Firefox 3.5.6 and Firefox 3.0.16

Mozilla had noted previously that it would deliver updates to its fully supported versions of the open source browser by the end of this year, and it managed to live up to its promise. Today, December 15th, Firefox 3.5.6 and Firefox 3.0.16 became available for download. Mozilla has yet to officially announce the availability of the two downloads, however, the bits are currently live and up for grabs. Both Firefox 3.5.6 and Firefox 3.0.16 are bound to serve users well while they’re waiting for the next iteration of the open source browser, version 3.6, codenamed Namoroka.

Because the downloads are so fresh, Mozilla hasn’t had a chance to publish the information adjacent to Firefox 3.5.6 and Firefox 3.0.16. However, users need to know that both v.3.5.6 and v.3.0.16 are designed as stability and security updates, set up to integrate with previous releases of Firefox.

3.0.16 is the first refresh for Firefox 3.0 since the release of 3.0.15 at the end of October 2009. Concomitantly with the availability of Firefox 3.0.15, Mozilla also offered customers Firefox 3.5.4, just a week after Windows 7 was released to the public. However, in the first half of November, Firefox 3.5.5 was served to users in an attempt to resolve issues introduced by Firefox 3.5.4. With the latest updates, Mozilla is taking Firefox up to versions 3.5.6 and 3.0.16. Still, at the same time, all is quiet on the Firefox 3.6 front.

Mozilla was initially planning to offer both the Release Candidate (RC) build and the RTM (Release To Manufacturing) development milestone to users by the end of December 2009. It’s already December 15th, and Firefox 3.6 RC is nowhere in sight, with the company cooking yet another Beta release, the fifth one, but having delivered no specific availability deadline.

“We're down to 26 code-related blockers for mozilla1.9.2/firefox3.6, the lion's share of which are in JavaScript. I'd like to propose that we lift the restriction on mozilla-central, returning us to a state where any reviewed patch can be landed, to allow many excellent pieces of technology (out-of-process plugins, Direct 2D, Web GL, Tab Matches in Awesomebar) to start landing and baking for a future release,” Mike Beltzner, director of Firefox at Mozilla, explained on December 8th. “If we do this, our sheriffs will need to be EXTRA vigilant in watching for test and build failures, and quite aggressive about backing out anything that's causing problems.”

source: www.softpedia.com

Windows 8 Coming into Focus in 2010

Windows 7 was released to manufacturing on July 22nd, 2009, along with Windows Server 2008 R2, and both platforms made it to customers by October 22nd, 2009, with the client flavor of the OS being the last to reach the general availability stage. Undoubtedly, for the latest iterations of the client and server operating systems, the Redmond company will produce the first service pack come next year. There might even be a third service pack for Windows Vista, although Microsoft is keeping all details under a hermetically shut lid. But one thing is certain, as 2010 rolls in, Microsoft will shift its focus to Windows 8, the next generation of Windows.

Users are bound not to come across publicly shared details on Windows 8 from Microsoft for quite some time. Going out on a limb, I would say that the software giant will start unveiling the first Win8 information through official channels no sooner than the end of 2010, or even in 2011. After all, Jon DeVaan, senior vice president, Windows Core Operating System Division, and Steven Sinofsky, president, Windows and Windows Live Division, kicked off the Windows 7 engineering conversation with the public in August 2008, a year and a half after Vista’s GA in January 2007.

Make no mistake about it, Sinofsky continues to helm the Windows project, and Windows 8 is bound to follow in the footsteps of its predecessor, Windows 7. Certainly, Sinofsky will not want to change what proved to be a winning strategy, considering the indications of Windows 7’s early commercial success, with strong sales, outpacing Vista’s by more than double.

In some way, the software giant is already offering Windows 8 tidbits to the public, albeit, all details available are insufficient to contour the company’s plans and strategy for the next iteration of Windows. As Windows 7’s successor starts coming into focus, Microsoft is looking for additional people to join the planning and development efforts behind the Windows project. In this regard, the company has published a variety of Windows 8 related job posts, which have been “harvested” by a variety of Microsoft watchers, including MSFTKitchen.

Microsoft has the Windows 8 job for you

One of the most interesting Windows 8 roles Microsoft is looking to fill is that of Sr. Manager, Partner Skills Development – Launch Lead, in the Worldwide Partner Group (WPG), Small Medium Solutions and Partners (SMS&P) Division for Microsoft Business.

“Do you want to help ready the entire partner ecosystem on all the new Microsoft products and solutions? The Partner Skills Development Team is looking for a senior thought leader and skilled project/product manager to ensure the health of the partner ecosystem through the strategic evolution skills development framework (and its execution) for upcoming Microsoft product launches. For example, in Fy10, the focus will be on Windows Server R2, SQL Server R2, and Wave 14 (Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, and Exchange 2010) and, as we head into Fy11, the focus will quickly switch to Windows 8. In this role you will lead the execution of partner skills development BOMs – by partner type for the entire partner ecosystem – on a WW basis. This role with interact with and influence individuals from across Microsoft, including individuals within the Worldwide Partner Group, Microsoft Learning, SMSGR, the product groups (BGs), Operations, and partner segment teams with SMSG,” Microsoft reveals.

Then there’s the Software Engineering: Program Management job for the Windows Division.
“Are you ready to get closer to Microsoft’s best customers and biggest partners while staying in a highly technical role? The new Ecosystem Fundamentals team in Windows is hiring a Senior PM to work closely with OEMs driving continued increases in performance and reliability while providing tools, testing, training and telemetry. The successful candidate for this critical role will ride the Windows 7 wave of success to enabling continued improvements into the ecosystem. This work includes Windows 8 planning, OEM tool and kit ownership, performance testing and analysis focused on improving the hardware/software ecosystem while working closely with OEMs, ODMs, ISVs, and IHVs in order to strengthen Windows partnerships. Now is the time to move into a great role centered in the Windows group and focused on customer satisfaction improvements based on solid engineering,” according to the company.

“The Windows Fundamentals Reliability, Security and Privacy (ReSP) team will improve the quality of Windows 8 by driving the trustworthy computing pillars of reliability, security and privacy in the Windows operating system. We analyze reliability data from hundreds of millions of machines, making data-driven decisions to improve the ecosystem-meaning Windows itself, other Microsoft products, and our partners such as the OEMs, ODMs, chip makers, ISVs and IHVs. We will extend this to measuring the security and privacy of the ecosystem as well. We believe Windows will transparently recover from failures and will drive scenarios to enable this. We broadly own implementing the SDL process inside Windows, and will extend the SDL concepts to reliability, and possibly other Fundamentals. We have strong technology ownership in support of this mission, including advanced detection, control and reporting components such as the client-side portions of Windows Error Reporting (WER), Software Quality Metrics (SQM), Reliability Analysis Component (RAC), and prevention and recovery technologies such as the WinRE, restart manager, fault-tolerant heap, process reflection, RADAR leak detection, and network hang recovery. We will continue to build on our world-class auto-analysis and expert debugging infrastructure which processes millions of user and kernel mode failures, as well as expanding on tools and test infrastructures such as Longhaul testing, and a Fuzz testing lab infrastructure and expertise for testing protocols across Windows,” Microsoft notes in a job post for the position of Software Engineering: Test in the Windows Division.

