Being my browser of choice, I am as keen as anyone to see what Firefox 3 brings to the table.

Many new features have been added, but my favourite so far is definitely the location bar.  It makes it so much easier to go back to websites you visit a lot, speeding up your browsing experience.  After I have used it for a bit longer, I will write a longer post about what I like and dislike about the latest incarnation of Firefox.

So, if you want to help Mozilla enter the Guinness Book of Records, or just fancy a more secure browser, download Firefox 3 today.

“We are encouraging site administrators to get their sites ready now for broad adoption of Internet Explorer 8, as there will be a beta release in the third quarter of this year targeted for all consumers,” said Nick MacKechnie, a senior manager for Microsoft’s New Zealand operations, in a blog entry earlier this week.

IE8 was released in beta 1 almost three months ago. Since then, Microsoft has not given a date for the second version, although it has regularly posted progress notes and other information about the new browser on a company blog.

MacKechnie also told web designers and site operators to start adding a compatibility tag to their site’s HTML code or those sites may not communicate and display properly when viewed in the new browser.

Microsoft said in early March, will default to a standards-compliant rendering of web content, an approach that had been pushed by site developers - rather than a mode that stresses compatibility with IE7.

The new tag, which can be applied on a per-page basis or site-wide, instructs IE8 to display the content as would IE7.

“Browsing with this default setting [in IE8] may cause content written for previous versions of Internet Explorer to display differently than intended,” MacKechnie said. “This creates a call to action for site owners to ensure their content will continue to display seamlessly in Internet Explorer 8.”

The first beta of IE8 is not exactly in widespread use. According to the latest data from web metrics company Net Applications Inc., IE8 Beta 1 accounted for just .02% of all browsers used last month. IE7, by comparison, held the top spot with a market share of 45.9%.

IE8 Beta 1, which runs in Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008, can be downloaded from Microsoft’s website.

Up until a few weeks ago, the default password being used on the router was “admin”. This is a major security hole in itself. If you are using any wireless router, the first thing you should do is change the default administrator password (if you are unsure how to do this, contact us). Recently, BT changed the default password to use the device’s serial number - a unique string - which seems like a really good idea.

The problem with this solution is that the device volunteers its serial number to anybody requesting the device’s multicast address (224.0.0.113). Such requests can only be sent by machines connected to the local area network. The thing with this is that it isn’t as hard to get on the network as you might think.

The BT Home Hub defaults to the inadequate Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) to secure itself. This is relatively easy to break - especially by somebody who knows what they are doing.

As the default security settings are not protecting you properly, you should follow the instructions provided by BT to harden your wireless network. If you have any problems implementing suggestions from those instructions, you can always get in touch with us.

Currently, version 2.4 is out now, but the new version of OpenOffice has been released for evaluation by the general public. The latest release 3.0 supports the OpenDocument format as standard and will work with files from the most relevant applications.

The beta release has a new refreshed look, presenting a new ‘start centre’ and ‘stylish fresh-looking’ icons. It also comes with better support for spreadsheet collaboration, workbook sharing, and new features in the Draw and Impress applications.

And for the Mac users out there, for the first time OpenOffice 3.0 will be able to run on Mac OS X without X11.

If you are brave enough, you can get the beta version from the OpenOffice website (145 MB for Windows).

Firefox 3.0 Release Candidate 1 launched on May 16th, but Mozilla has not yet committed to RC2. Previously, Mozilla said it is targeting June as the release window for the final version.

“We are making a go/no go decision early next week, as we are still collecting feedback [on Release Candidate 1],” Mike Schoepfer, Mozilla’s Vice President of Engineering, said in an e-mail Thursday.

On the mozilla.dev.planning newsgroup, Schroepfer also said that on May 27 Mozilla will either call Firefox 3.0 finished with RC1, or build RC2 with fixes for the 10 bugs that have been found.

