scattered technology news

Software Up-Dates (3) - July 20, 2005

1) Firefox & Thunderbird 1.0.6 - Mozilla released another update for both Firefox and Thunderbird making both programs v1.0.6. They released such a quick update because v1.0.5 contained a buggy API, which didn’t allow many extensions to function properly. Only update if your extensions aren’t working, but there aren’t any other updates since 1.0.5.
Link: Mozilla.org | Firefox (changelog) | Thunderbird (changelog)
Related: Firefox and Thunerbird 1.0.5

2) MSN Messenger v7.5 BETA - Microsoft is currently testing a major update to the current v7.0. Some new features include voice clips (15-sec clips), new sign-on screen (sign on invisibly), and re-named buttons. This doesn’t say much, but they most likely also fixing major security flaws and bugs even though they haven’t announced any more yet.
Link: MSN Messenger | BETA News
Related: Gaim | Trillian

3) AOL Explorer 1.1… (BETA) AOL is working on a web browser to compete with IE, Firefox, and Mozilla. It currently includes a pop-up blocker, spyware scanner, tabbed browsing and a desktop search. I highly doubt this will become popular, they are just trying to get into the desktop search field, which Google, MSN, and Yahoo! are already in, and also going for a brand new browser, which IE makes up about 90% (FF is about 10%).
Link: AOL Explorer BETA | BETA News
Related: AOL Media Player | AIM Trition

4) Google Earth FREE Edition 3.0… BETA is out. This is an update to the previous version that had a few bugs. It is an amazing program, which should be installed by everyone. It had 3D images of many major cities and is gathering more and more satellite images from around the world every day! Google Maps also now covers more maps from around the world.
Link: Google Earth | Google Maps
Related: Google Labs | GlobeXplorer

5) QuickTime 7.0 Windows Public Preview 2 is now available. Apple has fixed many bugs since pre-1. It’s most important feature is the ability to play H.264, a video codec, which allows playing HD level content at low data rates. The file size is also suppost to be smaller than other formats of HD.
Link: Apple Quicktime | Windows Preview 2
Related: iTunes 4.9 w/ Podcasting Support

Note: (if you don’t already know) 2day is another FREE SKYPEOUT DAY