Almost immediately upon loading the nightly build of Firefox 3.7, I noticed that developers had given the web browser a much needed facelift.  The facelift includes integration with Windows Aero which gives us a translucent glassy effect, and the ability to move tabs above the location bar, similar to Google Chrome.  This is a huge step forward from being forced to utilize Glasser, among other plugins.

I absolutely love the Add-ons Manager, which a huge step up from the tiny dialog given in FF 3.6 and earlier versions.  The intuitive Add-ons Manager is the central location for controlling languages, search engines, extensions, themes, and plugins.  Much like the Programs and Features (Add/Remove Programs) section of Control Panel in Windows, the user can sort by name, size, and last updated, as well complete a custom search using keywords.  Visual indicators make life easier by singling out add-ons marked for removal, and those to be disabled.  From the Add-On Manager interface, users can also rate extensions, contribute to development, check for updates, or even stop automatic updates from occurring.

I was impressed with some of the improvements made in the Firefox 3.7a5 release, but it is obvious that they have a long road ahead before this is ready for release.  I’m hoping that Mozilla can add some of the polish that will thrust this browser to the #1 spot, and into the 21st century.  The Browser Wars have only just begun.  The newest version of Opera offers some of the smoothest browsing I’ve ever experienced with an excellently-designed user interface.  Google Chrome offers simplicity, but with speed unmatched by any other browser.  Chrome also offers seamless integration into most Google services.  I am a loyal Mozilla Firefox user, but a user with a wish list.  My only hope is that Mozilla never stops pursuing the #1 spot, as I believe they have the best browser platform on the market, and an unmatched arsenal of extensions.

1. If you are not listed as a Fan, click the Like button at the top of the page.
2. Scroll to the Fans section, and click See All.
3. Find yourself within the Fans dialog (I appeared first in the list after re-liking the page).
4. Click Remove Admin, located next to your name.
5. If you so desire, you may now use the Unlike button at the bottom of the page to remove yourself as a Fan.

That’s all it took for me!  I hope this helps some of you still struggling with this issue.

Surfing the web is more fun

Surfing my favorite sites is much more enjoyable with a complimentary touch screen monitor.  Flicking back/forward, and up/down is more intuitive than scrolling with a mouse wheel and clicking.  I’ve heard some speculate that using a touch screen can make your arm tired, but I have yet to experience that.  I believe that this is partly because there are still some things that need to be done with a mouse, which gives your delicate arms a break.  The newest version of Firefox is multitouch capable, meaning you can pinch to zoom, and twist (whatever that means).  To assign actions to the twist motion, you’ll need to edit the default browser settings by navigating to about:config.

Limited number of touch-friendly applications

While in reality you may use touch with any application, some applications are just not  fit for use with a touch screen… yet.  Using Windows Media Center, and Windows Media Player are two applications that work very well with touch; another is Paint.  One of the first applications I tried out with touch was Google Earth; however, it was not as friendly and required use of a mouse.  Google Earth is has the potential to be a great application for use with a touch screen.  Hopefully, desktop developers will start incorporating this technology into their applications, so we can make full use of the feature.

Microsoft Live Labs Pivot

I foresee huge potential in a Microsoft Live Labs project called Pivot.  The goal of Pivot is to improve our interactions with large amounts of data.  I found the Pivot interface intuitive, and mostly touch-friendly.  Pivot is very much like a mobile app in its behavior.  Pivot uses “Collections” of data formatted in XML, but also doubles as a web browser.  Developers are encouraged to start developing now, and there is a ton of information available within Pivot’s Developers section.  My favorite Pivot Collections are Dog Breeds, and U.S. Presidents.

Keyboard mostly good, but could use improvement

The Tablet PC Input Panel, which includes an on-screen keyboard, and handwriting recognition is a great feature, and mostly easy to use.  The only downside is that the keyboard and handwriting input panel is very sensitive out of the box, but this is easily adjusted.  I would love to see autocomplete available at all times, like we do on mobile devices.

Competitors

	Acer T230H	Dell SX2210T
Price	$359.99	$419.99
Screen size	23″	21.5″
Aspect ratio	16:9	16:9
Resolution	1920×1080	1920×1080
Response time	2 ms	2 ms
Contrast ratio	80:000	50:000
Dot pitch	0.265	0.248
Outputs	HDMI, DVI-D, D-Sub	HDMI, DVI-D, D-Sub
Other goodies	Built-in speakers	Built-in speakers, and 2MP webcam

I really hope we see more applications that are built to work with Window 7′s Touch technology.  I can foresee a significant change in the way we consume, although the mouse and keyboard will be around for a while longer.  If you can afford it, I would definitely recommend getting a touch screen monitor, especically the Acer T230H.  If you yourself have experience using Windows 7 Touch, please feel free to leave your comments.  We would also like to hear your comments on Linux-based touch technology.

