One of the big questions many consumers are faced with today is whether to purchase a laptop or an iPad. We hope to take some of the pressure off and help make that decision easier for you in this guide. Since many of you are already more than well aware of what laptops can be [...]

KONINKLIJKE KPN
LAM RESEARCH
LIBERTY GLOBAL
LM ERICSSON
LOGITECH INTERNATIONAL

When it comes to budgeting and managing your finances on your iPad there are several apps to choose from, but very few compare to Checkbook by iBear LLC. This newly released app has everything you could want or even ask for when it comes to both style and functionality. Easily keep track of your mortgage, [...]

ORACLE
POWERCHIP SEMICONDUCTOR
PRICELINE.COM
QIMONDA
QUALCOMM

Google said Sept. 1 Gmail users made more than 10 million calls through its new Call Phones from Gmail feature. The company provided tips on how to use the service with Google Voice. – Google said Sept. 1 Gmail users made more than 10 million
calls through its new Call Phones from Gmail feature since it launched a week
ago.
Launched Aug. 25, Call Phones from Gmail lets users place calls to contacts
directly from Gmail. Calls placed from Gmail in the United States and Canada ar…

GRUPO IUSACELL
HARRIS
HCL TECHNOLOGIES
HEWLETT-PACKARD
HIGH TECH COMPUTER

Filed under: Fun, Utilities, Windows
First, let me disclaim that I do not read comics, nor manga, and I’m not a huge fan of anime. In fact, the only drawn-art medium that I really like is hentai. But enough about me! Today I’ve had the pleasure of using ComicRack, an eComics reader and manager.

I don’t have anything to compare it to, but according to my friends it’s the best comic reader out there. I can’t really tell you if it’ll make your comics more exciting or enjoyable, but I can tell you that it’s a joy to use. Just drag an archive of images into ComicRack, and off you go! It supports every popular archive format — ZIP (CBZ), RAR (CBR), TAR (CBT), 7Z (CB7) — and even PDFs, with a little hackery. If you prefer a more organized approach (and I’m pretty sure most comic collectors like to keep things organized), you can create a folder for each genre, or each series, or whatever tentacles tickles your fancy!

Once you’ve imported a few archives, it’s time to read some comics. ComicRack’s reader is truly lovely. You can view comics inside the main ‘library’ view, but really you want to use the full-screen viewer. Then it’s just a matter of sitting back, scrolling your mouse wheel, and reading. There’s a particularly nice page transition, too.

Best of all, ComicRack is free to download, has an active forum community — and there are even add-ons!
Share TweetComicRack, eComic reader and library management originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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EMC
FIDELITY NATIONAL INFORMATION SVCS.
FISERV

Full Sprint Epic 4G review – Galaxy Tab preview

Phil and Dieter over at sibling site Android Central have gone a little Samsung Galaxy-class crazy, with a full review of the Sprint Epic 4G and an advanced look at the Galaxy Tab tablet (including hands-on video and spec shootout vs. our own iPad).

So is the Epic [...]Epic 4G and Galaxy Tab – Sammy’s double competitive whammy is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

RESEARCH IN MOTION
ROGERS COMMUNICATIONS
SAIC
SATYAM COMPUTER SERVICES
SES

News Analysis: Oracle’s suit against Google over Android is only the first shot in a war to end open-source software in all of its forms. – There’s no question that Oracle just hates the very idea
of open-source software. The suit against Google over its use of Java in the
open-source Android mobile operating system is really just part of a
pattern.
If you look at what’s happened already, the pattern has
become clear. Oracle ha…

ASML HOLDING
ASUSTEK COMPUTER
AT&T
AUTODESK
AUTOMATIC DATA PROCESSING

ARM, IBM, Samsung, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments have together created Linaro, a not-for-profit company focused on supporting the development of open-source products for devices powered by ARM’s chip designs. Along with Android, other open-source ventures such as LiMo, MeeGo, Ubuntu and WebOS stand to profit from the project, which could help unify a fragmented Linux mobile operating system market. – IBM and chip designer ARM, with
partners Freescale, Samsung, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments, have created
Linaro, quot;a not-for-profit open-source software engineering company quot;
focused on speeding the development of Linux-based mobile devices powered by ARM-designed
processors.

I…

DIEBOLD
DELL
CYPRESS SEMICONDUCTOR
ACCENTURE
ACER

Microsoft and Polycom are entering an alliance that will include jointly developing, selling and marketing unified communications products based on Polycom endpoints and Microsoft’s Communications Server 14. – Polycom, which already has partnerships with the likes of Hewlett-Packard
and Avaya
as it ramps up its competition with Cisco Systems in the unified communications
space, is now hooking up with Microsoft.
The two companies announced a partnership Aug. 9 in which they
will jointly develop and ma…

HON HAI PRECISION IND.
HYNIX SEMICONDUCTOR
INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES
INVENTEC

Omniture adds a new application to its Omniture SiteCatalyst tool that allows users to monitor the spread of viral video on YouTube and other sites. Salesforce, Google, Amazon and other companies have all been expanding the range of applications available on their cloud-based computing platforms, even allowing clients to monitor Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and other sites to see how a particular service or product is being greeted by the general public….

EMS TECHNOLOGIES
EMC
ELECTRONICS FOR IMAGING
ELECTRONIC DATA SYSTEMS
ELECTRONIC ARTS

AT T is said to be making software enhancements to its 3G network to get a bit more juice from it before a planned migration to 4G and before millions of new Apple iPhone users come on board….

ARROW ELECTRONICS
ASML HOLDING
ASUSTEK COMPUTER
AT&T
AUTODESK

Filed under: Open Source, web 2.0
YoxView is one of my favorite lightbox implementations. I’ve used it in the past to show you how to add an awesome Picasa or Flickr slideshow to your website. YoxView’s development has progressed by leaps and bounds since then, and version 2.0 brings some interesting improvements to the table, including:

Skinning support: I think this one’s pretty unique. There’s not much chrome to skin on a lightbox, but still, it’s nice to be able to brand the lightbox and package it nicely for future use (or for use by other developers).
Inline Flash content: You just need to specify an FLV/F4V/SWF file in the link, and YoxView will display it. You can set width, height, and Flash variables.
Inline content: You can now display a ton of other inline content (for example, PDFs). I don’t remember seeing a lightbox that can display a PDF file – that’s a neat one, for sure.

There have been lots of other changes, and as per usual with new software releases, a whole bunch of bugs have been squashed.
And of course, YoxView’s core strength remains; it can very easily pull images from Picasa, Flicker, and other online sources and display them right in your site. So, if you ever think of adding a video/image/document gallery to your site, YoxView is one worthy option to check out.
Share TweetYoxView JavaScript lightbox 2.0 is now out! Skinning, Flash video, and more originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

ACER
ADOBE SYSTEMS
ADVANCED SEMICONDUCTOR ENGINEERING
ALLIANCE DATA SYSTEMS
ALLTEL

The TiPb forums are naturally a great place to talk, commiserate, celebrate, get help, and offer advice to your fellow iPhone users. In order to create a new thread of your own or reply to any of the existing threads, you must be a registered member. Becoming a member is easy and free so if [...]Post Apple Music Event 2010 – From the Forums is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

QUALCOMM
QUANTA COMPUTER
RESEARCH IN MOTION
ROGERS COMMUNICATIONS
SAIC

JAMF Software’s changes to Casper Suite bring Mac systems under central control. The Mac management suite gives IT managers the ability to keep Mac systems up-to-date while also tracking inventory and license compliance. – IT managers looking to streamline Mac management should check out the new
polish JAMF Software has put on the latest version of its comprehensive Casper
tool suite. With modules ranging from inventory and imaging to patch management
and remote control, the Casper Suite brings legacy PC control to…

ARIAN SEMICONDUCTOR EQUIPMENT
ARROW ELECTRONICS
ASML HOLDING
ASUSTEK COMPUTER
AT&T

The official Twitter for iPad — technically a universal binary now for both iPhone and iPad — has just hit the iTunes App Store. Formerly known as Tweetie, the app was under development by Atebits and Loren Brichter before getting bought up by Twitter, and after a brief transitional delay, it’s finally here.

How is it? [...]Official Twitter for iPad hits App Store is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

ARROW ELECTRONICS
ASML HOLDING
ASUSTEK COMPUTER
AT&T
AUTODESK

Filed under: Windows Mobile, Microsoft, Browsers, Mobile

No, sadly it’s not my video (whose accent do you prefer, incidentally? The squeaky American, or mine?) but still, it’s a great early look at the browsing experience on Windows Phone 7.

Lee really likes the tabs (those close buttons look fiddly though). I like the Metro UI, and the ability to add favourite pages to the Start screen. Froyo looks like a crusty donkey in comparison — and iOS4 even manages to look a bit bland. I never thought I’d see a Microsoft product on the bleeding edge of user interface design…

Microsoft’s new mobile OS is all but finished now, incidentally. The final release of its developer tools comes on September 16th (one day after the IE9 beta!), and handsets should be out in the wild by October. Did you see the list of games that will be available at launch? Commence salivation.
Share TweetWindows Phone 7 Web browser comparison versus iPhone and Android (video) originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Nothing surprising here — leaked T-Mobile internal documents show the pricing of the G2 at $199.99 on contract/after rebate, and $499.99 if bought outright.  This would be the same as the Vibrant, Droid Incredible, HTC Evo 4G, and just about every other top tier smartphone — with the exception being the Epic 4G. (We’re going to go out on a limb here and opine that there will be earbuds, a charger and maybe some documentation in the box, too — you heard it here first!). So save your pennies and check in the ashtray for change, and hopefully we will see this one soon.  [TmoNews]Posted originally at Android CentralSponsored by Android Cases and Accessories

GOOGLE
GRUPO IUSACELL
HARRIS
HCL TECHNOLOGIES
HEWLETT-PACKARD

SocialDeck has become the latest addition to Google’s Hall of Acquisitions. The creators of the popular iPhone game Shake and Spell have also produced Spark, which allows mobile gamers to challenge or chat with friends, recommend games, save games in the cloud, and more.

In their own words, SocialDeck are “super excited to announce that someone found our social games as fun as you have – in this case, that “someone” is Google.” They’ll even have a nice group of friends with common interests to play with now that they’re part of the Google collective.

Earlier this month, Google acquired Jambool — who created the Social Gold virtual currency platform. Back in April they picked up Lab Pixies, who specialize in social and casual gaming widgets. And let’s not forget Google is also a major investor in casual game maker Zynga — the demons behind the game you love to hate, Farmville.

What does it all mean? Clearly Google sees gaming (and social gaming in particular) to be an area worth getting involved in. With Android picking up momentum and Google TV and Chrome OS both on the way, there are going to be a whole lot more Google hardware users looking to kill some time destroying pixelated zombies or spelling their way to a high score.

That means money spent on games, on virtual goods, and, of course, delicious, delicious ad impressions.

[via Inside Social Games]Google buys mobile game dev SocialDeck originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

ACCENTURE
ACER
ADOBE SYSTEMS
ADVANCED SEMICONDUCTOR ENGINEERING
ALLIANCE DATA SYSTEMS

Every iPad owner understands the importance of keeping their device both protected and clean. It takes very little time for oil from your hands to build up on the iPad’s screen, leaving plenty of unwanted smudges. There is an affordable solution though thanks to the iShine Microfiber iPad Sleeve. The iShine Sleeve is a must [...]

FIDELITY NATIONAL INFORMATION SVCS.
FISERV
GOOGLE
GRUPO IUSACELL
HARRIS

JAMF Software’s changes to Casper Suite bring Mac systems under central control. The Mac management suite gives IT managers the ability to keep Mac systems up-to-date while also tracking inventory and license compliance. – IT managers looking to streamline Mac management should check out the new
polish JAMF Software has put on the latest version of its comprehensive Casper
tool suite. With modules ranging from inventory and imaging to patch management
and remote control, the Casper Suite brings legacy PC control to…

COMPAL ELECTRONICS
COSMOTE MOBILE TELECOM.
D-LINK
DIGITAL CHINA HOLDINGS
DIRECTV GROUP

Avaya officials are following through on promises to aggressively integrate technologies acquired from Nortel to build up its enterprise communications offerings. The newest UC and contact center offerings are the latest examples. – When Avaya officials last year announced their intention to buy
struggling Nortel Networks enterprise business for $915 million, both
they and some analysts believed that would push the company toward the top of the enterprise telephony market.
And thats a market that includes the likes of
techn…

NANYA TECHNOLOGY
NII HOLDINGS
NIKON
NINTENDO
NOKIA

Microsoft and Polycom are entering an alliance that will include jointly developing, selling and marketing unified communications products based on Polycom endpoints and Microsoft’s Communications Server 14. – Polycom, which already has partnerships with the likes of Hewlett-Packard
and Avaya
as it ramps up its competition with Cisco Systems in the unified communications
space, is now hooking up with Microsoft.
The two companies announced a partnership Aug. 9 in which they
will jointly develop and ma…

SIEMENS FAIR ISAAC
FACTSET RESEARCH SYSTEMS
F5 NETWORKS
EPICOR SOFTWARE

Yeah, you can turn off Touchwiz on the Sprint Epic 4G and get rid of the static home screen icons and horizontal launcher. But what you’re left with isn’t really an improvement. You’re stuck with three home screens, an outdated launcher, and a feeling of guilt for not listening to us in the first place. Instead, if you want to go a different route, just install a third-party launcher, like, ADW.Launcher or Launcher Pro. You’ll get the same result, and more functionality. But if you just have to be difficult, we have instructions after the break. [via Brief Mobile]
Posted originally at Android CentralSponsored by Android Cases and Accessories

GOOGLE
GRUPO IUSACELL
HARRIS
HCL TECHNOLOGIES
HEWLETT-PACKARD

Filed under: Google, Browsers
One of the most talked about features in Safari 5 has been its Reader function — Apple’s built-in implementation of the Readability bookmarklet. Both are nice ways to reformat articles on blog or news sites for distraction-free reading.

If you like the look of Safari Reader but would rather not change from Google Chrome or Firefox, don’t worry. The iReader extension brings the same functionality to your browser of choice!

Like Safari Reader, iReader shrouds the background in semi-opaque blackness . Hover near the bottom of the page to display zoom and print controls, as well as e-mail/Twitter/Facebook sharing buttons. iReader is also highly configurable — set Gmail as your ’send page’ client, change the display font, activate smooth scrolling, set the “curtain” to be more or less transparent, and adjust the reading area and margins. You can also choose hotkey combination to activate iReader (rather than having to click on the Omnibar icon).

Download iReader : Google Chrome extension or Firefox add-on iReader extension is like Safari Reader for Google Chrome and Firefox originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

ADVANCED SEMICONDUCTOR ENGINEERING
ALLIANCE DATA SYSTEMS
ALLTEL
AMAZON.COM
AMERICA MOVIL

Apple experienced a strong 2009 despite the recession but may make substantial changes to its product lines and strategy in 2010 in order to counter direct competition from Google, Microsoft and other players. Those strategies could include opening the iPhone to multiple carriers, introducing an iPod Touch with a camera, expanding its retail footprint, releasing the long-rumored tablet PC, imposing increased regulation on the App Store, and even introducing the Beatles catalog to iTunes. – In contrast to many tech companies dampened down by the recession, Apple
experienced rising revenue and profits throughout 2009, buoyed by strong sales
of its various product lines. But those sorts of shareholder-heartening numbers
rely on a constant base of innovation, and Apple will likely need…

DIRECTV GROUP
ELPIDA MEMORY
EMC
FIDELITY NATIONAL INFORMATION SVCS.
FISERV

Every iPad owner understands the importance of keeping their device both protected and clean. It takes very little time for oil from your hands to build up on the iPad’s screen, leaving plenty of unwanted smudges. There is an affordable solution though thanks to the iShine Microfiber iPad Sleeve. The iShine Sleeve is a must [...]

ACCENTURE
ACER
ADOBE SYSTEMS
ADVANCED SEMICONDUCTOR ENGINEERING
ALLIANCE DATA SYSTEMS

Filed under: Games, P2P
I bring you news that won’t shock but will surely delight! Just over 40% of Steam users have a BitTorrent client installed — and 75% of those are using uTorrent. Mainline is second with about 10%, with Vuze and BitComet coming in third and fourth place respectively.

These delicious statistics have emerged thanks to Steam’s hardware and software survey which now includes a breakdown of installed applications on each user’s computer. With up to 25 million users being polled in the survey, the accuracy is really second to none — at least when it comes to gamer-specific trends! It’s worth noting that the survey is completely automated too — Steam scans your hard disk and hardware configuration to produce these figures.

In non-BitTorrent-related news, Firefox is by far the most popular browser amongst gamers with 63% of Steam users having it installed (Chrome is almost at the bottom with only 11.5%). Almost everyone has Adobe Flash, 73% have Acrobat Reader, and a rather large 57% have Microsoft Office installed. I wonder how many of those Office installations were downloaded via BitTorrent… Perhaps Steam gamers spend so much money on games that they don’t have enough left to spend on Microsoft Office…?

Incidentally, these figures are only for Windows installations. Here’s something for the Mac crusaders, though: iTunes is actually installed on more computers than uTorrent (but only just), and QuickTime is installed on 44% of computers!

(Note: the above image is snipped, or I would never have fit it all in!)
Share TweetMore than 40% Valve’s Steam user base are also avid users of BitTorrent originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

EASTMAN KODAK CO
EARTHLINK
DST SYSTEMS
DISCOVER FINANCIAL SERVICES
DIODES INORATED

SocialDeck has become the latest addition to Google’s Hall of Acquisitions. The creators of the popular iPhone game Shake and Spell have also produced Spark, which allows mobile gamers to challenge or chat with friends, recommend games, save games in the cloud, and more.

In their own words, SocialDeck are “super excited to announce that someone found our social games as fun as you have – in this case, that “someone” is Google.” They’ll even have a nice group of friends with common interests to play with now that they’re part of the Google collective.

Earlier this month, Google acquired Jambool — who created the Social Gold virtual currency platform. Back in April they picked up Lab Pixies, who specialize in social and casual gaming widgets. And let’s not forget Google is also a major investor in casual game maker Zynga — the demons behind the game you love to hate, Farmville.

