The second part of Windows Live Wave 3 has started rolling out. So far it’s only the web services Windows Live SkyDrive and Windows Live Photos that has been updated, not Windows Live Essentials (The desktop applications).
Windows Live SkyDrive
As we mentioned in an earlier post, SkyDrive is packed with new features, such as:
Increased Storage to 25 GB
Download photos directly to Windows Live Photo Gallery or as a zip archive
Songbird is a desktop media player built on the same platform as firefox, which allows seamless integration with all platforms, be it Windows, Mac or Linux.
Songbird is a player that, apart from serving as your everyday desktop based media player, plays media from the web. You can browse web sites from the player itself and if you land on sites that contain music it will crawl that page and create playlists from all the media present on that page.
What more? You can just click on the song in the playlist and it will play it just like it will play your local audio. It downloads the ID3 tag information and everything, and you can save the song by dragging and dropping it into your library. Yes it’s as simple as that.
FileZilla is powerful Open Source FTP/SFTP client with many features. It includes a site manager to store all your connection details and logins as well as an Explorer style interface that shows the local and remote folders and can be customized independently. The program offers support for firewalls and proxy connections as well as SSL and Kerberos GSS security. Additional features include keep alive, auto ascii/binary transfer, download queue, manual transfers, raw FTP commands and more.
Changelog:
+ Automatically refresh remote directory listing if queue finishes successfully
- Speed up refresh of remote directory listing if adding files during uploads
- Connections no longer time out waiting on a directory listing getting retrieved by a different connection
- Number of files were not updated if deleting remote files
- MSW: Update manifest so that the evil filesystem virtualization stays disabled under Vista
+ Configurable location of message log pane
+ Context menu inside site manager to export individual sites or site subtrees
- Several fixes for users with Turkish locale
- Fix race condition causing not all subdirectories to be added to queue on upload
- Cleanup of pane splitter code to facilitate configurable message log position
- Cleanup of path and directory listing caches to be less convoluted
7-Zip is a file archiver much like winzip, only with a better compression ratio.
Further more 7-Zip is open source software. Most of the source code is under the GNU LGPL license, meaning that it’s 100% free to use.
Main features:
High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression
Supported formats:
-Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
-Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, MSI, WIM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS
For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) is a freeware system optimization tool. That removes unused and temporary files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster, more efficiently and giving you more hard disk space. The best part is that it’s fast! (normally taking less that a second to run) it’s free and contains no Spyware or Adware.
CCleaner has been tried and tested with Windows 98/NT4/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista. It’s currently partially compatible with 64bit XP and Vista, there are a few non-critical issues which are still being worked on.
A new patch for Battlefield 2 is in the making, this time it’s patch 1.50.
The patch will mainly focus on stats padding and server issues.
A DICE employee has revealed that there will be a public beta, before the final patch is released, unfortunately he didn’t mention when.
So far we know that patch 1.50 will contain a number of security updates, including the following:
Server crashing – We have worked with the issues causing servers to crash, which has caused problems for the community (especially those who rent ranked servers).
Name/ID spoofing – Extra steps have been implemented to ensure the soldier being used belongs to the right account.
Commander assets – This is to stop the excessive spawning of multiple crates, UAVs or vehicles.
More information on Update 1.50 will be revealed as we approach the release date!
Techarp has news about Windows Vista SP2. A Release Candidate is expected in February 2009, and shortly after in April 2009 an RTM (Release To Manufacturing) release is scheduled.
Service Pack 2 will come with all post-SP1 patches/fixes, changes focused on supporting new types of hardware and will feature:
Windows Search 4.0 for faster and improved relevancy in searches
Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack supporting the most recent specification for Bluetooth technology
Ability to record data on to Blu-Ray media natively in Windows Vista
Windows Connect Now (WCN) to simplify Wi-Fi configuration
UTC timestamps support for the exFAT file system to allow correct file synchronization across time zones
Britney Spears comeback album “Circus” is schedule to be released on Dec 2, 2008, but you can already now listen to the new album on Imeem (Login Required). Or at Start.no
Circus is the sixth studio album from American pop singer Britney Spears.
The first single, “Womanizer”, became Spears’ first number one single on the Billboard Hot 100 since her debut “…Baby One More Time”,
The album features 12 new tracks and 1 bonus Track
Here is the Track List:
1. Womanizer
2. Circus
3. Out From Under
4. Kill The Lights
5. Shattered Glass
6. If U Seek Amy
7. Unusual You
8. Blur
9. Mmm Papi
10. Mannequin
11. Lace and Leather
12. My Baby
Bonus Track:
13. Radar
Britney has also released the first video for the track “Womanizer”
The video features Britney spears naked, and as a sexy secretary.
Flock is a social Web browser, open source, cross platform and based on Mozilla technologies. Currently, the browser implements support for del.icio.us and Flickr. Users can also install alternative hosted bookmarks or photo sharing services. In the search box and the blog manager, Flock offer users a number of choices and the ability to install other services using open standards. Expect the same, over time, for hosted bookmarks, photo-sharing and other services Flock integrates. Flock is based on the open source Mozilla code base.
Flock is focused on fundamentally evolving the browser, bringing a refreshing new approach to how people use and participate on the web and simplifying social and web-based applications by bringing them one step closer to the user and integrating them directly into the browser.
When using Flock, people can easily discover, access, create and share videos, photos, blogs, feeds and comments across social communities, media providers, and popular websites.
Changes in version 2.0.2:
Incorporated Mozilla’s 3.0.4 patch for Firefox.
TinyPic has been integrated as a Media Sharing service.
From the makers of CCleaner. Recuva (pronounced “recover”) is a freeware Windows utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players. It will even bring back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses!
Changelog:
Improved recovery of orphaned JPG images in FAT32.
Launch wizard button now working properly in all cases.
Improved scan canceling on large files.
Fixed bug that caused Wizard icons to not be displayed in 16 bit color.