Release Notes

WebGL Anti-Aliasing

The most noticeable feature that I’ve noticed with this release is the implementation of Anti-Aliasing with WebGL. This is a tremendous relief to picky users such as myself. In other browsers you would experience horrible tearing with WebGL features. For the purposes of this post, I’ll be demonstrating the difference between Google Chrome v16 and Firefox 10′s ability to render Google’s “askew” easter egg.

When using Google Chrome you’ll notice heavy tearing on the navigation bar.

While in Firefox 10 the menu bar is rendered smooth without any tearing.

 Inspector tool 

Any web developer who uses the inspector tool on a regular basis might have noticed something is a little off since the update. This is because Mozilla has added content highlighting. The new highlighting feature allows developers to easily view what content is included in specific div tags. This is mostly handy for dealing with CSS.

Other

In addition to the previously mentioned updated, I’ve also noticed a huge graphics performance boost. With previous versions of Firefox the UI was laggy at best. Simple every day motions such as opening a new tab and using tab groups was frustrating and mind blowing that Mozilla would allow such a buggy product to make it past beta. Ever since updating I have yet to experience the same lag issues as before.

While this may be a small grievance, I would like Mozilla to embrace Lion’s native scrolling. In any other application on Lion once you reach the top or bottom of a webpage you would see a slight over scroll animations such as you see on the iPhone. Some may hate this being in Lion, but love it or hate it, Mozilla should keep consistency with a platform in mind.

Yet another minute issue, but when restoring a minimised Firefox window the browser flickers while it’s changing the focus to an active window. This can be a bit jaring to some, but still a minor thing.

Wrap up

Over all I give this update a rating of 7/10 and I’d recommend you download the update ASAP. It still has bugs, but is significantly better than the pervious release. I’m especially thankful that the lag problem is gone and the tab grouping feature is now useable. If you have anything to add about your experiences with Firefox 10, or anything related to this post feel free to post in the comment section!

Download Firefox

Baconreader is an Android exclusive that features full Reddit functionality in a stylish and lite weight mobile interface. If you’re looking to casually browse the Reddit homepage while you’re on break, or spend hours laughing at rage comics, you can’t go wrong with Baconreader. With the ability to search for new subreddits, browse subscribed subreddits, and more you’re sure to lose hours out of your day now that Reddit is at your fingertips at any moment.

Below you can find some screenshots of Baconreader and links to the developer’s website. In addition if you wish to express your opinion of Baconreader, OneLouder, or anything related to this article please feel free to do so in the comments.

Download Baconreader
OneLouder

Calorie counter gives a chronological account of the foods eaten during the day. You can tabulate the list of foods in categories including Breakfast, launch and super. You can also tell the type of food that you are consuming in large quantities. This is because you are able to search the name of foods by name or class. Therefore, if it is recommended by your intuitionalists that you take more fibrous foods, you will be able to know the mileage you have achieved. This can be done by looking at the number of times the foods’ name come up each time you make a categorized search.

Calorie Counter is also admired for its accuracy. This means that you can obtain a clear record of your eating and lifestyle habits. As a result, prevent diseases such cardiac disorders that are caused by too much carbohydrates and fats. It also makes it vital in disease management. People suffering diabetes for instance, can watch they sugar intake and increase on recommended dishes.

The recently eaten foods category makes Calories Counter the best calories tracker for android phones as it help you maintain a balanced diet. People often fall into the trap of repeating the same dishes because they are either readily available or easy to prepare. This leads to deficiencies that weaken your immunity, making it difficult to recover from bouts of illness quickly. Your productivity in life is consequently greatly reduced, affecting your status socio-economically.

Calories counter is easy to use. The user interface is welcoming and easy to navigate from page to page. Many agree that the amount of time used in checking your health records is reduced using this application. The facts are presented in percentage form. It is therefore easy to know the amount of food that meets your nutritional requirements.

Keeping regular records using Calories Counter android application makes it easy for doctors to know the type of medication will be affective on you when ill. Doctors may also use this information owing to accuracy levels, to determine whether your system will react negatively to a given set of drugs.

