Firefox 3.0 Update Coming This Week

Mozilla will take another stab this week at convincing users running older versions of its Firefox browser to update to version 3.0, the company said Tuesday.


On Thursday, Mozilla plans to offer Firefox 3.0.5, the most-up-to-date edition, to users of Firefox 2.0.0.18, the latest version of the company's 2006 browser. The offer will be the second so-called "Major Update" presented to users since Mozilla launched Firefox 3.0 in June.


The first offer was triggered in late August, and was accepted by more than 50% of the people using the older Firefox 2.0 at the time, Mozilla said.


Currently, three-fourths of Mozilla's users are running Firefox 3.0, according to data released Monday by Web metrics firm Net Applications Inc. During November, Firefox 2.0 accounted for 4.8% of all browsers used, while the newer Firefox 3.0 held a 15.6% market share.


Mozilla will repeat the original offer, which let users choose between accepting the update, postponing it 24 hours or declining it. In August, declining the offer meant that Mozilla might repeat it at some later date, something still possible after Thursday's offer.


"Right now, we're planning on doing one additional Major Update offer in early 2009, with slightly modified text that explains to users that (at that time) Firefox 2 will no longer be supported," said Mike Beltzner, director of Firefox, in an e-mail Tuesday.


As Beltzner noted, Mozilla plans to drop support for Firefox 2.0 after it releases a final set of security patches for the older browser; that update, Firefox 2.0.0.19, is now slated to appear two weeks from today, on Dec. 16. The last two security updates -- Firefox 2.0.0.17 and 2.0.0.18 -- patched a total of 26 vulnerabilities in October and November, respectively.

Some users reported problems with several Symantec Corp. consumer security products, including Norton 360, after updating to Firefox 3.0 in August. At the time, Symantec urged users to update their Norton-branded software on Windows PCs before trying to upgrade to Firefox 3.0.


Users who decide Thursday that they would rather return to the older version will still be able to download Firefox 2.0 from Mozilla's Web site and reinstall it.

source:pcworld.com

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Vista SP2 Beta out This Week, Final Release by June

Starting on Thursday, anyone can download the Service Pack 2 beta for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, Microsoft said on Tuesday.

Any Vista user interested in trying out the update will be able to do so through a Customer Preview Program on Microsoft's TechNet Web site, said Mike Nash, corporate vice president of Windows product management, in a blog post.


He encouraged most Vista users to wait until the final release of the service pack, scheduled for the first half of 2009. But technology enthusiasts, developers and IT pros might want to try out the software and offer feedback, he said.


Microsoft also began offering the beta to subscribers of Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) and TechNet, both organizations for developers and IT professionals, on Tuesday.


Vista SP2 includes previously released fixes and is expected to be compatible with applications that run on Windows Vista and SP1. It will also include a couple of other new features, including Windows Search 4.0 for improved search, the most recent Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack, the ability to record data on Blu-Ray media natively, Windows Connect Now for easier Wi-Fi configuration, and support for UTC timestamps for file synchronization across time zones.


Microsoft distributed SP2 to a small group of beta testers in October at its Professional Developers Conference.

The second update for Vista comes as Microsoft continues to work on the operating system's successor, Windows 7. Microsoft offered its first pre-beta version of Windows 7 to developers at PDC.

source:pcworld.com


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Microsoft Releases Next Wave of Windows Live Services

Microsoft has released a new wave of Windows Live services that adds more social-networking qualities to its set of online services.

The company unveiled last month a plan to add Facebook-like qualities to its set of online services, which include e-mail, calendaring, instant-messaging, photo-storage and sharing and collaboration services, among others. At the time, the company said the new services would be available to users before the end of the year.


Microsoft first revealed the Windows Live brand for its online services and a plan for a major overhaul and to add new services in November 2005. The services are aimed at competing with Google by making Windows Live Web users' entry point into the Web and ultimately allow Microsoft to sell more online advertising.


