Flash Player 10 Available for Public Testing

For those of you who love your cutting-edge Flash content, Adobe made a prerelease test version of the Flash 10 Player


Flash Player 10 Available for Public Testing

For those of you who really, really love your cutting-edge Flash content, Adobe made a prerelease test version of the Flash 10 Player available today. You can download an installer for Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux from the Adobe Labs Web site.

Because this is a testing version, you're not likely to see any content that requires the new player in the wild just yet. But if you design or maintain Web pages yourself, it might be a good idea to give them a whirl with the beta player, just to make sure that all your old content still renders the way it should with the new version.

Among the new features in this edition of Flash Player are support for new 3D rendering effects, Adobe Pixel Blender filters, new drawing APIs, and an advanced text rendering engine. What's more, Flash Player 10 has expanded use of hardware graphics acceleration, so Flash content should be a little snappier.

Don't expect it to be completely without bugs, though. In fact, it's safe to assume that not everything will work exactly as expected -- this is a public beta release, after all. When you do encounter abnormal behavior, be sure to submit feedback to Adobe and/or discuss your issues in the public forums.

As for when we can start authoring content for use with Flash Player 10, expect an announcement from Adobe regarding the next version of Creative Suite on May 27.

Windows 7 Due in 2009

Microsoft hints that the next version of its Windows operating system will arrive in 2009.

Will Microsoft Deliver Windows 7 Next Year?

Microsoft has dropped two strong hints in the past two days that the next version of its Windows operating system will arrive in 2009, shaving up to a year off previous expectations.

It could also be a signal that Microsoft intends to cut its losses with Windows Vista, which has been poorly received or shunned by customers, especially large companies.

Microsoft has long said it wants to release Windows 7 about three years after Vista, which was released to manufacturing in November 2006 but not officially launched until January 2007. Given Microsoft's recent track record - Vista arrived more than five years after XP - most outsiders had pegged some time in 2010 as a safe bet for Windows 7's arrival.

But News.com reported Friday that Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates answered a question at a business meeting in Miami about Windows Vista by saying "Sometime in the next year or so we will have a new version."

And during its announcement Thursday that it would extend the availability of Windows XP Home for low-cost laptops, Microsoft said it would retire the operating system only after June 30, 2010, or one year after the release of Windows 7, whichever comes later.

That implies that Microsoft is targeting the middle of next year for some sort of release milestone for Windows 7 - the only codename known at the moment - though whether that would be a final release to consumers or an RTM, which allows businesses and OEMs to start installing it, is unknown.

A Microsoft spokeswoman, in an e-mail, said the company "is in the planning stages for Windows 7 and development is scoped to three years from Windows Vista Consumer GA." She said the company was providing early builds of the new operating system to gain user feedback, but otherwise was not providing further information.

Gates also said that he was "super-enthused about what [Windows 7] will do in lots of ways" but didn't elaborate.

What could those be? Microsoft has divulged a few things. Responding to criticism that Windows has become unnecessarily bloated, the company has 200 engineers developing a slimmed-down kernel called MinWin that uses 100 files and 25MB, compared to Vista's 5,000 files and 4GB core and is so small it lacks a graphical subsystem.

Microsoft has also confirmed that the operating system will come in consumer and business versions and in 32-bit and 64-bit editions.

Screenshots of early betas of Windows 7 are also appearing. Blogger Paul Thurrott yesterday put up screenshots from build 6519 of Windows 7 released in December, which he said looks like "a slightly enhanced version of Windows Vista."

Microsoft needs to start generating excitement about its software months or years in advance in order to prepare its millions of reselling partners.

But if it talks up Windows 7 too much, it runs the risk that large companies -- Microsoft's most profitable customer segment -- will hold on to their Windows XP machines and skip Vista entirely in favor of Windows 7.

That appears to be happening. A recent enterprise survey by Forrester Research Inc. showed that only 6.3% of enterprises were running Vista at the end of December, with most of the upgrades coming at the expense of aging machines running Windows 2000, not XP.

The vast majority of the 100 million copies of Vista that Microsoft has sold so far have gone to individuals and small businesses purchasing new PCs.