A job in Software Engineering: Development for Server & Tools Business deals with Windows 8 Server: “Windows Server is the top-selling server operating system and is growing share in a growing market. Central to the success of Windows Server is the experience of IT Professionals managing Windows Server. For our next release, we are taking that experience to the next level by helping to make IT Professionals more effective and more productive by shipping a product they will love to use.We work closely with UX and a passionate PM & Test team to deliver world-beating user experiences for managing Windows Servers. For Windows 8 Server, we are planning, architecting and building a new UX framework around themes that are key to the success of the entire Server product line.”

“The Application Experience Bug Investigation Team, AEBit, is looking for passionate SDETs that want to make an impact on Windows 8. On the AEBit team you will get the unique opportunity to challenge and grow your debugging skills on issues that span the entire OS. You will have the opportunity to engage with software vendors, OEMs, as well as internal component teams. You will also be applying and enhancing your knowledge of system internals. As part of the AEBit team you will be responsible for driving and ensuring compatibility in Windows by engaging with component teams, root causing application bugs, and authoring mitigations. If you are a strong SDET looking for a challenge we would like to hear from you,” an excerpt from a Software Engineering: Test job with the Windows Division reads.

Microsoft is also looking to develop new IIS features for Windows 8. From the job post for a Program Management position with the Server & Tools Business: “IIS team is looking for an experienced PM to join our core platform team. Your role will span across driving key features into Windows 8 as well as owning several out-of-band modules, including web analytics that will bring business intelligence for the customers that host applications and contents on IIS. Your work will help differentiate IIS and Smooth Streaming from Apache and Flash. You should also be ready to work in a fast-paced environment and have a strong desire for quality, security, and performance. Your feature will be used by millions of customers.”

Of course, Windows 8 and Windows Live will continue to be joined at the hip, as Microsoft brings the Windows client closer to the Cloud. “The Windows Live Mail team is looking for a seasoned Lead Program Manager to drive our next generation Mail client, and manage five stellar PMs. Our client has over 40M users world-wide, and serves as a key component of our Windows Live 'light up Windows' strategy. Our current release is centered on hot new consumer features & better synergies with Hotmail & Windows 7, and our future releases will likely be tightly designed to work best with new Windows 8 platform technologies. We will also work closely with the Outlook team on ways to bring Windows Live to Outlook. Mail is part of the WL Desktop Communications team, which also includes Messenger. Our team values user-centered design, technical and engineering excellence, and attention to detail.”

“The TAG team provides the foundation services and infrastructure to support a unified test and dev workflow. This team’s charter includes – developing and running a unified test submission and execution system for Windows 8, Automating Test pass scheduling & execution, results analysis & automated triage, Windows code coverage services, Developing and running the eBVT quality gate, supporting WinSE’s Windows 7 sustained engineering test needs. This is an exciting time to join the Test Automation and Gates team and lead the next wave of foundation services and infrastructure to ensure delivery of a high quality product. With openings across the team, there’s sure to be the perfect opportunity suited to your specific passion and enthusiasm,” Microsoft mentions in a job for the Windows TAG team.

The Redmond company is additionally looking for a software engineer to influence and contribute to Windows 8 serviceability. “The WinSE UX test team needs a strong SDET to develop new test automation, write robust test plans, designing test cases, debug reported issues across Windows Shell and related UX, help establish sound test engineering processes, and influence and contribute to the serviceability of Windows 8. As an SDET on this team, you’ll design, implement, and execute various types of test automation, including functional, integration and release tests. You will also have several opportunities to write test tools, and work on security bugs, and will be interacting with PM and Dev counterparts in a dev/test/pm trio, and various partner teams. In this team, you will have an opportunity to ship important updates for Windows to solve critical reliability, performance and security issues via the Windows Update mechanism. This position requires strong communication and collaboration skills, and a drive for results. Overall, this position is best suited for a strong SDET looking for an opportunity to showcase your skills and innovate.”

Windows 8 in the making

There’s one aspect that is already set in stone, so to speak, when it comes down to Windows 8, one that not even Microsoft can, or will dispute, for that matter. Windows 8 Server will be a major release of the Windows Server operating system, as opposed to Windows 7 Server, which ended up as a Release 2, namely Windows Server 2008 R2. Microsoft has argued that Windows 7 is indeed a major version of the Windows client, despite having Vista at its foundation, and 6.1 versioning specific of the evolutionary, rather than revolutionary development model chosen.

The intimate connection between Windows client and server releases, following Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 RTM/SP1, continued with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, and is bound to survive with the building of Windows 8 and Windows 8 Server. But, in this context, it remains to be seen whether Windows 8 Server will drag Windows 8 along with it, and make it a new, undisputable, major version of the client, one that Microsoft won’t have to defend.

 

source: www.softpedia.com

Silverlight 4 beta now available

Microsoft have just announced Silverlight 4 beta today at PDC09, that is available for download today. Silverlight 4 promises to enhance the overall user experience, improving speed, performance and rendering for browsers.

Silverlight 4 was demonstrated today with some practical applications that are able to take pictures and modify the image in real-time, using a web-based service. The service lets you take a picture of yourself and modify it in real-time to adjust your appearance, and even change the colour of your shirt.

Microsoft released some statistics on Silverlight 3, being installed on 33% of all computers and mobile phones during summer 2009.

Silverlight 3 is now installed on approximately 45% of all computers and mobile devices around the world today.

Silverlight was also demonstrated with Microsoft's own search engine, Bing, where it was able to split the image into a puzzle and scatter the image around. This application was also used with a YouTube video, being able to scatter the page and still being able to play the video in real-time.

A new desktop Facebook application using Silverlight was demonstrated using a drag and drop feature for images, including folder groups. The application demonstrated smooth scrolling through images and comments without any interruption.

Silverlight also showed off a video on-demand video third-party video application that allows the user to rewind, fast-forward and even pause live or recorded TV, all using your browser. Microsoft also showed off a demo of a football game that allowed multiple camera angles, even available for a live broadcast

 

source: www.neowin.net

Windows Mobile 7 UI confirmed by Microsoft?

Microsoft confirmed today that the company will unveil its plans for Windows Mobile 7 at the MIX 2010 conference in March next year.
Microsoft Office Vice President Kurt Delbene confirmed the news at the end of day two at the Professional Developers Conference here in Los Angeles. Little is known about Windows Mobile 7 except that it has been plagued with delays.

Screenshots of the rumoured interface leaked in March this year and Microsoft officials refused to confirm or deny. Interestingly, Microsoft has posted a shot of a Windows Mobile interface on its Office 2010 beta site that looks identical to the rumoured Windows Mobile 7 shots. Is this Windows Mobile 7, something in-between or just concept?

Office 2010 Mobile site:

Previous leaked shots:

 

source: www.neowin.net

Microsoft demos Internet Explorer 9

Microsoft today demonstrated an early, three week old, build of Internet Explorer 9 at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference 2009.

IE 9 will take advantage of the power of the GPU for all page rendering and developers can exploit this using CSS, DHTML and javascript. In just three weeks Microsoft believes performance has increased for IE9 resulting in smoother rendering and improved performance. Interoperability and standards support is increasing and features such as rounded corner CSS support will be built in. A new JS engine will also be built into Internet Explorer 9.

Microsoft offered no time lines or indications as to when a build of Internet Explorer 9 will be available publicly. Steven Sinofsky, President, Windows and Windows Live Division, mentioned that Microsoft had only begun working on Internet Explorer 9 three weeks ago, according to our sources the latest internal build is labelled 7658.0.091116-1745.

