serious headway to catch up, they were forced to plan a release of a half-baked operating system update rather than a full-fledged upgrade that could have solidified their dominance on the desktop.

The verdict? We’re going to continue to use Ubuntu Linux, while we recommend Vista and Windows 7 to our families and coworkers who are used to Microsoft operating systems and don’t want to learn new tricks. We’re going to continue to ridicule those who claim Vista is bad and XP is better, though we’ll continue to use XP on systems that came with it since neither Vista nor Windows 7 is or will be better enough to justify spending money to upgrade the operating system.

Want to try Windows 7 for yourself? The download restrictions for the public beta have been lifted so anyone can try it. All you have to do is download it from the Microsoft Windows 7 website. If you disagree with our review, let us know in the comments.

Bad things lurk on the interwebs. Viruses are marginalized by Antivirus software, but most Antivirus software doesn’t protect against malicious websites. Websites can phish and clickjack. They can display an invisible button that infects your computer on top of another button that says “download this antivirus software”. There are actions that can be triggered simply by your mouse moving over an element on a page.

Firefox is a web browser that is constantly gaining market share against Microsoft‘s Internet Explorer. While it’s true that Firefox is a secure browser, as is a fully-patched copy of IE, any browser that properly executes JavaScript and other web standards is vulnerable to scripts that are written to do malicious things. The only way to ensure safety on the modern web is by only allowing scripts that you authorize. Later we’ll examine how this safe practice works with Opera, my new favorite web browser, by today we’re going to look at NoScript.

NoScript is a browser addon for Firefox. I first tried it over a year ago and gave up after a matter of minutes. The default settings for NoScript call for it to present a security warning whenever a website attempts to execute JavaScript, Java, Flash and other scripting technologies on sites you haven’t authorized. Because pretty much every website uses one of these scripting languages for something, and because when you first install NoScript none of the websites are listed as trusted, every single page will present the user with a security warning. The sheer annoyance caused by this behavior resulted in a quick removal from my browsing environment.

NoScript integration with Firefox right-click menu

I was recently listening to Security Now, my favorite Internet security podcast. NoScript was mentioned as a must for Internet security, along with the secret to maintaining sanity while using it. The secret is to turn off notifications. With notifications turned off, the popups are gone but the security remains. Only if you realize that a site isn’t functioning properly do you need to specifically grant that site permissions to run the scripts. It’s as easy as right-clicking on the website and telling NoScript to allow the site to run scripts. To the right you can see how NoScript shows the scripts that AuctioneerTech attempted to run that were blocked successfully with NoScript.

True, AuctioneerTech doesn’t look as cool without scripts. The pull-quotes – sections of text that are larger and served like pictures showing important passages – don’t work, and neither do the CrunchBase widgets. You won’t see the Google Adsense links to the right or the Google Shared Stuff list at the bottom right, nor will my Google Analytics function. For this reason, I encourage you to select the “Allow all on this page” option if you’re viewing AuctioneerTech with NoScript. However, if this were a malicious website, you would already be infected. This is the reason you should install NoScript on Firefox. You’ll still be able to get at the content you want, without having content you don’t want forced upon you and your computer.

Here’s how to do it. Assuming that you already have Firefox installed, launch it.

1. Click the Tools menu at the top of the browser and select Add-ons
2. Click the Get Add-ons button at the top left of the box that appears
3. In the search box, type noscript and hit enter
4. Click on the first return that has the icon that looks like the picture at the top right of this article
5. Click the button that reads Add to Firefox…
6. You’ll be prompted to confirm your decision. Click Install now on the pop-up.
7. Restart Firefox

That’s it. NoScript is installed and you’re safer now than ever before. Here’s how to disable the notifications so you can browse in peace.

1. There is now a small NoScript icon at the bottom right of your browser. Click it and select Options.
2. Select the Notifications tab at the top
3. Un-check the option listed as Show message about blocked scripts

Now you won’t get any popups telling you scripts were disabled. Browse the web with peace and security. If something doesn’t look right, simply enable the scripting on the page.

I’ve spoken with many auctioneers recently who are at the beginning stages of a new technology project, usually a website redesign or new build of some kind. The questions everyone asks mostly revolve around the expectations they should have of the person or company being hired to build the website.

A mockup is essential to give to your provider - don't let the provider design the site

I’ve put together some content that I consider important to include in an RFP – request for proposal. It’s by no means exhaustive, and at least some parts of it will have to be changed for every application, but it’s a start to a baseline set of what I believe to be good standard practices when entering into a relationship with a service provider.

