Firefox version 3.0 RC2 released

Firefox 3 is based on the Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform, which has been under development for the past 34 months. Building on the previous release, Gecko 1.9 has more than 14,000 updates including some major re-architecting to provide improved performance, stability, rendering correctness, and code simplification and sustainability. Firefox 3 has been built on top of this new platform resulting in a more secure, easier to use, more personal product with a lot more under the hood to offer website and Firefox add-on developers.

Grab your copy here

Windows Search 4.0 avaliable now!

es, it is out of ‘preview’ and final version of Windows Search 4.0 is available.

From windowsvistablog.com:

So, what’s new in this release?

First and foremost: we’ve introduced some performance and reliability improvements. Queries are faster, as is indexing – how much faster depends on your machine and your data. Improved reliability means that system failures won’t get in the way of the indexer and all of your data will be scanned and available for searches.

We’ve also extended remote index discovery, also known as PC-to-PC searches, which allows data to be searched quickly and efficiently across machines running Windows Search 4.0. This means that Windows Vista-to-Windows XP or Windows Vista-to-Windows Server 2008 queries are now possible.

Additionally, Windows Search 4.0 offers manageability improvements that IT Pros should take note of.

For starters, we have extended Group Policy to control more aspects of search functionality and made this control more granular with per-user policies. You can use Group Policy Objects to control how desktop search accesses remote resources – such as Microsoft Exchange Server resources or file shares – to manage network utilization.

Interestingly, Windows vista users will see it as recommended update, while XP users will see it as optional update

Link: Microsoft Download center

Acer, MSI join the Ultra-portable Notebook game

Computer makers Acer and MSI Computer on Tuesday introduced sub-$500 mini-notebooks powered by Intel’s new Atom processor.

The MSI Wind has an 10-inch display and weighs 2.6 pounds. Acer’s Aspire One has an 8.9-inch display and weighs nearly 2.1 pounds. Intel’s 1.6-MHz Atom processor powers both computers.The MSI Wind, which uses the Intel 945 GMS chipset for graphics and other tasks, includes 1 GB of memory, an 80-GB hard drive, a webcam, wifi and bluetooth.

The Windows XP version of the Wind has a manufacturer suggested retail price of $499. A Linux-based model will cost $399.

The Acer Aspire One, which uses Intel’s Graphics Media Accelerator 950 chipset, includes an 8.9-inch LED display with the same resolution as the Wind, 512 MB of memory, and Wi-Fi support. The machine does not include Bluetooth support. The machine is available with either Linux or Windows XP. Pricing starts at $379.

So, Asus EEE has even more competitors now. The competition is becoming more fiercer thanks to the very successful Asus EEE 701

Want HTC Touch Diamond with keyboard?

No, it is not Christmas yet ;) HTC has rolled out HTC Touch Pro today which has everything the Touch Diamond posses plus better battery and a keyboard! It has everything you expect from a modern device. It is little thicker than Touch Diamond, but, hey, this has a 5-row QWERTY keyboard 8)

Here is the actual press release

The HTC Touch Pro brings together elegant touch screen response with the direct precision of keyboard entry leaving out nothing to deliver a powerhouse communication tool in a beautiful, compact design.

The 2.8-inch VGA touch screen provides four times the resolution of most smart devices, making email, documents and web pages sharper and easier to work with than ever before. Continue reading “Want HTC Touch Diamond with keyboard?”

Styletap now supports iPhone and iPod Touch!

StyleTap today officially confirmed that they plan to bring a version of its StyleTap CrossPlatform environment to the iPhone and the iPod touch platform. The move will essentially bring thousands of Palm OS apps over to the new iPhone platform. StyleTap Palm iPhone

Back in February StyleTap released a video demo of the StyleTap running Palm OS apps on a iPod Touch. The company says they have been overwhelmed by the level of interest and the video has been viewed over 800,000 times.