 

source: www.neowin.net

Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Prerelease and AIR 2.0 Beta Now Available

Adobe is making a big push today with new versions of its popular media platforms Adobe Flash and Adobe AIR. With Flash Player 10.1 prerelease (a cross between a beta and a release candidate), Adobe actually brings a lot more features than the small .1 update in the version number would have you believe, including support for multi-touch and other media capabilities. More exciting though is the new AIR 2.0 beta, a hefty release with a bunch of new features and updates.

The biggest new feature in Adobe Flash Player 10.1 pre-release is multi-touch and gesture support. Obviously, you need a device with a touch screen, but the technology is becoming increasingly popular, especially in mobile devices and also in desktops and laptops, now that Windows 7 has shipped with full multi-touch support. Moreover, the runtime can take advantage of the hardware decoding capabilities, available in most of today's devices, to render H.264 encoded videos. Adobe says this saves energy, improving battery life, and also uses up less resources.

The latest Flash Player is the first step towards realizing the goals of the Open Screen Project, with which Adobe aims to enable developers create a single app that would work on any device, mobile or desktop, without the need to be specially designed for smaller screens and the likes. At this point, the 10.1 release isn't available for smartphones, but it should come for Palm's WebOS by the end of the year and for Android devices in early 2010.

Adobe has big plans for AIR, its multi-platform runtime, which allows developers to build just one app for all of the major desktop platforms Windows, Mac, and Linux. With AIR 2.0 the company has introduced some handy features, both on the system level but also with the platform itself. The latest update comes with significantly improved memory management, AIR being known to be a resource hog, something that should make AIR apps a lot more appealing. The platform also includes all of the features and updates of the Flash Player 10.1, which is build-in.

 

source: www.softpedia.com

Windows 7 vs. Windows Vista - 234% More Sold Boxed Copies

Windows 7’s overall superiority to Windows Vista has translated into the latest iteration of the Windows client, leaving its predecessor in the dirt in terms of commercial success as well. Windows 7 RTM has been embraced by over three times more customers compared to Vista RTM in the first week on the market alone. Market research company, The NPD Group, indicated that initial sales of the boxed, retail copies of Windows 7 dwarfed those of Vista’s. In the first few days on the U.S. market, Microsoft sold 234% more boxed copies than Vista, noted The NPD Group.

“Microsoft’s program of early low-cost pre-sales, high visibility marketing, and aggressive deals helped make the Windows 7 software launch successful,” revealed Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD. “In a slow environment for packaged software Windows 7 brought a large number of customers into the software aisles.”

Microsoft executives, including Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer, had revealed during visits in Taipei and Japan that Windows 7 sales were strong. However, Microsoft has so far failed to confirm the data provided by The NPD Group. At the same time, the Redmond company has yet to make public any official sales figures associated with Windows 7.

Still, although it outsold Vista by 234%, Windows 7 delivered a smaller boost in actual revenue. Statistics provided through the NPD’s weekly tracking service, reveal that actual Windows 7 dollar sales were only 82% higher than Vista. This can be explained through not only the consistent discounts on pre-sales that Microsoft offered, but also through less sales of the Ultimate flavor of Windows 7, as Microsoft worked to focus consumers more on the Home Premium and Professional editions.

And, as was expected, the launch of Windows 7 also contributed to pushing sales of Windows PCs, although to a lesser degree than Vista did starting with the end of January 2007. Sales of Windows 7 computers were 6% less than those of Vista machines, in a maker that reveals an overall 49% year-over-year units growth, and 95% over the week prior to Windows 7’s general availability on October 22nd, 2009.

“A combination of factors impacted Windows 7 PC sales at the outset, but the trajectory of overall PC sales is very strong leading into the holiday season,” added Baker. “Vista had a slight advantage at launch, as January traditionally has a bigger sales footprint than October. The other hurdle Windows 7 faced was sales of PCs with older operating systems (XP and Vista) were high, making up 20 percent of sales during the Windows 7 launch, compared to just 6 percent of older operating sales during Vista’s launch week."

 

source: www.softpedia.com

Firefox 3.5.5

Google is not the only browser maker releasing a minor update for its browser this week. Mozilla, which has recently refreshed both versions 3.5 and 3.0 is currently pushing an update to v3.5.4, which was offered at the end of the past month. Users of the latest stable version of Mozilla’s open source browser now have available for download Firefox 3.5.5. Version 3.0 of the browser was not updated this time around, although Mozilla traditionally offers 3.5.x and 3.0.x refreshes in tandem. The exception was generated by the introduction of v3.5.4 last week.

On October 27th, Mozilla made  Firefox 3.5.4 and Firefox 3.0.15 available and also stability and security updates for their respective versions. However, it appears that insufficient testing was carried out on 3.5.4. This made necessary the delivery of Firefox 3.5.5 at a little over a week, since the previous release of the open source browser hit the download tubes.

“As part of Mozilla's ongoing stability and security update process, Firefox 3.5.5 is now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux as a free download. We strongly recommend that all Firefox users upgrade to this latest release. If you already have Firefox 3.5, you will receive an automated update notification within 24 to 48 hours. This update can also be applied manually by selecting "Check for Updates..." from the Help menu,” explained Samuel Sidler, Quality Assurance engineer at Mozilla.

According to Mozilla, stability issues have been identified following the availability of Firefox 3.5.4. The company moved fast and had all fixes in place by Saturday of the past week, and moved to ship Firefox 3.5.4 on November 5th. Moving forward, Mozilla is planning to offer the next stability and security updates for supported versions of Firefox in mid-December 2009. Firefox 3.0.16 and Firefox 3.5.6 will be offered to customers the coming month.

 

source: www.softpedia.com

Mandriva Linux 2010 Officially Released

After Canonical showed off their latest operating system, Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala), it is now time for another Linux mammoth to take the spotlight. In other words, Mandriva Linux 2010.0 was just released a few minutes ago, after two Alpha versions, one Beta and two Release Candidates, totaling more than four months of hard work. With this article, we are proud to present the new features that are included in the new Mandriva Linux release. Don't forget that Mandriva 2010.0 can be downloaded for free either as a Live KDE and GNOME CDs or a 100% Free DVD/Dual CD/Mini CD, for both i586 and x86_64 architectures (see download links at the end of the article).

Under the hood of Mandriva Linux 2010.0:

· Linux kernel 2.6.31;
· GNOME 2.28.0 desktop environment;
· KDE 4.3.2 desktop environment;
· EXT4 filesystem;
· X.Org 7.5;
· X.Org server 1.6.5;
· Moblin support;
· New artwork.

