Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Too Many Tabs? Firefox Add-ons to manage a TAB JAM
Every Firefox user spends a lot of time dealing with tabs. Thus, improving the tabs directly adds to the browsing experience. You can make them better, faster, beautiful and lot less ovewhelming. So here you go, 6 powerful addons to improve your tabbed browsing.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
UK sites involved in massive website hack
Exploit may track back to Fasthosts compromise, but security researchers warn of its difficulty to track and detect.
Many specialist UK websites have been used to spread a particularly
difficult track form of malware that is capable of dynamically changing
its code.
The only thing to link the several hundred compromised sites, other
than the fact that many of them are small UK-based retail outfits like
a bicycle shop and speciality travel firm, is the fact that all their
affected domains have, or had, a relationship with the UK's biggest web
hosting company Fasthosts, according to the security researcher at ScanSafe who first spotted the attack.
Fasthosts' systems called in the police to investigate a security breach in October last year that forced the provider to ask users to change their passwords.
Full story @ IT Pro
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Tuesday, January 15, 2008
MacBook Air doesn't have a user-replaceable battery
We sort of understood it with iPods, and we grudgingly accepted it with the iPhone, but the MacBook Air has a sealed, non-user-replaceable battery, and that means we're suddenly a lot less in love. We're digging for details on how much it'll cost to swap out -- and what Apple expects road warriors to do when their slick new ultraportable dies...
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Turn Your $60 Router into a Super-Router with Tomato
Since last year there's been a lot of development of open source firmwares, and today we're taking a look at my new favorite, a firmware called Tomato. It does almost everything you expect, from Wi-Fi signal boosting to Quality of Service bandwidth allocation, in addition to offering a simplified interface chock full of fancy charts and graphs
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Google unveils new iPhone interface for Google Apps
Just in time for MacWorld, Google has announced sizeable improvements to it's mobile applications for Apple's iPhone. Applications that have been updated include Google Reader, Calendar, Gmail, iGoogle, Search, and Picasa.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
New Gmail for the iPhone
From the Official Gmail blog: "We've just released a new look and feel for the mobile version of Gmail on your iPhone. Our goal: make Gmail fit nicely as part of the latest Google on your iPhone experience. This means that we had to make Gmail faster and more fluid."
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Monday, January 14, 2008
Use your iPhone as a webcam
Mac developer Ecamm has posted a sneak peak of iPhoneCam, an application that uses your iPhone's camera as a wireless Mac webcam. You can stream video from your iPhone over its WiFi to any Mac video application, including iChat, Photo Booth, or Skype.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Sunday, January 13, 2008
GMail Adds Group Mailing List Functions
The uzi fire rapid rate of GMail feature releases has slowed a bit, but it hasn’t quite stopped. Today, Robby Stein one of Google’s Product Marketing Managers, announced the ability to create personal mailing lists with the GMail contact manager.
It comes in handy particular for Web 2.0-style businesses like Mashable, where almost everything we do operates out of the Google suite of tools, or other similar Web 2.0 tools. Being able to send out an email to the “Writer’s Department” or “Entire Mashable Crew” is a big time saver, as opposed to plucking out each individual’s emails from the address book.
The new features are compatible with IE7 and Firefox2, and are extremely simple to do (I had a few groups set and actually used in under five minutes). From the instructions at the GMail blog:
To create contact groups, click “Contacts” from the left-hand navigation list and then click the groups icon:
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UK education agency says no to Vista, Office 2007
The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) has published its final report
(PDF) on Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007. The agency is largely
sticking with its interim recommendations that schools steer clear of
Vista in existing deployments and Office 2007 altogether.
(PDF) on Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007. The agency is largely
sticking with its interim recommendations that schools steer clear of
Vista in existing deployments and Office 2007 altogether.
