Echo Binary

Firefox 1.5.0.1 was officially released today and if you haven’t upgraded yet, check for Firefox updates now. Firefox 1.5.0.1 is a stability and security update, and it is recommended that you upgrade to latest version soon.

Here’s what’s new in Firefox 1.5.0.1:

• Improved stability.
• Improved support for Mac OS X.
• International Domain Name support for Iceland (.is) is now enabled.
• Fixes for several memory leaks.
• Several security enhancements.

Thanks to Mozilla Firefox team, there are less memoy leaks in this release. I really hope that they continue working on the memory leak in Firefox because that’s the only thing that turns me off in this wonderful web browser.

Moving on to SeaMonkey, The SeaMonkey Council released SeaMonkey 1.0, the first end-user release of their internet suite. SeaMonkey project is a community effort to deliver production-quality releases of code derived from the application formerly known as “Mozilla Application Suite”. It’s essentially Firefox and Thunderbird combined despite the old Mozilla interface design.

SeaMonkey features a state-of-the-art web browser, a powerful email client, a WYSIWYG web page composer and a feature-rich IRC chat client all-in-one. You have an option not to install all components in case you really don’t need all these features. There’s a long list of features added in this first end-user release if you are interested to read it.

Links:
Firefox - Rediscover the Web
The SeaMonkey Project
MozillaZine
Technorati Tags: Mozilla, Firefox, Browser, SeaMonkey

Back in November 2005 I posted about free Java IDEs that are available for Sun Developer Network members. One of them is Java Studio Creator. It was offered as an early access version but now Studio Creator 2.0 is finally released.

What’s cool about Java Studio Creator 2.0 is that it can be used for rapid visual web application and portlet development which is almost similar to what ASP.NET 2.0 Framework and Microsoft Visual Studio IDE can do right now. After all both Java and .NET seems to head on the same direction, the web, albeit different philosophy.

From SDN website: Java Studio Creator 2 is built on NetBeans 4.1, and includes features like a new set of JavaServer Faces components, support for building JSR-168 portlets, easy access to databases, a streamlined application model, and more. From novice to expert – anyone building web applications can benefit from the high-productivity features available in Java Studio Creator 2. It’s also interesting that Java Studio Creator 2 has its own AJAX component.

Let me warn you that the system requirements for Java Studio Creator is quite demanding. You need at least 1 GB RAM in order to run this IDE smoothly in Windows, Mac OS X, Linux or Solaris. You can view the complete system requirements here. I’m running it at 512 MB RAM and I can feel that it’s quite slow. Compare that to Visual Studio 2005 which require only a minimum 256 MB RAM (512 MB recommended) and you get the picture why many people say Java is slow. Different developers have their own personal bias. It’s up to you if you feel that Java is better than other programming languages.

Links:
Java Studio Creator
Quick tour of Sun Java Studio Creator 2.0
Technorati Tags: Java, Studio+Creator

That’s true… and you might be killing yourself slowly if you don’t take extra precaution.

Perhaps I’m not the best person to give advice on how to make your life healthier but I do take care of myself nowadays. I am a self-confessed workaholic. I feel really guilty when my goal is not achieved in a day’s work. However I don’t want to make my life more miserable because of computers so I try to organize my schedule to avoid additional stress. As Lifehacker.com puts it, “Don’t live to geek; geek to live”.

If you read this article from informationweek.com you better start believing that computer can hurt not only your body and mind but also your environment in general. Fortunately there are ways to minimize the damages.

Now, it even makes me wonder why I like computers. Computer is evil.

Technorati Tags: computer, health

Wired.com has an interesting article regarding anonymity on a disk, an initiative by kaos.theory security research to make a bootable CD and make anyone totally anonymous.

The goal is to put a secure crypto-heavy operating systems on a bootable CD called Anonym.OS: a disk that would offer the masses the same level of privacy available to security professionals, but with an easy user interface. In turn, anyone will be able to enjoy the advantages of anonymity without any highly technical skill.

Anonym.OS is an OpenBSD 3.8 Live CD with strong tools for anonymizing and encrypting connections. Standard network applications are provided and configured to take advantage of the tor onion routing network. There is a PDF presentation on how to make your own Anonym.OS. Of all the operating system mentioned in the presentation, Windows is the hardest to secure. I concur, from a user and admin point of view. Take note that if you have no time to spare on making your own Anonym.OS just use the Anonym.OS Live CD.

Anonym.OS Live CD is now available via Sourceforge(ISO) or LinuxTracker (BiTtorrent).

Links:
Kaos.theory security research
Anonym.OS Live CD: Shmoocon 2006 [ ISO ] [ BitTorrent ]
Technorati Tags: anonymous, anonymity, privacy, security, Live+CD, Open+BSD, OpenBSD, Tor

This is possible using portals that strips out graphics, javascript and other elements not needed by your mobile phone or PDA browser.

Here are the portals that can instantly render any ordinary websites into mobile website:

Google mobile: http://www.google.com/gwt/n
This is the latest offering from Google. Great for browsing mobile pages because it gives you an option to remove images. It also trims the website into several pages so that you can browse it easily in your mobile browser.

You can also try Skweezer and IYHY. They do not paginate mobile pages so the mobile web page may take too long to load or your mobile browser may not be able to browse the entire page.

Links:
Google mobile: http://www.google.com/gwt/n or
http://www.google.com/xhtml
Skweezer: http://www.skweezer.net
IYHY: http://www.iyhy.com
Technorati Tags: Google, mobile, Skweezer, IYHY, XHTML+browser