The least-loved version of Windows has long been Windows Millennium Edition (ME), a buggy minor upgrade that was superseded by XP within a year of its release. Despite its far greater - some would say, too great - technical ambition, Vista may end up lumped together with ME as one of the blips on Windows' long-term roadmap.

Firefox Should Ship in June

Also confirms that it will release the final beta of Firefox 3.0 shortly.

Mozilla Expects to Release Firefox 3.0 Final in June

Mozilla Corp. Thursday confirmed that it will release the final beta of Firefox 3.0 shortly, and that it expects to deliver the finished browser to users in June.

Firefox 3.0 Beta 5 has been code-frozen, said Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's vice president of engineering, and is working its way toward release. "That will be the last beta for Firefox 3.0," he said. Once Beta 5 is out of the way, developers will move to the Release Candidate (RC) stage.
Release Candidate 1 (RC1) should be ready sometime in early May, said Schroepfer, assuming Mozilla meets its current schedule. "The release candidates will move a little slower than beta," he continued, noting that the company must make allowances for public feedback.

Mozilla typically tries to dissuade most users from trying betas, calling them fit only for developers and testing, but in the past has encouraged the public to try out its RC builds.

Although plans are flexible, Schroepfer said he expects version 3.0 to hold true to past Firefox form and cycle through three release candidates before Mozilla signs off on the code. The RC period is also useful to extension developers, he said, many of whom wait until the code is at that stage before tweaking their add-ons.

If all goes according to plan, Firefox 3.0 will wrap up and ship in June.

Mozilla released Firefox 3.0 Beta 4 about two and a half weeks ago. According to its online schedule, Beta 5 will probably hit the company's download servers sometime early next week.

The open-source Firefox currently accounts for about 17.3% of the browser market, according to Net Applications Inc.'s most recent data. Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer rules the roost with 74.9%, while Apple Inc.'s Safari holds down third place with 5.7%.

Heads up on IE8 Beta 1

Microsoft today unveiled Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) and welcomed users, as well as developers, to download and install the preview.

Microsoft Unveils IE8 Beta 1

Gregg Keizer, Computerworld

Microsoft Corp. today unveiled Internet Explorer 8, and posted links to what the company called "Beta 1 for developers." Anyone, however, can download and install the preview. (As did PC World's Melissa Perenson and Editor in Chief Harry McCracken.)

"I am pleased to announce that Beta 1 for developers is available now," said Dean Hachamovitch, the IE group's general manager, in a presentation from MIX08, a Microsoft Web development conference that opened today in Las Vegas, Nev.

According to the download page published early today, IE8 Beta 1 will be available in separate versions for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.

Although Hachamovitch pegged Beta 1 as fit for developers, there's nothing to stop the general public from downloading and installing the browser. "This beta release is available to everyone," Microsoft's download notes read, "but is primarily for Web developers and designers to test the new tools, layout engine, and programming enhancements."

Among the new features Microsoft touted in other sections of the sub-site dubbed "Internet Explorer 8 Readiness Toolkit," were tools called "WebSlices" and "Activities." The former somewhat resembles the "Web Clip" feature introduced in Apple Inc.'s Safari Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard;" the latter appears to be a small-scale mash-up tool. Both will be developer-, not user-created.

WebSlices (IE8) and Web Clip (Safari) let users designate content within a page -- dynamically-updated stock prices, for example, -- and then monitor changes to that content. But while Safari's Web Clip lets users create desktop widgets for easier access, IE8's WebSlices only allows users to add them to the Favorites bar or to a new row below the browser's address bar. In other words, IE8 users must still click to see the content after they're notified that changes have occurred.

Activities, meanwhile, are pre-designed mash-ups that Microsoft and third-party sites and services will offer free of charge. A dedicated Activities page currently lists a dozen samples, ranging from one that helps users find and preview items on the eBay auction site to another that maps addresses on Windows Live Maps.

"Activities are how developers can integrate the content of their sites with the Web," said Hachamovitch.

Other enhancements and additions to IE8 include a revamped Favorites bar, automatic crash recovery and an improved anti-phishing filter. By comparison, Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox and Apple's Safari both currently offer crash of one sort or another, while Firefox also sports anti-phishing protection.