The Mandriva Linux 2010.0 feature tour:

· Improved boot performance - through various tweaks and hacks, the boot performance has been greatly improved since Mandriva 2009 Spring. The suspend, resume, hibernate and shutdown functions are also a lot faster;
· Amazing new boot splash - powered by Plymouth, the new boot splash looks much better than in previous releases of Mandriva Linux;
· Better installer - the hard drive partitioning step in the Mandriva Installer has been redesigned to be more user friendly;
· 4 new themes - Mandriva 2010 comes with four themes, one for each edition (Free, One, Powerpack and Flash). The themes can also be used independently, by installing the "mandriva-theme-< flavour_name >" packages;
· 10 new, beautiful wallpapers - both KDE and GNOME desktops include many new and interesting wallpapers from various photographers around the world. By default, the wallpapers are designed to change depending on the hour of the day;
· Landscape screensaver - a new screensaver offers a slideshow of various beautiful landscapes from around the world;
· The KDE 4.3.2 desktop environment - as the default desktop, KDE 4.3 comes with the beautiful Air theme, Plasma enhancements, file previews and video thumbnails in Dolphin, new effects, new Plasma widgets, Nepomuk integration, KDE 3 data migration support, Amarok 2.2, KMess 2.0.0 instant messenger for MSN Live, KOffice 2.0.82 and Digikam 1.0;

· The GNOME 2.28.0 desktop environment - available in the GNOME One Live CD, it offers better Webcam and Bluetooth support, an improved Time Tracker panel applet, the Empathy instant messenger, the Epiphany web browser, the Evince document viewer (with support to save and edit annotations), the Pitivi video editor, improved Totem (with DVD navigation and playback resume support), better GNOME Power Management that supports multiple batteries on laptops and hard disk spindown, Snowy sync support for Tomboy, and many more;
· Moblin support - Mandriva Linux 2010 is the first Linux-based operating system to include a full Moblin environment. The "task-moblin" package needs to be installed. After that, choose "Moblin" from the session list in the connection manager;
· Sugar Desktop support - like Moblin, the Sugar desktop is also present in Mandriva Linux 2010. By installing the "task-sugar" package, the Sugar desktop environment will be available in the session list, on the login screen;
· Better support for Intel graphics cards - thanks to the new UXA acceleration method and DRI2, the new driver for Intel graphics cards improves the overall performance/stability (including suspend and resume) and reduces display flickering during boot;
· Support for modern netbooks - the support for hardware components found in latest netbooks on the market, such as Asus Eee PC models, the Acer Aspire One or the MSI Wind, has been greatly improved;
· Mozilla Firefox 3.5 - as the default web browser, Firefox 3.5 offers an improved performance, support for HTML5 < audio > and < video > tags, support for Ogg Theora videos, support for Ogg Vorbis audio streams, private browsing mode, location sharing and new themes;
· OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 - everything is improved in this release, from the Microsoft Office 2007 filters, the screen appearance, the file locking, the Comments, the Calc performance, KDE4 and the grammar checker integration;
· VirtualBox 3 - the latest version of the powerful and free virtualization software from Sun Microsystems offers Guest SMP for no more than 32 virtual CPUs, support for playing Direct3D 8 and 9 games on Windows guest machines, support for OpenGL 2.0 for Linux, Solaris and Windows guests;
· Elisa Media Center - with a brand-new interface, this project is now known as Moovida;
· Wine 1.1.32 - with improved support for DirectX 10, OpenAL, HTML, JavaScript, Gecko integration and overall performance improvements;
· Phoronix Test Suite - the famous system benchmarking and testing suite is now included in Mandriva Linux 2010;
· USB Startup Disk Creator - just like Ubuntu, Mandriva also provides a little tool, called Mandriva Seed, to make a bootable USB stick that will help you install Mandriva Linux 2010 on netbooks or workstations without a CD-ROM device;
· New network monitor tool - replacing the old net_monitor, Network Monitor will provide users with a complex network traffic monitoring application.

 

source: www.softpedia.com

Firefox 3.6 Beta for Windows 7

The first fully-fledged Beta development milestone of the next generation of Mozilla’s open source browser is currently available for download. Testers and early adopters that have been waiting for Firefox 3.6, codenamed Namoroka, to evolve from Alpha stage are now free to access, download, install and start test driving the Beta 1 build. In addition to being the first Beta for Firefox 3.6, the development milestone offered by Mozilla is also the first example of a third-party browser to embrace Microsoft’s latest iteration of the Windows client. Just like the native Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 is designed to play nice with Aero Peek and Thumbnail Previews via the new Windows Aero Taskbar (Superbar) in Windows 7.

As you can see from the screenshot included below, Firefox 3.6 Beta users can now take advantage of the some of the same graphical user interface enhancements in Windows 7 as those running IE8. While Google and Opera are lagging behind when it comes down to tailoring their browsers to Windows 7, the same is not valid for Mozilla. And as Windows 7 became available for purchase on October 22, 2009, customers running the OS in combination with Firefox 3.6 will certainly enjoy the bells and whistles of the new Windows Aero GUI.
“The Mozilla community is proud to release Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 for download. This beta version of the next version of Firefox is built on the Gecko 1.9.2 web rendering engine, containing many improvements for web developers, Add-on developers, and users. The Mozilla community appreciates your feedback and assistance in testing this preview of the next version of Firefox. Your beta software will update itself periodically, and eventually will be updated to the final release itself,” revealed Mike Beltzner, Mozilla's director of Firefox.

Mozilla was initially planning to release Firefox 3.6 Beta ahead of October 22, but the amount of blockers pushed back the release. Beta 1 of Firefox 3.6 was also delayed this week by the necessity to respin after a last minute issue was discovered. Mozilla is looking to offer Firefox 3.6 Release Candidate (RC) in November and to release the final version of the browser also by the end of the next month, although all pointers indicate that the complete Firefox 3.6 could slip in December.
Mozilla enumerated some of the changes in Firefox 3.6 Beta:

“* This beta is available in more than 50 languages - get your local version.
* Users can now change their browser's appearance with a single click, with built in support for Personas.
* Firefox 3.6 will alert users about out of date plugins to keep them safe.
* Open, native video can now be displayed full screen, and supports poster frames.
* Support for the WOFF font format.
* Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness and startup time.
* Support for new CSS, DOM and HTML5 web technologies.”

source: www.softpedia.com

Ubuntu 9.10 Officially Released

After six alphas, a beta version and a release candidate, we are pleased to announce that Ubuntu 9.10 is here, today (October 29th), available on mirrors worldwide (see the download links at the end of the article). It is our greatest pleasure to introduce you guys to the highlights of this new release dubbed Karmic Koala. It all began on February 20th, 2009, when Mark Shuttleworth announced the Karmic Koala operating system, the next major release of the popular Ubuntu Linux operating system. Ubuntu 9.10 is also the eleventh release of the Ubuntu OS and will be supported for 18 months on both servers and desktops.

Under the hood of Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala):

· GNOME 2.28.1 desktop environment;
· Linux kernel 2.6.31.1;
· EXT4 filesystem;
· X.Org 7.4;
· X.Org server 1.6.4;
· Mesa 3D DRI 7.6;
· Compiz Fusion 0.8.4;
· Xsplash 0.8.4;
· New artwork.