What does it all mean? Clearly Google sees gaming (and social gaming in particular) to be an area worth getting involved in. With Android picking up momentum and Google TV and Chrome OS both on the way, there are going to be a whole lot more Google hardware users looking to kill some time destroying pixelated zombies or spelling their way to a high score.

That means money spent on games, on virtual goods, and, of course, delicious, delicious ad impressions.

[via Inside Social Games]Google buys mobile game dev SocialDeck originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

SATYAM COMPUTER SERVICES
SES
SHAW COMMUNICATIONS
SIEMENS FAIR ISAAC

Apple will host a launch event for its "latest creation" in San Francisco on Jan. 27, in what many media and analysts expect will be the rollout for the long-rumored tablet PC. At the same time, several media outlets are reporting Apple in negotiations with HarperCollins Publishers, and possibly other publishing houses, to port content onto the hypothetical device. Although Apple has refused to officially confirm it is working on a tablet PC, months of rumors and analyst conjecture have driven chatter that the company is indeed developing something big. – Apple will debut its quot;latest creation quot; in San
Francisco on Jan. 27, according to an official invite
sent to media and analysts, who widely expect the device in question to be a
tablet PC.

In typical Apple fashion, the invitation itself is short on details and
big on style, featurin…

EPICOR SOFTWARE
EMULEX
EMS TECHNOLOGIES
EMC
ELECTRONICS FOR IMAGING

Oracle sues Google for patent and copyright infringement over Google’s use of Java in its Android operating system. The suit could halt Android development on phones, tablets and other platforms. – Oracle Aug. 12 sued Google for patent and copyright infringement over Google’s
use of Java in its open-source Android operating system.
Oracle, which purchased Sun Microsystems and renamed it Oracle America
in January, accused Google of infringing seven Java patents and other
copyrights.
Sun …

ADOBE SYSTEMS
ADVANCED SEMICONDUCTOR ENGINEERING
ALLIANCE DATA SYSTEMS
ALLTEL
AMAZON.COM

Filed under: Google, Browsers
One of the most talked about features in Safari 5 has been its Reader function — Apple’s built-in implementation of the Readability bookmarklet. Both are nice ways to reformat articles on blog or news sites for distraction-free reading.

If you like the look of Safari Reader but would rather not change from Google Chrome or Firefox, don’t worry. The iReader extension brings the same functionality to your browser of choice!

Like Safari Reader, iReader shrouds the background in semi-opaque blackness . Hover near the bottom of the page to display zoom and print controls, as well as e-mail/Twitter/Facebook sharing buttons. iReader is also highly configurable — set Gmail as your ’send page’ client, change the display font, activate smooth scrolling, set the “curtain” to be more or less transparent, and adjust the reading area and margins. You can also choose hotkey combination to activate iReader (rather than having to click on the Omnibar icon).

Download iReader : Google Chrome extension or Firefox add-on iReader extension is like Safari Reader for Google Chrome and Firefox originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

POWERCHIP SEMICONDUCTOR
PRICELINE.COM
QIMONDA
QUALCOMM
QUANTA COMPUTER

“People familiar with the situation” (yes, them again) have told the Wall Street Journal that both Fox and ABC are good to go on $0.99 iTunes TV show rentals, and will be announced later today at Apple’s special music event. Since ABC is owned by Disney, whose largest shareholder is Steve Jobs, their getting on [...]Fox, ABC to offer $0.99 iTunes rentals, CBS, NBC to keep heads buried in sand? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

EMC
FIDELITY NATIONAL INFORMATION SVCS.
FISERV
GOOGLE
GRUPO IUSACELL

Filed under: Utilities, Blogging, web 2.0
NewsBlur is a very beautiful feed reader that’s laden with tons of JavaScript, but it utterly lacks any form of documentation.
It’s an open source project by the talented Samuel Clay, who has been working on it for 15 months now. He’s currently working on an iPhone version, but the regular version is very impressive in itself.
The sources are hosted over on GitHub, and the project uses the Django Web framework for Python. This means that you can probably install it on your own server and break free from the big G. But unlike Fever, which is another server-based reader, NewsBlur has built-in multi-user support, and it’s free. So, you don’t have to install it on your own server to use it; you can just go to the NewsBlur site and open an account.
NewsBlur lets you import your current feeds from Google Reader. It lets you vote articles up and down, and it uses your input to figure out what you might like to read in the future. It then marks articles appropriately so that you can (hopefully) read just the stuff that you’re interested in out of the sea of RSS feeds that you’ve been reading.
To really see if the intelligence works, you have to use it for a while, which is something I haven’t done. This is a very impressive project, but I feel that the lack of documentation (not even an About page) is holding it back. I would have given you a complete screenshot tour of it, but it’s very difficult when you don’t know what anything does.
Share TweetNewsBlur is a slick, impressive, undocumented RSS reader originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Filed under: Utilities, Search, AndroidIt’s such a fantastic concept: a database of customer service numbers with the buttons you need to push to skip the computers (and Indian call centers) to talk to a real, boner fidee Ameerikin who’s just positively thrilled to be helping you with your problem. Unfortunately, while one of the best ideas I’ve ever seen, Dial Zero utterly fails in its implementation.

It makes you wonder if the developer was under the effects of crack — I mean, how hard is it to make a search box that actually searches? How about removing banner ads that obscure one of the most vital parts of the program? Don’t get me started on the Latest Comments and Head-To-Head sections either — I can’t even begin to guess at their purpose.

The sad thing is, Dial Zero for iPhone has a veritable feast of good reviews — probably because it doesn’t include hideous ads on every page of the app. Or maybe because the search function actually works.

But the thing is, despite its abject awfulness, Dial Zero for Android still has a big list of customer service phone numbers. It still has some great tips for skipping the automated service, or how to get a USA-based representative. It even has a few UK numbers (but God help you if you think searching for ‘UK’ will bring them up…)

And of course it’s free. Being free shouldn’t excuse submoronic interface design, though.
Share TweetDial Zero for Android is a great idea (you can skip automated customer service systems!), but so, so poorly implemented originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

CANON
CDW
CHINA MOBILE
CISCO SYSTEMS
COGNIZANT TECH. SOLUTIONS

Filed under: Business, Utilities
Ever since I started working with Olark, I have come to realize the value of real-time customer interaction. Being able to talk to customers and help them out when they need something gives me a very real sense of both what people are looking for on the site and who our customers are.
Zingaya takes this idea one step further. You get a “Call” widget for your site. Users can simply click the widget, and your Skype starts ringing. The user doesn’t need anything besides a browser (which must support Flash, I think) and a microphone.
Zingaya also works with regular landlines and mobile phones, but of course, then you have to pay calling rates. Still, it’s kind of interesting. I mean, most reputable sites have contact information along with a real phone number. But being able to simply click a button on the home page and suddenly find yourself talking to a real live human is a different thing altogether. You can also filter calls by time of day (allow incoming calls only at certain hours) or by country (i.e., enable incoming calls only from certain locations).
I don’t think I’ll be installing Zingaya on my own site, but the concept is certainly intriguing. I also like that they’re freemium — they have a free, non-expiring plan for one operator.Zingaya lets website visitors voice call you instantly originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

MICROSOFT
MILLICOM INTL. CELLULAR
MOBILE TELESYSTEMS
NANYA TECHNOLOGY
NII HOLDINGS

My Apple journey started as a test of whether and when Apple hardware and software had a place in a mostly-Windows corporate world. In the year since, I’ve come to appreciate computer systems that just work, and my switchover has been eased by products such as Parallels Desktop Switch to Mac Edition. With that said, however, Mac desktop and notebook systems are still a departmental, not an enterprise, concern for IT managers. – 2010 will start my second year as a daily Mac user in a Windows-oriented
world. I think my aluminum-skinned charges will thrive in the coming year
despite clinging to a fat-client model I associate more with the past than the
future.
Apple’s style, design and functionality are big inducements f…

ARROW ELECTRONICS
ASML HOLDING
ASUSTEK COMPUTER
AT&T
AUTODESK

Skype’s updated VOIP app for Apple iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS smartphones running iOS 4 is multitasking-savvy and lets users run Skype in the background, among other features. – Skype has launched Version 2.0.1 of its voice-over-IP software for iPhone 4
and iPhone 3GS handsets running iOS 4.
Released July 21, the newest version of the application takes advantage of
the operating system’s multitasking capabilities, enabling users to run Skype
in the background, as well …

MILLICOM INTL. CELLULAR
MOBILE TELESYSTEMS
NANYA TECHNOLOGY
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A while back, I ran down a list of 7 tweaking apps for Windows 7. One more worth knowing about is AeroTweak, a fully-portable Windows tweaking app which allows you to modify and disable a wide range of features.

AeroTweak lets you painless flip the switch on things like AeroShake, taskbar thumbnails, and low disk space notifications. It also provides one-click disabling of autoruns on all your drives, which is a nice way to enhance your system’s security (what with all those worms spreading from infected USB flash drives).

It’s also a bit like a gpedit.msc (the policy editor included in professional versions) replacement for Windows 7 home edition systems — which means those of you who want to quickly lock down things like Task Manager, Control Panel, and registry editing can use AeroTweak to do it quickly via a neatly-organized gui.

[via IntoWindows]AeroTweak is an option-filled tweaking app for Windows 7 originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Firefox 4 Beta 2 has been delayed for a few more days as the candidate build undergoes quality assurance tests, according to a note on Mozilla’s Website. Firefox 4’s new features are designed to head off a challenge from Google Chrome and other browsers. – Firefox 4’s latest beta will be delayed a week, according to Mozilla, as it
undergoes more testing.
quot;Hi! We’re glad you’re interested in Firefox 4 Beta 2 it’s not quite
ready yet, quot; read
a posting on the Mozilla Wiki. quot;Our candidate builds (FTP links below)
are still going throug…

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Every iPad owner understands the importance of keeping their device both protected and clean. It takes very little time for oil from your hands to build up on the iPad’s screen, leaving plenty of unwanted smudges. There is an affordable solution though thanks to the iShine Microfiber iPad Sleeve. The iShine Sleeve is a must [...]

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Filed under: Games, P2P
I bring you news that won’t shock but will surely delight! Just over 40% of Steam users have a BitTorrent client installed — and 75% of those are using uTorrent. Mainline is second with about 10%, with Vuze and BitComet coming in third and fourth place respectively.

These delicious statistics have emerged thanks to Steam’s hardware and software survey which now includes a breakdown of installed applications on each user’s computer. With up to 25 million users being polled in the survey, the accuracy is really second to none — at least when it comes to gamer-specific trends! It’s worth noting that the survey is completely automated too — Steam scans your hard disk and hardware configuration to produce these figures.

In non-BitTorrent-related news, Firefox is by far the most popular browser amongst gamers with 63% of Steam users having it installed (Chrome is almost at the bottom with only 11.5%). Almost everyone has Adobe Flash, 73% have Acrobat Reader, and a rather large 57% have Microsoft Office installed. I wonder how many of those Office installations were downloaded via BitTorrent… Perhaps Steam gamers spend so much money on games that they don’t have enough left to spend on Microsoft Office…?

Incidentally, these figures are only for Windows installations. Here’s something for the Mac crusaders, though: iTunes is actually installed on more computers than uTorrent (but only just), and QuickTime is installed on 44% of computers!

(Note: the above image is snipped, or I would never have fit it all in!)
Share TweetMore than 40% Valve’s Steam user base are also avid users of BitTorrent originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Apple shipped 8.3 million units of its iPhone in Q1, helping the company to its $3.38 billion profit. Apple COO Tim Cook said on the Q1 earnings call Jan. 25 that business use of the iPhone doubled since the release of the faster iPhone 3GS last summer. Cook said roughly 70 percent of Fortune 100 companies are testing or using iPhones as their corporate communications device, thanks largely to support for Microsoft Exchange. This sets the stage for the iPhone’s assault on RIM’s BlackBerry, analysts believe. – Apple doubled in the first quarter the number of iPhones it sold in the first quarter from a year ago, shipping 8.3 million
units of the world’s most popular smartphone and pushing the company to its
$3.38 billion profit.
But don’t think those devices all went to teenagers and soccer moms. Yes,
…

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The TiPb forums are naturally a great place to talk, commiserate, celebrate, get help, and offer advice to your fellow iPhone users. In order to create a new thread of your own or reply to any of the existing threads, you must be a registered member. Becoming a member is easy and free so if [...]Wi-Fi only iPad regret, Jailbreak apps, iPhone data usage, App Store games – From the Forums is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

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Filed under: Utilities, Features, Op-Ed
What the Zuk is a (very) occasional feature, in which I review software that I have been using for many years, and which is instrumental for my work. These are the first tools I install on every new system, the reliable work-horse applications I turn to for every need. In every installment I will try to explain what makes this particular program special, and why I find it so vital for my computing experience.
Today’s What the Zuk is about Stickies, which is an utterly fantastic sticky note program which has been an essential part of my workflow for years. So, here we go:
Remember the Milk, Google Tasks, GQueues, Toodledo … I could go on. The number of ways I have tried to keep track of my sprawling to-do list over the years is truly massive. After all, trying to figure out what’s the best way to manage one’s tasks is an advanced form of procrastination. So I’ve ended up trying just about any task management system I was able to lay my hands on – some for just an hour or two, and some for weeks or even months.
And somehow, I always find myself going back to the cluttered simplicity of sticky notes. I don’t know – maybe it’s just me, but there’s something about the visual nature of sticky notes which works very well for me.
I have a dual-monitor setup. My secondary monitor usually carries at least 4-5 sticky notes, if not more. If a note becomes urgent, I can make the font larger. If I have a ton of notes and I want to make one stick out, I can change its color.
There’s something deceptive about a to-do list, for me. Sometimes the mere act of putting an item on a to-do list is almost like doing it. I mean, the list is so nice and orderly, and now that the item is there, it is “no longer bugging me”. It can rest in peace in the cozy nest of the list, until it’s completely forgotten.Conversely, there is something irritating about a sticky note taking up precious wallpaper space. It’s always right there, in front of me. I don’t have to look at the to-do list to see that it’s there – the task is calling out to me, “come on, get this over with already!”
After all, I usually don’t need reminders for the stuff I feel like doing. The tricky things are those I don’t really feel like doing, but have to do anyway. Hiding them in some to-do list which I have to actively look at is really not workable for me.
Okay, but so far I have only touched upon the concept of sticky notes and why use them. But there are numerous sticky notes programs on the market, some of them free. Why go for Stickies?
In a nutshell, this is an absolutely incredible sticky-note program. It does everything I could possibly wish for (save for just one thing — at the end of this post), and is very graceful. I won’t list all of its numerous features, just list those I personally use time and again, and find invaluable.

Lightweight and fast: Stickies is super-fast, despite being powerful. It never lags on me, no matter what I do. Creating a sticky note is instantaneous – I can create it just as soon as I think of it. Very responsive.
System-wide hotkeys: Again, speed is key in catching fleeting ideas or even jotting down tasks. Thanks to Stickies’ system-wide hotkeys, it’s so convenient to use I never want to switch to any other solution. Win+S creates a new sticky note in the middle of the primary monitor, no matter what window is currently active. So I just hit Win+S, type whatever I want, and I’m done with it. And if the screen is too cluttered and I want some peace and quiet, Win+Shift+S hides all of the stickies instantly. There are several other hotkeys, all configurable, but these are the two I use.
Sticky-specific hotkeys: Ctrl-D closes a sticky; Ctrl-Shift-A sets a reminder for later. Ctrl-T sets it to always-on-top … there are many others, but you get the picture. You almost never need the mouse. Again, the whole thing is optimized for speed.
Reminders: Ah, the cornerstone of my personal time management system. You can set a reminder as soon as you create the sticky, and optionally set the sticky to sleep until the time comes. It then vanishes from view, only to pop up right when you need it, with a very irritating (and effective) “vibrating” effect that simply cannot be ignored. Once it has popped up, you can right-click it and “snooze” it for ten minutes (configurable). You can set the reminders to a specific date and time, or set them for a certain interval (“in 10 minutes”). It even supports recurring reminders!
Keeps closed stickies: This is a very handy feature. When I close a sticky (Ctrl-D), it’s not gone for good. For quite some time after I closed it (30 days, I think, or more), I can still go into the Manage Stickies window and search for it. It’s all right there, and I can easily restore it. It keeps its original position, size, and formatting.
Sticky storage: This is a fairly rare use, but sometimes there’s a tidbit of information I just need to have on hand. Maybe it’s a tracking number I will need in a week, or anything else I just need to have handy but I don’t want cluttering my workspace. I can create a sticky note and then store it in any number of categories. Stored notes are never deleted, and are always searchable and accessible from the Manage Stickies window.
Rich Text and RTL support: RTL means Right-to-Left, the way Hebrew and Arabic go. Stickies handles Hebrew without a hitch, which is a nice bonus for me. Also, its support for rich text means I can make any text bold, italic, underlined etc. and play with font sizes so as to create the exact visual impact I wish to convey. It’s like making a bumper sticker for myself.
Support for Hyperlinks: Related, but somewhat different, is the fact Stickies support Web links. It makes them clickable. You can’t link to other Stickies like you do with Tomboy notes on Linux, but still, it’s a very handy feature.
Image Stickies: A few weeks ago, I had to remember a small range of cells in an Excel sheet. The whole table was the result of a calculation, and I wanted to keep it for a week or two. I just copied it, hit Win+S to create a new sticky, and pasted it. What got pasted was a screenshot of that range of cells in Excel! Beautiful, elegant and smart. Rather than messing about with OLE or trying to link into the Excel sheet, I just got a screenshot. Of course, when I copy/paste from Word or from the Web I get editable text. But it’s very handy to be able to paste an image right into a sticky.
Sticky titles: You can easily (Ctrl-Shift-T) set the title for any sticky you’re working with. Then you can double-click the sticky’s title bar to collapse it, and you’re left with just the title. The visual reminder is still there, but it’s not as obtrusive.
Sticky styles: What if I always mark my “urgent” stickies with a red background and a large font size, and my “personal” stickies with a light blue background? No problem! Stickies supports up to 9 visual styles, each with its own hotkey (1-9, I believe).

