Archive for the ‘Software’ Category

Just hours after Microsoft Corp. accidently launched, then yanked, a Web site promoting its new “My Phone” backup and sync service, the company restored the site and posted more information about the free service.

Late Friday, Microsoft restored the My Phone site, which said the service is “Coming soon.” In a separate announcement posted to several Web sites, the company said that more information about the invite-only beta would be given out at the GSMA World Mobile Congress, which opens Feb. 16 in Barcelona, Spain.

Heh, okay, it won’t really break it, but you will have to reboot it quite often.

Warning. Your Firefox will probably update sometime today.

Mozilla developers released the latest version of their Firefox browser Tuesday, version 3.0.6, which fixes several security bugs in the software.

The most critical issues are bugs in the browser’s JavaScript and layout engines that could be exploited by attackers to run unauthorized software on a victim’s PC, Mozilla said. The flaws also affect Mozilla’s Thunderbird e-mail client and SeaMonkey Internet software suite.

I have always liked AVG. I have used their anti-virus software for years.

Antivirus provider AVG Technologies on Tuesday announced that it is acquiring Sana Security, which sells identity fraud prevention software.

Under the deal, whose financial terms were not disclosed, the Redwood City, Calif., headquarters of Sana will serve as Amsterdam-based AVG’s first office in Silicon Valley.

I just hope they don’t become another McAfee or Norton.

Check out Wired’s ‘10 Most Awesome iPhone Apps of 2008‘.

I don’t have an iPhone, but if I did have one I am pretty sure Google Earth wouldn’t be my ‘most awesome’ application on it.

I’ve been following Coders Junto for a while now, mainly because the author is my cousin Paul. He’s recently started coding for the iPhone and has some apps in the App Store too. If you’re looking for some code examples, or you just wanna say hi, head on over and tell him I sent ya.

So this explains why Firefox updated itself when I booted up the MacBook yesterday.

Mozilla has issued eight patches for its Firefox Web browser, three of which fix problems classified as critical.

The patches come after security experts have recommended using a browser other than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 and older versions of IE due to a dangerous vulnerability. Microsoft is due to release an emergency patch for that problem Wednesday.

I haven’t used my Yahoo Mail account in so long, but then again, I might use it, if Yahoo would get off their high horse and let me back into my ’slobokan’ email address I had since day one, that I can no longer access.

Yahoo unveiled a new toolbar on Monday that will give Web users access to their e-mail as they surf the Web, the latest step in its strategy to make its products more open to users and third parties.

…

The Yahoo toolbar available later this week will allow users access to a selected group of programs from the toolbar without leaving the page they are on.

For example, users get notifications of new e-mails on the toolbar and can open them. The Internet company also showed off a newly styled in-box, which combines social networking functions and also allows users access to third party programs.

No toolbar in the world is going to help me get my email address back, and I refuse to send them a photo id and such when I never used one to obtain the email address in the first place.

I’m not overly fond of using password managers within the browser anyway, but if I was, I would think twice about using either of the ones included with Chrome or Safari.

Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari browsers could do a better job of protecting passwords, according to a security researcher who released a study of browser password managers Friday.

“Safari and Chrome are essentially tied for the worst password manager built into a major Web browser,” said Robert Chapin, president of Chapin Information Services, in his report, which looked at the types of security checks browsers used to make sure that they were sending username and password information to legitimate Web sites instead of clever hackers.

Since I got my MacBook, I have been using a nifty application called 1Password, which Vinny was nice enough to point my direction. It handles all of my password management and it isn’t exposed from the browser itself.

I have so many passwords on so many different services, it’s nice to have a place to keep them all.

As a long time WordPress user, I am happy to see the release of version 2.7.

The first thing you’ll notice about 2.7 is its new interface. From the top down, we’ve listened to your feedback and thought deeply about the design and the result is a WordPress that’s just plain faster. Nearly every task you do on your blog will take fewer clicks and be faster in 2.7 than it did in a previous version. (Download it now, or read on for more.)

It took me a little getting used to, but the interface is so slick, and the built-in one-click upgrade makes it worth the upgrade all by itself.

I’ve been using the release candidate so I was able to upgrade today with a simple click. Be happy to know this is the last painful WordPress upgrade (if you could call any WordPress upgrade painful) you’ll have to deal with.

Finally. One of the coolest features comes to Firefox.

The much-anticipated Firefox 3.1 beta 2 is out and about for Windows and Mac users, incorporating the faster JavaScript engine TraceMonkey as the default setting and introducing Private Browsing, which has been in development for years. There are other improvements, of course, but the big one is the ability to turn off the cache and other private data settings with a single click.

I’m not sure I will need to use it, but it’s nice to know I have the option.