Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on August 17, 2009 by CyberNet.

Welcome to the WrapUp by CyberNet. This is a collection of news stories, downloads, and tips that we have collected over the last few days, but never got around to writing about. Don’t forget to send in your own tips, or just leave a comment on this page if you think you’ve got something we should include.

–News–

Netscape Founder Backing a New Browser
Netscape helped kickstart the Internet revolution, but it didn’t take long for Internet Explorer to drive it to extinction. A start-up called RockMelt is being backed by Marc Andreessen, the founder of Netscape, who says that other browsers have not kept pace with the evolution of the web. Apparently RockMelt will be different though. It will be interesting to see what they come up with… even if their name does suck.

Windows 7 64-bit Supports 192GB of RAM
If you’ll be sporting Windows 7 Home Premium, Enterprise, or Ultimate you’ll be happy to know that you can stuff up to 192GB of RAM into your 64-bit machine and still have Windows use it all. Now that’s one way to ensure that you’re getting the smoothest gameplay out of Solitaire.

Zune HD Coming September 15th
I’ve never been a big fan of the Zune, but I have to hand it to the people who came up with the design for the Zune HD. Appearance-wise it looks unbelievable, and in a month everyone will be able to find out for themselves just how good it actually is. Pre-orders are now available.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard Goes Gold?
Rumors are floating around that the latest developer release of Snow Leopard will become the final version that ships. Apple said that their next OS will be released in September, but some sources are saying that it may be available as soon as August 28th. In the meantime the build in question (10A432) has been leaked to your neighborhood BitTorrent site.

Sync UI Appears in Google Chrome
We knew that Chrome was going to let users sync bookmarks soon, and the first glimpse of the UI has found its way into the development releases. Download Squad points out how you can enable the feature, but at this point it’s more of a “look, don’t touch” kind of thing… you can see the options but they don’t actually do anything yet.

Facebook Lite to Compete with Twitter?
Facebook accidentally rolled out a “lite” version of their site to a large number of users last week, and quickly retracted access once they caught their mistake. Facebook Lite, from the sounds of it, is inching even closer to Twitter by placing a heavy focus on status updates.

Outlook Coming to Microsoft Office for Mac
The next version of Microsoft Office for the Mac OS is due out late next year just in time for the holidays, and it will finally include what is the most requested application: Outlook! This could be pretty big news in the corporate world.

Xbox 360 Elite Dropping to $300?
The Xbox 360 has done pretty well for itself, and part of the reason is due to its competitive pricing. On August 30th it could be getting even more interesting. According to a leaked photo of a retail ad it appears as though the Xbox 360 Elite console (with a 120GB hard drive) will shave $100 off its price tag bringing it under the $300 mark.

Multitouch will be in Android 2.0
CNet is saying that Google might be including multitouch support in the Android 2.0 release that should be available later this year. Motorola is expected to have a phone ready in time to showcase the new software as well.

eBay Targets Car Dealers
Things haven’t been looking good for eBay, and now it appears that they are branching out to new markets. They’ve teamed up with General Motors to launch a new site, gm.ebay.com, which serves up vehicles from car dealers. Right now it’s limited to California while the system is tested out, but if you want to see what it’s like just use zip code 90274 to get some results. I noticed that the vehicles listed with Buy It Now prices aren’t really a bargain, but you can always name your own price with the Make an Offer option. Of course it’s up to the dealer as to whether they want to accept that price.

Google Tests Under-the-Hood Search Improvements  
Last week Google announced a new search system they’re testing called Caffeine, which at first glance is no different than their current search system. The changes, however, are all behind-the-scenes. They say that the new system focuses on size, indexing speed, accuracy, and comprehensiveness. They also provide a special URL where you can test out what the results are like.

–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

Windows 7 Review
Engadget has written up a pretty nice review of Windows 7, and they outline all of the most notable features. It’s definitely worth a read if you haven’t played with the Beta/RC yourself. I also plan on writing my own take on Windows 7, but I’ll be focusing mostly on the Media Center aspect.

FreeFileSync: Another Backup Utility
Man, there’s definitely no shortage of backup utilities out there! This is another free (and open source) solution that has quite a few advanced options to pick from, and does it all in a fairly clean interface. If you haven’t found the backup utility that fits you just right this is one you should definitely check out.

MyCollections Organizes Your Media
I’m not really the type of person who buys a lot of physical media (DVD’s, CD’s, books, etc…), but I know plenty of other people are. This app will help you organize all your stuff so that you know exactly what you’ve got. Even though it’s free I can’t help but think that they could have made the interface a bit better.

Burn Any Video to DVD
Once you’ve downloaded some television shows or movies you might be wondering how you can watch them on your TV. Some people just stick with watching them on their computers, but with the right tools you can burn just about anything to a DVD.