There’s a ton of other features I haven’t touched on, such as text highlighting (changing the background of just part of the text), other hotkeys (Ctrl + or Ctrl – to change font size), custom skins, setting per-sticky opacity … really, this is a powerhouse. But still, there was one feature I really needed, which was missing:

I work in several distinct “contexts” using the same machine. There’s the day job, there’s Download Squad, there are my own projects … so at any given time, at least several stickies taking up space on my monitor were reminding me to do things which are not relevant – things which I actually should not do right this minute.

I wrote Tom Revell, Stickies’ developer, and asked for his advice on this. Stickies has an open, powerful API, and I was looking for a way to only show a subset of stickies, appropriate for a given context.
In response, Tom released a great add-on called Scoop. It’s a utility which “scoops” stickies according to certain properties. As you can see on the screenshot, it lets you perform batch operations based on a number of sticky properties. It’s not just hide or show, either – you can roll them up or down, set their skin, etc. Want to hide all of your always-on-top stickies in one fell swoop? No problem!
When you run Scoop, one more thing happens: the context menu for each sticky gets a new entry, titled Set Category which does just that. There’s no category list or key-binding yet (remember, this is bleeding-edge stuff) but you can set a category and then hide/show all stickies in a given category, or do anything else you want to do with them. Beautiful!
Share TweetWhat the Zuk: Stickies is the best sticky-note application money can’t buy originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Astrology fans worldwide are going to love what Vito Technology has done with their latest Star Walk v4.4 update. They have taken their highly popular and award winning Star Walk app for the iPad and iPhone and made it even better. So let’s get down to business, what’s new in Star Walk 4.4? Arrow Guides [...]

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Apple will host a launch event for its "latest creation" in San Francisco on Jan. 27, in what many media and analysts expect will be the rollout for the long-rumored tablet PC. At the same time, several media outlets are reporting Apple in negotiations with HarperCollins Publishers, and possibly other publishing houses, to port content onto the hypothetical device. Although Apple has refused to officially confirm it is working on a tablet PC, months of rumors and analyst conjecture have driven chatter that the company is indeed developing something big. – Apple will debut its quot;latest creation quot; in San
Francisco on Jan. 27, according to an official invite
sent to media and analysts, who widely expect the device in question to be a
tablet PC.

In typical Apple fashion, the invitation itself is short on details and
big on style, featurin…

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Little-known SmartPhone Technologies files lawsuits against Apple, AT&T, Research In Motion, Samsung, Sanyo, LG Electronics and Motorola accusing them of violating patents owned by the company. – The smartphone patent lawsuit derby continues with a company named
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JAMF Software’s changes to Casper Suite bring Mac systems under central control. The Mac management suite gives IT managers the ability to keep Mac systems up-to-date while also tracking inventory and license compliance. – IT managers looking to streamline Mac management should check out the new
polish JAMF Software has put on the latest version of its comprehensive Casper
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and remote control, the Casper Suite brings legacy PC control to…

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We reviewed Clearcam for iPhone last week, and this week, the developer was nice enough to share some promo codes with us to give out to you guys! Since our review, the developer released an update to the app that fixed some of the issues I had, such as some shots coming out a [...]Clearcam for iPhone Promo Code Giveaway! is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

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Filed under: Mozilla, Open Source, Browsers
“Tab Candy” has finally come into its own in this most recent iteration of Firefox, Beta 4. The feature is now called “Panorama”. Not all of Raskin’s envisioned features made it, but it’s still pretty dang cool.
Panorama now lets you group tabs and optionally name the groups. You can resize the groups, and when you shrink a group down to its smallest size, it becomes a “pile” and you can zoom into it by clicking a button next to it.
Another major addition is Firefox Sync. It works with its own accounts, “Firefox Sync accounts.” Interestingly, it prompts you for a pass phrase in addition to a password. It’s a service which syncs your history, open tabs, bookmarks, Awesomebar, etc. Sounds identical to what Google already does with Chrome, but now Firefox has it, too.
These are the two new major features in the Beta 4. The inclusion of Panorama is a big deal – it’s Firefox’s most innovative UI feature by far, and I think it signifies the release cycle rapidly moving to maturity for this version. You should definitely go give it a try, even if it’s not ready yet for use as a full-time browser (due to lack of add-ons).Firefox 4 Beta 4 is out, with Panorama and Sync originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Filed under: Utilities, Blogging, web 2.0
NewsBlur is a very beautiful feed reader that’s laden with tons of JavaScript, but it utterly lacks any form of documentation.
It’s an open source project by the talented Samuel Clay, who has been working on it for 15 months now. He’s currently working on an iPhone version, but the regular version is very impressive in itself.
The sources are hosted over on GitHub, and the project uses the Django Web framework for Python. This means that you can probably install it on your own server and break free from the big G. But unlike Fever, which is another server-based reader, NewsBlur has built-in multi-user support, and it’s free. So, you don’t have to install it on your own server to use it; you can just go to the NewsBlur site and open an account.
NewsBlur lets you import your current feeds from Google Reader. It lets you vote articles up and down, and it uses your input to figure out what you might like to read in the future. It then marks articles appropriately so that you can (hopefully) read just the stuff that you’re interested in out of the sea of RSS feeds that you’ve been reading.
To really see if the intelligence works, you have to use it for a while, which is something I haven’t done. This is a very impressive project, but I feel that the lack of documentation (not even an About page) is holding it back. I would have given you a complete screenshot tour of it, but it’s very difficult when you don’t know what anything does.
Share TweetNewsBlur is a slick, impressive, undocumented RSS reader originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Filed under: Google, BrowsersI’m not sure when the changes actually landed, but Google has announced that an early implementation of hardware acceleration is now available in developer versions of Chrome 7.

Early testing suggests that performance is still worse than Internet Explorer 9, but the gap has definitely been closed a bit. The ‘1000 fish test’ now clocks in at about 10 frames per second, which is definitely an improvement from last time — but still some way short of IE9’s 45 FPS.

The Chromium blog post says that only some content is being accelerated, so the Fish Tank might not be a fair comparison of the browsers. I’ll try to find a better test or benchmark and share my findings later today. You can enable hardware acceleration in Chrome with the –enable-accelerated-compositing flag — and if you discover anything interesting, please share your findings in the comments!

Update: you might need a nightly build of Chromium to take advantage of this hardware acceleration. It would be nice if Google could explicitly state when the changes were made…Chrome now has hardware acceleration, brings phenomenally faster fishes originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Filed under: Design
Drips is a fun Flash application that was inspired by the art of legendary American artist Jackson Pollock.
Its functionality is very basic — you splash random colors on the canvas and that’s about it. You can select a specific color or allow Drips to randomly rotate colors every time you let go of the mouse. You can also change the background color (again, either randomly or by selection).
There’s no undo, of course, but I take that to be in the spirit of Pollock himself. One feature that is missing is control over brush size. I’m pretty sure that Pollock would have approved of such a feature.
I don’t think it’s a tool for creating masterpieces, but I like its lack of features. It captures some of the raw fun of just painting (or doodling), without messing about with too many features, brushes, toolbars, etc. I also like the strong, bold, random colors.Drips is a Flash-based painting app that lets you pretend you’re Jackson Pollock originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Google added direct access numbers to its Google Voice for mobile application on Android and Blackberry smartphones. The company is actively soliciting suggestions from users about how to improve Google Voice. – Google July 22 moved to accelerate calls placed on Android and Blackberry smartphones through its
Google Voice for mobile application, the latest in a string of changes the
company has made to its phone management tool.
Google Voice is a free Web calling and
phone management application.
The p…

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Filed under: Google, Search

Watch the video! Pretty awesome, eh?

The problem is, as TechCrunch says, what about the advertising? Does every page refresh count as an ad impression? Will slower typists incur more screen refreshes? By the same rationale, surely real-time results like that must chew through the bandwidth, especially as search results become more interactive and media-rich.

Chances are, though, we won’t see these real-time as-you-type search results in their current form. Google famously works on hundreds of little tweaks at any given time, each being rolled out to just a tiny fraction of its users. Instead, this technology might find its way to YouTube, or (gasp) Gmail! Having said that, as long as it doesn’t impact too heavily on bandwidth and advertising concerns, maybe we will see it on Google Search!

It also makes you wonder what other unreported changes are tried out by Google…Google tests real-time as-you-type search results (video) originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Filed under: webOSThe webOS App Catalog isn’t quite as much of a bustling hive of activity as Apple’s App Store, but it’s about to get a big boost from Palm’s new in-laws at HP. According to HP CTO Phil McKinney, employees have responded to the developer challenge with more gusto than anticipated — flooding his inbox with around 500 new apps.

There are around 3,400 apps in the Catalog right now, so these newly-developed offerings from HP will comprise a significant chunk once added. That’s excellent news for webOS users, and a pretty clear sign that HP is excited about the platform.

With more users now running webOS 1.4.5 and PDK-based apps and games (like Need for Speed Underground and Assassin’s Creed) appearing, Pre and Pixi users should have a nice crop of new apps to choose from in the coming weeks.

That million bucks for hot apps isn’t going to hurt, either…

[via PreCentral]HP employees ready to add 500 apps to webOS Catalog originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Filed under: Fun, Google
From the same news agency that produced that fantastic iPhone ‘Antennagate’ video comes a brief one-minute synopsis of Google’s apparent abandonment of its don’t be evil mantra. If you haven’t been following the news (we haven’t really covered it here on Download Squad), Google is coming to terms with having to be a little more ruthless to maintain its market lead. In turn, this has sparked a lot of commentary about Google being evil.

I don’t think this is as funny as the iPhone video — and it could certainly do with some English subtitles — but it does feature, rather succinctly, all of the pertinent facts. I only really laughed out loud at the dead girl (see image after the break), which pays homage to a British news story from last week. I guess it’s pretty awesome that these guys can pump animations out in just a few days!

[via Gizmodo]
Those crazy Taiwanese have done it again: ‘Google Does Evil’ (video) originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Filed under: Fun, Utilities, Mobile
Augmented reality, at the moment, is a bit kitsch. It’s a technology that’s been threatening to emerge for years but, like “virtual reality,” it’s always been held back by technological constraints. Until the last year or two, most AR and VR implementations involved you wheeling around a laptop (or strapping it to your back!) — and VR still requires a silly pair of glasses. That’s all about to change, however, with the gigahertz-in-our-pocket smartphones.

In the next few years, almost everyone in the Western world will have a handheld device that’s capable of displaying rich 3D graphics. GPS will pinpoint your location and elevation in real-time, and 3G and 4G (5, 6, 7 …) networks will make both topological data and the Internet’s wealth of contextual data available at any time and any place. But enough talking, let me show you what I’m talking about: check out the Marmota project. It hides behind such subtitles as “visual environment monitoring” and “semantic image labelling,” but in essence, it’s the next step in augmented reality.

The best thing would be for you to read through the Marmota website and check out the pictures, but I’ll give you an example of what Marmota will let you do. Right now, you can pull down Flickr photos from a given geolocation — that’s pretty cool, … but that’s also about it for the current state of augmented reality. With Marmota, you point your camera at a landscape (or cityscape!), and the server sends you topological and contextual information for the scene you’re looking at. So, if you hold your smartphone up in front of a mountain, the mountain’s name and elevation are shown on the screen (here’s a larger version of the image above) — the software can also show you roads, landmarks, and so on. Using topological information, the 2D image on your phone can even be converted into a 3D image (watch the video, it’s very cool), and presumably you can then see over a range of mountains and down into the valley beyond!

The coolest thing is, this technology is actually ready to go. The project has used Android phones as its test bed, and the app should be available in the “immediate future.” I’ll keep you updated and bring you a proper review as soon as possible.

[via ReadWriteWeb]The Marmota project shows off what we can expect from augmented reality in the next few years originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, OpenOffice.org
Miranda IM is pretty much the most versatile, customizable, powerful, minimalistic and down-right sexy IM client on the planet.
I know that sounds like a lot, but I’ve been using it for years, and I’ve tried pretty much everything else Windows and Linux have to offer. I never tried Adium, so maybe Adium’s better – but for Windows, nothing beats Miranda. As you can tell, this application is a prime candidate for one of my What the Zuk columns, so I will save the rest of my admiration for later and get to the news already:
Miranda 0.9.0 is now out! Miranda is very actively developed, but the release cycle isn’t exactly lightning-fast. So 0.9.0 means something, and here’s a few features off the list:

New improved protocols engine with full Unicode support
New high quality icon theme
First official x64 version
Added Windows 7 taskbar icon support

The weirdest feature added to this release was support for file transfers of over 4GB in size. I mean, who the heck transfers over 4GB of files over IM? This release also brings strong Unicode support across the board, so if you happen to be a non-English user this may come in handy. I just installed it myself, and the myriad of add-ons I use seem to work just fine.
And of course, Miranda keeps all of its existing goodness, including support for an insane number of protocols. I currently use it for IRC, ICQ, MSN, GChat, and Olark. One client to rule them all! If you’ve never used Miranda, now would be a great time to give it a spin!Miranda IM 0.9 is now out — new icons, better Win7 support, and lots more! originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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JAMF Software’s changes to Casper Suite bring Mac systems under central control. The Mac management suite gives IT managers the ability to keep Mac systems up-to-date while also tracking inventory and license compliance. – IT managers looking to streamline Mac management should check out the new
polish JAMF Software has put on the latest version of its comprehensive Casper
tool suite. With modules ranging from inventory and imaging to patch management
and remote control, the Casper Suite brings legacy PC control to…

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After months of infringement lawsuits and countersuits filed by Nokia and Apple, Nokia takes its case to the International Trade Commission. Nokia claims Apple is infringing on seven of its patents involving virtually all Apple iPhones, computers and iPods. – Nokia escalated its legal battle with Apple Dec. 29, filing a complaint with
the International Trade Commission claiming Apple’s mobile phones, computers
and portable music players all infringe on Nokia patents. The ITC complaint
follows a Nokia patent infringement lawsuit against Apple earlier t…

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The Samsung Galaxy S – a device line that many Android fans have grown to love. Samsung has announced today that it has shipped more than 1 million of the Android 2.1-powered Galaxy S phones in the United States. It sounds like that’s devices shipped, and not necessarily devices sold to consumers. But there’s no denying the line’s popularity, with the AT&T and T-Mobile versions already in stores The Sprint Epic 4G launches on Tuesday, followed by the Verizon and US Cellular versions in later fall, so it might not be long until we see a couple more million of these devices being shipped. Check the full press release after the jump. 
Posted originally at Android CentralSponsored by Android Cases and Accessories

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After weeks and weeks of coding and testing, CyanogenMod 6 is now officially "stable" and ready for download. For those of you new to Android, the CM series of ROMs are based off the Android Open Source Project — the pure building blocks of the Android OS — with a bunch of tweaks and customizations added on, while keeping with a stock Android feel. For most phones, you’ll need root and bootloader access — you can find more information on that here — and read through the respective threads at CM for further information if you’re just starting out. [CyanogenMod]Posted originally at Android CentralSponsored by Android Cases and Accessories

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My Apple journey started as a test of whether and when Apple hardware and software had a place in a mostly-Windows corporate world. In the year since, I’ve come to appreciate computer systems that just work, and my switchover has been eased by products such as Parallels Desktop Switch to Mac Edition. With that said, however, Mac desktop and notebook systems are still a departmental, not an enterprise, concern for IT managers. – 2010 will start my second year as a daily Mac user in a Windows-oriented
world. I think my aluminum-skinned charges will thrive in the coming year
despite clinging to a fat-client model I associate more with the past than the
future.
Apple’s style, design and functionality are big inducements f…

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Transmedia has introduced the new Glide OS 4.0, a cloud-based operating system that is ad-free, full of great productivity apps and best of all is compatible with the Apple iPad. It has great syncing capabilities and runs right from your iPad’s browser. It operates like an online mobile desktop. With Glide OS you can share [...]

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Filed under: Games, P2P
I bring you news that won’t shock but will surely delight! Just over 40% of Steam users have a BitTorrent client installed — and 75% of those are using uTorrent. Mainline is second with about 10%, with Vuze and BitComet coming in third and fourth place respectively.

These delicious statistics have emerged thanks to Steam’s hardware and software survey which now includes a breakdown of installed applications on each user’s computer. With up to 25 million users being polled in the survey, the accuracy is really second to none — at least when it comes to gamer-specific trends! It’s worth noting that the survey is completely automated too — Steam scans your hard disk and hardware configuration to produce these figures.

In non-BitTorrent-related news, Firefox is by far the most popular browser amongst gamers with 63% of Steam users having it installed (Chrome is almost at the bottom with only 11.5%). Almost everyone has Adobe Flash, 73% have Acrobat Reader, and a rather large 57% have Microsoft Office installed. I wonder how many of those Office installations were downloaded via BitTorrent… Perhaps Steam gamers spend so much money on games that they don’t have enough left to spend on Microsoft Office…?

Incidentally, these figures are only for Windows installations. Here’s something for the Mac crusaders, though: iTunes is actually installed on more computers than uTorrent (but only just), and QuickTime is installed on 44% of computers!

(Note: the above image is snipped, or I would never have fit it all in!)
Share TweetMore than 40% Valve’s Steam user base are also avid users of BitTorrent originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Fring, which has enjoyed interconnectivity with Skype for four years, called the VOIP provider "cowards" for allegedly blocking Fring from offering video chat on smartphones. Skype said it didn’t block Fring. – In a nasty war of words between VOIP providers,
Fring accused Skype of blocking it from letting users make video calls on
Apple’s iPhone 4, Google Android and other smartphones and applied the
quot;c-word quot; to the company.
Fring, which has enjoyed interconnectivity with Skype for four
year…

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Filed under: OS Updates, Security, Windows
It seems an old, well-known Windows DLL issue might soon find its way into a virus near you!

I wouldn’t worry too much though. As I said, it’s a very old issue that hasn’t been fixed in a long time. Basically, DLL files are libraries of functions. Most programs load a bunch of DLLs when they start-up, and if you can infect those DLLs — or replace them with malicious counterparts — then you can very easily hack the system. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that one DLL might call any number of other DLLs. Still, the problem remains that you have to get those bad DLLs onto the user’s system, which isn’t easy.

