Keywords
Citation
Ellis, B. (2003), "Internet commentary", Circuit World, Vol. 29 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/cw.2003.21729bag.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited
Internet commentary
Keywords: Internet, Electronics, Design, Printed circuit boards
What with excellent browsing and sluicing and cheery conversation and what-not, the afternoon passed quite happily (P.G. Wodehouse, “Jeeves and the unbidden guest”, My Man Jeeves (1919)).
This is not the first time that I will be touching on the subject of browsers. However, this time I may appear very commercial, even though I have no interest of any description in anything that I am about to say, other than as a contented user.
Browsers and e-mail clients are the mainstay of the Internet. They come in many varieties. Without any doubt, the most used browser is Microsoft Internet Explorer and the most used e-mail client is in the Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express. These Microsoft products are designed for ease of use by people who are not particularly computer literate. Consequently, they have a number of important weaknesses, including security problems that I have already evoked a number of times, in these columns.
At the other end of the scale, we have customisable browser engines, such as Mozilla. This is really strictly for the nerds, but some IT administrators make up in- house customised versions for use on their own networks. These are often unsuitable for use as a general browser or e-mail client, as they stand.
In between, there are a number of browsers, such as Netscape and Opera and also some e-mail clients such as Eudora. At one time, Netscape, which is a customised version of Mozilla, was the leading browser until Microsoft bundled their Internet Explorer into every version of Windows, with the results that we all know. I have always considered Netscape as being slightly better than the Microsoft ones, especially from the point of view of security, although it, too, has had its ups and downs. Up to version 4.7x, it was very good, but the rot set in with subsequent versions, which had a number of bugs and was obviously more publicly-oriented.
I believe that all this has now changed, and very radically. This is because Netscape have just launched a totally new version, called Netscape 7. I will say here and now that it is not perfect but it incorporates what I consider the best browser and e-mail client, by far. Although, at the time of writing, the release version has been available for only five or six days, the number of downloads has been astronomical, such is the power of word of mouth. Notwithstanding, a pre-release version has been available for some weeks. Since downloading it myself and installing it, I have been closely watching the reactions, problems and general comments of those who contribute to the Netscape forums. Of course, there are always some who are never satisfied but the general consensus has been excellent. The number of people reporting bugs has been quite small and most of the problems evoked seem to be those concerned with setting up the software to suit the user.
I had absolutely no problem with the installation, using the default configuration. It worked first time straight out of the virtual box. In addition, it converted all my individual files and profiles from Netscape 4.73 (without destroying any functionality of it) and it will do the same for any other default browser or e-mail client. It was therefore customised for my own personal use, straight away. However, the default appearance or theme looked as if it had been designed by somebody working for Fisher-Price on a rather bad day and I did not like that. However, a quick look through the Preferences soon found that I could change the appearance to a more traditional and functional style (Plate 1).
Plate 1
CADX Services Inc. Home Page as displayed by the new Netscape 7 Navigator in
the “traditional” theme. Note the Google toolbar; the Bookmarks
sidebar and, above all, the tabs above the browser window, allowing
instantaneous switching between website pages. These are only some of the
advantages of this browser
OK then, you will ask why I am so enthusiastic. First of all, it is fast and stable under both Windows 98SE and Windows 2000. I believe the same applies to other versions of Windows, which I have not tried. It is also easily configured. For example, I disabled pop-up advertising windows and added a Google toolbar with a couple of very simple downloads. The Google toolbar not only allows you to search the Internet from within the browser, without downloading the search engine, but also allows you to search for keywords within any Web sites that you have on the screen. For example, if you load the Home Page of, say DuPont, you can search their whole site for the word Riston and every page referring to that product will come up. Another new feature, possibly stolen from Opera, is a sidebar which you can customise with your own bookmarks, reference lists, addresses or anything else within reason. Editing the contents of any of these lists, or what appears on the bar, is absolute child's play with a right click of the mouse button. However, one of the most significant advances is that you can have several tabbed Web pages open at the same time and switch between them faster than you can wink (Plate 1).
Apart from the Preferences, there are many tools available for managing the various features and security of Netscape 7. In particular, there is a Forms Manager, which you can use to remember a large number of variables that are regularly used when filling in forms on the Internet. This can go as far as remembering your credit card number in an encrypted form. This means that, after having filled in a small number of forms, most of the fields of future forms will be automatically filled in, although you can change them, of course. A Password Manager will also remember, again in encrypted form, any passwords that you use within a given site, so that you never have to type them in again, without any risk of their being found by an indiscreet intruder. I have carefully checked this feature and found that it works very well when I access one of my bank accounts and I could not “hack” my own computer to find out what the password was that I had typed in, even though I had the advantage of knowing what it was in the first place.
