Byte Into It - 08 Oct 08

Mozilla CEO John Lilly: Firefox Mobile Alphas coming “in a few weeks” » Unwired View

Mozilla CEO John Lilly: Firefox Mobile Alphas coming “in a few weeks”

In an interview that started with Mozilla CEO John Lilly explaining how he runs the company to San Jose Mercury News reporter Pete Carey, it was revealed that the first Firefox Mobile alphas could be released in “a few weeks.”

Pictured: The amazing bendy TV screen that folds up to fit in your pocket | Mail Online

Bendy screen

In operation: A snapshot of the running all-organic 2D-display

Traditional flat-screen televisions could soon become a thing of the past, as scientists have revealed an ultra-thin, flexible screen that could fold up and fit in your pocket.

The bendy screens - less than a millimetre thick - could be used for televisions, computers and phones, and may pave the way for easy-to-carry digital newspaper displays, which readers could upload their news on to daily.

Some speculate that the technology could even lead to wearable TV jackets, flexible laptop screens, and TV blankets.

Google contributes more code to WINE

With the recent release of Picasa 3 Beta for Linux, Google has contributed more code to the WINE project.

WINE is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of Linux (and other Unix-like operating systems). It can be thought of as a compatibility layer for running Windows programs on Linux. WINE does not require Microsoft Windows, as it is a completely free alternative implementation of the Windows API consisting of 100% non-Microsoft code. With WINE you can run such programs as Microsoft Office and games like Counter Strike on your Linux machine.

Another popular application is Adobe’s Photoshop CS2 and here Google has been very active.

In January 2006, Google (working with CodeWeavers the commerical arm of the WINE project) improved WINE so Picasa 2.2 would run. This effort resulted in 225 patches committed to the WINE project.

Their work continued in 2007, committing a few dozen patches and they also worked again with CodeWeavers to improve Wine so it could run Photoshop CS2 properly. As a result, about 200 patches were committed to the WINE project.

Torvalds talks about his brand new blog | NetworkWorld.com Community

We tend to think that everybody who's anybody in the tech world has a blog, right? Well, Linus Torvalds didn't have a blog, at least not until dipping his toe into the waters with this one -- "Linus' Blog" -- which launched last Thursday.

Linus TorvaldsThere's not a lot there yet -- three posts -- and Torvalds tells me that he sees the undertaking as an experimental outlet for personal thoughts and family expressions. However, with the Torvalds name being practically synonymous with Linux, people are already beginning to take notice.

Australian ISPs offer US advice, smugness, on net neutrality

For years, US Internet service providers have been offering their users unlimited access to the web, creating high expectations among customers who have never had to think before accessing content. As that content has shifted from text to music to video, however, ISPs have found that living up to the promise of "all-you-can-eat" broadband can be expensive in a nation of gluttons.

One symptom of this problem is the industry's opposition to net neutrality, which would prevent ISPs from profiting on specific services or content, or degrading and blocking others. In the midst of this fight, the executives of several ISPs in Australia have weighed in, suggesting that they've solved this problem already and that their US counterparts should pay attention to their model.

Wal*Mart shutting down DRM server, nuking your music collection -- only people who pay for music risk losing it to DRM shenanigans - Boing Boing

Hey suckers! Did you buy DRM music from Wal*Mart instead of downloading MP3s for free from the P2P networks? Well, they're repaying your honesty by taking away your music. Unless you go through a bunch of hoops (that you may never find out about, if you've changed email addresses or if you're not a very technical person), your music will no longer be playable after October 9th.

But don't worry, this will never ever happen to all those other DRM companies -- unlike little fly-by-night mom-and-pop operations like Wal*Mart, the DRM companies are rock-ribbed veterans of commerce and industry, sure to be here for a thousand years. So go on buying your Audible books, your iTunes DRM songs, your Zune media, your EA games... None of these companies will ever disappear, nor will the third-party DRM suppliers they use. They are as solid and permanent as Commodore, Atari, the Soviet Union, the American credit system and the Roman Empire.

Boy, the entertainment industry sure makes a good case for ripping them off, huh? Buy your media and risk having it confiscated by a DRM-server shutdown. Take it for free and keep it forever.

MPAA spokeslawyers insist that they not be identified by name in reports from press-conference - Boing Boing

The MPAA is suing RealNetworks for making a product that will rip a DVD, crap it up with DRM, and store it on your hard-drive. The MPAA says that only their stupid DRM, and not RealNetworks' stupid DRM, can be used to cripple DVDs. My take? A pox on both their houses.

Except this:

Lawyers for the MPAA, in a teleconference with reporters, said Kaleidesape and RealDVD are circumventing "technology designed to prevent copying."

The lawyers, who asked that their names not be published, said they were concerned "Consumers will think this is a legal product...when in fact it is totally illegal."

US Customs: Sketching an SUV makes you a copyright infringer - Boing Boing

"A woman stopped by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the border, over a drawing of an SUV in her notebook. They thought the artist and college professor was an industrial spy and copyright infringer."

IFPI Loses Another P2P ‘Wireless Defense’ Case | TorrentFreak

A man accused of being a music pirate has been cleared by a Danish court. The man denied the claims of the IFPI, based on his assertion that someone else must have accessed his wireless router to commit the infringements. This is the second major defeat for the IFPI in Denmark over the so-called ‘wireless defense’.

The music industry anti-piracy lobby IFPI has taken a severe beating in Denmark recently. In September the major Danish ISPs issued a joint statement rejecting the IFPI’s demands for a ‘3 strikes’ agreement aimed at ultimately disconnecting alleged pirates from the Internet, labeling it as a “contravention of the law”. However, the defeats don’t end there.

The IFPI also accused two Danish women of being Internet pirates, after they claimed to have monitored illicit file-sharing activities on an IP address registered to one of them. The IFPI demanded $62,000 in compensation from the pair, stating that even if their Wi-Fi had been used without their knowledge, they are ultimately responsible for what happens on their Internet connection. Eventually a court ruled in favor of the women and acquitted them of all charges, much to the displeasure of the IFPI.

Data-mining sucks: official report - Boing Boing

A multi-year National Research Council review of data-mining as a means of discovering terrorists has concluded that this just doesn't work very well, and that it ends up harming and harassing -- and terrorizing -- innocents whose only crime is to have a profile that some database-designer thinks is hinky.

