Linux only: The latest release of Linux app launcher GNOME Do serves up a helping of new plug-ins (including Google search and Remember the Milk), a clever “Docky” style, and much, much more.
Along with adding a bunch of new functionality through official and third-party plug-ins like Remember the Milk (which also provides task due alerts), TinyURL (paste in a URL, shrink it instantly), translation tools, Banshee and Opera support, and much more, GNOME Do 0.8 also fixes more than 100 bugs, including many plug-in problems. Memory usage has been knocked back, longer lines of text can be manually pasted into Do’s launcher, and more file types get icon previews. The biggest news, however, might be what initially seems like a theme choice, but actually opens up a whole new way of using GNOME Do—as a dock:
Windows only: POP Peeper is a system-tray application that keeps you updated on new emails in your POP3 and IMAP-based email accounts. For multiple inboxes, it could save a lot of hassle. POP Peeper not only notifies you of the new mail, but allows you to read the messages in HTML, plain text and rich text formats. And the alerts come in many flavors, including a skinnable desktop alert window, sounds, flashing keyboard lights, or an active tray icon. POP Peeper supports plug-ins including screensaver-based notification, voice notification that reads you email headers, and the ability to function as a basic RSS feed reader. While it isn’t the most practical tool for reading all your feeds, it could be handy for rare but important alerts, like new software releases. POP Peeper supports unlimited accounts, and can be installed as a portable application. It’s freeware, Windows only.
POP Peeper [via What's On My PC]The Google Operating System blog points to one blogger’s discovery of text inside the Google Pack software suite that basically lays out what GDrive will do:
GDrive provides reliable storage for all of your files, including photos, music and documents. GDrive allows you to access your files from anywhere, anytime, and from any device – be it from your desktop, web browser or cellular phone.
So GDrive is shaping up to be an any-file backup system that will roll out with a desktop client, web access. But with all the feature-rich competition GDrive’s facing, one would think tie-ins with other Google Apps, and raw data space, would be what Google truly wants to crow about. Are you intrigued by GDrive so far, or wondering what all the noise is about?
First Official Description of GDrive [Google Operating System]Philipp Lenssen at the Google Blogoscoped blog points out that a small revision to Google Toolbar 5 for Firefox installs one of Chrome’s most unique features in Firefox: its unique “New Tab” page. The page shows a 3×3 grid of your most-visited pages and lists your most recent bookmarks. I couldn’t get the page to offer search boxes for the most recent toolbar or Firefox search bar searches I’d performed, but it might take some time to show up. As mentioned in our guide to enabling Chrome’s best features in Firefox, the Speed Dial extension gives you just the popular pages grid, but also lets you customise which pages show up there and access them with keyboard number shortcuts.
How to Get Chrome’s “New Tab” Page in Firefox [Google Blogoscoped]Without further ado, congrats to Lyn, Paul, Matt, Dan, Georgina and Chris, whose extraordinary abilities to fill out a survey have landed them either a BRAVIA LCD TV (onya Chris) or $100 voucher to their choice of retailer.
Of course, we all know the real reason you so generously gave your time to complete our site surveys had absolutely nothing to do with the $4k prize pool and everything to do with helping us grow our precious little blog. So for that, we thank you.
For a large portion of the Australian population, plunging into an ice-cold pool is obviously the preferred option. But when you venture back inside and pray the air conditioning is still working, you can also try out these life-enhancing tech tips from the last week on Lifehacker:
See if offline Gmail has showed up in your account yet (no luck for me so far) Find the perfect PC wallpaper with a sneaky Google trick Check if you’re following Australia’s top Twitter users Make sure your in-ear headphones are working properly Find out if buying a movie ticket via your phone actually saves any timeCurrently, if you look at the bidding history on an eBay Australia auction, the individual bidders will be listed as “Bidder 1″, “Bidder 2″ and so on. As of February 3, that will change: eBay will now use a random selection of two characters from each bidder’s name, an approach already used on other country-specific eBay sites. (Sellers, of course, will be able to access actual bidder details). While this will probably help “give members a sense of who is bidding, while still protecting the bidders’ identities”, as eBay argues, it won’t make it much easier to tell if you keep losing to the same rival collector.
As temperatures soar around the country, the last thing you need is a fat cat sleeping on your feet. IKEA Hacker details how Paola solved that problem on the cheap, by using the $39 Duktig doll bed and some quickly stitched-up covers to give her 9kg (!) cat a place to sleep. Convincing said cat to actually stay on the bed might be a whole other issue, but it’s an appealing concept nonetheless. Bedtime for Titina [IKEA Hacker]
According to weblog Google Blogoscoped, Google Chrome is spoofing its user agent at Hotmail, Microsoft’s popular but much-maligned webmail application. Why? The issue was that Hotmail barred the competitor’s browser from entering by checking the user agent. Some sites do so, often without merit and a lot of backfiring, because they think certain browsers can’t cope with their HTML/JavaScript/stylesheets. Not the case with Chrome here, apparently, which now pretends it’s a Safari browser when encountering *.mail.live.com.
If we weren’t the types who give folks the benefit of the doubt, we might suggest that Microsoft’s playing a touch dirty to fend off Google’s competing browser. Then again, as one Microsoft employee says, Hotmail services millions of users—and Chrome is used by such a small percentage of those users—that the bug will be addressed. It’s just not a high priority. Regardless, the Google, Microsoft, and Apple power struggle via Chrome, Hotmail, and Safari is a saucy one.
iPhone jailbreaking tool QuickPWN has been updated to jailbreak your iPhone/iPod touch running version 2.2.1, the latest software update from Apple. We haven’t had a chance to test the Windows-only jailbreaker yet, so if you give it a try, let’s hear how it worked for you in the comments. Thanks Dr. L33T!
