Category: Computers, Science & Technology

Downloading it now to see if it is faster! It also has a new “do not track” feature.

Firefox 5.0 Download

“Mozilla, a global, nonprofit organization dedicated to making the Web better, today released a new version of Mozilla Firefox for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. The new version of Firefox comes on the heels of the wildly successful release of Firefox 4, which had more than 200 million downloads on Windows, Mac and Linux and millions of downloads in the Android Market.

Mozilla’s shift to a rapid release development cycle delivers cutting edge Firefox features, performance enhancements, security updates and stability improvements to users faster.

The latest version of Firefox includes more than 1,000 improvements and performance enhancements that make it easier to discover and use all of the innovative features in Firefox. This release adds support for more modern Web technologies that make it easier for developers to build amazing Firefox Add-ons, Web applications and websites.

Firefox for Android includes the Do Not Track privacy feature in this release, making Firefox the first browser to support Do Not Track on multiple platforms. Mozilla created Do Not Track to give users more control over the way their browsing behavior is tracked and used on the Web. The feature, which lets users tell websites that they wish to opt-out of online behavioral tracking, is now easier to find in Firefox Preferences.”

New version, security enhancements, and a stable version (3.3.3) for the remainder of the year… go for it! And, if you are an “early adopter” go for 3.4!

LibreOffice 3.3.3 Is Ready For Download

“The Document Foundation announces the availability of LibreOffice 3.3.3, a new release of the most stable version of the free office suite for personal productivity, targeting corporate users. LibreOffice 3.3.3 is already available for download at the following address: https://www.libreoffice.org/download.

According to Thorsten Behrens, a developer and member of the TDF Steering Committee, ‘LibreOffice 3.3.3 fixes several bugs and improves the security of the suite, to specifically address the needs of corporate deployments, where stability is more important than new features. This branch will be maintained until the end of the year, to allow a smooth and safe transition to LibreOffice 3.4.x.’

LibreOffice 3.3.3 is available for Windows, MacOS X and Linux (DEB and RPM), in over 100 different languages (more than twice the language coverage of comparable proprietary products). Users of LibreOffice 3.3.2 are invited to update their software.

Ouch. First Sony, now game developer Bioware has been hacked! Bioware is the GameMaster’s favorite gaming company. Dewd. I’m bummed.

18,000 BioWare Accounts Compromised in Latest Attack

“In a breach that’s being called ‘extremely limited’ in scope, the accounts of about 18,000 Neverwinter Nights forum users have been compromised.

According to EA, this is a ‘very small percentage of total users,’ and among the information potentially exposed were e-mail addresses, account usernames, passwords, countries, and birth dates. Any account that was connected to an EA Account opens the door for any information connected with the latter (such as a mailing address and billing address) to have also been accessed.

EA and BioWare became aware of the breach on June 14 and began securing the servers for BioWare Edmonton’s NN forums. Legacy BioWare accounts have been disabled and any affected EA Accounts have had their password reset, which is one indication that your account was affected. E-mails have also been sent out to those users who are involved. If your EA Account password still works and you didn’t receive an e-mail informing you of the situation, you should be safe.”

Wow. hard to imagine that IBM has been around that long… but it has!

100 Years of IBM: Milestones

“IBM is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding Thursday. Led by American capitalist icons Thomas J. Watson, Sr. and Thomas J. Watson, Jr. until the 1970s, the company grew from a pre-World War I conglomeration of companies making tabulating machines and time-keeping devices into a globe-spanning technology behemoth that pioneered the development of electronic computers and dominated the mainframe era.

The company holds a mind-boggling array of patents and pioneered advances in a wide range of technologies including punched cards, processors, transistors, storage, word-processing, databases and OSes. As one of the emblematic 20th-century corporations, IBM also went through turbulent times. The U.S. government brought several antitrust lawsuits against the company, and critics have attacked it for alleged cosiness with repressive regimes. After Tom Watson Jr. retired in the 1971, the company seemed to lose its way as mainframe computing began to face competition from smaller, more modular systems. Increasing bureaucracy contributed to missteps during the PC revolution, and IBM suffered a series of annual losses in the early 1990s. Under the reins of then-CEO Lou Gerstner, starting in the mid-90s, the company bounced back to profit by focusing on software, system integration and other services, which remain key to the company’s growth today.”

Blackberry has been “the phone” for business users… but it is old, tired, and very far behind the times! My Android phone (a Motorola Droid-X) is light years ahead of my former phone (a Blackberry Storm)… is RIM doomed?

RIM Financial Outlook Dismal, 500,000 Playbooks Shipped

“Research in Motion (RIM) announced its first quarter financial results for fiscal 2012 on Thursday, and the outlook isn’t pretty.

Revenue was up 16% but earnings per share and net income were down from Q1 2011. The company said it shipped 13.2 million BlackBerry handheld devices and 500,000 BlackBerry Playbook tablets during the most-recent quarter.

Co-CEO Jim Balsillie said Thursday that RIM is having problems gaining traction in new markets and shipping updated products.

‘Fiscal 2012 has gotten off to a challenging start. The slowdown we saw in the first quarter is continuing into Q2, and delays in new product introductions into the very late part of August is leading to a lower than expected outlook in the second quarter. RIM’s business is profitable and remains solid overall with growing market share in numerous markets around the world and a strong balance sheet with almost $3 billion in cash. We believe that with the new products scheduled for launch in the next few months and realigning our cost structure, RIM will see strong profit growth in the latter part of fiscal 2012.’

