The big story this week was undoubtedly the launch of Firefox 3. And we covered the heck out of it. But while Mozilla's little browser was busy grabbing headlines, there was plenty of other news. Here are a few of our favorite (mostly) non-Firefox related stories:
What to expect from Mozilla's mobile Firefox web browser OK, we promise, this is the last Firefox-related link of the roundup. But we got a chance to talk with Mozilla VP for Mobile Jay Sullivan this week and he gave us the a rundown of what we can expect from the upcoming mobile version of Firefox. For example, Mozilla is targeting Linux and Windows Mobile phones at first, but could develop a Symbian version soon as well.
HELP! Windows cannot open this file Ever download a file from the internet only to discover that you have no idea what program you need to use to open it? We've got you covered with a roundup of software you can install on a Windows system to ensure that you can open pretty much any file you're likely to find.
OpenSUSE 11.0 proves chameleons can take on herons any day Ubuntu gets a lot of attention for being a user-friendly Linux distribution for newbies, but the latest version of OpenSUSE is poised to give Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron a run for its money. It's fast, supports GNOME or KDE4, as well as the light weight Xfce interface, and comes with all the applications you'd expect from a modern Linux distro, including the latest stable version of OpenOffice.org.
Giveaway: OpenSUSE 11 box set with all the trimmings Oh yeah, and we've got a special boxed edition of OpenSUSE 11 to give away. Follow the link for all the details and contest rules. The contest runs through Tuesday June 26th.
Digg this Kevin Rose - Reddit goes completely open source Always wanted to develop your own Digg-killer? Now you can, using the source code for one of the most popular social news/bookmarking sites around. Reddit opened up its source code this week which lets anyone develop their own Reddit clones or applications designed to interface with the original web service.
Qtrax launches free, legal, and limited P2P music app Remember when you could easily find and download any song on the internet just by firing up Napster or your favorite P2P music client? Yeah, we know there are still programs and P2P networks out there holding the free music torch. But you always run the risk of getting a nasty letter from the RIAA when you use those clients. That's not the case when you use Qtrax, a new P2P client that launched this week. What sets Qtrax apart from the competition is that the service only features 100% legal and free music. The service is supported by advertising and would be totally awesome if it weren't for two restrictions. First the software uses Windows Media DRM. Second, the music selection is still pretty pitiful.
Skype 4.0 beta puts video front and center, takes over your screen Skype has released a new beta of its popular VoIP client for Windows. And for the first time, video seems like a primary feature and not an afterthought. The video window is larger and more prominent. But overall the client takes up far more screen real estate and starts in full screen mode by default. While you can certainly resize the window, it doesn't fit in the sidebar as easily as earlier versions, which makes it a bit more awkward to use if you're just looking to use the text chat or audio call features.
SkypeSync is a new service you can use to get all those numbers from your phone into your Skype list, so you can call them with SkypeOut, the Skype feature that lets you call regular phone numbers. It's built using the SyncML standard, which is supported by most recent phones, so the odds are pretty good that it'll work for your cell.
Here's how to use it: point your phone's browser at zyb.com, a free synchronization server recently acquired by Vodafone, and store your contacts there. Download and open SkypeSync (it's only available for Windows right now) and use its Synchronization Wizard to import your contacts from Zyb to Skype. Voila! You now have all your phone numbers ready for use with SkypeOut.
Obviously, the service is somewhat limited right now, since it only works with Zyb, but there are plans to support other synchronization servers soon. Right now, this looks like a decent solution if you're a big SkypeOut user, and don't want to face the prospect of manually entering every number you want to call on Skype.
Skype 4.0 beta for Windows is due out tomorrow. And this beta will represent a major shift for the VoIP client. While nearly a third of Skype calls are video, each version of Skype up until now has been designed with audio in mind. The client is small and easily resizeable and feels like an application for making phone calls. TechCrunch reports that Skype 4.0 beta will be a full screen application designed with video in mind.
The new version takes advantage of the larger window by spreading out the buttons a bit and adding support for new video features like picture in picture. There's also more room on the screen for text chat or for sharing files while conducting voice or video calls.
