griff jones's blog

Protect Your iPad With iShine Microfiber Sleeve

Every iPad owner understands the importance of keeping their device both protected and clean. It takes very little time for oil from your hands to build up on the iPad’s screen, leaving plenty of unwanted smudges. There is an affordable solution though thanks to the iShine Microfiber iPad Sleeve. The iShine Sleeve is a must [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ipadbuzzblog/~3/DOIiF-uD1vk/

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Firefox Friday: Open Apps, Open Games, Open UI... and the world's fastest JavaScript engine

Filed under: Internet, Features, Mozilla, Browsers

Good afternoon! Firefox Friday has been decidedly absent from the luridly green pages of Download Squad over the last few weeks, but it returns today with vengeance.

A lot has been happening at Mozilla, with developments emerging on all fronts. As always we've covered the most important bits, but there's still a lot more to tell you about.

Let's crack on with the first and perhaps most telling titbit:

Mozilla has a new CEO: Gary Kovacs

John Lilly, after almost three years at the top, has stepped aside for newcomer Gary Kovacs. Kovacs has a ton of experience in product management (10 years at IBM), and also significant knowledge of rich media and the mobile Web (5 years at Macromedia, then Adobe). For further reading, Lilly has a great blog post introducing Kovacs.

With this appointment it's clear that Mozilla is fully invested in making Firefox the best browser, both on the desktop and on mobile devices. If you thought the difference between Firefox 3.6 and 4.0 was a big leap, you can only begin to imagine what 5.0 will bring with Kovacs at the helm.

Game On 2010: the judges are announced, and the first fruits of the competition begin to trickle in

The new Game On competition always struck me as rather unMozilla. When I picture the average Mozillan, many kind adjectives pop into my mind but gamer isn't one of them. Still, if you had any doubts, take a look at the list of judges. There are 30 of them, and while they're not all A-listers, there are some big names from Zynga, Facebook, Palm, and more. Almost everyone that's anyone in the JavaScript community is on the list!

If you want to get in on the action, there are already tons of resources on the Game On website. You should probably subscribe read the Game On blog, too.

Also worth noting, if you're in the San Francisco Bay Area, is that the next Mozilla Labs Night (October 28) will be a 'Gaming Special'. I'm not quite sure what it will entail, but the Labs Nights are usually a lot of fun... so sign up and head on down to Mountain View! [I wish I lived in San Francisco...]

Mozilla finally plays its next hand in the Apps War: Open Web Applications

Earlier this year, at the Mozilla Summit, attendees were asked what would make the perfect Web App Store. A lot of heated discussion ensued, but ultimately the summit ended and radio silence descended. This week Mozilla Labs broke that silence with the release of the Open Web Applications Technology Overview and the new apps.mozillalabs.com website.

The concept is brilliant, and there's a demo App Store and Directory that you can play with today. The most important part, however, is that Open Web App developers will have the option of self-publishing their software. This is in stark contrast to the Google-centralised Chrome offering -- and light years ahead of the Mac App Store.

We're not quite at the stage where HTML, JavaScript, CSS and SVG are ready to replace every desktop app, but the Open Web App specification has come just at the right time. Mozilla may just have secured the future platform for all installed apps.

Build your own browser with Mozilla Labs Chromeless

Have you ever looked at the Firefox UI, at that big orange button, and thought to yourself 'hmm... I could do it better'? Well, now's your chance! Using HTML, CSS and JavaScript you can now create your own browser interface.

Chromeless is a pre-alpha prototype at the moment (grab the code here), but the team has grand plans to make browser UI design as 'easy as designing a Web page'. It's an interesting concept that, like all forms of crowdsourcing, might turn up some fantastic new designs.

Last, but by no means least, Firefox JavaScript performance pulls ahead of Chrome and Safari

Launched by the JavaScript team at Mozilla, ARE WE FAST YET? details the reassuringly steady improvement of Firefox's JavaScript engine. Up until yesterday the site featured a huge 'NO' at the bottom of the page -- today... well, you can see for yourself!

Basically -- and you have to admit this is pretty darn impressive -- it has only taken three months for Mozilla to reach Chrome and Safari's level of JavaScript performance. This is only the result of one synthetic benchmark, so the results are hardly authoritative -- but then again, Firefox still leads the 'real world' Kraken benchmark, too.

* * *
Not a bad week for Mozilla, then! Open Web Apps, Open Web Games and even an Open User Interface -- and they're all powered by the fastest JavaScript engine in the world.

Firefox Friday: Open Apps, Open Games, Open UI... and the world's fastest JavaScript engine originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/10/22/firefox-friday-open-apps-open-games-open-ui-and-the-world-fastest-javascript/

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October 7, 1954: IBM Gets Transistorized

1954: IBM builds the first calculating machine to use solid-state transistors instead of vacuum tubes. IBM already had a business selling calculating machines, and it was humming along quite nicely. The IBM 604 Electronic Calculating Punch, which IBM introduced in 1948, was a desk-sized cabinet that ate and spat out punch cards in its single-minded mission [...]

