Entropy

Another info packed post with some exciting news making waves in the technology world.

• 3G iPhone update
• Vista - uptake inevitable
• Twitter rising
• Javascript curvy corners
• Worthy mentions

3G iPhone update

We have reported previously on speculation regarding the launch date of the 3G iPhone, now more information is starting to filter through. One hot topic drawing much attention is the price the new model will go on the market for. $199. While this price is contract dependant, it is still a hefty saving of $200. Apple are also expecting huge sales, with reports coming in that they have ordered 25million units to be manufactured by the same company, Foxconn, that put the first gen iPhone on shelves. 3 million of which will be ready for sale by the end of May.

the author of the story also says that the new phones will be available in “8-gigabit-memory and… 16-gigabit-memory” versions (for $399 and $499, respectively), so take that as you like. In addition to these discounts, the source says the new iPhone will be 2.5mm thinner than the previous iteration, although we understand that right after telling Fortune this information, the “person” burst into a cloud of rainbow-colored sparkles and went flying off into the night sky.

Vista - uptake inevitable

Let’s not beat around the bush on this subject. Vista has been a disappointment. I personally prefer it to Windows XP, but I am not the majority in this issue. XP is end of life with it being pulled from sale in the near future. Once this happens what choices do consumers have other than linux distros? You can order a new pc with Ubuntu, for example, installed. While Ubuntu is a worthy alternative, you must again remember about a corporate roll out of a new desktop environment. I know that companies have switched to linux over windows solutions, but the majority have been in the server market. We are talking about the average employee having to make the change and with that comes training (read expenses). I find Ubuntu quite easy to navigate and fx uses it on his laptop, but not everyone adjusts well. A computerworld article goes into more detail on this topic, while another reminds us about current uptake problems.

“They are sort of in a ‘caught between a rock and a hard place’ situation,” said Gray. Administrators may not want to move to Vista, but neither of the alternatives — the older XP and the not-even-officially-scheduled Windows 7 — is attractive, he said.

Twitter Rising.

Seen as pointless by some and indisposable by others, the stats don’t lie. Twitter usage is rising. I think the number of mashups using the API to do abstract things with what users are pumping into the system has a direct influence on the stats. Repeat users loyal to the service are also a big  influence in the increase of market share seen by Twitter, which is a healthy sign the site is gaining a strong foothold in the social network arena. fx and I were actually throwing around an idea for a Twitter mashup, so you might see something from us in the future putting a spin on what people are doing.

The chart makes the growth look impressive - and it is. However, to put things into context, the site ranked #439 among Social Networks and Forums last week and #4309 among All Categories of websites. Twitter’s size is notoriously difficult to measure as there are so many access points (mobile phones in particular). However, the website traffic data does give some idea of the rate of growth and also reveals that the service still hasn’t reached mainstream adoption.

Javascript curvy corners.

The rounded look of Web 2.0 designs can be a pain at the best of times. Most of the time you will need a few images combined in a bit of CSS to pull it off.  Being able to apply curvy corners on the fly is a huge step in the right direction, and Curvy Corners offer just that.

curvyCorners will automatically pickup style information from the DIV element. So for example if you give the DIV a 2px black border in a stylesheet then the borders will be automatically added to the rounded corners.

Worthy Mentions

Seeing as we have covered some news on Twitter, why not give you the Linux desktop options to make Tweeting easier - 6 Twitter clients for the Linux desktop and one for the road.

Twitter is a popular social networking utility that’s gaining popularity as a micro-blogging tool. Registered users can post messages — also called Tweets — via the Web interface, but many prefer to use desktop applications that offer additional functionality and move Tweeting out of the browser entirely.

Cool web stuff for April 2008 brought to you by WebKak - April 2008 round up of cool web stuff.

Well before we kick off with yet more cool web apps & stuff next month, it’s time for a round-up of the most popular posts for the month of April

Mighty Mouse Easter Egg

Since it’s Easter for a lot of people, and there are still things to be done, I don’t want to keep you waiting. Today, I just found an older picture of Apple’s Mighty Mouse, and I think it’s something great to see. Yes, it’s a hardware Easter Egg. No, this is not a fake image, is a picture made more than 2 years ago, but I guess this is still true today.

Related articles

• MS pulls plugs on XP SP3 mass launch [via Zemanta]
• Hardy Heron Makes Linux Worth Another Look [Feature] [via Zemanta]
• Dell, Lenovo to offer Windows XP beyond June 30 cutoff [via Zemanta]
• Loopholes keep Windows XP alive [via Zemanta]

Seeing as I haven’t posted anything for a couple of days, I thought I would make one post with all the things that have caught my eye.

