Tools

With advent of web 2.0, and some habits cultivated over the last decade, I have a certain list of tasks that I do everyday. I current visit a bunch of websites more than once a day, and an integrated interface would do me so much good. mail, a whole set of accounts, gmail, yahoo, etc feed readers blog editor orkut del.icio google notebook What is lacking, is the ability to have a single sign-on/account mgmt capability, a common dashboard, ability to cross-launch/cross-post content.

I just downloaded Windows Live Writer At first look, it looks good! I haven’t been able to say that about most Microsoft products off late. The last product that was awe-inspiring was perhaps VC++ 6.0 (such wide range of features), IE 6.0 (it was big deal when it came into the market) and maybe, to some extent Office 2003 (a lot less buggy and smaller file sizes than previous releases).

It is not just M$ that struggles with frequent patches for its products. Mozilla just released a whole host of bug fixes in a new release 2.0.0.1. You can download it here or use the direct links below. Http Direct Links to Oregon State University’s Open Source LabWindows Linux Mac Ftp mirror: ftp.osuosl.org Firefox 2.0.0.1 home dir: /pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/2.0.0.1/ windows: $home/win32/en-US/Firefox Setup 2.0.0.1.exe linux: $home/linux-i686/en-US/firefox-2.0.0.1.tar.gz mac: $home/mac/en-US/Firefox 2.0.0.1.dmg There are some issues upon upgrading.

There was once a wondeful browser called “Opera”. The lucid interface, the smal memory footprint - it was simply browsing heaven. Then came the version loaded with ads, heavy, sluggish UI and a hug memory footprint in the name of new improved UI. The ads loaded version of opera turned out to nag-ware and I totally detested it and moved to other browsers (read Firefox). Get online and check websites out became “swimming” and not “surfing”