Firefox 3 is in its final stages of Alpha development with a host of new features and improvements.

Mozilla has unveiled for the first time several security features it's talked up for months. Among the security provisions are built-in anti-malware warnings and protection against rogue extension updates. 

Debuting is Places, the name given to the new unified history and bookmark manager. Unlike current browser bookmark tools, Places will use a database — the SQLite database engine powers it — so users can search for saved pages. Places will also support the use of tags, or user-defined labels that are applied to categorize bookmarks and make them easier to retrieve via searches.

On offer is also a new download manager that will integrate with third-party virus scanners and malware protection.

The graphical rendering of Firefox also gets an update with the Cairo rendering engine and animated PNG image files. The versatile Cairo graphics library is a vector-based drawing API that supports a wide variety of backends. Cairo can take advantage of hardware acceleration where available and simplifies cross-platform graphics application development by providing an internally consistent and cohesive framework that emphasizes platform-independence.

Thanks to this new graphics infrastructure, boxes with corners rounded by the pre-CSS 3 property border-radius are rendered with beautiful anti-aliasing (currently accessible as the non-standard -moz-border-radius and soon -webkit-border-radius). Cairo also provides smooth scaling of images. Up until now scaled images looked jagged.

The new improvements in Firefox 3 will finally enable it to pass the Acid 2 test, a CSS test case developed by the Web Standards Project to illuminate flaws in HTML/CSS rendering engines. To pass the Acid 2 test, browsers must comply with W3C standards and provide support for a wide variety of features that are considered relevant by web designers. The Acid 2 test has been passed by several other browsers, including Safari, Konqueror, and Opera, but not Internet Explorer. Passing Acid 2 is considered to be a significant milestone in Firefox development.

Firefox 3 has particular implications for the development of the Mac version of Firefox, as it provides support for the use of Cocoa Widgets.

One downside of Firefox 3 is that several older operating system versions are no longer supported: Windows 95, 98 and ME and OS X 10.2 Jaguar. 

Mozilla has not officially committed to a release date for the final version of Firefox 3.0. 

2Clix has withdrawn from a legal case against the founder broadband discussion forum Whirlpool. But it is not necessarily all is well that ends well. The legal question still hangs over Australian public forums as to who takes the legal responsibility for publically posted comments. This grey area still exists in the Australian laws.

Ever since news of 2Clix's legal action against Whirlpool founder Simon Wright first broke, the general opinion has been that it was, at best, a massive miscalculation. 2Clix's suit, which sought to have two threads discussing the effectiveness of its products removed from the site, instead resulted in global publicity of those threads. Those threads still currently dominate the top five search results for '2Clix' on Google, hardly a good outcome if you're seeking to minimise bad publicity. 

Companies that engage in such legal action against negative discussions need to also think about the flip side of the coin. If they can demand that negative comments should be taken down, then what if all of the positive comments go with them.

Yahoo recently began beta testing Mash, the company's experimental social networking web site. Mash (invite-only as of now) looks like a cross between Facebook, MySpace and Netvibes and it also has a bit of wiki DNA: Anyone you grant permissions to can edit your profile or add modules they think are relevant to your profile.

After being sucked into the Facebook vortex, I'm not seeking any further networks. Building these online networks is time intensive.

All of these social networks still haven't caught onto the idea is the user's information is their own, with people still being locked into their closed systems. Eventually an open source standard will come along and bust their model, allowing people to repurpose their data how and where they will.

A friend of mine, Julian Guppy, recently found himself deep in the bowls of Microsoft's London office to discuss a project. We had joked that he should wear his Linux penguin hat and his Firefox T-shirt. The T-shirt he did wear, but Julian's surprise was not at any reaction to his apparel, but to discover that even Microsoft employees use FireFox and it's host of web developer tools to debug websites.

It's a sad indictment of Internet Explorer and it's development tools, but a resounding endorsement for Firefox.

Here's my favourite list of FireFox plugins that make it the most indispensable web development tool I use:

• Firebug
• Web Developer's Toolbar
• ColorZilla
• Copy Plain Text
• IE Tab
• ShowIP

A furore has erupted over the latest internet censorship attempt. I brought the issue to the attention of Adrian Lukas because she spends most of her time educating people about communication. This case was certainly not about letting people discuss things.