• Shake - shake window back and forth, all other windows are minimized
  In my experience, this feature has made little sense when used with a mouse.  With the power of touch, shake makes more sense.
• Jump lists - click, hold, and slide up to reveal Windows 7′s jump lists, which include shortcuts to various tasks for the selected application on the task bar
• An article from Microsoft: My favorite ways to use touch

To put this into perspective, a 19″ touch screen monitor from Planar costs around $929 (Source: newegg.com); that’s kind of cost-prohibitive for the average consumer.  Prices for touch technology are coming down rapidly, and I think it is safe to assume that other computer monitor manufacturers will join the game soon.  Acer T230H tech specs are listed below:

• Connectors: HDMI, DVI, D-Sub
• Contrast Ratio: 80,000:1 (ACM)
• Max. Resolution: 1920 x 1080 (16:9 widescreen)
• Pixel Pitch: 0.265 mm
• # of Colors: 16.7 million
• Brightness: 300 cd/m2
• Response Time: 2 ms (GTG)
• HDCP support: Yes
• Built-in Speakers: Yes
• Warranty: 3 years parts/labor limited

Peek

Jump Lists

DirectWrite

DirectWrite hardware acceleration is not enabled out of the box at this point in the release process, but can be enabled by navigating to about:config, and changing the gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled setting to true.

Aero Glass

I don’t have a screenshot for this, but you can see an example of Aero Glass above.  Apparently, the glass-like effect provided by Windows Aero was turned off in the latest builds due to a few bugs, but to my knowledge, future versions of Firefox will support Aero-based themes.

Projected release date for Firefox 3.7: May/June 2010
Projected release date for Firefox 4.0: October/November 2010, early 2011?

As far as I’m concerned, the sooner they release these new features, the better.  These features represent major productivity enhancements, and I want to use them!

• 100% free
• Can be used as portal, and help desk (includes full ticketing system)
• Works with Active Directory
• Will monitor software, DNS settings, disk space, etc., on all computers within network
• Network map
• Will monitor ink and toner levels in compatible printers/copiers
• E-mail alerts can be configured to send in the event printer ink dips below a certain threshold
• Compatible with Windows Server 2008 R2
• …and much more!

Now, onto configuring Spiceworks to work with Gmail:

Within Gmail settings, make sure that IMAP is enabled.

Login to your Spiceworks installation.

Click Settings located on the left-hand navigation bar.

Click Email Settings.

Enter the following information…

• Display Information
  • Dedicated Email Address:  helpdesk@yourdomain.com
  • Display Name:  Help Desk
• Outgoing Mail
  • Protocol: SMTP
  • Server:  smtp.gmail.com
  • Port:  587
  • Authentication:  [checked]  (requires authentication)
  • Username:  helpdesk@yourdomain.com
  • Password:  [your Gmail password]
• Incoming Email
  • Protocol:  IMAP
  • Server:  imap.gmail.com
  • Port:  993
  • Use SSL:  [checked]
  • Username:  helpdesk@yourdomain.com
  • Password:  [your Gmail password]

See Also: Windows Networking Books

• Something; any object place or thing (en.wiktionary.org/wiki/jawn)
• Jawnt, or Joint: Noun that is used in casual conversation to describe any person, place, or especially a thing (list.wikia.com/wiki/Philadelphia_slang)

Now that we’ve gotten the etymology out of the way, we can begin the fusion between the web and it’s jawns until we get the desired result – a whole lotta webjawns.  Now that the enigma has been dissipated, people will sleep soundly, birds will flock, worker bees will work, and we’ll develop web applications and brand new webjawns.

• Minimum version:  PHP 5.3+
• Not backwards compatible
• Improved consistence between componenets
  • __construct() – Constructors will accept options via arrays or Zend_Config
  • Option keys will not use camel caps or uppercase, but instead will utilize lowercase underscore-separated words
• Elimination of most singletons
• Utilization of PHP 5.3 features
  • __invoke() and closures – for use within plugin architecture
  • Namespaces – to help with the super-long class names (Zend_Search_Lucene_Analysis_Analyzer_Common_TextNum_CaseInsensitive comes to mind)
  • goto – to be used when creating Finite State Machines (FSM) and parsers (Zend_Search_Lucene, Zend_Ical, Zend_Markup)
• Autoload-only for all ZF components
• Zend_View
  • Allow optional use of streams for systems where short_open_tags are disabled
  • Automatic escaping of variables
  • Use PluginLoader instead of internal system for managing plugins

There’s a lot of great discussion going on within the official Zend Framework 2.0 Roadmap, as well as a general outline on Zend’s plans, so get over there and read up!

Zend_Search_Lucene_Analysis_Analyzer_Common_TextNum_CaseInsensitive

• Improved LCG entropy (security)
• Fixed safe_mode validation inside tempnam() when… (security)
• Fixed open_basedir/safe_mode bypass in session extension (security)
• Upgraded to PCRE 7.9
• Fixed strip_tags() bug that removed parameters over 1023 bytes even when in exclude list
• Regarding define() and defined()
  • :: was allowed to be included within constant name using define(), issuing a fatal error vs. E_WARNING
  • defined() no longer requires a class to exist when testing class constant
• PHP 5.2.13 Changelog
• PHP 5.2.13 Release Announcement
• Download PHP 5.2.13