Steve Larsen

Insanely Cheap AWS Cluster Computing Running SUSE

2015-03-19T18:33:00.000+00:00

I've been spending a bit of time recently playing around with the AWS offerings primarily around the EC2 and S3 offerings.

Running CC2 as an on demand instance type you're going to pay $2.40 for the right to use the 32 core system for just 1 hour. However, if you're able to create your application in a way that takes advantage of AWS Spot Instance running on a SUSE Linux distro, you can run the same application for as low as $0.0001 per hour (yes 1/100 of a penny) quite regularly. Over the course of the last week you would have paid only as much as $0.10 per hour with most of the usage coming in at nearly free.

I'm sure you can find more instances being offered at such a low cost. This was just one example of a very expensive instance being offered essentially for free.

Of course, you've got to be careful with spot instances, they can be terminated at any time. You'll find these work best when application state and results are stored perhaps in a dedicated instance. Some great candidates for spot instances may include idempotent operations and reproducible or parallelisable work. You can see that running a CI server would be well suited for this work. You don't really care if the instance shuts off unexpectedly, it can resume later and produce your build/test result successfully at a later time. Processing work for the likes of the good 'ol SETI project would also be a great use case.

Happy cloud computing!

Watching 4oD Without The Adverts, Almost - Part 2 with Video

2014-12-04T23:40:00.003+00:00

It's been a while since I've had this method working and I thought it was of course time to let everyone else know. I'll jump right to it and keep this one brief.

Here's how you can watch 4oD with no adverts, ads, advertising, pre-roll or what ever you want to call them, almost...

So the catch is that you'll probably just have to watch one.

Make sure to have your favourite ad blocking software installed and then just allow the first ad to load before enabling it again. Here's a video (1m 38s) that shows you the process and results.

If the article and/or video helped you, please click on the Amazon link here before you do your shopping this holiday season.

Amazon Christmas Deals

Or treat yourself to a free £10 at Uber

You'll want to view full screen to see it.

BBC iPlayer Desktop | How to Download Films or anything else

2012-12-29T12:07:00.001+00:00

It's the end of the year and all the kids are at home with not much to do every day. During the holiday period and also typically at half-term time, the BBC is really good at packing on the films (56 at last count for xmas 2012) and especially for the kids. You all may know that the the iPlayer Desktop gives you the added benefit of watching a show later on or in cases where you might not have a broadband connection steady enough to stream without too much buffering. When it comes to films though you're almost never able to do this. There is a very easy way to do this actually. It doesn't take much so if you're interested to know how leave a comment below and I'll follow up with a very nice HOW TO.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Asics Gel Trabuco 14 | Out with the old, In with the new, Shoe Review

2012-05-22T11:49:00.000+00:00

It's just approaching 6 years now that I've been living over in the UK and it's been not much less time since I've had a new pair of running shoes. Sufficed to say it was time for an upgrade.

Left: New Asics, Right: Old Saucony

My last pair was bought online without having first tried them on in the store and I've had a bit of trouble with them with blisters during any runs longer than about 4km. I had always thought that was due to my extended breaks between runs but realised that it was actually the shoe. Despite my own admission to the fact that ordering online can be a bit hit or miss I've done it again, but to much better results. If you're not as optimistic as me, get yourself over to the specialist running shops where they might have a treadmill to try out a pair first. (Then cheekily order them online where they'll usually be cheaper)

I was lucky enough to have taken delivery of a new pair of trail running shoes that Sports Direct had kindly sent me to review. I opened the box to reveal a surprisingly handsome pair of shoes the Asics Gel Trabuco 14. I suspect some of you might not be too keen on the colour, but for me, I like my shoes to stand out from the crowd a bit.

I put them to the test with a half hour wet trail run, I felt like I was running on a cloud. Notably, running downhill, they absorbed the full force of impact and gripped the terrain impeccably. I was very impressed and busting to get out there again and put them to the test some more.