In the meantime, testing will begin on the 10 bugs. “If we need to do an RC2, they’ll be ready to go,” he said. “If we ship RC1, we can get them in the 3.0.1.”

Bugzilla, Mozilla’s bug-tracking database and management system produced a bug list which includes three bugs marked “critical”. Eight of the bugs affect Firefox on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, while two afflict only Linux.

In Bugzilla, developers argued over the extent of the problem, which some users said seriously affected Firefox’s performance, as well as their systems overall and where the fault lay, in the browser or in SQLite, the database Firefox uses for its revamped bookmark and history feature, dubbed “Places.”

On Wednesday, in another e-mail, Schroepfer said that Mozilla developers were looking into the bug and were confident a solution had been found. “You can see that a couple different issues have been accidentally confused,” he said. “Overall, I think we have some good options to make this work well.”

Mozilla hasn’t upgraded the browser majorly since October 2006, but Mozilla may ship another version before the end of the year, Schroepfer has said, in order to add features that weren’t ready in time for Firefox 3.0.

Available in 41 languages, Firefox 3.0 RC1 can be downloaded for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux from Mozilla’s website.

I am trying to update my definition files for Ad-Aware SE 1.05 so that I am safer from adware. When I try to download the updates from within the software, I get the following message: Error retrieving update. How do I fix this?

Ordinarily, I would suggest checking to make sure your Internet connection works, making sure the connection is not being blocked by a firewall, and so on.

However, I know from personal experience that Ad-Aware SE 1.05 is no longer supported by Lavasoft, the manufacturers of the software. In fact, they say:

Please note that, as of December 31, 2007, Lavasoft will not issue new Definitions File updates or provide technical support for Ad-Aware SE. For the latest protection, please update to Ad-Aware 2007.

The updated version, Ad-Aware 2007 is available in three flavours: Free, Plus and Pro. All are supported with updated definition files and an improved engine to protect you from modern threats such as rootkits.

It should be noted that the Free version only provides post-threat protection; i.e. it helps you remove threats already on your PC. The Plus and Pro versions provide some real-time protection to help stop your PC being infected in the first place.

With added features such as real-time protection, these paid-for versions will utilise additional system resource - but are not total hogs like some programs (yes, I am looking at you Norton SystemWorks). If your PC is not scrapping the bottom of the specification barrel, you should be fine if you decide to go for a paid version.

A handy comparison chart is available to help you decide if the Free version is right for your needs (and your pocket).

If the free version still meets your needs, you can download Ad-Aware 2007 Free from Lavasoft’s website.

And just so you don’t think that you have to spend money for the sake of it, I am an avid user of the Free version of Ad-Aware.  I feel post-threat protection is enough for me as I have pretty safe browsing habits (i.e. only visit reputable sites) and I have up-to-date software security (patches for operating system and applications, anti-virus, firewall, etc.).  You may decide that you are able to manage threat levels with your behaviour as I do, or you may want to have the peace of mind that comes with real-time protection.

Final piece of advice: install a second anti-spyware tool, as no one tool provides you from complete protection.  I would advise Spybot S&D (which is free), although there are plenty of others.

The latest version is based on the Gecko 1.9 rendering platform; Mozilla says the new browser will be more secure, easier to use, more personal and faster.

Release Candidate 1 (RC1) is now available for download from Mozilla’s website for testing purposes in order to collect feedback from developers and the Firefox testing community.

Firefox 3 now offers simplified password management via an information bar that can be used to save passwords after a successful login, simplified add-on installation and a new simplified download manager that enables users to search for downloads by the name of the website they came from. It will also use less memory than previous versions.

One of Firefox 3’s new security features is one-click access to site information and provides details such as who owns it and whether the connection is protected from “eavesdropping”. Also, new malware protection warns users when they visit a site known to install viruses, malware or spyware.

Improvements have been made to its JavaScript engine, which will enable applications such as Google Mail and Zoho Office to run twice as fast in Firefox 3 compared to Firefox 2.

