If you've been sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for Apple to release the next version of OS X, sit back down before you fall off your set. Oh yeah, and OS X 10.5 (also known as Leopard) will ship on Oct 26th.
New features include:
Quick Look, a new feature that lets you see the contents of a file without opening said file
Stacks, a new way to access files from the Dock
Time Machine backup
Redesigned Finder that makes it easier to browse and share files between computers on your home network
Updated Mail designs
Improved parental controls
Boot Camp exits beta
Web Clip lets you save web content as Dashboard widgets
A single user license will cost $129 while you can pick up a family 5-pack for $199.
OMG, the hour is nearly upon us! At midnight Windows Vista will go on sale all around the world. Can you hear the excitement? Hmm, maybe if you took out your white earbuds. How about now?
In case you found the other day's 10 reasons to upgrade (and 10 not to) less than convincing, PC World took a stab at it too, upping the ante by 50% with its 15 Reasons to Switch. Here's the first five:
It's the Interface, Stupid (Aero is pretty)
Flip Over Windows Flip 3D (Alt-Tab is pretty)
Live Thumbnails (taskbar hover previews)
Boost Performance With ReadyBoost (not just an energy drink anymore)
Cool Performance Tools (Reliability and Performance Monitor)
If you're the kind of person who likes to go shopping at midnight, USA Today has the scoop on Microsoft's launch events. CompUSA stores will be open from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.; 14 Best Buy locations will be open until 12:30 a.m., and the Detroit, Cleveland and San Diego stores will have NFL players on hand signing autographs (synergy!!); Steve Ballmer will be making a morning appearance at the midtown Manhattan Best Buy; and 10 Circuit City stores will be open until 1 a.m., with NFL players in Miami and Nashville. Oh, and CompUSA is offering to install Vista on your machine for $50, and will take it off for free if you experience a bit of the old buyer's remorse. [Via Consumerist]
Thrilling! Just. Thrilling. I, personally, will be asleep, because none of those stores are within 150 miles of me. No, really. So, on the eve of The Big Release, it's time to take stock one last time. Cast your votes in our very last pre-launch poll:
This morning Windows chief Jim Allchin held a conference call to announce that Microsoft has declared Windows Vista complete. "It's rock solid and we're ready to ship. This is a good day," he said of Microsoft signing off on the final code. CNet gives us a little timeline, reminding us that it's been five years since Windows XP debuted and three years since detailed "Longhorn"--Vista's codename--plans were first revealed. Now Microsoft will release the OS to PC manufacturers and gear up for its release to business customers on November 30 and consumers on January 30. It's still waiting, however, for a few straggling hardware makers to finish their Vista drivers. Microsoft is planning a release press conference on November 30 for Vista and Office 2007. The champagne is undoubtedly flowing fast in Redmond today.
Reader Sergio wrote in to tell us that, hot on the heels of last just in time for this week's Ubuntu Edgy release, the final release of Fedora Core 6 is now available. There's lots of new stuff in the latest release of the Red Hat-sponsored, community-driven Linux distribution including an improved installation system, support for Intel-based Macs, improved Xen virtualization support and a new GUI virtualization manager, the Yum update system in place of Up2date, and major performance improvements. As always, the best way to get your hands on Fedora Core is via BitTorrent.
Joomla (formerly Mambo), is set to release its latest, version 1.5 on October 12th, one year to the day that the Joomla team began coding it. Thirty-two "man-years" of work ($1.7 million in wages) have been put into Joomla's 1.5 release. Not bad. Joomla remains one of the most robust and comprehensive content management systems on the market, is open-source and free for the downloading. I have used Joomla and Mambo for a number of years, and though it has its quirks, that is generally due to your hosts problems, not the CMS itself. One good tip is to be sure that the host you use is Joomla friendly, or better yet, will install it for you via a one-click install process. It is safe to say that not many hosts will support the new version of Joomla, but that shouldn't stop you.
Corel has released the new version of Paint Shop Pro Photo XI. New to this release is the organizer, which has Picasa-like search and organizational features; the photo color changer (which is self-explanatory); the time machine, which will set your pictures back and make them look as if they were taken in another era; the depth of field effect, making the background fade to draw more attention to the object of focus; skin-smoothing; film and filter effects, and a ton more. The new release is ready for you now and costs $59 to upgrade or $99 for the full version, in either download or boxed format. There is also a 30-day trial available with free registration and login.
Earlier this week Bill Gates said there was an 80 percent chance Windows Vista would ship in January 2007 as scheduled. At the time I said "I wouldn't make any bets with odds like that," and neither would Mac developer Wil Shipley--he wants to bet Bill $10,000 that Vista won't ship by next January, and he's giving the Microsoft chairman 3 to 1 odds (which, for the math-challenged, is better than Bill's 80%, or 4:1). Of course, Gates will never take him or anyone else (except maybe Ballmer or Allchin) up on that bet, but it would be nice to see him put his money, as Shipley says, where his mouth is.
Certainty, it seems, isn't Microsoft's strong suit these days. Last we heard about Windows Vista's release date, Jim Allchin was saying it was right on track, but Steve Ballmer wasn't so sure. Now according to Bill Gates there's an "80 percent chance" that Vista will meet its targeted January launch date. That's what he said at a recent technology conference in Cape Town. Eighty percent isn't terrible, but I wouldn't make any bets with odds like that.