This is the latest release of this model of shoe. Personally, I've not had the opportunity to compare previous models with. However, I've found some mixed opinion out there with this latest version saying that it's less of a true, hard-core trail shoe, a bit wider than normal and that the lacing system is completely different without the normal second usuable hole to butterfly lace your shoe to help hold your foot and ankle in place. I can attest to the latter criticism myself as when I went running through some wet muddy ground in my last run the shoe got a bit stuck and my foot almost came out of the shoe.

ASICS Men's Gel Trabuco 14

Asics Gel Trabuco 14

A long-standing favourite of trail runners, GEL-TRABUCO 14 is the most performance-oriented edition yet. The rugged outsole offers excellent trail traction combined with a comfortable feel. The Rearfoot and Forefoot GEL Cushioning System that eases the shock experienced during the impact and toe-off phases, while the Solyte Midsole Material, a lighter compound than ASICS’ standard EVA and SpEVA, not only reduces weight but also enhances cushioning and durability. Also helping to reduce weight of the sole unit is the Trusstic System with no loss of structural integrity. A Trail Specific Outsole features reversed lugs for excellent uphill and downhill traction on all types of terrain, while ASICS High Abrasion Resistant rubber placed in critical areas of the outsole provides exceptional durability. In the midsole area, the dual density Duomax Support System enhances support and stability. A Rock Protection Plate helps to protect against stone bruises.

- Mens trail running shoes
- Lace-up
- Padded ankle collar
- Breathable mesh upper
- Solyte midsole
- Rearfoot Gel Cushioning
- AHAR+ (Asics High Abrasion Rubber) outsole
- Asics logo
- Synthetic/Mesh upper, Textile inner, Synthetic sole

The Pirate Bay Server is down for most [DDoS UPDATE]

2012-05-15T22:25:00.000+00:00

It appears that The Pirate Bay is down for some at the moment, but not everywhere.

There has been a lot of press recently about ISP blocks in the UK and other countries. This has leads many to think that if they've been able to access the site and suddenly they can't something horrible has happened to the site.

There's been a few posts (post 1, post 2, post 3) regarding it on their official facebook page. It seems that the issues is linked to issues with PORT80 the owner of the IP is a Swedish ISP who supplies bandwidth to the Pirate Party, and others.

A few of the proxies still seem to be working still.
Check out the full list here: http://about.thepiratecove.co.uk/proxy_list.html

UPDATE 1
It appears that the site is currently at the receiving end of a massive DDoS attack. They are working on it apparently and hopefully expect a fix soon. Update 1 Update 2

There is some nice suggested reading TPB has offered up in the mean time to keep us all busy:
E-mail from an asshole
The Case for Copyright Reform

UPDATE 2
The site seems to be up and running now on the main domain and proxies like The Pirate Cove
Another benefit currently is that it seems Virgin Media is not currently blocking the site when accessed directly via IP address: http://194.71.107.80

Access The Pirate Bay in the UK in 4 Easy Steps

2012-05-04T19:54:00.000+00:00

I've had the luck of being on the receiving end of the most recent blocking by Virgin Media for thepriatebay.se site. There's a few ways to get around this actually; I'll describe a few over the next few weeks beginning with the simplest one today.

The fastest and easiest solution I've found was the following.

Get out your trusty smartphone
Enable tethering and create a wireless hostpot (Android, iPhone)
Connect your computer to this new hotspot
Access thepiratebay.se

Some words of wisdom with this method.

You'll want to pause the downloading until you're back onto your high speed broadband connection otherwise you could incur some large data charges or throttling of service.
Tested working on Orange & T-mobile networks

Let me know if there's other networks this works on in the comments below.

Tottenham Court Rd Bomb near my old goviral / AOL / Huffington Post office

2012-04-27T15:14:00.003+00:00

There was a bit of unusual excitement over at the offices where I used to work at goviral. There seems to have been a disgruntled lorry driver who failed his HGV exams twice. One of my former colleagues at goviral, Leon Farrell, was even quoted on the BBC site that talks about the incident in more detail.

