November 2005 - Posts

FireFox v1.5 Released!

Finally the long awaited v1.5 of FireFox is out.

Latest Changes:
  • Automated update to streamline product upgrades
  • Faster browser navigation with improvements to back and forward button performance
  • Drag and drop reordering for browser tabs
  • Improvements to popup blocking
  • Clear Private Data feature provides an easy way to quickly remove personal data through a menu item or keyboard shortcut
  • Answers.com is added to the search engine list
  • Improvements to product usability including descriptive error pages, redesigned options menu, RSS discovery, and "Safe Mode" experience
  • Better accessibility including support for DHTML accessibility and assistive technologies such as the Window-Eyes 5.5 beta screen reader for Microsoft Windows. Screen readers read aloud all available information in applications and documents or show the i
  • Report a broken Web site wizard to report Web sites that are not working in Firefox
  • Better support for Mac OS X (10.2 and greater) including profile migration from Safari and Mac Internet Explorer
  • New support for Web Standards including SVG, CSS 2 and CSS 3, and JavaScript 1.6
  • Many security enhancements
Download:
Mozilla Firefox for Windows 1.5 Final | Linux | Mac OS X

While I do confess to using Firefox these days, I still am not happy that it eats up Memory like no tomorrow (and constant leaks), surely someone should be fixing this? (ACID II test still fails). However, bravo to the Mozilla guys:-)

PHP: PHP 5.1 Out!

Finally after almost a year and a wee bit more PHP 5.1 is out! Lots and lots of changes, recommended to Download, test and deploy

MyToys : Canon S80 Digital Camera

Another new section:-) MyToys will have some of the new stuff I tend to buy every so often, some good, some bad and maybe a few with reviews.

First up is the spank-me-I'm-sexy (the camera not me!) Canon S80 Digital Camera. I've survived with the Kodak DX3600 for almost 3 years now (I'm not much of a photo-guy!).
Canon S80
Reviews Online Approximate Price (AUD): $677-829 (23/11/2005) [ Bought For: $729 from CameraWorld ]
Experience:
Yet to use the product, however I was in a rush to buy this and not many places had stock, so I went with Camera world. Otherwise I would have considered I-Store($709) or BozCorpTech($689). Canon unfortunately wont have these back in Australia until *cough* end-of-november (but more likely end of December + some time for Customs to get their act = mid-January)

Why Buy?
We're off on a bit of a roadtrip in december and it was about time I get a camera (plus the motorshow is coming up). I was originally wanting the S70 but moved over to S80 after seeing the model at Teds Cameras, its 8MP and has some very very sweet quality images, video (although you'd want a seperate one for video) can be done properly in this model with a high-definition output (limited) and finally the new processor (Dig!c II) has got some very nice features... read the reviews online for some more info!

Visual Studio 2005 Launch Thursday!

I'll be at the Visual Studio 2005 launch tomorrow (thursday) in Melbourne (Sofitel Hotel on Colins street) so I'll take some Photos then and upload them. I'm stuck with the default 32Mb card because the 2Gb card I ordered didnt arrive earlier:(

Spam, how much does it cost you? (Bandwidth and Time?)

Shock and horror when I checked our catchall account today, our mailservers are being hammered with emails constantly the past 4hrs. After looking up some stats I realised how big this problem is (atleast on the wsoftware domain)...

How much does Spam cost you?

The above is how much emails have just come through (each about 75-78kb in size) all to spoofed accounts - catchall - and whilst others to registered accounts - not shown - in the period of (the past) around 3-4Hrs. Thats over 500Mb of FAQING SPAM.

How much does spam cost you?

Consider the following:
  • How much bandwidth is lost because of SPAM?
  • How much time is wasted whilst you sort through SPAM, or the 'Junk mail folder' looking for non-spam?
Its bound to cost you a bit (even webmail users!), so stand up... if you know of or see a spammer humiliate them, urinate on them and dont forget to get a big stick and poke them in the eye and keep stabbing them with the pointy edge (better yet get a nail gun and go nuts!). The more pain the better, let em suffer!

But leave the innocent ones alone.

COOL TOOL: New Computer or car? Well what about both with Compucar? Patent pending... *wink*

That's right! Your computer can now look like a car. Compucar has developed the world's FIRST and ONLY desktop computer that looks like a car. Each Compucar is manufactured with only the BEST computer components. Compucar uses the same name brand components you will find in computers manufactured by companies such as: Dell, HP, Compaq, Sony, and Toshiba. We have spared no expense in creating the ultimate desktop computer.
Ingenius idea, stick a computer into a model of a car. So simple, no fugly beige cases... just cool looking cars....

