William Computer Blog

Firecat is a replacement icon for Mozilla Firefox. The icon depicts an orange cat playing with a ball. The icon is available for both Windows and Mac OS X. Cute, isn’t it?

A new version of Mozilla Firefox web browser is out today. With this new major update, Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird also have a new site with new design, the new website is located at http://www.mozilla.com/.

I downloaded and installed Firefox 1.5 without any problem. Firefox 1.5 is faster, everything works without problems except for SessionSaver extensions. I can feel the improvement in speed when using the back and forward buttons.

If you visit some non-existing site such as aeajkfieasfe.com you can see a better and more descriptive error page (see screenshot). This is a very nice feature taken from the popular Mozilla based browser with mac style, Camino.

There is a new security feature I found very useful to protect your privacy called Clear Private Data. This feature provides an easy way to quickly remove personal data through a menu item or keyboard shortcut. I used to remove personal data through the Web Developer extension.

I’m not sure what the new improvement for pop-up blocker does. I think this feature is an improvement to block pop-up ad using flash.

You can now report broken website from the menu “Help > Report broken Website”. This tool allows you to tell the evangelism team about web sites that do not work properly in Firefox or shut Firefox out.

Mozilla Firefox 1.5 have better support for web standards. New support for Web Standards including SVG, CSS 2 and CSS 3, and JavaScript 1.6.

Mozilla Firefox also have better support for XML. Read the IBM Developersworks article on XML in Firefox 1.5 if you wish to know more.

Firefox 1.5 is available today! Go download and install it. If you want to know more, there is a detailed list of new features and bug fixes.

If you want to give Ruby a try but you are too lazy to install ruby on your computer, then you should use Try Ruby.

Try Ruby is a web-based Ruby prompt powered by AJAX. You can try out Ruby code in the prompt. If you want to get started in Ruby then I suggest you read Programming Ruby Online Book.

CNet Download.com have some tips for tweaking iTunes.

It’s a two part article containing tips and tricks on using iTunes and some really cool add-ons you can install to get the most out of the Jukebox.

Xbox 360, the next generation of video game console from Microsoft is out.

Some links about the Xbox 360:

• BBC News | Technology | US Gamers lay hands on Xbox 360
• Xbox 360 Fanboy, members of the Weblogs Inc Network
• Engadget: Xbox 360 coverage roundup
• C|Net news.com coverage on Xbox 360

IGN.com have a list of Top 10 reasons to buy an Xbox 360.

I went to EBGames store in Sydney and asked when the Xbox 360 will come out in Australia, the lady in the store said it might come next year.

If you use Wikipedia regularly, then you would love to use this AJAX-based Wikipedia with Lumrix search. Just like Google Suggest, Wikipedia search with Lumrix will give you search suggestion as you type.

I won’t be using this wikipedia searcch a lot because I use Firefox smart keywords to search Wikipedia, using the keyword wiki. So, whenever I need to search wikipedia I only need to type “wiki Search Terms”.

Update: Woops, I forgot to actually link the Wikipedia with LuMriX.

AJAX gone mobile with Opera Platform. Opera Platform is a powerful and flexible framework for mobile phones.

It enables Asynchronous JavaScript and XML or AJAX applications on mobile phones. Existing web application such as flickr can be adapted to fit on the phone.

CSSVista is a free Windows application for web developers which lets you edit your CSS code live in both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox simultaneously.

Instant Domain Search is an AJAX domain name search tool. You can start using it to search for new domain, and get the results will appear instantly.

There is a link to yahoo.com and register.com if the domain name you search is available for registration. If there domain you search is not available, there is a link to yahoo.com suggestion and a link to whois the domain.

A very useful tool for people who are looking for a new domain name.

According to Whirlpool, Optus has finally launched 3G service in Australia. Optus now competes with other major mobile phone operators such as Telstra, Vodafone, and Hutchison Telecommunications (3). Now, every major mobile operators in Australia are offering 3G services.

Similar to 3 you can watch news from SBS, ABC, CNN and download music. Optus also work with NineMSN to provide instant messaging service. For $5.95/monthly you can use unlimited Instant Messaging.

Talk about 3G, Nokia N70 looks very cool!

Yesterday, I switched from Optus to 3. 3 is a 3G provider so I had to choose a 3G phone.

I decided to get the Sony Ericsson k608i. The phone user interface and icon based menu is similar to Sony Ericsson w800i and k750i. The user interface is very beautiful, very eye-candy user interface.

There are some negative comments about the keypad eventhough I think the keypad are fine. I have a problem with the joystick though because my hand is huge. Sometimes when I want to middle-click the joystick, it clicks upward/downward instead. It may take a while for me to get used to it.

