There are a number of things we just use on the web as a form of habit, you check your email, log onto airline sites etc and you go about your business. One of the site’s that i find I’m using more and more frequently is Meebo

Having different friends on different Instant Messengers is a pain, especially if you have to install the bulky software that lets you login and chat. A lot of these chat clients are loaded with advertisements and features you don’t really need plus everytime you login it seems to want to get you to download the latest huge update. Meebo really cuts out a lot of the messing involved with these clients. Their site is a one stop instant messaging shop! Simply either input your user/pass for the relevant chat service and your away in a hack, voila, all your contacts and chat windows in a browser window, not hogging your pc’s resources and runs like a dream!

You can also simply set up an account with meebo so when you sign in with one user/pass all the different Instant Messaging services will connect instantly and all your available contacts will be sitting, again, in on browser window! It couldn’t be simpler!

There are more features on the site, including chatrooms and blogging and such but i tend to just use it for hit-and-run style logging on to my IM. I would highly reccomend this site for surfers with a limited PC / Laptop that has seen better days.

Web 2.0 we <3 U

Link

Firefox 3 should be up for release in late June and the people at Mozilla have very cleverly set up a unique buzz around the final release. They intend creating a world record for the most software downloads in 24 hours. You visit the site and ‘pledge’ that you will download FF3 on the release date and they will send you a reminder about your download date.

According to the map there are nearly 600,000 pledges to download FF3 and a healthy 1,769 from Ireland alone! I’ve been using Firefox 3 Release Candidate now for the past couple of weeks and have to say I am well impressed. With the use of plugins and add-ons i can’t see why anyone should use Internet Explorer anymore.

Link

TwitterFone is a nice little gizmo that allows you to ring your Tweets! Launched by Pat Phelan at the start of May it’s a nice piece of work and is worth a try out if you can hunt down a much sought after invite!

You hook your phone details and twitter account up with the marshmallow sky slick twitterfone site and bobs your uncle! Then once out and about and suitably oiled up you can merrily tweet till your hearts content with out having to touch your laptop / phone browser!

I’m amazed at how they can translate pretty acurately from speech to text and its then linked in your tweets with a small mp3 clip of what was said, which can prove to be a bad thing . And while it very much is a nice novelty i would be curious to see how many people use it constantly, i know the sign ups have gone through the roof and its a smash success but would wonder if this is the taste of the future. Blogging voice to text? Replying to emails ? Commenting on Blogs?

Only time will tell!

The man with the invites! Link

TwitterFone

Firefox 3 is now out and seen as i was in particular festive mood i’ve decided il download it while its still all buggy and in beta goodness! Some of the new features include:

• 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.

UPDATE: Now i know why i never install just released beta software! Within 3 minutes of installing all of a sudden windows system memory’s legs grew heavy and the computer just took a dump! I guess i’ll use IE untill i have the patience to uninstall / reinstall FF2.0 DIE DIE DIE

Firefox 3
Download Link

1. A few years ago the first PC i had was on the way out and i asked a techie friend to expalin and maybe walk me through a RedHAT Linux installation. Now at the time RedHat wasn’t the whizzy-mc-dizzy one cd install it is today and to be honest it was a nightmare, non-win modem, nothing worked and to be honest the only thing that appealled to me at the time was the fact you could have multi desktops!

2. In the past few years I got the Linux itch again but instead of wiping my laptop and losing my sanity again i installed VmWare and installed a Virtual Machine of SUSE 8.0 and although because it was sharing the piss ass slow system i had with Windows it sucked big time but it did show a lot of potential! I loved the GUI and although i didnt take it out for a spin online it had all the appropriate tools!

So here i am again now, after seeing it over on Seans Blog, the gOS has kinda taken my fancy! It’s sleek looking and light weight and has all the Google Gadgetry that i would need! Now granted that they are all web based apps and i don’t have broadband at home so it would generally be a waste for that purpose but I just feel like i have to move on, i’m sick of Windows crashing every time i connect it up online due to some new worm / virus.

I have a few questions for those in the know!

1. Does running Linux improve my chances of not getting common virii spyware?
2. Is pretty much everything compatible with Linux nowadays

So i’m airing on the side of gOS, even though there doesn’t seem to be that much support online for it and i don’t have a permanent connection online…

Your thoughts? Which Linux OS would you reccommend?

gOS

The antivirus business is huge! Billions of euro spent on protecting your digital rights, secrets and keeping your from being the next digital victim of phishing, identity theft and fraud. Up to date subscription services come bundled with practically every PC you buy through Dell now so it’s a big cash cow, but it’s a cow that primarily feeds on fear – your fear!

With internet horror stories everywhere about how they can apply for a credit card online using your bebo picture or how they know your mothers maiden name through decoding your Freudian nickname for Messenger, it’s no wonder people don’t want to get caught out but is all this worry really that necessary?

I had to laugh on my way home from work yesterday, tuning into Newstalk I caught a bit of The Right Hook where they had an expert from an electronic security firm on to inform us that simply hitting the delete key or formatting a drive isn’t enough anymore. The same company bought a geansaí load of PC’s at auction cheaply and scanned the information and low and behold they found credit card numbers, PPS numbers dental records and blood types. All the information necessary to actually become someone.

Now I’m not making light of the story, I just find it a bit post-911/esque fear factor for my liking! Last week it’s how they can sell your house with your facebook details and now they want to black mail you with a copy of your emails and an expired credit card on an old hard drive! It takes a baddy turned goody to tell us what the next generation baddies are going to do!

Gone are the days when you would gladly give your credit card over and let them carbon copy it and give it back to you and not suspect a thing! Now its all about shielding your pin and your last three digits of your CSV number and burning your old hard drives etc

The antivirus business is huge! Billions of euro spent on protecting your digital rights, secrets and keeping your from being the next digital victim of phishing, identity theft and fraud. Up to date subscription services come bundled with practically every PC you buy through Dell now so it’s a big cash cow, but it’s a cow that primarily feeds on fear – your fear!

With internet horror stories everywhere about how they can apply for a credit card online using your bebo picture or how they know your mothers maiden name through decoding your Freudian nickname for Messenger, it’s no wonder people don’t want to get caught out but is all this worry really that necessary?

I had to laugh on my way home from work yesterday, tuning into Newstalk I caught a bit of The Right Hook where they had an expert from an electronic security firm on to inform us that simply hitting the delete key or formatting a drive isn’t enough anymore. The same company bought a geansaí load of PC’s at auction cheaply and scanned the information and low and behold they found credit card numbers, PPS numbers dental records and blood types. All the information necessary to actually become someone.

Now I’m not making light of the story, I just find it a bit post-911/esque fear factor for my liking! Last week it’s how they can sell your house with your facebook details and now they want to black mail you with a copy of your emails and an expired credit card on an old hard drive! It takes a baddy turned goody to tell us what the next generation baddies are going to do!

Gone are the days when you would gladly give your credit card over and let them carbon copy it and give it back to you and not suspect a thing! Now its all about shielding your pin and your last three digits of your CSV number and burning your old hard drives etc

Now i had set up my Gmail and Morange and none of them work now so its a matter of reinstalling and setting up and it just goes to show you that you should never rely on these technologies too much as now i have no back ups of some emails and even after reinstalling the gmail client on my phone it still won’t open! GRRR

Answers on postcards please….