After months of testing, the newest version of the Opera web browser has finally gotten its final release. Opera 9 is now available for Windows, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris. The biggest new features in Opera 9 are content blocking, built-in BitTorrent support, widgets (yeah, widgets), per-site preferences, and thumbnail preview for tabs. You can see a feature overview here, or a more comprehensive changelog here. As always, Opera is a free download.
The latest experimental release of the next version of Mozilla Firefox is now available for download. Firefox 2.0 (a.k.a. Bon Echo) Alpha 3 includes a new SQLite-based storage system for bookmarks and history, an improved search plugin system, enhances security and localization for extensions, and perhaps most notably, new anti-phishing features. The anti-phishing features are based on code from the Safe Browsing extension, donated to the Mozilla Corporation by Google. As usual, install alpha software at your own risk. To quote the Bon Echo web site: "We do not recommend that anyone other than developers and testers download the Bon Echo Alpha 3 milestone release. It is intended for testing purposes only."
I'm so confused. First I read this Reuters report from yesterday that says Microsoft "is 'confident' that [Windows Vista] will meet its targeted launch date." That's according to Jim Allchin, co-president of Microsoft's Platform Products and Services Group. But then today there's a story at NeoWin that quotes CEO Steve Ballmer saying, "We think we are on track for shipping early in the year. We've talked about the month, but we get a chance to critically assess all of the feedback we'll get from this beta release then confirm or move [the launch date] a few weeks." So which is it? Confident or not? I'm not exactly feeling reassured. Ballmer is the one that has the power to name a ship date and make it happen, but Allchin is a lot closer to the product itself and it's he who Ballmer probably asks "Is it done?" In other words, when Vista will finally drop is as uncertain as ever.
Mozilla has released a 2nd alpha version of Firefox 2.0. As usual, this release is not recommended for any kind of serious use, but if you're salivating at some of the new version's features, check out what has been incorporated in this 2nd development milestone:
Links default to opening in new tabs, not new windows
Close buttons now appear on every tab, and the close behavior is slightly different
Inline spell checking in text boxes (Works well, though apparently not on all sites yet)
Automatic restoration of your browsing session if there is a crash
Search suggestions now appear in the search box auto-complete for Google and Yahoo!
New search plugin manager for removing and re-ordering search engines
Improved support for previewing and subscribing to web feeds
New microsummaries feature for bookmarks (Really interesting new feature)
New Add-Ons manager improves the user interface for managing extensions and themes
Updates to the extension system to provide enhanced security and to allow for easier localization of extensions
New search service that supports Sherlock and OpenSearch engines
Support for SVG text using svg:textPath
A mouthful, I know. I typed this post using this development version (Bon Echo, as they call it) on Mac OS X and I have to say, it's nice so far. Of course, none of my extensions were compatible, and I highly recommend backing up your Firefox app support folder before testing this, no matter what OS you're using. When I tried the last Bon Echo development version, it rendered my support folder incompatible with the latest stable release of Firefox. Just another one of those hazards of playing with dev editions.
Another significant delay for Windows
Vista would drop it firmly into the vaporware category right next to Duke Nukem Forever, but that's what analysts are
saying is about to happen. Research firm Gartner Inc. says that Vista's release date
will slip by at least three more months, making a consumer release fall in Q2 '07, between April and June.
Microsoft disagrees, however, saying that it's still on track for November and January release for the corporate and
retail markets, respectively. Gartner is almost nonchalant about its projected delay, however, saying that a slip to
March (March? Didn't you just say April-June?) would be nowhere near as bad as the slip to January that has already put
Vista out of Christmas shopping territory.
Back in
October we reported on
graphics company Xara's plans to open the source code of their flagship product Xara Xtreme and bring it to Linux and
Mac OS X. At the time no actual code had been released and only a "proof-of-concept" build was available. As
of last week, however, the full source code is
available under the GPL, paving the way for anyone to run the full-featured vector graphics suite for free,
assuming they run Linux or OS X. Xara still plans to make money by selling the Windows version and a commercial version
for Linux or Mac if the demand exists, but I wonder how long it'll be before someone backports this open source version
to Windows. Head over to Xara's open source site for videos, screenshots,
FAQS, and of course the download.
While a maybe-it's-official alpha version of Firefox 2.0 showed up late last week, today we
finally have a definitely-official version. Mozilla has put up a download site for the official release of Firefox
2.0 Alpha 1, codename "Bon Echo." On the list of changes are new tabbed browsing features, a new storage
system for bookmarks and history, and improvements to the extension and search plugin systems. One hopes it goes
without saying, but this is alpha software, so read the release notes and use at your own risk.
If you've been sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for Apple to release the next version of OS X, sit back down before you fall off your set. Oh yeah, and OS X 10.5 (also known as Leopard) will ship on Oct 26th. 
OMG, the hour is nearly upon us! At midnight Windows Vista will go on sale all around the world. Can you hear the excitement? Hmm, maybe if you took out your white earbuds. How about now?
I'm so confused. First I read this Reuters report from yesterday that says 