There was a bit of a running joke around the community of goviralers that it might have been someone who had recently left. Wouldn't expect it from anyone of us actually.

I actually happened to be in the area today but unfortunately wan't close enough to the action and missed it by a bit. There was some funny street reporting done by HaveYouMetSonia who was live on the scene as it happened.

Kate Burns leaves AOL - goviral execs to lead Europe business

2011-09-21T13:16:00.002+00:00

Announced today that Kate Burns is leaving as SVP Europe of AOL. René Rechtman and Jimmy Maymann will be taking her place.

Spotify is Removing Songs from My Playlists

2011-07-20T10:50:00.000+00:00

Spotify has been growing for a few years now and it's finally reached the US market. I've been using Spotify for quite some time now and even created a Spotify Drinking Game some time ago. For a while I upgraded to the Premium offer for £9.99 so I could listen on my Android phone. I've since cut back on some costs and I'm back to the Open plan.

The other day I went on the hunt for some music to add to a new playlist. I stumbled upon some continus mix tracks that last from 60-80 minutes for a single track. I added them to my Continuous Mix Sets playlist and enjoyed them for a day or so. All is good...

I've since came back a few days later and all of a sudden the tracks I were listening to only days before are no longer available for listening. I wonder now if this is down to licencing issues or perhaps a further limitation Spotify is placing on users due to the lack of advertising one would be exposed to when listening to a track of such a length.

I've reached out to Daniel Ek (Co-Founder) and Andreas Ehn (CTO) of Spotify via a Google+ post asking them about this and looped in tech evangelist Robert Scoble to get his opinion. Wonder if they'll have a reply at all, doubtful (Robert quite possibly though). What do you think; licencing issue or Spotify further tightening the reigns on free use?

Kittens on DJ Decks - First Viral Video of Google+

2011-07-16T15:54:00.009+00:00

If you haven't seen it already check out the video featuring Catboy Slim, Armin van Purren and Deadmeow5.

The newest social network Google+ has recently launched just the other week. If you're not on it yet you most certainly have heard of it. It's currently loaded with lots of Tech people and as such the discussions are mostly focused around topics related to Google+ itself or other tech related items. Adding some cats in the mix only helps broaden the audience and bring the platform to the mainstream.

This video, I believe, can hold the honour as the first viral video spread from a Google+ post. It's managed to make it's way to the Mashable home page as well as numerous places all around the web like Reddit, Boingoing, Buzzhunt and others.

It's spread so quickly that YouTube stats can't even keep up with it yet. It's holding numerous hounours right now and at only 1,800 or so views it's clearly not keeping up.

KLM Giggle Jiggle

2011-05-27T16:36:00.002+00:00

KML can take you to the best destinations in the world.

Try one of them with our dancing destinations e-card, amuse your friend and win flights.

Upload your image to try wrangling in America, kung-fu fighting in Asia, safari adventures in deepest Africa, or dance your clogs off in Holland.

Make one and then send the card to your friends and enter a competition to win flights. Find out more at the KLM Giggle Jiggle site

Stella Artois World Draught Masters

2010-10-12T13:59:00.001+00:00

Can you master the 9 Step Pouring Ritual?

GLOBAL FINALS - OCTOBER 28TH, OLD BILLINGSGATE The Stella Artois 2010 World Draught Masters Global Finals will see the best British bartender grabbing their chalice and taking on the cream of the beer pulling crop from 32 countries from around the globe in the quest to land the coveted title of Stella Artois 2010 World Draught Master. The finalists will once again be judged by a panel of experts on their ability to honour the time-honoured Stella Artois 9 step pouring ritual as part of an electrifying night of theatre and entertainment at Old Billingsgate.

THE STELLA ARTOIS 9 STEP POURING RITUAL

Pouring the perfect Stella Artois is key to enjoying the perfect Stella Artois. That’s why we developed our time honoured 9 Step ritual to help ensure that consumers everywhere are served with the same care, consideration and craftsmanship Stella Artois has exhibited in centuries of brewing.
Click through the steps on the right to learn more about the Stella Artois time-honoured 9-Step Pouring Ritual.