The new version of Windows Live services lets people users have designated as "friends" see activities they are doing in other Web applications through Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger and other Live applications and services. The capabilities will be similar to the way Facebook allows users to be notified via e-mail or on its Web site about what their friends have been doing in the applications they use on Facebook, a feature called the "news feed."


To provide the new "activities" feature, Microsoft has partnered with popular third-party Web sites to link their applications with Windows Live, including Flickr, iLike, LinkedIn, Yelp, Flixster, Pandora, Twitter, Photobucket and Tripit.


In addition to updates to existing services, such as Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Spaces, there also are several new services available to users with Tuesday's release.

They include Windows Live Groups, a service for letting teams, clubs or other groups of people collaborate and engage in online discussions; Windows Live Photos, a new photo-storage and sharing service; Windows Live Profile, a way for people to share information about themselves with more than 50 partner sites; and Windows Live People, which allows users to store and manage Windows Live contacts.

Users can access the new services online now.

source:pcworld.com

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Browse Web Sites Via E-Mail

Rediff has started a new 'Web-in-Mail' service that lets its users access websites through the comfort of an e-mail client like MS Outlook, Outlook Express and your Blackberry device. That's right, it doesn't require the use of a Web browser.


Webinmail should allow people at work or school, behind Web block filters, to surf websites that are out of bounds. All you need is an email account to get started. Here's what you should do:

Click on the compose new mail button of your email client, and in the addressed 'To' field type 'browse@webinmail.com'. The URL you want to visit should be mentioned in the subject line; for eg, http://www.pcworld.in

An HTML page of the website (in the subject line) requested will be emailed back to you within a few seconds, the service claims. Clicking on any links in the reply mail will automatically fill it up in the subject line. From here, just repeat the procedure to access further links.

But that's not all. Webinmail can also provide search results through popular search engines. Just type the search keywords (eg, stereo headphones) in the subject line and email it to the same address: browse@webinmail.com. The search results are subsequently emailed.

Webinmail is still in beta, and didn't quite work consistently when we gave it a shot. Email requests from Gmail worked, while Rediffmail accounts couldn't fetch results even close to half an hour after sending the query mail.

source:pcworld.com


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Watch for a Vista Update in April

Microsoft Corp. will deliver Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2) to manufacturing in April 2009, two months after it issues a final test version to users, according to a Web site that accurately predicted several Windows ship dates in 2008.

TechARP.com, a Malaysian Web site that nailed the release-to-manufacturing (RTM) dates for Vista SP1 and XP SP3 earlier this year, said that Microsoft will post a release candidate -- the final test version -- of Vista SP2 in February 2009, finish the service pack next April and offer it to users via download from the Web at some point afterward.

The last was necessarily vague, if only because Microsoft has had trouble this year synchronizing service pack RTM dates with availability on Windows Update. It took six weeks last winter to get Vista SP1 in the hands of most users -- and then only after a ruckus when Microsoft initially denied access to subscribers of its for-pay developer services -- and a week to issue Windows XP SP3 in the spring. XP SP3 was delayed because of a data-corrupting compatibility bug with Microsoft's own point-of-sale software.

Although Microsoft issued the beta of Vista SP2 to a limited number of testers a month ago, company officials have so far only committed to shipping the update sometime in the first half of next year.

According to Microsoft, Vista SP2 will include Windows Search 4, Bluetooth 2.1 wireless support, faster resume from sleep when a wireless connection has been broken and support for Blu-ray. Some of those features, including Windows Search and the Bluetooth support, have been available to Vista users for months through individual updates.

The service pack will update both Vista, the client version of Windows, and Windows Server 2008, the company's corresponding server software.

Vista SP2 will require SP1 as a prerequisite, a factor that played to Microsoft's ongoing recommendation that users deploy the first service pack as soon as possible.

SOURCE:pcworld.com

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Intel, HP Describe Green Strategy

Reaffirming their commitment to green computing, technology giants Intel and HP recently announced their respective planet-saving initiatives at the "Greenergy" forum, a slight twist from the traditional Synergy event that the two firms have been jointly organizing in the Philippines since 1997.