Executives previously stated it will be available in June, but there is no set date yet. “The final version of Firefox 3 will be released when we qualify the product as fully ready for our users,” the outfit said in the release notes for RC1 on its site.

With no set final release date, the new Flash player has several new features in aid of maintaining the plug-ins dominance (its penetration is over 98%) during a time of ever expanding Internet application platforms and development methodologies, including Microsoft Silverlight, JavaFX and Ajax.

“Adobe has a long track record of creating technologies that influence market direction, and we believe this beta release of Adobe Flash Player 10 raises the bar once again,” David Wadhwani, general manager and VP of the Platform Business Unit at Adobe, said in a statement.

Adobe has now added support for three-dimensional animated effects. Graphical objects can be manipulated and rotated, so that, for example, a developer can create a digital, three-dimensional array of two-dimensional Laptop images that appears to revolve around a central axis to help consumers decide what Laptop to buy from an online store.

One of the other new features of Flash Player 10 is an extended group of filter effects that use Adobe’s free Pixel Bender Toolkit, currently in testing, to easily create filters that can embed effects such as a twirled view of Flash media like video, text, or graphics, into any Flash application. An advanced filter feature was requested most for Flash Player 10, which was code-named Astro.

By enlisting the user’s graphics card to render Flash graphics, performance increases substantially and by employing dynamic streaming, video quality changes automatically with network performance.

Adobe has gone all out and completely rewrote the text engine to add new layout support and font manipulation capability. Implementing a better interface for Flash Player’s Drawing API, hand coding will not be needed for complex shapes and more low-level access to rendering features to encourage third-party rendering software development for Flash.

The beta version of Flash Player 10 will run on several versions of Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Adobe says all of the features in Flash Player 10 will also be available in a future version of the company’s AIR platform for rich Internet applications that run outside of a Web browser. It’s unclear when that will be available.

News around the Web indicates that some PCs are experiencing an endless reboot cycle after installing Windows XP SP3.

It appears that it mainly affects a small amount of AMD-based PCs, although I have seen reports that Intel-based PCs have some issues too. Do not do anything hasty! It is probably going to be relatively painless to fix the issue - so don’t go formatting your hard drive just yet (unless you fancy a clean install).

If this has happened to you, Jesper Johansson’s blog has a great write-up on some troubleshooting steps.

He also points out the Microsoft is offering free installation and troubleshooting support for SP3.

I have a copy of Microsoft Office 2007 on my laptop. When I save files from Word, I can’t open them on my PC, which has Office 2003. So, why can’t Microsoft Office 2007 files be opened in Office 2003?

The reason is due to Microsoft creating a new file format called Office Open XML. There are numerous advantages to this, one being smaller file sizes compared to the older version of office. By default, all Office 2007 files now have an x added to the end; .doc is now .docx, .xls is now .xlsx and so on. Therefore previous versions of Office cannot open these new files natively.

Office 2000, XP and Office 2003 can work with the new file formats (see the Microsoft website to understand what your application will be able to do), but will need the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats to be installed (27.5MB). Please note, Microsoft recommends that you install all high priority updates first.

In case you don’t want to install this, or you want backwards compatibility to Office 97 - 2000, I will show you some ways to save documents so that can be opened by older versions of Office without the add-on.

If you do not need to save files regularly in the old format, you can simply follow this method:

1. Click on the Office button located in the top left corner.



2. On the drop down menu, go down to Save As, Then move across to Word 97 - 2003 Document.

If you want Microsoft Word to save in this format automatically, you can do the following:

1. Click on the Office button in top left corner, and click on Word Options.



2. In the Word Options window that opens, click on the Save tab.
3. The first option you have is to Save files in this format. In the drop down list, select Word 97-2003 Document (*.doc) and then click OK.

It’s as simple as that! This process can also be applied to the rest of the Microsoft Office suite.