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iPhoneSender sends addresses to the iPhone's Google Maps
Even I can see that this one is a little lazy, but hey, maybe someone out there will be looking for a way to more easily send street addresses to their iPhone without actually typing them in. What? That's you? Well then, pardner, you're in luck-- give iPhoneSender a look.It is a Safari bookmarklet and/or Firefox extension that, when it spots a street address on a web page, will let you right click the address, ask for an email, and then send that address, in convenient Google maps format, directly to your iPhone. It's all of the iPhone's Google maps functionality, without any of the actual address-typing that usually requires.Lazy? Perhaps. But I can see a sliver of a demand there-- what if you're rushing out the door to the pizza place, but didn't remember to print out the directions and don't have enough time to write the address down to punch in later? Like many things in life, you might not realize how necessary this little extension is until you actually have to use it.Thanks, Matt L!
Make your S60 device do your bidding remotely with PC Phone
Initial feedback seems to be overwhelmingly negative, but have hope -- Nokia's Beta Labs is all about getting dirty, cobbled-together implementations of cool ideas out into the public's hands before a final release, so we suppose we've got to keep that in perspective here. Anyway, PC Phone is a brand new joint from Nokia that plugs into Firefox on your desktop PC (we're hearing Internet Explorer will soon be supported, too) and allows you to access your compatible phone's phone, messaging, and address book functions remotely. It seems that it works about as well as an early-build Sidekick Slide at the moment, though, with rampant errors and incompatibilities holding it back from actually serving any useful function; let's hope the good folks over at Beta Labs get 'er patched up right quick, because frankly, we're really tired of taking our hands off the keyboard when we need to dial a number.[Via All About Symbian]
Feeling lucky? Firefox 3 beta 1 now downloadable
Running beta versions of your primary browser is a little like converting your car to run on cooking oil biodiesel. It's probably going to work OK, but be prepared for a few surprises along the journey. If you're ready for the social, swing by the Mozillaplex and download your copy of Firefox 3.0 beta 1, but note the warning: "We do not recommend that anyone other than developers and testers download the Firefox 3 Beta 1 milestone release." Gotcha.The beta DMG clocks in at 17 MB and new features/improvements include (quoting): Improved security features such as: better presentation of website identity and security, malware protection, stricter SSL error pages, anti-virus integration in the download manager, and version checking for insecure plugins. Improved ease of use through: better password management, easier add-on installation, new download manager with resumable downloading, full page zoom, animated tab strip, and better integration with Windows Vista and Mac OS X. Richer personalization through: one-click bookmarking, smart search bookmark folders, direct typing in location bar searches your history and bookmarks for URLs and page titles, ability to register web applications as protocol handlers, and better customization of download actions for file types. Improved platform features such as: new graphics and font rendering architecture, major changes to the HTML rendering engine to provide better CSS, float-, and table layout support, native web page form controls, colour profile management, and offline application support. Performance improvements such as: better data reliability for user profiles, architectural improvements to speed up page rendering, over 300 memory leak fixes, and a new XPCOM cycle collector to reduce entire classes of leaks. Check out the release notes for more details. Note that Techcrunch's Duncan Riley is not impressed with FF3's memory usage profile (thanks Nik).via Truemors
Skip the interceptor with Greasemonkey
Frequent visitors to the official WoW forums will no doubt be familiar with the Forum Interceptor that Blizzard has in place for your "protection." Briefly, any time you click a link in a forum thread that doesn't lead to a Blizzard-owned domain, a bit of JavaScript loads an Interceptor page that tells you to be wary of keyloggers and things, and that the internet is a dangerous place. Possibly useful to people under the age of ten; otherwise, it gets old fast.Fortunately, there are ways around it. Opening a link in a new tab (middle-click) works in most browsers. But what if you don't want to think about it all the time? Shouldn't links in the forums work just like links everywhere else on the freaking internet? Yes, they should. And that's why we have Greasemonkey. Greasemonkey is a Firefox plug-in that lets users install userscripts that do things to websites. If that sounds vague, it is; userscripts can perform all sorts of tricks. The script we're interested in, called Shelter from a Blizzard, does precisely one thing: makes links on the WoW forums point directly to their destinations, skipping the interceptor page.If you're running Firefox, and want this magic in your very own browser, here's what you do: Install Greasemonkey, if you don't already have it. Once you're done installing, restart your browser. Go to Shelter from a Blizzard's page, and click the "Install This Script" button at the right. That's it! From now on all WoW forum pages you load will be de-intercepted.