Anticipating the release of Vista in January 2007, Becta announced a
year earlier its intention to study Microsoft's flagship software
products in an attempt to provide UK schools with some guidance on
adoption. An interim report released last January cited
interoperability concerns with Office 2007 and recommended against
early deployment of Vista in the education sector. Last October, Becta
also recommended that schools eschew signing licensing agreements with Microsoft.
Vista
Becta recommends against deploying Vista in current setups, saying that
the upside of such upgrades aren't worth the cost. According to Becta,
only 22 percent of school PCs in the UK are capable of running Vista
"effectively." 66 percent of the machines fall under Microsoft's
definition of "Vista capable." The agency pegs the upgrade cost at
about £125 per machine for primary schools and £75 per machine for
secondary schools. Upgrading all of the machines in England and Wales
would cost £175 million, a third of which would be due to licensing
costs. Becta believes there's a "perceived lack of significant business
benefit" to offset deployment costs.
"We have not had sight of any evidence to support the argument that the
costs of upgrading to Vista in educational establishments would be offset
by appropriate benefits," reads the report. "The new features of Vista add some value, but... widespread upgrade of the
ICT [Information Communications Technology] estate in schools and colleges is not recommended."
Becta did say that Vista was a viable open when schools were
planning new, "institution-wide" deployments. Otherwise, schools should
avoid running Vista and older Windows OS versions side-by-side: "We
advise that... mixed Windows-based operating-system environments should
be avoided." If schools need to extend a current Windows installation,
they're advised to stick with XP.
Office 2007
In
its interim report last January, Becta called on Microsoft to come up
with a compelling business case for Office 2007. The company has not,
according to Becta, so Office 2007 upgrades are right out.
Interoperability is a major source of concern for Becta, which is
concerned that the Office Open XML file format used by Office 2007 is
not fully supported on any other product or platform. In contrast, the
ODF format used by OpenOffice.org and a handful of other products is an
approved international standards. Becta dings Office 2007 for not
"effectively" supporting ODF and for its efforts to make OOXML an
additional international standard.
"The interoperability that Microsoft makes available in Office 2007
for competitor products is less than it makes available for its own
family of products," notes the report. "We have complained to the
Office of Fair Trading (OFT) that this puts competition at risk and is
an abuse of a dominant position by Microsoft. The OFT is considering
our complaint."
Becta recommends against deploying Office 2007 unless schools have a
plan to deal with interoperability and "potential digital divide
issues." As is the case for Vista, Becta recommends that any Office
2007 deployments be done on an institution-wide basis. And Office 2K7
users should avoid using the native OOXML format, instead using earlier
Microsoft formats. Those still running older versions of Office should
install Microsoft's compatibility pack so that they can access OOXML
documents as necessary.
Microsoft was not able to offer comment on the report prior to the
publication of this story, but the recommendations can't be going over
well in Redmond. Should Microsoft's efforts to get OOXML approved as an
international standard be successful, it would remove some of Becta's
objections to Office 2007. The software giant was thwarted last September
in its efforts to have the format fast-tracked for approval; the ISO is
scheduled hold another vote on the format in late February.
While we've been generally pleased with Vista here at Ars, it's no
secret that enterprise IT has been taking a very cautious approach to
deployment. In light of that, Becta's Vista recommendations aren't that
surprising. The hardware overhead for a smooth and happy Vista
experience is indeed higher than it is for XP, and schools are not
hotbeds of bleeding-edge hardware. Hardware refreshes eventually
happen, even in schools, and once XP is no longer available (system
builders will be able to offer PCs with XP through June 2009), Vista will become the only option for institutions electing to stick with a Microsoft OS.