CNet has more information, direct from Microsoft:

“At this time, we encourage customers to review and apply the guidance in Security Advisory 2269637. Also, it should be noted that DLL planting requires significant user interaction and cannot be exploited by simply browsing to a web page. An attacker would have to convince a user to click a link to their SMB (Server Message Block) or WebDAV (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning) share and then convince the user to open a file from that share which would trigger additional dialogs prompting the user to OK the action.”
As you can see, you and I aren’t going to be fooled by this new attack vector — but it might be worth telling your friends and family about it! This nasty little bug won’t be going away for some time, and dozens of very popular Windows programs like Office 2007, µTorrent, and Firefox 3.6.8 are vulnerable.

For further reading, here’s a published example of how you might exploit iTunes on Windows. Offensive Security even has a video of the exploit in action! Again, don’t worry too much — just don’t click any odd links from people you don’t trust and you’ll be fine.Windows DLL exploit could cause problems, and there’s no immediate fix available originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Filed under: Google, Browsers
Those of you who have been waiting patiently to see what Google’s Native Client is all about shouldn’t have to wonder much longer. With yesterday’s bump to version 7, Google Chrome dev now comes with the NaCl plug-in enabled by default — and as we’ve seen countless times before, once a feature is turned on it doesn’t take long for Chrome developers to pounce on it.

So, what is Native Client all about? It’s Google open source tech which allows native code (the kind of code which powers your favorite desktop apps) to run inside your browser. Assuming that browser is Google Chrome, of course, because no one else sports NaCl support yet. Native code in the browser should mean the arrival of Web apps that truly compete with desktop apps in terms of performance — which could be a big boost to things like online media converters and photo editors. At the very least, you’ll be able to play Quake in Chrome.

If you want to see Native Client in action, Google has a gallery of NaCl demo ports you can check out — or at least you’re meant to be able to check them out. Both Chrome dev and Canary responded with a “missing plug-in” message when i tried to load them, even though Native Client was enabled (as you can see in my screenshot).

The dev channel update was actually quite a major one, though it mostly contained bugfixes and cleaned up code. The full log of revisions is available here.

update: as reported in the comments, you need to add the –enable-nacl flag to your shortcut. I’ve done that, and the demos still don’t load, however. The missing plug-in message did disappear at least…
Share TweetGoogle Chrome dev channel hits v7 — get ready for native code in Web apps! originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Transmedia has introduced the new Glide OS 4.0, a cloud-based operating system that is ad-free, full of great productivity apps and best of all is compatible with the Apple iPad. It has great syncing capabilities and runs right from your iPad’s browser. It operates like an online mobile desktop. With Glide OS you can share [...]

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Filed under: Utilities, Features, Productivity, web 2.0
I’m an avid Dropbox fan. I’ve been using it for a long time now, and it’s one of a handful of applications that I think of as “mission critical” on my system.
But there are a couple of things that have always irked me about Dropbox. First and foremost, there are the rates. It’s US$9.99/month for 50GB. Really? With online backup solutions such as Backblaze and Mozy offering unlimited storage for just $5/month, Dropbox’s price tag seems quite steep.
True, it’s not a backup solution, but space is space. I understand that Dropbox may experience more traffic than a normal backup provider (which is usually upload only), but I really don’t think it justifies twice the price.
That’s one thing. The other thing is more subjective: Dropbox is very simple. In most scenarios, that’s a very positive thing. In fact, I’m sure that, had it been more complex, less people would be using it. It’s elegant, simple, and slick. But when someone uploads a 500MB video file onto a shared folder, while your boss is putting a 70KB DOC file onto another shared folder, and then they wonder why you aren’t getting it, Dropbox’s simplicity gets in the way of productivity.
Enter IDriveSync. This is pretty much the antithesis of Dropbox. It’s only for PC (as compared to Dropbox’s multitude of supported platforms). It doesn’t have an API, and it doesn’t have 10 percent of Dropbox’s sex appeal.
But it does offer fine-grained control and status information, and it lets you easily (if not elegantly) sync files that are outside of its folder. And best of all, $4.95/month will get you unlimited sync space. That’s just the way it should be.
I took IDriveSync for an extensive spin, and I have started using it alongside Dropbox for some of the heavier lifting (video files, etc.). To see the tour, keep on reading after the fold.First of all, let’s talk about the status window. If a file is syncing, you can see exactly what the file’s name is, if it’s uploading or downloading, what the transfer rate is, and the time estimation (which you get on Dropbox, too). The “Switch to IDriveSync Explorer” button kind of looks like an in-program banner, but it’s not; it’s a button that opens up Windows Explorer within your IDriveSync folder (C:\IDriveSync by default – a bit of an odd location).

Moving on, we see the built-in Bandwidth Upload Test. You also get a Download Test. That’s a nice touch. I think they work directly against IDriveSync’s own servers, so you get a good estimation of how fast or slow program operation would actually be (as opposed to using a third-party bandwidth test with another server).

This is the main program window. They call it “Classic” for some reason. Perhaps that’s because it’s based on IDrive’s existing PC backup solution. It’s a simple, technical-looking interface, where you can see all of your files and their status.

Here’s a view of the file list itself (while a file is uploading). You can see exactly what file is uploading, its current progress, and the queue. I’m not sure if you can modify the queue, though (i.e., push things up or down).

Again, just like Dropbox, you get versioning support. IDriveSync keeps 30 versions of each file, and you can easily restore them from within the program (unlike Dropbox, which forces you to use the Web interface).

Here’s a Session Log window. Again, there are no frills, and it’s very technical. Each transaction is a “session,” and you can see when it happened, what it was, and view session details. It’s very transparent and easy to dig into.

This “Browse My Computer” dialog lets you select any folder for syncing. The way it works isn’t elegant, though. It simply creates a symlink to that folder within your IDriveSync folder; it’s just like what you can do with Dropbox. Here it’s integrated into the program, but it still feels clunky.

This is a young product, and it does have its quirks. I encountered one bug where the Classic interface told me my files weren’t in sync, but they actually were (per the logs and Status window). It also doesn’t have Explorer overlay icons, which let you see what files are in sync.
It will never be as sexy as Dropbox, and I don’t think it will ever be multi-platform or have Dropbox’s wide API support. I am certainly not dumping Dropbox for IDriveSync, but as a second solution, it is very, very good. Also, if these guys can provide unlimited storage for $5/month, why can’t Dropbox do it? They are certainly at least as successful.DLS Review: IDriveSync is a cheaper, more powerful, Dropbox competitor for Windows originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters
Onslaught is a fairly simple “defence” style game, but it’s very fast-paced and lots of fun. You’re a blocky Viking-looking dude in a dungeon. Waves of enemies enter, and you have to kill them all with a variety of weapons.
You use the arrows to move, and Space to shoot. You can just keep Space pressed down permanently, too. You can use Z and X to switch weapons, and you don’t have to stop firing to make the switch. That’s pretty neat.
As your enemies die, they leave all sorts of fun bonuses. My favorite weapon so far is the “fireballs.” You get a whole bunch of fireballs that provide 360 degree fire all around you; they provide perfect coverage.
Some of the levels have “bosses” that fire at you. (The other enemies only come at you; they don’t have any projectile weapons.) One of those bosses is what killed me and ended the game that you see in the screenshot. It’s quite a neat little distraction!Onslaught is a fast-paced, HTML5 Time-Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Short Description: 

The Droid Incredible's on the verge of Android 2.2, the original Droid gets Flash, more hardware news than we know what to do with, and more of your e-mails and voicemails.

Podcast MP3 URL: 

http://media.libsyn.com/media/androidcentral/acpc27.mp3

Top o’ the news – OS updates galore Droid Incredible’s Sept. 1 Froyo rumor a bust, but  the RUU is out there already (Updated with screen shots, root link)Droid Incredible Froyo update: Benchmark, full details, screenshots (Update: Plus, a possible OTA date)Verizon announces it’s pushing Droid update to enable FlashThe Android Central Interview – Adobe’s Ryan StewartFroyo update for the Evo 4G is now rootableHands-on with Android 2.2 on the Droid XMotorola Droid 2 gets minor OTA updateMotorola Droid 2 rootedDevour won’t be getting Android 2.1; Motorola updates other time linesVodafone UK’s HTC Desire starts Froyo rollout Hardware news Sept. 9 a possible launch date for the Verizon Fascinate, tie-in with MTV Video Music Awards on Sept. 12Samsung Galaxy S and Gorilla Glass combine powersSamsung Galaxy S Gorilla Glass demo — Korean styleEpic 4G user manual now availableSamsung Vibrant, Captivate SIM unlock codes are hidden on the phonesSlew of Verizon phones may see end of life in March 2011HTC Legend hits end of life on BellMotorola Droid 2 reviewDroid Pro is a Droid 2 with global support; LG enV2 Touch to be Android-poweredHTC Desire review (U.S. Cellular version)LG Optimus Z ReviewMotorola MB520 Kobe breaks cover, may be codenamed ‘Diablo’Motorola Quench XT5 specs revealed, not quenching your thirst for FroyoT-Mobile’s G2 spotted in the wildT-Mobile G2 testing ROM leakedG2 confirmed to use MSM7×30 CPU; other new devices rumored to as wellT-Mobile HTC G2 (or maybe the Glacier) visits the FCCNexus One too popular even with devs, is now on backorderDell Thunder Android protoype gets a thorough hands onMotorola Flipout shows off itself in a demo videoT-Mobile Charm available todayKyocera Zio now available on CricketDell Aero available today from Dell for $99, later from AT&TSamsung releases official teaser for the Galaxy Tab coming Sept. 2 in BerlinSamsung Galaxy Tab caught on video again, this time for a close-upGalaxy Tab video preview shows up in KoreaSamsung Galaxy Tab can’t keep itself secret, shows up in more picturesSamsung Galaxy Tab supposedly spotted in the wild App news Developer: Android is a viable revenue stream, posts numbers to prove itGoogle responds to app piracy primerAndroid’s Amazon MP3 app updated to allow for gift/promo codesAndroid App Review: Galcon [video]Taking Android back to school — apps every student should haveLookout — a full security solution for your Android phoneAndroid Quick App: Zune Home launcherAndroid Quick App: WorldmateGoogle Earth updated to 1.1, brings the exploration of the oceansGoogle Finance cleans up for AndroidTwitter for Android updated to 1.0.3Samsung Media Hub ‘coming soon’ Posted originally at Android CentralSponsored by Android Cases and Accessories

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This week has produced some fantastic Firefox news. That’s a good thing, but because we covered it all on Download Squad in a timely fashion, it leaves me with a bit of a problem: there’s no new news to share with you. I’ve been left with producing a round-up for this week’s Firefox column. I’ve never done a round-up before, but I’m sure it’ll be good.

I think I’m meant to take each nibble of news and provide a refreshing, opinionated point of view that throws it into a new light. Let’s start with one that got a lot more interest than we anticipated:

1. Firefox 4 Beta 5 will feature a two-column main menu

I think I actually told Lee that this one wasn’t worth posting…, how wrong I was!
“It’s like one of those Google-search-box-grows-by-18-pixels stories.” Personally, I hate Chrome’s unified wrench menu, and I’m disheartened to see it make an appearance in Firefox.

This is the next stage of the Web Revolution; where the browser was once your trusty portal to the Web, it will now become a svelte platform for other Web apps. Think of the new Firefox menu as a Windows Start menu, and you’ll see what I mean. In fact, I wonder if we’ll ever see a browser menu at the bottom of the window, rather than the top…

At least, with Firefox, you can keep the full menu bar — with Chrome, you’re stuck with that damn one-button wrench wonder!

2. Tab Candy, Tab Sets, PANORAMA is confirmed as a new feature of Firefox 4

The brainchild of maniacal, Mountain View-based Aza Raskin has a new name, a new look, and even an introductory video on the Firefox Beta site! It sounds like it’s being narrated by someone that’s seeking entrance to the Movie Trailer Voice Over Society, but it’s well worth watching.

Panorama, if you missed our introductory posts on its predecessor Tab Candy, introduces a whole new paradigm in tab management and, thus, browser-based workflow! Using the “out of sight, out of mind” tenet, Aza hopes that Panorama will greatly improve both productivity and the joy of surfing the Internet. (He pontificates on Pover on his blog, if you want to find out more!)

Of course, if you’re an Opera fan, you’ll know all about tab grouping, and you won’t need me to tell you of its benefits…
3. Erez thinks that Firefox 4.0’s extensive changes to its add-on framework are too much too soon

You’d be surprised, but one of the biggest changes in Firefox 4 is also one of the least-advertised: add-ons, and how they hook into Firefox, are changing in a big way with the release of 4.0.

There’s always a bit of compatibility pain when a new version of Firefox is released — usually it’s just a matter of developers changing a few numbers in the code — but with Firefox 4.0 there are so many changes that many popular add-ons might simply not work.

I don’t have any hard and fast numbers (nor does Erez) as to how many add-ons will be incompatible come FF4’s release, so it’s hard to gauge just how big an issue this is. I’m pretty sure this is a case of “it’ll get worse before it gets better,” with these changes designed to make the transition to Jetpack (in Firefox 5?) smoother. Firefox 4 currently supports both Jetpack and the old-style XUL add-ons that we’ve all been using for years — but these changes represent the beginning of the end for XUL, I’m afraid.

4. A Test Pilot study shows when we use Private Browsing, and for how long (read: porn surfers unite!)

The facts are simple: we use Private Browsing for 10 minutes at a time, and we use it during four main time slots. The late-night and after-work spikes are obvious (porn), but that lunch-hour spike has caused a lot of discussion by the community.

I think people are masturbating at work, but then the puritan Adam Pash (of Lifehacker fame) thinks there are plenty of non-porny uses of Private Browsing. I’m not convinced; yes there are plenty of reasons for using Private Browsing but they don’t explain why 75% of all private sessions are close to 10 minutes in length. Perhaps people are doing multiple 10-minute activities, but why would you close the browser in between checking your bank statement and Facebook?

I just hope the next Test Pilot study also (anonymously!) captures what sites are looked at in those 10 glorious minutes.

5. Firefox 4 won’t support your ancient PowerPC G4 Apple iBook

I’m struggling to find anything interesting to add to Jay’s commentary of the issue. The facts of the matter are thus: the G4 iBook probably represents only a few thousand installations world wide. In fact, the iBook is only still used because of Carrie from Sex and the City. Mozilla, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that it isn’t a valid use of its time to make its new technology work with 11-year-old CPUs.

Anyway, Jay’s advice is to get a new Mac. My advice is to get a Windows 7 PC.

* * *Firefox Friday, a weekly round-up: Beta 4, Beta 5, Panorama, breaking add-ons and our Private Browsing habits analyzed originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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While the front page may be the best place to catch all the Android news and rumors, some real magic™ happens in the Android Central Forums.  The Moderators work hard to keep things nice and friendly, and it’s a great place to talk Android.  Check ‘em out.Wallpapers ripped from the leaked G2 ROM The Evo 4G car dock is shipping, and, yes, you can play music while it’s attached, as SynOnYx explains.Pre-order your Epic 4G from The Shack? It might already be there, waiting for you and Tuesday.Just get your Droid X rooted?  Check here for ideas about what comes next.If you got the Froyo update on your Incredible today, join in the conversation.And last but not least, drop in and congratulate Phil on the birth of his new baby girl! Posted originally at Android CentralSponsored by Android Cases and Accessories

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One of the big questions many consumers are faced with today is whether to purchase a laptop or an iPad. We hope to take some of the pressure off and help make that decision easier for you in this guide. Since many of you are already more than well aware of what laptops can be [...]

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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, OpenOffice.org
Miranda IM is pretty much the most versatile, customizable, powerful, minimalistic and down-right sexy IM client on the planet.
I know that sounds like a lot, but I’ve been using it for years, and I’ve tried pretty much everything else Windows and Linux have to offer. I never tried Adium, so maybe Adium’s better – but for Windows, nothing beats Miranda. As you can tell, this application is a prime candidate for one of my What the Zuk columns, so I will save the rest of my admiration for later and get to the news already:
Miranda 0.9.0 is now out! Miranda is very actively developed, but the release cycle isn’t exactly lightning-fast. So 0.9.0 means something, and here’s a few features off the list:

New improved protocols engine with full Unicode support
New high quality icon theme
First official x64 version
Added Windows 7 taskbar icon support

The weirdest feature added to this release was support for file transfers of over 4GB in size. I mean, who the heck transfers over 4GB of files over IM? This release also brings strong Unicode support across the board, so if you happen to be a non-English user this may come in handy. I just installed it myself, and the myriad of add-ons I use seem to work just fine.
And of course, Miranda keeps all of its existing goodness, including support for an insane number of protocols. I currently use it for IRC, ICQ, MSN, GChat, and Olark. One client to rule them all! If you’ve never used Miranda, now would be a great time to give it a spin!Miranda IM 0.9 is now out — new icons, better Win7 support, and lots more! originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Filed under: Windows, Productivity, Browsers
Erez loves crunching data in Excel. And he loves making sure he’s not getting off track and being unproductive in his browser when there’s work to do. I haven’t asked, but I’m thinking Historian would be right up his alley.

It’s a free, portable tool for Windows which can export history data from all the major web browsers to delimited text file. Once saved, you’re free to open the file in your favorite spreadsheet or database app so that you can go over it with a fine-toothed comb.

One important note for non-German speakers: when you first launch the app, head to extras > sprache and select English (or Japanese, if needed).Historian exports your browser history to .CSV for easy analysis originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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 The Sprint Epic 4G is the latest Android phone to get rooted before it’s even available for sale.  The new root method developed by Sebastian Krahmer used to root the Droid 2, the Evo 4G, and the Motorola Backflip looks like the long sought universal root many of us have been waiting for, unless I jinxed it by talking about it.The hackers over at SDX-Developers have the root method working, and are in the process of simplifying things for those who aren’t total Android nerds.  If you are a total Android nerd and want to offer to lend a hand, or just curious about the progress have a look at the source link. [SDX-Developers] Thanks Rufflez!Posted originally at Android CentralSponsored by Android Cases and Accessories

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It’s still that guitar, it still has no text, it still just sits there, taunting us, a clue with indecipherable meaning, and now Apple is splashing it in grand, glorious form at Yerba Buena center in preparation for it’s annual special music event coming September 1.