Firefox 3 to be more integrated with OS
Alex Faaborg has an interesting post up on the visual design of the forthcoming version 3 of Firefox. Basically reversing their long-standing policy of trying to make Firefox look the same across all platforms, version 3.0 will feature OS specific design "to achieve an even closer level of visual integration than we have had in previous releases." What this means of OS X is something close to the new unified style that's coming in Leopard and has already been demonstrated in iTunes and iLife '08. I know that many Mac users prefer Camino to Firefox (both of which use the Mozilla gecko rendering engine) because Firefox just doesn't "look right" in OS X. It will be interesting to see how well Firefox 3 works with Leopard (and Tiger) and whether that will be enough to convert Camino users like myself. Of course, as we've mentioned before, the page widgets will also be an important aspect of getting the look right in OS X.Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
Mozilla details mobile browser plans
First, the good news: Mozilla has officially announces plans to "rock" the mobile web. Now, the bad: the true, legitimate Mobile Firefox (as opposed to the hackery that is Minimo) won't come until after Firefox 3 is released. Mozilla's Mike Schroepfer has detailed where the organization's headed with its mobile initiatives in a blog post this week, noting that Mozilla 2 will see mobile devices be promoted to tier 1 -- a move that means architectural decisions about the platform will be made specifically with handsets in mind. Although he says Minimo provided tons of valuable info on how Mozilla can be adapted to the small screen, it's being basically abandoned in favor of the true Mobile Firefox, a browser that'll take advantage of the heavyweight processors and storage afforded by modern phones. Opera Mini, get ready (finally) for some serious competition.[Via mocoNews]
ARM, six others join forces on Linux Mobile Computing platform
Just after Symbian announced that its future operating systems would support ARM SMP multicore technology, ARM has teamed up with six others to collaborate on a Linux Mobile Computing platform. More specifically, the firm has joined with Marvell, MontaVista, Movial, Mozilla, Samsung and Texas Instruments in order to develop a "Linux-based open source platform for next-generation mobile applications." Reportedly, the platform will eventually be released into the open source community, and it hopes to move swiftly in getting the goods into "Connected Mobile Computing (CMC) devices." And if you're wondering when you can get your hands dirty with it, ARM is hoping to release a full platform early next year and have equipped devices on shelves by early 2009.[Via jkkmobile]
New Arena Calculator and browser plugins at the Armory
Blizzard has added two new updates to the WoW Armory. One of them is the Search Engine plugin we talked about earlier, though it isn't just for Firefox -- it also includes IE 7 and Opera. They have a very simple installation for adding the Armory search plugin to your browser.They have also added an Arena calculator which is actually three calculators in one. Choose one of the calculators to determine: The number of arena points earned in a week The average rating to get a desired arena reward How long it will take to get that reward If you have pinned your profile, the calculator will automatically fill up with your current arena statistics, as long as you aren't using the Opera or Safari browsers.The Arena Calculator seems to be a good way to get the Season 2 gear before the Season 3 starts with its new rating restrictions for gear. Do you think the new Armory updates are useful?