The outside:


Under the "hood":


Believe it or not, it can run a 3.8Ghz(atleast thats what they claim) and all via a 200W silent PSU. Read more on the site!

ActiveSync v4.1 Released (Still no network sync!)

Overview

ActiveSync® 4.1 is the latest sync software release for Windows Mobile 5.0-based devices.

Microsoft ActiveSync provides a great synchronization experience with Windows®-based PCs and Microsoft Outlook right out of the box. ActiveSync acts as the gateway between your Windows-based PC and Windows Mobile-based device, enabling the transfer of Outlook information, Office documents, pictures, music, videos and applications from your desktop to your device. In addition to synchronizing with a desktop PC, ActiveSync can synchronize directly with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 so that you can keep your e-mail, calendar data, notes and contact information updated wirelessly when you’re away from your PC.*

New features include:
• New partnership wizard to help customers more easily setup a sync partnership
• Faster transfer of data files including media
• Ability to sync photos assigned to contacts from Outlook on the desktop

ActiveSync 4.1 supports PC sync via USB cable, Bluetooth, or infrared connection.

However...

Still no network synchronisation and no sign of the Backup utility:(

Download ActiveSync v4.1

Vista, Graphics and Requirements PLUS Network Cabling, from spaghetti cables to nice and neat!

Too many people are already dissing Windows Vista even before its launch (Just like XP or Whistler earlier), we have big companies saying wait till 2008, others freaking out that they'll switch to other OS's simply because they dont need Vista (or maybe because of their iPod - haha!) but the fact that the matter is, hardware will get more powerful (We still have DDR III, Dual-Core to be "the norm" and innovative graphic cards - next generation) to come around, and when it comes, you'd want something (such as Vista) to make the most of it. Not only that, the pricing for what we buy now, in a years time will be alot less, and more than likely companies like ATI/NVIDIA will be trying to squeeze as much perf as they can with their Chips.

With that thought, heres an article from George Ou that details a summary look of requirements for Vista (with various desktop configs) graphics wise.


Can you clean this up?

Also, another post about network cabling going from plain ridiculus  to nice and neat... its an amazing make over (Oprah-style)...



In short, sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. Worry about whether you'll upgrade atleast in the middle of 2006 (or when Beta 2 hits) when you can get a clearer image of what Vista is.

COOL TOOL: RootKit Hook Analyzer

After the recent news of Evil Sony inserting rootkits into peoples machines I've been pretty careful about what I install from those pesky recording companies, I usually avoid installing anything that comes on DVDs (you know like InterVideo stuff or "Extra fun bits" that you need your PC) who knows what kind of crap gets loaded?

Well heres another tool called RootKit Hook Analyzerthat does similar things to the SysInternals tool, however the RkHA one is quite a bit faster and reveals a little more (on my system anyway).

If your interested in delving deeper (alot deeper) into Rootkits take a look at the book Rootkits: Subverting the Windows Kernel which goes into depth about this topic, while your there grab a copy of Windows Internals 4th Edition, by far *THE* reference for Windows "Internals"... Cant wait till the 5th Edition goes into Vista:-)

Office 12 Beta goes live JIT after my exams are finished!

Today is such a happy day... my last exam ended 2 hours ago & just in time for the release of Office 12 Beta. If your a tester go download it from Beta Place. Another email contains the Product Keys that should be kept Hush Hush;-)
Welcome to the Microsoft® Office "12" Technical Beta program. 
We're looking forward to working with you to make this the best version
of Microsoft Office ever, and this Technical Beta represents an
important milestone on the road to shipping a great product.
for the moment though... time to partaye..

Dell's hidden treasures (Outlet) and new group buys for Dell 2405FPW

Came across a little "easter Egg" on Dell's site, its tucked away where hardly many will actually find it - not sure why - but its Dell Outlet. They've got stuff preconfigured (Most of them have very low or no warranties) and prices are quite low. Check it out, maybe something to impress the inlaw's with for Christmas...?

Group buys with Dell & Other Products

Some of you may recall the Group buy I had going with Dell for the Dell 2405FPW LCD a while ago (most of it - for historical purposes - is still surviving on Anindha's website) but now people have taken it a step further with BulkBuyer (for Australians only). They managed to get the 2405FPW down to $1295 (compared to the measly $1400 I managed) and not only that they've got some funky new offerings (X-Fi and antoher 2405FPW going!) So if your in the market, go see if its already in a group buy and contribute:-)

Disassembling Maui X-Stream (Aka the guys behind CherryOS)

Heres an article i read a while ago but misplaced the URL for, it goes indepth into the inner workings of Maui X-Stream, the company who (momentarily) claimed to have a working OS X Emulator (remember CherryOS?) which has since been called a phoney.

