Make sure to download and install Firefox 3.5 now, and upgrade the web!

http://www.firefox.com/

Mike Beltzner has a new video up showcasing the features of Firefox 3.5.  A must see:

http://bit.ly/nKdln

If you’re feeling bold and you want to check out Firefox 3.5 before it’s released, here’s your chance.

Simply download the latest beta here: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html

Then click Help > Check For Updates…

You will be automatically upgraded to the release candidate of Firefox 3.5.

The final release will be sometime at the end of June, and will be available at http://www.getfirefox.com/

I will post another note when the final release becomes widely available for download.

A few of the new features included with v3.5 are:
-Private browsing mode
-Massive speed increases with the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine
-Location aware web browsing with Geolocation
-The ability to tear off a tab and create a new Firefox window
-Open audio and video support without the use of plugins
-Faster page rendering
-Support for the latest web technology, security, and privacy

Be sure to check out Mozilla Support if you run into issues:  http://support.mozilla.com/

Introduced in Fedora 10 and refined in Fedora 11 is the graphical boot option known as Plymouth.  Here’s how to get it working.  This will run down how to do it via the GUI, but you command line folks will already know what I’m talking about.

Open up the Termainal and su to root.  Then type:

gedit /boot/grub/grub.conf

You should have an entry that says “title Fedora” with your kernel version following.  In the same entry after “rhgb quiet” insert the following:

vga=792 so it would look something like this:

That’s it!  Save grub.conf and reboot your machine.  When you do, instead of seeing the dull progress bar, you’ll see what looks like a conversation icon in the center of the screen that fills with color.  That’s Plymouth!

The Tagged Spam System

Some of my friends and family have fallen victim to an email spamming system from tagged.com.   The controversy here, and what seems to be somewhat in question is the legitimacy of this apparent social networking site.  According to TechCrunch in a posting from 2007, Tagged seems to be a “legitimate” social networking site.  However, I believe that the company is using dishonest and inappropriate tactics in order to gain new membership to their site.  So of course TechCruch is reporting that the site has seen explosive growth… what a bunch of idiots (Tagged, not TechCrunch).

When someone gets an invite to see photos on tagged.com, it comes from someone you know and the originating email address is not from the tagged.com domain.  If you sign up with tagged.com it will search and spam your entire contact list with invitations to tagged.

What you need to know

Here’s what you need to know about Tagged:

• Tagged is a legitimate social networking site started by Greg Tseng in 2004
• The company uses “viral” marketing techniques to gain new membership by harvesting email addresses when new users sign up
• While the site does not utilize malware, the tactics used by Tagged have led me to believe it should be avoided at all costs
• Since Tagged does not seem to use malware your computer should be safe, however your email address book is not

What can I do?

I strongly urge anyone to reconsider Tagged as their social networking site of choice.  If you have fallen victim to this ridiculous website, you can cancel by going here while signed in:  http://www.tagged.com/account_cancel.html and in the future ignore and delete all invites from tagged.

Alternatively you can click on the “account” link in the upper right side of your Tagged screen (you have to be logged in) and you can cancel your account from there.

I created a new email address (something like taggedsucks@aol.com heh heh…) so I could test out Tagged for myself.  From my experience the site is full of spam, false advertising, annoying advertising, an asinine interface, and nothing but trouble.  I was able to successfully cancel my account without much hassle which was amazing to say the least.

Expose it

If you have any experiences with Tagged, feel free to let me know in the comments section!  Also be sure to tell everyone you know to ignore email messages from Tagged.  We need to expose this website for the fraud it is.

Update: Istok Pavlovic has an excellent post on his blog with some insight and stats on the subject as well!

Yes, yes I do:
http://twitpic.com/5nsba

I was compelled to write a new blog post based on this recent article on Lifehacker.  It outlines some evidence from CNET and Dell that indicates Windows 7 retail pricing might be even higher than Vista or XP.  To be fair, Microsoft hasn’t said anything about Win 7 pricing yet, but this is what we have to go on.

If this turns out to be true, I will probably start a riot.  Here’s why:

• Windows 7 is what Windows Vista should have been.  Therefore, it should be given away for free or at least at a very low cost.
• In fact, I think Snow Leopard ( OS X 10.6) should be given away for free or at low cost as well.  These minor upgrades to our OSs do not justify hundreds of dollars in upgrade costs.
• In this economy, people are not going to want to spend money on an Operating System that costs more than OS X at $130 or Linux $0.
• I thought the pricing of Vista was too high, and if 7 is even higher, that will be cause for a riot.
• If Microsoft moves forward on this pricing plan, they will most certainly seal their fate as the big, bad, evil corporation everyone thinks they are.

So there you have it.  Just a few thoughts on this atrocity that has yet to come true.  I used to get really, really excited about new releases of Windows, but now it’s just sad.  Even Paul Thurrott thinks MS should dramatically reduce their prices.

Now that I know the power and flexibility of OS X and Linux, I can’t image paying a ton of money for Windows 7.  And Microsoft wonders why people hate them so much.  Why does a company with so many billions in profits need to overcharge consumers for an OS that has been losing its hold on the market for years.

Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 now available for download

Please note: Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 is a public preview release intended for developer testing and community feedback. It includes many new features as well as improvements to performance, web compatibility, and speed. We recommend that you read the release notes and known issues before installing this beta.

Firefox 3.5 (formerly known as Firefox 3.1) Beta 4 is now available for download. This milestone is focused on testing the core functionality provided by many new features and changes to the platform scheduled for Firefox 3.5. Ongoing planning for Firefox 3.5 can be followed at the Firefox 3.5 Planning Center, as well as in mozilla.dev.planning and on irc.mozilla.org in #shiretoko.

New features and changes in this milestone that require feedback include:

• This beta is now available in 70 languages – get your local version.
• Improved tools for controlling your private data, including a Private Browsing Mode.
• Better performance and stability with the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine.
• The ability to provide Location Aware Browsing using web standards for geolocation.
• Support for native JSON, and web worker threads.
• Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering.
• Support for new web technologies such as: HTML5 <video> and <audio> elements, downloadable fonts and other new CSS properties, JavaScript query selectors, HTML5 offline data storage for applications, and SVG transforms.

Testers can download Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 builds for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux in 70 different languages. Developers should also read the Firefox 3.5 for Developers article on the Mozilla Developer Center.

Note: Please do not link directly to the download site. Instead we strongly encourage you to link to this Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 milestone announcement so that everyone will know what this milestone is, what they should expect, and who should be downloading to participate in testing at this stage of development.

via Mozilla Dev News

http://ed.agadak.net/2008/07/firefox-31-restricts-matches-keywords

I purchased a brand new AMD Phenom 9850 Black Edition CPU a few days ago and I’ll be upgrading my PC with it on Wednesday.  I will document the procedure and post a mini-tutorial on here.  Should be fun.

Here are the specs on my current CPU vs my new Phenom CPU:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Windsor 2.4GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 89W Dual-Core Processor

• Socket AM2
• Dual-core
• 2.4 GHz
• 90 nm

AMD Phenom 9850 BLACK EDITION 2.5GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 2MB L3 Cache Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Processor

• Socket AM2+
• Quad-core
• 2.5 GHz
• 65 nm