Skype 4.0 beta also features improved hardware deection and tools for testing your connection. But honestly, we're not convinced that this whole full-screen design is the way to go. There's no doubt that the updated Skype client looks like it will make video calls far more pleasant. But more than 70% of the calls placed on the Skype network are still audio-only. And we're guessing that a lot of the people placing those calls like to have a bit of space on their desktops to multitask while making phone calls.
Of course, if you're just using Skype for voice communication, you can always minimize the application while you're talking, web browsing, and playing World of WarCraft. Or whatever it is you do when you're on the phone.
VoIP provider Skype lets you make PC to PC calls or make calls from your computer to a telephone. But if you live in the US, up until now when you made a call from Skype to a telephone, ther person you were calling wouldn't see your number on the caller ID. They's see some random string of numbers like 000123456.
Skype has now added a Caller ID option that will let you use your SkypeIn phone number or your cellphone number for Caller ID purposes. To activate the feature, just log into your account through the Skype web site, and select Caller ID from the Account menu. If you have a SkypeIn number to receive phone calls, that will automatically be selected as your new ID. If you'd rather use your mobile phone number, just enter the number and Skype will send you an SMS with an activation code. Note that it could take up to 24 hours before the changes take effect.
If you have multiple SkypeIn numbers with different area or country codes, you can also select an option that will automatically display a number that's local to the call destination when available.
Skype has offered a similar Caller ID feature for European customers for a while now.
As a point release, you shouldn't expect to find a ton of new features in Skype 3.8. Most of the changes are under the hood, but users should notice improved call quality, meaning fewer dropped calls, less delay, and less background noise. The new version should also do a better job of automatically configuring your firewall and router settings.
Skype has also hidden away user profile images from incoming requests. This might not sound like a big deal, but if you've ever received a request from someone with an avatar you'd rather not display on your work computer, this update could be a life saver.
Have friends, relatives, or business contacts located in faraway lands? Internet telephony company Skype is launching its first plan that lets you make unlimited international PC to telephone calls, assuming you're calling a landline in one of 34 countries covered by the plan.
Most of Europe is covered, as well as the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Korea and Taiwan.The $9.95/month plan doesn't cover calls to cellphones in all areas, but you can call mobile phones in the US, Canada, China, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Or you can just convince everybody you know to install Skype on their computers and mobile phones so you can make Skype to Skype calls for free.
The Skype team has just released a new beta version of their internet telephony client for Windows. Skype 3.8 beta primarily focuses on audio quality improvements, with less background noise, less delay, fewer cut outs and dropped calls.
Skype 3.8 beta also uses a new UPnP framework, which should do a better job of automatically configuring your firewall and router settings. There's also a new extras manager and a bunch of bug fixes. The one known issue with this release is that you cannot send voicemails to users who have not authorized you.
While Call Graph certainly isn't the only Skype plugin that lets you record calls for free, it is certainly one of the simplest to use. And it's free, which always helps. Several other popular Skype recording applications like Pamela let you record up to 15 minutes for free, but you'll have to pony up some cash for a license if you want to record longer calls. There are no such limitations on Call Graph.
Here's how it works. You install Call Graph, and it will automatically record every call you make as a 128kbps MP3 file. You'll know it's working because a window will pop up letting you know the call is being recorded and asking if you want to stop the recording. You can also click the icon in the system tray to configure Call Graph so that it won't automatically record every call.
When a call ends, a window will pop up showing you a list of recent calls. You can play, rename, tag, or delete files from this window. There's also a search bar to find previous calls, which can come in handy as long as you've been diligent about adding tags.
Call Graph appears to be Windows only for now, and it's officially a public beta, although it seems to work pretty well.
Skype 2.0's biggest feature is support for video calls, which means you can do pretty much anything with the Linux version of Skype that you can do with the PC or Mac clients. That includes making PC to PC phone calls or video calls for free, or PC to telephone calls for a fee.
Packages are available for Ubuntu, Debian, Xandros, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Mandriva, and CentOS.
The open source Pidgin multi-chat client is great if you want to manage your AIM, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, Jabber, and Yahoo! Messenger accounts all from one application. But what if you want to chat with your Skype contacts? While Skype isn't one of the services supported when you first run Pidgin, you can enable Skype chat with the Skype API Plugin.
