Tenth Blog

Font Size Adjustable Adsense Ad Units

2009-06-21T15:50:27Z

Google Adsense team has finally adopted one of the most wanted features. Adsense now allows its users to pick different font sizes (Small- Medium – Large) and also different font styles (Arial – Verdana – Times).

“The font size you choose will be applied to the body of the ad, with the title scaled appropriately. In order to fit the ad text correctly, the actual font size will vary for each format size, font face, and user-specific settings such as browsers and operating systems. In addition, some formats sizes currently have very limited room, so the font size application will be most apparent in cases where the number of ads appearing in your ad units varies automatically in order to maximize your performance.

Your ads are currently set at the default size for AdSense, which is the equivalent of ’small’. You can select a new font size on an account-wide basis in the Ad Display Preference section of your My Account tab, or on an individual ad unit basis for new and existing ad units.

If you’re creating new ad units, you can choose between the AdSense default font size, your new account-wide font size (if you’ve selected one using the instructions above), or a separate size. To update existing ad units you’ve created using the Manage Ads feature, visit the ‘Manage Ads’ page under your AdSense Setup tab. Any font size changes you make on an individual ad unit basis will be maintained even if you change your account-wide default in the future.”

Even though you don’t see any ads here on tenthblog, this feature will come in handy for many web masters. This feature has been asked by the users for a long time. I don’t know why Google has made its users wait for such a long time. This is probably work out better for many web site owners in their Adsense revenues.

Homer Gives Directions on TomTom GPS Devices

2009-06-19T15:24:18Z

Own a tomtom gps device? You can now get Homer Simpson give you directions on road.

His voice can be downloaded on to your TomTom GPS Nagivation system. It’s only 10 Euros or 14 dollars.

The idea is known. There are already some celebrities voices being used in such systems.

You can also listen some of the sample voices at TomTom Simpsons Page.

Directly from Springfield, America’s most popular Dad makes his way to TomTom devices. With the original Homer at your side, even the shortest drive will transform into a journey to remember.
You’ll see, driving with Homer is as easy as 1,2 … doh!

For more info, you can visit TomTom Simpson Page

Firefox 3.5 Beta

2009-04-27T17:02:02Z

You might have been wondering what happened to Firefox beta releases? In case you haven’t heard about it, there have been delays on almost each beta release that Mozilla put up.

3.5 Comes after 3.0

Mozilla has released three beta versions of their next release which was named “Firefox 3.1″ until lately. They have recently proposed that Shiretoko would be renamed to Firefox 3.5. You can catch up on details at Mozilla’s Quality Blog. So as it has been approved by Mozilla, they have released a new beta version(only a prebeta) of next release named Firefox 3.5.

Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 (Pre-Beta) is available at Mozilla’s quality blog. It’s a different installation which means it won’t replace your current FF stable or beta version. Another Firefox will be installed. I have Firefox 3.0.8, Firefox 3.1 Beta and Shiretoko (Firefox 3.5 Beta 4).

Firefox needs your help!

If Mozilla doesn’t face any unexpected problems on this nightly build version, they are expecting an official beta release on April 28 before they move on to release candidates for Firefox 3.5. So in total, there will be four beta versions before RC versions. Mozilla needs your help. If you are a Firefox user and have some spare time, you can start using the latest version available and start letting Mozilla know about any bugs or problems you see with the version. This way there will be less delays.

Stay Updated

If you wish to stay updated with what’s going on with Firefox, you can get your latest firefox release by clicking on the first link above to stay updated with new features and versions. All events at Mozilla regarding Firefox releases and many more are posted at this Quality blog. You will be able to find some useful links there. You can also subscribe to this blog to stay updated.

Ubuntu 9.04 Beta

2009-04-12T16:22:31Z

There are plenty of great things about Ubuntu Operating System besides its being an open source product. Ubuntu recently announced about its new version 9.04 which is set to be released on April 23, 2009.

Of course they have implemented some new features and applications into Ubuntu. You can refer it to Ubuntu’s web site to learn more about these new features.

Here are some of them.

Latest version of Gnome, 2.26. This includes a CD Burning Application.
Better Boot Performance. They have also changed the design of log-on screen. Instead of brown (ish) color scheme, they have chosen a darker tone close to black.
New Style for notifications on desktop.

I upgraded my previous version of ubuntu to 9.04 beta. The problem I had with Ubuntu 8.10 was that wireless manager was not working properly and it took me a while to figure it out. The process of getting it working was frustrating. But it didn’t happen with this new beta version. Maybe it was because of my laptop, which I have to say that Ubuntu looks a lot nicer with good graphics.

Ubuntu has its advantages and disadvantages. All products may not function as they are supposed for all the time and when people encounter problems with Ubuntu, they got discouraged and switch back to Windows. The reason is that it’s not hard to resolve the problems but they think that it is. That’s simply they are not familiar with the product and they don’t know how to get around. It’s going to take some time for people to get used to this great product.

Countdown:

Safari 4 Beta

2009-03-07T04:43:37Z

Hooray! A New Product. Apple has recently released the first public beta version of Safari 4. It was made available to developers about six months ago. On February 24, Apple released the first beta version of Safari 4.

What’s new?

Safari has always been there with their own twist on browsing the web. Safari 3 is still considered one of the fastest browser. There are a lot of new features, they actually put up a list called “150 features“. They are not all new, only is 29 of them can be considered new for Safari 4. Some of these features have already been introduced by other browsers such as Firefox and Google Chrome.

Safari team has borrowed couple of ideas from Google Chrome, first thing you will notice is the new look. They move the tab bar to top just like Google Chrome. Here are some features you will notice with Safari 4.