The Ubuntu 9.10 feature tour:

· Improved boot times - Once again, the boot speed has been improved through various modern tweaks;
· New default filesystem - EXT4 is now the default file system for new installations;
· New boot loader - GRUB 2 replaces GRUB Legacy to support EXT4 file systems;
· New boot splash theme - Usplash has been revamped. It is slicker, better looking;
· New X-based splash screen - Called Xsplash, it offers a beautiful, animated splash image before and after the login screen;
· Home encryption - Yes! It's back and improved. It can be found on the installer's "Who are you?" step;
· Revamped login screen - GDM (GNOME Display Manager) has a new skin (in tone with the new Xsplash), and has been greatly improved with lots of features;
· 20 new wallpapers - from various photographers around the world;
· Cosmos wallpaper slideshow - includes 9 wallpapers with planets and stars that automatically change every 30 minutes;
· Revamped Human theme - the default theme has a new window border and it now includes the Humanity icon set;
· 5 extra GNOME themes and one extra icon theme - Kin, Impression, Night Impression, Hanso and Turrican GTK themes, and the Breathe icon theme are all available from the default software repositories;

· Easy access to numerous GNOME themes, icons, splash screens, login window themes and desktop wallpapers - By clicking the "Get more backgrounds online" and "Get more themes online" in the Appearance Preferences dialog, you will gain access to many wonderful themes for your GNOME desktop environment;
· XZ compression - available in the default software repositories, the brand-new XZ high-compression algorithm offers smaller archives compared with current alternatives. It replaces LZMA;
· Ubuntu One - enables users to store and share their files online. It can also synchronize their Tomboy notes and Evolution contacts;
· Ubuntu Software Center - It replaces Add/Remove in order to make application management more user friendly. It offers better descriptions and screenshots for many programs. Installing applications has never been easier;
· Better Computer Janitor - the system cleaner utility has a new interface and it's smarter when removing the cruft;
· Better 3D desktop effects - Still in charge of the beautiful Ubuntu desktop effects, Compiz Fusion features additional plugins for better desktop usability;
· New Disk Utility - a tool that offers hard drive monitoring, through S.M.A.R.T. It can also be used for disk formatting and partition management;
· Empathy Instant Messenger - It replaces the great and wonderful Pidgin multi-protocol messenger, with a Telepathy-based client for better GNOME integration;
· Improved document viewer - Evince protects your system from malicious PDF files;
· 25 language translations - including Spanish, French, Brazilian Portuguese, Italian, German, Swedish, Hungarian, English, Simplified Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Dutch, Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Catalan, Czech, Korean, Polish, Bulgarian, Slovenian, Greek, Traditional Chinese, Galician and Basque;
· New software development tool - Quickly is a new piece of software that helps developers easily build and share applications for Ubuntu;
· Better power management - HAL has been finally replaced by udev and other modern technologies for better handling of your laptop's battery, hotkeys and storage devices;
· Better support for Intel graphics cards - The Intel video driver features the new UXA acceleration method and KMS (Kernel Mode Setting), which improves overall performance (including suspend and resume) and reduces display flickering during boot;
· New input method framework - The new IBus tool replaces SCIM to allow greater flexibility. It is designed for the anthy, hangul, chewing, m17n, rawcode, pinyin and large tables input method engines.

Included applications:

Accessories:
· Calculator 5.28.1 (an arithmetic, scientific or financial calculator);
· Character Map 2.28.0 (permits to insert special characters into documents);
· Baobab 2.28.1 (disk usage analyzer);
· Gedit 2.28.0 (a small and lightweight text editor with intuitive spell-checker);
· Seahorse 2.28.1 (passwords and encryption keys manager);
· Gnome Screenshot 2.28.1 (saves images of your desktop or individual windows);
· Gnome Terminal 2.28.1 (allows you to use the command-line);
· Tomboy 1.0.0 (desktop note-taking application).

 

Graphics:

· F-Spot 0.6.1.3 (photo manager);
· The GIMP 2.6.7 (image editor);
· XSane 0.996 (scan, copy and fax images).
Internet tools:
· Empathy 2.28.1 (multi-protocol instant messenger);
· Evolution 2.28.1 (powerful e-mail client);
· Firefox 3.5.3 (the ever-popular web browser);
· Vinagre 2.28.1 (remote desktop viewer);
· Terminal Server Client 0.150 (rdesktop, vncviewer, wfica, xnest frontend);
· Transmission 1.75 (lightweight BitTorrent client);
· Ubuntu One 1.0.2 (online file storage).

Office tools:

· Dictionary 2.28.1 (a tool to search word definitions and spelling in an online dictionary);
· OpenOffice.org Suite 3.1.1 (spreadsheet, presentation, drawing and word processor).
Sound and Video:
· Brasero 2.28.1 (CD/DVD burning application);
· Totem 2.28.1 (DVD-Video, DivX, XviD, WMV, MOV player);
· Rhythmbox 0.12.5 (Last.fm, radio and music player/organizer);
· Sound Recorder 2.28.1 (audio recording tool).
System Administration Utilities:

· Computer Janitor 1.11 (a tool that removes obsolete files and cleans your system);
· Palimpsest Disk Utility 2.28.0 (disk drive management and configuration utility);
· Ubuntu Software Center 1.0.2 (software installer/updater tool).
...and, as usual, a lot of wonderful games for all ages!

 

source: www.softpedia.com

Download Firefox 3.5.4 and Firefox 3.0.15

End users will still have to exercise their patience when it comes down to downloading, installing and test driving the latest development milestone for the next iteration of the Mozilla open-source browser, but in the meantime they can keep busy with two updates offered for older versions. Firefox 3.5.4 and 3.0.15 are now available for download straight from Mozilla for all the platforms supported by the browser. At the time of this article Mozilla was yet to release Firefox 3.6 Beta, officially or otherwise, but make sure you keep your eyes on this space and I will make sure to provide an update once the downloads get the green light.

As per the tradition associated with the evolution of Mozilla browser versions, Firefox 3.5.4 and 3.0.15 are nothing more than security and stability updates. In this regard, both refreshes bring to the table a variety of security fixes. Mozilla has patched no less than 10 vulnerabilities in Firefox 3.0.15. The same range of security issues were addressed with the release of Firefox 3.5.4, although the latest Firefox 3.5 refresh contains a fix for an additional security hole, taking the total of vulnerabilities patched to 11.

“As part of Mozilla’s ongoing stability and security update process, Firefox 3.5.4 and Firefox 3.0.15 are now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux as free downloads,” revealed Samuel Sidler, Quality Assurance engineer at Mozilla. “We strongly recommend that all Firefox users upgrade to this latest release. If you already have Firefox 3.5 or Firefox 3, you will receive an automated update notification within 24 to 48 hours. This update can also be applied manually by selecting “Check for Updates…” from the Help menu.”

Mozilla has confirmed that it will release Firefox 3.6 Beta on October 28th, 2009. And it’s going to be October 28th all day long, and I’ll make sure to monitor Mozilla and try to grab the download even before the official announcement. In this regard, you will be among the first to know when Firefox 3.6 Beta will be released.

 

source: www.softpedia.com

Windows 7 begins to release to the public across the world

Right now, it's October 22nd in some parts of the world, and Microsoft has begun releasing Windows 7 across the world at various launch parties and events. In New Zealand, Microsoft held events in Auckland and Wellington to promote the launch of Windows 7 by gathering a crowd and making a big Windows 7 logo with them.

Windows 7, is available worldwide today to the general public, whereas before now it has only been available to technet/msdn subscribers, as well as VLK owners and university students around the globe. Windows 7 had the largest beta testing process in the history of Windows release cycles, with well over 8 million copies of the public beta being downloaded in 3 months.

In May, Microsoft made the Release Candidate, Build "7100", available to the public through until August 20, stating that this version of Windows 7 would be free for "six months" if you continued to use the RC until it expired. This build had over 100 fixes and tweaks that Microsoft had provided thanks to testers feedback. On August 6, Microsoft made available the RTM code, Build "7600", of Windows 7 to Technet/MSDN users, and general availabilty on October 22 marks the final phase of Windows 7's release - after 3 years of development and testing, which was heavily user driven.

From today, Windows 7 will be available from retailers around the world, as well as online stores such as Amazon.

