Category: Web, Tech & Design

Mozilla Releases Firefox 2

Version 2.0 of Firefox, my favourite browser, which I totally recommend by the way, is finally out.

I tested a couple of the beta versions in the past and liked what I saw; I can’t wait to get home and install the final version on my laptop.

This new version brings with it a number of new features, the ones I’m most excited about being the following:

– Resuming your browsing session: The Session Restore feature restores windows, tabs, text typed in forms, and in-progress downloads from the last user session. I’ve been waiting for this feature to be added to Firefox for some time now, and when I saw it in the beta, it put a smile on my face.

– Enhanced search capabilities: Search term suggestions will now appear as users type in the integrated search box when using the Google, Yahoo! or Answers.com search engines. It’ll also be easier to manage the list of search engines you can use from that box.

– Improved tabbed browsing: By default, Firefox will open links in new tabs instead of new windows, and each tab will now have a close tab button. Power users who open more tabs than can fit in a single window will see arrows on the left and right side of the tab strip that let them scroll back and forth between their tabs. The History menu will keep a list of recently closed tabs, and a shortcut lets users quickly re-open an accidentally closed tab.
These need a bit of getting used to at first, but they’re really good and useful once you get the hang of it.

– Inline spell checking: A new built-in spell checker enables users to quickly check the spelling of text entered into Web forms. Should come in handy every once in a while.

– Built-in phishing protection: Phishing Protection warns users when they encounter suspected Web forgeries, and offers to return the user to their home page. Should be a good feature for people who aren’t careful enough.

– JavaScript 1.7: JavaScript is hot again with AJAX and all, so Firefox gets an upgrade introducing several new features such as generators, iterators, array comprehensions, let expressions, and destructuring assignments.

There’s a bunch of other interesting features that come with this version that you can find in the release notes.

Here’s where you got to go to download Firefox 2.

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 Released

Microsoft have finally released the new version of their still market-dominant browser: Internet Explorer 7.

It’s the first new version of the Web browser since Internet Explorer 6 launched in 2001 with the Windows XP operating system.

Back then Microsoft basically had no competition left in the browser market and so it announced it wouldn’t be releasing any more standalone versions of Internet Explorer, and that the next version would only ship with their next OS, which we know now by the name of Windows Vista.

But since then Firefox surfaced as a strong competitor which has been grabbing up market share, and Microsoft were forced to give their browser an update if they wanted to stop the migration and loss of users.
And so Internet Explorer 7 came to see the light of day.

I haven’t tested this version or any of its betas or release candidates yet, even though I have seen it on some of my friends’ machines, anyway I’m not really optimistic that Microsoft will win me back as a user, but still I will give it a try to see what they’ve done with it. According to what I’ve read and heard, there are a number of good things that were done with it.

I’ll quote the official IE Blog with a little paragraph that sort of sums it all up:

“We listened carefully to feedback from many sources (including this blog) and worked hard to deliver a safer browser that makes everyday tasks easier. When I first posted publicly about IE7, I wrote that we would go further to defend users from phishing and malicious software. The Phishing Filter and the architectural work in IE7 around networking and ActiveX opt-in will help keep users more secure. IE7 also delivers a much easier browsing experience with features like tabbed browsing (especially with QuickTabs), shrink-to-fit printing, an easily customizable search box, and a new design that leaves more screen real estate for the web site you

Yahoo Time Capsule

Yahoo and Yahoo Telemundo are creating a digitized time capsule that will beam onto an ancient pyramid in Mexico and into space.

Yahoo began accepting submissions of photos, video, sounds files, video and text yesterday and said in a prepared statement that the purpose was to join the “past and present with the universe’s potential future by sharing today’s culture on Earth with other life that may exist light years away.”
The time capsule is meant to document the good and bad of life around the world in 2006.

Yahoo said it expects the time capsule to be the largest ever created. The company plans to project the contents onto the 216-foot Pyramid of the Sun, in what is known as the City of the Gods, at Teotihuacan, near Mexico City and beam it into space with digital laser light Oct. 25-27. The event will be Web cast live. After that, Yahoo will digitally archive and seal the capsule for opening on the company’s 25th anniversary in 2020.

Yahoo worked with artist Jonathan Harris on the time capsule.

Now is that cool or what?

[More: Yahoo Time Capsule]
[Source: InformationWeek]

Google Code Search

Google is trying out a new search service designed to make it easier for computer programmers to find bits of code online.

Google Code Search will make it easier for software developers to find programming code directly, without having to trawl through groups, forums, and discussions to find it.

The search engine is aimed at both professional programmers and students or IT enthusiasts who want to improve their coding and software development.

The search also allows programmers to look for specific coding terms, restrict the search to certain computer languages, or look for bits of code that fall under a specified licensing agreement.

I think this is really cool. I personally use Google a lot to find bits of code in certain programming languages as examples to learn from, and this should make it a lot easier and effective.
I think a lot of developers will be happy with this new tool; Another great product idea by Google.

[Source: Pocket-lint]

How To Make Money With Your Blog

After a while of blogging, many bloggers start thinking about what opportunities they have to make money with their blogs.

Many people draw a very rosy picture of it and say that there is a lot of money to be made off a blog, but in the end of the day, that’s not fully true. How much any person can make from his blog depends on the blog, the topics he discusses, how many visitors he gets daily, how much effort he puts into it, how well he sets up his money-making options and a bunch of other things.

In this post, what I’ll be trying to do is to list the most popular money-making opportunities for bloggers and what it takes to make money out of them.

Continue reading How To Make Money With Your Blog

Microsoft & Peter Jackson in Xbox Deal

I read about this a couple of days ago and have been wanting to write about it ever since.

Microsoft has sealed a deal with director Peter Jackson, of “Lord of the Rings” and “King Kong” fame, that calls for him to create two new interactive entertainment series for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live.

Jackson will be working with longtime collaborator and screenwriter Fran Walsh and Microsoft Game Studios to develop these series.

The first series will be a collaborative effort with Bungie Studios to co-create the next chapter in the “Halo” universe (Halo 3). The second series will be an entirely original property aimed at bringing new audiences into gaming. In addition, Microsoft Game Studios will partner with Jackson and Walsh to establish Wingnut Interactive, a studio focused on developing interactive entertainment.

This is really good and exciting news; I think Peter Jackson will bring fresh blood, ideas and visions to the gaming industry, which should result in some really cool projects.

As he also said, video games on today’s gaming consoles are but another medium where storytellers can bring their stories to life, and games are becoming more and more like movies everyday, in fact they are more or less interactive movies.

I think we’ll see more and more movie directors coming into the gaming market and leveraging the abilities of game consoles to tell more stories.

I personally can’t wait to see the results of Peter Jackson’s collaboration with Microsoft. If he brings even a bit of his cinema making wizardry to the Xbox, it should be worth seeing and playing.

[More: CRM News, Playfuls]

Triple-Standard DVD

Some promising news from the DVD standards front…

The electronics industry is in a fine mess, with two blue-laser disc standards (Blu-ray and HD-DVD) competing to succeed ordinary red-laser DVDs.

However, two top Warner engineers, Alan Bell and Lewis Ostrover, have been working on a cheaper and more elegant solution.

Blu-ray uses a 405-nanometre wavelength laser to read data from tracks 0.1-millimetres-deep on the top surface of a disc. HD-DVD, on the other hand, uses the same wavelength to read recordings at a depth of 0.6 mm.

Warner