“The iPhone is one of the hottest new mobile devices out there,” said Gregory Sokoloff, CEO of StyleTap Inc., “And the response to our video has convinced us that many, many consumers, and companies, will eagerly jump at the change to buy iPhone devices if they can continue to run their must-have applications.”

According to the company technically, StyleTap CrossPlatform is an excellent fit with the iPhone, as the powerful processor and large screen allows applications written for Palm OS devices to run at full speed and at full screen resolution. The iPhone touch screen technology works in a very natural way with mobile applications originally designed for touch screen devices.

Continue reading “Styletap now supports iPhone and iPod Touch!”

mDesktop: control your device from desktop and more!

Everything you do with your Windows Mobile smartphone you can now do from your PC – on your big screen, big keyboard and complete integration with your desktop.

With mDesktop on your PC and Windows Mobile smartphone connected to it you can:

  • make outgoing calls from the smartphones address book
  • manage incoming ones with ease from your desktop
  • have threaded SMS conversations
  • manage images
  • manage calendar and contacts straight on your phone, no synchronization required
  • Continue reading “mDesktop: control your device from desktop and more!”

    New Concept version of Netfront avaliable

    I just heard from Access, makers of the Netfront browser for Windows Mobile, that a new concept version is now available for their browser.  Netfront was the most full-function browser for a long time on the Windows Mobile platform but we saw a very long period of inactivity until recently.  The new version of Netfront has the following features:

    • Speed improvements
    • Better navigation
    • Animated zoom
    • Page map
    • Column rendering

    This pre-release version carries the following restrictions:

    • The trial period for this software expires on August 31, 2008
    • Plug-ins are not supported
    • No technical support is available for this concept version
    • If NetFront Browser is installed on external storage, the application’s behavior becomes unstable when the device is turned on or off
    • Integrated Windows Authentication for IIS is not supported

    You can find more information (including a video) and download the trial at the Netfront web site.

    O2 Atom Life Review

    The XDA range of O2 have been successful till now. The XDA range has always been powerful and full-featured. Then, what does the Atom Life has to offer to make itself stand in the very competitive PDA-phone market? What makes Atom Life so special and different from other windows mobile devices? Lets find out.

    Review of O2 Atom Life by MWG

    O2 Atom Life is made by quanta. The last HTC device which was branded by O2 was HTC universal. After that, O2(asia) teamed up with quanta and released Atom followed by Atom Exec. Atom Life is the latest quanta device from O2(asia). Both Atom and atom exec have been very popularAtom was, infact, the first windows mobile device to offer FM radio built-in. Its successor Atom Exec used 192MB ROM. Atom Life offers 1GB ROM and runs the fastest processor avaliable for windows mobile devices! Very few devices running windows mobile offer this much amount of memory and speed.

    Design of O2 Atom Life

    The device is very compact. I’ve fairly large hands and device feels comfortable to hold in my hands. Width wise, it is same as Atom. Height-wise, just 4mm bigger than Atom.

    It is quite light at 145g. I’ve come to Atom Life from O2 Executive(don’t confuse it with Atom Exec), which was quite large for a phone device. The built quality is excellent. The body does not make any sort of sounds upon squeezing, which is a good sign for quality.

    Sadly, like Atom, the body is glossy(again) and therefore, a fingerprint magnet. So, make sure you have some sort of cotton/nylon cloth handy ;)

    Power button and mini SD slot are on the top of unit. At the bottom of the unit, you’ll find the usual 2.5mm headphone jack, mini-USB, microphone and reset button.

    On the right side, you’ll find two application buttons(both remappable). On the left side, you’ll find two buttons to adjust the volume. Note that latter cannot be remmaped. Also, there is no jog dial.