 

source: www.neowin.net

Office 2010 Public Beta Available for Download in November

Microsoft is gearing up toward the release of the first public testing Build of the next iteration of the Office System. The Redmond company confirmed officially, at the SharePoint Conference 2009 in Las Vegas, that it would start offering public downloads of Office 2010 Beta as early as next month. Come November 2009, the general public will get the chance to download, install and test drive Office 2010 Beta for free, the software giant confirmed. Microsoft did not reveal the specific availability deadline for Office 2010 Beta, and as such, testers and early adopters will have to exercise patience a little longer.

The past week, a new development milestone of Office 2010 made it out of Redmond and into the wild. Office 2010 Build 14.0.4514.1009 was leaked and offered for download from various illegal third-party sources, but especially BitTorrent trackers. It was not the first time that a Build of Office 2010 was leaked to torrent websites, but it is the most recent testing milestone that became available outside of Microsoft and the company’s closed circle of testers, signaling that progress was indeed being made on the development of the productivity suite.

Microsoft initially released Office 2010 in July 2009 via a limited, invitation-only testing program. The Technical Preview of Office 2010 was a precursor of the Beta build, but at that time the Redmond company did not consider the release ready for wide distribution. I have been a member of the Office 2010 Technical Preview program since day one and using the development milestone ever since on multiple machines, and only encountered minor glitches. As far as I can tell, Office 2010 Technical Preview sits at the same level as Windows 7 Milestone 3 quality wise. Yes, there are some bugs, but they’re inherent to any product in development.

If anything, I was surprised of how stable and reliable Office 2010 was even ahead of the public Beta milestone. Microsoft has also worked to make the next version of the productivity suite faster, cleaner and more intuitive via the Ribbon/Fluent GUI. I would say that it’s definitely worth a download and a test drive once Office 2010 Beta becomes available. At the start of this month, Robbie Bach, president, Entertainment and Devices Division, noted that the RTM version of Office 2010 would be offered to customers in spring 2010.

 

source: www.softpedia.com

1.5 Million Microsoft Security Essentials Downloads in a Week

Microsoft’s first example of a free antivirus might have gotten its fair share of criticism and raised eyebrows but fact is that the security solution is right on track to becoming a success. In just the first week since its debut on the market, Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0 (formerly codenamed Morro) has been downloaded in excess of 1.5 million times around the world, Microsoft reveals. Joe Faulhaber, from the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, notes that the key contributor to the early adoption figure explosion is the price of Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0, or lack thereof. Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0 is available as a free download to all Windows users that are running genuine copies of the operating system.

“Now that Microsoft Security Essentials is generally available to consumers in 19 countries, we've had a chance to go over the data, and there are some very interesting results. Just in the first week we saw well over 1.5 million downloads of Microsoft Security Essentials,” Faulhaber noted.

The software giant released Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0 to the public at the end of September 2009. Compatible with the 32-bit flavor of Windows XP, as well as with the 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7, Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0 is nothing more than a basic security product offering core protection for its end users, but without the bells and whistles of major security suites.

“Computers reporting detections up to October 6: almost four million detections on 535,752 distinct machines. The detections are eight times the machine count because many computers are infected with multiple threats,” Faulhaber added. “Microsoft Security Essentials is available in 8 languages and 19 markets at RTM, which covers a lot of the PC using world. The geographic distribution of detections so far still closely follows the Microsoft Security Essentials Beta countries, and is ramping up in other countries that use the 8 languages.”

source: www.softpedia.com

Windows 7 vs Snow Leopard benchmarks

CNet.com has benchmarked Windows 7 and Snow Leopard using the same hardware to test both operating systems. The performance test ran using software available on both operating systems including iTunes 9, QuickTime, Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare and Cinebench R10; testing multimedia multitasking, shutdown time, boot time and iTunes encoding.

The laptop used was a 15-inch MacBook Pro with 2.5Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM with a 512MB Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT video card. Snow Leopard was installed on a stock 320GB hard drive (Hitachi model HTS543232L9SA0), while Windows 7 64-bit was installed on a 320GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue (model WD3200BEVT). The hard drives were identical in the tests, both supporting SATA 3Gpbs interface with 8MB of cache memory, spinning at 5,400rpm.

Windows 7 64-bit was running on Boot Camp 3.0. The computer was set for high performance in power management for optimum performance on both operating systems. All software tested was in 64-bit, except QuickTime and Call of Duty 4.

(image courtesy of: CNet.com)

The Benchmarks

The benchmarks indicate that Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) performs better, on a MacBook Pro. However, Windows 7 64-bit seemed to run applications like, Cinebench R10 and Call of Duty 4 better, even on Mac hardware. The battery performance test was a bit skewed because Boot Camp and the drivers were using more energy than Snow Leopard would have been. Windows 7 64-bit has been seen to last longer on a full charge with other laptops.

(images courtesy of: CNet.com)

Conclusion

It appears that Snow Leopard users are getting better performance than Windows 7 would, but by seconds. Windows 7 64-bit users would be the better choice for gamers, who would get better performance when running games, not to mention more games are available for Windows PCs than Mac computers.

 

source: www.neowin.net

Firefox 3.6 Beta Tailored to Windows 7’s Windows Aero GUI

The upcoming development milestone of Firefox 3.6 is a clear indication that Mozilla is tailoring the next iteration of the open source browser to Windows 7. Released to manufacturing on July 22, Windows 7 is heading for General Availability next week, on October 22. By the time Windows 7 hits the shelves, Mozilla will have already released the fully fledged Beta 1 for Firefox 3.6, which is currently scheduled for availability on October 21. Firefox 3.6 Beta has been adapted to Windows 7, especially to the evolution of the graphical user interface.

In the image below, you can see the Taskbar Thumbnail Previews that are now supported by Firefox 3.6 in concert with the Windows 7 Superbar. Hovering the mouse over the Firefox 3.6 Beta now causes the browser to display thumbnails of each opened tab, the same functionality that is offered by default by Internet Explorer 8. Users can simply preview and navigate to a certain tab or opened Firefox 3.6 window via a Thumbnail Preview (via Mozilla Links).

If you are willing to give Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 a try for yourselves, Mozilla is already offering a preview build. This week, the company code froze Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 and started providing nightly builds for testing purposes through its FTP servers. Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 Build 1 is available for download and installation on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, but testers need to understand that this is not the final Beta, which will only drop one day ahead of the Windows 7 official launch.
At the same time, there are additional changes for the integration of Firefox 3.6 into Windows 7. In this regard, Mozilla has also worked on having Firefox 3.6 support Jumplists, namely mini-Start menus that offer, via right-click on the browser icon on the Taskbar, easy access to the most visited websites. Users of Firefox 3.6 in Windows 7 will also be able to enjoy the same functionality when it comes down to browser downloads as it is currently offered with Internet Explorer 8, namely a visual indicator of the action’s progress.

 

source: www.softpedia.com

Microsoft Security Essentials final version released

Finally, after a year-long development phase, Microsoft Security Essentials has been publicly released. If you can't wait to get your hands on Microsoft's latest security software, you don't need to wait any longer.

Microsoft recently confirmed the final version would be made available "in the coming weeks" but has taken the wraps off the final edition today. The final build number is 1.0.1611.0.

Security Essentials is designed to work on Windows XP, Vista and 7 and protects end users against virus threats and spy ware. MSE is Microsoft's free anti-virus and anti-spyware product that is set to replace Microsoft's paid Windows Live OneCare subscription service which was withdrawn earlier this year.