Armory add-on for Firefox going live soon
CM Drysc announced on the WoW General Forum that they are developing a Firefox add-on for searching the Armory.For those of you who are not familiar with Mozilla's Firefox, it is a browser that can be used on Macs or PCs (even Linux) and has a great dropdown search function for quick lookups on certain sites. Wowhead has one as does WoWwiki and so do we here at WoW Insider (link goes to add-on). You can go to the Firefox Search Engine page to install any of these add-ons onto your version of Firefox. Drysc says to check in at the Armory over the next couple of days for the announcement that the search engine has been completed.
School days: Firefox Campus Edition
More back-to-school suggestions; this one has the advantage of being free. If you haven't already downloaded Firefox for your machine, it's a good idea to have it handy for those occasional sites that aren't Safari-friendly. If you're interested in a few extra plugins with a student-friendly bent, then you might check out the Firefox Campus Edition, which is simply the current Firefox build plus the FoxyTunes, StumbleUpon and Zotero plugins in one convenient package.FoxyTunes (for controlling your music player via the browser) and StumbleUpon (social bookmarking for interesting/useful sites) are both fine, but the real power tool here is Zotero: this research tool, file manager, PDF bucket and citation editor is a boon to anyone working on research projects with Firefox. Given enough practice with Zotero, it might replace a local note manager like Yojimbo or other online tools like Google Notebook.Of course, if you already have Firefox, you can download these plugins (or scores of others) separately, and all three are free. via PaulStamatiou.com
Safari, meet Cover Flow
I'm not sure why eye candy gets such a bad reputation-- we all need a little beauty in our lives, and no UI designer should ever argue that a "cool!" factor is a bad thing to have, when you've already hit all the other bases. Cover Flow is a perfect example. When people made their wishlists before iTunes 7, I don't know anyone that said they wanted a visual way to browse their albums. But everyone loved the Cover Flow plugin, and now those designers are working for Apple.So Jimmy G has an idea: why not add Cover Flow functionality into Safari? You could browse updated versions of your bookmarks just like you browse your albums in iTunes. I'm not sure I'd implement it exactly the way he has (click the pic above to see a bigger version), as if I'm browsing my web visually, I'd rather more real estate was given to the pages themselves. But it's an interesting idea.And I think we could use a little more color in the web browsing experience-- the space between the browser tabs, if you will. If you're a Firefox for Windows user you really should try out the Tab Effect**; it lets you flip between tabs like a rotating cube. It's actually a little much to use all the time, but it's a cool idea, at least. And the PicLens plugin for Safari also puts a little oomph in your picture browsing-- it can create slideshows of Flickr pictures with just a click. You may think it's superfluous (and yes, if your app doesn't function already, it is) but we all need a little bit of eye candy now and again.Thanks, Jimmy!**Whoops. As commenter Rae notices, Tab Effect is Windows only, because it requires Directx 8. But it's still a cool effect.
Surfin' Safari publishes WebKit Project Goals
Surfin' Safari is the official blog of the team that works on WebKit, the open source rendering engine that powers Safari and just about any other app on Mac OS X that allows you to view web pages, such as NetNewsWire, iSale, RapidWeaver and many, many more. Heck, these days WebKit is going far beyond Mac OS X, as it's used by everything from MobileSafari in the iPhone to Safari on Windows and even some of Nokia's phones and other devices that can browse the web. Unfortunately, as with any increasingly popular project, WebKit seems to be getting pressure from a lot of new angles to implement certain features and optimize for one use or another. Many people want WebKit to do things like support the same rich text editing widgets that Firefox does for sites like MySpace, forums and blogging systems, while others prefer to leave those features on the curb so Safari can remain the lean, mean browsin' machine it's known as. In order to avoid getting drawn and quartered by the very constituencies they serve, the WebKit team has understandably announced a set of WebKit goals the team is aspiring towards. While some of these goals are pretty obvious, such as keeping things secure and easily hackable (after all, it's an open source engine), some of the goals are definitely written to help establish a few boundaries to help keep everyone on track and, ultimately, help people understand what WebKit is (and will be), as well as what it is not. For the sake of cutting down on sleepless nights and answering endless feature requests, I hope these goals make the proper rounds.