The report was written by a committee whose members include William Perry, a professor at Stanford University; Charles Vest, the former president of MIT; W. Earl Boebert, a retired senior scientist at Sandia National Laboratories; Cynthia Dwork of Microsoft Research; R. Gil Kerlikowske, Seattle's police chief; and Daryl Pregibon, a research scientist at Google.

They admit that far more Americans live their lives online, using everything from VoIP phones to Facebook to RFID tags in automobiles, than a decade ago, and the databases created by those activities are tempting targets for federal agencies. And they draw a distinction between subject-based data mining (starting with one individual and looking for connections) compared with pattern-based data mining (looking for anomalous activities that could show illegal activities).

But the authors conclude the type of data mining that government bureaucrats would like to do--perhaps inspired by watching too many episodes of the Fox series 24--can't work. "If it were possible to automatically find the digital tracks of terrorists and automatically monitor only the communications of terrorists, public policy choices in this domain would be much simpler. But it is not possible to do so."

Michael Moore on Slacker Uprising’s Piracy ‘Problem’ | TorrentFreak

Michael Moore decided to give away his latest film ‘Slacker Uprising’ for free, but only to people in the US and Canada. However, since he chose to use BitTorrent, and open trackers such as The Pirate Bay, it was fairly easy for the rest of the world to download it as well. Was this done on purpose? Moore respond

Ballmer denies involvement in Vista Capable - Software - iTnews Australia

n a written deposition to court Steve Ballmer has denied all knowledge of the Vista Capable marketing program that resulted in a class action suit against his company.

The prosecution had been hoping to get Ballmer on the stand to justify the program but this now seems unlikely in light of his written statement.

In his deposition Ballmer said he was kept informed on the campaign by Jim Allchin, Microsoft's retired co-president for platforms, products and services, and Will Poole, the former senior vice president for Windows client business, who has since left the company.

“I was not involved in establishing the requirements computers must satisfy to qualify for the Windows Vista Capable program,” the deposition reads.

BBC NEWS | UK | Scotland | Computer game boosts maths scores

A daily dose of computer games can boost maths attainment, according to a study carried out in Scottish schools.

Learning and Teaching Scotland - the main organisation for the development of the curriculum - analysed the effect of a "brain training" game.

It also found improvements in pupils' concentration and behaviour.

The study involved more than 600 pupils in 32 schools across Scotland using the Brain Training from Dr Kawashima game on the Nintendo DS every day.

BBC NEWS | UK | Education | Oxbridge lectures play on iTunes

Oxford and Cambridge University are to make lectures by leading academics available through iTunes.

Cambridge says it will bring the work of its Nobel prize-winning academics in reach of a much wider public.

Oxford University says it will publish 150 hours of video and audio material of lectures and ideas from "world-leading thinkers".

These are the latest UK universities to provide free education content through the online downloading software.

YouTube intros links to buy music featured in videos

The next time you see a video on Google and wonder to yourself, "What is that awesome song they're using in the soundtrack?" you may be able to find out, and even buy it directly from the page. Google has begun adding links to some of its video pages that point users to where they can purchase the media found in the videos they're watching, starting with partner videos (those uploaded directly by companies and content owners who have an agreement with YouTube). Now, when you watch music videos from EMI, for example, you'll see links to buy the featured song on Amazon or iTunes.

Motorola's Linux strategy evolves with Android

Motorola was one of the first major handset makers to embrace the Linux platform. Its earliest Linux-based phones were popular in China, enabling the company to sell over 5 million of the penguin-powered devices by 2006. Following that initial victory, Motorola brought its Linux phones to the US with its global launch of the Razr2 in 2007. Motorola's current Linux lineup features eight LiMo-compatible handsets and the company boasts that its total sales of Linux-based phones has exceeded 14 million as of this year.

Plunging costs show there's plenty of backbone bandwidth

Prices for data transit continue to plunge, according to new research out from TeleGeography, and they're falling by almost 40 percent a year. Despite all the doom-and-gloom from ISPs, who claim they need to impose bandwidth caps and throttling in order to keep the bits flowing, the news is a reminder that the world's backbone providers actually have huge surpluses of capacity and that transit costs are plummeting faster than the US stock market.

Not all ISPs pay for transit, of course; the larger ones are able to "peer" freely with other large ISPs. "Transit" applies between ISPs who don't agree to freely swap data from each other's networks, and it's a major expense for local ISPs that need to purchase all of their bandwidth. (See our in-depth guide to peering and transit for a detailed discussion of the pricing and politics of the process.)

MySpace, Facebook holding mobile social networking back

Social networking made the leap from desktops to mobile phones a long time ago, and a new report suggests that MySpace and Facebook still dominate even on the small screen. Too bad the two market leaders may be doing more harm than good to mobile social networking.

The report, published by ABI Research, says that nearly half (46 percent) of social networking users have visited one such network on a mobile phone. Among these mobile socializers, almost 70 percent of them visited MySpace, while another 67 percent hit Facebook. Even though the mobile social networking landscape is rich with competitors, especially those innovating with location-based services, no other network garnered even 15 percent of mobile adoption.

It should come as no surprise that the most important activities to mobile socializers are checking on new messages and comments from friends (50 percent of users), and posting status updates (45 percent) to let others know what they are doing.

“The social network is increasingly becoming a central hub for communication across online and mobile domains for many consumers,” said research director Michael Wolf. “To a degree, it allows them to centralize messaging, communication and even digital media consumption through a centralized property on various screens. We believe this centralization of a consumer’s digital lifestyle through social networks will only increase adoption of mobile social networking in coming years.”

750,000 lost jobs? The dodgy digits behind the war on P2P: Page 1

If you pay any attention to the endless debates over intellectual property policy in the United States, you'll hear two numbers invoked over and over again, like the stuttering chorus of some Philip Glass opera: 750,000 and $200 to $250 billion. The first is the number of U.S. jobs supposedly lost to intellectual property theft; the second is the annual dollar cost of IP infringement to the U.S. economy. These statistics are brandished like a talisman each time Congress is asked to step up enforcement to protect the ever-beleaguered U.S. content industry. And both, as far as an extended investigation by Ars Technica has been able to determine, are utterly bogus.

Apple finally drops NDA, iPhone developers rejoice

Apple has announced via its Apple Developer Connection website that it has dropped the NDA that has left iPhone developers frustrated since the release of iPhone OS 2.0 this past July. In a note addressed "To Our Developers," Apple finally admitted that the NDA had "created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success."

