Software

Latest version of Firefox, 3.6, is faster, has new theme feature, Personas

1 Comment / Gizmo of the Day, Networking & Internet, Software / By /

mozilla firefox 3.6Mozilla has released the latest version of Firefox, 3.6, and it claims a 20% speed improvement over v3.5. I just installed and startup certainly seems a lot faster. I’ve also noticed an improvement in memory usage.

New features include improved security features like anti-phishing and anti-malware detection and warning, improved JavaScript performance, support for new CSS features like gradients.

But the feature that I particularly like is a new type of theme called Personas which you can preview and install without a restart of the browser. Just visit GetPersonas.com, browse the over 30,000 themes, then simply roll your mouse over a swatch to see your browser immediately take on that theme.

If you don’t already have Firefox, you can download it for PC, Mac or Linux from www.firefox.com.

Using your iPhone to Remotely Control Your Garage Door

1 Comment / Home Automation, Phones / By /

We just posted that Smart Start iPhone app from Viper that lets you start your car remotely, but what about opening your garage door remotely? Why you ask?

Here’s the scenario – you wake up on a cold winter morning, maybe in your upstairs bedroom, and you’re already late for work but just can’t imagine getting into that cold car sitting in your garage, but you’ve got the Smart Start iPhone app. Great, except that it’s going to take more than a minute or two to get that car warmed up, and you don’t want all the noxious exhaust filling your garage and seeping into your house as well.

Convinced? Ok. So one enterprising techie has already figured out how to rig his garage door [Howto] with some X10-enabled equipment that he could then control via an iPhone app called X10 Commander. And just so you know, that’s not the only game in town – there are more apps for the iPhone for your home automation control, such as iLinc.

LAlarm – Laptop alarm security software – sounds loud alarm on theft of laptop

3 Comments / Computers, Gizmo of the Day, Portable, Software / By /

Worried about your laptop getting stolen when nature calls and you’re at a Starbucks chugging coffee and working? LAlarm (laptop alarm) semi-solves that problem by equipping your laptop with a auto-style alarm – loud and annoying!

If you have the LAlarm software installed, you simply plug your computer into a power outlet or plug in a flash drive and lock the computer. If the flash drive is disconnected, or the laptop is unplugged from the power, then the theft alarm goes off. A nice feature is that the theft alarm is audible and loud regardless of the mute status or volume level in Windows.

LAlarm has 2 other useful features – an auto-destroy folder and an e-mail-on-theft function. LAlarm will delete any data in the auto-destroy folder upon theft detection. The e-mail on theft function will send you sensitive files before wiping them.

LAlarm also has a number of additional alarms to help you be more productive: battery life, disk health, your health (time of use), mobile phone alerts and more.

Buy now!
More info from the manufacturer
Price: Free for personal use; $50 for a business license
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Mozilla Labs’ Raindrop project aims to cut through e-mail clutter

2 Comments / Gizmo of the Day, Networking & Internet, Software / By /

Mozilla-RaindropDo you get too much e-mail, whose volume has grown significantly in recent times due to social networking notifications from the likes of Facebook & Twitter?

How do you sort it out and quickly? Filters? Folders? Those methods may be doing the trick right now, but Mozilla Labs is working on a different approach – creating views of your messages (not necessarily e-mail only) and letting you interact with those conversations without having to switch applications.
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Trillian Astra – Instant Messenger aggregator

Gizmo of the Day, Software / By /

If you’re an Instant Messenger fiend, then you’ve probably already heard of Trillian, Cerulean’s Studios IM client aggregator. You’ve probably also heard of Trillian Astra which is Cerulean’s latest version that integrates a slew of new and very popular IM platforms such as Facebook, Google (Jabber), Twitter, Skype and much more.

Cerulean touts over 400 features, which we obviously can’t do justice explaining here. But let’s bottom line it for you right now: if you were ever using Trillian before, then you need to do yourself a favor and upgrade to Astra.

Here are but a few of the features that we like: first and foremost is the extensive support of various IM networks. Apart from the ones mentioned above, you can also connect to MySpace, Bonjour, AIM, Yahoo, MSN (Windows Live), ICQ and more.

Astra is better at supporting audio and video chat; it does a great job of showing timestamps in IM windows, and better skins that delineate who said what when. I particularly like that when you pull up an IM window, it shows you as much of the recent chat history as the window can hold. The history management is much better as well.

Astra is available for Windows, there’s a Web version and versions for iPhone and MacOSX are in the works.

Download the free version of Astra from Trillian.IM or get the Pro version for $25.

Buy now!
More info from the manufacturer
Price: $25
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Microsoft Security Essentials, free anti-virus security software released

2 Comments / Gizmo of the Day, Software / By /

As promised, Microsoft just released its free security program for Windows XP/Vista/7 this week. This is anti-virus/anti-malware/anti-spyware/anti-trojan/anti-rookit software. It replaces Microsoft Defender.

The big question here is whether or not Microsoft will run products made by Symantec, McAfee, et al out of business.

You can download Security Essentials from Microsoft.

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