The application uses very little of your android phone’s battery power. This is because it is not connected to high power consuming connection such GPS’s need for more power due to waves connectivity. The feature makes it environmentally friendly in this era where power conservation is one of the most important aspects of preserving the ecosystem.

Applications such as Streamzoo are supreme in photo and video sharing. Streamzoo has a stylish user interface and a broad list of editing and social features. The application is popular amongst photography enthusiasts because of its ability to upload, share and download photos fast and reliably. The 1.6.0 Size with 2.34MB category is a must have everyone who would like to communicate to friends and relatives using pictures. This is because it is one of the most popular Android photo applications that can accommodate numerous systems when it comes to organizing photos and videos.

Another best to do Android application is Bouncy Bill Android game called Jumping Turtle. The game is similar to the well-known Doodle Jump Android game but with precise stages to undertake and demanding, vertical-only leaping actions. Many who have tried it out say that the game is riveting and the graphic images are catchy enough at each level. This pushes up your curiosity to see and take on the challenges in the next stage.

AAA Discounts applications are the best to do when it comes to locating retailer offering discounts on all sorts of goods in your locality. The applications help in saving money especially when shopping for expensive goods such as computers, home or office furniture. Version 1.3.3 Size has a capacity 340KB and is free for U.S. and Canadian residents. The application uses GPS technology meaning that you can be able to locate over 110, 000 hotels and restaurants if you are new in town and you need something to ea or a place to rest.

The universality of Android applications such as Blip me allows you to launch free push-to-talk voice notes to anyone. This is regardless of whether the receiver has an android handset operating using iOS operating systems. The applications are unique in the sense that it cuts a thin line between a remote text message and real-time phone conservation. Blip me functions in a manner similar to Tikl – Touch making it familiar to millions of users.

Review Google + Page, also known as the Giveaway android application is another fan app to have in your android handset. The application enables you to add up all your favorite web pages into a single circle. This enhances easy navigation, thus allowing you to find the information you are looking fast. Review Google + Page is suitable for people who have adapted to the on-line reading lifestyle.

Obtaining these applications depends on your phone type and model. This is however fast changing as independent software developers such as Google and other search engine companies look for ways to give their clients more for less.

Recent versions of Real Time player offers you the opportunity to choose the make of Android phones to connect the applications to. This makes it possible to utilize your phone’s applications fully as it triggers the phone’s special entertainment features. Some Real Time versions such as Real Time Beta have a number of adverts that pop up as during the installation process. The adverts are necessary in informing you about some of the player’s latest features that you can take advantage of.

Other Android Real Player application details worth noting include its photo viewer capacity that enables you to view various pictures while listening to an audio track. You can therefore sing along to the lyrics displayed on the screen. The feature has served various music marketing companies well by making it possible to popularize new hits.

The interface details present an android application that was designed with a number consideration taken into account. The interface is smooth. It is well polished to remove pitfalls such as the jagged buttons that are found in other media players.

Using Real Player with Android devices is time saving because it allows you to copy audio and video files from various online sources. You can do this by opening a new file in which you can copy and paste the information. The application is designed in such a way that nit automatically recognizes files in different formats. This includes Mp4, Mp3 and picture files such as MPB and Jpeg. This makes it trendy for videos and music file management.

It is possible to synch various play lists in simple steps and with high visual and audio quality given the articulate coding pattern the application follows during the synchronization process. Videos and audio files that are synchronized using the android entertainment application maintain the sound and the picture clarity, making it a good choice for people who like listening to their music in a specific way.

The amplifier adjustments have various themes that you can choose from. This includes dancehall and bass options that enable you to connect your phone to your computer and get the feel through the stereo speakers. The randomization feature renders well with the rhythm and the dynamic colors, shapes and patterns that are musical enough to hypnotize you and keep you in the right mood to enjoy your favorite tracks.

Real time player is free and easy to download. The latest versions are nonetheless offered at a reduced fee. There are trial versions that you can download straight into to your android device and install to get a glimpse of what the player can do.

