Windows 7 Beta now Ready for Download

If you’ve been out of the loop for the past couple of days, it might interest you to know that Microsoft has made available a public beta version of their upcoming operating system, Windows 7. You can download a copy by clicking here and installation is pretty easy. Just burn the Windows 7 image to a DVD, boot up from the DVD discand run the installation .

So, if you’re already raring to give Microsoft’s latest OS a try, then by all means download it now and tell us how it goes for you.

Firefox 3.1 Speed Memory

Firefox 3.1 is currently in its second beta release, and it already looks great. In fact, it looks set to deliver a lot more than one might expect from a typical “minor” software-update release.

InaTux.com recently posted a good summary of some frequently-overlooked new features coming in Firefox 3.1. One of the most important of these under-the-hood tweaks will streamline Firefox’s memory usage, allowing it to run faster and far more efficiently.

Firefox 3.0 already delivered major improvements in memory usage; most notably, it fixed a number of persistent, and often very annoying, memory-leak bugs. This time around, the changes in Firefox 3.1 will focus on the browser’s normal memory usage, which according to this December, 2008 blog post already requires just two-thirds of the RAM that Firefox 3.0 requires for normal Web-browsing operations.

Keep in mind that with Firefox 3.1 still in beta, these numbers are likely to get even better before Mozilla issues a production release. In any case, it looks like the changes will eliminate, once and for all, any lingering concerns over the browser’s desktop memory footprint.

Another major new feature will allow Firefox 3.1 users to run in a privacy-enhanced browsing mode which allows users to browse the Web without saving any session information. This will give Firefox feature parity in this area with Safari and Google Chrome, both of which already offer similar capabilities. In addition, Firefox 3.1 will add the ability to clear the browser’s history by time and to remove all traces of a previously-visited site from a user’s desktop cache.

Under the hood, Firefox 3.1 won’t just deliver improved memory usage. It will also, for the first time, use TraceMonkey as the browser’s default JavaScript rendering engine.

TraceMonkey is already included in Firefox 3.0, but it is turned off by default (if you want to enable it –as many Firefox power users do, typically with great results — check out my previous blog post with detailed instructions on how to do so.) With TraceMonkey enabled, Firefox 3.1 will deliver eye-popping improvements in JavaScript performance, interpreting and rendering scripts between 20 and 40 times faster than Mozilla’s current JavaScript engine.

Development on Firefox 3.1 proceeded in parallel with Firefox 3.0; alpha builds have been available since last summer, and the current beta release is looking quite solid. If you’re even mildly curious about Firefox 3.1 (and either know how to back up your profile or don’t mind if something goes wrong and you lose your profile), check out the release notes and download the most current pre-release build here. Everyone else can expect a final Firefox 3.1 release to appear before the middle of the year.

Via   : How to Double Firefox Speed | PC Tips

Vic Gundotra, VP of engineering at Google, said in a blog post that Dodgeball, a mobile social networking service that lets users share their locations with friends, would be closing in the next few months and that further details would be forthcoming.

Jaiku, however, will live on as an open source project. Gundotra said that Google engineers have been porting the microblogging service to Google App Engine and that when the migration is completed, the company plans to make the code available under the Apache license.

“With the open source Jaiku Engine project, organizations, groups, and individuals will be able to roll-their-own microblogging services and deploy them on Google App Engine,” he said. “The new Jaiku Engine will include support for OAuth, and we’re excited about developers using this proven code as a starting point in creating a freely available and federated, open source microblogging platform.”

He also said that Google would be shutting Google Mashup editor, a tool for making Web service mashups that has been in closed beta testing. Much, if not all, of the functionality of Google Mashup Editor is available through Google App Engine, and Gundotra is encouraging users to transition their applications to Google App Engine.

In a separate blog post, Punit Soni, a Google product manager, said that Google Catalog Search is scheduled to close Thursday. The service, launched in 2001, provided the ability to search the full text of thousands of product catalogs for the few who used it. The technology developed for Google Catalog Search went on to provide the foundation of Google Book Search.

The cessation of the ability to upload videos to Google Video in a few months is unlikely to affect many video makers, apart from those seeking to upload videos longer than 10 minutes. YouTube limits videos to 10 minutes, with some exceptions, in part as a way to keep storage costs down and to prevent the unauthorized uploading of complete half-hour TV shows and longer-format, professionally produced content.

One idea in the teacher blogosphere: In the age of podcasts, kill off the classroom lecture, or at least rely on it less.

Why fill classroom time with passive listening in a chemistry class if it could be better used for practice and interaction? Lectures can be listened to at home as a podcast.

In response to another blogger’s post on the topic, Pennsylvania teacher Louise Maine suggests: “Students can listen to it as many times as needed, make notes of questions to ask in class, and maintain for a reference. We can require notes to be shown for evidence of work having been done.”

Shifting attitudes among teachers in recent years have been observed by others.

“There is a growing perception that student communication and online collaboration are important 21st-century skills,” says Jeff Patterson, president of Gaggle.net, a company offering safe email for students.

His company got off to a slow start after launching in late 1999. “Schools and teachers were just not ready for email and online communication tools,” says Patterson.

But now Gaggle.net manages nearly 2 million email accounts, offers student blogs, and plans to release more online collaboration tools. A seventh-grade science teacher in Indiana, Jeff Peterson, says students at his school use Gaggle to collaborate and manage files, “skills they will need to use in the workplace or in college.”

His web site complements his courses with various materials, including podcasts, and he has a link to his Flickr page, where he posts pictures from class field trips. He notes that he’s fortunate to teach in an area where most students have access to computers at home, and many have high-speed Internet access.

But he’s hardly alone. In developed countries it’s not uncommon for students to be wired at home and packing gadgets in school.

Source and More : CNN