For the purposes of this post, buyer is auctioneer, seller is service provider, employee is a backend user and user is frontend user. We’re going to assume that the buyer will provide a mock-up created by a designer. This mock-up would show exactly the layout and presentation requested by the buyer so that all the seller has to do is build the site using web standards. This draft assumes that your provider will install the website on a purchased or rented server controlled by the buyer. It assumes that the buyer has an email list system – I recommend phpList – and wants ownership of the auction calendar as opposed to using a third party’s auction calendar like that from Auction Services or AuctionZIP. I’m neither endorsing nor recommending against either of those popular auction website providers, I’m merely giving an example of a possible permutation. Perhaps a third party calendar is desired, as well as housing the site on the seller’s servers. Each auctioneer’s needs and desires are different.

I’ve intentionally tried to stay away from most functional pieces of a good website and focus instead on the deliverables and legal requirements that should set the ground rules of a work for hire.

Website must include a calendar system that will facilitate easy creation and display of auction title, date, time, location and thumbnail images. Frontend layout is provided by attached mock-up. Backend must allow upload of images, auction event creation and modification and be available only over secure connection. Seller must install security certificate on buyer’s environment if it doesn’t already exist. Backend login must be employee-specific with ability to grant access to various resources to various employees.

Email subscription form must allow direct subscription ability and integration with a bulk email list management system such as phpList or Intersend.

Sales lead generation form must email leads to email address or addresses as specified by buyer or employees in the backend.

In order to anticipate future browser compatibility we require conformance to the following W3C standards.

1. Markup must validate to the W3C’s XHTML 1.1 doctype at http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/
2. Style sheets must validate to the W3C’s CSS 2.1 format at http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
3. Javascript will never use browser detection but instead object detection to test for browser support of properties, arrays and methods.
4. Site must not use tables for layout purposes. Tables will only be used for tabular data.
5. Website must be tested to display similarly in current and the last major release of Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera, Konqurer, and Google Chrome on stock installations of Microsoft Windows XP and Vista, Apple OS X and Ubuntu Linux where each browser is available on each operating system, as well as Internet Explorer 5 and 6.

Deliverables:

1. All deliverables must be installed by seller on buyer’s environment.
2. All deliverables will be considered “work made for hire” under U.S. Copyright law. Buyer will receive exclusive and complete copyrights to all work purchased. Any use of open-source content must be expressly defined and agreed to by buyer before implementation.
3. No dependence on outside services is allowed. The website must function completely and independently of any third party site, service or server, unless expressly permitted by buyer.
4. Seller will have no rights to use, reproduce or access any content, materials or other information stored on the website, including but not limited to form submission, customer information, email addresses, sales data and account records.
5. Work must be original and not based on existing templates or previously-constructed components used by other customers of the seller.

Successful proposal will include the following components.

1. Bid for construction of website using web standards with layout defined by provided mock-up and functionality defined above. This construction must include documentation and training sufficient for buyer to understand and operate site completely and effectively.
2. Estimate of time to completion as well as financial implications of delays should they occur due to additional requests made by buyer or developmental hardships experienced by seller.
3. Bid for continued ad-hoc support and maintenance on an hourly basis. Support must be provided by website creator if that person is different from seller.
4. List of hours with guaranteed availability for support.
5. List of five websites created by seller and contact information of website owners to serve as list of references.

Now, I realize that this draft is very strict. Some providers may balk completely, and some that don’t balk may intentionally price themselves out of the competition because, like using perfect English, using web standards is hard for some. Hopefully, however, this example may serve as a valuable starting point for someone looking to start from scratch. Compromises may be desired on certain parts, like XHTML validation, but an auctioneer should always retain the rights to your data (deliverable 4) and be sure that the provider will support the product after it’s built. Above all, be sure to have a very clearly-defined, counsel-approved contract that you can use to hold the service provider accountable should you believe that the work is incomplete or incorrect.

Writing an example RFP was requested by many. These are some of my ideas. Do you have a must-have condition for the work that you hire done? Leave a comment so we can build on this document and add it to the resources page.

I use several computers simultaneously during day-to-day operation. While it’s easy to connect multiple displays to one computer, the ability to use the best features of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Linux simultaneously is much more valuable than having additional screen area, or real estate, on one operating system.

While it’s possible, and certainly easier, to use a hardware KVM switch, that method defeats the value of having more screen real estate. You’re also relegated to having to hit a button to switch from one computer to another.

I used to have three sets of keyboards and mice, one for each of my three main workstations. Those three sets really consumed too much desktop real estate. It was clunky moving from typing on one keyboard to another, sometimes annoying as I would start typing on one keyboard when I should have been typing on another. Then I found Synergy and it changed everything.

