Thursday, May 22, 2008

Byte Into It - 21 May 08



Free Scheduling Software | Integrate Outlook, Google Calendar & Exchange Availability - TimeBridge
TimeBridge’s free scheduling software helps you share availability and schedule meetings easily with individuals or groups across time zones

Napster goes DRM-free MP3 - Boing Boing
"It's great that we have finally gotten here," said Chris Gorog, Napster's chairman and chief executive. "It is really the beginning of a level playing field, which I think is essential for Napster, but also for the health of the digital music business in general."

Tracks downloaded as part of Napster's subscription service will continue to have copyright restrictions.

For much of the decade, major record labels refused to license their music for downloading as MP3s. But steep annual declines in CD sales and the growing dominance of Apple Inc.'s iPod music players and its iTunes Music Store led the labels to ease that position last year to remain competitive.

BBC - Newsbeat - Technology - Facebook set for major facelift
Designers are planning some widespread changes to the way the core profile page is organised, aimed at making it "simpler, cleaner and more relevant".

The site is consulting its users on the changes ahead of a gradual roll out starting next month.

Tabbed browsing...and more...

BBC NEWS | Business | Microsoft mulls fresh Yahoo deal
In a statement, Microsoft said it "is not proposing to make a new bid to acquire all of Yahoo at this time, but reserves the right to reconsider that alternative".

It issued the statement, it said, "in light of developments" since the company withdrew its bid two weeks ago.

Microsoft stressed that a deal may or may not follow from Sunday's statement.

After Microsoft's statement, Yahoo confirmed it was looking at a number of "value maximising" alternatives with Microsoft, and would assess offers made by the firm.

CeBIT 08: Finance Minister heralds australia.gov.au revamp - Internet - iTnews Australia
Finance Minster Lindsay Tanner today revealed that the Rudd Government’s ICT plans will provide Australians with a “one stop shop” for online government services.

The Government will redesign australia.gov.au to serve as the single site for Australians to seek out government services, with an anticipated relaunch for the first quarter of 2009.

Speaking at an eGovernment forum at CeBit in Sydney, the Minster said that with 24 percent of Australians contacting the Government over the Internet in 2007, now is the time to provide citizens with an easier way to have their voices heard.

802.11n Wi-Fi to 'surpass wired Ethernet' - Networking - iTnews Australia
Enterprise adoption of next-generation 802.11n Wi-Fi technology is "unprecedented", according to a new report, despite the standard being ratified only as a draft.

"Wi-Fi Certified 802.11n will eventually surpass wired Ethernet as the dominant enterprise Lan access technology," said Paul DeBeasi, senior analyst at the Burton Group, who prepared the report for the Wi-Fi Alliance.

Firefox 3 RC1 put out for fiddling with - Software - iTnews Australia
Firefox 3 release candidate 1 has been released in to the wild. Mozzerella reckons it's seen some 14,000 updates including some major reworking on improving performance, stability and code simplification

Firefox 3: Five Extensions You Won't Need with Firefox 3
# NoSquint: Never have to enlarge the text on that web page with the teeny tiny font size again. Firefox 3's new "Text Only" zoom feature doesn't enlarge images, and is smart enough to remember your text size setting on a per-site basis when you visit again.
# Google Gears: While offline web application support is still a ways off, Firefox 3 does have support built-in and ready for webapp authors to turn it on, effectively making Google Gears unnecessary. It will be very interesting to see Gears' fate in the face of Firefox 3 offline webapp support, and which webapps support which. Overall, it's great news for users who want their data whether they're online or not.
# Resize Search Box: Sometimes, it's the little things that make us happy, like a search box that can be as big or as small as you want without having to hand-edit CSS. In Firefox 3, just grab the separator between the address bar and search box and drag and drop to the width you desire. It doesn't auto-expand as you type, however, like Searchbar Autosizer does; perhaps in Firefox 4.
# DownThemAll: Ok, so Firefox 3's improved download manager definitely does not have ALL the features DownThemAll offers, but it does include dTa's key feature, which is the ability to resume downloads even after you've restarted your browser or lost your network connection. We still do love dTa for all the other download acrobatics it can do; see more on how to supercharge your Firefox downloads with DownThemAll.
# Better Gmail and other Mailto: handler add-ons:

Firefox 3: Set Firefox 3 to Launch Gmail for mailto Links
By default, the Firefox RC 1 only comes with Yahoo! Mail as a possible mailto: link handler, which leaves Gmail users out in the cold—unless you know how to set it up by hand. Here's how to configure Firefox 3 to use Gmail as your default mailto: application handler.