• Maximize Firefox without extensions
• Gmail hacks for better spam protection
• 7 of the best designed sites on the web
• 60 AJAX/Javascript resources for professional coding
• 3 ways to test web input with CAPTCHA

Maximize Firefox without extensions

We have made a couple of posts relating to improving FireFox and getting the best out of your FireFox experience and plugins. There are plugins that could do what this article details, but with the release of Beta builds quite frequently over the past 2 months or so, not all plugins work the whole time.

If you type about:config in your address bar, Firefox opens the master directory of user-defined preferences and built-in settings. The ultimate arena for performance tampering, the about:config settings are the foundation for programming Firefox extensions.

We’ll show some simple about:config modifications below. Even if the word “Boolean” means nothing to you, we’ll try to make it easy to understand about:config settings

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Gmail hacks for better spam protection

I happen to have a ‘.’ in my gmail address just by chance, and also use the + tip for signing up on certain sites to keep things more organized. But you could just as easily use them to help combat spam.

You can create alias emails for things like shopping sites, places you know will spam you, or anything you want to track to see who they are sharing your email with. To do this, simply put a “+” after your account name and add words.

Apparently, Gmail doesn’t really acknowledge dots in your account name. So I can use “mr.marky.mark@gmail.com” or “mr.markymark@gmail.com” or without any dots at all, “mrmarkymark@gmail.com”.

7 of the best designed sites on the web

Titles of this nature always grab my attention. I’m constantly trying to see how designers are innovating using the latest techniques. While I may not completely agree with this list, I do agree that the sites are visually appealing, even google.com, and that they have crisp layouts.

A sites design is its identity. It can make the biggest difference in attracting and keeping traffic, keeping visitors happy, promoting products and services and establishing an identity on the web.

Website design has come a long way. Previously, down-to-the-point, straightforward sites with minimum graphics and fastest loading and easy navigation were considered the “best” sites in terms of design.

60 AJAX/Javascript resources for professional coding

AJAX is one of the most commonly used techniques for creating seamless webapps these days. However, if you have ever tried to develop something using AJAX, you may have found that it can be frustrating sometimes trying to accomplish the crazy idea that you have set down as your goal. Infact, I was wrestling an AJAX idea in the office today that was partially solved with the scriptaculous javascript library.

When it comes to design of modern web-applications, Ajax is considered as a standard approach. Interactive solutions for lightboxes, form validation, navigation, search, tooltips and tables are developed using Ajax libraries and nifty Ajax scripts. Ajax is useful and powerful. However, when using Ajax, one should keep in mind its drawbacks in terms of usability and accessibility. With an extensive use of Ajax, you can easily confuse your visitors offering too much control and too many features.

3 ways to test web input with CAPTCHA

CAPTCHA is something that we are all used to by now, it’s those barely readable images we have to re-type to prove that we are human. Turns out that computers are becoming more and more human with spam bots being able to break CAPTCHA codes, in record time, to webmail sites bypassing the human requirement of owning an account. However, it is still seen as an important part of a website where differentiating a legitimate user from a spam bot is required and even though it is being beaten more and more these days it is still one of the best ways to help combat spam.

Many Web forms these days feature a Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA) as an effort to stop people from setting up computers to automatically fill in Web forms. A typical CAPTCHA is an image with some numbers and letters in it with distortion and/or background noise, and a Web form input field where you are to enter the numbers and letters from the image. This article investigates three CAPTCHA applications that you can use on a PHP Web site.

Related articles

• You Used JavaScript to Write WHAT? [via Zemanta]

As I’m typing this post I am lying in bed with my notebook. This has become a common situation for many people, having mobility where and when you need it. Unfortunately, as I am typing this I am also keeping an eye on the battery indicator waiting for Vista to kick me out of bed and fetch the power pack.

Keep your processor working at a walking pace

Most notebooks offer power regulation software, and almost all have the ability to change profiles using the Vista power manager. Click on that battery icon on the bottom of your screen, and make sure your notebook is set to Balanced or Power Saver. High Performance is great if you are encoding video or playing games, but it makes your processor work harder than it has to, using more power and throwing out more heat.

For more tips on how to squeeze that last bit of juice out of your notebook, head on over the Tablet PC Review.

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• Photos: Breaking into the ruggedized laptop field [via Zemanta]
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PolishLinux has an english screenshot review of KDE4 (currently still in beta) –

“PolishLinux.org has an extensive screenshot review and commentary on the development version of the Free and Open Source KDE desktop. Highlights include the ability to run any desktop applet prepared for Mac OS X inside Plasma, on-the-fly annotation and rating of files from within the Dolphin file manager.

Discuss and more at Slashdot.