Synergy is an cross-platform, open source utility that allows one computer to share its mouse and keyboard over a network with other computers. It simulates having multiple monitors connected to one machine, so your mouse moves seamlessly from one display on one computer to an adjoining display connected to another computer.

Synergy reduces desktop clutter by allowiong one mouse and keyboard to control multiple computers

Synergy comes in versions for Windows, Linux and Mac. My main computer is Linux, but there are still some programs such as Outlook and Zune that simply won’t run – without destructive hacking – on Linux. Synergy lets me simply drag my mouse from Linux to Windows to check my corporate email. I sometimes take my notebook home with me, so I have a fair amount of files on it. When I plug in my external monitor and launch Synergy, my notebook’s Vista OS becomes just another extension of my primary desktop.

Synergy does have some issues. While it’s crazy-easy to configure on Linux using the QuickSynergy configuration utility, the Windows version isn’t quite as intuitive. You have to specify exactly which computer is right and left of each display, but once it’s configured you don’t have to mess with it again.

Synergy can be configured to automatically start, and it’s easy on XP. Vista’s security enhancements pose some additional recommendations when running in that operating system. I start Synergy as administrator, but it still requires that you manually confirm the running of any administrative-level task by using the keyboard or mouse directly connected to the computer, so I simply reach over and hit alt+c or alt+a on my notebook’s keyboard to either confirm or allow the action requested. So long as Synergy is running as an administrator, it will let you use your main mouse and keyboard to proceed using that administrative task once it’s been authorized.

Lastly, I found that Synergy has trouble with Opera on Ubuntu 8.10, Hardy Heron. It may be a problem with Opera on all versions of Linux, but I haven’t found much information about any other versions. I’m looking for a way to synchronize my saved browser favorites among multiple operating systems. Mozilla Weave doesn’t support 64-bit Linux yet, and I really don’t want to mess with Foxmarks because I’d love to get away from Firefox. Last week I tried to switch to Opera, finding that it not only ran on all the operating systems I use but also facilitated browser settings synchronization through My Opera. Everything went well until my Synergy started crashing. It would simply stop working. It’s a very confining feeling when your mouse suddenly is confined to one monitor. I found little information regarding Linux, Opera and Synergy, so I’ve stopped using Opera temporarily until they fix the bug in either Opera or the next version of Ubuntu, Intrepid Ibex, the release schedule for which puts its release at the end this month.

Since I don’t have the ability to test or use Synergy with Mac, I have no experience in that regard. However, since Synergy hasn’t been updated since 2006 I’m going to assume that the stability on Mac is similar to Linux and Windows.

The tubes are full of baddies. It’s not enough anyomore to simply install an antivirus package and pay your yearly virus tax. Antivirus is becoming outdated. Granted, it’s still a requirement for all but the most elite computer users, but in the time of the always-on Internet connection we need to protect ourselves against all kinds of attack vectors. An attack vector is a means by which someone or some automated program can compromise and, in the worst cases, gain access to an innocent user’s computer or network.

As today’s software becomes larger and as release cycles become shorter, there are security holes in everyday packages like browsers (IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Chrome), add-ons (Flash, PDF readers, Java machines), utilities (OpenOffice, Microsoft Office, Picasa) and even the operating system itself (Linux, OSX, Windows).

Maintaining a constant watch over all of the programs that you may or may not even know you have installed can be a daunting task. Luckily, for the majority of you who are Windows users, a product called Secunia can help put your mind to rest.

Secunia offers three levels of protection. The first level, which is a no-brainer for everone, is a free web scan. Simply launch your Java-enabled browser and it will scan 70 common programs to be sure they’re up to date. If it finds a program that’s not the most current version, it lists it and provides links to explanations of the vulnerabilities in that older version. I wasn’t able to get the program to run under Chrome. Since Chrome requires the lastest Java 6 update 10 release candidate, it’s not all that surprising that it doesn’t support everything we throw at it. Just run Secunia’s online scan in IE for now to check your system.

The second level of protection is their PSI – Personal Software Inspector. The PSI is a free-for-personal-use application you download and install. It scans for over 6,900 possible programs to be sure all the software on your computer is up-to-date.

The third level of protection is for business and is called the NSI – Network Software Inspector. It makes it easy to maintain the same level of updates as the PSI but on a multiple-system scale. It costs $30 per system per year.

I pride myself on keeping my software, nearly all of which is open-source, up to date. I have yet to run a scan on a machine where Secunia didn’t tell me at least one package was vulnerable. I’ll admit the business solution is a little steep for the average business, but the web scan is something that you should do right now and once every month. It’s free and crazy-easy and is one more asset in the reponsible-computing tool belt.