Software
Firefox 3 is ready - Download it
As we mentioned in a previous post Firefox 3 was released just a few hours ago. With more than 15000 improvements, this release is a landmark in internet browsing.
Built on the Gecko 1.9 web rendering platform, which has been in development for the past 34 months, this new version promises improved performance, stability, rendering correctness, and code simplification and sustainability.
Among the new / improved features we mention :
- Malware Protection who warns users when they arrive at sites which are known to install viruses, spyware, trojans or other malware.
- New Web Forgery Protection page: the content of pages suspected as web forgeries is no longer shown.
- Anti-virus integration: Firefox will inform anti-virus software when downloading executables.
- Vista Parental Controls
- New Download Manage
- Resumable downloading
- Smart Location Bar: type in all or part of the title, tag or address of a page to see a list of matches from your history and bookmarks; a new display makes it easier to scan through the matching results and find that page you’re looking for. Results are returned according to their a combination of frequency, and recency of visits to that page, ensuring that you’re seeing the most relevant matches. An adaptive learning algorithm further tunes the results to your patterns!
- New graphics and font handling: new graphics and text rendering architectures in Gecko 1.9 provides rendering improvements in CSS, SVG as well as improved display of fonts with ligatures and complex scripts.
- Memory usage optimizations
- Many speed improvements
- One click bookmarking
- Full Zoom
- Many updates and new features for web developers (see complete list here).
Download Firefox 3 on Dday
Dday, also known as “Download Day” is an attempt to set a world record for the most software downloads in 24 hours and will occur on Firefox 3 launch day. Download Day will coincide with the general availability of Firefox 3. The clock will start ticking when Firefox 3 goes out the door! There isn’t a definitive date for the launch of Firefox 3 yet, but it should be in June.
Some sources say this day will be June 17th. When exactly it is only the folks @ Mozilla know. Anyway you can help this attempt by pledging to download Firefox 3 the day it’s released by Mozilla.
All you have to do is go to the Spread Firefox 3 website and pledge (over 1.2 million pledges were already submitted by the time this article was written), and when Firefox will be released you will be noticed by email that Firefox 3 is available for download.
You can find out everything about this initiative on the Spread Firefox 3 website.
You can also spread the word about this initiative by visiting the “Get involved” section of the website.
If you don’t own a website / blog, sharing (Digg, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, Reddit etc) this article would also constitute as “getting involved”.
3 weird facts about Microsoft Windows
Here are 3 weird facts about Windows, that nobody can explain :
1. Nobody can create a folder named “Con”.
Try to create anywhere on your hard disk a folder called “Con” (without the quotes). Go to a location on your hard disk, right click, choose “New” and then select “Folder” from the menu that appears. Name the folder “Con” (without quotes) and hit Enter. You’ll see that the folder won’t be named “Con“. It will be “New folder”
2. A text file made with Notepad, with the following content : “Bush hid the facts” (without quotes) won’t display the actual text.
Go to Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Notepad . Write in Notepad the following text : “Bush hid the facts” (without quotes) then Save the file and exit Notepad. Now go to the text file you created and open it. You’ll see that the text you just wrote and save won’t show.
3. Write in Word this : “=rand(200,99)” (without the quotes) and witness the magic.
Open Microsoft Word and on the first line write : “=rand(200,99)” (without the quotes) and hit Enter. Magic in the making.
Internet Explorer 8 Public beta
Microsoft has released a public beta for Internet Explorer 8. This release is intended to help web designers and web developers prepare for the upcoming version of the browser.
Some of the most important features for developers are the improved compatibility and interoperability and the new developer toolbar which enables developers to quickly debug HTML, cascading style sheets, and JavaScript in a visual development environment. Other improvements are the full integration for cascading style sheets, version 2.1 as well as the HTML improvements like the separate URL handing for attributes.
Easier and faster, Internet Explorer 8 will offer three different rendering modes :
- Quirks mode which supports Internet Explorer 5 and legacy browsers
- Strict mode which supports Internet Explorer 7 and is accessed through the emulate Internet Explorer 7 button
- Internet Explorer 8 standards mode
Some new features are also added. For example Activities and WebSlices.
Activities are contextual services that provide quick access to external services from any webpage.
WebSlices behave just like feeds in that users can subscribe to them and receive update notifications when the content changes.
View the full list of features on the Microsoft website
Download Internet Explorer 8 public beta (for web designers and developers)
Jonathan Harris: The Web’s secret stories
The web’s newest trends illustrated at a TED conference.
If you can’t see this video click here.
