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Tuesday 30 June 2009

Mozilla Firefox 3.5

Just today (30th June) Mozilla has posted the next, and one of the most anticipated, release to their multi-award winning browser, Firefox 3.5. It's fully out of the Beta and Release Candidate stages of its life, and is now on the road to the end. The road that will eventually mean it joins its predecessors, in the Recycle bin, ready to be finally deleted and replaced with the next, even better version. However, we don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves, we've only just found out 3.5 is released.

Despite the fact I haven't tested/installed it as yet (the update is not just yet ready for Ubuntu, though I could download a replacement if I wanted, I don't), I have looked at the complete New features list (here, if you wanted) and it looks very feature rich. So much so, it seems to be competing highly with the other main browsers (Safari, Chrome, Opera, IE). For example, it has now introduced the Private Browsing feature (still keeping the Delete Browsing History of course), just weeks after Safari 4 was released with this feature. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Anyhoo, I do think it is worth installing, seeing as many bugs have been squashed and *almost* every new add-on and extension that is going to be made in the future (until the next release), will struggle to be compatible with the previous version. Not only that, but this version has a really persuasive video to go with it, nothing like videos from previous versions...


Firefox 3.5 is available for all 3 of the major OSs (Windows, Mac and Linux) and in over 70 languages. Get YOUR firefox HERE!


In other news: I think I'm going to do a new video on Friday (hopefully, possibly not :(, and I'm still looking for that video editor with MP4 support. If anyone knows of one, give me a shout. Not sure when QuickTime X will be released, that will obviously give MP4 support...

For now,
Yours,
Ratscallion

Friday 19 June 2009

Bit of a problem...

Hello.
I have a bit of a problem this week: I have been really busy with school work and the lark, and haven't had much time for video editing etc. However, I have a plan up my sleeve! Seeing as I have been using Ubuntu a lot recently, (9.04) I can probably find some video editor in the repositories that supports mp4. I'll keep you posted with the latest news!

For now,
Yours,
Ratscallion

Tuesday 9 June 2009

Video: Safari 4 Beta, New Improvements and Changes

Hi!

Here is the video that I have been planning for some time: The new features in Safari 4

To get Safari 4, the world’s fastest browser, from Apple, just go here. The download will take a matter of minutes on an average broadband connection and the install will be around the same. The installation is the same as any other program, almost completely automated, just click next, next (a few more times) and let it install. You may need to change a few things though!

Safari 4 (full version) is deceptively similar to its predecessors, however there are many differences that can be discovered in minutes. These include cover flow bookmarks: Organise your bookmarks into folders and browse through them with Cover Flow, just like in iTunes. Not only that, but in the same interface of the  bookmarks you can search through either your bookmarks but you have the option of searching through EVERYTHING recorded in Safari. Safari also acts as an RSS reader, simply click on the RSS button in the address bar (when it’s available) and save it as a bookmark. This feed will update automatically and notify you when you have an update. There are LOADS (150 in total!!) of new features in Safari 4, just go here to view them all, courtesy of Apple.

In Other News: I’m going to try and get the Google I/O sorted ASAP. Whether ASAP is tomorrow, or next month, it will be soon. Furthermore, there’s an article coming up, but I’m not going to tell you. I am VERY excited about it, and the release of the item I’m describing. That was a hint, here’s another: It’s from Google…

For now,

Yours,

Ratscallion

 

Apple Wordwide Developer Conference June 2009

Hello again.

This June it is time once again to welcome the Apple Developer Conference. Unfortunately, I was unable to be able to go to one of the biggest tech events of the year. Instead, I got the live feed which was constantly being updated throughout the event second by second.

Prior to the event, many sites and forums compiled a list of things that would be introduced or changed in the event, here are some of those items:

  • Mac OS X Snow Leopard will be released
  • A new iPhone will be released
  • iPhone and iPod Touch OS 3.0 will be released
  • New versions of LOADS of Apple software will be updated and released
  • New Mac Books will be released with the possibility of 3G

These were just some of the many items that sites were rumouring Apple would release on Monday 18th June. Many, if not all of these sites were completely right when they made these guesses. In fact, ALL of the guesses I mentioned were released by Apple at the event. Here comes a more in-depth explanation of what was released at the event.