Good Thunderbird Themes
To be honest I never even thought to look for themes for Thunderbird, and I’m not sure why. This article covers 10 different themes that can be used with the email client… some of which are better than others. Mac users will definitely like the iLeopard theme though that makes the app fit in better with the Mac operating system.

Create Your Own URL Shortening Service
Bored? If so maybe you’ll find some enjoyment in creating your own URL shortening service. That way you won’t have to rely on some other service to manage your URL’s, but the downside is the lack of integration from third-party applications. It might be fun to do regardless.

–Downloads–

• 7-Zip 9.05 ^Alpha [Mirror]
• Avant Browser 11.7.36 [Mirror]
• CDBurnerXP 4.2.5.1490 [Mirror]
• Digsby Build 61 ^Beta [Mirror]
• FileZilla 3.2.7 [Mirror]
• Flock 2.5.2 [Mirror]
• Foobar2000 0.9.6.9 ^{Beta 1} [Mirror]
• Gimp 2.6.7 [Mirror]
• Gmail Drive 1.0.14 [Mirror]
• Miranda 0.8.4 [Mirror]
• OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 ^RC1 [Mirror]
• Opera 10.0.1699 ^{Beta 3} [Mirror]
• Safari 4.0.3 [Mirror]
• Trillian Astra 4.0.0.117 [Mirror]
• Ubuntu 9.10 ^{Alpha 4} [Mirror]
• uTorrent 2.0.0.16126 ^Beta [Mirror]

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

Xbox 360 Price Cut on August 8th – In Time for Halo 3!Xbox 360 Price Cut Coming September 7th? We Think So…Microsoft Executes Xbox 360 Price CutsXbox 360 Price Drops $50 – Confirmed!Black Xbox 360 Elite coming April 29

If you, like us, are tired of the so-called browser wars trying to woo us with barely identifiable, context-dependent speed differences, this might be of interest. Firefox is about to get a whole lot more sentient on us — at least those of us with accelerometers in our hardware — courtesy of a new device API that is capable of maintaining a webpage’s vertical orientation relative to the ground, no matter what sort of salto mortale the underlying machine (Mac or otherwise) might be doing. Think of it as the cherry atop your Windows 7 multitouch tablet cake. Originally intended for mobile platforms only, this software will make its way into version 3.6 of the full-fledged browser — and you can find an early demo of what it can do just past the break.

Continue reading Firefox 3.6 will support accelerometers, make the internet seasick (video)

Filed under: Software

Firefox 3.6 will support accelerometers, make the internet seasick (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

AT&T wants you to know that you don’t need a smartphone just to get a rich, full web experience from your handset — theoretically, anyway — with the introduction of four new models from longtime partners Samsung and Pantech alongside a new featurephone browser. First up from Samsung comes the Flight (pictured left), billed as a “next-generation messaging device” on account of its full QWERTY portrait slide paired with a full touchscreen up top; it’ll be available next month for $99.99 on contract after rebate — that is, if you didn’t buy it on Craigslist already. That silvery slate in the middle that’s more likely to be catching your eye is the Mythic, rocking TouchWiz on a 3.3-inch display along with AT&T Mobile TV, making it a fitting successor to the Eternity and big brother to the Solstice; like the Flight, it swings onto retail next month, but you’ll be paying a stiffer $199.99 on contract after $50 rebate.

Turning our attention to the Pantech side of the table, we’ve got the Reveal (pictured right) that lets you have it both ways with a numeric keypad up top twined with a QWERTY slider underneath. It’s 3G-capable, AT&T Navigator-equipped, and available for your enjoyment on October 18 in red and blue. Finally, the Impact (not pictured) has an OLED touchscreen up front, but when the texting gets hot and heavy, the phone opens up to reveal a second display along with a QWERTY keyboard. It’ll be available in pink and blue, though neither pricing nor availability are being announced just yet.

Gluing everything together is AT&T’s new mobile browser, described as “a rich hybrid experience that gives you a HTML experience similar to your PC browser at home” that “works really well on a feature phone.” Additionally, users visiting att.net from their PCs will be able to send bookmarks to their phones’ mobile portals — kind of a neat trick, especially when you’re trying to minimize the number of URLs you have to mash out on an on-screen keyboard. Of course, featurephone browsers have a reputation for generally sucking, so considering that AT&T bills its new line of devices as “full web browsing phones,” it’ll be interesting to see how close they actually come to delivering on the claim; it’s said the phones use “advanced data compression from Opera Software,” which we’re thinking is very likely some variation of Opera Turbo — not a bad start.

