Computers & Technology

(beta)

Get yours today, by visiting Apple's website, slash safari. Neat.

Now if only Safari had mouse gestures, per site preferences, tab and link previews, and textbox expansion, it'd be perfect.

I have discovered a new feature of Safari 3.0 (beta) for Windows that is pleasant to have. You can resize any multi-line text input field by dragging the diagonal lines in the bottom right corner of the text field. Simply drag and resize. An elegant solution to an annoying problem.

This reminds me of a similar feature in OmniWeb 5 (for Macintosh only) which opens a new sheet (Mac OS X modal windows) which one can resize at will. One can even import text documents or clippings.

OmniWeb also has a lot of the features that I previously mentioned would make it (in my eyes) perfect, except for mouse gestures.

Opera's zooming is also nice, as are its keyboard shortcuts. However I have found myself browsing fine without those capabilities.

So I continue to try Safari 3 (beta) for Windows (Vista, Business Edition). While I was reading comments on Slashdot (comparing Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer), it occurred to me to compare how Safari searches and how Firefox searches.

Firefox searches are awesome, because by simply pressing '/' you can start searching as you type.

So pressing '/' in Safari does nothing (or nothing that I notice anyway). So I decide to search like I search on Safari for Macintosh, by pressing Command+F, which I imagine on Windows would be Control-F. A search bar appears at the top of the page with a search box where you can type what you are trying to find. It finds results a few milliseconds after you stop typing, and greys out the page while highlighting in orange the text that it finds. Interesting.





I guess this is a bit of a preview of what browsing the web on the iPhone is going to be like.

Earlier today we got a demo of the presentation (projection) and teleconferencing capabilities recently installed in the conference room. This will enable us to communicate with colleagues in other buildings as though they were in the same room.

Not quite telepresence, but close.

So during the meeting, LD asked if it was possible to videoconference with a desktop computer (the videoconferencing is IP-based, not the more common ISDN); we did not know the answer, but at the end of the meeting, we started experimenting, and after not too long a time we succeeded in videoconferencing between the station in the conference room and the Intel iMac on my desktop.

I downloaded and installed a program called XMeeting (a SourceForge project). After some configuration and playing around, we were connected! Below is a screenshot of the software at work.

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Windows Vista has many cool new things. A new program allows you to easily take snapshots of the screen. Straight from the "Things Macintosh Was Able to Do A Decade Ago" files.

It's called Snipping Tool, and it lives in the Accessories folder. (Start-> All Programs-> Accessories- yeah, remember that folder?). It allows you to take full-screen snapshots (the entire screen is captured), selectable rectagular area snapshots (the cursor becomes a crosshairs which allows you to select a rectangular area), specific windows (captures a specific window by moving the mouse on top of the window you want captured), or "free-form" snapshots (the cursor becomes a pair of scissors with which you can freely cut away as you please).

It's pretty neat. Here are some screenshots I captured in my Vista computer.

I've been watching Joost [ http://www.joost.com/ ].  I signed up a few months ago to receive the beta, then one day they sent an email to me inviting me to download their beta invite-only software and start watching Internet TV.  So I installed it on my Windows computer (they didn't have a Mac version of the software yet) and started watching.  At the time they really didn't have a lot of interesting programs available; they had "strong man" competition shows, world records, cartoons, etc. (which by the way, they still have).  And no ads.  They say they intend for the service to be free of charge, but advertising supported.  So i put it away for a few weeks, because the software didn't work with my new Windows Vista installation, and there was not version for the Intel Macintosh either.  Eventually I got another email advising me of an update to the software, so I decided to give it a nother chance, and voila! it works in both Windows Vista and Mac OS X Tiger for Intel Macs.  So i'm now not only watching programs on it, but showing people and even inviting people I know to try the beta.  i only have five invites, but they're going fast.  They may give me more invites if I use them all up.

For now, it still seems interesting; there are enough programs that I kinda want to watch, even as it's not premium TV.  Still though, it's pretty cool concept, new concept, and certainly has room to grow and mature and improve, etc.  I've been watching videos.. Green Day's Jesus of Suburbia right now.

"I don't feel any shame, I won't apologize, when there ain't nowhere you can go, running away from pain when you've been victimized, tales from another broken home."

Microsoft has developed a program called Windows Live Writer which allows you to post entries to weblogs.  It supports blogs services from Microsoft's Live Spaces, Google's Blogger, LiveJournal, Movable Type, TypePad, WordPress, Radio Userland, dasBlog, etc.  And so far it seems to work pretty well.

It even allows me to post to my NYU Blogs! (Movable Type)  Awesome!

(check out the watermarking effect on the image - courtesy of Windows Live Writer (beta).

Link to Top 10 OSS at SourceForge projects:
http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/13030/53/

This is interesting. Kinda gives you indication of direction of software writers out there.

There are some very interesting projects in SourceForge that are not top 10.

SourceForge is a beautiful thing.