Apple snoozes, researcher discloses risky iPhone UI flaws

Apple is arguably getting more proactive about iPhone security exploits. The iPhone OS 2.0 release fixed quite a few bugs, and last month's 2.1 update was no security slouch either. Still, in the face of Apple recruiting full-time iPhone hackers, an Israeli researcher has released details on two potentially dangerous—though seemingly innocuous—design flaws that he says the company has ignored for too long.

Ex

Infinite reboots plague some early Apple TV 2.2 adopters (Updated)

Remember that Apple TV 2.2 update that we were all fawning over this morning? The one with all the awesome new features, like buying HD TV episodes straight from the device and the ability to play music video playlists? It turns out that once again, not all that glitters is gold in the Apple world, because this update is breaking many users' Apple TVs.

iPhone gives Pandora twice as many new users daily

The Pandora personalized radio streaming service was already a popular destination before Apple's App Store launched over the summer, but the launch of the Pandora iPhone application has apparently caused the site to really take off. Founder Tim Westergren spoke about the iPhone's effect on Pandora and a variety of other topics during his keynote at the Digital Music Forum West conference and, according to paidContent, revealed that the device has caused a substantial increase in the amount of new Pandora users.

Apple Brick rumours building - Business - iTnews Australia

The web has been buzzing with rumours that a new Apple product, code-named Brick, would be announced in an industry keynote on October 14th.

Some commentators have guessed that the announcement, which is likely to become one of Steve Jobs' infamous 'just one more thing' teasers, would be a new notebook design, or even a refresh of the Mac Mini.

One wag even suggested that Brick would be a new OS and that it was so named because it would 'smash Windows'.

But the latest mumblings from the rumour mill point to something altogether more substantial.

The 'brick' in question is a block of aircraft-grade aluminium and, rather than a new product, we're looking at a new manufacturing process according to some sources within Apple.

The new manufacturing process, which apparently will allow Apple to carve cases and components from a single block of lightweight metal using high pressure water jets and three-dimensional lasers, could be a game changer for the laptop industry.

It means that chassis and cases will no longer have to be folded or joined, adding huge strength and making the next generation of Mac laptops seamless and virtually screwless.

Byte Into It - 24 Sep 08

The Power User's Guide to Google Chrome
ExitReality launches 3D browsing for 'the entire Web' - Internet - iTnews Australia

Melbourne-based company ExitReality today launched software that renders two dimensional webpages into three dimensional scenes – like something out of a computer game.

Developers say that ExitReality is compatible with ‘the entire Web’, working inside browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox to display a 3D depiction of each page’s contents.

Some websites already have special designs for use with ExitReality. Major companies such as eBay and MSN are depicted as buildings which act as hyperlinks.

YouTube appears as a movie theatre, while social networking site MySpace appears as a virtual lounge.

Other websites are displayed as a grid of content that users can walk through.

“It is the entire web in 3D – making 40 billion virtual worlds – and it will instantly transform 2D content into 3D,” said ExitReality founder Danny Stefanic.

Users can search for websites using the software and instantly switch between 2D and 3D views.

EFF sues Bush, Cheney et al for AT&T spying - Telecommunications - iTnews Australia

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a lawsuit on behalf of AT&T’s business and personal customers over the US government’s wiretapping of private telephone and internet records.

The organisation alleges that a secret National Security Agency was set up in San Francisco with AT&T’s help and was used to process the data from millions of telephone conversations and internet sessions.

The suit has been filed against the National Security Agency (NSA) but also names President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney's chief of staff David Addington, former Attorney General and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and other individuals who ordered or participated in the warrantless domestic surveillance.

"Demanding personal accountability from President Bush, Vice President Cheney and others responsible for the NSA's dragnet surveillance of ordinary Americans' communications is the best way to guarantee that such blatantly illegal spying will not be authorized in the future," said EFF legal director Cindy Cohn.

Nokia 'free' music phone sales to start Oct 17 - Telecommunications - iTnews Australia

Nokia's first phone model with free access to music is scheduled to go on sale on October 17 in Britain, retailer Carphone Warehouse said on its Web page.

Nokia's "Comes with Music" bundle of phone and music service could help the music industry make up for falling CD sales, while challenging dominance of Apple's iTunes in the digital music market.

The package will differ from other bundles on the market as users can keep all the music they have downloaded during the 12 month subscription period.

Vodafone launches unlimited music downloads - Telecommunications - iTnews Australia

Vodafone today launched an unlimited music downloads service, allowing users to download thousands of songs to their mobile phones for a fixed price per month.

MusicStation will cost $11.95 per month, with no extra data download costs, and will give users access to a database of over a million songs.

Mandriva unveils Linux for netbooks - Operating Systems - iTnews Australia

Linux publisher Mandriva has unveiled a version of its platform designed specifically for the new breed of mini laptops.

Mandriva Mini is aimed primarily at vendors of so-called 'netbooks', and is customised for this category of small form factor device, Mandriva said.

It features a fast boot-up, comprehensive connectivity support and multimedia codecs, and is adapted to work on key netbook platforms such as Intel's Atom.

Unlike Windows, which powers many mini laptops, Linux versions such as Mandriva Mini are customised for a small footprint and efficient power management, and have user interfaces adapted to smaller display screens.

Open Source makes historic UK breakthrough - Software - iTnews Australia

Open Source companies have been granted official permission to supply software to the UK public sector for the first time in British history.

At least two Open Source software suppliers have been awarded places on the £80 million Software for Educational Institutions Framework, making them official suppliers to UK schools and scoring a victory in what has been a long and frustrating battle against favouritism shown to conventional commercial software companies in UK politics and procurement.

Mark Taylor, president of the Sirius Corporation, one of the winning Open Source suppliers, said "We were utterly stunned. We are delighted. It's a significant breakthrough for Open Source software."

The UK's procurement frameworks, a fast-track process for public sector purchasers, handled £4.4bn of business in the year to April 2008. They are not meant to prevent companies not on the lists from selling to the public sector but, said Taylor, this had not been the experience of the Open Source community.

Telstra 'a disgrace' to Aussie R&D, NICTA CEO says - Business - iTnews Australia

NICTA CEO David Skellern said that Telstra is 'a disgrace' and called on the federal government to give more support to the ICT industry.

“If Australia’s ICT sector was a national swim team, there’d be a huge outcry at its current state. We’d be throwing everything at it to make it go faster – special diets, training, coaches, the lot.

“We would bother, because we’d understand that the team had the talent – it just needed the support. So I’d like to let us bother about ICT innovation too.

“I have a deep conviction that it can flourish in this country, if it can attract the support it requires. You can rest assured that NICTA will be doing its part to bring home the gold.”

