Google Chrome Tab Stacking

I’m not really sure when Google introduced the tab stacking feature in the Google Chrome browser, only that it is available at least in the Windows Chrome Canary builds right now. Tab stacking basically allows you to stack tabs on top of each other to save screen estate when the tab count reaches a level where the browser would originally resort to scrolling.

If I’m not mistaken, it was Opera that introduced tab stacks in version 11 before any other browser. I personally think that all major browsers will eventually introduce a tab stacking feature eventually as it offers a great way of saving screen estate in the tab bar if multiple pages on the same domain name are open in the Internet browser.

Back to Google Chrome and the browser’s tab stacking implementation. The feature is currently only available via the chrome://flags list of experimental features. Just load chrome://flags/ in the browser’s address bar, hit F3 and enter stacked tabs in the on-page search form to find the parameter immediately on the page.

It reads: Stacked Tabs. Tabs never shrink, instead they stack on top of each other when there is not enough space.

Click on the Enable link and restart the browser to enable tab stacking in Google Chrome. If you have tried Opera’s tab stacking functionality before, you will notice that Chrome’s differs in core aspects.

In Opera, you simply drag and drop tabs on each other to create a stack. This stack is then visualized with an arrow on the right side of the stack that is pointing away from it. A click on the arrow or a double-click on the active tab displays all tabs of that stack in the tabbar.

In Google Chrome, the tab stacking feature is automatic. When there is not enough room, pages are stacked on top of each other. The method is confusing at first, as the original tab and the newly opened tab are displayed next to each other first, and only added to the stack once you click on an unrelated tab.

Another difference is that you can’t drag and drop tabs on top of each other in Chrome.

To paraphrase: Opera supports manual tab stacking while Google Chrome only the automatic creation of tab stacks. It needs to be noted at this point that the Chrome implementation is experimental right now, and that the Chrome devs may make changes to the feature in the future.

Office 15 with PDF Support

Microsoft is not only working on a new version of its Windows operating system, but also on Office 15, the next installment of the popular Office suite of programs. Back in January of 2012, the Office team reached an important development milestone, releasing a technical preview version of Office 15 to a select group of customers, and the promise that a public beta will be released in the summer of 2012. The final version of Office 15 is expected to be released in the beginning of 2013.

Office 15 will be available as a PC productivity suite, but also as Office 365 as a (paid) online service,  with limited functionality as Office Web Apps on SkyDrive or SharePoint, on Windows 8 ARM systems natively, and as an Office server version.

Office 15 may not be the official name of the new Office version when it is released.  If the past is anything to go by, the new Office suite will be named Office 2013 if released in that year, or Office 2012 if Microsoft manages to release the product this year.

Paul Thurott has posted some of his findings in regards to the new Office installment, and while some do not really sound that exciting, others could really improve things further.

Probably one of the biggest addition is pdf support in Word. This basically means that pdf documents can be loaded into Word to be read in the program. This feature should not be as controversial as the native Flash support for Microsoft’s upcoming browser Internet Explorer 10. It is too early though to comment on the rendering quality and loading time of pdf documents in Microsoft Word.

Microsoft Office 15 will also support the Open Document Format ODF 1.2 standard that was approved back in October of 2011.

According to Paul, light changes are coming to other Office products as well. PowerPoint will for instance default to the 16:9 format with options to fall back to 4:3, and offer better multi-monitor support, while Outlook will come with a new Peeks feature to quickly view information without leaving the current view, better Hotmail email integration and integration of the Social Connector plugin for Outlook 2010.

Will it be enough to get Office 2010 users to upgrade to Office 15 when it comes out? Paul does not think so, as there are not enough changes to justify it just yet. Office 2003 or 2007 users on the other hand may benefit from the upgrade.

Test if your system is infected with Flamer, The latest threat on the Internet

You have probably already heard about Flamer, Flame or Flamy, as some antivirus companies call the malware. Flamer was only recently discovered, despite indicators that it has been spread on targeted systems at least since 2010. This alone highlights the danger of the tool, but that is not the only reason why some security companies call it the most sophisticated threat encountered on the Internet up to day.

Even if some experts disagree, it is definitely one of the most complex ones. If you compare the size of Flamer with Stuxnet, a related threat, you will notice that all of Flamer’s modules have a size of about 20 Megabytes, while Stuxnet, which tool experts months to analyze, had only 500K of code. Not all of the 20 Megabytes are malware code on the other hand.

Kaspersky’s Questions and Answers offers information about Flame, including how the malware spreads and infects computer systems. According to Kaspersky, Flame has two modules for infecting systems via USB sticks, but also the ability to replicate through local networks.

Flame has also only been identified on PC systems in several middle-eastern states including Iran, Israel, Palestine, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. While it does not mean that PC systems in other countries are safe, it is highly probably that the malware has been designed for specific targets in the geographic region.

BitDefender has create a removal tool for the trojan that is detecting and removing Trojan.Flamer.A/B (that is how Bitdefender calls the malware). All you need to do is download the 32-bit or 64-bit version of the program from the BitDefender website, and run it afterwards on your system.

Just click the start scan button and wait for the scan to finish. The program is portable, and seems to automatically switch the interface language based on computer settings (excuse the German in the screenshot). It is definitely a good idea to run the tool once to make sure your computer is not infected by the malware. While unlikely, it is better to be safe than sorry. This is especially true if you are living in the middle eastern region.