Related articles

• A Screenshot Review of KDE 4 [via Zemanta]
• KDE goes cross-platform with Windows, Mac OS X support [via Zemanta]
• New KDE Makes Linux Look Lovely [via Zemanta]

Source: FlickrVirgin America uses Linux to entertain its passengers whilst in-flight. Slashdot reports –

“CrunchGear has an interesting interview of the Director of Inflight Entertainment for the airline Virgin America discusses their adoption of Linux for the passenger’s seat back computers. ‘The ability to compose a music-video playlist is pretty cool and on the horizon. The READ section is also awesome in that it takes what is typically a bunch of wasted trees (excess newspapers, periodicals) and allows us to be more environmentally friendly and timely with things like news/event info/sports/entertainment etc.’”

Related articles

• An Interview with Virgin’s head of In-Flight Entertainment [via Zemanta]
• All About Linux 2008: Penguins fly! An interview with Charles Ogilvie, Virgin Air’s head of In-Flight Entertainment [via Zemanta]

 

Enjoy LifeHackers list of top 10 [current] Software Easter eggs!

Many of us have an old computer lying around with a monitor attached to it. Many of us also have 2 monitors connected to our main PC. Here’s 2 tools that I have used to effectively have 3 (or more) monitors at my disposal.

First let me give you a description of my setup: Main PC with 2 monitors in one gfx card, secondary PC with 1 monitor in one gfx card (has the ability to have 2, but I don’t have another monitor lying around, probably my next upgrade will include this).

My main PC is exactly what the name hints, it’s my main every day pc that I work on, browse on, play on. Majority of my work means I have an IDE open for coding, IE and Firefox open for testing and an SCP connection to the server that is hosting the content I am working on. Depending on the work I could also have a few notepads open as well as photoshop. Quite quickly it becomes a juggle between all the windows I am using and time consuming to alt+tab through them all.
Read more »

CCleaner is a fantastic, free, registry and file cleaner for Windows. If you don’t know, crap (the first C in CCleaner) builds up on your Windows machine over time, and can use up gigs of free space and slow your machine down terribly. This is where CCleaner comes in.

Step 1: Download and Install

CCleaner is available free of charge (and free of spyware) from FileHippo - Download CCleaner. When you install be sure to let it check for new versions when it runs, as there are often small improvements.

I choose not to add shortcuts anywhere, but add the context items to my Recycle Bin. Then I right click that to run it as seen in the image.

Step 2: First Run of Cleaner

The first time you go through the CCleaner process its going to take a while (unless you have a clean install). Choose to Open CCleaner through your Recycle Bin and go to the first tab, the “Cleaner Tab”.

This could take a few minutes up to 30 minutes from my experience, and will delete temp files, broken shortcuts, and more. If you are worried about losing data, go through the applications and Windows list to untick anything you don’t want cleaned.

Then say “Run Cleaner”.

Step 3: First Run of Registry Checker

The cleaners purpose is obvious, to delete files you don’t need that build up over time. The registry one is more complicated. For those of you who don’t know Windows machines keep what is called a “registry”. This is a store on the computer of all the settings the machine requires to run (and more).

As you install, uninstall, move, and change things on your system it can become outdated and bloated - and the bigger it is the slower you go.

Switch to the Registry tab and say “Scan for Issues”.  Once this is done, you can select to “Fix selected issues…” and it will popup and guide you through fixing them - I have always clicked Fix All, and never had a problem.

Step 4: Maintainance

Do this every month. Check for updates to CCleaner and let it run. After your first run it will only take 5 or so minutes to make sure everything is hunky dory and keep you speedy.

A slashdot user writes in to tell about Infoworld’s 7 Dirtiest Jobs in IT. As they explain, working in IT isn’t always pretty and this is the list of the worst of them. From your stock-standard black ops to dealing with legacy systems, its got them.

Unfortunately, dirty jobs — whether you’re being chained to a help desk, hacking 30-year-old code, finding yourself wedged between warring factions in the conference room, or mucking about in human effluvia — are necessary to make nearly every organization tick. (Well, maybe not the human effluvia part.)

The good news? Master at least one of them, and you’re pretty much guaranteed a job with somebody. We don’t guarantee you’ll like it, though.

ReadWriteWeb has an article on the reasons why they believe Apple is where its at in Next Generation Computing. The article starts –

Last week Steve Jobs took the stage at the Apple Town hall meeting and announced two major things for the iPhone: 1) support for Microsoft Exchange and 2) the iPhone SDK. The Exchange support was a relatively unexpected move, but in retrospect it makes perfect sense. In order to unseat Blackberry as the number one wireless player in the US, Apple needed to have an enterprise story. What’s more, Apple has realized that the days when people carried two phones are over.