Hasta La Gadget!

Mar 09

WrapUp: Firefox Getting GPU Acceleration, Ubuntu 10.04 Includes iPhone Support, and More

Posted in: Firefox 3, Internet Explorer, itunes, Tips and Tricks, Today's Chili, ubuntu, WrapUp

This article was written on March 01, 2010 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–

Ubuntu 10.04 Adds Native iPhone & iPod touch Support
Some forum users are reporting that Ubuntu 10.04, due for release in April, will support both the iPhone and iPod touch out-of-the-box. There is some concern that Apple may try to “break” this compatibility because of what happened with the Palm Pre, but that was a different situation. Palm was trying to make it possible for their customers to use iTunes to sync with the Pre, whereas Ubuntu is bypassing iTunes all together and trying to sync with Apple’s own products. So it would be hard for them to break the compatibility without issuing software updates for the iPhone and/or iPod touch.

Gmail Labs Graduations and Retirements
Google has decided to incorporate the functionality of six Gmail Labs experiments into the default Gmail interface, and they will also be retiring five others. Some of the ones getting promoted are search autocompletion, forgotten attachment detector, YouTube previews, and vacation away messages. The five being retired are really nothing to worry about, and judging by the people I talk to those five never seemed to gain any traction.

–News in Brief–

Nexus One Coming to Verizon March 23rd
Some sources are reporting that the Verizon-compatible Nexus One will be available as soon as March 23rd.

Palm webOS 1.4 Software Update
Palm’s new software update lets you capture, edit, and share videos from your phone.

Windows Mobile 6.5 = Windows Phone Starter
Microsoft will be rebranding the existing mobile operating system as Windows Phone 6 Starter Edition.

Refine Google Searches by Location
Google now offers options to filter your search results according to geographic locations.

End of Support Coming for Windows 2000, Vista RTM, and XP SP2
Microsoft will stop supporting Windows 2000 and XP SP2 on July 13th, and Vista RTM (prior to SP1) on April 13th.

iTunes Hits 10 Billion Downloads
Over the last 7 years iTunes has served up over 10 billion media downloads.

YouTube Killing IE6 Support on March 13th
In a bold move YouTube will be leaving IE6 behind beginning on March 13th. The site should remain functional for the most part, but some newer features may not work.

Wal-Mart Buys Vudu Streaming Video Service
It’s been confirmed that Wal-Mart has purchased Vudu for upwards of $100 million.

–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

Mozilla Provides GPU Acceleration in Firefox Nightly Builds
Mozilla has quietly provided some “hidden” settings that can be enabled to disperse some processing between your CPU and graphics card. Right now the technology uses two DirectX 11 features called DirectWrite and Direct2D, but OpenGL versions (for Mac/Linux users) will hopefully be available later on. In the meantime if you’re running Vista or Windows 7 go ahead and enable the new feature.

Inbox2 Provides a Unified Social Network & Email Hub
With all the social networks these days it can get hard to manage all the messages you receive. Inbox2 strives to make things a bit easier by aggregating all of the data into one central location. It can pull in content from Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and several other services. All of your emails, contacts, and messages can then be found in one simple location.

–Tips in Brief–

Lifehacker’s Top 10 Android Apps
A great list of useful and must-have Google Android applications.

Top 10 Torrent Sites Sorted by Traffic Stats
A look at some of the top torrent sites available according to the amount of traffic they receive.

Mastering Multiple Firefox Profiles
Learn some tricks to setting up and managing multiple Firefox profiles for different purposes.

Other Ways to Visualize iPhone Free Space
Clicking on the capacity bar in iTunes will display the remaining free space on your iPhone in different measurements.

Most Accurate & Highest Resolution Earth Photo Yet
NASA has released some very high quality Earth imagery that will surely look great on your desktop.

Rooting and Tethering a Nexus One
Boing Boing explains how to root and tether your Android-based Google Nexus One phone.

Autohide the Bookmarks Toolbar in Firefox
This Firefox extension will let you automatically hide the bookmarks toolbar when it’s not in use.

Disable Aero Snap in Windows 7
You can easily disable the Aero Snap functionality in Windows 7 if you find that it is more annoying than useful.

25 Dangerous Programming Errors
This guide (freely available in PDF form as well) explains 25 programming pitfalls that could lead to vulnerabilities, and provides steps you can take to prevent them from occuring.

HTML5 Plugin for Internet Explorer
Microsoft hasn’t announced whether full HTML5 support will be included in IE9, but at least while we wait you can get the HTML5 video functionality in your current version of Internet Explorer.