The plugin comes in Linux and Windows varieties. Linux users can install the plugin using a DEB package or by copying a file to the Pidgin plugin directory. Windows users just need to copy a DLL to the plugin directory. There's also a Skype plugin for Adium for Mac users.
Now the bad news. First, there's no support for voice calls, which should come as no real surprise since Pidgin doesn't support voice chat for any protocol yet. Second, you need to run Skype in the background or you won't be able to login to your Skype account using Pidgin. Which kind of defeats the purpose if you ask us.
Skype has released a new hotfix for the Windows version of Skype that deals with some security issues and polishes out some kinks, including better connection speed to the Skype network if you're on a restricted connection.
The primary issues addressed in the Skype 3.6 hotfix are cross-zone vulnerabilities and the implementation of a new white/blacklist feature for programs that utilize the Skype API - keeping out those that exploit it for malicious purposes.
It also fixes some other bugs such as Skype crashing when taking a second incoming call, contacts being lost when synchronization failed, and the ability to use a webcam that is plugged in during a call. For a full list of fixes included, check out the official list.
If your Skype is set to auto-update, you should get the fix automatically - otherwise, you can check for new updates from the Skype client or download Skype 3.6.
During CES, we reported that Skype was coming to Sony's PSP. Today, anxious PSP owners can jump for joy as Sony has released the new firmware with Skype loaded and ready to rock.
If you have a Sony PSP Slim or Lite model, load up version 3.90 to get Skype on your portable piece of gaming heaven. Once you have it loaded and signed in, you can easily make free calls to your Skype contacts as well as see who is online form your contact list. Skype IM doesn't work, obviously, due to the lack of a way to enter characters.
Additionally, if you have SkypeOut credits to landlines and mobiles for cheap rates. The current rates for calling US/Western European phones is just under 2 cents a minute.
There are some signs that Skype VoIP software may be coming Sony's PSP. According to Sony's CES PR documentation, Skype is going to be available on the PSP. We tried to contact Skype's PR department for an official word, but they said "No comment at this time". We'll see what happens when CES kicks off this coming week.
For now, we can only rely on the fact that Skype is listed in the PSP's feature list on their site, as seen below.
PamFax, the Skype add-on we told you about a few months ago that lets you use Skype to send documents to fax machines has come out of beta. While in beta, the service was unavailable to US customers, but now that it has officially launched PamFax makes it easy to choose a Word or PDF document from your desktop and send it to any fax line in the world.
The application has a few other nifty new features, including the ability to work with Windows-compatible scanners. That means you can essentially turn your scanner into a fax machine by scanning an item directly to PamFax and then sending it off. There's also a PamFax print driver that lets you treat PamFax as a virtual printer. In other words, you can hit the print button in Word, Excel, Firefox, or any other application on your PC and sen the printout to any fax machine.
It costs about $.24 per page to send a fax, and you have to pay about $1.42 to sign up for the service the first time you send a fax. So if you happen to have a real fax machine lying around, it's probably going to be cheaper just to hook it up to your phone line. But for anyone who needs to send an occasional fax doesn't have a fax machine or a land line available, PamFax is a convenient, easy to use solution.
Skype has released a new build of Skype 2.7 beta for Mac. Probably the most important feature in the latest release is support for OS X 10.5 Leopard. But it looks like the Skype team is also continuing its march toward feature parity across the Mac, Linux, and PC versions of the popular internet telephony software.
A few months ago Skype launched high-res video support for video chat using the Windows client. When we say high-res, we don't mean HDTV resolutions, we're just talking plain old 640 x 480 pixel VGA resolution. But that's still a much sharper image than you'll get using the Linux or Mac versions of Skype, which only support 320 x 240 pixels.
Skype 2.7 beta for Mac is the first OS X build to support VGA video at 25 frames per second. If you've got a slower internet connection, you can also adjust your video settings.
We're guessing it'll be a while before we see VGA support for the Linux client, since Skype just got around to adding video to Skype 2.0 beta for Linux last month.
The big story this week was undoubtedly the launch of Firefox 3. And we covered the heck out of it. But while Mozilla's little browser was busy grabbing headlines, there was plenty of other news. Here are a few of our favorite (mostly) non-Firefox related stories:
During CES, 