Delivering the keynote address at the Influence Forum 2008 in the Hunter Valley this weekend, Skellern condemned Telstra’s historical record as a poor investor in R&D.

“Companies like Telstra are a disgrace when it comes to research and development,” he said.

BBC NEWS | UK | Google climbdown on abortion ads

Google is to change its policy on adverts about abortion following a legal challenge from a Christian pressure group.

It had refused a Christian Institute advert, saying it did not allow the advertising of websites with "abortion and religion-related content".

The institute threatened to use British equality laws to contest the decision.

But after an out-of-court settlement, Google will now allow religious groups to advertise about abortion.

It means when the word "abortion" is typed into the search engine, internet users will no longer just see adverts with details of abortion clinics and support groups, but could also find links to religious groups which may oppose abortion.

BBC NEWS | Technology | YouTube bans some weapons footage

YouTube is to ban footage showing weapons being used to intimidate people on its website in the UK.

The new policy was being introduced because of "particular concern" in Britain over the subject, the site's owners, Google, said.

MPs criticised video-sharing websites, including YouTube, in July, saying they should be doing more to vet content.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith welcomed the YouTube ban and called on other internet sites to follow suit.

YouTube said the introduction of the new rule on weapons and intimidation would be the first time the site had made a policy change targeted specifically at the UK.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Palin e-mail hack details emerge

Details of how an e-mail account of US Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin was hacked have emerged.

Following the hack, screenshots of Mrs Palin's messages, inbox, pictures and address book were posted to the Wikileaks whistle-blowing site.

It is thought the attackers exploited the password resetting system of Yahoo's e-mail service.

Details about Mrs Palin's life pulled from public sources reportedly helped defeat security questions.

Fake popup study sadly confirms most users are idiots

For most of us, security issues happen to "other people"—we block popup ads, we carefully examine dialog boxes and, for those of us on the Mac platform, we snicker when confronted with something that attempts to mimic a Windows system warning. But everyone knows that they are exceptional—what's the behavior of a more typical user like? Some researchers have tested how college students respond to fake dialog boxes in browser popup windows and found that the students are so anxious to get the dialog out of the way, they click right through obvious warning signs.

Google's T-Mobile G1 Android phone: the first review - Tech & Web News - Times Online

The arrival of Android signals the opening round of the battle between Google and its rivals, such as Nokia and Apple, to create software for the next generation of mobile phones that allows users to connect seamlessly to the internet.

A Google spokesman said that, these days, using phones “does not just mean a phone call, but rather access to the world’s information” and that mobiles will be one of the most important ways to connect to the internet in future.

However, when The Times was granted a first glance at the new device, the phone did not seem to offer a ground-breaking feature to rival the “wow factor” of the iPhone’s touchscreen. Instead, the G1 happily adopts the best features of the iPhone and BlackBerry — two of the best smart phones on the market.

Apple's redesigned power adapters already shipping, sort of

Owners of iPhone 3G, and those who simply had to gobble up a few of Apple's cute lil' USB-to-AC power adapters, may have to wait a few weeks to swap theirs out for units that won't cause an electric shock. However, according two different reports, Apple's replacement plugs are already shipping with new iPhones, and analysts say that the company shouldn't have much backlash to worry about from the whole affair.

New royalty agreement leaves Internet radio out in the cold

This afternoon, the Digital Media Association announced a new agreement with organizations that represent musicians and songwriters that will provide a streamlined licensing procedure for many models of digital music distribution. The new agreement doesn't apply to "download to own" music, but will apply to streaming services, including subscription and ad-supported music (think Last.fm and SpiralFrog). The agreement has been submitted to the Copyright Royalty Judges for approval.

For the purposes of this agreement, musicians and songwriters were represented by he National Music Publishers' Association, the Nashville Songwriters Association International, and the Songwriters Guild of America. They negotiated the deal with the RIAA and the Digital Media Association, which includes industry heavy-hitters like Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. But the DiMA also includes a variety of companies that are doing less well under the current system, such as the recently-purchased Napster, and Internet radio services like Live365 and Pandora, which are buckling under the current royalty system.

Bad seed ISP Atrivo cut off from rest of the Internet

Malicious ISP Atrivo has lost the confidence and support of the last upstream provider willing to do business with the company. Up until last Saturday, Pacific Internet Exchange (PIE) had kept Atrivo connected to the rest of the world, but evidently felt the cost of doing business with the rot-filled ISP was too high to justify. Pacific was the last company to get the memo on that particular decision, but as of Saturday, Atrivo is offline.

The chain of events that ultimately led to Atrivo's shutdown may have been touched off by an August report from HostExploit on the company's illegal endeavors. At the time, Atrivo was a major hub of illegal activity; some 66 percent of the fake antivirus scanners and false malware-laden "codecs" were on Atrivo's network. The situation also persisted over time, a significant indication that Atrivo's disproportionate share of the malware market was no mere blip or oversight.

Windows 7: an upgrade to Vista, not an overhaul | NetworkWorld.com Community

Screenshots of Windows 7 leaked this week on the ThinkNext.net site shows Windows 7 looking more like an update to the Vista user experience and not an overhaul of Vista. That makes sense given the short timeframe to develop and release Windows 7, and Microsoft's change to shorter OS release cycles over the past mega-Windows OS releases. Balmer is saying Windows 7 should be here in 2009. Frankly, most of the screenshots show pretty minor updates to the Vista user interface: a simplified Start menu, ribbon menus (BOO!) in apps like Wordpad, and redesigns to Windows Explorer and other control panel apps. So far, not a lot to get excited about, at least in this group of leaked screenshots.

Byte Into It - 17 Sep 08

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BBC NEWS | Technology | Retailer Best Buy to buy Napster

Consumer electronics giant Best Buy has entered the online music arena, purchasing the Napster online music service for $121m (£67.5m) in cash and investments.

The acquisition values Napster at $2.65 a share, more than twice its market value on Friday.

Best Buy said the move was to "reach new customers" and leverage Napster's 700,000 existing subscribers.

The deal is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Best Buy said Napster's easy-to-use interface, streaming music and mobile offerings were the service's key strengths.

Neuros open set-top box goes HD - Boing Boing

Computers becoming open in the early 80s transformed the category from proprietary computing machines to PCs. Can the same thing happen with the TV set? Will an open device that allows content providers and third party software developers (Miro as an example) to access the TV render proprietary set-top devices obsolete as happened in the computer space? This is Neuros's strategy as they enhance their Neuros OSD with HD capability

Google puts wallet behind African wireless broadband effort

The new venture is a startup called O3b networks, named for the "other 3 billion" that aren't currently getting Internet service. Although the first deployments will be in Africa, the company hopes to eventually deploy its access model across other poorly served areas of the globe.