Opera Mini for Android is amongst a range of smart phone browsers that have solicited a lot of excitement owing to its cost cutting measures.  Opera recently announced the latest Android browser that is loaded with new features that are capable of assisting users to reduce the quantity of data they access online. Opera Mini for Androids is fitted with cloud technology that significantly reduces the web page sizes. This means that the uploading and the downloading speeds are increased and the file sizes reduced, making it possible to use less data bundles. This application is suitable for people with low budget data plans and those looking for ways to cut on the expenditure on data bundles usage

Similar to Amazon Kindle Fire’s “Silk” browser, Opera Mini for Androids navigates online data traffic with a lot of ease. The feature makes the browser a favorite amongst people who are on the go and need to send important information at an instant. This saves time, giving you the chance to concrete on other income generating activities. Above all, the feature makes the Android browser a money saving tool as you end up paying for a single download in one go. Slow Android browsers timeout in the middle of a downloading process, meaning that you pay for incomplete downloads.

The Opera browser shows the exact amount of data you that you have utilized, how much you have remaining and the saved data. The details are necessary in establishing your data usage pattern or habits that are important in deciding the data plan to go for to enable you save more such as the pay-as-you-go data plans. Opera Mini Android browsers are also known to have helped millions of people facing data caps and throttling from data online carriers.

The web browser can save you a couple of Megabytes as it works with over 3000 devices and thousands of applications. This enables you to stick to a single Android phone for all your needs, thus saving you the cost of having to buy a number of handsets to acquire all you need from Javascript and HTML5 operated websites which have been adapted by various web operators.

Some Android browsers do not give you the advantage of taking full advantage of the bonuses they earn from their data plans. The browser does this by allowing you to extend to extend your online community connections. This enables you to make far reaching business and personal interactions for less, giving you a hike in profitability.

It is possible to convert You Tube videos into universally accepted data versions such as MP4. This makes it possible to connect the phone to your stereo and play the downloaded music. You Mate is not the kind of online video application that restricts you to converting your video files into a single file format as it allows you to choose the version and the media file you wish to convert the files to. You Tube mate is designed to allow you to download more than one file at a time. This makes the application the best download application for android phones as you can listen to a song as you download another one to give you a smooth interchange between songs or videos.

You Tube Mate has the ability to enhance the quality of the media files, owing to a number of features that maintains picture clarity. As a result, it is possible to enlarge the pictures to the required size without them blurring or being distorted. The picture quality can nonetheless at times be compromised depending on the quality of the uploaded graphics. For instance, if the video or the picture was taken using a video with low number of mega pixels, the download will be of low quality and the downloaded image will suffer quality problems as well.

Features such as local file conversion and multi-media device compatibility make You Mate a favorite amongst many. Some of the devices include TV Zune, PSP, Wii, iPad, Creative Zen and BlackBerry devices. These devices are international brands, meaning that you can obtain from it from any part of the world, and use the application efficiently provided your android handset can access the internet.

You Mate converts movies and allows you to store them in your computer’s hard disc. This widens the extent to which you can use the files. For example, movies in the hard drive can be stored in various formats or data storage devices such as the USB and Compact Discs. You can upload the audio and the video files to non-internet devices such as Mp4 players. This means that it is possible to save the movies in a way that you can even watch them from your television set.

You Mate service providers are dedicated to service delivery. The FAQ section answers numerous questions that the users might have. Technical details are present in a manner that helps you understand the online web downloading application. There is also an e-mail address that you can send an e-mail to for special queries

The new version of YouTube app offers a +1 button for videos, driving the growth of Google Plus, which recently began offering pages for brands and companies. In the “What`s New” section you will see both a button and a Watch Later option, which allows you to make a playlist of clips in order play back later. When you find a video that you like, but you want to see later, simple add it to the list – simple. YouTube remembers all the videos that you have marked for later viewing and displays them in your application or when you log on the Internet. You should note that this time you can edit the information of a certain clip, when you upload it on YouTube from your terminal.

The updated version of the YouTube application is available now in the Android Market for those who are curious to see how it works. The new entertaining application lets you watch videos on your mobile in either portrait or landscape mode, plus to view the information about the associated YouTube channel for the clip you’re currently viewing. The software also includes a simplistic search method and offers the same experience on the mobile as on the computer.