    On the back you’ll find the 2.0M camera. The quality of camera was acceptable

    On the front, you’ll find a VGA camera for video calls, a little grill which encapsulates the speakerphone and LED lights for notifications(reception, wifi, bluetooth and alarms). The display is 2.7″ TFT QVGA LCD display, which supports 262K colours (but, only 65,536 effective due to OS limitations). As you move down, you’ll find two soft-keys(finally O2 has listened to the complaints of atom/atom exec users which didn’t have any soft keys), D-pad, call/end keys and Windows application key and media key, which opens O2 Media Plus(but, it can be remmaped). I recommed users to remmap it to ‘Ok’ action as it would improve one hand useability of the device

    Comparison with other devices(and things)

    O2 neo(htc prophet) and atom life

    ipaq 2215 and atom life

    my wallet, atom life and my watch

    Its all about power, speed and memory

    Atom Life is equipped with state-of-art Intel PXA270 processor running at 624MHz, which the fastest avaliable for any mobile phone. Its performance was great and was able to run everything with ease and great speed.

    To add to the icing, it has 1GB ROM! Finally, I can store every program I want to install in main memory. This is a big advantage when compared to launching applications from storage card as it speeds up loading time. Also, you no longer need to worry about your storage card going nuts and thus driving you nuts! Please note that not full 1GB is avaliable to the user. (as some space is used by OS and O2 specific applications)

    The RAM is 64MB out of which we get ~23MB after fresh hard reset. O2 should have made it 128MB like HTC Tytn II, but, 64MB ram looks fine to me for running every sort of application that comes to my mind. Sure, there are some games that require 28-30mb of free RAM. I don’t think so that you can achieve that in Atom Life :(

    Software

    When the Atom Life was launched, it came with windows mobile 5. Soon after few months, O2 endowed Atom Life owners with newer, sleeker and ‘better’ windows mobile 6(for free). The new units with windows mobile 6 are already into the market.

    Continuing the tradition of including O2 specific applications, Atom Life too came with these applications

    • O2 Connect
    • O2 MediaPlus
    • O2 Menu
    • O2 SMS Plus
    • O2 Themes

    The story does not ends there, O2 further bundled following applications which can opitonally be installed by user anytime.

    • CodeWallet® Pro
    • GPRS Monitor
    • Jeyo Mobile Extender 2.0
    • Jeyo SMS Backup
    • Jblend(for running java applications)
    • PDF Viewer
    • Self Diagnostics
    • Sudoku Revolution
    • WorldMate

    Connectivity options

    Atom Life supports all sort of modern connectivity that today stream of high end devices offer. Atom Life has it all. It is a Tri-band(900/1800/1900) UMTS, HSDPA device which also has wifi and bluetooth.

    It also has FM radio.

    Camera

    On the paper, Atom Life’s 2MP camera sounds good. But, in real life, it is just enough good for taking pictures in times when you’re not carrying a camera. Its nice but picture quality is adequate for blogging. Here is a picture of a girl I took this afternoon(actual resolution of the picture was 640 x 480)

    The camera offers 8x zoom at 176 x 144, 4x at 320 x 240, 2x zoom at 640 x 480 resolution. In other resolutions, that is, 1280 x 1024 and 1600 x 1200, zoom is not possible. The strobe light is pretty much useless too. Don’t expect it to match the flash of Nokia N95.

    Pros:

    *WM6
    *Fast
    *Lots of storage memory
    *UMTS and HSDPA support
    *non-telescopic stylus
    *FM radio
    *nice set of bundled applications

    Cons:

    *body is a fingerprint magnet
    *no GPS
    *Camera quality still leaves lot to be desired
    *Speaker sound still shabby

    Final thoughts about the O2 Atom Life

    Atom Life is a great device with lots of features and connectivity built in. The storage space is mammoth. The device looks sexy and very elegant too. Screen is great to look at. Not to forget the fastest processor in its class it posseses!

    PocketFileManager

    Managing and interacting with the files have always been a difficult task on a mobile device. Microsoft does include a file manager with each windows mobile device, then, why do we need another file manager? Well, the answer is simple, the default file manager is slow; lacks a lot of features when comepared to its desktop brother. That is why, many software houses have come up with thier own file manager
    to fill the weakness.
    Continue reading “PocketFileManager”