• A Better Web Experience
• Faster Browsing
• Automatic Updates
• Tabbed Browsing
• Improved Pop-up Blocking
• Integrated Search
• Stronger Security
• Clear Private Data
• Live Bookmarks
• Next Generation Web Support

Firefox 1.5 is currently available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linix in 35 different languages.

Know issue that affected me:

"Older versions of Adblock may cause the Clear Private Data confirmation window to appear when Firefox 1.5 starts. If you experience this, make sure you are using the newest version of Adblock or Adblock Plus."

Everything Microsoft is live, at least that looks like the direction they are moving.

• Live.com beta
• Windows Live Mail beta
• Windows Live Safety Center beta
• Windows Live Favorites beta
• Windows OneCare Live beta
• Windows Live Messenger beta
• Windows Live Search beta-mobile

Lots to check out enjoy.

PS: Firefox Users
Firefox support is coming soon. Please be patient :-)

Update: More details about Microsoft’s Live Offerings

The first beta of Virtual Earth was released today. It is a cross between Google Maps and Goolge Earth. It is completely web based and works on IE and FireFox.

Locate me is the only feature that only works on IE due to an ActiveX plug-in. If you have a WI-FI connection Locate me  can pinpoint the location of the WI-FI node you are connected to and mark the location on the map, very cool if you are on a trip out of town an want to find pizza near you ect.

Unlike Google Maps you can zoom in and out with the scroll weal of +- buttons. It also continues to refresh your searches as you move the map.

You can bookmark, copy, or send an email the Permalink of your current location and searches. Here is the Permalink for my searches for coffee, pizza, and Geeks near The Los Angeles Convention & Exhibition Center. I didn't find any Geeks maybe I will if I search again September 13th to 16th during PDC.

It also has some integration with MSN Spaces, I searched the location of Microsoft PDC and clicked the blog it! link and it started this post with the following content.

Quote

My Virtual Earth Scratch Pad


Los Angeles Convention & Exhibition Center
1201 Figueroa St 213, Los Angeles, CA 90015

Microsoft has released an update of their AntiSpyware (Beta) product today. The update includes bug fixes, enhancements to the detection and removal functionality, and extends the expiration date of the beta to December 31, 2005.

I have been blessed; my employer GWI Software is sending me and a coworker Jordan to PDC 05. With registration now open I started looking around for information. The official PDC 05 site on MSDN still has limited details but with a little looking around I found that Channel 9 has an area of their site dedicated to PDC 05.

They have dedicated discussion forums, videos, Podcasts by Michael Lehman, and PDC 05 Flair. The site also has a link to another MSDN site for PDC 05, www.developerpowered.com, which has a little more info and notes that Microsoft has rented out Universal Studios Hollywood for the PDC Party and will provide free rides, food, and drinks for attendees (must be 21).

If you boss has not already offered to sent you to PDC 05 you need the Convince The Boss Kit and if that doesn't work you can try your hand a the "PDC 2005 4 'Free'" contest where you can blog or code your way to PDC 05. The grand prizes are 3 free trips and tickets for PDC including the pre-conference events.

Have you ever heard a song on the radio and want to know who the title and artist was? If so here's is the 411 on a new service for cell phone users. The 411 SONG BETA service allows you to identify that song that you can only identify by doing you best William Hung rendition of it.

To use the service next time you hear a song you want to identify dial the toll free number and hold your phone up to the music source, the call ends automatically after 15 seconds. You will then get a SMS text message with the songs info and $0.99 will be charged to your next phone bill if song identification is successful. If your phone is Web (WAP) enabled you can buy the ringtone of the song you ID’d if it’s available for download or other ringtones from the same genre. After successfully identifying a song all users can go online to www.411SONG.com to see your list of identified songs, buy ringtones, CDs and digital downloads.

According to 411-SONG it has over 2.5 million songs in its database and only makes one request, don't sing since the service can only identify recorded music that has been released on an album or as a single except classical music which is not covered. Currently only AT&T, Cingular, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint cell phone services are supported. 

I only wish I had thought of it first.

I have finally got around to publishing an application I developed almost two years ago. Version 1.0 of Deploy Dot Net is available for download. I have created a workspace for it on GotDotNet Workspaces and it is completely free and contains the source code and documentation.