Microsoft previews Windows Essential Server - Networking - iTnews Australia
Microsoft is inviting customers and partners to begin evaluating pre-release versions of Windows Small Business Server 2008 and Windows Essential Business Server 2008..

Due for general release later this year, Microsoft has overhauled its licensing terms following customer feedback on its current Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 offering.

The new licensing terms mean that customers will be able to purchase single client access licences, allowing them to pay only for the exact number of employees using the product.

Windows to run on One Laptop Per Child computer - Operating Systems - iTnews Australia
Microsoft reached an agreement to make available its Windows operating system software for the One Laptop Per Child Foundation's XO Laptop, the company said on Thursday.

Microsoft was not part of the project started by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nicholas Negroponte to develop an inexpensive laptop computer for elementary school children in developing countries.

In recent months, the two sides have engaged in more serious talks and started testing the XO Laptop's Sugar software package on Microsoft's Windows operating system

OpenSSL bug found in Debian Linux - Linux & Open Source - iTnews Australia
The vulnerability only exists in Debian and Debian derived Linux systems, but those also include the Ubuntu versions of Linux that have lately become quite popular among casual desktop Linux users.

The problematic OpenSSL code appeared in the Debian unstable distribution on September 17, 2006 and has since been propagated into the current stable and testing distributions named Etch. The previous stable Debian distribution named Sarge is not affected.

Many Debian Linux desktop users shouldn't be affected by this Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) bug unless they've generated cryptographic keys for Secure Shell (SSH) access between systems or digital signing or authentication certificates.

However, techies who administrate Debian based Linux systems that traffic in certificates might be scurrying about somewhat in coming days as they apt-get the upgraded OpenSSL package and regenerate and roll over cryptographic keys and certificates.

Featured Download: Alliance Creates Private P2P File-Sharing Networks
Windows/Mac/Linux (All platforms): Alliance, a free, open-source, cross-platform peer-to-peer application, takes nearly all of the security and privacy concerns out of peer-to-peer file sharing by putting you in charge of your own network. The dead-simple interface lets you add Alliance-using friends to your network and files on your system to share, and you can search, chat, and download like any other peer-to-peer app. The traffic between clients is encrypted at a low level, but you can apply an experimental SSL layer if you'd like a bit more protection from snooping. For trading files with co-workers or friends, it's a nice no-overhead solution. Alliance is a free download for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux systems.


Featured Download: ReadAir Brings Google Reader to Your Desktop
Windows/Mac/Linux (Adobe AIR): Free, open source application ReadAir syncs your Google Reader feeds to the comfort of your desktop. ReadAir—whose three-pane interface looks and feels much more like a desktop newsreader than Reader—also retains a lot of Google Reader features, like starring items and adding and tagging feeds. The biggest missing feature in ReadAir is its lack of keyboard shortcuts; you won't be j/k-ing your way through your unread items in ReadAir the same way you can on the web—at least not in this version. That said, the app's to-do list includes offline mode and keyboard shortcuts, so if you'd prefer Reader had that desktop look and feel plus a killer web interface when you need it, ReadAir is a great option. ReadAir is free, all platforms, requires Adobe AIR.

XBMC For Mac: XBMC Turns Your Mac into the Ultimate Media Center
You don't have to mod your classic Xbox to run the best free media center application around anymore: Dedicated developers have ported the Xbox Media Center (XBMC) software to the Mac, and its killer features will convince you to abandon Front Row forever. The latest XBMC on OS X beta dropped last week, and it's as stable and useful as ever. Dubbed the "throw out your Xbox" release, XBMC for Mac 0.5 beta 1 adds the key feature that finally puts your media center Mac under the TV where it belongs: remote control support.

Xbmc: XBMC for OS X 0.5 Beta 2 Chock Full o' Fixes
The busy folks working on XBMC for OS X just dropped beta 2, which fixes several bugs

Parallels: Parallels Adds Windows Service Pack Support
The Windows on Mac virtualization arms race continues: On the heels of a new VMware Fusion 2.0 beta, Parallels Desktop issues a software update that adds support for XP Service Pack 3 and Vista Service Pack 1 for Boot Camp partitions.

