Firefox 3 will be released to public in a few weeks. For geek users the release candidate version is out there, ready to be downloaded. Firefox 3 will feature user interface integration, which means that Firefox theme will match your operating system theme. Below you can see some screenshots for mozilla development blog that show that integration. Does this integration though worth that buzz?

First of all user interface is not a measurement for rating an application. Although it is the first thing that the end user sees. Personally I like the idea of making Firefox look like a native application on each operating system. The user interface varies even between windows vista and windows xp. Mac users will feel like home too as Firefox 3 will look similar to safari with the well known minimal mac feel.

I have tested Firefox 3 on a vista system. Bad news is that the web developer plugin did not work. Probably that will be fixed with a newer version of the plugin when Firefox 3 final version is out. Good news is that the browser renders pages much faster and most of the memory leaks that were a pain when using Firefox 2 have been fixed. Web standards are supported as usual with Firefox. Download manager has been upgraded too. A “search” field is there helping you navigate through your downloads. You can pause, resume, cancel or open multiple file locations at any time.

The feature I enjoy most on firefox 3 is the new security features. When visiting a web site, you can click the icon next to the address bar which will provide you information about the identity of the site you are visiting. Also if you want to see as more contest as you can at once, there is a full screen option which eliminates the user interface buttons and fills your screen with web content. Useful improvement, especially for notebook users.

In general web standatds support, native user interface which makes the browser easy-to-use even for users that have used only IE and security improvements make firefox 3 the best browser out there (and IE look like the worst one…).

First of all, here is a fair warning: If you start playing Packrat you will probably get addicted. If you do not have a problem with that, keep reading.

I have to say that I do not like facebook apps. I do not like them, because most of them offer nothing but loading my profile page with useless info and icons, making it to need too much time to load. Here comes Packrat. Packrat is a facebook application, created by Alamofire (same guys that created and run Iconbuffet) which first of all does not put any data on your profile page except if you want to. As you may have understood, Packrat is a game. It is a game for people who love pixel art. Purpose of this game is to collect cards (if you have baseball cards in your mind, you are on the right way, but imagine them digital and with various concepts). There are around 15 sets with around 18 cards each in Packrat. Each set has a different concept, for example there is the Ninja Dawn set with ninjas, Ratpack set which is casino inspired, Quest of Monzetuma with Incas and Aztec icons etc.

Each time you collect some cards from a set, you can put them in your “vault” to keep them safe permanently. Why keep them safe? Because cards that are not in your vault can be stolen from other players! Of you course you can steal cards from others too. Some cards are easy to obtain, some others not. Navigating through other players’ pages gives you credits, which are the digital currency of Packrat. You can use your credits, to buy cards (called items) from the markets. Some cards are available for buying, some can be made by combining three other cards and some are given as bonus (pop-ups) when you invite friends to play the game or accidentally when navigating through Packrat users’ pages. Vaulting all the cards from a set gives you a “Feat of Wonder”, a gift card for completing a set, which is placed on top of your vault.

The cards available in Packrat are designed by the guys from Iconbuffet, except two sets designed by a guy from Iconfactory. The screenshot above is from a set called Sleep Tight (the sleeping monster that gives 18300 points when vaulted was a really difficult card to make )!

Every blog uses rss syndication, which means that it publishes a feed that can be “grubbed” by everyone (human or aggregator). In simple words, the feed is your blog’s content, without the CSS and the style. Readers can read your posts without visiting your blog, by using feed readers (like Google Reader) or by visiting websites that aggregate blog content (like technorati). whether we need blog search engines like technorati is another issue, that will be discussed in another post.

Most blog platforms (like WordPress or Blogger) publish feed for your blog by default. Although the built-in solutions work fine, they do not offer many options for customising your feed. There free solutions though, that publish a feed for your blog and offer many customising options. The most used one is Feedburner. After being bought by Google, Feedburner offers all services for free. You can add your logo on your feed, add links to social sites like digg, add a creative commons license or even advertisement.

Many users prefer to read blog content via feed readers, so it is better to publish full articles to your feed and not just the excerpts. Putting your logo on your feed makes it more professional looking. Remember to double-check your posts before clicking the “publish” button, because most times feeds are being updated really fast and you do not want your post to appear to all those aggregators with mistakes or wrong images!