Deploy Dot Net is a .NET Application built for automating the deployment of ASP.NET applications from a development environment to a QA or production environment. The object-oriented architecture utilizes inheritance, function-delegates, XML serialization, exception management, Event Log logging, and threading with asynchronous callback and use of invoke methods to marshal calls from the application's worker thread to the UI thread. Custom deploy scripts contain a list of actions to be executed in sequence. The following actions are supported: Directory Upload, Create Directory, Delete Directory, File Upload, Delete File, Start or Stop a Windows Service, Execute command line, Find and Replace, and Sleep.

I am working on version 2.0, which will include a new UI, the Actions architecture will be reworked, and all the business logic will be separated from presentation layer. It is hard to say when this might be released as it took me two years to release version one.

I had fun developing it and learned allot. I hope it is helpful for you as well.

Update : I have deleted the Deploy Dot Net workspace on GotDotNet Workspaces and created a Deploy Dot Net Code Gallery Project at the Got Dot Net Code Gallery

I needed to spell check a number of files in a project I'm working on. I wanted to spell check the comments and source code but the spell checker add-in that I had been using only allowed me to spell check selected text and it would complain if the selected text contain any code or comment blocks. So I googled for something that could spell check everything comments and code.  I found a winner, Spell Checker for VS.NET 2003 Add-in (v. 2.0), which is the best spell checker add-in I've ever used (I've tried a handful) and best of all it's FREE.

"This freeware Visual Studio 2003 add-in provides a multi-language spell checker for your comments and string literals. Without setting any options it knows how to spell check C#, VB.NET, C/C++, C++.NET, J#, HTML, XML, Java, and other text-based files. It works on the selected code or on the entire current file or project, and has many other options."

And to top it off, unlike most freeware products who ask for donation to the author, Dean J. Giovanelli asks you to donate to his favorite charities.

Mozilla Firefox 1.0.4 security update has been released only days after the discovery of a couple security holes that when exploited together could allow javasctipt to execute under the users permissions.

Check out the post  on mozillaZine.org for more details.

I read about Googles Results Prefetching feature some time ago and didn't do anything about it.

I recently changed my FireFox cookie settings to prompt before allowing cookies. After doing some googling today, and getting several sites in the search results wanting to add cookies, I disabled the link prefetching feature in FireFox.

You can disable this feature by typing about:Config into the FireFox address bar and changing the network.prefetch-next option to false.

Google does an amazing job of coming up with all the features you could want but sometimes they are just to helpful.

I recently tried FireTune for FireFox, which is a freeware performance tuner. I found that it didn't do much as far as speeding up my browsing but it had one option that made a big difference on my slower desktop at home. It created a shortcut for Firefox using the Windows XP Prefetcher.

Target: "C:Program FilesMozilla Firefoxfirefox.exe" /prefetch:1

This makes Firefox load much faster. I also found that this is used by default in the shortcut for Windows Media Player.

Starting today (May 6, 2005) through July 10,2005 MSN Music is running a "Buy 1 song from MSN Music, get 5 songs free" promotion.

Apparently the only restriction is that you must redeem your 5 free before Sep 30, 20005.

I've been using the MSN Music service for a while now and have no complaints.

The makers of SharpTools and Plugins have released the KPL Technology Preview.

KPL is a programing language, IDE, and runtime environment designed to help kids learn the basic concepts of programing which runs on the Microsoft .Net Framework.

The KPL programming language is similar in flavor to BASIC, and is easy to understand and read. There are four predefined data types int, string, bool, and Decimal. Typed arrays and structures are also supported. All variables are passed to methods and functions by value including arrays and structures. The KPL defines a number of methods and function for loading graphics, playing sounds, drawing lines and shapes, writing text, ect.

The IDE supports syntax validation as you type, popup hints about method parameters, syntax highlighting, bookmarks, and more. The IDE is also contains the runtime environment which is as an interpreter which is run in a graphical shell.

The inner workings of the KPL are interesting as well. The KPL converts the KPL into System.CodeDom objects and uses the System.CodeDom.Compiler to verify the code and then the System.CodeDom objects are used by the interpreter to execute each statement at runtime.

My seven year old thinks its cool, so fare he has had fun tweaking the example applications with my help.

Firefox released a critical update which will patch three security holes in the browser that now clams more than 6% of the browser market.

The most notable security hole could allow an attacker to run arbitrary code on the user's machine, through an an exploitable heap overrun caused by a GIF processing error when parsing the obsolete Netscape extension 2.