On previous versions, users who opted to upload videos from their phone to Youtube using the application only had a limited amount of options and control. Once the clip was uploaded, you no longer had the option to edit or to delete it. With the new version of the app, you can edit the title of the uploaded clip or change your privacy settings on your uploaded video. You now can also edit or delete your created playlist.

Other advantages that the updated version of YouTube app has are:

• A new interface
• The possibility of reading comments while running a movie or a video clip
• The possibility of customizing the home page
• New controllers and while turning the phone
• You can watch the videos in full screen.

If you are a fan of video clips and music, do not hesitate to download the updated app, because it has been developed to the point where it is a must have multimedia application. Do not hesitate and download the latest version of YouTube app from the Android Market!

The XDA Developers created a modified version that allows most devices with Android 2.3 to use the video calling option. If you’re curious as to how to make Skype calls from your Android phone, please follow the following steps.

First and foremost, you have to download Skype 2.0 for video calls that are suitable for all devices. If you already have Skype 2.0 installed for a non-compatible device, get rid of it, by entering the phone settings: settings, applications, manage applications, select Skype and press Uninstall.

Then, enable the installation from the source where you downloaded Skype. Return to Settings, Applications and mark Unknown sources.

The third thing to do is to put on your Smartphone a file manager from Android Market (only if you did not have that already): ASTRO file manager of EF is a good example. Start the application, and on the card go to the place where you have downloaded the Skype 2.0 package– it is probably the Download directory from the root if you used the phone download the application.

What you need to do next is to install the application. It will begin installing Skype. After this, you start the application, enter your identification data, and you’re set – ready to make video calls. Click on the Skype video call option to start a video call.

Do not hesitate to install Skype on your Android phone because you do not know when you need it. If you are a business man or have contacts in your Skype list who you talk to regularly, if it is something important, you don`t always have the time to stay at home in front of your computer to talk to your friends, family members or business partners. When it comes to something important, having installed Skype and being able to make video calls from your Android phone will get to be an advantage for you.

Introduction to Privacy Risks on Social Networking Sites

With the global adoption of high speed internet increasingly on the rise, the last ten years have seen a growing trend of individuals moving away from more traditional forms of communication to online platforms to better manage and enhance their social relationships. Through the use of interactive Social Networking Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, users are actively encouraged to disseminate personal information online in order to build their social relationships. While many of these SNSs do currently have systems in place to protect users against privacy risks, they are inflexible and limited in their ability to safely handle user data. This report will explore some of the inherent privacy risks associated with the usage of SNSs, before investigating the factors influencing privacy disclosures and measures SNSs can implement to improve both the management and distribution of user information.

Factors affecting privacy disclosure on SNSs

The popularity of SNSs stems from the willingness of its users to share personal information. It is through the disclosure of this sensitive data that users are able to establish and build social relationships.

Perceived social benefits

By sharing personal information with others online, it can help build and develop social relationships. These interactions can be in the form of a work-related relationship (LinkedIn), music and politics (MySpace), micro-blogging and instant messaging (Twitter), or a combination of all of these (Facebook). Regardless of the SNS used, they permit individuals to interact with people they already know, or to establish new social connections (Ellison, Steinfield, Lampe, 2007). It’s socially beneficial to engage in these online activities, even if it means forfeiting various aspects of our own privacy.

Privacy sensitivity

When users share this information online, they are often unaware exactly how far-reaching their content may be seen and spread. Many users of SNSs are concerned with the unintended audiences who may be able to access their uploaded information (Young, Quan-Hasse, 2009). Negative press surrounding privacy breaches with SNSs also negatively impact on the perceived safety of these systems. However, the success of almost all SNSs derives from the willingness of users to contribute information; it is through these high levels of social interaction that SNSs, such as Facebook, are able to attract individuals and maintain them as frequent users. Because of that, introducing full privacy level systems (Ho, Maiga, Aimeur, 2009) could potentially interrupt the steady flow of information between users, and be counter-productive to goals of SNSs. It is therefore the responsibility of these SNSs to raise user awareness regarding these privacy concerns, and put in place systems and procedures that allow users to effectively manage their privacy.