Solutions like Feedburner, ping automatically the most common used blog indexes. Publishing a feed though, does not mean that you ping search engines too. Using xml sitemaps is the best way for doing so. Add your feed to as many blog indexes as you can (many indexes like technorati find blogs with their own crawler).

Last but not least is the way you offer your feed through your blog. Up-to-date browsers like Firefox 2, Safari 3 and IE7 show the feed icon when a site uses syndication. Putting a feed icon somewhere in your blog is a nice way though to inform readers about your feed. For compatibility with older browsers and text-only browsers (yeah there are some text-only browsers for Linux) put also a “Subscribe to my Feed” link. Using Feedburner for feed publishing will give you a feed-url like http://feeds.feedburner.com/name-you-choose, but if you have access to your server’s DNS settings, you can publish your feed via Feedburner, using a url in this form: http://yourdomain.com/feed.

Many bloggers out there (including me) use the JAW Popular Posts widget plugin, that displays the most popular post somewhere in the sidebar. This widget requires Popularity Contest plugin in order to run. The problem is that Popularity Contest does not run on WordPress 2.5 (it causes a fatal error when activated). The fix is very easy (you just need to edit one file).

If you cannot wait until Alex King releases the next version of the plugin, you just have to download the latest version (1.3b3) of the plugin and

• open the popularity-contest.php file with your favorite editor
• find line 59 and replace

  require('../../wp-blog-header.php');
  

  with

  require('../wp-blog-header.php');
  

• upload the file to wp-content/plugins/popularity-contest (or where the plugin files are located)
• activate the plugin

If you are installing Popularity Contest for the first time on a WordPress 2.5 installation, you have to create some database tables first. Extended instructions on how to manage it can be found here.

It has been about two weeks since I upgraded my blog to WordPress 2.5. The new version (which was delayed for about one week) brings many changes, most of them in the backend (administration panel). These changes, which change the blogger’s experience when he admins his blog, offer a faster, and more organized admin panel. WordPress 2.5 could have been released as version 3.0 for sure.

The new admin panel is more friendly than the old one (as soon as you get used to it). Anything that is about the frontend of your blog (write, manage, comments, design) is on the upper left corner, and anything that has to do with the backend (settings, plugins, users) is on the upper right.

The new dashboard is well organised. Page elements are divided into small “widgets”, which inform you about incoming links, recent comments, WordPress news feed and recommended plugins. AJAX is used in every edge of the new dashboard, making comments’ moderation, editing and saving faster and more entertaining.

The WYSIWYG editor, Tiny MCE 3.0 offers permalink editing option and autosave seems to work nicer. There is no “Save & continue” editing button in the new editor. This button is divided to: “Save” button and “Publish” button, which makes the operation cleaner. Last but not least is the “Toggle Full Screen” button of the new editor, which lets you write your post in full screen mode, like editing a document in MS Word. Photo and media can be added easier and photo galleries can now be created without using external plugins.

The biggest surprise though comes when you access the plugins page in the new WordPress 2.5. Plugins can now be automatically updated with a single click, without using FTP access to your server. You just provide the FTP access information (username, password) to your WordPress installation and if a plugin is outdated, you click “Upgrade automatically” and WordPress automatically replaces the older version with the newer one.

WP 2.5 offers also many security enhancements (Technorati will stop crawling WP blogs that use WP 2.3.2 or older). If you want to further secure your blog, you can edit your wp-confing.php file and add one more constant called SECRET_KEY and use the unique key that Wordress.org will provide to you. More info on that here. It is also recommended to upgrade to version 2.5.1 as it fixes a critical security issue, especially if you use the open registration mode in your blog.

In general WordPress 2.5 is a milestone, a great upgrade, which makes blog’s administration much easier and faster as long as you get used to it. Remember to check plugins and themes compatibility before upgrading! Simpla widgetized theme works great with WP 2.5

Recently I decided to upgrade my 2nd generation ipod nano with a 3rd generation one. Not that I had a problem with my old nano, but it just seemed too outdated -just after one year- with no video playback capabilities and only 2GB of memory.