An important feature is the Download Manager. This allows you to download many files simultaneously, to make best use of your bandwidth availability. In addition, if a download is interrupted for any reason, it can be resumed. This applies to both ftp and http protocols. You can also save complete Web pages, no matter how complex they are or how large they are. This means that you can bring them up again at any time, more or less instantaneously, from your hard disk.
Have you ever printed a Web page, to find that part of it has been cut off? This is no longer necessary because there is a print preview function which also allows you to manipulate the size and position of a page onto the paper. Quite apart from fitting, this feature is very useful when you have to split a page over more than one sheet of paper, because you can adjust where the split comes.
So, that gives a brief run-down of some of the new features of the browser, but what about the e-mail client? Firstly, it is fast. Your address book can be configured in any way in a sidebar, with a quick search facility. However, if you open the Compose (new message) window and just type a couple of letters into the “To” field, it will automatically start choosing the address most likely to fit in with what you type – if there are several, it will display all of them and you can click on the right one or you can add another letter and just end line. For incoming mail, there is a very easy filter system to sort your messages into different folders. It can also be used to give different “labels”. For example, you can automatically change the colour in the header list of messages coming from important clients, or your boss! The search facility is very useful and fast for finding anything within the sender's address or the subject of a message (Plate 2). Unfortunately, I have not yet found a way to extend the search into the body of a message, as you could do with the older versions of Netscape. Something which I have not yet quite fathomed is a new Mail Alert feature which warns you of incoming mail, even with Netscape switched off.
I have found one bug in the Netscape mail system, and this may be annoying or otherwise, according to how you work. If you have Netscape Mail open, and another programme or a short cut opens a new mail window, the focus is kept on the old one. The new one has some inoperative buttons and menu items. Clicking on a message will restore the focus, but that should not be necessary.
Plate 2
Typical Netscape 7 Mail e-mail client window in the “traditional”
theme. Note, amongst other items, the Address Book sidebar with search facility;
the Subject or Sender message quick search feature and the different colours
Overall, this is an excellent piece of software, well-designed and well-executed and apparently very reliable, judging from a few days use. I can thoroughly recommend it as being better, in my opinion, than anything else I have seen from any manufacturer. But, before I get too carried away, there is a minor negative point which seems to annoy some users, judging from some of the posts in the forums. One of the e-mail client features is AOL Instant Messenger (to compete with a Outlook Express). This may be useful for teenagers in chat rooms and so on, but is not particularly useful for professional messaging. This is one item that you cannot turn off in Preferences and you always have the little orange man sitting at the bottom of your screen. This does not particularly bother me because I never use it, but it does seem to bother a few others. I agree that anything which increases bloatware unnecessarily is automatically undesirable, so it would be nice if it could be turned off. Netscape, however, is owned by AOL-Time-Warner, so it may be a wee bit of advertising to justify the low cost. How low is the cost? Zilch, not a bean, free, gratis and for now, at least, if you download it from the Netscape Web site (a big download, by the way, nearly 30 Mb). If you order a CD-ROM, it will cost you the postage.
In summary, Netscape 7 heralds a new era of comfort into Internet use. I wonder, now, how long it will take Microsoft to catch up again? There is one thing they hate in Redmond, and that is having a competitor do better than they can!
For the review section of this article, I have chosen a few sites from the 7,500-odd that appear when I type ecad OR eda printed circuit design into Google.
The Home Page for this site could hardly be simpler in design, although it lacks some essential information, such as the address of the company, Santa Barbara PCD, which I found nowhere, in any page! It downloaded very quickly, in a mere 5 s with a 56 kbs copper wire modem, because the only graphics are four identical separator lines. It had the right keywords and description, which was why it was high in the Google list. The company offers libraries for use in Orcad, Protel, and PCAD systems. Navigation was easy, as could be expected from a very amateurish Web site generated using Microsoft Word, but nothing approaching a sample of their work could be found. Ordering from the Web site, therefore, by e-mail or telephone, would be a question of trust for anyone who has no prior knowledge of the company.