Report: Apple's focus on "premium" computers is paying off
According to NPD's numbers recounted by Apple Watch, Apple snags a much larger share of the market when you focus on brick-and-mortar sales of "premium" PCs; desktops and notebooks that cost $1,000 or more. It is an admittedly narrow scope when you consider the big picture—a world where businesses and enterprise order cheap PCs in bulk via the web from giants like HP and Dell. Speaking of cheap PCs, retail shelves aren't exactly bursting at the seams with $1,000 boxes either. Typically, you'll find one of these premium PCs alongside at least three to five cheaper or bargain-bin brethren.

Still, in this space, Apple enjoys a 70 percent share in desktops and 64 for notebooks. Combined, that's a 66 percent ownership of the US market for premium brick-and-mortar PC sales.

3G iPhone launch "confirmed," will be available at launch
the so-called "3G iPhone" finally has a "confirmed" launch date: June 9 at WWDC. Gizmodo has sources "close to the launch" who say the iPhone will be available immediately after its announcement, with no lengthy lead time like your soon-to-be-eBay'd iPhone did. Other details surrounding the launch say that Apple will finally adopt more flexible sales terms with the iPhone 2.0.
.

First Look: Cyberduck 3 is a great, free FTP client for Mac
Cyberduck, a free and open-source FTP client made just for Mac OS X, announced a major update to version 3.0.

The latest version of Cyberduck adds support for WebDAV servers and Amazon's S3 storage service to its support of FTP, SFTP, FTP/TLS, and SCP protocols. Version 3 also adds a feature to quickly open a file via its http URL in a web browser. And, extending Cyberduck's excellent Mac OS X integration—which includes support for Keychain, Spotlight, Bonjour, and iDisk—the latest version adds very slick integration with Leopard's Quick Look feature, allowing Quick Look to work with remote files.

Mac BU talks Office 2008 SP1, VBA's triumphant comeback
Adopting the Windows update convention and calling the update SP1, the update brings Office 2008 to version 12.1 and offers "over 1,000 fixes and improvements," Software Design Lead Erik Schwiebert writes in his blog. Significant improvements were made to all Office apps, including improved printing and file compatibility as well as general performance and stability improvements. Academic and business users will appreciate that Excel brings back custom error bars and tick marks to chart formatting. PowerPoint has also gained object access to its AppleScripting support, and Entourage has received the lion's share of improvements--in particular, improved compatibility with ever-important Exchange servers.

Time Capsule and Airport Extreme top sellers in their class
"For the last five or six months [AirPort Extreme] has been the number one or number two product, trading places with Linksys," NPD's Stephen Baker told Macworld. And it makes sense. Airport Extreme makes setting up a wireless network brain-dead simple, and the Airport configuration utility is far easier to use than most routers built-in web-based configuration.

Time Capsule builds on this by adding a 500GB or 1TB drive inside what is essentially an Airport Extreme for a zero-configuration file server. Apple mainly targets it as a wireless backup solution that works with Leopard's Time Machine. This brings automated wireless network backups into the realm of mere mortals, sysadmin certification not required.

Featured Mac Download: Name Mangler Bulk Renames Files
Mac OS X only: Rename large groups of files—like that batch of photos fresh off your camera's memory card—using simple or complex rules with Name Mangler. Simple options include numbering files sequentially, adding a prefix or suffix, or changing case. In advanced mode, you can script any number of those actions and save them. Name Mangler also produces reusable droplets you can add to Finder; then, whenever you want to batch rename a set of files, simply drag them onto the droplet without even starting up the application. Name Mangler is a free download, donations requested, for Macs running Leopard only.

Quick Look: Tape Deck, simple audio recording on the Mac
Tape Deck isn't bloated with features or totally unnecessary eye-candy, and best of all, anyone who has ever used a tape recorder will be able to use it right away. When the application is launched, you are met with the face of an
old-fashioned portable tape recorder and a tape drawer. To get started,
all you have to do is push the record button, causing both the record
and play button to be pressed down simultaneously, and the app begins
recording; you even have the click sound you would hear from a real
tape recorder. One of the nice features of Tape Deck is that you can't
accidentally record over a tape. Every time you activate the record
feature, a new tape is created and the old one is put into the tape
drawer to the right.Recordings are done in compressed MP4-AAC audio and can easily be
exported to iTunes, e-mail, or disposed of easily via the File menu.
Furthermore, Tape Deck can be minimized and controlled via a menu item
or through system-wide hotkeys. There is also a handy search pane that
allows you to search through tapes titles and notes. Each recording
even takes on an icon representing the tape with the labels that you
set in the application.

The software goes for $25, but users can play with a demo before committing. .

No comments:

Post a Comment