Camera

Just like Nokia 6680, the 3G smart-phone. SE k608i also has two cameras. The front camera is for video calling. When you turn the phone over, it has a 1.3 megapixel camera. You can use the back camera for taking pictures and recording video. When you’re on video call you can also use the back camera to show the person you’re talking to the image you’re taking with the back camera.

The 1.3 megapixel camera does not have any zoom function, not even a digital zooming. However, zooming function is available during video calling. You can zoom both using the back and front camera.

The size of the pictures taken from the digital camera is Large (1280 x 1024), Medium (640x480), Small (160x120). The camera provide different shoot mode such as Normal, Panorama, Frames, and burst. There is also night mode.

Anyway, here’s some shots I took using the photo if you wanna know the quality:

The Logitech MX1000 mouse

Not only the web is powered by AJAX, my toilet too!

Storage

One of the biggest disadvantage of this phone is it only provide 32 MB built-in memory. Unlike the other two sony ericsson phone (k750i/w800i) you cannot extend the storage using memory stick. 32MB is enough to store the photos, but you can only store very little amount of music.

Connectivity and Synchronization

You can connect the phone to the computer using bluetooth, infrared, or supplied USB cable. I connected the phone to my PC running Windows XP via USB. You can use the Sony Ericsson File Manager from the desktop to transfer files from/to your PC. Transferring a photo sized 1.5 MB from the phone to the PC took a few minutes. You can also synchronize Microsoft Outlook contacts to the phone. However, I do not store my contacts on Microsoft Outlook. Moving on to my choice of operating system now, Mac OS X.

On Mac OS X, the Sony Ericsson k608i is unable to synchronize with Mac OS X via the USB connection. However, you can transfer files wirelessly using Bluetooth if your Mac have a bluetooth module installed. To transfer files between the Mac and the phone, a utility called Bluetooth File Exchange is available on Mac OS X.

Mobile broadband

The phone can be used as a wireless modem for your laptop computers or PDA. By connecting your 3 phone to your laptop, you can connect to the internet almost at anytime anywhere. It is very pricey though compare to normal broadband prices. You can checkout the bandwidth price from 3’s website.

Media player

The media player can play music and videos. The sound quality of the phone when listening to music is okay. The media player has equalizer with a few presets such as Bass, Mega Bass, Voice, and Treble Boost.

The quality of video playback is also good. Three offers many video download services such as movie trailers, news, adult videos, television. I haven’t tried those services, but I’ve played a small video clip included with the phone.

Just like standard mobile phones, this phone also have a radio tuner with the headset acting as the antenna. Since the phone only have built-in 32MB and there is no way to expand the storage, listening to radio is also a good option.

Email

Checking my e-mail is very easy from the phone. It supports both the IMAP and POP3 protocol with encryption. With 3, receiving mail is free while sending an e-mail from the phone cost $0.20. A free three email account is given to every customers.

Conclusion

I love my new phone. The phone’s design is nice, it has a nice user interface with beautiful icons. The phone memory is enough for me, the phone hasn’t replaced my digital camera or the iPod. So I don’t plan on keeping a lot of photos or music in it.

FreeBSD project announced the availability of FreeBSD 6.0-RELEASE. According to the announcement, there are some improvement to this release. These improvements are:

• Significant performance improvements to the filesystem and direct disk access layers of the OS. The filesystem is now multithreaded and can take full advantage of multiple CPU systems.
• Expanded support for wireless networking adapters and new support for the WPA wireless security protocol.
• Experimental support for the PowerPC platform.

I don’t plan on upgrading FreeBSD 6.0 on my server. I like the way things are right now, and I have no time to upgrade.

GNOME 2.12 and KDE 3.4.3 have been merged into the port tree. You can now install both gnome and kde from the ports. If you want to upgrade your current gnome please don’t use portupgrade because the build will fail. For more information visit GNOME Upgrade FAQ

Mac OS X 10.4.3 is out and available for download via Software Update or stand alone installer. This version improved many things and is recommended for users of mac os x tiger. For more information about this release, please http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301984.

The major feature for me is Safari browser now passed the Acid2 test. Acid2 is a test page, written to help browser vendors ensure proper support for web standards in their products.

Eventhough I don’t use iChat, iChat can automatically encrypt my text, audio, and video chats with other .Mac subscribers who have also enabled encryption.

Paul Stamatiou wrote a HOW TO setup RoundCube webmail on your server. I decided to write the same HOWTO on setting up Roundcube on FreeBSD. RoundCube is a PHP/MySQL based webmail system with AJAX.