"There's been a lot of talk about efforts (that) everybody's doing, steps they are undertaking in terms of greening," said Ricky Banaag, Intel Technology Philippines Inc. country manager, who explained that Intel's approach to "eco-technology" is driven through four pillars: sustainable manufacturing, energy-efficient performance, design for the environment, and policy and industry.

According to Banaag, Intel has long been working on reducing the environmental impact of the company's operations through various initiatives like: solid waste and consumer recycling to reduce e-waste, packaging reductions of 16-40% which decreased number of shipments and fuel consumption, and the pursuit of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for fabrication plants and buildings, among many others.

In the next five years, Banaag said Intel has the following environmental goals: to reduce absolute global warming gas footprint by 2012 from 2007 levels; reduce energy consumption per chip 5% per year from 2007 through 2012; ensure that Intel products maintain energy efficiency for the next two product generations; reduce water use per chip by 2012 from 2007 levels; reduce generation of chemical waste per chip by 10% by 2012 from 2007 levels; and recycle 80% of chemical and solid waste generated per year.

In terms of the products they will be releasing, Banaag says the company will continue to focus on delivering performance without compromising energy efficiency. The official said this is why the company has been generating better power by adding or improving cores on the CPU instead of just increasing processor core speed. Intel's newest 45nm processors are, likewise, lead- and halogen-free, the official said. Banaag likewise touted the use of solid-state drives in the future since, according to him, the requirements for cooling an SSD are much less. "Expect to have greater than a 5x reduction in power with the transition to SSDs," he said.

Banaag also shared that Intel, along with Google and the World Wildlife Fund, has been actively promoting the Climate Savers Computing Initiative which aims to improve computing energy efficiency by 50% (by collectively saving $5.5 billion in energy costs) as well as to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions by 54 million tons per year.

Meanwhile, HP has been just as busy with similar greening initiatives both internally and in the products that they come up with as they see more customers, especially enterprise consumers, are actually also beginning to look at what companies like HP are currently doing to promote greening.

Aside from its reduced energy consumption and recycling initiatives, HP has been coming up with flat panel displays instead of cathode ray tube (CRT) screens since the former are said to use less material and energy. The company has also been renewing its inkjet packaging and pouring in investments on energy-efficient product lines like the HP server processors, desk jet printers, laser jet printers, blade PCs, xw6400 workstation, and its servers and storage.

HP Philippines managing director David Tan shared that HP has collaborated with Dreamworks Animation in coming up with the Halo studio--a network of rooms that lets HP employees meet with colleagues from across the globe by providing life-size, real-time, eye-to-eye conferencing with no delay. According to Tan, use of the Halo studio in global HP offices has led to productivity gains and huge travel cost savings. Asked whether the HP office in the Philippines shall have a Halo studio set up as well, Tan said the Philippines is one of the countries recommended to install Halo, most likely by next year.

HP has also embarked on the "Planet Partners Program" which offers to take back end-of-life HP and non-HP computing equipment like PCs, handhelds, notebooks, servers, printers, etc., for recycling. According to Tan, HP has, in fact, recycled more than 250 million HP print cartridges worldwide since the inception of the Planet Partners program in 1991.

In the future, Tan says HP will continue to "green" its operations by reducing their combined product and operations energy use and associated greenhouse gases (GHGs) by 25% in 2010 and recover 2 billion pounds of computing and printing equipment by 2010.

Citing data from an International Data Corporation (IDC) study Tan said 80% of HP's global customers today evaluate environmental practices as part of purchasing and 55% actually give preferred status to vendors who address environmental issues. "We see this more from corporate clients and global customers coming here who ask about our CSR (corporate social responsibility) initiatives. In the Philippines, questions are coming more from corporate clients but we are increasingly seeing interest from customers about our green initiatives," Tan said.

source:pcworld.com

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