Month: December 2006

Chalk another one up for web based applications. If you’re already familiar with this type of application and its potential benefits, then go ahead and bookmark this nifty little site right now. Speed reading programs are designed to take a body of text, such as this blog post, and display a few words of it at a time in exactly the same spot on your screen. Most of them have the ability adjust the rate at which these sentence snippets are displayed along with various other features. The idea is that you should be able to progressively increase the number of words displayed each minute, thus reading more text in less time.

Spreeder is certainly not ground breaking but it does illustrate the unmistakable shift from desktop based applications towards web based apps. Here are some of the benefits of a web based world:

• Nothing to download or install
• Doesn’t take up hard drive space when it’s not being used
• Accessible from any computer with a browser
• Updates are painless and immediate
• Usually has fewer options which can make it easier to use
• The default price is free

Granted some feature-heavy programs like Photoshop will not be appearing in a browser near you any time soon, but there is already basic movie editing “software” available online at Jumpcut, for example. From Microsoft Office to Google Docs and browser bookmarks to Del.icio.us, the speed and convenience of the online world is most certainly on its way.

Only six weeks after the launching of the definitive version 2.0 of Firefox, the Mozilla Foundation have just released the Alpha edition of version 3.0. The “Gran Paradiso” project has been underway now for more than a year now and is planned for release at the end of 2007. Its focus is on greater integration with Web 2.0 applications.

Other improved features of this Alpha release include yet more Anti-Phishing protection, more search suggestions in the search box for Google and Yahoo, and support for client-side session and persistent storage. Bon Echo releases so far include changes to tabbed browsing behavior, a search plugin manager for removing and re-ordering search engines, better support for previewing and subscribing to web feeds and a new microsummaries feature for bookmarks.

Builds of Firefox Alpha 3.0 are available for testing here:

Windows (5.3 MB)
Mac OS X Universal Binary (17 MB)

Time flies, especially when Christmas is approaching. So, if you don’t want to miss a single day in this countdown to family meals, lovely gifts and snow blizzards (where available) take a look at this Advent Calendar powered by Nintendo.

Far from being the typical cardboard calendar ready to hang on the wall, this online Calendar features a Flash-based platform game level for each day between December 1st and December 24th. Your mission consists on collecting all the 24 ice crystal stars spread along each level. If you manage to gather all the 576 stars of the whole calendar, you will unlock a special bonus download.

There are also hidden game files in each level for you to find. Take them to the Lab and you’ll receive a nice reward.

It’s not often that governments lead the way in technological revolutions but it seems that where Windows is concerned, some have simply had enough. An interesting article in Wired explains how many governments have stalled in their efforts to change from expensive Windows to cheap and cheerful open source Linux. The biggest problem has been incompatiblity issues according to Wired:

Switching to open source can cause compatibility issues with Microsoft’s file formats, which are proprietary — and still used by the vast majority of other computer users. There can be conflicts with MS Exchange servers, commonly used for e-mail and calendaring. And there’s the problem of educating government IT departments about the ways of Linux.

However, you can always rely on the French to spearhead a revolution. France’s National Assembly are about to attempt a total conversion to Linux, Sun’s OpenOffice software and Mozilla’s Firefox browser. The move, rather than due to operational problems, has been inspired by fears over espionage in the growing “economic war between the USA and Europe” according to one open source expert. If the French police force’s experience is anything to go by however, the transition will not be without major problems. A spokesperson explains that OpenOffice is “complicated, atrocious” and that “the advantages are not terribly clear.”

So maybe not Vive La France! but C’est la Vie?

If you’re lucky (and wise) enough to own one of Nokia’s newer handsets, you can now upgrade your phone’s firmware with Nokia’s Software Updater application. This smart, simple tool automatically detects your the model and firmware version of your phone, checks online for new versions of its system software, downloads and installs updates as and when needed.

Simply follow the on-screen prompts as the app guides you through connecting your phone, detecting the current software version and installing or reinstalling any available firmware editions. The whole process takes between five and ten minutes.

Continue reading “Keeping your Nokia up-to-date”

If you’re one of those people that dread the whole Christmas shopping experience, then those ever inventive people at Google might have just come up with your ideal Christmas gift. Google claim to have made online shopping “faster, more convenient and more secure” with their new Google Checkout service. Harnessing the power of Google’s search engine with the regular user-friendly ethos of Google products, the Checkout service could make visiting multiple online retailers a thing of the past.

The process is simple – you search for your desired item in Google. The main results are not important – it’s the sponsored links down the right-hand side of the page that you need to look at. If the store is participating in Google Checkout, it has a small trolley symbol next to its weblink. When you click on this symbol, you are taken to a sign-in page where you log-in and enter your bank details. After that, away you go – all of your purchases are listed in an easy to read purchase history list so you can see exactly where your goods are at any time.

At the moment, many stores are still signing up but if you’re sick of keeping track of your online purchases on multiple sites, this may be the solution you’ve been waiting for.