Filed under: Cellphones

AT&T touts Opera-powered full web browsing with new phones from Samsung and Pantech originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

This article was written on August 07, 2007 by CyberNet.

Robert Hansen, a security researcher, received a business card from Firefox’s Mike Schaver at a late-night party last week during the Black Hat conference. The card Hansen received, which is pictured to the right, used some colorful words to say that it takes just 10-days for Mozilla to patch critical security bugs that have been disclosed. Here is a snippet from Hansen’s blog post:

He gave me his business card with a hand written note on it, laying his claim on the line. The claim being – with responsible disclosure Mozilla can patch and deploy any critical severity holes within “Ten [F**king] Days”:

I told him I would post his card – and he didn’t flinch. No, he wasn’t drunk. He’s serious. I’ve always been a fan of Mozilla and Firefox however this is a pretty bold claim for a company of any shape or size. I shopped the business card around to some various people while I was at the Microsoft party the next day to get people’s reaction. The consensus was that it was funny, very difficult to achieve and in one case, one of the head guys of security at Amazon simply doubted that the patches would be of sufficient quality.

Apparently this was all taken the wrong way. Window Snyder, Mozilla’s security chief, responded to the 10-day claim:

This is not our policy. We do not think security is a game, nor do we issue challenges or ultimatums. We are proud of our track record of quickly releasing critical security patches, often in days. We work hard to ship fixes as fast as possible because it keeps people safe. We hope these comments do not overshadow the tremendous efforts of the Mozilla community to keep the Internet secure.

Schaver was simply saying that their latest security patch only took them 10-days to make publicly available after the vulnerability was disclosed. Schaver was therefore trying to tell Hansen that he didn’t need to publish the details about vulnerabilities before Mozilla has had a chance to fix them. For some software vendors posting the details about a vulnerability gives them some motivation to create a patch as quick as possible before it becomes widespread, but Mozilla says that they fix security flaws whether or not the details are published.

Source: Infoworld

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

eBay Denies Users The Ability To Use Google CheckoutFirefox 1.5.0.3 Released With The Security PatchMicrosoft’s December 2005 Patch TuesdayFirefox 3 Vulnerability Found in 5-hoursMozilla Firefox 1.5.0.5 Candidate Builds Available

This article was written on June 16, 2008 by CyberNet.

(Click to Enlarge)

About two weeks ago we gave you a heads up that Flock 2.0 Beta was coming, and there was a lot of excitement surrounding the release since it’s based on Firefox 3.0. With that you get all of the Firefox 3 goodness including performance enhancements, advanced bookmarking, new address bar, and much more.

The Flock team has done a tremendous job of integrating Firefox 3 with all of the social features we’ve come to know and love in Flock. A good example of that is with the new bookmarking system which you can access by pressing the star located to the left of the address bar. You’ll notice that it looks incredibly similar to Firefox 3’s bookmarking system, but it also has the section dedicated to the online bookmarking services Del.icio.us and Ma.gnolia:

The most important improvements come in the way of performance, and that is largely due to the better memory management that Firefox 3 has brings to the table. Personally I opened up over a dozen tabs in the new Flock 2.0 Beta, and it just barely broke 100MB of memory usage on Windows. That’s definitely not too shabby, but they wanted to point out that it will likely still use more memory than Firefox 3:

As you probably already know, Flock has a number of powerful features built on top of the Firefox architecture that allow you to have a truly unique browsing experience. These features come with a price, and that price is a slightly larger memory footprint. Comparing Flock to Firefox with no extensions installed is like comparing apples with oranges. In order to enjoy any advanced functionality in Firefox you need to install extensions, unlike Flock which has lots of advanced features built right in. Firefox extensions will increase both the memory footprint, and the risk of memory leaks over time. That said, all of the memory improvements in Firefox 3 (including many memory leak fixes and much better memory management ‘housekeeping’ practices) apply to Flock 2, so you should experience notably improved browsing performance with Flock 2 than you’ve experienced in prior versions.

Here’s some more information that Flock has posted in regards to enhancements for the new version:

• Performance – Better memory management
• Security – Anti-virus integration, secure add-on updates, and more
• User Interface – Media Bar has some new features
• Favorites – New interface for managing and creating bookmarks
• New Flock-specific Features – Manually refresh your feesd

If you’re a social media addict then I highly recommend you take Flock 2.0 for a spin. I’m not sure if I’ll use this over Firefox 3, but I’ll definitely give it a real shot now that the performance isn’t unbearable.

Flock 2.0 Beta [via Download Squad]

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

Flock 0.7.3 ReleasedIt Is Time To Get Your Flock On!News in the Land of FlockPhotobucket Releases Their Own Flock BrowserFlock Releases Customized Browser for Fashion & Entertainment Enthusiasts