LiveSide has revealed the 12 developers sessions which are scheduled at MIX10. Full list of sessions can be found here →
March 2010
LiveSide has revealed the 12 developers sessions which are scheduled at MIX10. Full list of sessions can be found here →
Few weeks back we did a post regarding Ubuntu Lucid finally dropping the aging ‘Human’ theme. Little did we know that the UI makeover wasn’t just restricted to the OS until the UI freeze happened a couple of days ago.
As shown by Jono Bacon (Ubuntu Community Manager at Canonical), the massive revamp includes a new ‘lighter’ theme for Lucid Lynx, a different font for Ubuntu Logo and a complete redesign of all Canonical websites and Ubuntu communities.
Ubuntu ‘Light’ Theme:
New Ubuntu Logo font:
New Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Splash screen:
New Ubuntu community logos:
You can read more about ‘Refreshing the Ubuntu Brand’ on Jono’s blog.
In Dec 09, Mozilla talked about the ‘out of process plugins’ (OOP) architecture that could render plugins in Firefox as seperate processes making it easy to identify a malperforming plugin and end it using the task manager. Turns out, Mozilla is all set to release the Mozilla Developer Preview 3.7 alpha 2 (codenamed Lorentz), feature packed with OOP.
Yes, it is an alpha preview version which means it’s basically for testing purposes. However, I assume this feature will definitely be incorporated in Firefox 4 which is anticipated to be a grand superset of what Firefox is today.
The following screenshot, courtesy Mozilla Links, shows each plugin running as different processes by the name ‘mozilla-runtime.exe’.
Mozilla’s Benjamin Smedberg says,
When a plugin crashes, the Mozilla crash reporter kicks in and submits the crash report to Mozilla. Then we replace the plugin display with the crashed-plugin UI. When you reload the page, we restart the plugin process.
This is what the crashed-plugin UI mentioned by Benjamin looks like:
Neat! Isn’t it? Now before giving out the download link I’d like to mention it again that this is an Alpha version of the software which might contain bugs. So use at your own risk.
Download Mozilla Developer Preview 3.7 alpha 2 / ~ 8 MB
When you step into a race much later when your competitor has already made considerable benchmarks, you need to be highly innovative and an excellent strategist to catch people’s eyeballs. And Bing is doing precisely that.
Considering the mass hysteria created by Farmville, a web based game on Facebook, Microsoft thought it wise to promote Bing on Farmville by luring its users free virtual ‘cash’, supposedly quite a ‘valuable’ asset in the game. This resulted in 80 million users to see the big ‘Bing’ logo on their virtual farms.
The banner read ‘Become a fan of Bing now and get FREE Farm Cash’.
The idea was not only unique, it proved to be a massive hit. The number of fans on Bing’s Facebook page rose from a few lacs to millions and counting. Yes, the thing has gone viral. So, if you are running out of Farmville cash (or whatever) you know what you need to do, right?
PS: I hate Farmville. Never played it. Never will. Period.
Windows 7 has been around for a year and by now, I think everyone using it might have gone thoroughly familiarized with it. However, Windows 7 has some hidden perks that very few might have discovered; one of them being able to select multiple items using check-boxes. Like this:
Unlike the traditional tiring method which involves holding down the Ctrl key while you select multiple folders, this method is very handy. Just keep on clicking on the check-box shown on the top-left corner of the folders while you have a drink with your other hand.
How to use check-boxes to select items:
» In Windows Explorer, click ‘Organize’ > ‘Folder and search options’.
» In the window that appears, go to ‘View’ tab and select ‘Use check boxes to select items’ and click OK.
That’s it! Now you can select files using check boxes! 
Beginner Quick-tip
Confirmation dialog boxes in Windows are like the best thing after sliced bread just because they give you a ‘second chance’. However, if you are smart enough and consider yourself as the ‘one who can do no wrong’, you might want to turn off confirmation dialog boxes that appear when you delete a file/folder. So here’s how you can save an extra click.
1) Right click on ‘Recycle Bin’ and select ‘Properties’.
2) In the window that appears, un-check ‘Display delete confirmation dialog’.
That’s it. No more annoying confirmation dialog boxes. Now you can go on a deleting spree. ;)