Source: http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/10/1007ibm-transistor-calculator/

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DLS Review: BeejiveIM for Android rocks your instant messaging world

Filed under: Social Software, Mobile, Android

I always had one rather large complaint about Fring and other multi-network messengers: they're dog-ugly -- like, Ugliest Dog In The World ugly. Fortunately there's a beautiful alternative that, until now, has only been available for iPhone and BlackBerry: it's called BeejiveIM, and after you try it every other messenger app on Android will fade into clumsy and ugly insignificance.

From the outset, BeejiveIM is just another multi-network messenger. It has support for all of the usual suspects -- AIM, Yahoo, MSN, GTalk, Jabber, ICQ, MySpace IM, and even a very nice Facebook chat interface. What sets it apart from its clunky brethren, of which there are many, is the user interface.

The UI (and I apologize for this cliché) is an absolute dream. The ease at which you can carry out conversations across multiple networks is almost superior to desktop apps.
Let me walk you through the UI and explain what I mean.

On the left, you have your "accounts" panel, and on the right, your unified contact list. If you use friend groups on Facebook, or Categories in your Yahoo, MSN, or AIM buddy lists, they appear here, too. Clicking each bar makes it expand or contract, so you can easily manage a huge number of friends. With a push-and-hold you can easily see each contact's profile, or block them.

Your current status can be set across all messaging networks, or you can select each one individually. If you want to be invisible on Facebook but visible on MSN, go for it!

My only complaint is that tabs are on top, far away from your thumb. There's no reason for them to be up there!

The middle tab shows your current conversations. There are handy little indicators that show you how many messages are waiting to be read, and there's even a snippet of text! If you look closely, a small icon shows you which network that conversation is being held on, too. [Don't worry, Sophie wasn't diagnosed with anything life-threatening.]

Now we're onto the best bit: the conversation view. I'm having a conversation with Lee on GTalk. My bubbles move up the right, and his up the left. The pièce de résistance, however, is the draggable bar at the top: it shows me notifications from other conversations, and it can be pulled down for a quick view of all open chats. Switching between chats is a breeze.

Hopefully you noticed the GIANT THUMB in the conversation above. With BeejiveIM, you can send a photo (either direct from the camera, or from memory) or a sound clip. The file is uploaded to the Beejive servers, and a link is sent to your chat buddy -- it's quick and painless and does away with the usual omg-sort-out-your-port-forwarding rigmarole.

If you don't like lime green speech bubbles, you can change the color to something more sensible in the settings -- you can also change the wallpaper (and BeejiveIM comes bundled with a bunch of pretty images that are guaranteed to make your text almost impossible to read!).

You can also change the Sent and Received notifications (sounds from MSN, AIM, Yahoo, and iChat are available), the sort order of your buddy list (and whether they are broken into groups/categories or not), your auto-away message (handy if you're going to leave BeejiveIM online 24/7), and you can even enable "Text Auto Correct" -- but I couldn't work out what this actually did.

Finally, I want to show you a really simple (but really cool) feature: "Email Chat." From any conversation, you can email the entire dialogue to any email address. This is a great way to get important conversations off your phone and onto your PC, or indeed any other device.

Conclusion

I'm hard pressed to find anything wrong with BeejiveIM for Android. Admittedly, I don't regularly use my phone for instant messaging, so there may be issues that would only emerge with extended use -- but considering Beejive's experience with other mobile platforms, I doubt it.

Perhaps the only bad thing is the fact that it costs $9.99 -- but if you commute, or otherwise spend a lot of time on the move, I think the price is more than reasonable.

BeejiveIM for Android Tech Specs

• Installed Size -- 8MB, and I'm pretty sure conversations are cached. This isn't a small app by any means
• Speed/Responsiveness -- Excellent, very snappy
• User Interface -- Very intuitive, highly polished, but tabs should be on the bottom!
• Configurability & Extensibility -- You can't change the theme of the tabs, nor can you alter the font -- the ability to change conversation colors and individual statuses for each network is very nice however
• License -- Commercial, closed-source. 30-day trial available by visiting www.beejive.com/android on your phone

DLS Review: BeejiveIM for Android rocks your instant messaging world originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/10/19/dls-review-beejiveim-for-android-rocks-your-multi-network-instant-messaging-world/

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Google Voice Search on Android now supports Russian, Polish, Czech and Turkish

Filed under: Android

This is just a quick heads-up for all our Eastern European and Anatolian readers: you can now use Android's Voice Search in four new and crazy languages! Russian is the first Cyrillic language, and Turkish, Polish and Czech mean that a lot of Europe now has access to Voice Search.