Once the world leader in smartphones, RIM has had a difficult time transitioning — not just to the emerging tablet space but to the app-centric nature of the mobile market. Additionally, RIM is being challenged by Apple, Google and Microsoft in the enterprise space, where the BlackBerry used to be ubiquitous.”

Dewd! This is just TOO much! First they have Superman renounce his American citizenship, NOW, they are changing his costume! I am severely bummed!

Superman Getting New Costume in ‘Action Comics’ Relaunch

“Superman will go get a new look in the 21st century reboot of ‘Action Comics,’ DC Comics said Friday.

According to the LA Times, the long-running comic series will restart at No. 1 in September , with Scottish writer Grant Morrison and artist Ralph ‘Rags’ Morales at the helm.

One of the most notable changes to the original comics so far is Superman’s costume. Although the Man of Steel still sports a skin-tight blue suit and his iconic red cape on the new cover, he no longer has the added protection of the Speedo-like red trunks he’s worn since the first issue of ‘Action Comics,’ published in June 1938. His belt is also changing color from yellow to red.”

Google has started a new version of “Like” on web sites, called “Plus 1.” If you like the content of a site, and it has a “Plus 1” icon, log in to your Google account, and then click the icon I am pointing to with the red arrow here.

Google says, “We think sharing on the web can be even better–that people might share more recommendations, more often, if they knew their advice would be used to help their friends and contacts right when they’re searching for relevant topics on Google. That’s why we’re introducing the +1 button, an easy way for Google users to recommend your content right from the search results pages…

+1 is a simple idea. Let’s use Brian as an example. When Brian signs in to his Google Account and sees one of your pages in the organic search results on Google (or your search ads if you’re using AdWords), he can +1 it and recommend your page to the world.

We expect that these personalized annotations will help sites stand out by showing users which search results are personally relevant to them. As a result, +1’s could increase both the quality and quantity of traffic to the sites people care about.”

So, “Plus 1” me! Thank you, thank you!

Google Chrome 12 is out, and it has some awesome new features, but I am reminded that I love it because the version of Chrome I was reading the article about the upgrade on had already upgraded itself to the new version! That is just SO cool!

Google Releases Stable Version of Chrome 12

“Google Chrome 12 is now the stable release of Google’s web browser, bringing several improvements in security, privacy and graphics capabilities.

Chrome now checks downloaded files for malware, and Google claims it has designed the feature in such a way that it doesn’t have to know which URLs you visited or which files you downloaded to be able to detect malicious files.

You can now also fine tune the data that websites store on your computer, including Flash Player’s Local Shared Objects (also known as Flash cookies), directly from Chrome.

On the graphics front, Chrome 12 includes support for hardware-accelerated 3D CSS, which enables some nifty effects such as rotating and scaling videos. Try this Chrome Experiment to see some of the new features in action.

Finally, Chrome 12 brings several minor improvements such as an improved interface for setting a homepage and searching for Chrome Apps directly from the address bar.

Google Chrome 12 is available at www.google.com/chrome. Existing users will be automatically updated to the new version in the next couple of days.”

You can check to see if you are up-to-date by going to the Chrome “About” (click on the “wrench” in the upper right hand corner, then click on the “About Google Chrome” option.)

Twitter now has its very own URL shortening tool. Long time Twitter users get around long URLs by using something like “bilt.ly” address shortening to squeeze in a URL into their tweet. Now, Twitter has its own “built-in” method. You can just embed the long URL in your tweet (which would normally have a 140 character limit,) and Twitter will automatically shorten it to 19 characters. This means that while you’re actually writing a Tweet, it can exceed 140 characters, so long as the excess characters are the result of a long URL. This is obviously not good news for the “bit.ly”s of the world… but, hey, it makes it easier for Twitter users!

Ah… OK, I mean, I know that, for me, I gotta have a hot Internet connection, but a basic human right? Ummmm… well, maybe a bit extreme!

United Nations Declares Internet Access a Basic Human Right

“A lengthy report released by the United Nations Friday argued that disconnecting individuals from the Internet is a violation of human rights and goes against international law. ‘The Special Rapporteur underscores the unique and transformative nature of the Internet not only to enable individuals to exercise their right to freedom of opinion and expression,’ according to the report’s summary, ‘but also a range of other human rights, and to promote the progress of society as a whole.’

Released after the seventeenth session of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, the report ‘on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression’ comes on a day when its message couldn’t be more important. It’s the same day, Wired’s Threat Level blog points out, that ‘an Internet monitoring firm detected that two thirds of Syria’s Internet access has abruptly gone dark, in what is likely a government response to unrest in that country.’

The report’s authors speak to a wider issue that we’re currently facing, though; this isn’t just a problem in Syria. ‘[T]he recent wave of demonstrations in countries across the Middle East and North African region has shown the key role that the Internet can play in mobilizing the population to call for justice, equality, accountability and better respect for human rights,’ the report notes. ‘As such, facilitating access to the Internet for all individuals, with as little restriction to online content as possible, should be a priority for all States.’ Of course, many of the dictators and leaders across the Middle East region that the report highlights recognized the power of the Internet early — and attempted to cut it from their citizens’ lives.

But people, in most cases, found a way online. In Egypt, for example, we saw hundreds of individuals using old modems and telephone lines to route their traffic through a volunteer network around the globe. And we support them. A survey of 26 countries conducted by the BBC in March 2010 found that nearly four out of five people (79 percent, to be exact) believe that access to the Internet is a ‘fundamental human right.'”