She is a thing of beauty

drinkaware.com for the facts
Please drink responsibly. Over 18s only ©2010 InBev UK limited, all rights reserved

The Coca-Cola Happiness Machine strikes again - this time in London!

2010-09-18T10:21:00.002+00:00

Watch the Coca-Cola Happiness Machine spread even more happiness in the next instalment of the global internet sensation.

Coca-Cola is unleashing happiness again, this time in the UK! The new film - the much-anticipated sequel to the global internet sensation which caught the world's imagination earlier this year - sees the Coca-Cola Happiness Machine arrive in the UK, bringing a touch of Coca-Cola magic to some unsuspecting British students.

EU TechCrunch Hosting JavaScript Exploit

2010-09-06T15:28:00.002+00:00

I was browsing TechCrunch on facebook this afternoon and clicked through an article about facebook's testing of Places in the UK. I clicked on the link in facebook and was directed to eu.techcrunch.com as usual. After reading the first part of the article I decided to click on "Read the rest of this entry" and what happened next was a bit of a surprise.

As I was browsing in Chrome, a nice big red notification came up on the screen warning me that the site I was going to is hosting malware. I thought, this is techcrunch, it must just be a fluke. So I took my chances and proceeded anyway.

Then after just a moment, AVG confirms that indeed there is malware on the site. What is going on TechCrunch?

Robbie Williams - Celebrating 20 Years In Music 1990-2010

2010-08-11T10:07:00.002+00:00

Robbie Williams releases a brand new single “Shame” on Virgin Records on October 4. The single was co-written with Gary Barlow and is a duet between the two superstars. This is the first time the two of them have ever recorded and performed a duet together and the first time they have written and recorded a song together since Robbie's departure from Take That in 1995.

The single is a brand new track which will feature on the forthcoming Robbie Williams 39-song greatest hits set “In And Out Of Consciousness – The Greatest Hits 1990 - 2010”, to be released on CD and DVD on Virgin Records on October 11. The album is spread over 2 CDs and is the definitive hits collection of one of the biggest superstars to have emerged from the UK in the last 20 years.

With a staggering 57 million album sales and 11 million singles sold, Robbie Williams has been breaking records over the course of his whole career. 7 No 1 UK albums meant he is easily the biggest selling solo artist in UK history, a fact reinforced by his 2010 Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution To Music. In fact, with a tally of 16, he has won more Brits than any other artist since the awards began, including ‘Angels’ being voted the best single of the last 25 years. A plethora of other record-breaking awards include a Guinness World Record for fastest ever ticket sales, coupled with the honour of playing the largest open-air concert in UK history, at Knebworth in 2003 have meant that his status as a live performer has equalled his massive achievements as a recording artist.

Robbie’s current studio album “Reality Killed The Video Star” was released in the UK in November last year and has now sold a million copies in the UK alone. The album also achieved the third highest week 1 sales of any album in the UK last year, narrowly beaten by JLS and the phenomenon that is Susan Boyle.

Robbie Williams said: “It’s incredible to listen to the album and realise that it’s already been 20 years of making music and playing gigs. And the great thing about the album is that it’s not only a celebration of my past but also a bridge to the future. The fact that part of the future includes a name from my past makes it all the more poignant for me”.

How to get Americans to watch Football during the FIFA World Cup - Video

2010-06-12T11:37:00.001+00:00

With the England vs US match today I think this is very appropriate for the circumstances. Below this is a comment written by someone talking about how Americans don't get football (soccer). There are some good comments there. Check out the link below to the original post to read all of them.

This was written by THE GAFFER over at EPL Talk back in Dec 2008

To most Americans, feet are a very foreign object. Americans use their hands in American football, basketball, baseball and even ice hockey. Those ten toes are good for running, but that’s about it. It’s no wonder that most American children are raised to correlate sporting prowess with the ability to master the use of one’s hands.