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Saturday, November 17, 2007
Official Gmail Blog: 5 little-known Gmail features you may not yet know about
Official Gmail Blog: 5 little-known Gmail features you may not yet know about
When we began rolling out a new Gmail code architecture a few weeks ago, we also launched some new features to help improve the speed and convenience of managing email. I've been using several of these new additions over the last few weeks, and while they might seem small on their own, they really can add up to save you a lot of time and hassle. That's why I decided to list my five favorite new features that are so new, you may not have noticed them. We are still rolling them out to IE6, international and Google Apps users, but for those of you who noticed a new contact manager among other recent improvements in our latest version, here they are:
5. "Archive and next" shortcut
We added a bunch of new shortcuts to Gmail, but one that I've found to be a true time-saver is what I call the "archive and next" shortcut. When I have a lot of mail, it can be really annoying to have to open a message, click "Back to Inbox" and then select the next email I want to read. So once you enable shortcuts in Settings, you can simply press the left bracket key "[" while viewing a message to archive it, and then immediately open the next oldest one. When I see a long list of unread messages, I like to open the first one and then just hit "[" to swiftly move through my mail and archive as I go. (P.S. By clicking the right bracket "]" you can also move the other way if you want to open newer messages after you archive).
4. Share mail searches with friends
How many times do your friends tell you, "I can't find that email you sent me." Now you can prove that you did indeed send that message, despite the accusations. All you have to do is search for the message using your expert mail searching skills, and when you find it listed in the results, just copy and paste the URL and email it to your friend. When he or she goes to that link while in Gmail, your friend's Gmail will run the same search you ran and will be able to locate that "lost" email instantly. For example, if you wanted to share a search for "pick me up at airport," so flight information can be located, you would send over this URL: http://mail.google.com/mail/#search/pick+me+up+at+airport.
3. Browser navigation and history
Your web browser is now a great way to navigate Gmail. Instead of having to find the right links on the page to move from inbox to messages to other Gmail views, you can use the browser navigation buttons (back and forward) to jump back and forth between emails. You can also open your browser history and click on specific emails that you've read to go right back to them. This allows you to quickly access certain emails without having to re-read your inbox. Browser history is something that often doesn't work well on complex web apps like Gmail, but we've gone to great lengths to make it work right.
2. Bookmark emails
I frequently need to save a single email for a period of time, such as a message that includes an important phone number. But I don't want to create a separate label for one message, and I also don't want to archive all the email that comes in after that message just to keep that thread near the top of my inbox--and hopefully the top of my mind. This problem is now easily solved by a new ability to bookmark specific emails. All emails now have dedicated URLs, so just by adding a browser bookmark while viewing a message, you can return to it whenever you want, just like a regular web page--although you will still have to log in to Gmail if you've signed out.
1. "Filter messages like this"
I find filters to be one of the most useful features in Gmail, but sometimes it can be hard to set them up quickly. So we added a new capability that makes a filter based on the message you are reading, so you can keep track of future similar emails. By clicking on the dropdown menu in the upper right-hand corner of every email (the upside-down triangle), you can now see the option to "Filter messages like this." Not only can you easily create a filter based on the sender, but this is especially handy if you are trying to filter emails sent to mailing lists. We automatically set up a filter for you based on the "list ID" header, which does a better job of finding emails sent to mailing lists.
When we began rolling out a new Gmail code architecture a few weeks ago, we also launched some new features to help improve the speed and convenience of managing email. I've been using several of these new additions over the last few weeks, and while they might seem small on their own, they really can add up to save you a lot of time and hassle. That's why I decided to list my five favorite new features that are so new, you may not have noticed them. We are still rolling them out to IE6, international and Google Apps users, but for those of you who noticed a new contact manager among other recent improvements in our latest version, here they are:
5. "Archive and next" shortcut
We added a bunch of new shortcuts to Gmail, but one that I've found to be a true time-saver is what I call the "archive and next" shortcut. When I have a lot of mail, it can be really annoying to have to open a message, click "Back to Inbox" and then select the next email I want to read. So once you enable shortcuts in Settings, you can simply press the left bracket key "[" while viewing a message to archive it, and then immediately open the next oldest one. When I see a long list of unread messages, I like to open the first one and then just hit "[" to swiftly move through my mail and archive as I go. (P.S. By clicking the right bracket "]" you can also move the other way if you want to open newer messages after you archive).
