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Blog Entries from July 2005
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Microsoft Virtual Earth Launched
This is Microsoft's answer to Google Maps. A blog post (external link) gives us some more information:
Microsoft has launched MSN Virtual Earth, a new service which combines mapping with local search to answer user queries. Read the press release here.
MSN Virtual Earth (external link) provides detailed street-level maps and point-of-interest information for the United States. Later this year it will incorporate bird's-eye-view imagery that shows cities, landmarks, and more from a 45-degree angle view (we told you about some of these features a month or two ago).
Robert Scoble links to a Channel 9 video interview with the MSN Virtual Earth team and the gang at F*ckedGoogle.com is already calling it a "maps.google.com killer". Check out the discussion on Slashdot for something a little more even-keeled.
Visual Earth seems to work fine in IE, Firefox and Opera, but only has a nice little transparency effect in IE and slightly deformed buttons in Firefox. There are no notable other differences and when the rest of the Earth (other than just the USA) gets added in the following weeks, we can probably see a nice battle emerging. "Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!"
Our world is getting easier to access.
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AnalogX
I recently came across a very nice collection of utilities for a lot of things you can do on your computer. Personally I find the network related tools most interesting.
For example there is FastCache (external link), which can save the IP of any address you visit for a couple of days in the HOSTS file (which Windows only does for a few seconds). So for sites you visit quite a lot, like Google, Wikipedia (and Lowter? :-) ) you immediatly start connecting to the server which saves almost a second of DNS lookup, providing a definite speed improvement.
Another interesting tool is Netstat Live (external link), which can give you nice statistics about your network connection, like the current up & down speeds, average, total tranferred, well, basically everything which Windows doesn't have easily available for some reason.
If you're interested in the availability of domains, WhoIs Ultra (external link) can almost be considered a neccesity, as it checks the availability of domain names in a GUI ultra-fast.
There are a lot of other very nice tools on the AnalogX (external link) website, so I'd strongly recommend you pay the site a visit and see for yourself.
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Checking the Browser
JavaScript can be useful in some hard spots, and a browser detecting script can be very convenient. Detecting the browser of the visitor can easily assist in cross browser web design. JavaScript allows you to access the user's browser via the navigator object:
JavaScript
<script type="text/javascript">
var browser = navigator.appName;
alert(browser);
</script>You can also use another property of the navigator object known as userAgent to access a description of the browser version of the appName property. Here we can combine the two to make a cleaner alert message:
JavaScript
<script type="text/javascript">
var browser = navigator.appName;
var description = navigator.userAgent;
alert(browser + “/n” + description);
</script>Some web browsers lack the navigator object, although the latest releases of the major web browsers support it. So when your stuck between a rock and a hard spot, just think JavaScript!
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New AdSense Design
Google AdSense users are now able to manage their ads through an all new interface. Along with the new layout, Google made modifications to their Terms & Conditions for the AdSense program.
The new interface offers the same capabilities as the previous interface. The only difference is the updated design with smoother colors and larger fonts. Overall, it makes a nice change to the dull interface we were use to.
Even though the new design is nice, it won't help advertisers make more money. Still sometimes a new look is more encouraging.
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ColdFusion Is Now 10
Today, July 13th, marks the ten year anniversary for the popular server programming platform - ColdFusion. This programming language has gone through numerous changes throughout the years, but in the end it has become a very powerful programming language.
The true ColdFusion geeks are throwing a worldwide party. I don't believe that anyone did that for PHP's latest anniversary, but oh well.
Over the course of ten years, ColdFusion has gone through seven versions and switching hands between Allaire and Macromedia. You can visit the anniversary home page (external link) for more information.
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Opera Adds BitTorrent
Opera Software today launched a technical preview (TP) of the Opera browser for Windows, Linux and Mac that includes support for BitTorrent. Integrating this popular file-downloading technology in the Opera browser offers the end user a faster download process by utilizing full bandwidth and reducing the chance of in-transfer delay when multiple users download the same file.
Quotation by "Christen Krogh, VP of Engineering, Opera Software"
While BitTorrent has been on Opera's radar screen for more than a year, the true value of the technology became evident when the company launched Opera 8 in April this year. The massive response, with more than 100 downloads per second, dealt a technical knock-out to Opera's servers. With BitTorrent, users would have had an alternative download mechanism.
With BitTorrent, Opera hopes to make it easier for users to download the large amount of legal material available, such as Linux software and computer game demos. The Opera browser will also be offered for download as a torrent file.
Opera already supports other file protocols such as FTP and HTTP, and BitTorrent is the logical next step in the company's strategy to make protocols available that increase productivity and the overall Internet experience for the end-users. The BitTorrent protocol differs from FTP and HTTP in that it makes downloading a large file more efficient, as individuals downloading the same file will assist each other in the download process.
See Opera's website on BitTorrent (external link) and the press release (external link) for more information. The technical preview can be downloaded from the MyOpera forums (external link).
As a nice sidenote, this came to my attention searching for torrent related stuff via Google, my favourite browser has just become even more attractive to me. :-)
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Firetune 1.0.5 Released
Yep, that's right, I'm posting something Firefox related. So you want to get your Firefox faster than it is by default? This is the ideal tool. For me, it really increased Firefox's performance. Not that it's faster than K-Meleon or Opera now, but well, that's not the most important reason either of us uses one browser over the other I think in this era. :-)
FireTune for Mozilla Firefox v1.x was developed for an easy and fast optimization of your browsing experience with Firefox. It is based on a collection of popular and well working optimization settings used and tested by the experts. Usually you have to optimize Firefox manually, which can be time consuming and difficult for the novice user. FireTune helps you here - it includes all the performance optimizations. The only thing you must do is: make your selection. FireTune does the work for you.
According to your specific computer speed and internet connection speed, FireTune will optimize several internal settings of Firefox for better performance. FireTune does NOT modify the Firefox executable, or any other Firefox binary file. Everything can be undone easily provided you saved your original profile configuration file with FireTune's profile backup feature before.
In most of all cases you'll notice an improved browsing speed after optimizing Firefox with FireTune.
You can download it from the Totalidea (external link) website.
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