Earlier this week, Microsoft's IE development team announced that IE8 would support a new "super standards" mode by default , rather than optionally, to stress Web standards over backward compatibility.

"The Web gets better when developers spend less time on interoperability [problems] and more time on innovating," said Hachamovitch. "Long term, this is the right thing to do for the Web."

Although Hachamovitch pegged Beta 1 as fit for developers -- "Please try it out," he urged the MIX08 audience at the end of his presentation -- anyone can grab it. The client-side 32-bit downloads weigh in at 14.4MB for the Windows XP version, and 11MB for the Windows Vista edition.

"We're only part way done with IE8," said Hachamovitch. "But you can see where we're focused."

source: computerworld.com

FireFox 3.0 in the Oven

For the second time in the past four weeks, Mozilla has announced a "code freeze" as it prepares another public release of the open-source browser.

Mozilla Freezes Firefox 3.0 Beta 4


For the second time in the past four weeks, Mozilla Corp. has announced a "code freeze" for a beta version of Firefox 3.0 -- this time, Beta 4 -- as it prepares another public release of the open-source browser.

The freeze was announced late Tuesday. Earlier in the day, the company's chief engineer hinted that the number of outstanding bugs at that point -- 66 that could block the release of Firefox 3.0 -- meant a fifth beta will likely be needed.

"We reviewed the remaining number of P1 [Priority 1] and P2 [Priority 2] blockers on our lists and decided that we would go ahead with tonight's Firefox 3 Beta 4 code freeze and then bake nightly builds for a few days before handing off the code to the build and quality assurance teams," said Mike Beltzner, Mozilla's interface designer, in a message posted to the company's developer center.

Between now and Friday, Beltzner continued, developers will be looking over the blocking bugs to decide which, if any, require another beta release and which would prevent the final release of Firefox 3.0 if they went unfixed.

Meanwhile, Mike Schroepfer, the company's vice president of engineering, said he is leaning toward a fifth beta to give developers a chance to quash potential blockers. "As of this writing, there are 66 P1 bugs, which implies we either will not meet code freeze tonight or will need to add another milestone," he said hours before Mozilla held its weekly status meeting on Firefox 3.0. "Given the number of improvements between Beta 3 and today's nightly, I'd strong prefer we meet the freeze and talk about doing an additional Beta."

However, Schroepfer also pushed for releasing Firefox 3.0 soon. "Given the amazing positive feedback and the fact that we have [500,000] daily active users of Firefox 3 (with basically hockey-stick growth of usage) I think we should push to final as fast as possible," he wrote in a message posted to the mozilla.dev planning newsgroup early yesterday.

Previously, Schroepfer had refused to specify a release date for the final version of Firefox 3.0, although he had pointed to early March as the goal for Beta 4. Another beta would push out final delivery of a finished Firefox by approximately four weeks, based on the last interval between previews.

Mozilla froze Firefox 3.0 at Beta 3 on Jan. 29, and released that build two weeks later, on Feb. 12.

Firefox currently accounts for about 17% of the browser usage share, according to Net Applications Inc., an Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based Web measurement company. The most recent data available, for January, pegged Firefox 3.0's part of the browser market at just 0.1%, in comparison with Firefox 2.0's 16.02%.

For more enterprise computing news, visit Computerworld. Story copyright © 2007 Computerworld Inc. All rights reserved

The New Silverlight 2

A Microsoft official's blog sheds new light on the company's Silverlight 2 browser plug-in technology.

Microsoft Readies Silverlight 2 Beta


Shedding new light on the company's Silverlight 2 browser plug-in technology, a Microsoft official wrote a blog post today that emphasized RIA (rich Internet application) development capabilities planned for an upcoming beta release.

Microsoft's Scott Guthrie, general manager in the Microsoft Developer Division, provided a list of features planned for Silverlight 2 and the beta in his blog. A Microsoft representative subsequently described the blog as the most detail provided to date on Silverlight 2.