This Home Page was much longer to download (36 s), because of its poor design, with over 60 kb of graphics. If you do want to look here, for Goodness’ sake do not press the button marked Flash. It offers no more information than pressing non-Flash, it takes well over a minute to download and you end up with a very disagreeable visual image and repetitive noise on every page. This is technical Web site design at its worst, despite good keywords and descriptions. Pressing non- Flash takes you to a menu page which is bad enough, with a loading time of 24 s on my system (Remember when I used to say that 15 s was a maximum for an ordinary page?). If this were the Home Page, with lightened graphics, it would have been reasonable, because it contains everything that a Home Page should, except for the meta keywords and description, which are on the real Home Page (unfortunately including every make of ECAD system you could think of, repeated three times: apart from the doubtful ethics of trying to attract visitors by the names of competitive equipment, the repetition will defeat the purpose of the keywords because many search engine “spiders” will ignore repetitive lists or text). The rest of the pages are very simple, straightforward and succinct with very easy navigation. They give almost enough information that I would expect for a design bureau except for the make of software they use (customers often using design bureaus must ensure compatibility with their own systems, in both directions) and, consequently, the extent of their libraries and footprint flexibility.
Mentor Graphics need no introduction, of course. Their Home Page looks quite simple, but is cluttered by no less than 93 graphics and 51 hyperlinks, making for a long download time (36 s, when I tried it), with no keywords or description. These do appear on sub-pages, where they may be slightly less effective. The general theme of many graphics and hyperlinks appears on other pages, as well. Because Mentor have many products in different categories, including the popular PADS software, as well as their Expedition series, this is not an easy site to browse. This is not made easier by common sidebars and menus to different product lines and relatively little information per page. I had the impression, more than once, that I was turning round in circles. Much of the real information that viewers may want is in over 400 PDF downloads. Some of these are 1 or 2 page reproductions of data sheets. This site may be very useful for those who have already short-listed one of their product lines, but it is not going to help anyone making an initial survey of what is available before short-listing.
http://www.fi.uib.no/~bruce/eda.htm
For anyone starting out looking for an ECAD or EDA system or, for that matter, any related subject, this page is more than useful. It is simply a list of manufacturers and their trade marks, with hyperlinks. It is very complete with over 40 types of software available, world-wide. Although the page was last up-dated about 1 year ago, I fear some of the hyperlinks may already have been somewhat out-of-date before then. Otherwise, I have no comments to make.
This is another design bureau site, but sensibly downloading in under 8 s. It is clean and attractive (Plate 1) and the Home Page has everything except an address or even the area where the company operates. The sidebar menu is simple and explicit and the site navigation is easy. There is a form to obtain a quotation and this is also a useful checklist of what is required to engage a design bureau. Even more important, the equipment and software used is carefully enumerated on a different page. There is also a wealth of useful information on the page Design Guidelines. This is the kind of site that inspires confidence in a prospective client – except, where the devil are they? They are actually in Lima, NY, near Rochester, but you have to click on Contact Us to find out.
This is a colourful, typically FrontPage style of design, which is only moderately heavy, downloading in 25 s on my system. As with the last site, you have to really look to find where the company is, but I have otherwise little to say. Altium is the new moniker of what was Protel, incorporating their acquisitions such as P-CAD and Accel. To find out what the different products can do, you are linked to new Web sites, specific to each one. Each of these has its own style, in general similar to that of the Altium site, and sufficient information is available to give one a good idea of what it is all about. Free demonstration versions are available, although some of them would make a more-than-formidable download, even on a broadband system. As some of the product lines are competitive, rather than complementary to each other, I think the Altium site would have been improved with a comparison table of the salient points.
Please allow me to declare an interest here. I have used Vutrax for nearly two decades and actually have a mirror site for it, on my own Web site, although I no longer have any commercial interest in the system. I believe that it is possibly one of the most evolved and complete of the low-to- medium cost systems for any Windows or Linux PC platform. The Home Page downloads rapidly (18 s) but is a horror to look at! It is a disparate, 1996-style, three-frame system with the main frame having a virulent green background, behind too much script for a Home Page. It has an interesting graphics that is an example of good and useful animation: it takes you through the basic steps: Analogue Schematic; Rats Nest; Partly Routed; Finished Routing; 3-D Visualisation; Finished PCB. Positive points of the Home Page include a full address and meta description and keywords, unfortunately with competitive names. Navigation is easy from the main menu in the top frame and sub-menus for each item in the left frame. There is a lot of good information on this Web site, not all of it directly relevant to Vutrax. A free, fully functional, system can be downloaded (only about 10 Mb in 9 highly compressed files), limited to 256 component connections, but this can be upgraded to several different or even customised systems simply from a very small configuration file that can be e-mailed to you. By the time this appears in print, a new version would have been launched, so there may be minor variations of detail.
Brian EllisCyprusb_ellis@protonique.com