[@Wired via 9to5Mac]
Apple unveils posters for Sept. 1 iPod/iTunes special [...]Apple unveils posters for Sept. 1 iPod/iTunes special event is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

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Transmedia has introduced the new Glide OS 4.0, a cloud-based operating system that is ad-free, full of great productivity apps and best of all is compatible with the Apple iPad. It has great syncing capabilities and runs right from your iPad’s browser. It operates like an online mobile desktop. With Glide OS you can share [...]

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GOOGLE
GRUPO IUSACELL

Fennec Alpha, aka  the Firefox Mobile browser, is now available for Android phones (and the Nokia N900). Just point your Android browser to http://firefox.com/m/alpha to give it a download. The browser has come a long way since our hands-on in April - adding pinch-to-zoom, Firefox Sync (which syncs your history, bookmarks, open tabs, and passwords), Add-ons, and the Awesome Bar.It’s still Alpha, though, so your mileage may vary – Mozilla points out that improvements to graphics performance are coming and there are still a few bugs to work out. Still, to our eyes it looks every bit as exciting as the video after the break suggests. [Mozilla]
Posted originally at Android CentralSponsored by Android Cases and Accessories

BHARTI AIRTEL
BT GROUP
CANON
CDW
CHINA MOBILE

Filed under: Browsers
An interesting report, titled ‘Are Opera Users the Most Valuable?’ has been making the rounds this week. The commentary has been opinionated and fiery and, truth be told, we’re still no closer to working out why Opera users click the most ads.

If you don’t want to click through, the basic gist is this: Opera users are 50% more likely to click ads than Chrome users. Internet Explorer are the next-most likely to click ads, followed by Firefox. Safari users actually click the least ads!

The difficulty comes from trying to analyse these figures. A nascent analysis, perhaps citing Internet Explorer, would state that the lack of ad-blocking is to blame. Both Chrome and Firefox have excellent ad-blocking extensions, that’s why their users click so few ads. But Opera has ad-blocking! And if it was only about blocking ads, wouldn’t Internet Explorer be at the top?

So, Opera has ad-blocking, yet its users still click the most ads. Curious. (Incidentally, is there a popular ad-blocking add-on for Safari? As in, one that even non-power users would know of?)

Perhaps it’s the users themselves. Are Opera users more inquisitive? This report uses in-line text ads as a sample set, so maybe… Opera users are more literate? Perhaps Safari and Chrome users merely scan text, rather than actually reading it? The problem with this argument is Internet Explorer — it’s right up the top with Opera! Can we really say that the average Opera user is comparable to an IE user? Surely they are at the opposite ends of the spectrum!

What’s the answer, then? I’m guessing that the sample set is from a biased set of websites — perhaps from a forum that’s frequented by a lot of Opera users? Internet Explorer should be at the top, with its lack of ad-blocking and its ‘newbie’ user base. Still, I’m going to suggest to my chief that we write more Opera news…Website owners: Opera users are the most valuable, in terms of ad clicks originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 18 Aug 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

ACCENTURE
ACER
ADOBE SYSTEMS
ADVANCED SEMICONDUCTOR ENGINEERING
ALLIANCE DATA SYSTEMS

Apple bought mobile ad network Quattro Wireless. Quattro confirmed the purchase, which AllThingsDigital said was worth $275 million. The deal could accelerate the growing war between Apple and Google, friends quickly turned enemies in the pitched battle for the mobile Web. Chris Dixon, co-founder of decision engine Hunch and an investor in multiple properties, argued that Apple’s interest in Quattro must be about ads in mobile apps. –

Apple has acquired mobile ad network Quattro Wireless in
a deal worth a reported $275 million, or roughly one third of what Google bid
to buy mobile ad provider AdMob.
Andy Miller, formerly Quattro CEO and co-founder but now
Apple’s vice president of mobile advertising, confirmed t…

COMCAST
COMMSCOPE
COMMUNICATIONS HOLDINGS
COMPAL ELECTRONICS
COSMOTE MOBILE TELECOM.

Filed under: Mozilla, Open Source, Browsers
“Tab Candy” has finally come into its own in this most recent iteration of Firefox, Beta 4. The feature is now called “Panorama”. Not all of Raskin’s envisioned features made it, but it’s still pretty dang cool.
Panorama now lets you group tabs and optionally name the groups. You can resize the groups, and when you shrink a group down to its smallest size, it becomes a “pile” and you can zoom into it by clicking a button next to it.
Another major addition is Firefox Sync. It works with its own accounts, “Firefox Sync accounts.” Interestingly, it prompts you for a pass phrase in addition to a password. It’s a service which syncs your history, open tabs, bookmarks, Awesomebar, etc. Sounds identical to what Google already does with Chrome, but now Firefox has it, too.
These are the two new major features in the Beta 4. The inclusion of Panorama is a big deal – it’s Firefox’s most innovative UI feature by far, and I think it signifies the release cycle rapidly moving to maturity for this version. You should definitely go give it a try, even if it’s not ready yet for use as a full-time browser (due to lack of add-ons).Firefox 4 Beta 4 is out, with Panorama and Sync originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

COMPAL ELECTRONICS
COSMOTE MOBILE TELECOM.
D-LINK
DIGITAL CHINA HOLDINGS
DIRECTV GROUP

News Analysis: Nothing less than Java’s status as an open-source technology is at stake in an Oracle lawsuit against Google for the use of Java on the Android mobile OS platform. – Oracle has long held a unique
position in Californias Silicon Valley. It is to some the most reviled
company in the valley. The lawsuit against Google for its use of Java
technology in its Android smartphone software is just the latest
example of Oracle’s determination to crush any company it be…

COGNIZANT TECH. SOLUTIONS
COMCAST
COMMSCOPE
COMMUNICATIONS HOLDINGS
COMPAL ELECTRONICS

AT&T is now extending voice-over-IP services to enterprise VPN customers. The carrier’s VOIP portfolio is designed to be compatible with various IP-PBX systems, including Microsoft’s. – Customers of AT amp;T’s VPN can now take advantage of voice-over-IP services
over the network cloud, according to the carrier.
The converged offering, AT amp;T announced Aug. 24, will enable customers to
consolidate voice and data networks, reduce equipment and maintenance costs, and
ultimately…

MEMC ELECTRONIC MATERIALS
MICROSOFT
MILLICOM INTL. CELLULAR
MOBILE TELESYSTEMS
NANYA TECHNOLOGY

CNET is reporting that Microsoft’s Hotmail will finally gain support for… Microsoft’s Exchange ActiveSync protocol. Sure, even Google’s had that for a while now, but better embarrassingly late than embarrassingly never, right?

So Hotmail users, very soon you’ll be able to type in your username and password as an Exchange account and enjoy full push support [...]Hotmail to gain ActiveSync support for iPhone and iPad. Finally. is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

HARRIS
HCL TECHNOLOGIES
HEWLETT-PACKARD
HIGH TECH COMPUTER
HON HAI PRECISION IND.

Firefox 4 Beta 2 has been delayed for a few more days as the candidate build undergoes quality assurance tests, according to a note on Mozilla’s Website. Firefox 4’s new features are designed to head off a challenge from Google Chrome and other browsers. – Firefox 4’s latest beta will be delayed a week, according to Mozilla, as it
undergoes more testing.
quot;Hi! We’re glad you’re interested in Firefox 4 Beta 2 it’s not quite
ready yet, quot; read
a posting on the Mozilla Wiki. quot;Our candidate builds (FTP links below)
are still going throug…

ARIAN SEMICONDUCTOR EQUIPMENT
ARROW ELECTRONICS
ASML HOLDING
ASUSTEK COMPUTER
AT&T

Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters
Filler 2 is a simple time-waster. You click and hold the mouse to start creating a bubble. While your bubble inflates, it may not touch any of the red bubbles that are floating around the screen. As soon as you let go of the mouse button, your bubble becomes solid and floats down the screen; the red bubbles can no longer harm it.
Your goal is to fill two-thirds of the screen space with your bubbles. You can only make so many bubbles before you strike out. You’re allowed to make more and more bubbles on each new level (so they can be smaller), but there are more and more red bubbles floating around the screen, too (so you have to make your bubbles smaller).
If all of this sounds a bit too soothing, there are also challenges that you can take. There are five challenge types: timed challenges (where you need to complete a level before the timer runs out), bubble-size challenges (where you must make a bubble of a certain size), perfection challenges (where you must finish the level without popping any balls), and quantity challenges (where you get fewer bubbles than normal to finish a level). There’s also a “meta” challenge mode, where “everything is a challenge.” I failed horribly with any and all challenges; they’re simply too tough for me. I like the normal mode, though. It’s kind of soothing, and that’s just the way I like my time-wasters.Filler 2 is a bubble popping Time-Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

ELECTRONICS FOR IMAGING
ELECTRONIC DATA SYSTEMS
ELECTRONIC ARTS
ECLIPSYS
EASTMAN KODAK CO

Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters
Filler 2 is a simple time-waster. You click and hold the mouse to start creating a bubble. While your bubble inflates, it may not touch any of the red bubbles that are floating around the screen. As soon as you let go of the mouse button, your bubble becomes solid and floats down the screen; the red bubbles can no longer harm it.
Your goal is to fill two-thirds of the screen space with your bubbles. You can only make so many bubbles before you strike out. You’re allowed to make more and more bubbles on each new level (so they can be smaller), but there are more and more red bubbles floating around the screen, too (so you have to make your bubbles smaller).
If all of this sounds a bit too soothing, there are also challenges that you can take. There are five challenge types: timed challenges (where you need to complete a level before the timer runs out), bubble-size challenges (where you must make a bubble of a certain size), perfection challenges (where you must finish the level without popping any balls), and quantity challenges (where you get fewer bubbles than normal to finish a level). There’s also a “meta” challenge mode, where “everything is a challenge.” I failed horribly with any and all challenges; they’re simply too tough for me. I like the normal mode, though. It’s kind of soothing, and that’s just the way I like my time-wasters.Filler 2 is a bubble popping Time-Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

NII HOLDINGS
NIKON
NINTENDO
NOKIA
NVIDIA

CNET is reporting that Microsoft’s Hotmail will finally gain support for… Microsoft’s Exchange ActiveSync protocol. Sure, even Google’s had that for a while now, but better embarrassingly late than embarrassingly never, right?

So Hotmail users, very soon you’ll be able to type in your username and password as an Exchange account and enjoy full push support [...]Hotmail to gain ActiveSync support for iPhone and iPad. Finally. is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

DST SYSTEMS
DISCOVER FINANCIAL SERVICES
DIODES INORATED
DIEBOLD
DELL

Internet detectives are dredging up details around Apple’s tablet computer. The Wall Street Journal noted the device aims to change the personal computing experience. Meanwhile, blogger Joe Wilcox argued that the world does not need another tablet, at least not one when the world has smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone. He was quickly eviscerated in digital ink by TechCrunch blogger and Apple devotee MG Siegler and blogger/pundit Robert Scoble. If this Apple tablet proposes to dramatically alter the computing experience as we know it and ends up costing $500 or less someday, I will reconsider buying it or something of its ilk. – News Analysis: Just as blogger sleuths gradually unearthed the fine
points surrounding Google’s Nexus One smartphone, Internet detectives are dredging up
details of Apple’s tablet computer.
The Wall Street Journal reported (paywall) that the tablet will ship in
March, quoting sources briefed by …

FISERV
GOOGLE
GRUPO IUSACELL
HARRIS
HCL TECHNOLOGIES

Microsoft and Polycom are entering an alliance that will include jointly developing, selling and marketing unified communications products based on Polycom endpoints and Microsoft’s Communications Server 14. – Polycom, which already has partnerships with the likes of Hewlett-Packard
and Avaya
as it ramps up its competition with Cisco Systems in the unified communications
space, is now hooking up with Microsoft.
The two companies announced a partnership Aug. 9 in which they
will jointly develop and ma…

NOKIA
NVIDIA
ORACLE
POWERCHIP SEMICONDUCTOR
PRICELINE.COM

A Skype app for BREW-based Verizon Wireless handsets, such as the Samsung Reality and LG enV Touch and Chocolate, is now available. Verizon already offers such an app for Android and BlackBerry devices. – Verizon Wireless and Skype are expanding the handsets options on which
Verizon customers can download and run Skype’s voice-over IP (VOIP) mobile
application.
Following the launch ofthe
Skype app for BlackBerry and Android-running handsets, the two have announced
the availability of the Skype …

MICROSOFT
MILLICOM INTL. CELLULAR
MOBILE TELESYSTEMS
NANYA TECHNOLOGY
NII HOLDINGS

Cult of Mac has an interesting post up that shows some of the truly spectacular LiquidMetal injection moulding and manufacturing processes that will let Apple make stronger, better, faster unibodies, antennas, and pretty much everything else. Here are some choice quotes:

Apple will soon start experimenting with a new prototype injection molding machine, says Drew Merkel, [...]Is LiquidMetal all about the manufacturing process for Apple? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

MICROSOFT
MILLICOM INTL. CELLULAR
MOBILE TELESYSTEMS
NANYA TECHNOLOGY
NII HOLDINGS

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Productivity
VistaSwitcher is a beautiful Alt-Tab replacement. It’s aimed mainly at Windows Vista and 7, but it also works under Windows XP.
You get a huge thumbnail of the destination window; it’s far larger than the one that comes with the “stock” Alt-Tab. Another neat feature lets you Alt-Tab between the windows of just one application. It’s kind of like pressing Win+[number] in Windows 7, but you don’t have to look at the taskbar and count the icons in order to see what the number is for the application that you want to switch to. That’s done using Alt+` (backtick) by default, but it’s configurable.
VistaSwitcher also introduces one feature that I’ve never seen before: Alt-Tabbing between the windows on the current monitor only. I use two monitors, but I’m not convinced that this is a handy feature. Still, it’s certainly innovative and can help split your desktop into two distinct workspaces.
One thing that bugs me about VistaSwitcher is that it looks very similar (visually) to another Alt-Tab replacement that I saw a long time ago (but, for some reason, I can’t find it now). I’m not saying it’s a clone; it certainly innovates on its own, and it seems to be a very interesting application. It definitely looks like another application, though. Help me out in the comments.VistaSwitcher is a beautiful Alt-Tab replacement originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

ANIXTER INTERNATIONAL
APPLE COMPUTER
APPLIED MATERIALS
ARIAN SEMICONDUCTOR EQUIPMENT
ARROW ELECTRONICS

Microsoft and Polycom are entering an alliance that will include jointly developing, selling and marketing unified communications products based on Polycom endpoints and Microsoft’s Communications Server 14. – Polycom, which already has partnerships with the likes of Hewlett-Packard
and Avaya
as it ramps up its competition with Cisco Systems in the unified communications
space, is now hooking up with Microsoft.
The two companies announced a partnership Aug. 9 in which they
will jointly develop and ma…

AUTODESK
AUTOMATIC DATA PROCESSING
AVNET
BHARTI AIRTEL
BT GROUP

eWEEK Labs Technical Director Cameron Sturdevant’s year of using and covering Apple products in the enterprise has come to an end with a newfound respect for Mac hardware and the resistance of Mac OS X 10.6.3, code-named Snow Leopard, to hacks and viruses. For executives and high-value creative content users he sees Apple’s appeal. But as we enter the cloud computing age, Sturdevant is less enamored of fat clients of any variety for routine office workers. – For just over a year I’ve used a variety of Apple
devices from the Xserve and Mac Pro to the iPhone and MacBook Pro and even a Mac
Mini as my primary work systems in a Windows-oriented IT shop.
I made the switch because Apple PCs and iPhones and now
iPads are coming into the enterprise. I wanted…

ELPIDA MEMORY
EMC
FIDELITY NATIONAL INFORMATION SVCS.
FISERV
GOOGLE

Filed under: Utilities, Productivity, web 2.0
Sad Steve is a single-purpose search engine with a fairly familiar mascot. It is completely devoid of advertising, and it makes no money at the moment (according to the informatively-titled What? page).
It’s run by a guy named Joe Huttner, and it does just what it says on the tin. You feed it with the name of a band or a song that you like and it comes up with an MP3 of said song (usually, a bunch of MP3s). Then, you can listen to the song or download it.
Sad Steve also features some indie-looking bands, and it even has profile pages for them (check out Halo Stereo). It’s no Muxtape or Bandcamp, but for some bands I suppose the format works. If you have an account on Sad Steve, you can pledge money for bands that are listed on the site (I suspect that “pledging” is probably not the same as actually paying, but I’m not sure).
All in all, I’ve seen more polished efforts in the online music/search/indie band page space, but Sad Steve combined all three functions and it’s been around for a while. It’s certainly handy as an occasional search engine, but if you don’t have a problem with Flash, I would go for an app like Grooveshark.Sad Steve is a minimalistic, easy-to-use MP3 search engine originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 20 Aug 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

CYPRESS SEMICONDUCTOR
ACCENTURE
ACER
ADOBE SYSTEMS
ADVANCED SEMICONDUCTOR ENGINEERING

Filed under: Browsers
An interesting report, titled ‘Are Opera Users the Most Valuable?’ has been making the rounds this week. The commentary has been opinionated and fiery and, truth be told, we’re still no closer to working out why Opera users click the most ads.

If you don’t want to click through, the basic gist is this: Opera users are 50% more likely to click ads than Chrome users. Internet Explorer are the next-most likely to click ads, followed by Firefox. Safari users actually click the least ads!

The difficulty comes from trying to analyse these figures. A nascent analysis, perhaps citing Internet Explorer, would state that the lack of ad-blocking is to blame. Both Chrome and Firefox have excellent ad-blocking extensions, that’s why their users click so few ads. But Opera has ad-blocking! And if it was only about blocking ads, wouldn’t Internet Explorer be at the top?

So, Opera has ad-blocking, yet its users still click the most ads. Curious. (Incidentally, is there a popular ad-blocking add-on for Safari? As in, one that even non-power users would know of?)

Perhaps it’s the users themselves. Are Opera users more inquisitive? This report uses in-line text ads as a sample set, so maybe… Opera users are more literate? Perhaps Safari and Chrome users merely scan text, rather than actually reading it? The problem with this argument is Internet Explorer — it’s right up the top with Opera! Can we really say that the average Opera user is comparable to an IE user? Surely they are at the opposite ends of the spectrum!

