There’s plenty of iffy ways to get music on the web, but advertising-backed legal download services are often restricted to the US. Qtrax is a Silverlight-based service which is actually accessible in Australia, allowing you to download songs free of charge and play them back on your PC. More »
If you’d like to keep a tighter reign on Flash, Silverlight, Java and other plug-ins, the latest Dev and Canary Build versions of Chrome allow you to set your plug-ins to “Click to play” and almost never see auto-loading web content again. More »
Windows/Mac: Back in November, Microsoft featured an attractive Facebook client to demo Silverlight 4, and many people wondered where it went. Well, Microsoft has finally released the fancy Facebook client for download, and it has almost everything you could want from Facebook. More »
For those Google Chrome users who need access to one or two Silverlight sites, a Microsoft developer offers a file-tweaking work-around to get access to certain sites. The Chrome/Silverlight hack requires grabbing a few .js files normally intended for Silverlight developers and tweaking them to have Silverlight sites accept and provide content to Chrome. By downloading the .js files and modifying them a bit, you should be able to access, as the developer rates it, “most” Silverlight apps, but your mileage will certainly vary. Moonlight 1.0 Released, Silverlight script updated – and a Chrome hack [Tim Heuer via FavBrowser.com]
Linux users running into the web’s brick walls of “This site requires Microsoft Silverlight,” rejoice. The Moonlight team has brought Silverlight compatibility to Firefox browsers on Linux systems. Moonlight installs like any other Firefox extension. Once it’s installed, you should be ready to use any site or webapp that requires Silverlight 1.0; 2.0 access is, hopefully, coming up soon. You should also be able to work inside Silverlight apps with traditionally Windows-based media codecs, another compatibility bonus. Tell us how Moonlight works for your Linux systems in the world of Windows in the comments. Moonlight Downloads
Microsoft Australia is currently running one of those “visit our site and we’ll give money to charity” promotions, promising to donate $1 to the Smith Family for every viewer (up to a $100,000 ceiling) of a site which promotes Office 2007 (and is also a sneaky way to get people to install Silverlight, Microsoft’s Flash wannabe). I can’t help thinking Microsoft would convince more people to use 2007 if the cursed Ribbon got dumped, but still, why not direct some more of Bill’s money towards a worthy cause? (Handy tip: don’t try this on a slow connection, on my Next G link it was beyond painful.)
Windows and now Mac OS X only: The beta NY Times reader application which Adam gave the full screenshot walk-through treatment is now available for your Mac. The application definitely provides a better reading experience than the web site only; there are fewer ads, more ways to customise the page’s layout (headlines only, headlines with excerpts, different photo sizes), and it helpfully grays out articles you’ve already read. (Click the image to see a full-size screenshot, where the American Idol article I read is grayed out.) The NY Times beta reader is a free download, and it requires (ugh) Silverlight to run on your Mac, as well as login details to NYTimes.com (free registration).
Times Reader Beta for the Mac Now Available [First Look Blog via steverubel]Mozilla has begun developing an open source Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight competitor based on WebRunner designed to more closely integrate the web with your desktop—and they’re calling it Prism. More »
Web application Popfly takes a building block approach to mashup creation, allowing regular folks like us to connect services like Flickr, Twitter, and maps to your heart’s content and your creativity’s limit. It’s all available through a drag and drop interface somewhere along the lines of Yahoo Pipes. Popfly is free to use, requires a Windows Live login and the Silverlight browser plugin. It’s currently in beta, and be aware that I saw significant slow-down on my computer when using Popfly. Hot mashups currently on the site include Flickr Mappings and Seattle Traffic via Virtual Earth, but the real question is: Does anyone want to build their own mashups? If you give it a try, let’s hear your thoughts in the comments.
Popfly [via Webware]
