Google today has released their Google Chrome OS – or operating system – as Open Source under the name Chromium Open Source Project. You might have already read in the past month that Google is working on a operating system that makes use of the core of the Google Chrome web browser, Linux and then some. Most interesting for users who have followed the project from the beginning is the announcement that the development from this point on will happen in the open so that releases of the operating system (including its source code) will be made available for download in a similar fashion as it is done already for the Google Chrome web browser.
FastStone Image Viewer 4.0
A new version of the image viewer FastStone Image Viewer has been released today by the developers. Version 4.0 introduces several new and enhanced features including better Windows 7 compatibility, improved performance in network folders, display of GPS information with a link to Google Earth, favorite folders and several minor improvements and bug fixes.
The image viewer is available in several editions including a portable version and an installer. It supports multiple languages and is completely free for personal use. The main interface of the software looks a bit cluttered and very colorful at first glance. Especially the two icon bars at the top of the window can cause some confusion at the beginning. It is possible to make changes to the skin but not the the interface itself. The designs itself looks professionally done and the three program windows for browsing folders, previewing images and thumbnails are intuitive to use after all.
Windows 8 Slated For 2012 Release
Microsoft has released two roadmaps at this years Professional Developer’s Conference (PDC 2009) which both suggest a Windows 8 release in 2012. This confirms earlier rumors that Microsoft’s next desktop operating system after Windows 7 would be released in three year’s time. To be more precise, the roadmaps that Microsoft showcased at the conference show the Microsoft server releases over the years. The first of the two roadmaps does mention Windows 7 (but not Windows Vista) along with Windows Server 2003 and 2008 releases.
The 2012 release is codenamed Windows 8 and Microsoft does not explicitly state that this will also be the release year of the new operating system although that is generally assumed by everyone.
Microsoft Beta Downloads Overview
Most tech savvy computer users who visited a technology news website yesterday noticed that Microsoft has released a public beta version of their upcoming Microsoft Office 2010 software product. The beta has been made available for 32-bit and 64-bit editions of several Windows operating systems. What some do not know is that the beta release of Office 2010 was not the only beta release of upcoming Microsoft software yesterday.
The following article contains an overview of Microsoft beta releases that have been made available yesterday. Each item will be introduced with its name, a small summary and a link to the official project page at the Microsoft website which contains additional information and the downloads.
Remove Colors And Backgrounds With No Color For Firefox
Internet users sometimes visit websites that make excessive use of colors and background images so that the actual contents of the website are hard to read. There are a few options on how to turn those unreadable pages into readable ones including bookmarklets, Greasemonkey scripts, web proxies and add-ons. One of the latest add-ons to implement this functionality is the No Color add-on for the Firefox web browser.
No Color is basically an on and off switch for colors and image backgrounds on websites. The developer mentioned that the Firefox user had to drag and drop the icon into one of the toolbars of the web browser after installation; This was not necessary on a Firefox 3.6 test system. The icon to switch the design and layout of a website was already linked in the status bar of the browser.
Orkut Invite For New Orkut
Orkut introduced a new redesigned homepage at the end of October. The new Orkut as its users like to call it is currently invite only meaning that only those Orkut users who received an invitation to join might do so. Everyone else is left with the old Orkut page for now unless they can find a way to get an invite for the new Orkut page. Fortunately for them there is a very simply and straightforward way of receiving an invitiation for the new version of Orkut.
All they need to do is to join the new Orkut community at Orkut which will hand out an invitation to the redesigned Orkut interface to the user after the joining. The new Orkut community page can be accessed here. Just log into Orkut first and click on the join link in the left sidebar afterwards to join the Orkut community.
Microsoft Showcases Early Internet Explorer 9 Build
Most Internet users agree that Microsoft made good progress with Internet Explorer 8 compared to previous releases of the web browser. Internet Explorer 8 introduced some interesting new features, increased the performance of the web browser by a lot compared to previous versions and introduced some new security concepts that made the web browsing experience more secure. It still did not come close performance wise to web browsers like Google Chrome but the difference was not that big anymore.
Microsoft has now confirmed that they started working on Internet Explorer 9 and it seems that they have big plans for this browser. Three demo videos have been released by Channel 9 that show some of the Internet Explorer 9 developers showcasing some of the improvements that they already build into the web browser. The Sunspider Javascript benchmark comparison looks very interesting as the new Internet Explorer 9 JavaScript engine closes the gap to Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 to about 100 ms.