What’s the answer, then? I’m guessing that the sample set is from a biased set of websites — perhaps from a forum that’s frequented by a lot of Opera users? Internet Explorer should be at the top, with its lack of ad-blocking and its ‘newbie’ user base. Still, I’m going to suggest to my chief that we write more Opera news…Website owners: Opera users are the most valuable, in terms of ad clicks originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 18 Aug 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

CYPRESS SEMICONDUCTOR
ACCENTURE
ACER
ADOBE SYSTEMS
ADVANCED SEMICONDUCTOR ENGINEERING

Filed under: Blogging, Productivity
Despite being posted by someone with a thoroughly unbelievable name (‘Joy Victory’? Really?), I can confirm that WordPress.com users now have access to Zemanta’s rather sexy functionality.

Zemanta, if you’ve not heard of it before, is best explained as a blogging buddy. It doesn’t write your blogs for you, but it can help your posts along. As you write your posts (and update your title), Zemanta generates related links (from the Interwebs), images and suggested tags. Take a look at the screenshot above — it shows most of the main features.

From a cynical point of view, Zemanta basically makes your blog more search engine friendly. It’s an SEO tool! But, for me, just the ability to easily add images (the images are free of copyright!) is a boon of monumental proportions.

WordPress.com users can enable Zemanta from their Personal Settings (via the Dashboard). WordPress.org users (i.e. self-hosted installations), there’s a Zemanta plug-in that provides the same functionality.WordPress.com can now tap Zemanta’s magic photoifying, taggy and related linky juice originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

AMERICA MOVIL
AMKOR TECHNOLOGY
AMPHENOL
ANIXTER INTERNATIONAL
APPLE COMPUTER

Do you still trust Google with your personal data?online surveys

While a lot of controversy has surrounded Facebook and privacy, Google has lately made many wonder if they could still be trusted with our private, personal info as well.

Personally, I’m all in with Google and I don’t see that changing unless/until [...]Do you still trust Google with your personal data? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

AUTOMATIC DATA PROCESSING
AVNET
BHARTI AIRTEL
BT GROUP
CANON

Google now gives users the option to post a link to a Google profile at the bottom of name-query search pages, meaning that anyone searching for a user online can view information that the user wants the world to see. This potentially allows Google to use its search engine to create more of a social networking presence online, similar to Facebook and Twitter….

FACTSET RESEARCH SYSTEMS
F5 NETWORKS
EPICOR SOFTWARE
EMULEX
EMS TECHNOLOGIES

News Analysis: Oracle’s suit against Google over Android is only the first shot in a war to end open-source software in all of its forms. – There’s no question that Oracle just hates the very idea
of open-source software. The suit against Google over its use of Java in the
open-source Android mobile operating system is really just part of a
pattern.
If you look at what’s happened already, the pattern has
become clear. Oracle ha…

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES
INVENTEC
KDDI
KLA-TENCOR
KONINKLIJKE KPN

Avaya officials are following through on promises to aggressively integrate technologies acquired from Nortel to build up its enterprise communications offerings. The newest UC and contact center offerings are the latest examples. – When Avaya officials last year announced their intention to buy
struggling Nortel Networks enterprise business for $915 million, both
they and some analysts believed that would push the company toward the top of the enterprise telephony market.
And thats a market that includes the likes of
techn…

FIDELITY NATIONAL INFORMATION SVCS.
FISERV
GOOGLE
GRUPO IUSACELL
HARRIS

Filed under: Fun, Utilities, Mobile
Augmented reality, at the moment, is a bit kitsch. It’s a technology that’s been threatening to emerge for years but, like “virtual reality,” it’s always been held back by technological constraints. Until the last year or two, most AR and VR implementations involved you wheeling around a laptop (or strapping it to your back!) — and VR still requires a silly pair of glasses. That’s all about to change, however, with the gigahertz-in-our-pocket smartphones.

In the next few years, almost everyone in the Western world will have a handheld device that’s capable of displaying rich 3D graphics. GPS will pinpoint your location and elevation in real-time, and 3G and 4G (5, 6, 7 …) networks will make both topological data and the Internet’s wealth of contextual data available at any time and any place. But enough talking, let me show you what I’m talking about: check out the Marmota project. It hides behind such subtitles as “visual environment monitoring” and “semantic image labelling,” but in essence, it’s the next step in augmented reality.

The best thing would be for you to read through the Marmota website and check out the pictures, but I’ll give you an example of what Marmota will let you do. Right now, you can pull down Flickr photos from a given geolocation — that’s pretty cool, … but that’s also about it for the current state of augmented reality. With Marmota, you point your camera at a landscape (or cityscape!), and the server sends you topological and contextual information for the scene you’re looking at. So, if you hold your smartphone up in front of a mountain, the mountain’s name and elevation are shown on the screen (here’s a larger version of the image above) — the software can also show you roads, landmarks, and so on. Using topological information, the 2D image on your phone can even be converted into a 3D image (watch the video, it’s very cool), and presumably you can then see over a range of mountains and down into the valley beyond!

The coolest thing is, this technology is actually ready to go. The project has used Android phones as its test bed, and the app should be available in the “immediate future.” I’ll keep you updated and bring you a proper review as soon as possible.

[via ReadWriteWeb]The Marmota project shows off what we can expect from augmented reality in the next few years originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

KONINKLIJKE KPN
LAM RESEARCH
LIBERTY GLOBAL
LM ERICSSON
LOGITECH INTERNATIONAL

Filed under: Fun, Utilities, Mobile
Augmented reality, at the moment, is a bit kitsch. It’s a technology that’s been threatening to emerge for years but, like “virtual reality,” it’s always been held back by technological constraints. Until the last year or two, most AR and VR implementations involved you wheeling around a laptop (or strapping it to your back!) — and VR still requires a silly pair of glasses. That’s all about to change, however, with the gigahertz-in-our-pocket smartphones.

In the next few years, almost everyone in the Western world will have a handheld device that’s capable of displaying rich 3D graphics. GPS will pinpoint your location and elevation in real-time, and 3G and 4G (5, 6, 7 …) networks will make both topological data and the Internet’s wealth of contextual data available at any time and any place. But enough talking, let me show you what I’m talking about: check out the Marmota project. It hides behind such subtitles as “visual environment monitoring” and “semantic image labelling,” but in essence, it’s the next step in augmented reality.

The best thing would be for you to read through the Marmota website and check out the pictures, but I’ll give you an example of what Marmota will let you do. Right now, you can pull down Flickr photos from a given geolocation — that’s pretty cool, … but that’s also about it for the current state of augmented reality. With Marmota, you point your camera at a landscape (or cityscape!), and the server sends you topological and contextual information for the scene you’re looking at. So, if you hold your smartphone up in front of a mountain, the mountain’s name and elevation are shown on the screen (here’s a larger version of the image above) — the software can also show you roads, landmarks, and so on. Using topological information, the 2D image on your phone can even be converted into a 3D image (watch the video, it’s very cool), and presumably you can then see over a range of mountains and down into the valley beyond!

The coolest thing is, this technology is actually ready to go. The project has used Android phones as its test bed, and the app should be available in the “immediate future.” I’ll keep you updated and bring you a proper review as soon as possible.

[via ReadWriteWeb]The Marmota project shows off what we can expect from augmented reality in the next few years originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

CYPRESS SEMICONDUCTOR
ACCENTURE
ACER
ADOBE SYSTEMS
ADVANCED SEMICONDUCTOR ENGINEERING

Filed under: Blogging, Productivity
Despite being posted by someone with a thoroughly unbelievable name (‘Joy Victory’? Really?), I can confirm that WordPress.com users now have access to Zemanta’s rather sexy functionality.

Zemanta, if you’ve not heard of it before, is best explained as a blogging buddy. It doesn’t write your blogs for you, but it can help your posts along. As you write your posts (and update your title), Zemanta generates related links (from the Interwebs), images and suggested tags. Take a look at the screenshot above — it shows most of the main features.

From a cynical point of view, Zemanta basically makes your blog more search engine friendly. It’s an SEO tool! But, for me, just the ability to easily add images (the images are free of copyright!) is a boon of monumental proportions.

WordPress.com users can enable Zemanta from their Personal Settings (via the Dashboard). WordPress.org users (i.e. self-hosted installations), there’s a Zemanta plug-in that provides the same functionality.WordPress.com can now tap Zemanta’s magic photoifying, taggy and related linky juice originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

APPLIED MATERIALS
ARIAN SEMICONDUCTOR EQUIPMENT
ARROW ELECTRONICS
ASML HOLDING
ASUSTEK COMPUTER

eWEEK Labs Technical Director Cameron Sturdevant’s year of using and covering Apple products in the enterprise has come to an end with a newfound respect for Mac hardware and the resistance of Mac OS X 10.6.3, code-named Snow Leopard, to hacks and viruses. For executives and high-value creative content users he sees Apple’s appeal. But as we enter the cloud computing age, Sturdevant is less enamored of fat clients of any variety for routine office workers. – For just over a year I’ve used a variety of Apple
devices from the Xserve and Mac Pro to the iPhone and MacBook Pro and even a Mac
Mini as my primary work systems in a Windows-oriented IT shop.
I made the switch because Apple PCs and iPhones and now
iPads are coming into the enterprise. I wanted…

COMCAST
COMMSCOPE
COMMUNICATIONS HOLDINGS
COMPAL ELECTRONICS
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Filed under: Mozilla, BrowsersReleased with nary a muted fanfare, you’d be forgiven for having never seen or used the Mozilla Add-ons Builder. The Builder is a Web-based add-on SDK (and yes, you need to use Firefox to get the most out of it!)

This new tool, which is obviously aimed at boosting both educational and commercial adoption of Firefox’s new add-on architecture, is actually constructed from two technologies that we’ve discussed before: Jetpack and Bespin. Jetpack is the future of Firefox add-on development and promises simpler, more powerful and ‘restartless’ extensions. Bespin is Mozilla’s new Web-based text editor (which I’m not a huge fan of).

The Add-ons Builder basically tacks on a rather pretty (albeit nascent and not-very-useful) ‘file explorer’ interface to Bespin. It works, but only just. While the SDK helps you find libraries, there’s no auto-complete for library methods. The tutorial suggests you look at the source code of other add-ons for inspiration, but there’s no way of searching through them — just a big, page-after-page directory. The only desirable feature of the Add-ons Builder has to be its rapid prototyping; the ability to test your new code with a single click is very cool. I’d much rather use a desktop SDK though!

Still, if you’re looking to noodle around with the Jetpack API, or just practice your JavaScript, the Add-ons Builder is a great place to start. I’m building a menu bar out of widgets at the moment… exciting..!Now’s the time to make your first Firefox add-on with the Mozilla Add-ons Builder originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 16 Aug 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Avaya officials are following through on promises to aggressively integrate technologies acquired from Nortel to build up its enterprise communications offerings. The newest UC and contact center offerings are the latest examples. – When Avaya officials last year announced their intention to buy
struggling Nortel Networks enterprise business for $915 million, both
they and some analysts believed that would push the company toward the top of the enterprise telephony market.
And thats a market that includes the likes of
techn…

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Filed under: Utilities, Blogging, web 2.0
NewsBlur is a very beautiful feed reader that’s laden with tons of JavaScript, but it utterly lacks any form of documentation.
It’s an open source project by the talented Samuel Clay, who has been working on it for 15 months now. He’s currently working on an iPhone version, but the regular version is very impressive in itself.
The sources are hosted over on GitHub, and the project uses the Django Web framework for Python. This means that you can probably install it on your own server and break free from the big G. But unlike Fever, which is another server-based reader, NewsBlur has built-in multi-user support, and it’s free. So, you don’t have to install it on your own server to use it; you can just go to the NewsBlur site and open an account.
NewsBlur lets you import your current feeds from Google Reader. It lets you vote articles up and down, and it uses your input to figure out what you might like to read in the future. It then marks articles appropriately so that you can (hopefully) read just the stuff that you’re interested in out of the sea of RSS feeds that you’ve been reading.
To really see if the intelligence works, you have to use it for a while, which is something I haven’t done. This is a very impressive project, but I feel that the lack of documentation (not even an About page) is holding it back. I would have given you a complete screenshot tour of it, but it’s very difficult when you don’t know what anything does.
Share TweetNewsBlur is a slick, impressive, undocumented RSS reader originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Google has announced that its Google Analytics Data Export API beta is now available for developers….

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Google added direct access numbers to its Google Voice for mobile application on Android and Blackberry smartphones. The company is actively soliciting suggestions from users about how to improve Google Voice. – Google July 22 moved to accelerate calls placed on Android and Blackberry smartphones through its
Google Voice for mobile application, the latest in a string of changes the
company has made to its phone management tool.
Google Voice is a free Web calling and
phone management application.
The p…

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Tweet Transmedia has introduced the new Glide OS 4.0, a cloud-based operating system that is ad-free, full of great productivity apps and best of all is compatible with the Apple iPad. It has great syncing capabilities and runs right from your iPad’s browser. It operates like an online mobile desktop. With Glide OS you can [...]

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Tweet Most people around the globe have heard of the iPad by now, even in areas where it’s not yet being sold. The iPad no longer needs an introduction but it will become available in 9 more countries this Friday. Apple’s trend setting gadget, tablet computer, or whatever you’d like to refer to it as, [...]

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eWEEK Labs Technical Director Cameron Sturdevant’s year of using and covering Apple products in the enterprise has come to an end with a newfound respect for Mac hardware and the resistance of Mac OS X 10.6.3, code-named Snow Leopard, to hacks and viruses. For executives and high-value creative content users he sees Apple’s appeal. But as we enter the cloud computing age, Sturdevant is less enamored of fat clients of any variety for routine office workers. – For just over a year I’ve used a variety of Apple
devices from the Xserve and Mac Pro to the iPhone and MacBook Pro and even a Mac
Mini as my primary work systems in a Windows-oriented IT shop.
I made the switch because Apple PCs and iPhones and now
iPads are coming into the enterprise. I wanted…

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Filed under: Windows Mobile, Microsoft, Browsers, Mobile

No, sadly it’s not my video (whose accent do you prefer, incidentally? The squeaky American, or mine?) but still, it’s a great early look at the browsing experience on Windows Phone 7.

Lee really likes the tabs (those close buttons look fiddly though). I like the Metro UI, and the ability to add favourite pages to the Start screen. Froyo looks like a crusty donkey in comparison — and iOS4 even manages to look a bit bland. I never thought I’d see a Microsoft product on the bleeding edge of user interface design…

Microsoft’s new mobile OS is all but finished now, incidentally. The final release of its developer tools comes on September 16th (one day after the IE9 beta!), and handsets should be out in the wild by October. Did you see the list of games that will be available at launch? Commence salivation.
Share TweetWindows Phone 7 Web browser comparison versus iPhone and Android (video) originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Omniture adds a new application to its Omniture SiteCatalyst tool that allows users to monitor the spread of viral video on YouTube and other sites. Salesforce, Google, Amazon and other companies have all been expanding the range of applications available on their cloud-based computing platforms, even allowing clients to monitor Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and other sites to see how a particular service or product is being greeted by the general public….

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ARM, IBM, Samsung, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments have together created Linaro, a not-for-profit company focused on supporting the development of open-source products for devices powered by ARM’s chip designs. Along with Android, other open-source ventures such as LiMo, MeeGo, Ubuntu and WebOS stand to profit from the project, which could help unify a fragmented Linux mobile operating system market. – IBM and chip designer ARM, with
partners Freescale, Samsung, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments, have created
Linaro, quot;a not-for-profit open-source software engineering company quot;
focused on speeding the development of Linux-based mobile devices powered by ARM-designed
processors.

I…

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Filed under: E-mail, Google, Search
Google, in its infinite wisdom, has finally upgraded Gmail’s advent-of-the-Web-what-is-semantics? search engine to something a little more snazzy. You can now search your Google Docs from within Gmail, and there’s also a ‘did you mean?’ subtitle if you typo a search query.

Despite the update, searching is still slower than a three-legged tortoise. At least the Google Docs results come in asynchronously — so if you’re just searching your email, you won’t see any speed degradation.

To enable the new feature, click the green ‘beaker’ in the top right of Gmail and scroll down to Apps Search > Enable. Save your changes and enjoy your new ‘Search Mail and Docs’ button!
Share TweetGoogle finally updates Gmail’s search — and lets you search your Docs too! originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Filed under: Design
Drips is a fun Flash application that was inspired by the art of legendary American artist Jackson Pollock.
Its functionality is very basic — you splash random colors on the canvas and that’s about it. You can select a specific color or allow Drips to randomly rotate colors every time you let go of the mouse. You can also change the background color (again, either randomly or by selection).
There’s no undo, of course, but I take that to be in the spirit of Pollock himself. One feature that is missing is control over brush size. I’m pretty sure that Pollock would have approved of such a feature.
I don’t think it’s a tool for creating masterpieces, but I like its lack of features. It captures some of the raw fun of just painting (or doodling), without messing about with too many features, brushes, toolbars, etc. I also like the strong, bold, random colors.Drips is a Flash-based painting app that lets you pretend you’re Jackson Pollock originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Filed under: Games, Windows Mobile, MicrosoftNeowin has the scoop: according to the Microsoft Careers website, a new game studio that specializes in Windows Phone games is being created as we speak. This news comes just a few hours after details of Sony Ericsson’s ‘PlayStation Phone’ emerged. The new studio’s ‘mission statement’ follows:

MGS Mobile Gaming – focused on bringing games and entertainment to the mobile life that people lead. Our vision is to deliver games and entertainment so good that people will want them always with them, on a service that makes them social, connected and relevant anywhere their life goes. The Mobile Gaming team is building industry leading products that showcase our Windows Phone platform as well as emerging mobile platforms, and will help realize Microsoft’s connected entertainment vision. The Mobile Gaming studio will be the hub for MGS franchises and titles on mobile devices and a center of excellence for mobile games.
I can’t add much to the story other than speculation. What are the other ‘emerging mobile platforms’ that are alluded to? Experience with Xbox Live and C# are listed as ‘highly desired’, so I can’t imagine them making games for iOS devices — but who knows what Microsoft has planned?