That model takes into account a couple of realities that are sometimes ignored in plans to connect the developing world. Equatorial Africa is vast, politically fragmented, and unstable. No private entity is likely to put up the money necessary to provide and maintain comprehensive access to fiber in the region, and assistance from other governments has primarily focused on wiring up academic centers that tend to be in the already-developed regions of the continent.

The solution, in O3b's view, is to go wireless and leverage the region's infatuation with the cell phone. The company plans to use the existing infrastructure of cell phone towers, and add hardware that enables 3G and WiMax networking. That hardware will then be linked to the big-ticket item in the plan: a series of low-earth orbit satellites, which will serve as a bridge to the wider world at speeds approaching 10Gbps. Should the full plan be rolled out, there will be a total of 16 satellites connected to over 2,300 earth-bound access points.

TiVo fans rejoice: HD, MPEG-4 TiVo returning to DirecTV

Ever since DirecTV decided to part ways with TiVo and roll its own DVR, fans of the pioneering TiVo have fervently hoped that the two service providers would reunite. While the companies have played nicely with one another since the split, providing a handful of modest feature improvements to DirecTV TiVo owners, there was no indication that DirecTV had any plans to embrace the TiVo platform once again. That has finally changed, as a new HD-capable TiVo for DirecTV customers will be launching in the second half of next year.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Yahoo defends Google advert deal

Yahoo said it will implement its much-criticised search ad deal with Google despite possible anti-trust hurdles.

Under the agreement, from October Google will sell ads alongside Yahoo search results on some of its pages.

Rumours the US justice department would challenge the deal grew this week when it hired a veteran anti-trust lawyer.

Hilary Schneider, executive vice-president of Yahoo US, told the BBC the agreement was "fully within the guidelines of the law".

Both companies voluntarily agreed to have the US Department of Justice (DoJ) examine the plan, which was announced in June.

They also committed themselves to wait three and a half months to give regulators time to scrutinise it.

Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt recently said both companies were aiming to go forward with the deal.

Woman sues city after it orders her to remove a link to the local cops' website - Boing Boing

A woman in Sheboygan, MI is suing the city because the city's attorney used legal threats to get her to remove a link to the local police department website -- the city apparently believes you need permission to communicate the URLs of its pages:

Jennifer Reisinger says the Sheboygan city attorney ordered her to remove from her Web site a link to the city’s police department, in what she believes was retaliation for her support of recalling Mayor Juan Perez, according to the suit filed last week.

CALL YOUR SENATOR: Stop proposal to make taxpayers responsible for MPAA's copyright claims! - Boing Boing

ast week, the Senate Judiciary Committee gave the green light to S. 3325, "The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Act of 2008." We need you to show them the red light, and quick! Among other things, this intellectual property enforcement bill lets the DOJ enforce civil copyright claims and lets the government do the MPAA and RIAA’s intellectual property rights enforcement work for them—at tax payers’ expense.

Beta Beat: Foxmarks Beta-Testing Profile-Specific Password Sync

bookmark-syncing extension for Firefox, Foxmarks, is venturing into syncing your passwords as well as your bookmarks between browsers over the internet. Coupled with Foxmarks' new profile support, you can selectively sync what passwords go where and keep your banking passwords at home and your IT passwords at work. You have to opt into the password sync beta to enable it in your Foxmarks account. Of course, trusting your important passwords to a feature in beta—no matter how secure it appears to be—should make anyone concerned about security and privacy antsy, so do proceed with caution, and maybe only use this feature for your low-security passwords. Do you sync your passwords to the cloud, or do you wish you could?

Beta Beat: Firefox 3.1 to Add Private Browsing Mode

You can already switch on private browsing in Firefox with previously mentioned Stealther, but in the wake of IE8's InPrivate Browsing and Google Chrome's Incognito mode, Mozilla is set to incorporate their own private browsing mode with Firefox 3.1.

Firefox: Enable Chrome's Best Features in Firefox

The internet is atwitter with Google Chrome's innovative new features, but there was no clear winner in our speed test comparing Firefox and Chrome—which means your choice of browser may depend solely on features. Apart from a few specific issues (namely process management), many of Chrome's best features are already available in Firefox 3, proving yet again the power of extensibility. From incognito browsing and the streamlined download manager to URL highlighting and improved search, let's take a look at how you can bring some of Google Chrome's best features to Firefox.
Stealther Turns On Incognito Browsing

Chrome's Incognito browsing allows you to shop for your significant other look at porn without keeping any history of that browsing session anywhere on your computer. In Firefox, the Stealther extension does the same thing. The main difference: In Chrome, a single window can enter Incognito mode, whereas in Firefox it's enabled globally (this is probably possible in Chrome because of how it manages each tab as a separate process). But let's be honest, are your multi-tasking skills really that good? (Original post)
Download Statusbar Puts Downloads in Your Status Bar (Surprise!)

Chrome is all about saving space, so files you download don't break out into a separate window. Instead, they live in your status bar. Not bad, but guess what: The Download Statusbar Firefox extension has been doing this for five years, and it offers lots of additional options and wastes even less screen real estate. (Original post)
Speed Dial and Auto Dial Power Up Your Empty Tabs

Chrome's empty tab page—which displays your most visited sites, most used search boxes, and even your recently closed tabs—is awesome. There isn't currently anything quite as full featured for Firefox, however there are a couple of options that are very close. The Speed Dial extension (which itself is a ripoff of the Speed Dial feature in Opera) provides a very similar thumbnail-based new tab page, but you decide which sites you want in your speed dial and you can quickly access any of them from your keyboard with shortcuts. (Original post)
Locationbar2 Adds Domain-Highlighting to the Address Bar

Google Chrome's "omni bar" sports root domain highlighting, a cool feature that doubles as a nice anti-phishing device (if you see the root domain more easily, you are less likely to give your information to an imposter domain). That sort of domain highlighting isn't new by any means, though; the Locationbar2 Firefox extension has been boasting this same highlighting—in addition to several other excellent features—for well over a year.
Prism Extension Turns Any Site into a Separate Application

If you want to break out a webapp you use all day long into a separate window and desktop shortcut, Chrome makes it easy on you. Just click x and do y. The concept of separating webapps into their own application isn't new, though. At Mozilla, they've been cooking up Prism to do just that for quite some time. With Prism and the Prism for Firefox extension installed, just go to Tools -> Convert Website to Application to break a webapp into a separate window and application. Right now this extension is Windows only, but hey—so is Chrome.
Keyword Search Bookmarks Integrate Site-Specific Search with the Address Bar

Chrome boasts that after using a site's search engine once, you can perform that same search from the address bar the next time. For example, after you search Amazon once, the next time you may just be able to go to your address bar, type 'a', press Tab, and then perform your search. That's pretty saucy, but it's also not much of an innovation over keyword searches in Firefox. Granted, you have to manually add a search box (here are 15 of our favorite Firefox quick searches), but you can also define exactly what you want that shortcut to be. Chrome also doesn't currently support keyword bookmarking in general, which is one of the most time-saving features in Firefox.