WoW Firefox search plugins
How many times a day do we all search Thottbot, Allakhazam, WoWWiki, Wowhead and others? It gets old really fast to type in the address or go dig it out of bookmarks every time right? About 50 of you are right now thinking, "geez ya noob, like thottbot is my homepage!" Before you get all huffy and start chargin' your fireball, realize that there is a better way to look-up those [ACME Pauldrons of the Whale]. Think of them as WoW UI add-ons for Firefox. What? That's right, IRL WoW add-ons for your Firefox browser. Check out these search plug-ins that you may get some use out of if you look up things like a banshee. By the way, I've heard that Lady Sylvanas can Google stuff like nobody's business, but that is unconfirmed as of this writing.Firefox search plug-ins for WoW-WoW Armory (both US and EU versions)-Allakhazam Quests-Allakhazam Items-Allakhazam Mobs-Curse gaming add-ons-WoW Official forums-WoWWiki-Wowhead-WowdirectoryThe links to all of these search engines are at Mozilla's "mycroft" website, which lets users build their own search plug-ins for their favorite sites. For any of the search plug-ins, simply click the name of the site you wish to install, and Firefox does the rest. Our very own search plug-inAlso, I am proud to introduce the official WoW Insider Firefox search plugin that you can now download for your WoW Insider perusing pleasure (without having to type the address or leave your browser). Please use this plug-in responsibly, no members of the Burning Legion are allowed to use this search. Enjoy
Is Apple aiming at Firefox?
John Lilly, COO of Mozilla, has a bone to pick with Steve Jobs and Apple. As you might imagine, John keeps an eye on the browser market space, and he was interested to see Apple port Safari to Windows. This was a big deal, but the slide above had John worried. As you can see the pie chart shows Internet Explorer's market share and what Apple would like Safari's market share to be. Notice anything?That's right, Firefox is no where to be found. John Lilly argues that this wasn't an oversight on Apple's part, but rather a glimpse into their intentions. They want Firefox users to switch to Safari and have the web controlled by 2 dominant products coded by the two dominant OS makers. John seems to think this would be a bad thing, and I agree with him. Having a choice of browsers is good for the web, and good for people who use the web (like you!). As John points out, Safari for Windows is a good thing since it offers uses another choice, but if Apple hopes to use Safari to stifle competition... well that's not very good at all.What do you all think? Is this a paranoid dream, or a valid worry?[via CNET]
Danger Will Robinson!
I saw this screen shot last night on the WoW LJ community, and I have to admit, it took me by surprise. This is the first time I've ever actually seen the World of Warcraft launcher/load screen come out and point-blank warn people about the presence of Trojans on their machines. As there are a lot of variants of this particular Trojan out in the wild, that specific name doesn't surprise me.Considering the fact that two Blue accounts were recently compromised, it looks like it's a good time to once again make sure your systems are patched, your virus scanners are up to date, and that you've got some good lines of defense against these Trojans. (Personally, I'm a huge fan of FireFox and some of the browser extensions that have come out for it.) Or, as some of my friends have told me, I could just get a Mac, and not have to worry so much about these kinds of things either. I keep telling them I'll happily switch when they buy me one.
Netscape Navigator 9 beta is out
There was a time, dear ones, when a giant walked the Web: Netscape Navigator, the browser sovereign, held a massive 80%+ share of the market back in the mid-1990s, until some funny business (where "funny" = "anticompetitive & monopolistic") led to the dominance of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. The open-sourced core of Netscape 4 led to the development of the Mozilla, Firefox and Camino browsers we all love today.Whence the original Netscape browser? The 8.0 release skipped the Mac, but believe it or not, the big N is back: Netscape Navigator 9 beta is available now as a Universal Binary. Under the surface, Navigator 9 is really a rebranded, tweaked and gracefully skinned version of Firefox 2.0 (including add-in compatibility), but nevertheless it's nice to see the green giant back in the saddle.Note: TUAW and the Weblogs, Inc. network are corporate siblings of Netscape under the AOL umbrella.