With the Silverlight platform, Microsoft is expected to tackle Adobe and its popular Flash technology in the RIA space. Microsoft's Mix08 conference in Las Vegas in two weeks seems like the obvious place to introduce the beta as Silverlight was the star attraction at the Mix07 conference last year. The Microsoft representative would not comment on whether this would actually be the case but did acknowledge plans to ship the beta during the first quarter of this year.

Featured in version 2 is a cross-platform, cross-browser version of the .Net Framework, Guthrie said. Developers can write Silverlight applications using a .Net language, such as Visual Basic, C#, JavaScript, IronPython, or IronRuby. Microsoft plans to ship support for developer/designer workflow and integration for Silverlight in its Visual Studio 2008 and Expression Studio tools.
The introduction of Silverlight 2, which had previously been named Silverlight 1.1, is critical to Microsoft as it battles Adobe, an analyst stressed.

"That's the one that uses the .Net Framework for programming so it can leverage all of Microsoft's developer tools," said analyst Rob Helm of Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm. "Developer tools could become Microsoft's secret weapon," since many developers already are familiar with Visual Studio and .Net Framework, he said.

The 1.0 version of Silverlight has been more geared to video, while Silverlight 2 adds .Net development and transactional capabilities. To bolster RIA development, the Beta 1 release will include a Windows Presentation Foundation UI framework for building rich Web applications. It offers a "powerful" graphics and animation engine plus support for higher-level capabilities, such as controls, layout management, data-binding, and template skinning, Guthrie said.

The Beta 1 release is 4.3 MB in size.

"Once Silverlight 2 is installed, you can browse the Web and automatically run rich Silverlight applications within your browser of choice," Guthrie said. This includes such browsers as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and others.

Rich controls in the Silverlight 2 beta include core form controls, such as TextBox and RadioButton. Built-in layout management panels, such as Grid and Panel, are offered as well. Functionality controls like Calender and DatePicker as well as data manipulation controls also are part of the beta. "The built-in controls support a rich control templating model, which enables developers and designers to collaborate together to build highly polished solutions," Guthrie said.

For networking, Silverlight 2 backs REST (Representational State Transfer), WS-*, and SOAP as well RSS, POX, and HTTP services. Cross-domain network access in Silverlight 2 enables Silverlight clients to directly access resources and data from resources on the Web. Built-in sockets networking also is included in the beta release.

Silverlight 2 features a rich .Net base class library of functionality, such as collections, generics threading, globalization, XML, and local storage. Rich APIs in the product enable HTML DOM/JavaScript integration with .Net code

Also featured is Microsoft's LINQ (Language Integrated Query) technology, which provides native query syntax for C# and Visual Basic, and LINQ to XML library support. This enables easy transformation and querying of data, Guthrie said. Local data caching and storage support are highlighted as well in Silverlight 2.

Net APIs in Silverlight "are a compatible subset of the full .Net Framework," Guthrie said.
"Silverlight 2 does not require the .Net Framework to be installed on a computer in order to run. The Silverlight setup download includes everything necessary to enable all the above features (and more we'll be talking about shortly) on a vanilla Mac OSX or Windows machine," Guthrie said.

Silverlight 2 applications can be migrated to become a desktop application using Windows Presentation Foundation and the full .Net framework.



For more IT analysis and commentary on emerging technologies, visit InfoWorld.com. Story copyright © 2007 InfoWorld Media Group. All rights reserved.

Wikipedia's Rival

Google is developing an online publishing service where people can write entries based on subjects they know


Google Creates Wikipedia Rival
Google is developing an online publishing platform where people can write entries on subjects they know, and idea that's close to Wikipedia's user-contributed content but with several differences.

Currently, the project is in an invitation-only beta stage, similar to Gmail way back. It allows users to create clean-looking web pages with their photo and write entries on a particular subject, like exercise. These entries are called "knols", for "unit of knowledge", Google said.

The search giant aims to develop a deep repository of knowledge, covering a wide gamut of topics, such as history and entertainment. This looks promising, but it has to catch up with Wikipedia's already 7 million articles in 200 languages. Anonymous or registered users can contribute to an entry in Wikipedia that's edited by a network of vetted editors.

But Google asserts that the Web's development so far has neglected the importance of the bylined author.