Software company 2Clix is suing Whirlpool forum founder, Simon Wright for allowing two threads on his forum that criticize their software. Now the situation would be laughable were it not that Whirlpool, sometimes affectionately referred to as "Whingepool" amongst those who visit and post to the site, is run on a non-profit, voluntary basis.

2Clix develops low-end business accounting software fulfilling similar roles to more widely known products such as Quickbooks and MYOB. They are seeking damages of $150,000 plus costs for "Injurous Falsehood" and a demand to remove two threads "2Clix or Not 2Clix?" and "Anyone used 2Clix?" from the Whirlpool forums website.

The company in its statement of claim that it has suffered "irreparable damage to its trade and business" from the existing two threads.

2Clix's case is that because the people criticizing and complaining about their software, can not be identified as certifiable users, and maybe malicious competitors, that Simon Wright should take the threads down. Now what 2Clix and their legal advisors have not taken into account, is that some of these people might be genuinely by aggrieved customers.

Their heavy handed legal tactic looks set to blow up in their face. This is not the intended outcome they were seeking. Word spread fast amongst online communities, with 2Clix taking on the role of villan. Many people are pledging to support Simon with financial assistance should the case go to court.

Legal experts have made comment on the case and suggest that 2Clix's case is very shaky, as evidenced in the article, "Will the Whirlpool case wash?".

A win for 2Clix would set disastrous precedent for publishers and online communities, with no online critcizims of anyone or anything being permissible. End of discussion.

We are more frequently questioning how much information should
organizations, especially commercial ones keep on us, and what should
they be allowed to do with it. Adam Ostrow's recent posting "My Soul, and 10 Other Things that Google Owns" on Mashable.com shows just how far Google has you wrapped up in its tentacles.

• Feedburner
• Gmail
• Gchat
• Adsence
• Google Calendar
• Google Checkout
• You Tube and Google Video
• Blogger
• Google Maps
• Gooble Apps

With all of these, Google can cross reference your activities, contacts, purchases and interests. Do we know what Google does with all of this information? No. Can we be assured that our private information won't become exposed, through accident, court order or secret government spying? No.

The likes of Google are banks, banks for information. Just like financial banking institutions it's easy to deposit, harder still to withdraw or gain co-operation.

I love this animation. It says it all about trying to bring your creative ideas to life, and then to world. It's just so true.

The people who put this animation together have suffered like the rest of us creatives.

Make Mine Shoebox

by Hallmark Interactive  

IBM joined the OpenOffice.org open-source community and will contribute code to the office suite that serves as an alternative to Microsoft's Office software.

IBM Throws Weight Behind OpenOffice.org Project -  PC World – Monday, September 10, 2007

Want to find out the latest secret nuclear submarine technology? Then just pop along to Google Maps or Microsoft's Virtual Earth and seek your nearest top secret naval base.

A man looking for a new home on an online mapping service has stumbled across an aerial image of a US nuclear-powered submarine in dry dock showing a part of the vessel that wasn't meant to be seen.

The image which appears on Microsoft's Virtual Earth mapping service – is of the seven-bladed propeller used on an Ohio class ballistic missile submarine.

A similar incident occurred recently when Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons analyst for the Federation of American Scientists, spotted an aerial image of China's new Jin-class nuclear-powered submarine on Google Earth.

One has to really wonder about military and security establishments don't you. They really don't have any grounds for demanding that internet be sanitized for the sake of national security do they. So much security, and secrecy yet a commercial satellite snaps sensitive information, so who knows what the spy satellites have got.

Maybe nations could seriously reduce their (excessive) military spending and just use the internet to find the latest "secrets". It seems to work for everybody else.

Opera have released a beta of their next browser update, Opera 9.5. It boasts some new features and improvements:

• Full search history – search over the content of all the pages you've recently visited
• Restore closed windows
• Faster Opera mail with IMAP support
• Rendering engine improvements, including CSS3 support
• Support of document.getElementById()
• New JS engine ECMAScript 4