Sometimes it’s easy to overlook the obvious, but one of the major reasons why soccer hasn’t caught on with the mainstream in the United States is because of this major difference. If you talk to some neanderthal Americans, some of them will raise this difference and will laugh at the notion of using feet instead of hands.

It makes you wonder what Americans use their feet for, other than walking.

Sitting in a waiting room recently, a woman next to me dropped her cellphone. As we both noticed it falling, in what seemed like slow motion, I quickly moved my leg out to cushion the blow and prevented it from smashing to pieces against the stone floor. To me, it was a typical soccer move, bringing the “ball” under control. But if I was American and brought up on a hefty diet of the gridiron, I wouldn’t know what to have done to save it. My feet would have been stuck motionless.

Americans must think that using feet is like a novelty item you’d find in a carnival or circus. They stand in amazement when feet are used to accomplish anything other than walking. Then they laugh about it, and return to normalcy the day after.

Why is it do you think that American sports refrain from using feet other than running? Was this by design or by accident? Click the comments link below and let us know.

Rate Some Designs of Stella Adverts I Designed

2010-06-08T16:44:00.001+00:00

We need to send 1 of these designs to an online e-magazine. Our video player will be playing in the black box. Could you please take just a few moments to rate each of these designs. Feel free to vote for only your favourite one or vote for all as you with.

Stella Artois Presents Marina & The Diamonds Viral Video Campaign

2010-06-02T12:44:00.004+00:00

Le CO2eux Soireé

Présenté par Stella Artois
Le CO2eux Soireé is a four part variety show created to launch Stella Artois’ new lightweight bottle, which contains less glass and therefore produces less CO2 emissions.

A follow-up to last years’ Recyclage de Luxe Show, the CO2eux Soireé is also inspired by 1960s television programmes and is aired ‘live’ from inside the new bottle. Broadcast directly from 1963, the show features the ‘first ever music video’ – of Marina and the Diamonds’ hit single I Am Not a Robot – alongside a live set from The Mystery Jets, performing their yet to be released single Dreaming of Another World.

The show has been created by creative agency Mother and is supported with press and outdoor activity as well as an on-pack promotion. All four episodes will be available to view at www.facebook.com/co2euxsoiree

Stella Artois Small Steps
Stella Artois believes many small green steps help make a big difference. Their new bottles not only contain less glass but are made of 75% recycled glass; their cans are made from 50% recycled aluminium; the corrugated packaging we use for our packs is made out of 100% recycled paper and our cardboard packaging is certified compostable. Over the coming years, the brand will continue to produce pioneering eco innovations, taking small steps towards improving the environment.

Marina & the Diamonds
Marina and the Diamonds released her first LP, The Family Jewels (679 Recordings) early in 2010. She comes from a Greek/Welsh background and was born in Abergavenny, and was nominated for the critics’ award at this year’s BRITS.

The Secret Behind Nike Air

2010-05-26T18:19:00.001+00:00

Nike Air is made from the Air of our very best athletes. This is the story of how Nike gathers the athelete’s air at Nike’s Air Collection Unit.

Nike air, nike, zoom, brandon roy, troy palumalu, sanya richards, flight, david koechner, snl, saturday night live, paula radcliffe, federer, wimbledon, tennis, basketball, skate boarding, skateboarding, paul rodriguez, prod, p-rod, blazers, trailblazers, steelers, pittsburgh, maria sharapova, john mcenroe, carl lewis

Football Intruders at Bayern München (long version)

2010-05-26T18:08:00.002+00:00

Two guys trying to sneak in at the official Bayern Munich training, participate in the training session and see how far they can go guerrilla-training with Bayern Munich.