"We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content," wrote Udi Manber, vice president of engineering, on the official Google blog.
Google said anyone can write about any topic, and repetition of entries on the same subjects is beneficial. Google will provide the Web hosting space, as well as editing tools.

Google also gives users an option to place ads on their created knols, giving contributors a "substantial" portion of the revenue generated by those ads.

Entries cannot be edited or revised by other people, unlike Wikipedia. However, readers will be able to rank and review others' entries, which the Google's search engine will utilize.

The concept of peer-reviewed information is nothing new and is implemented in different ways on various Web sites. Yahoo, for example, has an "Answers" feature where users can ask questions, and the response is ranked on quality. Also, most blogs have forms where readers can comment on the author's entry.

Despite those other formats, Google probably feels that "a service like Knol might be necessary to stay competitive," wrote Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of Search Engine Land, in a review.

Mozilla Releases Firefox 3.0 Beta

Close to 15,000 developers have been testing the 'alpha' version of Firefox 3.0, and today, Mozilla has released the first beta version. The release of the beta is tad delayed than originally expected, but from the early looks of the Firefox 3 beta 1 browser it was worth the wait


Firefox 3 Adds More Security

Mozilla has released a beta version of Firefox 3.0 today, and said they one-step closer into releasing their next-generation web browser to the public.

Close to 15,000 developers have been testing the early 'alpha' versions of Firefox code for several months now, but the first beta release of the code should open up the software to a broader public.

"The move from alpha to beta typically means that we've hit a point of quality where we believe the browser is useable as a daily browser," said Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's vice president of engineering. "For us, it's a step up in terms of getting closer toward the final release." Schroepfer expects a second beta to follow by year's end followed by a final beta 3 update in early 2008.

One of the big changes with Firefox 3.0 is an overhaul of the way the browser bookmarks and keeps track of browsing history. With this new feature, called Places, browsing history will now be stored in a database, meaning that it will be much easier for Firefox users to search for sites they've visited. "Because of the new Places infrastructure we're able to store a much larger component of your history," Schroepfer said.

Another addition is the browser's ability to search what is being typed into the address bar to see it it's relevant to your browsing history.

Security has also taken a front seat with Firefox 3.0. The browser is now integrated with Google's database of known malicious Web sites and will warn users before they visit sites that are considered to be dangerous.

The Download Manager works better with antivirus software, giving users extra security by spotting malicious files before they are placed on the computer. Also, Firefox will no longer permit add-ons to be downloaded from insecure sites.

A lot of the work has been done under the hood. Firefox has a new overhauled HTML rendering engine, known as Gecko 1.9. They promised that the new engine will perform better in the graphically rich Web 2.0 world, where developers are trying to find new ways of running software whether the PC is connected to the Internet or not. "You won't see those as a user right away," Schroepfer said. "But you'll see Web applications do more interesting things and run more quickly in Firefox over time."

Don't use Firefox with Yahoo! Mail and Gmail yet - errors occur on some website that heavily depend on Ajax technology. There is no planned release date for Firefox 3.0 final release. The release of the beta is tad delayed than originally expected, but from the early looks of the Firefox 3 beta 1 browser it was worth the wait.

Sonicsoft Release - ShutDown Guard

Sonicsoft releases another of its products that prevents your computer from shutting down unless you really wanted it to.


Sonicsoft Shutdown Guard Beta Released
Sonicsoft has released a beta version of ShutDown Guard, a software that prevents your computer from shutting down automatically, unless you really wanted it to.

Sometimes Windows users gets frustrated when Windows automatically reboots because of an installation, causing them to save their work and wait until Windows is ready again. ShutDown Guard prevents that. Running in the background, it monitors for the shut down sequence. When it does, it stops it and shows the user a message. If the shut down is legit, the user can command ShutDown Guard to allow the shut down. The shut down is also allowed after a specified amount of time, in case the user leaves the PC after initiating the shut down command.

The beta version is free and is available now. I will post links to the program later.

The Fastest Internet Browser

Apple Safari is faster than Internet Explorer and Mozilla, a testing firm says.


Surfing with Apple Safari

A testing firm says that Apple is faster than Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and Firefox - proof to what Apple said in June when it released the new beta version.

