I released (thanks to Mint for that) that around 1% of Typpz visitors view the blog using their iPhone and Mobile Safari. As with almost every site that is not optimized for viewing on cell phones, viewing from an iPhone means zooming in and out the parts of the page you want to read. To make those 1% a little bit happier, I built a very simple web app that parses and views Typpz blog content right from your home screen and as shown on the screenshots above, content is readable without having to zoom in and out. The web app is built using Dashcode and one of its preinstalled templates.

The url for Typpz blog mobile edition is http://blog.typpz.com/mobile. When viewing from an iPhone, you can push the “+” button on mobile Safari and bookmark the app right on your home screen. When accessing typpz mobile app from a saved bookmark on iphone’s home screen, there is no top and bottom  navigation bars (yeah no chrome at all) like in Safari which means more space filled with content.

Most of you have sometime listened to a podcast. If you do not know what a podcast is, wikipedia explains it in well written way. Most of the podcasts I listen to are technology-oriented. They cover a wide variety of technology topics though, from MS Windows to Mac or general tech topics like security or Programming. So here is the list of the podcasts I usually download alongside with a short description (the podcasts are randomly listed, so it does not mean that number one is my favorite and number ten my less fave).

1. Windows Weekly by Paul Thurrott: Ok most of you know Paul from his great blog about Windows. Great podcast with many information on future Windows versions and reviews for MS products.
2. MacBreak Weekly: Leo Laporte and company talk about everything on Macs and all the thing that Windows should do, but they do not.
3. Apple Keynotes: This one should be known to everybody. A video podcast with the Apple Keynotes. I love the moments when Steve Jobs talks about new Apple products. The podcast is updated only when an Apple keynote takes place, so do not expect weekly updated.
4. Floss weekly: Thats another podcast from the TWiT team. The podcast is Linux oriented with wide theme coverage about KDE, OpenJDK and various Linux and Unix themes from programming to user interface and security.
5. Security Now by Steve Gibson: That is the ultimate podcast about IT security. If you are interested into these subjects you should definitely give it a listen.
6. net@night by Amber McArthur: Amber talks about various web themes such as web trends, web too and reviews some known services like Gmail, Yahoo mail and others.
7. The WordPress Community: This podcasts is here to keep listeners informed on what is happening in the WordPress labs, so if you love this open-source platform as I do, this podcast will give you all the info on what to expect from WordPress future versions.
8. Identity Management Buzz by Sun Microsystems: A podcast targeted to those that like security and identity topics like OpenSSO, OpenID, identity information management etc.
9. Daily GizWiz: This is a podcast about gadgets. So if you count yourself as tech-addicted, listen to this podcast and discover future technologies straight from the labs.
10. NASACast video: Video podcast from NASA with small clips from experiments and missions and many info about planets (especially Mars).

Occasionaly I listen to some podcasts with general themes. Some of them are: The Wall Street journal, Wild Chronicles Digital by National Geographic, Transitions by John Digweed and Futures in Biotech. All the podcasts I mentioned in this post can be downloaded from iTunes music store for free, so if you are interested in them, just type the podcast title in itunes search field.

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 )!

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.

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.

Justsayhi is for many users a dating site. But if you visit justsayhi.com/bb you will find a great and funny resource for blog widgets and quizzes for geeks. You can try out to see how many html elements can you type in five minutes or how many css properties you can type in 7 minutes. If you do not like web development you can test how much do you know about the internet or find out how much electricity does yout body produce.

Apart from the quizzes there are several quality badges to stick on your blog (most of them funny, like “the blogger is coffee addicted”) or find out how many germs live in your keyboard or whether you are an apple addicted or not! Geek quiz is nice too! There is also some crazy stuff there, like “take this quiz to find out your possibilities of surviving in a zombie apocalypse”!
The design of the site and its chicklets is cool and thats makes it different from such sites for me. I tend not to review web sites except when they are special or original and justsayhi is! Quizzes use AJAX which makes the pages fast-responding and professional-looking.

The badges you get after completing a quiz looks like this one below (and yeah the code given for sticking them on your blog validates as XHTML 1.0 transitional).

I visited today the digital technology expo (called dte) that takes place in Athens, Greece from 8-11 November. There were many IT companies stands including Microsoft, Cisco, HTC, EA, Google and LG alongside with some famous greek companies like Otenet and OTE. Although there were many absenses from large resselers like Apple product resselers, Sony resselers etc. Management was pretty good, but I would like to see more cutting edge technology stuff and not only products that are already shipped in the market.

Microsoft had the largest stand, giving out Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition packs, Visual C# 2008 beta cds and presenting the concept of digital home using Windows Home Server system. Xboxes were there too of course. HTC stand was large too, full of the latest palmtops and pdas, providing the ability of real time testing. Google stand was mainly about enterprise stuff like Google Mini and Adwords. The LG stand focused on notebooks and the company’s latest displays (the design of the new LGs is amazing) alongside with LCD tvs playing 1080p High-Definition video via a player that supports both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD media. Cisco featured some of the latest network switches and routers for large networks. Below you can see some photos from the exhibition. Images are also available in my Flickr account.

In a previous post, I wrote a review about the social browser: Flock 0.9. Recently Flock reached version 1.0. The update to the final version is recommended for everyone who uses Flock. Many bugs are fixed, and many features are added:

• Flock 1.0 has added a “People” sidebar to support new service integration with Facebook and Twitter.
• Flickr and Youtube have been promoted to “People” services.
• Several performance and stability enhancements have been implemented and several memory leaks have been fixed.

Flock 1.0 has all Mozilla enhancements and security patches up to 2.0.0.8 (not 2.0.0.9 up to now, but a patch will be out soon I guess). You can read Shawn Hardin’s official announcement post here.

The interface is almost the same with version 0.9, except the splash screen which is changed as you see in the image and some addons on the navigation bar. Bug report button (which was placed on the upper right corner) is absent. Default search engine is again Yahoo, but that could be changed with a single click. The default “My World” page is also rebuilt and seems much more easy-to-read-and-manage now. If you would like to update your Flock installation or try Flock for the first time visit the official download page.

WordPress 2.3 is out for a while. For the past 4 months I have been using WordPress 2.1.3 for Typpz Blog. After extended back-ups (database export, contenet files etc) and plug-in deactivation, I updated the blog to WordPress 2.3.1! All plug-ins worked after reactivation, except the post listing plugin which is listed in the WordPress site as non-compatible with the latest version of the blogging platform and the ultimate tag warrior which in not needed as the new WordPress comes with built-in tag support. Tags were not imported as they should from Ultimate tag warrior, so I have to tag my posts again.

I have to say that the blog now corresponds much faster. I also liked the update notifications for new versions of the installed plugins. I recommend to everyone to upgrade to WordPress 2.3. Remember before upgrading: Backup, Backup, Backup (few clicks can save your blog in case something goes the wrong ).