In June, a public-beta was offered, and the download limit was reached within 24 hours. It will be absolutely free for all users of Windows XP, Vista and 7, and distributed in both 32bit and 64bit flavors — as long as you have a genuine copy of Windows. Microsoft will not bundle it with Windows 7, though, when it's released on October 22nd, 2009.

"Consumers have told us that they want the protection of real-time security software but we know that too many are either unwilling or unable to pay for it, and so end up unprotected," said Amy Barzdukas, general manager for consumer security at Microsoft. "With Microsoft Security Essentials, consumers can get high-quality protection that is easy to get and easy to use – and it won't get in their way."

MSE is likely to be targeted to compete with the low end of anti-virus products from other providers, and it is not expected to make a big impact on sales of full-blown security suites. MSE is designed for home use. It requires no registration, trials or renewals and is available for download directly from Microsoft. Most users are expected to be home users or small businesses with a only a small amount of managed PCs.

In a statement earlier this year, Janice Chaffin, president of Symantec's Consumer Division claimed: "Microsoft's free product is basically a stripped down version of the OneCare product Microsoft pulled from the shelves. A full Internet security suite is what consumers require today to stay fully protected."

Security Essentials ranked fourth in a test with other leading free malware protection. If you are interested in MSE you can read an informative early review by Paul Thurott here. 

download: Windows XP (32 bit)
download: Windows Vista & Windows 7 (32 bit)
download: Windows Vista & Windows 7 (64 bit)

 

source: www.neowin.net

Windows 7 OEM prices unveiled, 50% off list price

ComputerWorld is reporting that online retailer Newegg.com has unveiled Windows 7 OEM pricing.

Newegg.com has priced the OEM version of Windows 7 Home Premium at $99.99 which is a price reduction of 50% down from the recommended retail price of $199.99.

Other savings are available for Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate at $134.99 and $174.99, respectively. This is a saving of approximately 50% on each version from the list price. OEM editions are priced lower as you typically do not get retail packaging, little official support and you're not able to transfer the operating system license from one PC to another.

Newegg is accepting pre-orders on the OEM editions of Windows 7, and has confirmed its pricing will stand until October 20.

 

source: www.neowin.net

Microsoft confirms no Windows 7 restrictions on netbooks

Microsoft announced that they have removed the netbook restrictions that previously prevented users from installing any version of Windows 7 on their netbook. The lifted restriction means users can install Windows 7 starter on a netbook, and that the three application restriction has been removed as per consumer's request.

"OEMs and ODMs have the choice to install any version of Windows on a netbook," a Microsoft UK spokesperson said. "[But] Starter is an entry version and doesn't have many of the consumer or business features. The three application limit isn't there anymore."

Windows 7 Starter and Home Basic variety only come in 32bit versions and are missing a variation of features from the higher end versions. Some of the features missing from Windows 7 Starter including:

• Aero Glass
• Taskbar Preview
• Aero Peek
• Desktop personalization
• Fast user switching
• Multi-monitor support
• DVD playback
• Support for domains and XP Mode
• Windows Media Center

Home Basic also lacks some key Windows 7 features including Aero, Taskbar Preview, Internet Connection Sharing and some other features. Windows 7 Starter and Home Basic will not be sold in the US, Europe and other established markets.

Retail stores and manufactures will be able to strip some of the cost off their netbooks using Windows 7 Starter or Home Basic. Microsoft will now have two entry level SKU versions of Windows 7 in some markets.

 

source: www.neowin.net

EU is considering volume limitations on MP3 players

The European Commission is going publish plans this week that will propose to limit the volume output on MP3 players and cell phones that are capable of playing music. The idea is that the current MP3 players and cell phones are able to play music at decibels that can do serious damage to a listener's ear.

"Campaigners say a safe listening level is below 85 decibels for 40 hours use a week, but some MP3 players play music at up to 120 decibels. Apparently Brussels wants the maximum decibel level to be reduced from 100 to 80 decibels, with all future music players built to the new standard."

An alternative to hard volume limiting is to place warning labels on such devices letting users know about the possible side effects of listening to loudly. Also proposed would be a software prompt that when volume is turned up to potentially harmful levels a prompt would appear letting users know of the dangers.

These proposals are a result of the EU scientific Committee that suggested five to ten percent of users of portable MP3 players risked permanently damaging their ears.

 

source: www.neowin.net

Microsoft believes Google Chrome Frame lowers security of IE

Google's recent release of Google Chrome Frame wasn't entirely expected, though that's not to say it wasn't welcome. Some people questioned the usefulness of it, whilst others were overjoyed. Regardless of public opinion, it was to be expected that Microsoft wouldn't be entirely pleased about the whole idea, and they've just given their official thoughts on the software, according to the lads at Ars Technica.

To give you a quick overview of Google Chrome Frame, the aim is for it to give Internet Explorer the rendering and javascript engines of the Chrome browser, which is of benefit to web developers and obviously users also. However, with great power comes great responsibility, and in this case, Microsoft believes that the security of its web browser has been compromised. In an email to Ars Technica, Microsoft stated, "With Internet Explorer 8, we made significant advancements and updates to make the browser safer for our customers. Given the security issues with plugins in general and Google Chrome in particular, Google Chrome Frame running as a plugin has doubled the attach area for malware and malicious scripts. This is not a risk we would recommend our friends and families take."

In short, Microsoft believes that the Chrome Frame doubles the risk to a user when browsing the Internet. This is, quite simply, a bit ridiculous. Ars Technica said, "Somehow we doubt there is a significant amount of malware specifically targeting Chrome, and for whatever exists, we're pretty sure most would fail when encountering IE + Google Chrome Frame. These Web attacks would be written to be able to circumvent Chrome's security measures and would simply not expect Internet Explorer's security layers," which makes sense. To add to that, Google is constantly updating its browser with security updates and other features, to ensure that it stays secure for those who use it.

There are many reasons as to why Chrome Frame isn't as big of a security risk as Microsoft makes it out to be, though no software is perfect. It will be interesting to see if Google has anything further to say on the matter, but they'll probably keep quiet from this point on.

 

source: www.neowin.net

Windows 7 PCs available early

Microsoft's new operating system, Windows 7, is set to officially launch and become generally available to the public on October 22. Some custom computer builders, however, have now been given permission to start selling PCs with Windows 7 pre-installed a week or more before the launch date.

Some smaller system builders have been told by Microsoft that they can start selling PCs pre-loaded with Windows 7 as soon as they receive the product keys, TechFlash reports. The product keys - used to activate the operating system - are expected to be distributed to these system builders as soon as October 13, over a week before the official release of Windows 7.

Jon Bach, the president of custom computer builder Puget Systems who are based in the Seattle region, told TechFlash that he found out about the early release stance simply by speaking to Microsoft. He had been led to believe that the policy applies only to system builders who buy Windows 7 via the official distribution channels, and not to large OEMs or retailers.

"I'm surprised this hasn't come out. It was freely shared with us, and confirmed in writing. We almost didn't believe it," Bach said of the arrangement. He added, "The way they said it was, 'This is your competitive advantage, make use of it'."

Puget Systems are prepared to start selling Windows 7 machines as soon as they receive the product keys from Microsoft. Bach himself has been testing the operating system for the past six months and feels confident that they are ready for launch. His company has copies of the RTM version, ready for preconfiguring computers so that all they need to do is enter the product key before handing it over to the customer.