The testing firm has tried to download a webpage off a busy server using Apple's Safari, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Firefox, and timed the results. Based on the tests, Apple's Safari is faster than Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 by 1.6 seconds, and Firefox by 1.2 seconds -- way slower than what Apple is currently advertising: 2x faster than Internet Explorer












However, the test is not conclusive. The firm has tested the browsers by downloading on a busy server - a huge no-no when testing for speed. This will result in bad data as busy servers may respond quicker or slower depending on the load. What they should have used is a local, dedicated testing server, to avoid interference with the data.

Apple has released a public version of Safari 3 on their website, available for both Mac and Windows.

I have tested the new Safari, and I must say it is faster than Internet Explorer 6 and 7. Loading Safari is comparable to Internet Explorer, but loading the page is faster - probably because it uses the progressive technique of loading pictures rather than displaying the image once the download is complete, a technique used by Internet Explorer. Using progressive loading, a blurry avatar or the image is displayed first, and later refined as the whole image is downloaded completely.

Other cool stuff is the tabbed browsing of Safari, and the ability to customize the toolbar (with cool movement animations). Safari for Windows uses manifests from Apple, meaning, the checkbox, option button, buttons, and checkboxes look like the ones on a Mac. Also, the ability to resize a text box is pretty neat. That way, if you want to see your entire text inside one, just drag and resize.

But the biggest drawback is that it does not display all pages correctly, especially the ones with Flash content. Adobe has not yet released a Flash player for Safari for Windows at the time of this writing. Since this version is also a beta, crashes are often.

You can find the latest version here and download the beta here.

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Copyright 2007 by Sonicsoft Corporation
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Image: Apple Website

BETA: Yahoo! Messenger

Fans of the popular Yahoo! Messenger, great news! Yahoo! has released the beta version of the new Y! Messenger


Yahoo! Messenger 9.0

October 29 - Yahoo! has released a new version of Yahoo! Messenger, the Yahoo! Messenger 9.0. It is still in beta state, meaning the program is bound to have bugs or glitches that will be fixed on the final release of the product.

The new Y! Messenger, version 9.0, now supports better-looking skins. These new skins allows you to customize not only the color of the window, but also the title bar of the window, with cool designs. Default skins are available, ranging from wood to icy blue.

The interface is sleeker and cleaner than the previous version, reducing the visual clutter.

Along with the new additions is the 'friend-happy' contact list. The list is now expanded, so that you can view the image of your contacts. It also gives more room for the status of each contact. But sometimes this wastes so much space, instead of displaying more contacts. That makes you scroll through the list unnecessarily. However, you have the option to revert back to the former list view. By the way, you can now use Emoticons for your status messages.

Also, a new contact group has been added - your Address Book list. That way, you can easily IM or text message your friends in your Y! Mail address book.

The photo sharing features of Y! Messenger has been improved, integrating photos from Flickr. Plus a cool new integrated Media player has been added. Just include a link from a video site, such as YouTube, and Messenger allows you to play the video right inside the chat window.

Yahoo! Messenger also features some protection against malicious attacks like viruses and malwares, but I haven't tested them yet.

The chat window is changed, too. The toolbar now only contains IMvironment, Plugins, and Photos, along with the Call button. The rest are moved to the lower portion of the window, right above the text box.

No new options are available in the Preference window, and the Skins section has been moved to the top of the title bar.

It's a working program, but it is still in beta state. There's no guarantee that it will work properly. Expect some glitches and crashes here and there. And any features described here will eventually change and additional features may be available in the future. If you decide to try and install the new version, you can download one here: http://beta.messenger.yahoo.com/

While in the subject of instant messengers, why not try Trillian by Cerulean Studios. This allows you to connect to multiple instant messenger accounts, like Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, ICQ, AIM, IRQ, Bonjour, Jabber, Skype and others. Plus, it also allows you to log in to multiple accounts at the same time. So you can be online on both of your Yahoo! IDs and another for Windows Live messenger. Cool, huh? It's free, by the way. Download the software here: http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/

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Copyright Sonicsoft Corporation
All Rights Reserved