Windows Font Rendering: Safari now use the standard rendering technique for its users. Which i think makes a lot of sense since they a lot of people who use windows use this software.
Tabs on Top: Just like Google Chrome, they have the tab bar on top with their own touch of course. More tabs you have less the tab size will be. That’s the only difference.
New Look : Safari 4 for Windows doesn’t have that dark silver look. It is now more of a Windows application.
New JavaScript Engine: With this new release, they are introducing a new javascript engine called “Nitro”. According to Apple, it’s 8 times faster than Internet Explorer 8 and up to 4 times faster than Firefox 3.1. It is quite noticeable.
Navigation: Almost all browsers have adopted this feature. When you open a new tab, it would show the thumbnails of most or recent visited websites. I think it was introduced by Google Chrome. Although, Safari is introducing this feature with its own unique way. For instance, iTunes feature “Cover Flow” is now possible in Safari 4.
Developer Tools: Safari is now an ideal tool to debug, tweak or optimize a web site.

Eye Candy or Best Performance?

I’d agree if they hadn’t change the way program operates. First of all, It’s noticeably faster. Second of all, some of those features are useful. I think that product is going to grab a lot of attention and a lot of people will consider switching from IE, Opera, Firefox to Safari. Last of all, Safari’s windows integration and standard font rendering are a plus for loyal windows users.

Event: Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 / Nightly Test Week

2009-02-10T00:50:54Z

It’s been about five months since the first alpha version of Firefox 3.1 released. As a beta tester, I received an email about the next beta release of Firefox 3.1 (aka Shiretoko).

Firefox 3.1 (pre)beta is available to all beta testers. Well, everyone can download and check out this new beta version but it’s good to contribute. This version is only a pre-beta version which Mozilla aims to get some feedback and help from its users to fix the bugs.

So if you wish to contribute to this beta version, please head over to the “Event post” at Mozilla Quality Site and follow instructions. You can use Litmus for testing purposes.

Also, if everything goes as it supposed go at Mozilla, they will be releasing Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 on February 18, 2009.

Download Link for Firefox 3.1 Pre-Beta 3 (aka Shiretoko):

ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/nightly/latest-mozilla-1.9.1/

This event will stay opened until Friday, 13th. So if you wish to contribute to this release, you can do it until Friday at 08.00.

Google Earth Beta 5

2009-02-03T04:22:07Z

You probably heard about Google Earth before, it was one of the products Google has received a lot of attention when it first came out.

They have just released a beta version which introduces some new features;

Time Travel: It lets you browse the old images a place you visit on Google Earth.
Google Earth Touring: This is another new feature I really like. With this new feature, you can record your trip on Google Earth and save it. Which makes it a lot easier to share with other people.
Google Ocean: Ocean view. It’s finally here. You can actually dive under ocean and see what’s going on. Watch the video for details.
Mars & Sky View: Nasa and Google finally working together. During the couple of years, Nasa’s Mars mission grabbed a lot of attention from people and they actually found some sort of ice. Anyways, with this new version of Google Beta, you can actually view planet Mars as you do with Earth.

You can also watch these video learn more about this new release.

New Homepage: Keyboardr

2009-01-31T05:20:45Z

What page do you have as your Browser Homepage? You know the page that appears every time you open your browser. Internet Explorer will take you to msn.com which always takes a lot longer than usual to load. But there are sites that’s both useful and practical as a homepage. Keyboardr.com is one of them.

You can watch the video to learn more but keyboardr is an application that lets you do quick search on popular sites and shows them on a page, which includes google, youtube, wikipedia, google blogs, google images. It also lets you nagivate through the results with your keyboard. So Keyboardr is a good alternative.

List of Problematic Firefox Extensions

2009-01-30T18:16:38Z

As many of you know, Firefox is an open source project. Which means that users of this project can contribute. Even though that’s pretty much the whole idea of project being open source, contribution brings problems with it. Even the developer of Firefox make mistakes while putting together the application.

There are users that use Firefox for plenty of reasons with the help of add-ons. Functionalites are more than ever. Every day a new add-on is being released for a different purpose.

But most of add-ons out there don’t tend to work with Firefox in harmony. Since there are too many add-ons, it isn’t really possible to keep a record of all problematic extensions.

Link: Problematic Extensions

However, the list can help you determine if an add-on is causing a problem with your Firefox. There are also some useful links at that page which you follow to investigate your problems with Firefox.

Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate 1 (RC1)

2009-01-28T01:13:09Z

It’s been over a year since Microsoft started testing Internet Explorer’s latest version.

Microsoft recently released the release candidate version of IE 8. If you were a beta tester of IE 8, you are not going to be surprised much. If you are just learning about Internet Explorer 8, you might want to check out the web site of IE to see what it’s all about.

As I have indicated in my 2009 predictions post, Internet Explorer will not be able grab a lot of attention with this new version.

Installation is still a major pain

I do not get this at all, I can not believe that a software developer like Microsoft is doing this. Installation nearly takes a fifteen (15) minutes. Yes, it does. First, you download the installer and run it. First process removes the current IE version from your system and ask you to restart your system. If you say no, program will not load. Before the restarting is completed, IE installation will prompt you asking to run the actual installer. At this point, nothing else is being loaded(your desktop and etc). Since nothing else is being loaded, I thought that IE will finish the installation and start loading my system without restarting it. But after nearly ten minute installation, it restarted my machine once more and I was able to run Internet Explorer for testing purposes.

Microsoft should really figure out a better way to install its software on their another software.

Features

If you are a IE 7 users, you might like what they have done with the software. They added some of the popular browser features like “In-Private Browsing”. They have also added developer tools where you can edit CSS and scripts within the browser and plenty more. Gears can be used.

Current version of Stumbleupon is compatible with this RC version as well.