4. Share mail searches with friends
How many times do your friends tell you, "I can't find that email you sent me." Now you can prove that you did indeed send that message, despite the accusations. All you have to do is search for the message using your expert mail searching skills, and when you find it listed in the results, just copy and paste the URL and email it to your friend. When he or she goes to that link while in Gmail, your friend's Gmail will run the same search you ran and will be able to locate that "lost" email instantly. For example, if you wanted to share a search for "pick me up at airport," so flight information can be located, you would send over this URL: http://mail.google.com/mail/#search/pick+me+up+at+airport.
3. Browser navigation and history
Your web browser is now a great way to navigate Gmail. Instead of having to find the right links on the page to move from inbox to messages to other Gmail views, you can use the browser navigation buttons (back and forward) to jump back and forth between emails. You can also open your browser history and click on specific emails that you've read to go right back to them. This allows you to quickly access certain emails without having to re-read your inbox. Browser history is something that often doesn't work well on complex web apps like Gmail, but we've gone to great lengths to make it work right.
2. Bookmark emails
I frequently need to save a single email for a period of time, such as a message that includes an important phone number. But I don't want to create a separate label for one message, and I also don't want to archive all the email that comes in after that message just to keep that thread near the top of my inbox--and hopefully the top of my mind. This problem is now easily solved by a new ability to bookmark specific emails. All emails now have dedicated URLs, so just by adding a browser bookmark while viewing a message, you can return to it whenever you want, just like a regular web page--although you will still have to log in to Gmail if you've signed out.
1. "Filter messages like this"
I find filters to be one of the most useful features in Gmail, but sometimes it can be hard to set them up quickly. So we added a new capability that makes a filter based on the message you are reading, so you can keep track of future similar emails. By clicking on the dropdown menu in the upper right-hand corner of every email (the upside-down triangle), you can now see the option to "Filter messages like this." Not only can you easily create a filter based on the sender, but this is especially handy if you are trying to filter emails sent to mailing lists. We automatically set up a filter for you based on the "list ID" header, which does a better job of finding emails sent to mailing lists.
Friday, November 09, 2007
Upload all your old archived Email to Gmail from outlook, lotus notes, unix
Step by step instructions to upload all your email from outlook, lotus notes, unix (pine) and yahoo into Gmail. This is a real productivity, life hack. Now you can use the Google Mail to search through all your old mail in one place.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Released :: Firefox 3 Beta 1
As of right now when I posted this article, there seems to be only a Mac and Linux version, but a Windows version is bound to come in the next while. Check back here for the latest nightlies and betas: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Monday, November 05, 2007
iPhone v1.1.2 breaks jailbreak -- coming to the UK on Friday
When we first got our hands on the UK iPhone back in September, it was already running the 1.1.1 firmware. The same firmware which helpfully bricked a number of hacked iPhones Stateside upon later release. Now T3 is claiming that the UK iPhone -- set for release on November 9th -- is kicking 1.1.2 under the glass.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Flock 1.0 Released: Next Gen Social browser
Flock 1.0 is now available for download. In the couple of weeks I’ve been using it, Flock hasn’t crashed once, Seriously Firefox users having issues with crashes should move over to Flock.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
O2 removes 200MB Fair-Use policy for UK iPhon
There's been a fair bit of debate (and disappointment) with the O2 200 megabyte 'Fair-Use' data transfer policy that was expected to appear with the U.K. iPhone contracts this Friday. Thankfully, it seems O2 has heard us:
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Friday, November 02, 2007
Windows Home Server Review
Microsoft has a difficult challenge ahead of them in convincing people that they need Windows Home Server. After all, having another computer in the house isn't something people are shoving each other in the face for. We got our hands on a Norco DS-520 Home Server, one of the first pre-made boxes available, and definitely loved what we saw.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Monday, October 29, 2007
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