The new nano is as thin as its predecessor, but it looks a little bit thinner due to the rounded corners. Its much shorter though, and with bigger display which led to a much smaller clickwheel. New nano is powered with a 2″ display with 320×240 resolution and 204 pixels per inch. Although the display is small, its high resolution makes it comfortable for viewing movies or movie trailers. If you run the latest ipod software alongside with the latest iTunes version, you can rent movies and watch them within 30 days.

3G Nano’s software is completely updated and reminds of the ipod’s software. Cover flow lets you navigate easily through your albums (assuming that you have them well organized with covers and artist information). Cover flow runs smoothly but it is a little bit slow, especially if you have too many album artworks. If you find the built-in display small, the new nano can be connected to your HDTV, via a component cable (which is sold separately). When viewing movies on your ipod, there is an option to enable zoom (pan and scan) and get rid of the letterbox (black lines above and below the movie due to 16:9 format) but that cuts part of the movie information (a small piece from the right and a small from the left).

Navigating through nano’s menu is easy and screenshots of album artworks, photos and animated menus are everywhere. New graphics make navigation easier. Pre-installed applications are almost the same with the previous nano, but with better graphics: Global watch, photo slider, calendar and contacts (can be synced with Outlook or Entourage), notes and three games: Music Quiz (which is completely updated and is my favorite game in the new nano), a 3D version of the brick game and a completely redesigned solitaire.

Sound quality is great as with all ipods. I think that low-frequencies (bass) sound better here and that volume can be adjusted louder than the older nano. Songs can be browsed in any imaginable way: by artist, creator, genre, album, etc. Music transfer from your PC/Mac to your ipod is done via itunes software.

Battery lifetime is the same with 2nd gen ipod nano and lasts for up to 24-hours music playback and 5-hours video playback. That is nice if we consider that 3rd gen nano’s display is much brighter. Although if you use your nano for playing games, battery lasts for 3-4 hours. Nano is charged using the USB cable. What is liked is that while nano is charging, display’s light remains turned on, letting you know when your nano is charged, even if you have not exported it from itunes. Battery indicator appears also in iTunes. The device can be used (like every ipod) as portable flash drive for transferring data. Note that when you carry your nano, you should take care of the back surface, because it can be easily scratched.

Nano package contains the basics: USB cable (used for charging, syncing and data transferring), earphones (same with the previous version), dock adaptor and a brief manual. Full operating instructions can be found in apple’s website in pdf format. New nano is available with 4 or 8GB of memory. 4GB model costs $149 and is available in silver color only and 8GB costs $199 and is available in a variety of colors.

In general I can say that if you own an older nano, upgrade worths it, especially if you are going to use your ipod for movie playback. Better sound quality, smaller size, brighter display and battery lifetime should also be considered to pros.

Recently I bought a Sony Vaio laptop that runs Microsoft Windows Vista. When I try to open the Vista sidebar I get an error window saying that “Windows Sidebar is managed by your system administrator”. Even when I tried to run the sidebar.exe (that launches the sidebar) as administrator, I was still getting the same error message. Googling around, I found the fix, which is very simple and requires basic skills of registry editing.

1. Click Start, type regedit.exe in the search field and press ENTER
2. Navigate to the following path:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \
   CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Windows \ Sidebar
   

3. In the right-pane, delete the value named TurnOffSidebar
4. Repeat the same in the following path (if there is a sidebar value there):

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \
   CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Windows \ Sidebar

5. Exit Registry Editor

Finally Windows Vista sidebar is up and running as it should from the very beginning!

Mozilla Prism is a project created by the Mozilla Foundation (Firefox and Thunderbird creators). Prism is dedicated to bridge Web apps with desktop apps. The project is based on Webrunner which moved to Mozilla code repository and took the name Prism.

The first thing you may think is that “We have already Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe AIR for that kind of stuff”. Thats true, but first of all Prism is open-source, which means that developers around the world can add features or help to the development and fix security issues. Secondly Prism is not aimed to replace the Web. Its just acts like a bridge (like a mirror) between web apps and your desktop. Lets use an an example to understand how Prism works. Assuming that Gmail is your favorite web app. Prism lets you split Gmail out of your browser window and run it directly from your desktop on its own window.

