Firefox users have been waiting for this one!  Mozilla has announced that June 30th will see the release of the newest version of their popular browser, complete with a whole mess of new features, including HTML5 support, private browsing (which Google’s Chrome has sported for some time now), and a brand new JavaScript engine.  Head on over to Mozilla’s Firefox 3.5 page to see some more details, or take a look at their release video:

(Main image courtesy of Mozilla)

Sick of dealing with Vista?  Stoked for getting a hold of Windows 7 this December?  Looks like Microsoft is going to hook you up!  TechARP is reporting that Microsoft will be offering a free upgrade program for Vista users to step it up to Windows 7.

The draft of the program in its current incarnation states that the purpose is for the sake of the OEM partners, to help in “minimizing the number of end users who may postpone acquiring a new computer because of the impending release of the Windows 7 operating system.”

There are, of course, rules that apply for one to be aligible for the free upgrade.  You can read the proposal for the program here.

The monstrous computer will take up 96 racks, and fully make use of 1.6 million processors.  Mostly, it will be used for environmental purposes, ranging from nuclear waste disposal to climate change and energy conservation.

It looks like Cox is taking a cue from Comcast and stepping into the realm of bandwidth discrimination. The carrier just announced that they will be making some big changes to their data management policies, stating a new technology that will give priority to “time-sensitive” data, such as web pages, video and online games, while leaving “downloads, software updates and other non-time sensitive data” in the proverbial dust. Obviously, this targets P2P sharing programs, BitTorrent downloads, and all that other questionable stuff that Comcast was ordered to stop throttling.

You can read Cox’s Congestion Management FAQ , which explains – in little detail – how the testing will work, and subtly how they hope to avoid getting slapped by the FCC like Comcast did.

At least for now, Cox is only going to be testing this in Kansas and Arkansas, but they do make this sound like a nation-wide ambition.

When your browser windows opens, the first page displayed is called the “Home Page”. Most folks will set this to their email provider’s web portal, their favorite news site, or often leave it as the particular browser’s default page, i.e. MSN.

Arguably, one of the best features of modern browsers is the use of tabbed browsing, or opening multiple pages in the same browser window, which can be switched using a series of tabs at the top of the window. I’m sure most of you are aware of this feature, which can save a lot of time and desktop real estate.

Something many do not know about tabbed browsing is the ability to open multiple tabbed pages when the browser starts, in essence having more than one home page. For example, this is handy if you want to have available your web-based email, a search page and your social network of choice when your browser first opens.

In Internet Explorer, this is a very easy setting to configure. First, open each page you wish to use as a home page in a separate tab. Next, select Tools -> Internet Options. Here, the first option under the General settings is that of the home page. Just click the Use Current button, and click Okay. Once you close your browser and reopen it, you will be greeted with all the pages you selected.

In Firefox, the steps are essentially the same. Open up a bunch of tabs you want to use, then from the Tools menu, select Options. Under the Main settings, click the Use Current Pages button, hit Okay, then close and reopen the browser. That’s all there is to it!

GMail Backup is a free utility you can use to archive your GMail account to your local computer using GMail IMAP support. You can even use it to restore your GMail messages in the event of loss.

The software is available cross-platform, so Windows users can take advantage of it as well as MacOS and Linux users. Unfortunately, only the Windows version uses a graphical user interface (GUI), whereas the MacOS and Linux versions are command line only.

The program saves the messages in Microsoft’s .EML format, which can allow you to browse them offline. You can even upload the archive to another GMail account, making it simple to move your mail from one account to another.

Link: Gmail Backup

Google has now made it easy to view these files, even if you don’t have Office 2007. Simply email the offending .DOCX file to your Gmail account, open the message, and select View As HTML next to the attachment. You’ll be able to see the contents of the file, and do what you will with the text and whatnot.

Link: View Office Open XML files as HTML

I’ve become quite fond of applications that allow me to display information on my Windows desktop. Here’s another one for you-

DeskTask will take your Outlook events, such as calendar entries and tasks, and display them as text on your desktop. Simply minimize your windows (or hit that nifty Show Desktop icon in your Quick Launch bar), and you can see a week’s worth of events without having to switch to – or even open – Outlook.

The software is freeware, so it’ll cost you nothing but a few minutes to install. Thus far, it will only work with Windows NT/2000 and XP (you can use it in Vista if you disable the Aero interface theme), and has been tested with Outlook 2000, XP, 2003, and 2007.

Download: DeskTask (Carthago Software)

via Wired Top Stories by Tony Long on 9/18/08

1982: At precisely 11:44 a.m., Scott Fahlman posts the following electronic message to a computer-science department bulletin board at Carnegie Mellon University:

19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-)
From: Scott E Fahlman

I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:

:-)

Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use:

:-(

With that post, Fahlman became the acknowledged originator of the ASCII-based emoticon. From those two simple emoticons (a portmanteau combining the words emotion and icon) have sprung dozens of others that are the joy, or bane, of e-mail, text-message and instant-message correspondence the world over.

Fahlman was not, however, the first person to use typographical symbols to convey emotions. The practice goes back at least to the mid-19th century, when Morse code symbols were occasionally used for the same purpose. Other examples exist as well.

In 1881, the American satirical magazine Puck published what we would now call emoticons, using hand-set type. No less a wordsmith than Ambrose Bierce suggested using what he called a “snigger point” – \__/ – to convey jocularity or irony.

But the modern emoticon does trace its lineage directly to Fahlman, who says he came up with the idea after reading “lengthy diatribes” from people on the message board who failed to get the joke or the sarcasm in a particular post — which is probably what “given current trends” refers to in his own, now-famous missive.

To remedy this, Fahlman suggested using :-) and :-( to distinguish between posts that should be taken humorously and those of a more serious nature.

Fahlman’s original post was lost for a couple of decades and believed gone for good, until it was retrieved from an old backup tape, thus cementing his claim of priority.

Source: Various

Samurize is a robust and versatile utility you can use to embed information on your desktop. You can have everything from a stylized clock to RAM to CPU statistics, an embedded text file to controls for your media player of choice.

The program creates .INI files which are used as configuration, displaying your chosen information on the desktop. You can create and edit these configurations from the Config Editor, which gives you a desktop template for you to play with. You can add system meters, pictures and text to your hearts content, placing them wherever you want.

At first glance, the configuration editor can seem a bit daunting. After all, you can do so much but you start with nothing. Luckily, the Samurize web site offers plenty of pre-made configurations for download, which usually take only a minimal amount of tweaking to fit your needs, as well as some handy tutorials on making your own configurations.

I use Samurize as a replacement for the Windows Vista Sidebar, mainly because of its comparatively low memory use and the fact that it is much more customizable. You can see in the above screen shot the different stats I have readily available; a system clock in both digital and analog, CPU and RAM meters, a hard drive space indicator, battery life bar, bandwidth usage stats, and a to-do list which I edit using an external text file.

You can download Samurize but be sure to check out their other downloads and head over to Deviant Art for some great configuration ideas.