Microsoft definitely managed to carve itself a nice chunk of the console industry with the Xbox — can it do the same with the mobile segment? Before today, the mobile phone industry lacked a big-money developer and now we have both Sony and Microsoft weighing in! Things are about to get very interesting — and right now, if I happened to be a Nintendo executive, I’d be wondering when and where the mobile phone and portable gaming markets will collide…
Share tweetmeme_url = ‘http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/08/12/microsoft-games-studios-is-establishing-a-new-mobile-gaming-stud’; tweetmeme_source=’DownloadSquad’; tweetmeme_style = ‘compact’; Microsoft Games Studios is establishing a new Mobile Gaming studio to develop Windows Phone 7 games originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 12 Aug 2010 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart closes the 7-year-old case — from the federal district perspective, anyway — by reaffirming that SCO’s claims against Novell in the long-running litigation over ownership of Unix operating system copyrights were unconvincing. – Is the 7-year-old intellectual property lawsuit between Unix server maker SCO
Group and Novell finally at its end? If it isn’t officially over, then it’s
very, very close.

Salt Lake City U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart on June 10 closed the case from
the federal district perspective, anyway by…

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Filed under: Utilities, Blogging, web 2.0
NewsBlur is a very beautiful feed reader that’s laden with tons of JavaScript, but it utterly lacks any form of documentation.
It’s an open source project by the talented Samuel Clay, who has been working on it for 15 months now. He’s currently working on an iPhone version, but the regular version is very impressive in itself.
The sources are hosted over on GitHub, and the project uses the Django Web framework for Python. This means that you can probably install it on your own server and break free from the big G. But unlike Fever, which is another server-based reader, NewsBlur has built-in multi-user support, and it’s free. So, you don’t have to install it on your own server to use it; you can just go to the NewsBlur site and open an account.
NewsBlur lets you import your current feeds from Google Reader. It lets you vote articles up and down, and it uses your input to figure out what you might like to read in the future. It then marks articles appropriately so that you can (hopefully) read just the stuff that you’re interested in out of the sea of RSS feeds that you’ve been reading.
To really see if the intelligence works, you have to use it for a while, which is something I haven’t done. This is a very impressive project, but I feel that the lack of documentation (not even an About page) is holding it back. I would have given you a complete screenshot tour of it, but it’s very difficult when you don’t know what anything does.
Share TweetNewsBlur is a slick, impressive, undocumented RSS reader originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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News Analysis: There is consensus building that the Apple tablet will be a gaming device geared to support basic social gaming applications of the type people use on Facebook, as well as multiplayer games. Jeff Scott, founder and publisher of the 148Apps blog, says publications that cover the gaming arena have been invited to the upcoming special Apple event. He also says a screen resolution of at least 640 by 800 and a stronger processor than the one powering Apple’s iPhone 3GS will make the tablet well suited for games. – Apple executives will take the stage at Yerba Buena Gardens in San
Francisco Jan. 27, and are expected to unveil the
anticipated Apple tablet computer.
There is a lot of information seeping through the reality distortion field
around the device, the official name of which (iSlate? iPad? iTablet…

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Tweet Transmedia has introduced the new Glide OS 4.0, a cloud-based operating system that is ad-free, full of great productivity apps and best of all is compatible with the Apple iPad. It has great syncing capabilities and runs right from your iPad’s browser. It operates like an online mobile desktop. With Glide OS you can [...]

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Steve Jobs’ keynote address at the Apple WWDC 2010 event in San Francisco included the announcement of the iPhone 4 along with a new version of the mobile platform operating system. – …

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Aaron La, the developer behind Advanced Task Manager, has opened his books and gives us some interesting insight into the Android Market, profitability and his own opinions of the market.We’ll let Aaron break down the numbers for you, but some interesting points:The free version of ATM can bring in as much or more advertising revenue monthly than straight sales of its 99-cent counterpart.Aaron hasn’t quit his day job, but an average of $10,000 a month is quite a lot of pocket change.Google Checkout and the Market app themselves are a couple of big anchors holding back Android. (And that’s a sentiment certainly echoed by a whole lot of people).The 24-hour return policy isn’t evil.Give the entire blog post a read. It’s a good one. [Aaronla.com via @romainguy]Posted originally at Android CentralSponsored by Android Cases and Accessories

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Little-known SmartPhone Technologies files lawsuits against Apple, AT&T, Research In Motion, Samsung, Sanyo, LG Electronics and Motorola accusing them of violating patents owned by the company. – The smartphone patent lawsuit derby continues with a company named
SmartPhone Technologies suing Apple, AT amp;T, Research In Motion, Samsung,
Sanyo, LG Electronics and Motorola, accusing them of violating patents owned by
the company. Filed in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of T…

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TweetMeme, providers of a "retweet button" with similar functionality, co-developed the feature intended to make sharing links via the microblogging service easier.

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Vonage introduces an app that lets Facebook friends place free calls to each other over WiFi or 3G/4G networks using Apple iPhones, iPod Touches or Android smartphones. – Voice-over-IP provider Vonage is giving Facebook a voice, announcing Aug. 4 the
availability of an application that lets owners of iPhones, iPod Touches and
Android-running smartphones place free calls to Facebook quot;friends. quot;
Free to use and download it’s available in the Android Market…

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Guillermo Del Toro talks about the update of the 70’s TV classic ‘Don’t be Afraid of the Dark’. Since there is no swearing, nudity or graphic violence, Del Toro says the film got an R Rating for being ‘”too scary”.FEI COMPANY
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JAMF Software’s changes to Casper Suite bring Mac systems under central control. The Mac management suite gives IT managers the ability to keep Mac systems up-to-date while also tracking inventory and license compliance. – IT managers looking to streamline Mac management should check out the new
polish JAMF Software has put on the latest version of its comprehensive Casper
tool suite. With modules ranging from inventory and imaging to patch management
and remote control, the Casper Suite brings legacy PC control to…

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In this week’s podcast, the Gadget Lab discusses Research in Motion’s latest smartphone, the BlackBerry Torch, European universal phone chargers, a shock-proof USB stick, and an adorable heart-covered, sheet-fed scanner.COMPAL ELECTRONICS
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Acer chairman JT Wang, thinks that the iPad will drop from its current near 100% market share to somewhere around 20% or 30%. Like Asus, Acer’s netbook business is feeling the pain of Apple’s entry into the “third device category” with iPad. Since Apple is pretty much alone in that space right now — despite [...]Acer: iPad market share will drop from 100% to 20% is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

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Tweet So you’ve heard about the Apple iPad and you’re heading back to school soon. Chances are you’re probably wondering if it’s a smart choice to invest your money towards purchasing an iPad for college. In this article we’ll help explain a few of the many benefits there are for college students who own, or [...]

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Half of all U.S. mobile phone users will be accessing the internet from their handsets by 2013, finds eMarketer.

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A Skype app for BREW-based Verizon Wireless handsets, such as the Samsung Reality and LG enV Touch and Chocolate, is now available. Verizon already offers such an app for Android and BlackBerry devices. – Verizon Wireless and Skype are expanding the handsets options on which
Verizon customers can download and run Skype’s voice-over IP (VOIP) mobile
application.
Following the launch ofthe
Skype app for BlackBerry and Android-running handsets, the two have announced
the availability of the Skype …

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The former eReader app has been rebranded with the same name as the bookseller’s electronic reader device and includes in-app content rating and personalization options.

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Filed under: Productivity, Google, Browsers
Stylebot is a Chrome add-on that provides a point-and-click interface for customizing the CSS on any page, and then it saves your customizations for next time — and if you have bookmark sync turned on, it even syncs them for you!
The way that it works is very simple. In Selection mode, each element on the page gets a highlighted frame when you hover over it. As soon as you get the element that you want, just click it. Any CSS declarations that you then specify are applied to that element.
“Specifying CSS declarations” sounds pretty technical, but it’s basically clicking a bunch of buttons. You need to know a bit of CSS to make good use of the add-on, but it’s also a very good way to learn. Of course, if you do know your CSS, you can just switch to Advanced mode and hand code it instead.
A few missing features:

Up/down keys do not work for incrementing/decrementing values. That’s a must-have Greasemonkey feature!

Existing font sizes (and other properties) are not displayed. This means that, if I want to increase the font size of an existing element, I need to start by guessing what the current size is. Then, I need to nudge it up by entering (say) 12, deleting, entering 13, deleting, entering 17, deleting, entering 15, etc. It rapidly gets annoying. Up/down keystroke support + showing the currently selected font size would go a long way towards alleviating this.

There’s no simple way to undo a single change. You can either reset everything you’ve done, or you can manually edit the CSS in order to remove the change (if your CSS chops are up to the task).

Other than those few things, it’s certainly a handy add-on for customizing the Web. I like that it saves your settings automatically and syncs them. I’ve embedded the add-on’s “intro video” after the break.Stylebot for Chrome lets you easily customize Web pages originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Nokia is searching for a new CEO.

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 Anyone who browses the Android Market from their phone knows one universal truth: it’s a mess. Outside of search, there really is no easy way to find great apps that might be floating just under the surface. No longer content with simply making installing apps to your phone directly from your browser insanely easy, AppBrain is looking to change all that nonsense by adding some major new features to their site.The new sorting bar at the top allows quick access to popular and top rated apps. Clicking on any of these links will then allow you to further sort the list by category (games, social, etc) as well as free or paid apps. You can even sort the list to only turn up newly released apps to make sure you stay on top of the latest great apps. There are tons of more options, so click past the link and check it out. While you are there, check out my apps here. [AppBrain]Posted originally at Android CentralSponsored by Android Cases and Accessories

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Sprint has begun offering femtocells for its customers that have reception problems in their homes. They aren’t the first to offer such a device, but appear to be the first to offer it for free to qualified users, which is how it should be.

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Fring, which has enjoyed interconnectivity with Skype for four years, called the VOIP provider "cowards" for allegedly blocking Fring from offering video chat on smartphones. Skype said it didn’t block Fring. – In a nasty war of words between VOIP providers,
Fring accused Skype of blocking it from letting users make video calls on
Apple’s iPhone 4, Google Android and other smartphones and applied the
quot;c-word quot; to the company.
Fring, which has enjoyed interconnectivity with Skype for four
year…

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IBM channel partners had something else to cheer about yesterday when the vendor unveiled the latest systems in its POWER7 series. Executives say the new technology is a culmination of IBM’s year-long rollout of workload-optimized systems that will help customers reduce IT administration costs while deploying more powerful applications.

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Oracle sues Google for patent and copyright infringement over Google’s use of Java in its Android operating system. The suit could halt Android development on phones, tablets and other platforms. – Oracle Aug. 12 sued Google for patent and copyright infringement over Google’s
use of Java in its open-source Android operating system.
Oracle, which purchased Sun Microsystems and renamed it Oracle America
in January, accused Google of infringing seven Java patents and other
copyrights.
Sun …

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Sorry! After careful consideration, we’ve decided to remove this post from GeekDad in deference to Bill Watterson’s well-established desire not to permit merchandise based on his work.
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Fring, a provider of voice over IP apps, was slightly overwhelmed, following the release of a two-way calling app allowing iPhone 4 owners to chat face-to-face with friends on various mobile platforms. – Fring has introduced an already popular new app to the Apple App
Store that allows iPhone 4 owners to enjoy two-way video calls over
WiFi or 3G, with friends on older iPhone, Android or Symbian
smartphones.

The app has proven so popular, however, that the Fring Blog waved a white flag, notin…

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Filed under: Design
Drips is a fun Flash application that was inspired by the art of legendary American artist Jackson Pollock.
Its functionality is very basic — you splash random colors on the canvas and that’s about it. You can select a specific color or allow Drips to randomly rotate colors every time you let go of the mouse. You can also change the background color (again, either randomly or by selection).
There’s no undo, of course, but I take that to be in the spirit of Pollock himself. One feature that is missing is control over brush size. I’m pretty sure that Pollock would have approved of such a feature.
I don’t think it’s a tool for creating masterpieces, but I like its lack of features. It captures some of the raw fun of just painting (or doodling), without messing about with too many features, brushes, toolbars, etc. I also like the strong, bold, random colors.Drips is a Flash-based painting app that lets you pretend you’re Jackson Pollock originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Filed under: Text, Web services

[UPDATE:] As it turns out, wrttn.me is a clone of wrttn.in. I have now amended the links in the screenshot to point to the original tool, after verifying the fact. The review below is still valid for the original tool (all the more so, in fact). Thanks to alert commenter nuttendorfer!

When I first laid eyes upon Wrttn.me, I couldn’t help but notice how spartan it all was. There was nary an image in sight and no flashy CSS3 effects, much less any Flash. The whole thing was just … text.
And then I started digging in, and I discovered a surprisingly powerful, well-thought-out tool for sharing notes (with optional embedded images and videos), collaborating on them, and getting feedback on your work.
Wrttn.me doesn’t require you to log in. Much like PiratePad, you just start writing. I should mention, though, that it doesn’t have synchronous real-time editing a la Wave, PiratePad, or Gobi (or all of those other apps that I like so much).
What it does have is built-in support for custom CSS, support for Markdown, Textile, raw HTML or plain text, and a way to allow people to comment on your note (again, without signing in) by using a third party service called DISQUS.
Of course, there’s an API, so you can easily create notes from your own services or embed notes into your own site. The whole thing feels incredibly well-thought-out. It’s like the developer spent a lot of time pondering the question, “what’s the least annoying and most open way to do this thing?”
Support multiple markup types, don’t require logging in, provide an open API, and produce both a public URL (view only or comment if enabled) and an “admin” URL for editing your note as needed. It’s all there!
Now, if it only had EtherPad-style editing, this thing could blow most existing notes solutions out of the water. Kudos!
Share Tweet[Updated] Wrttn.me is an awesome Web notepad, supports Markdown originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsCANON
CDW
CHINA MOBILE
CISCO SYSTEMS
COGNIZANT TECH. SOLUTIONS

Residual fingerprint oils on smartphones, ATMs, and other devices may reveal passwords and other confidential data, find security researchers.

CANON
CDW
CHINA MOBILE
CISCO SYSTEMS
COGNIZANT TECH. SOLUTIONS

Filed under: OS Updates, Google, Beta, Browsers
We’ve known about Google Chrome’s “Chromoting” feature for some time. Many blogs reported it as a way to “run Windows apps on Chrome OS,” which is, of course, a bit of a stretch. Now relabeled “Remoting,” the feature is probably closer to running an application via Terminal Services or by first connecting to a host machine by using RDP or VNC.

Any way you look at it, Remoting is a very key component of Google’s enterprise ambitions for Chrome OS (and the Chrome browser). It could very well allow inexpensive nettops, netbooks, and tablet devices running Chrome OS to easily interact with a business’ existing enterprise apps.

As those devices inch closer to reality, Chrome OS code continues to mature and new features — like Remoting — begin to appear. You can see in the screenshot above that Remoting is now taking shape more visibly in Chromium. It’s currently hidden behind the –enable-remoting flag, and the setup function under Chrome’s wrench menu points to a page which is unavaiable.

It’s a start, and it’s certainly going to be interesting to watch Google’s plans for Remoting unfold.

Thanks, Dinu!Google Chrome’s Remoting feature shows up in Chromium with enterprise implications originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 13 Aug 2010 23:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | CommentsMICROSOFT
MICROSEMI
MICROS SYSTEMS
MICRON TECHNOLOGY
MICROCHIP TECHNOLOGY

I let my wife borrow the $50 M-Edge Flip Jacket after I had finished testing it. I’m still waiting for her to give it back. I can understand why: it’s an…

M-Edge – Apple – Testing – IPhone – M-Edge Flip JacketHON HAI PRECISION IND.
HYNIX SEMICONDUCTOR
INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES
INVENTEC

IBM channel partners had something else to cheer about yesterday when the vendor unveiled the latest systems in its POWER7 series. Executives say the new technology is a culmination of IBM’s year-long rollout of workload-optimized systems that will help customers reduce IT administration costs while deploying more powerful applications.

AUTOMATIC DATA PROCESSING
AVNET
BHARTI AIRTEL
BT GROUP
CANON

SYNOPSYS
SYNNEX
SYMANTEC
SYKES ENTERPRISES INORATED
SYBASE

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen has told Telegraph that, since Apple’s just not that into Flash, he and his almost ubiquitous plugin are moving on:

“We believe in open systems. We believe in the power of the internet and in customers making choices and I think a lot of the controversy was about their decision [...]Adobe Flash gives up on iPhone, gives out on Android? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog
FAIRCHILD SEMICONDUCTOR INTERNATIONAL
FAIR ISAAC
FACTSET RESEARCH SYSTEMS
F5 NETWORKS
EPICOR SOFTWARE

Filed under: Utilities, Productivity, Browsers
While Lee already mentioned AutoPagerize as one item in a round-up of Chrome Userscripts, it’s such a handy userscript that I decided it warrants its own post.
Lee wrote about AutoPagerize back in September 2009. Now, almost one year later, the userscript is still going strong. It was updated in March of this year, and it now has a dedicated version for Chrome.
Its function is as simple as it is useful; it loads the next page of results in Google without you having to click anything. Just continue scrolling down the page, and the new results will show up. It’s magic!
It works that same type of magic on numerous other sites, too (Download Squad included). Ever since I installed it, I haven’t felt the need to press the Next button even once (well, except in Gmail). It’s very, very convenient.
There are a ton of dedicated browser extensions that do this (as well as a few other userscripts). Personally, I prefer a userscript to an extension because it’s just a leaner solution (in terms of lower memory consumption and general overhead). I can honestly say that it has transformed my Google experience. And more than half a million installations would seem to concur.
Share TweetAutoPagerize is a must-have Greasemonkey script for multi-page search results originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsEASTMAN KODAK CO
EARTHLINK
DST SYSTEMS
DISCOVER FINANCIAL SERVICES
DIODES INORATED

Steve Jobs has purportedly told a beleaguered iPhone 3G user that an iOS 4 performance boost is coming soon via software update. Here’s the complaint:

I’ve waited patiently through 4.0.1 and 4.0.2, looking for a fix that will make my phone work again. I’ve read the forums that advise me to jailbreak my phone [...]Jobs: Performance fix for iOS 4 on iPhone 3G coming soon is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog
VIRGIN MEDIA
VIEWSONIC
VERISIGN
VERIFONE HOLDINGS
VEECO INSTRUMENTS

Amazon’s Kindle and other electronic readers have zoomed downward in price and Apple introduced the iPad since the $799 device aimed at professionals was launched early this year.