Its long and indepth but the quality of the research is amazing, bravo to Michael Bell for the investigations:-)

On an alternate note, heres how to properly run OS X on x86.

The most kick ass website's ever! (Theme of Windows 2000!)

Stumbled apon Oma Al Zabir's website today and went... WHAT THE FAQ? (in a good way)... In all my years I've *NEVER* seen such a great "Web APPlication"... dont keep reading my useless blabber...

Visit the site. ( NOTE: Internet Explorer is required, forget the browser wars... this is worth seeing!)

Omar mate, thats insanely good looking, not only that but very funky javascripting! Bravo dude! His SmartUML tool is very useful and I've switched to using his RSSFeeder as its proof that .NET Apps can be much better managed with some discipline.

COOL TOOL: Component Factory gives away Krypton Toolkit (for .NET 2.0)

The guys over at ComponentFactory are giving away a free copy of their Krypton Toolkit for .NET 2.0. Krypton gives a nice Office 2003 (true-theme) GUI component for Windows Forms, take a look:
 
Pretty cool component and not only that its FREE FOR COMMERICAL USE!

HARDWARE REVIEW: Corsair 3200XL and Transcend JetFlash 110 1Gb Posted

Kind of forgot to post these earlier, here are two reviews of mine from Techwarelabs.

First up is the very impressive JetFlash 110 1Gb USB Drive model from Transcend.

Next the funky Corsair's XPERT 3200XL posted yesterday. Enjoy!

UPDATE: Error while trying to run project: unable to start debugging the binding handle is invalid

Well heres an update on a bug I reported a while ago in August for Whidbey, it appears that Terminal Services Service must be enabled (set to Manual or Automatic) in order for VS2005 to enable debugging.

Thanks to ZAiNT who found the work-around inititally after which MS gave an alternative fix (see post on Feedback Center).

Top 10 worst Bugs in Software in History

Great article on Wired about the top 10 worst bugs in history. Exam in 6hrs, must concentrate...

Service Packs for VS.NET 2003 and 2005 next year! YAY!

We'll it looks like MS are going to ship service packs (Finally!) for Visual Studio.NET, in particular SP1 for 2005 early next year and 2003 SP1 in April 2006 according to Scott Wiltamuth's blog.

This is great news! I'm sure alot of VS.NET dev's will be happy about this. There are some strange issues with 2003 that definately need a fix, and 2005 still has a few qwirks that annoy...

Xbox 360 = Dreamcast II ? (co-incidental similarities, some scary, others... well...)

Interesting article on 1UP.com about the similarities between the Xbox -> Xbox 360 and how it parralels the (failed?) Dreamcast console. Some parts are strangely real...


I guess we can let the rumour rest that there will be a Halo III for Xbox 360.

8 Year old Korean Goes to uni... thoughts on that and thanks for all the wishes!

Not sure whether to be disturbed or happy, it appears Song Yoo-guen who's just 8 (yes, EIGHT not a typo!) has been admitted to University, he's finished prior schooling in a mere 9 months... (YES! thats NINE... N-I-N-E...)

Some quotes from the article in The Korea Herald:
Song Yoo-geun, 8, wants to build flying cars, defying Newton's law of gravity, and the physics genius which has made him Korea's youngest university student may very well drive him to that dream.
Yep, 9 months...
He set a record by completing elementary, junior-high and high school curricula in just nine months - a progression that normally takes Koreans 12 years - before being admitted to university.
How is he in real life?
The interview was conducted mainly with the senior Song since Yoo-geun is lacking in his ability to communicate with adults.

"I think it's good to let my son do whatever he wants," the father said. According to him, when Yoo-geun is engrossed in solving math problems or doing games, he often concentrates on them for up to 14 or 15 hours. "He likes to reach conclusions, even it takes a long time."
We'll I'm sure his parents are thrilled at his excellent achievements, however I (personally) feel its not something that should be encouraged. Kids should be kids (especially at that age!) let them run around, get into trouble, break a few windows etc. you cant hurry growing up, and if I'm not mistaken, later on in life young Song will find he'll actually regret spending 14-15 hours on maths problems rather than spending time socialising with fellow buddies. He wouldnt fit too well into University either, I doubt Korean Uni's are anything like American Pie style but even then the social nature of Uni is very different than Primary. He'll be an einstein but lack everything else (including how to get along with the opposite sex).

Thanks for the wishes!

I had soooo many eCards come through this year and I've replied to almost every single one now, so thanks:-)