How to protect your system from keyloggers [Updated]
It's raid night. You've farmed your mats, topped off your repair fun and loaded up on pizza and cola. But for some reason you can't log on. You're sure you typed in the right password, but no go. You IM you guildie: "Are the servers down? I can't get in." His reply sends chills down your spine: "We just saw you at the bank. Why was your toon naked?"Years of hard work gone. Someone else accessed your account and stripped your main of all his gold, bank items and tradable equipment. "But I don't give my password to anyone!" you wail. You don't have to, the keylogger program knows it anyway.What's a keylogger? It's a small, virus-type program that can accidentally be installed on your computer. How might a keylogger be installed on your system? Visiting an untrustworthy web site. Some sites may have code in them that exploit your web browser and cause it to quietly install a keylogging application without your permission. (Note: even turstworthy sites can be hacked! The same hackers who are after your information can hack what you think of as trustworthy sites and add exploit code to them which could give you a keylogger.) Downloading addons (or other files) from an untrustworthy site. Any executable file you download could contain a keylogger or virus, so before you download a file, be sure you're downloading it from a source you trust! Once a keylogger gets installed, it starts recording every keystroke you make. And when you type in your account name and password for your WoW account, it captures that, too. The next time you access the Internet, it sends your private information to the hackers who use it to log into WoW and strip all your characters of everything valuable leaving you with a penniless toon wearing nothing but his trousers.This all sounds pretty scary, but don't worry -- there are ways to protect yourself from keylogging programs!
Silverlight brings Windows Media Streaming from MS
Over at mac mojo, the Microsoft Mac Business Unit blog, Blair Neumann is expressing his excitement about Silverlight. As we mentioned before, Silverlight is Microsoft's cross-platform, Flash alternative, which is now available in beta form for both Safari and Firefox. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this (as Eddie Hargreaves over at the Apple Blog points out) is that Silverlight will return official Microsoft support for Windows Media streaming to the Mac, "including HD video up to 720p." Since Microsoft stopped development of the Windows Media Player for Mac the primary Windows Media solution on the Mac has been from Flip4Mac (and indeed Microsoft is itself distributing the Flip4Mac plugin). Nonetheless, I still regularly run into problems trying to stream Windows Media videos, so this has to be taken as good news. Unfortunately, however, Microsoft is apparently not going to support PPC Macs in future releases of Silverlight (via Gruber).Silverlight is a free download from Microsoft.
Preview of Firefox with OS X native form widgets
As we've mentioned before, the forthcoming Firefox 3 will feature OS X native form widgets on the Mac. If you'd like to see what they're going to look like, Josh Aas has produced a preview build for Intel Macs (no PPC yet, though the final build will be Universal). This is very much alpha software with the attendant risk of bugs, etc., but if you're a Firefox user who can't wait for version 3 and native forms, it's probably worth a look.
Mozilla Firefox being prepped for mobile market
With Opera having brought the closest thing to full web browsing to millions of Java-enabled handsets, are there other mobile browsers to be had? Sure there are -- Symbian, Palm and Windows Mobile users have many mobile browser options, including Opera Mobile, Pocket Internet Explorer and others. What about the slim and chic handset crowd that has Java only as their main wireless web conduit? Well, the popular and dare-we-say flexible Mozilla Firefox browser may be coming to mobile soon to sit alongside Opera's Opera Mobile offering (and Opera Mini, pretty-please), according to Mozilla Foundation CEO Mitchell Baker. The Minimo project, while useful, is not an official Mozilla project and should not be confused with Mozilla's long-term mobile product, according to Baker. Mozilla's official mobile Firefox browser client is still a ways off, and the existing Opera Mobile already has tabbed browsing. But, we'd love mobile browser extensions for a wireless-based Firefox browser. Wouldn't you?[Via Boy Genius Report]