Prism is built on Firefox, so it supports rich internet technologies like HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. The Mozilla team works on adding more features to Prism, like support for 3D graphic cards and offline data storage. Up to now though Prism is available only for Windows as it is in beta mode.

When the final version will be released, Prism will probably be integrated with Firefox and you will not even have to download and install it. A button in Firefox that will let you with one-click to add the web app you like on your desktop is also in plans. You can download the current beta version of Prism (Microsoft Windows version only) from here.

If that project succeeds, it will be a great step on improving the web experience and bring the web “everywhere”. Its big advantage agains Silverlight and Adobe AIR is that it can bring any web app in your desktop and not only the apps that are created using specific frameworks. As the project is open-source, you can participate in the development. Most info on that, here.

Toshiba decided to give up its HD-DVD format. The company made this decision after the announcement of all major studios that they are going to support Blu-ray (last one to do so was Warner Bros. Studio). Shoppers now should not be confused and they should move to Blu-ray. Although Toshiba will offer support for owners of HD-DVD drives.

The HD war is over and Blu-ray is the winner. That will lead for sure to sales rise as users do not have to choose a format taking the risk of being given up after some time. The question now is what will Microsoft do with xbox that comes with a HD-DVD drive. Up to now Blu-ray leads the market with 82% of total HD sales, so a small amount of users (around 18%) will have to move on Sony’s format too.

Toshiba Ceo pointed that HD-DVD is much better than Blu-ray but Toshiba would not like to cause trouble to partners and consumers:

“This was a very difficult decision to make … but when we thought about the trouble we would cause to consumers and our partners, we decided it was not right for us to keep going with such a small presence”

All now wait to see if that movement will have the awaited affection in the High Definition market.
[via]

During Macworld 2008 keynote, Steve Jobs made some announcements for the forthcoming Apple products, itunes and some statistics for the previous year.

First of all iTunes will offer from now on the opportunity to rent movies. Movies can be rented for 30 days (playback should be started up to 30 days after the rental) and when you begin watching them you have 24 hours to see the movie once or as many times you want. Movies will be available in iTunes for renting 30 days after their DVD release. Movies from all major studios are featured and HD movies will be available in a while. When you rent a movie, you can watch it on your pc or mac or on your ipod/iphone.

Apple TV is upgraded to Apple TV take 2 and integrates completely with iTunes, offering the ability to rent movies straight from your HDTV. Time Capsule is also a new device that offers back-up solutions to Mac an PC users. Time Capsule features a server hdd and an airport extreme wireless solution, which means that you can backup everything without having to plug any kind of cable. Time capsule is offered in 500GB and 1TB capasities.

Last but not least, Steve Jobs announced a new member in the MacBook family, called MacBook Air (”there is something in the air” was the slogan of Macworld 2008). Macbook Air is extremely thin (0.16″ to 0.76″) and offers an Intel Core 2 Duo processor (1.6 standard and 1.8 Ghz optional), 2GB of RAM (not upgradeable), an isight camera, a touch pad with advanced capabilities similar to the ones for ipod touch and iphone, 13.3″ LED backlight display, 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth wireless connectivity. There only one USB port, a DVI port and the MagSafe port for the power cord. MacBook Air is equipped with a 80GB hdd drive as standard. Also there is an option for replacing the standard drive with a 64GB SSD drive (no moving parts) for $1000. There is no DVD combo drive so if you want to uses CDs or DVDs you have to purchase the external one which needs the only-offered USB port (the external combo drive is powered via the usb cable so no power cord is needed). Prices for the new Macbook start at $1700. Although if you want a MacBook Air with the SSD drive and the 1.8Ghz Core 2 Duo, you have to pay near $3000.

In general -as a geek- I love the design and the portability of the new MacBook. The only problem is that a portable notebook should have the option for manual battery replacement. MacBook (as most Apple products, like ipods and iphone) does not offer that option. Battery (according to Apple) lasts for 5 hours, but with wireless on I think that it should be around 3.5 hours. So as Paul Stamatiou said:

For a notebook so perfectly poised at being the ultimate travel computer, not being able to have spare batteries is a huge turn off.

RAM is also not upgradeable but MacBook Air is an ultra-portable notebook and not a desktop replacement. 2GB are ok for most cases and everyday uses.
More photos from MacBook Air can be found here.