On the other hand, previously mentioned Auto Dial automatically populates the new tab page with your most frequently visited sites. It's not as attractive as Speed Dial or Chrome's new tab page, though. Either way, give Firefox extension developers some time. We'll have an even better alternative before you know it.

Pew study: cloud computing popular, privacy worries linger

A new survey by the Pew Internet and American Life project, released Friday morning at Google's Washington, DC headquarters, finds cloud computing applications taking off among Internet users. But respondents also told pollsters that they have profound concerns about ways their personal data might be used—among them, the kind of ad-targeting practiced by... Google.

As Internet users increasingly find themselves using multiple (potentially incompatible) networked devices to get online from a variety of locations, it should come as little surprise that large numbers of them are availing themselves of "cloud" services that offload computing or data storage functions to someone else's server, allowing e-mail, photos, or documents to be accessed anywhere. More than half of Internet users have used Web-based e-mail services, which study author John Horrigan called the "starter drug" of cloud computing, while just over a third have stored personal photos on sites like Flickr or Photobucket. Cloud apps like Google Documents and Adobe Photoshop Express were third most popular, with 29 percent of respondents saying they'd used one, while fewer than 10 percent had used Web-based services to store personal videos or back up their hard drives. All told, 69 percent of users had used at least one form of cloud computing; 40 percent had used two or more. For users under 30, those numbers jumped to 87 percent and 59 percent respectively.

Perhaps more surprising is that 68 percent of respondents who said they'd used cloud services declared that they would be "very" concerned, and another 19 percent at least "somewhat" concerned, if their personal data were analyzed to provide targeted advertising. This, of course, is precisely what many Web mail services, such as Google's own Gmail, do—which implies that at least some of those who profess to be "very" concerned about the practice are probably nevertheless subjecting themselves to it.

Copyright bill blasted as "enormous gift" to Big Content

The United States Congress returned to work this week, and senators appear to have copyright on the brain: A broad intellectual property enforcement bill introduced in July is slated for markup by the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, and another aimed at cracking down on piracy overseas was introduced Wednesday.

Byte Into It - 10 Sep 08

Google moves to ease search privacy concerns - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Google has moved to calm privacy concerns, with plans to halve the time it keeps users' web search data on record following pressure from European regulators.

The company said on its official blog it was reducing the amount of time it keeps the search data associated with a user's unique internet address to nine months from 18 months currently.

After nine months search data would be disassociated with internet protocol addresses. The company did not say when the measure would take effect.

Microsoft retain search logs for 18 months while Yahoo! kept such information for 13 months.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Google looks to the next 10 years

Don't be evil

It was 10 years ago this month that Larry Page and Sergey Brin formed Google Inc to "organise all the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" and do it better than anyone else.

Google Chrome: Is there anything under the hood? - Network World

The bottom line — it's fast, very fast. However, throwing huge factors of performance improvement around is likely more for headlines and less related to what you see yourself.

Interestingly, though, is one last aspect of Chrome that has yet to be mentioned, how it addresses the true slow part of the Web — the network. Sure JavaScript is slow, but it is nothing compared to round-tripping to the server. If you look closely at Chrome there is real goodness here. First, simple DNS resolution caching of common sites and pre-fetching is on by default in Chrome.And in terms of network plumbing, we found a very interesting feature in Chrome — native bzip2 compression. While gzip-based HTTP compression has been around for quite some time, bzip2 compression is much better in terms of size reduction for common text formats like HTML, CSS and very importantly JavaScript.

With the rise of very JavaScript-heavy sites this is going to be a welcome improvement. The bad news though is that so far no Web servers are dishing out bzip2-based data, save Lighttpd.

In the final analysis Google Chrome certainly gets the plumbing right, and this is just the start. While its end-user features are still being developed it is certainly clear that, as an engine, it provides a lot of horsepower for the future of Web development.

The WebKit Open Source Project

WebKit is an open source web browser engine. WebKit is also the name of the Mac OS X system framework version of the engine that's used by Safari, Dashboard, Mail, and many other OS X applications. WebKit's HTML and JavaScript code began as a branch of the KHTML and KJS libraries from KDE. This website is also the home of S60's S60 WebKit development.

Nokia's Comes With Music won't worry Apple... yet

Comes With Music offers a compelling proposition: buy a phone, get free music downloads for a year. Carphone Warehouse will be the exclusive UK provider of Comes With Music handsets for now, and the initial CWM device will be Nokia's 5310 handset. Buyers receive "free" access to millions of tracks out of Nokia's own music store for 12 months.

The really interesting bit about Comes With Music is that users get to keep downloaded tracks after the 12-month free download period is up. Nokia would love for people to buy another Nokia device, thereby extending their subscription for another year, but it won't rescind the rights to music already downloaded.

But the entire scheme has a set of drawbacks so substantial that they will certainly limit Comes With Music's stocking-stuffer appeal. For one thing, there's all that DRM. The songs are all protected by a DRM that makes them playable only on a computer and a phone (and apparently, just one of each). That's great if you plan to use your phone as your music player at all times, though not so hot if you also have, say, an iPod or a Creative Zen.While the music can be kept "perpetually," even after the 12-month download period is over, DRM has a way of crashing the party. As noted when Microsoft and Yahoo shuttered music stores of their own, DRM-crippled tracks are only yours in perpetuity where "perpetuity" is defined as "until we shut down the DRM key servers." Don't plan on building a permanent music collection this way; it's more for sampling.

Then there's 5310 itself, which in no way possesses the sleek styling or "gotta get it now!" awesomeness of the iPhone or HTC Touch. While it may well be a competent platform on which to roll out the Comes With Music effort, it's hard to see how Nokia is "taking on Apple" with the offering, especially given the restrictions on the music.

