Download Firefox 3.6 Nightly Builds
With Firefox 3.5 release coming near, Mozilla has already started working on Firefox’s next version codenamed Namoroka that is scheduled to launch in mid 2010. The pre-alpha builds are already out for Windows, Mac, and Linux. To keep day-to-day tab on the nightly builds, follow the link given at the bottom.
The release is being called Firefox 3.6, but should not be considered as a final name since it might later be called as Firefox.Next due to vast improvements and new features. To learn what’s new in Firefox 3.6, visit the Mozilla Links blog.
Download Firefox Nightly Builds
XP Gets Another Reprieve
It’s the operating system that just refuses to die. According to Engadget Microsoft has given the venerable old XP another extension that will see it carrying on until 2011. Before you get too excited, though, this applies only to the XP downgrade option, available on PCs sold with Windows 7 pre-installed. Now pay attention, it’s all rather complicated. Apparently this move follows complaints from business users, worried about Windows 7 licensing issues. Basically companies buying new Win 7 PCs before April 23rd next year will still have the option to downgrade to XP, to help them with the transition, but after April 23rd the only downgrade will be to Vista, which obviously isn’t much help to XP users wanting to make the change. Confused? You will be…
Soft Cell Netbook
There’s no denying netbooks have become hugely popular and they are an essential travelling companion, but like all laptops, large and small, they have one big drawback. Somehow they always run out of power at the most inconvenient moment. That won’t be a problem with this new one from Norhtec? The Geko Edubook looks like just another 8.9-inch cheapie, and the starting price is competitive, the baseline model will be a touch under £170, but the big bonus feature is that it doesn’t use a proprietary rechargeable battery pack. Instead it uses a set of 8 standard AA cells. It will run for up to 4 hours on NiMh rechargeables, and if you get caught short all you have to do is pop into the nearest shop and drop in some Duracells and it’s good to go for another 6 hours, thanks to the very low power consumption (there’s no fan and it uses an LED backlight). It even has it’s own built-in charger so there’s no need to lug a mains adaptor around with you either. The rest of the spec is fairly routine. It has a 1Ghz processor, it comes with 256, 512 or 1Gb of RAM and there’s a choice of standard hard drive or SD flash storage. Needless to say it supports Windows XP or stick with the pre-installed Ubuntu Linux operating system. They’re taking orders now for US delivery, unfortunately there’s no word on the European release just yet.
XNA Game Studio 3.1 for Vista SP1 and XP SP3
Microsoft has released and made available for download the latest iteration of its gaming development solution designed to permit developers to build video games for Windows-based PCs, Xbox 360 consoles, but also Zune digital media player devices. XNA Game Studio 3.1 went live on the Microsoft Download Center on June 11, 2009, and is now up for grabs for free. According to the Redmond company, Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3 are the supported operating systems for XNA Game Studio 3.1.
“This release is incremental to XNA Game Studio 3.0 and contains many new features, including avatars, Xbox LIVE Party support, and video as well as enhancements to existing features. For the full list of improvements in this release, see the “What’s New in XNA Game Studio 3.1” section of the documentation once you have installed the product,” revealed Rob Cameron, Microsoft industry evangelist. Read more
Windows Mobile 6.5 SDK
Redmond-based Microsoft has released into the wild the Windows Mobile 6.5 Developer Tool Kit so that third-party developers that would like to make applications for the upcoming operating system can start their work. Given the fact that the platform is completed and the Windows Marketplace for Mobile is on its way to come live along with the first WinMo 6.5-powered handsets, it was only a matter of time before the software giant made the SDK available.
According to Microsoft, the Windows Mobile 6.5 Developer Tool Kit now available for download “adds documentation, sample code, header and library files, emulator images and tools to Visual Studio that let you build applications for Windows Mobile 6.5.” The SDK can be used on Microsoft’s Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2, Windows Vista and Windows XP Service Pack 3 operating systems, and comes with support for six languages, namely Chinese Simplified, English, German, French, Italian and Spanish. Read more
Scrub System of Useless Data
There is no secret that working on the computer, no matter its outstanding initial performance, will eventually bring it to a slower functioning. Also, web browsing and installing applications will generate tons of files needed for some process, but never wiped after they are no longer needed. They’ll hang in there until you decide to take some action against them the moment you find yourself in need of free space or simply settle to clean the system of data that serves no useful purpose.
The need of more space, especially on the system drive, often requires going into the temporary files (Windows and web browser) manually and eliminating files you no longer need. An automatic approach to this task has already been created and there are plenty of apps perfectly fit for the job. Read more
Firefox 3.5 RC Just Around the Corner
The first Release Candidate of Firefox 3.5, codenamed Shiretoko, is just around the corner. The RC development milestone means that Mozilla is extremely close to wrapping up the successor of Firefox 3.0, released back in mid-June 2008, almost a year ago. While there are voices claiming that Firefox 3.5 RC1 will be made available for download as early as tomorrow, fact is that Mozilla has a test day planned for the upcoming build of its open-source browser this Friday, May 29.
“MozQA is holding a Testday for the rollout of Firefox 3.5 RC 1 which is as close to a release as possible! I don’t need to remind everyone of how important this phase is, so we’re going to need your awesome testing skills to make sure it’s as polished as possible,” revealed a member of the Mozilla Q&A team. Read more
Windows 7 New Decoders and Media Formats
Microsoft is pointing to Windows 7 as a panacea for scenarios in which end users go hunting for codecs on the Internet struggling with file formats that are not natively supported by the Windows operating system. The promise from the Redmond company is that, with the next iteration of the Windows client, the necessary decoders will already be in place and ready to handle the formats that users will throw at them, of course with some exceptions. MPEG-4, 3GPP/3GPP2, AAC, ASP in AVI, AVCHD, HDV are the generic names for the formats supported in Windows 7.
The video decoders associated with them are H.264, MPEG-4, ASP and SP. The specific file extensions that will not present a problem when it comes down to Windows 7 are .mp4 (A, V, A + V), .m4a (A), .mov, .3gp, .3g2 (A, V, A + V), .aac (A), .avi, (V, A + V), .m2t, .m2ts, .mts (A, V, A + V). Still, Microsoft indicated that Windows 7 would not be limited to playing back local files. Read more
Windows 7 RC1 Wallpapers
Microsoft has recently released windows 7 RC version which you can download from this link, however there is no change the user interface of windows 7 but some of the new features added in to stream your library over the internet with windows media player.
Another new thing which comes with Windows 7 RC is the new set of some amazing wallpapers, but you don’t need to download windows 7 RC to download all the wallpapers. Read more
NVIDIA GeForce 185.81 Beta Drivers
Santa Clara, California-based NVIDIA has recently introduced a new series of GeForce graphics drivers with a new Beta release of their 185 series. The new release offers support for all of the company’s latest graphics accelerators, including the most recent GeForce GTX 275, as well as other previously-released GeForce cards, part of NVIDIA’s GeForce 6, 7, 8 and 9-series of desktop GPUs. In addition, according to the release notes of the new GeForce drivers, users of NVIDIA graphics accelerators will be able to take advantage of a series of performance increases.
The company’s new GeForce Driver release 185.81 Beta includes support for its latest GeForce GTX 275 graphics processing unit, as well as a number of new features. According to the release notes, users upgrading their drivers to the latest beta release will be provided with support for Ambient Occlusion, a new setting in the NVIDIA Control Panel, CUDA 2.2, for better performance in GPU-enabled applications, and expanded support in the NVIDIA Video Encoding library for GPUs that use less than 32 cores. Read more