 

source: www.neowin.net

Apple rumored to be releasing new iMacs very soon

Another rumor has hit the world of Apple just earlier, bringing some whispers that the company has a refresh of its iMac line all geared up and ready to be released. As usual, AppleInsider has the sources behind the headline, and they believe that the new model of the computer was finalized some time in September.

The machines are said to have been in production for the last two weeks, bringing some aesthetic changes as well as packing some new features. It's expected the new iMac will look more Apple's LED Cinema Display, keeping in line with previous rumors that have said the machine will come with a thinner design. Aside from this, and the usual pricing decrease, Blu-Ray could very well be included with the machines; Apple CEO Steve Jobs infamously described the technology as a "bag of hurt" at a MacBook event a little while back. However, as eagle-eyed iTunes users have pointed out before, the software started giving copyright credit to 'Blu-ray Disc' a little while ago.

Adding fuel to the rumor fire, Apple's corporate and educational sales teams have apparently been offering volume amounts of current-model iMacs at a discounted rate, to help clear out inventory. To aid in getting things sold quicker, the discount offer was said to be only available for a week.

The new iMacs could be available next week, or even as late as mid-October; AppleInsider believes that it's just a matter of Apple's marketing team giving them the green light.

 

source: www.neowin.net

First pictures of Microsoft's 'Pink' phones revealed

Microsoft's secret project, dubbed 'Pink', is quite a big deal amongst the rumor community. Just earlier, Gizmodo revealed the first pictures of two 'Pink' phones which Microsoft hasn't officially acknowledged yet.

The two phones are called 'Turtle' and 'Pure', and are going to be produced by Sharp, who will share branding with Microsoft on the devices. Please note that in the photos included below, the first one is 'Turtle' and the latter is 'Pure'. They're quite interesting devices, very rounded and sleek, with the 'Turtle' looking similar to the Palm Pre.

Unfortunately, Gizmodo's sources won't reveal any other information about the devices yet, though no doubt more information will come out soon. It's rumored that the Pink phones will have Zune services and an app store also, to distribute third-party applications.

 

source: www.neowin.net

Intel demonstrates 22nm chips scheduled for 2011 release

Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, stated in a 1965 research paper that the number of transistors on a CPU will double approximately every two years; this belief became very famous, and is now known as 'Moore's Law'. Intel is still very determined on keeping to that law, as Paul Otellini, President and CEO of Intel, has just demonstrated the world's first CPU constructed with a 22nm manufacturing process. This means that, according to Intel's press release, a massive 2.9 billion transistors are squeezed onto a wafer in about the same area as the average fingernail.

Otellini stated, "At Intel, Moore's Law is alive and thriving. We've begun production of the world's first 32nm microprocessor, which is also the first high-performance processor to integrate graphics with the CPU. At the same time, we're already moving ahead with development of our 22nm manufacturing technology and have built working chips that will pave the way for production of still more powerful and more capable processors." This is fantastic news for the technology industry, and even other non-related industries.

The 22nm wafer that Otellini demonstrated has a rather hefty 364 million bits of SRAM memory, as well as packing the smallest ever SRAM cell used in working circuits (.092 square microns). To add to this, the technology isn't too far on the horizon, either; according to Engadget, the chips are said to be heading for a release in the second half of 2011.

 

source: www.neowin.net

Thunderbird 3 beta 4 available for download

Mozilla's popular email client 'Thunderbird' is progressing nicely, having hit the beta 4 milestone of version 3 just earlier, bringing some nice new changes and improvements with it according to the guys over at ghacks. The release brings a few new optimization features, including support for Windows Vista's search and better Gmail integration.

Some of the improvements, as listed by Mozilla, can be found below:

• New Search with Advanced Filtering Tools:
  Search results now include advanced filtering tools. You have the option to filter your results by sender, tag, attachments, people, folder, and mailing list. You can also filter your email using the timeline tool.
• New Global Search Field with Autocomplete:
  When typing in the Global Search field, Thunderbird autocompletes against your address book. You have the option of searching everywhere or filtering against different parts of the email such as by subject or by sender.
• Redesigned Mail Toolbar:
  The Mail Toolbar is redesigned to include the new Global Search bar. Buttons such as reply, forward, delete, junk are part of each email message. You can add those buttons back to the main toolbar by customizing the toolbar.
• Smart Folders:
  The folder pane offers a Smart Folders mode which combines special mailboxes, like Inbox, from multiple accounts. Smart Folders is now on by default.
• Improved Gmail Integration:
  Better recognition and integration of Gmail's special folders such as Sent and Trash including non-English versions of Gmail. Thunderbird also uses All Mail as the Archives folder.
• For Windows Vista users, Thunderbird 3 is now integrated with Vista search results. On first start, Thunderbird will prompt to install its indexing system into Windows Vista and you can choose to see Thunderbird email and news messages in Windows search results.
• For Mac users, Thunderbird 3 can import from Mail.app, read your OS X address book, and use Growl for new mail alerts.

These are all excellent improvements, and will certainly help Thunderbird in becoming an even bigger competitor to its rivals. If you want to try out the fourth beta, you can find download links below, directly from Mozilla.

download: Thunderbird 3 B4 for Windows.
download: Thunderbird 3 B4 for Mac OS X.
download: Thunderbird 3 B4 for Linux.

 

source: www.neowin.net

Google brings Chrome rendering engine to IE6, 7 and 8

A thorn in the side of many web developers is Internet Explorer 6. It's an old browser that has many annoyances that cause those creating websites to have to add additional code just to have things render as they should. Google, being a company that develops a web browser, has taken it upon themselves to solve this problem somewhat. It has just released an early version of a project called Google Chrome Frame, which, when used, will cause Internet Explorers 6 through 8 to use Chrome's rendering engine, not their default one. This allows stubborn users (or those in a workplace environment) to continue using the browser they want to, and no longer aggravate web developers.

Google's official blog explains it in detail, and demonstrates how simple it is to get it up and running. All web developers need to do is add the following tag to their sites:

<meta-http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="chrome=1">

Once that's done, and everything is installed correctly, Google Chrome Frame detects the tag and promptly switches automatically to Google Chrome's WebKit-based rendering engine.

 

source: www.neowin.net

iPhone developer ports game to Zune HD in a mere 12 hours

A few days ago, Novell unveiled its new 'MonoTouch' SDK to be used for developing iPhone applications in .NET, much to the happiness of some and, unfortunately, the opposite for others. It seems that developers are already taking advantage of this, according to Ars Technica, with a developer porting its popular game to the Zune HD in just 12 hours.

The developer, Foundation42, posted their milestone via Twitter, showing the power of Novell's new SDK and what can be achieved with it. The game that was ported is called WordMonger, and was displayed on a YouTube video which we have included below. Many have questioned Microsoft's games which were included with the Zune HD, as (although they're free) they display a short ad each time they are launched. To add to this, Microsoft doesn't have an official way of distributing apps as Apple does with its App Store, though that will perhaps come in the near future. The only way to install third party apps properly on the Zune HD so far, according to Ars Technica, is to, "[have the user] download and install Visual C#, .Net 3.5, and the XNA Game Studio 3.1. Then, the developer must give the source code of their game to the user, and make them build and deploy it manually."

This is a great step forward for iPhone developers, .NET developers, and even Novell, as their SDK will begin to show off its capabilities as more companies pull this off.

source: www.neowin.net