BBC NEWS | Technology | BBC iPlayer offered on Nokia N96

Users of the Nokia N96 are to be among the first with the ability to run the BBC's iPlayer on their mobile phones.

From 1 October a purpose-built application will be available to download via the BBC website and will also be pre-loaded on some handsets.

The BBC iPlayer allows UK audiences to download and stream BBC TV and Radio programming from the past seven days.

A Nokia spokesman said the service would be 3G and wireless compatible and that Nokia would not charge to use it.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Intel details new core chip line

Intel has unveiled the processors that will form the core of its product line from 2009 onwards.

Details about Nehalem, now officially called Core i7, were given at the Intel Developers Forum in San Francisco.

The chips will appear in laptops, desktops and servers and with them Intel aims to boost processing ability, cut power use and improve graphics.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Intel unites the internet with TV

Intel has signed a deal with Yahoo to enhance the way people use their TVs by adding internet applications.

The collaboration will produce a Widget Channel that lets viewers e-mail friends, trade shares or check the weather while watching programmes.

The internet-based services will run on a new set of Intel chips designed specifically for web-connected devices.

"This is not a copy of a PC on TV," said Eric Kim, head of Intel's digital home group.

"We are setting a new bar and delivering a richer internet experience to TV like never before," he said.

BBC NEWS | Technology | One Laptop signs up with Amazon

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organisation has signed a deal with Amazon to sell its low cost laptops.

The online retailer will help with its next Give 1 Get 1 (G1G1) programme that is due to begin in late November.

Under this scheme people can buy one of the XO laptops for themselves and donate the other to a school child in a developing nation.

It is hoped the deal with Amazon will iron out the problems OLPC encountered when it ran the G1G1 programme itself.

Kaspersky Lab patents dynamic antivirus technology - Security - iTnews Australia

Kaspersky Lab has patented a method of antivirus scanning that assesses files according to when and how they first appeared on the computer.

The method has been granted Patent No. 7 392 544 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Internally, it has been unofficially named ‘FirstTimeCheck’.

By dynamically varying the scanning level and set of tools used for file scanning, FirstTimeCheck is expected to minimise the impact of antivirus scanning on the overall system performance.

The technology also makes it possible to extend the time taken to scan new files and files received via ‘high-risk’ sources such as suspicious Web sites, P2P networks and e-mail attachments.

VMware Fusion 2.0 reaches release candidate stage

VMware Fusion 2.0 RC 1 was ushered out the door recently, and even contains a few new features to boot.

Most of the major feature updates were released as part of the Beta 1 and Beta 2 builds, including Unity 2.0, Leopard Server support, DirectX 9, and VM snapshots. It's pretty hard to compete with heavy-hitting features like those, but RC 1 is giving it a shot by including a free 12-month subscription to McAfee VirusScan Plus in order to keep nasty things off of your Windows VM. The RC build also includes full Italian and Spanish language support, bringing the number of support languages to seven (including English). In terms of more minor updates, the user interface has received a few tweaks, and the Leopard Server compatibility has been improved.

AppleInsider | Road to Snow Leopard: twice the RAM, half the price, 64-bits

Following the initial introduction to 64-bit computing leading up to Snow Leopard and a second segment outlining issues related to the amount of RAM that can be installed and actually used by the system, this third segment examines how much memory a specific app can use and how performance will improve with 64-bit addressing despite the additional overhead involved. A follow up segment will look at how the market for 64-bit apps is unfolding and how Apple is pioneering 64-bits on the desktop.

Byte Into IT - 03 Sep 08

The Blogging Revolution

"Antony Loewenstein introduces us to many members of the digital tribe, their hopes, dreams and daily lives in countries where the new battle for freedom of expression is being fought." Salam Pax, The Baghdad Blogger

http://www.bloggingrevolution.com/

http://catalogue.mup.com.au/978-0-522-85490-9.html

YouTube on the intranet: Google Video for business launched

Companies making use of Google Apps as part of their business operations can now share videos within an organization without having to upload them to YouTube or another video sharing service. Google introduced Google Video for business today, which allows businesses to upload a video to Google Apps, then invite others to view it securely without having to worry about messing with privacy settings. The feature is already available for enterprises making use of Google's services, and will soon come to education customers, as well.

LinkedIn boosts Web 2.0 credentials - Internet - iTnews Australia

LinkedIn has launched a raft of new Web 2.0 features designed to enhance its business value and enable professionals to collaborate and network more effectively.

The social networking site, which claims over 26 million members, unveiled interactive discussion boards, enhanced search and a searchable groups directory which will allow users to find professionals and groups with similar interests.

Also new are digest emails, group homepages of latest activity within a group and the ability for group administrators to monitor and control comments.

Here’s the Google Chrome Browser Comic Book: Hey Microsoft, Kaa-POW!!! | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD

Here is Google’s entire comic book that it is using to explain the technical details of its new browser called Chrome. It explains the techie underpinnings of Chrome, especially its JavaScript engine, called V8, that the company says makes future complex Web applications render faster.

Google Chrome - Download a new browser

Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.

Chrome Just Means More Incompatible Web Sites | NetworkWorld.com Community

What Google is glossing over are the inevitable compatibility problems Chrome will introduce in how it renders and displays HTML. As software developers we already have to design, code and test knowing IE and Firefox each have their own idiosyncrasies. And Chrome will have its own as well.

Web Publishing: Google 404 Pages Help Your Web Visitors Find the Right Page

Google offers a free, embeddable widget for web site owners that can help fight back against link typos, permalink problems, and other issues that send visitors to non-existent pages. The customizable JavaScript widget suggests the URLs on your site closest to the link visitors come in on, and offers a search box pre-loaded with search terms relevant to the bad link. Anyone who's run a site for a long while knows that page URLs are a hard thing to keep linked and standing properly, and this widget is a nice step to preventing aggravation on both sides of the site. The widget requires signing up for a free Google Webmaster account and heading to the Tools menu, then the "Enhance 404 pages" link.

Featured Download: GMDesk Puts Google Webapps into a Single Desktop Application

All platforms with Adobe AIR: Free desktop application GMDesk provides quick access to Google services in a standalone window separate from your browser. GMDesk separates Gmail, Google Reader, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and Google Maps from the rest of your web browsing, and provides keyboard shortcuts to switch between them (Ctrl+ or Cmd+1 through 6). You can't install browser add-ons like Better Gmail or Better GReader in GMDesk, and currently it displays too-small text in Gmail (though the developer is working on a fix for that). Ultimately GMDesk doesn't offer many features that make it worth using (or much better than apps like Prism or Fluid), but it raises the question: If Google released native desktop apps like Picasa for Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Reader, and Google Docs, would you use them? Until they do (which may be never), GMDesk is a free download and requires Adobe AIR to run.