  • Mac OS X Snow leopard – The new operating system for ALL Macs has been released for the rip off price for the whole OS is a mere $29. There have been loads of changes including 3D Rendering on the Dock; Exposé on the Dock; the install frees up 6GB of Disk Space; The installation is 45% faster; and JPEGS and PDFs load over 1.5% quicker.
  • A new iPhone – The new iPhone has been called the iPhone 3G S, S for Speed. It has double the RAM and a huge processor. Not only that but it can go up to 32GB, unfortunately, the S is not available with the 8GB.
  • iPhone OS 3.0 - As mentioned in the iPhone SDK video a few months ago, many of the features listed in this video were echoed in the demo at WWDC. In case you managed to miss BOTH of these events, here is a quick run through of many of these features: Landscape keyboard in loads of apps including notes and mail, cut, copy, paste and undo, Peer to Peer game and app sharing, in app subscriptions. Just available for iPhone: Push notifications, Find my iPhone, a feature to track your iPhone and also wipe it remotely with a password if you lose it. With Find my iPhone, iTunes will automatically back-up the contents of your iPhone. OS 3.0 will be released on June 19th 2009.
  • New versions of LOADS of software – Quick Time is being updated from Quick Time 7 to Quick Time X (10). I think we all need a moment to think about what would be in 8 and 9 if they were ever to be released… OK, that done, we can now just take a small look at the new features in Quick Time X when it will be released: Users will be able to to basic video editing in Quick Time (time line) without having to go into iLife and other programs; It will act more like the iTunes video player as the controls (and title bar on a Mac, not sure about Windows) will all disappear when the mouse is not hovering/moving. There are loads of other features including the completely new UI and icon. Not only that, but the WWDC did not mention anything about the differences between the Pro and free versions, nor the price of the Pro. This has made many people (including myself) simply assume that Quick Time X and Apple have dropped the pro feature and all the features will be available in one free version. Furthermore, Apple have completely re-written the WHOLE of the Finder, this time in Cocoa allowing loads more possibilities. Despite this, the UI is the same, it just has a few more features. Finally, Safari 4 is being publicly taken out of Beta and the full version is being released. The main new features in Safari 4 will be explained in my video when it is released in a few days.
  • Finally, ALL the Mac Books have been completely revamped. They all have a brand new display and the Apple lithium battery offering over 500 charges and 7 hours of battery life. Not only that, but all of the Mac Books have been turned into a Mac Book Pro, making a series of 3 different Mac Book Pros and only one Mac Book: The one with the plastic back. Not only that, but all Mac Book Pros now have some very good new features: the already mentioned battery, screen and graphics cards; the fire wire 800 port has returned; an SD card slot has been added; and the processor count has shot up, most of the MBPs (15 and 17”) now have 3 different varieties, with the processor going up to over 3Ghz. Unfortunately, there were no hopes of a 3G Mac Book, so that idea goes out the window for the time being.

As you can see, this year’s WWDC was a big and important one for many Apple enthusiasts, though many things that were rumoured were not included:

  • Steve Jobs (former Apple CEO until his ‘sick leave’) did not make an appearance which was very unexpected as his Wikipedia Page states that Jobs: “announced a six-month leave of absence until the end of June 2009 to allow him to better focus on his health”
  • There were no updates to any of the other iPods other than the Touch and iPhone, suspected rumours included the Nano getting a camera and updates to the shuffle also.

Other than this, the Keynote went down a treat. Everyone just hopes that the next Keynote from Apple will be even better.

In Other News: The Safari video is almost ready, just a final bit of editing to go. The Google I/O video will be taking a while as I cannot find a video editor compatible with MP4, any advice is welcome. However, Quick Time X WILL be able to do this in the video cropping feature, when it is released, so I may be testing that, in which case another article will be done on that.

For now,

Yours,

Ratscallion

Wednesday 3 June 2009

Twitter and Digg

This post has been Edited, please see the bold parts and below for the new version of this post. Thank you.
Bit of bad news now. Unfortunately, the ReTweet and Digg buttons have all stopped working for the blog at the moment. Therefore, there will be no more ReTweet or Digg buttons until further notice. I will also edit the the sidebar gadget explaining this change. Sorry for any invonvenience caused in this problem. However, if anyone has any ideas about how I can get these buttons back and working, I am open to ALL ideas. Feel free to add these ideas to the comments!

EDIT: Please note, this issue is only because of the NoScript Add-on that is available for Mozilla Firefox. If you can NOT see the buttons and have the NoScript Add-on installed, please allow blogger.com (any scripts on the blog), tweetmeme.com(Retweet button), digg.com (Digg button) and ubuntu.com (for the Ubuntu 9.04 ad I put on) to be able to see the buttons. Thank you.For now,
Yours,
Ratscallion

What’s coming up…

Just going to say what I’m going to be doing in the next few weeks:

As many are probably aware, Google has announced that their new service: Google Wave, it has been launched in the development stage. Meaning that only developers that sign up for the Sandbox can only use it, and for developing only. Google say that the first public version will be released “later this year,” that could mean tomorrow, or December.

Before I do my big article about my thoughts and whatnot, I think I’ll just let you know that because I haven’t done a video for sometime, I’m going to do one about Wave. None of it will be my own work, I’ll simply use the Google I/O Developer Presentation, which is over 1 hour 20 long, and cut it down to produce the highlights. This will then be published as my next video both here and YouTube.

In other news: The Safari 4 video may have to turn into an article as I haven’t had the time for the recording of a video, need silence, hardly ever happens in my house!

For now,

Yours,

Ratscallion

A brief Introductory Video to RATSCALLION