Posted 11/20/09 at 03:06:30 PM by Bart Salisbury

You curiosity can now be slaked: Google’s Chrome OS is now ready for download and review. The bad news is you’ll need VMWare to run it. The good news is you can run it on OS X, Linux, or Windows.

But will it be worth the effort? If it’s something you really, really got to do, then yes, it will be worth the effort. For the rest of us, with episodes of The Colbert Report to catch up on, maybe not. Our colleagues over at Engadget have tried it out and report Chrome OS is “really a browser with an OS attached rather than vice versa.”

Chrome OS is browser-like in its construction, and Internet oriented. There are minimal app launcher options. And the more interesting apps, says Engadget, required a Google.com account to access. Without one you will be stuck playing with Gmail and Calendar (which Engadget reports suffer from “significant lag and choppiness”).

Still, with a Thanksgiving weekend to kill, Chrome OS might give you an option other than family, food, or football. You’ll find a download link for Chrome OS at gdgt.com.

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Posted 11/17/09 at 02:16:51 PM by Bart Salisbury

It’s not just the season for giving thanks, it’s apparently the season for coughing up betas. Yesterday Microsoft released the Office 2010 beta to developers (and to regular users on November 18). Today Adobe has announced beta versions of Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2.0.

AIR allows developers to create Internet applications that run outside a browser on a variety of operating systems. Flash provides multimedia content within a browser, again on various operating systems. Both beta versions will offer global error handling (a benefit for developers), local microphone access, and, should you be blessed with a touch screen, support for multi-touch and gestures. Flash will also incorporate the latest hardware decoding of H.264 on Windows PCs. While AIR will add communication with native applications on the local machine; mass storage detection; an open document API; a faster JavaScript engine; and new HTML5/CSS3 capabilities.

The betas for Flash Player and AIR are available now for Windows, OS X, and Linux, as well as x86-based netbooks.

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Posted 11/16/09 at 04:21:52 PM by Bart Salisbury

For a lucky few the Office 2010 beta, along with Office Web Applications, are now ready for download from the Microsoft Developers Network (MSDN) and Microsoft’s TechNet Plus. The rest of us lowly souls will have to wait until November 18th to get a crack at guinea pig status.

Redmond Pie reports the big changes in this third beta build to be “the new installation procedure for test versions of Office 2010 SKUs, Upload Center, modified version of Backstage view and new refreshed icons for all Office products.”

Office 2010 Beta will be offered in both 32 and 64-bit versions.

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Posted 11/12/09 at 06:44:14 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Mozilla today unveiled the Jetpack Gallery, a place for developers to showcase their Jetpack add-ons.  Jetpack is a Mozilla Labs project that lets developers build Firefox add-ons using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. While the newly launched gallery – still in beta - gives developers the opportunity to host and promote their Jetpacks, it lets Firefox users browse, install and rate Jetpacks. Installing Jetpacks is quite easy and doesn’t even require a browser restart, save for the very first Jetpack that a user installs. The Jetpack Gallery currently features over 30 add-ons.

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Posted 11/12/09 at 08:00:30 AM by Paul Lilly

Mozilla this week released the second beta for its upcoming Firefox 3.6 browser. If you decide to ditch your stable build and jump on the pre-release browser, Mozilla says Firefox will update itself during the beta period and eventually to the final release.

The latest beta squashes more than 190 bugs from the previous version to improve performance, stability, security, and features, according to Mozilla. But it's not all about bug fixes. Users can now change the browser's appearance with a single click, receive alerts about out-of-date plugins, and display native video in full screen. The second beta also adds support for the WOFF font format, expands CSS, DOM, and HTML5 capabilities, and improves upon the browser's JavaScript performance.

The out-of-date plugin alerts might be the most interesting new feature of the bunch. Earlier this week, security vendor Ceznic noted that Firefox accounted for 44 percent of all browser vulnerabilities, 'beating' out every other browser by 9 percent or more. Ceznic noted that part of the reason Firefox led the pack is because of the large number of plugins, which accounted for a "fair amount of the vulnerabilities."

View the release notes and download a copy of the second beta build here.

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Posted 11/11/09 at 04:33:54 AM by Nathan Grayson

Initially said to be making a nuclear strike on our free time in 2009, StarCraft II’s beta test has officially shoved off into the murky, fog-of-war shrouded depths of 2010.

StarCraft II producer Chris Sigaty made the announcement during a presentation at Russian games expo IgroMir, much to the chagrin of the year 2009, which – after providing chronological sanctuary for a global economic crisis and the tragic deaths of multiple beloved celebrities – needed some sort of positive highlight to keep it from going down in history as the worst year ever. When reached for comment, 2010 had only this to say: “Neener-neener-neener.”

For the time being, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is still set to launch in the Spring of 2010. Could another delay be just around the corner, though? We sure hope not – but even if Blizzard decides to take its sweet time putting the finishing touches on its space-faring sequel, it’s not like early 2010 is hurting for major game releases.

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Posted 11/03/09 at 09:30:54 AM by Paul Lilly

Google's minimalistic Chrome browser continues to improve one feature at a time, and the latest release adds the ability to sync bookmarks across multiple machines. There's one caveat, however - it's a beta release, not a stable build.

If you're thinking to yourself that's not much of a caveat, then in your luck, because the new beta also purports to supercharge performance. According to the Chrome devs, you can expect the beta to run up to 30 percent faster than the current stable release, as measured by Mozilla's Dromeao DOM Core tests, and about 400 percent faster than the very first stable Chrome build.

But let's get back to the bookmark syncing, because that's going to be the realy draw for most users. This essentially the same implementation as was previously available through Google's dev channel, which is geared for developers and "can be very unstable at times." And just like before, there's nothing complicated about the feature in the beta build. Just mosey over to the Wrench icon, select 'Synchronize my bookmarks...' and sign in to your Google account. All of your bookmarks will then be uploaded. When you do the same on another PC with a different set of bookmarks, Chrome will offer to merge your bookmarks. Pretty slick.

Check out the video walkthrough here.

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Posted 10/20/09 at 03:24:01 PM by Bart Salisbury

Microsoft appears to be in a beta-state of mind. Hot on the heels of the announcement that Visual Studio’s beta 2 release, Microsoft has announced that an Office 2010 public beta will be available in November.

Computerworld’s Gregg Keizer is reporting that Steve Ballmer, in his keynote address to kick off Microsoft’s SharePoint Conference 2009 in Las Vegas, said the Office 2010 beta would be forthcoming, and that anyone will be eligible to give it a try. Up to now Office 2010 beta testing has been confined to a technical preview to a select few thousand.

Office 2010 is a bit of a hybridization, having computer, web browser (Office Web Apps), and smartphone (Office Mobile) components. Up to now only the Office Web Apps have been available for review, and only on Windows Live.

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