COMMUNICATIONS HOLDINGS
COMPAL ELECTRONICS
COSMOTE MOBILE TELECOM.
D-LINK
DIGITAL CHINA HOLDINGS

Filed under: BlackBerry
Unlike iPhone and iPod touch users I know, BlackBerry owners tend to be plenty happy with the built-in array of apps RIM ships on their smartphones. That’s probably a good thing, because BlackBerry App World had some fairly big shortcomings when compared to the App Store.

RIM hopes the release of App World 2.0 brings the experience more in line with competitors — and at first glance, I’d say it does. For starters, App World is now fully searchable and categorized for easy browsing. Top 25 groupings have been added, as have options to filter free and paid apps.

Developers are also able to sell cheaper apps now, with sub-$2 price points available. One more big-time change is that users can now pay for those apps with a major credit card instead of PayPal, and some will even be able to post app purchases directly to their monthly cellular bill (depending on their carrier, of course).

With lower prices and better discovery options, App World 2.0 should encourage BlackBerry users to take the plunge and install some of the thousands of add-on apps available for their smartphones.BlackBerry App World gets a much-needed overhaul originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 20 Aug 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsHEWLETT-PACKARD
HIGH TECH COMPUTER
HON HAI PRECISION IND.
HYNIX SEMICONDUCTOR
INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES

Microsoft hopes to leap frog Android and the iPhone with reactive speech recognition capabilities

iPhone – Speech recognition – Speech Technology – Research – MicrosoftGOOGLE
GRUPO IUSACELL
HARRIS
HCL TECHNOLOGIES
HEWLETT-PACKARD

Want to stretch your tech equipment’s life? Here’s how to properly clean and care for your HDTV, smartphone, and digital camera.

Digital camera – High-definition television – Photography – Shopping – SmartphoneINTUIT
INTERSECTIONS
INTERNATIONAL RECTIFIER
INTERNATIONAL GAME TECHNOLOGY
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES (IBM)

If you’re looking for some all-encompassing iOS device charging options, XtremeMac’s updated InCharge line should have something for you.

IPhone – IPod – XtremeMac – Apple – BusinessSILICON LABORATORIES
SI INTERNATIONAL
SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY
SCIENTIFIC GAMES
SANDISK

Mark Zuckerberg’s name appears as the payee on a copy of a $3,000 cashier’s check that Paul Ceglia claims is proof of a contract between them.

IDT
IBASIS
HYPERCOM
HEWLETT PACKARD CO
HEARTLAND PAYMENT SYSTEMS

Research In Motion’s latest smartphone costs a total of $183.05 to build, compared with $187.51 for Apple’s iPhone 4, according to iSuppli.

QUANTA COMPUTER
RESEARCH IN MOTION
ROGERS COMMUNICATIONS
SAIC
SATYAM COMPUTER SERVICES

Apple introduces a “Try Before You Buy” section to its App Store that reduces the risk of buying dud apps.

AppStore – Apple – IPhone – Before You Buy – Macintosh INTERNATIONAL GAME TECHNOLOGY
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES (IBM)
INTERDIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS
INTEL
INSIGHT ENTERPRISES

Want to stretch your tech equipment’s life? Here’s how to properly clean and care for your HDTV, smartphone, and digital camera.

Digital camera – High-definition television – Photography – Shopping – SmartphoneRF MICRO DEVICES
RED HAT
RADISYS
RACKABLE SYSTEMS
QUEST SOFTWARE

Check out this 2-D teaser for the upcoming interactive 3-D music video for “Octobor” by the Broken Bells.MANTECH INTERNATIONAL
MANHATTAN ASSOCIATES
LSI
LINEAR TECHNOLOGY .
LEXMARK INTERNATIONAL

This week I am looking at the Case-Mate Hybrid Tough case for iPad. This is actually a good case considering its goal; solid protection while staying reasonably thin.

The case is unique in that it has two layers. The first layer is a silicone skin that covers the iPad and all of its buttons. It also [...]Case-Mate Hybrid Tough Case for iPad – accessory review is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog
DIRECTV GROUP
ELPIDA MEMORY
EMC
FIDELITY NATIONAL INFORMATION SVCS.
FISERV

We shopped for 24 products and asked tech store sales reps some challenging (but reasonable) questions in trying to figure out how the sellers rated for product availability, price, and recommendations.

Sales – Business – Automated Test Systems – Business and Economy – Shopping AUTODESK
AUTOMATIC DATA PROCESSING
AVNET
BHARTI AIRTEL
BT GROUP

The Burton Fader Pack is a neat new daypack from a company more commonly associated with snowboarding equipment. Confession time: I’m not into snowboarding and don’t know much about Burton as a brand. I do, however, know what I like in a backpack, and that is utilitarian, comfy, cool-looking and durable.
Let’s start with the last [...]LEXMARK INTERNATIONAL
LEVEL 3 COMMUNICATIONS
LAWSON SOFTWARE
LAND SOFTWARE
LAM RESEARCH

Robot Parade from Jared Foster on Vimeo, via the TMBG Facebook page.
LAWSON SOFTWARE
LAND SOFTWARE
LAM RESEARCH
L-1 IDENTITY SOLUTIONS
KINGSTON TECHNOLOGY COMPANY

Filed under: Utilities, Google, web 2.0
Today I had a quick play with the Google Docs drawing tool. It’s awesome, but yet there’s a strong chance that you didn’t even know it existed! Just head over to docs.google.com > Create New > Drawing and give it a go. Don’t forget to Insert > Image — a whole wealth of Google Images await your artistic meddling! Poke around with the tools; they’re very easy to use.

OK, drawn something fun? Now I can tell you about cool bits that I really didn’t expect to see in a browser-based drawing tool. Hit Ctrl-Z to undo your last action — Ctrl-Y to redo works as well. Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V are available for copying and pasting. Because it’s vector-based, you can click anything you’ve scribbled and grab a corner to stretch or scale it.

There’s more! The Drawing tool has a complete set of flow chart symbols (and other shapes) that you can drag and drop into place — and because this is Google Docs, you can collaboratively work on the same chart or diagram! I’m sure there’s a plethora of potential organizey-businessy applications for that kind of functionality.

Finally, there’s a ton of ways in which you can export your Google Drawings. There’s a new ‘Web Clipboard’, which lets you select your image and then paste into another Google Doc. This clipboard is associated with your Google account, so you can store something there and retrieve it from any Web-attached computer if you desire. You can also download your finished image as a JPEG, PNG, SVG or PDF file.

I told you it was awesome! Die, MS Paint, die.
Share TweetGoogle Docs Drawing tool removes any reason to use MS Paint ever again originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsPRICELINE.COM
QIMONDA
QUALCOMM
QUANTA COMPUTER
RESEARCH IN MOTION

One of the biggest challenges to expanding a virtual server infrastructure is dealing with the storage challenges that often come with the deployment. The way storage is used in the virtual infrastructure is unlike most use cases. In this environment we want the same storage area to be accessed by almost every connecting server and each of those servers may have dozens of workloads trying to access that storage at the same time.

KDDI
KLA-TENCOR
KONINKLIJKE KPN
LAM RESEARCH
LIBERTY GLOBAL

Smartphones with dual-core chips could allow for faster application performance and 1080p video playback.

Multi-core processor – 1080p – Qualcomm – Snapdragon – Central processing unitSYNTAX-BRILLIAN
SYNOPSYS
SYNNEX
SYMANTEC
SYKES ENTERPRISES INORATED

The not so secret Droid Pro now is said to be a Droid 2 with GSM and CDMA radios inside — aka a "World Phone," according to an Engadget tipster. No word on a price point yet, though, it is safe to presume that a similar device with global capabilities will probably cost you a little more than $200 with a two year contract (plus whatever happens on the data side). In terms of release, Engadget’s source is claiming that we should see it within the next few weeks.If one inside tip wasn’t enough, there is also word of LG releasing a successor to the popular LG enV Touch; named, well — you probably already guessed it — the LG enV Touch 2. Quite a mouthful, eh? Unlike its orginal make, this enV will be preloaded with Android 2.1 and will rock two touch screens — with full QWERTY keyboard. And if one global Android device wasn’t enough this holiday, the enV Touch 2 is also to be a global device. [Engadget]Posted originally at Android CentralSponsored by Android Cases and Accessories

INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES
INVENTEC
KDDI
KLA-TENCOR

In this week’s podcast, the Gadget Lab discusses Research in Motion’s latest smartphone, the BlackBerry Torch, European universal phone chargers, a shock-proof USB stick, and an adorable heart-covered, sheet-fed scanner.HCL TECHNOLOGIES
HEWLETT-PACKARD
HIGH TECH COMPUTER
HON HAI PRECISION IND.
HYNIX SEMICONDUCTOR

The skull of extinct 4.5 foot tall flightless predatory Andagalornis bird animated.ARROW ELECTRONICS
ASML HOLDING
ASUSTEK COMPUTER
AT&T
AUTODESK

Rob Balder, the author of the delightfully geeky webcomic Erfworld, has a new trick up his sleeves. He has written a short 24-page comic based on a story by Dr. Ben Bova, science fiction author and editor of Omni magazine, among other things. Illustrated by Bill Holbrook, Duel in the Somme is a “high-tech romance [...]EMC
FIDELITY NATIONAL INFORMATION SVCS.
FISERV
GOOGLE
GRUPO IUSACELL

Cross-platform apps such as Firefox Portable Edition, OpenOffice.org Portable, and Audacity Portable will give your phone full PC capabilities.

OpenOffice.org Portable – Personal computer – Mozilla Firefox Portable Edition – OpenOffice.org – Office SuitesINTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES (IBM)
INTERDIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS
INTEL
INSIGHT ENTERPRISES
INGRAM MICRO

The 1.4-GHz terrestrial-satellite LTE wireless network will help utilities establish proprietary grid management networks.

AMPHENOL
ANIXTER INTERNATIONAL
APPLE COMPUTER
APPLIED MATERIALS
ARIAN SEMICONDUCTOR EQUIPMENT

News Analysis: Nothing less than Java’s status as an open-source technology is at stake in an Oracle lawsuit against Google for the use of Java on the Android mobile OS platform. – Oracle has long held a unique
position in Californias Silicon Valley. It is to some the most reviled
company in the valley. The lawsuit against Google for its use of Java
technology in its Android smartphone software is just the latest
example of Oracle’s determination to crush any company it be…

EASTMAN KODAK CO
EARTHLINK

Windows Phone 7 will be coming from way behind the iPhone and Android platforms when it launches and Microsoft is doing all it can to boost its acceptance. Right now it seems Windows Phone 7 will be second to none when it comes to the gaming experience, which is tied heavily to XBox Live. Today Microsoft shed some light on their mobile gaming plans.

MANTECH INTERNATIONAL
MANHATTAN ASSOCIATES
LSI
LINEAR TECHNOLOGY .
LEXMARK INTERNATIONAL

U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart closes the 7-year-old case — from the federal district perspective, anyway — by reaffirming that SCO’s claims against Novell in the long-running litigation over ownership of Unix operating system copyrights were unconvincing. – Is the 7-year-old intellectual property lawsuit between Unix server maker SCO
Group and Novell finally at its end? If it isn’t officially over, then it’s
very, very close.

Salt Lake City U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart on June 10 closed the case from
the federal district perspective, anyway by…

LOGITECH INTERNATIONAL
MEMC ELECTRONIC MATERIALS
MICROSOFT
MILLICOM INTL. CELLULAR
MOBILE TELESYSTEMS

The former eReader app has been rebranded with the same name as the bookseller’s electronic reader device and includes in-app content rating and personalization options.

FACTSET RESEARCH SYSTEMS
F5 NETWORKS
EPICOR SOFTWARE
EMULEX
EMS TECHNOLOGIES

Among its many other use-cases (see Apple’s recent set of commercials), there are a growing number of couples taking advantage of FaceTime to help them stay connected — and stay intimate — when they’re unable to be together. From overnight business trips to long distance relationships, FaceTime on iPhone 4 provides several advantages over regular [...]FaceTime helping couples keep “in touch” is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

CISCO SYSTEMS
COGNIZANT TECH. SOLUTIONS
COMCAST
COMMSCOPE
COMMUNICATIONS HOLDINGS

Concept designer and creature creature Neville Page explains what its like working with big Hollywood directors like JJ Abrams and James Cameron. Page’s credits include Avatar, Tron, Super 8, Star Trek and Pirahna 3D.VIEWSONIC
VERISIGN
VERIFONE HOLDINGS
VEECO INSTRUMENTS
VARIAN SEMICONDUCTOR EQUIPMENT ASSOCIATES

Skype filed for an initial public offering Aug. 9, with a prospectus that offered a glimpse into the company’s current structure and plans for future growth that include Skype for Business products. – VOIP vendor Skype filed for an IPO Aug. 9, but offered no indication of
when potential shareholders would be able to purchase stock in the
Internet-calling company.
Skype’s
preliminary prospectus estimates the initial offering’s value at up to $100
million, but the company declined to reveal …

SATYAM COMPUTER SERVICES
SES
SHAW COMMUNICATIONS
SIEMENS FAIR ISAAC

Stung by the backlash against the legislative proposal it presented with Verizon, Google says the objections raised are myths.

D-LINK
DIGITAL CHINA HOLDINGS
DIRECTV GROUP
ELPIDA MEMORY
EMC

Google has announced that its Google Analytics Data Export API beta is now available for developers….

EMC
FIDELITY NATIONAL INFORMATION SVCS.
FISERV
GOOGLE
GRUPO IUSACELL

Just Mobile, maker of fine mobile stands and accessories for Apple products, has released the UpStand–a sleek aluminum stand for the iPad.

Apple – IPad – IMac – Business – IPhoneSYNTEL
SYNTAX-BRILLIAN
SYNOPSYS
SYNNEX
SYMANTEC

Facebook’s iPhone app has been updated to version 3.2 and, among other things, brings support for the new Places service that lets you see where your friends are and what location-based social activities they’re up to. (At least in the US, when I tried it it said it wasn’t yet available in my region.)

What [...]Facebook 3.2 brings Places to iPhone is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

QUALCOMM
QUANTA COMPUTER
RESEARCH IN MOTION
ROGERS COMMUNICATIONS
SAIC

Report also says phishing is down despite the rise of a new Live-Chat based attack that tries to trick people into giving up personal details.

FAIR ISAAC
FACTSET RESEARCH SYSTEMS
F5 NETWORKS
EPICOR SOFTWARE
EMULEX

Filed under: Utilities, Web services
A few days ago, I wrote about MonitorServerUptime, and I received a number of very interesting and informative comments that pointed at various alternatives.
I went through a number of options and finally found Mon.itor.us, which was recommended by commenter Nnyan. The site offers a basic site monitoring service, but it also has a Premium version (which is paid). The main thing that I liked about it, shallow as it may be, is that it looks good. Most other monitoring sites seem plain or dated, but Mon.itor.us seems quite snazzy.
It lets you monitor a website, email server, VoIP gateway, or any old network device/server. The latter lets you specify an FTP, TCP, or UDP port that the device should respond to, or just plain old ICMP ping. All of the other options let you monitor the services in a variety of ways — it’s not just “is port 80 alive?”
They claim to use FusionCharts for their reports, which is a pretty snazzy Flash charting solution. I was unable to test it, though, because I couldn’t find a demo account on the site (and I didn’t want to wait for two months, until I could accumulate enough data with my “real” account).Comment follow-up: Mon.itor.us provides free site uptime monitoring originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 16 Aug 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

ELECTRONIC ARTS
ECLIPSYS
EASTMAN KODAK CO
EARTHLINK
DST SYSTEMS

Tweet Twelve South is well known for their exclusive and stylish accessory designs for Apple products and most recently they have introduced the all new Compass stand for the iPad. You may recall back in April Twelve South was one of the first companies to release a quality iPad stand, also known as the Bookarc [...]LAWSON SOFTWARE
LAND SOFTWARE
LAM RESEARCH
L-1 IDENTITY SOLUTIONS
KINGSTON TECHNOLOGY COMPANY

Filed under: Audio, Apple, iPhoneSome people (including our own Victor Agreda Jr.) didn’t understand why I was so shocked that Grooveshark’s app had finally received Apple’s blessing and showed up in the App Store. They had a pending lawsuit from one of the major record companies, after all. No matter, said Vic — Apple doesn’t concern itself with that stuff. It’s up to the app developers to sort out those issues.

… Or is it?

When that legal issue includes someone who pumps a lot of music content into iTunes, it’s a horse of a different color. Universal UK decided to raise a stink with Apple over the Grooveshark approval and the app has now been pulled from the store.

“We are not sleeping until we find some way to fix this,” says the official Grooveshark blog.

Of course, the blog also states “This is an absolute surprise to us,” which translates to “We’re really not surprised at all that a record company who is suing us would cry to Apple about getting us removed from the App Store because they don’t like our app.”

Who knows when Grooveshark will reappear on iTunes. With label pressure on Apple, it seems highly likely that the app might be dead in the water until Grooveshark’s lawyers can work out something with Universal.

I guess those of us who managed to download should feel lucky that they’re not using a remote kill switch to banish the app from our devices, right?Grooveshark yanked from App Store, pandas everywhere made sad originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 17 Aug 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

APPLIED MATERIALS
ARIAN SEMICONDUCTOR EQUIPMENT
ARROW ELECTRONICS
ASML HOLDING
ASUSTEK COMPUTER

The iPad may get up to 10 hours of battery on a single charge, but for some people, that still isn’t enough. Sanho, maker of AC-outlet-repelling external…

Battery – IPad – Batteries – Business – Power SuppliesRACKABLE SYSTEMS
QUEST SOFTWARE
QUANTUM
QLOGIC .
PROGRESS SOFTWARE

Tweet Astrology fans worldwide are going to love what Vito Technology has done with their latest Star Walk v4.4 update. They have taken their highly popular and award winning Star Walk app for the iPad and iPhone and made it even better. So let’s get down to business, what’s new in Star Walk 4.4? Arrow [...]

DELL
CYPRESS SEMICONDUCTOR
ACCENTURE
ACER
ADOBE SYSTEMS