Feature: Create Distraction-Free, Customized Webapps with Prism

Prism is remarkably easy to install and start using, whether you use the Firefox extension to create your Prism apps or just use Prism itself. Simply head to your favorite webapp and pass Prism the URL, or download one of the pre-compiled app bundles of popular sites. Ubuntu 8.04 users can also grab most of the popular Google tools, plus Twitter and Facebook, through the repositories.

Once you see your app shortcuts, you may (still) be wondering what advantage Prism has over, well, a URL shortcut. Here's a few reasons you might consider using Prism instead of a Firefox tab (or five):

* Distraction-free web work: Sure, I can open up Google Docs in a tab and get typing, but, wait, the Gmail tab says I've got a new message! ... Okay, back to work. I was on the third paragraph ... But, wait, Google Reader probably has 100 new items in the time I've been doing this, right? I'll just check for a few minutes ...
* Memory savings: Firefox 2 launches on my Vista system and grabs about 30 MB of memory, and that amount grows and grows, even if I close my tabs as I go. A Prism implementation of Google Calendar uses just 16 MB, and stays there, no matter what I do with it.
* Security/privacy: A Prism app keeps its cache, temporary files or web history in a separate space from Firefox, and trades only a single set of cookies with the site it points at.
* Crash protection: Got a site or webapp that's resulted in repeated browser breaks? Run it in Prism instead, and even if it goes down, the rest of your browsing can continue uninterrupted.

If any of that sounds appealing, here's a few ways you can get more utility out of Prism, using free software tools and a little creative thinking.
Quickly access your webapps
It might go without saying for Windows power users, but you can easily integrate any Prism application into your preferred app launcher or assign a hot key to it. Launchy can find Prism apps pretty easily, and you can also assign hot keys using tools like Qliner Hotkeys, or to a desktop-side tab with Nubs. Even Vista's Start search feature can be a handy link to your calendars, email, and/or to-do lists with Prism. OS X users can keep their shortcuts on the dock, and so can Linux fans, with some help from Awn.
Keep Prism apps in the system tray
I'm a huge fan of applications that can be front-and-center on my screen when needed, but tucked quietly into the system tray the rest of the time. Mac OS X users can reduce any window to the dock, Linux users can do much the same with the AllTray utility, but what about Windows users? You've got your pick of apps, two of which we've previously covered. I like TrayIt for its easy customization, but our commenters have given shout-outs to 4T Tray Minimizer as well, which adds two buttons to your apps' title bars. Either way, you'll be able to keep your favorite sites running without taking up screen space.
At-a-glance web previews in Windows
Want to keep occasional tabs on your personal mail or Facebook page, but don't want the pop-ups or pings of an auto-checking app? Using tools like the previously-mentioned Thumbnail Sizer, Visual ToolTip, or a Vista registry hack, you can keep tabs on chat rooms, email, or live-blogging events in Vista (or XP) by simply mousing over a taskbar window or hitting Alt+Tab.
Create dynamic monitors with URL hacks
alexa_cropped.jpgSites that let you paste information into them for processing right from the URL are pretty nifty, and Prism can make them even more convenient. Want a Google Maps directions applet with your house always pegged as the starting point? Roll your own with a simple URL hack. Keep your eye on web traffic, create a window of deep Amazon discounts, and generally wrap the web around your savvy little finger.
Customized extensions (experimental)
This is more a "promising possibility" than current reality, but since Prism creates a new runtime environment for each application, each webapp can have its own extension set. Right now, unfortunately, there are no official Prism-accepted extensions—but a few handy hackers have figured out how to make some Firefox add-ons work in Prism. The trick involves modifying a configuration file and seems to work mostly with smaller, less-complicated apps, but the author claims to have gotten AdBlock working in his Prism rig. The more bright minds that turn toward this app, however, the more interesting the possibilities will become.

Featured Mac Download: Add Webapps to Your Dock with Fluid

Mac OS X Leopard only: Freeware application Fluid runs your favorite webapps in a dedicated, WebKit-based browser so you can run your most-used webapps just like they're native Mac apps. If this idea sounds familiar it's because Mozilla has tackled similar territory with an app they're calling Prism. The major difference is that Fluid uses the same rendering engine as Safari and gets that native Mac look that's still lacking from Mozilla apps. And since Prism doesn't really work with extensions yet, Fluid seems like the best choice if you're on a Mac. Fluid is freeware (though this beta expires in April, so it may go shareware in the future), Mac OS X Leopard only.

Featured Firefox Extension: Evernote Web Clipper Adds Content from Any Web Page

Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): Free, cross-platform note-taking application Evernote offers a handful of tools for clipping content into your Evernote account, including the newly released Web Clipper Firefox extension. Aside from a Clip to Evernote entry in the right-click menu and a new toolbar button, the extension works just like the Clip to Evernote bookmarklet (perfect in its own right if you don't want to install another extension). The inline dialog autocompletes tags and adds the item to your Evernote account without interrupting anything you're doing. A Web Clipper keyboard shortcut would be nice, too, but the extension or bookmarklet are a must-have for anyone getting started with one of the best note-taking tools available.

Feature: The Quicksilver-for-Windows Showdown

Before I owned my first Mac, Quicksilver was the application that made me wish I did. Luckily, slowly but surely, Windows developers began building apps intended to successfully attain that Quicksilver-for-Windows status. They started as simple application launchers, but recently the Quicksilver-for-Windows battle has exploded with tons of new applications. The question is: Which one deserves a place on your system?

Firefox Tip: Make Firefox 3's Bookmarks Available to Launchy and Quicksilver

Firefox 3 doesn't store your bookmarks in the plain old HTML file that Firefox 2 did, so desktop launchers like Quicksilver and Launchy can't index them properly. But the HackCollege blog has a solution: a Firefox 3 about:config tweak that makes Firefox automatically export your bookmarks to a file. Change the browser.bookmarks.autoExportHTML value from false to true to get a bookmarks.html file saved to your Firefox profile directory each time you shut down your browser.

Not only does this config tweak provide a nice automatic bookmark backup, it also makes your links accessible to application launchers like Quicksilver and Launchy for quick launching from the desktop.