The only real problem is that you have to change your phone's global language setting to use Voice Search in another language. So, while this might sound like an ideal app for bilingual speakers, in reality it's a bit too clumsy. Hopefully future versions will include a simple on-screen toggle for different languages.

If your phone doesn't have Google Voice Search installed, simply search for "Voice Search" on the Android Market -- and it's only for Android 2.1+, alas.

Google Voice Search on Android now supports Russian, Polish, Czech and Turkish originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 22 Oct 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/10/22/google-voice-search-on-android-now-supports-russian-polish-cze/

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Oct. 19, 1943: A Wonderful Discovery, and a Helluva Row

1943: A biochemistry grad student discovers streptomycin, a synthetic antibiotic used to treat tuberculosis and other infectious diseases. Sole credit for the discovery initially went to Selman Waksman — who would receive the Nobel Prize in 1952 — who ran the laboratory at Rutgers University where the research was performed. But it was Albert Schatz, a [...]

Source: http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/10/1019streptomycin/

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Google Voice Search on Android now supports Russian, Polish, Czech and Turkish

Filed under: Android

This is just a quick heads-up for all our Eastern European and Anatolian readers: you can now use Android's Voice Search in four new and crazy languages! Russian is the first Cyrillic language, and Turkish, Polish and Czech mean that a lot of Europe now has access to Voice Search.

The only real problem is that you have to change your phone's global language setting to use Voice Search in another language. So, while this might sound like an ideal app for bilingual speakers, in reality it's a bit too clumsy. Hopefully future versions will include a simple on-screen toggle for different languages.

If your phone doesn't have Google Voice Search installed, simply search for "Voice Search" on the Android Market -- and it's only for Android 2.1+, alas.

Google Voice Search on Android now supports Russian, Polish, Czech and Turkish originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 22 Oct 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/10/22/google-voice-search-on-android-now-supports-russian-polish-cze/

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SuperOneClick is an easy way to root almost any Android phone

Filed under: Utilities, Android

There's a new one-click wonder in town: SuperOneClick. It's free, full-featured, and roots almost every phone. Get it while it's hot, Android users!

SuperOneClick is a standard rooting kit, but with a simple GUI to mask all complexity from the end-user. Instead of running the risk of bricking your phone with fiddly command-line tools, this app just requires a single click of the button. You can also unroot the phone and enable Non-Market Apps -- again, with one click. If that wasn't enough, there's even a video showing you how to do it after the break!

There are a few phones that are incompatible with SuperOneclick (all of them HTC), but even then, it's just a matter of visiting Unrevoked and following some (fairly) simple guides. There's also one other problem: it's Windows-only, but it looks like the next major version will support Linux. Mac will have to wait a little longer -- but do Mac users actually own Android phones...?

[via Lifehacker]

SuperOneClick is an easy way to root almost any Android phone originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/10/18/superoneclick-easy-root-android-phone/

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Apple TV gets its first Jailbreak app: NitoTV

With both Greenpois0n and PwnageTool 4.1 successfully jailbreaking the new Apple TV (2010), it didn’t take long for the first jailbreak app to be released: NitoTV. NitoTV is still in the beta stages, but will soon bring media player capabilities, weather updates, and an RSS feed to your feed AppleTVs. Will we see more apps [...]

Apple TV gets its first Jailbreak app: NitoTV is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/B__xBcKHhaY/

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Min.us is a very minimal HTML5 photo sharing and gallery creation tool

Filed under: Fun, Photo, web 2.0

Min.us does one thing, and it does it surprisingly well: it shares images. Via the magic of HTML5 -- as long as you're using Firefox 3.6, Google Chrome, or Internet Explorer 9 -- you can simply drag and drop images into Min.us.

Other than watch your gallery take shape (here's mine), there isn't much else you can do. You can rename your gallery and change the order of the images ... but that's it. You can't even rename the images -- so unless you rename the files on your hard disk first, you'll be stuck with some rather unsexy image titles.

Still, the galleries look and feel good. You can click through or use the arrow keys. It's also completely anonymous, with no login required -- all you get is an "admin" link and a "view" link. Very minimal indeed. Don't try to share a link to a specific image in a large gallery either -- it loads every image sequentially, so it can take quite some time to get to the linked image!

Looking forward, the developers want Min.us to be a sharing platform for all media types -- photo, video, audio, and documents -- but it's still very early days. I also don't see how it can remain free when dealing with such large quantities of data but we'll see!

Min.us is a very minimal HTML5 photo sharing and gallery creation tool originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 18 Oct 2010 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/10/18/min-us-is-a-very-minimal-html5-photo-sharing-and-gallery-creation-tool/

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