Government Advertising in Sweden at it's best

2010-05-26T01:28:00.000+00:00

Who are you sleeping with? – Nationella Hivrådet have created a test, where you can see, how many, you have ACTUALLY had sex with: knullträdet.se

60 second version

Or if you've got some extra time you can watch the full length one that lasts 5 minutes

Watching 4oD without the Adverts - UPDATED DECEMBER 2014

2010-05-21T05:05:00.005+00:00

HEAD HERE TO SEE THE NEWEST WAY TO BLOCK ADS

I've started watching more shows online these days rather than sitting in front of the TV and flipping through the channels. I began with BBC iPlayer watching Spooks, Paradox, Merlin and a few others. I then started watching some shows over at 4oD last night. I quickly became annoyed at the amount of adverts! I remember back when 4oD used to be a program on your PC and you could download the show and watch them advert free. These days have changed I've soon found out.

Because I connect to the internet on my laptop by tethering my G1 phone to it, my internet sometimes gets lost and I have to reconnect. If this happens when I'm watching 4oD, the show will have to be restarted and I'll have to go through the 3 adverts at the start of the show. If I was far enough along, the 2nd set of 3 adverts would then also have to reload.

Being that this happened a few times I needed to find a fix to this problem. And I have...

The FAQ page on the 4oD site gives some advise to those people using Ad-blocking software and a way to check to see if they're having problems with it. What this also does, is provide some vital information that we need to easily block the ads from showing on the shows.

Some of you may be familiar with what a HOSTS file is. For those of you that aren't, it's your computers first point of call before it travels out to the internet to a DNS server to translate the URL you type into a set of numbers computers can communicate with. Think of it as a complex form of turning a phone number like 1-800-COLLECT into 1 800 265 5328

Essentially, what this would allow you to do is to tell your computer that when you type www.google.com for it to go to www.bing.com instead all the time. In this case however, we want to tell our computer to look at our own computer for the answer, yielding no result at all.

****UPDATED JUNE 2011****

Thanks to an anonymous poster recently I've updated the following steps to the following

Watch the first set adverts from the show of your choice
Pause show
Locate your hosts file (you will need to have administrator rights and change it from read-only)

Windows - C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\
Mac - /private/etc/hosts

Add these 3 entries on new lines at the end of the file

127.0.0.1 s0.2mdn.net
127.0.0.1 realmedia.channel4.com
~~127.0.0.1 webstat.channel4.com~~

Ensure browser is set to not clear browsing history on exit

Link to Chrome options where "Clear Cookies and other site data" should not be ticked - chrome://settings/content
Firefox - Options -> Privacy -> History -> Firefox will Remember History

Close Browser and restart
Watch shows advert free!

I've just finished watching all 6 episodes of The IT Crowd flawlessly with absolutely no adverts on it at all.

Sorry 4oD

The Spotify Drinking Game - A way to enjoy the Adverts

2010-03-11T18:25:00.000+00:00

Moving into our new flat in Camden recently, we are presented with the opportunity to hold a housewarming party. During the last week Spotify has been the typical music source during the first week living there. We've noticed that every so often we get interupped with adverts that can get a bit annoying.

Being as cheap minded as possible we were trying to find a way to avoid the .99p day cost to remove the adverts for the party. At first we thought about all taking a shot when an advert comes on but we soon realised that after a very short while we would be out of alcholol. We'll perhaps reserve this option for smaller, more intimate parties. So for this Friday's party we came up with the following:

Most of you may know of the drinking game associated with card games where if 1 person starts some special action, placing their finger on their nose for example, the last person to repeat has to take a shot. Using that as our basic concept, the first person to hear the Spotify advert start playing must do the "action" and the last one must take a shot. That person then gets to set the next "action" for the next time an advert plays. This continues on until either you run out of alcohol; get bored; or the place starts to burn down and everyone has to leave.

You can of course take on other types of drinking game rules and try to incorporate them into the times the adverts come on. As this is the first time we've done this, we will certainly come up with other variants and ways to improve upon the game tomorrow night. Check back for updates

O'Reilly Drops eBook DRM, Sees 95% DECREASE in Sales

2010-01-23T14:57:00.003+00:00

The world's largest book publisher of tech books, O'Reilly, stopped using DRM on its books 18 months ago. Since then it's seen it's own sales of eBooks increase by 104%. When you think of DRM and tech books you might think "Wouldn't these types of people be copying these books and not be paying? They all seem to crack every other bit of software out there."

Seems like that theory is true.

If you look at US wholesale eBook sales from Q1-Q3 of 2009 you'll see that sales have increased nearly 200% compared to Q1 - Q3 of 2008 according to IDPF. O'Reilly is well behind the industry trend here.

It looks like DRM vendors will now have some useful information at their hands to show that without DRM you'll likely lose out on sales due to copied books.

=======================================

Now, I'd just like to point out how even though all these figures by themselves are true, it is all how you put them together to tell the story that then creates mis-information. Someone else may look at these figures and say that O'Reilly eBook Revenue is up 104% if you compare their numbers from the year prior. Well that's what O'Reilly did. And then Boing Boing decided to write about what they said and before you know it people start believing what is told without questioning it.

If you have enough figures, you can tell any story you want.

A Day in the Life of a Beta Application

2010-01-11T05:25:00.009+00:00

Since finally upgrading from Windows 7 build 7100 to a full fledged version of Windows 7 Ultimate, I've started searching out quite a few beta applications to install on the new system. Below is a list of the one's I've come across so far and installed. I've also included some that are just trial versions rather than Beta. The main link is as close as you can get to the download before actually downloading it and you can always navigate back from there to find more info on the product.

Are there any other great beta applications out there worth a look at? Let me know

Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta

I just installed this a few hours ago so I haven't had a chance to start using the programs to get an idea for what's new in the software. But with 2010 the addition of MS Office Web Apps is probably one of the most unique differences. This of course coming about all because of the rise of Google Apps, something of which I use very often now. Microsoft has quite a bit of catching up to do in this area.

To see all the other benefits of the 2010 offering head over to the Microsoft site.

Mozilla Firefox 3.6 RC 1

This new release is built on Mozilla's Gecko 1.9.2 web rendering platform and adds quite a few new features over previous versions. One of the noteable benefits that isn't mentioned in the standard release notes is the improvement for those of you running Firebug. Previously when Firebug was installed the high-performance Javascript JIT compiler that speeds things up was disabled even if you weren't running Firebug on that page. This is now fixed on 3.6 and you can read more about it here.

Some of the release notes to make note of include:

Changes to how third party software to integrate with Firefox in order to prevent crashes
The ability to run scripts asynchronously to speed up page load times.
Users can now change their browser's appearance with a single click, with built in support for Personas.
Open, native video can now be displayed full screen, and supports poster frames.
Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness and startup time.
Support for new CSS, DOM and HTML5 web technologies.

Google Chrome 4.0.288.1

The latest and greatest Google Chrome version can be found by downloading the dev version as found on the early access release channels page. You can also follow all the updates on their blog entitled Google Chrome Releases

Adobe Lightroom 3

I picked up this one the other week after reading through through the HDR tutorial over at Stuck in Customs. Along with Photoshop this seems to be one of the must haves for photo management.

Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta 2

One of the first problems I saw with this was that when going to TweekDeck to download the software, I was told to update my Flash player. I had to find the download elsewhere and then just install it as an Air application. I'm not going to list all the Adobe Beta applications but you can find the rest of them by going to their Labs download page.

Microsoft SQL Server 2008
or
Microsoft SQL Server Express 2008

I've had to get SQL Server for a trial install of AspDotNetStorefront that I'm working with from time to time on projects. The full version is available on a 180-day trial whereas the Express version is its own product available for free.

Microsoft .Net Framework 4 and Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2

Whilst I was downloading the above products I stumbled over here to get the newest .Net framework and the new Visual Studio Suite to go along with it. To read about 6 things that might surprise you about what .Net 4 has to offer head over here for a read.

Skype 4.2 Beta 3

One thing about Skype for me, I hate it as an application for chat. The main problem I have with it as a use for this is the lack of integration of a chat history. This is why I prefer using Google Chat for all means of instant messaging. I do however use Skype for calls and even have a dedicated Skype phone on 3 mobile bundled with an unlimited calling plan to the States for under £2 a month.