Firefox 3 RC 1 now available

(Screenshot via Alex's Thoughts blog)

Mozilla released Firefox 3 release candidate 1 on May 16th. Afer 33 months of development Firefox 3 is getting much closer to being officially released!


New Features:

• Faster page loading (through faster HTML and javascript rendering)
• Less Memory usage
  "Memory cycles are broken and collected by an automated cycle collector, a new memory allocator reduces fragmentation, hundreds of leaks have been fixed, and caching strategies have been tuned."
• Better auto-complete in the address bar
  Now when you type part of title, a tag, or an address, Firefox will instantly pull matches from both your browsing history and bookmarks. The results are displayed in order of frequency, so your most visited pages will appear first.
• Smart Bookmarks
  These new bookmarking feature will display your recent or most visited bookmarks. The smart bookmarks folder now appear in the bookmarks toolbar and gives you quick access to all your most visited websites.
  
• Multple page zoom options
  When zooming pages you now have to option to zoom text, images, and layout, or only text
• Multiple text selections
  Now you can make multiple, non-continuous text selections in Firefox by holding down the Control/Command key to easily make multiple selections.
• Native look for Mac OS X
  Firefox now sports a brand new theme to make the toolbars, icons, and buttons visually integrated with OS X.
• Bookmark Tagging
  If you're a fan of del.icio.us or any other social bookmarking service, you'll love Firefox's bookmark tagging feature.
• Resize the location and search bar
  You can now resize the location and search bar without installing any additional extensions.
  

Compatible extensions

If you can't live without your extensions, I would first recommend checking the Firefox Add-ons page to check that your must-have extensions have been updated for compatibility with Firefox 3.

The only reason I haven't completed switched over to Firefox 3 already is because the Del.icio.us extension has not been officially released yet. Gina Trapani of Lifehacker posted Del.icio.us Extension Beta Plays Nice in Firefox 3. She links to the Del.icio.us blog post about their new beta extension.

Here's some popular extensions compatible with Firefox 3

• 1Password Extension
  
• Web Developer (Toolbar)
  
• Adblock Plus
• NoScript
  
• PDF Download
• ColorZilla
  Firefox 3.0a2

Test Drive Firefox 3 and Keep Firefox 2 Safe

If you're running a Mac and would like to try out Firefox 3 and keep Firefox 2 intact, check out Install Firefox 2 an 3 on the same computer. Since Firefox 3 shares the same profile folder as Firefox 2, they also give instructions to create a new profile and keep your original intact.


Read More:

Mozilla's Firefox 3 Release Notes

Lifehacker - Top 10 Firefox 3 Features
Lifehacker - Complete Field Guide to Testing Firefox 3

Why is my computer so slow?

Why is your computer running slow? It could be due to a number of issues, but in the end it's either a software or hardware related issue. The big culprits are file fragmentation, spyware, and not enough RAM in your computer.

Hardware issues

• Computers running with less than 1GB of RAM are generally going to be slow
  Using a computer with less than 1GB RAM on Windows XP, and especially Vista can slow your programs to a crawl. Upgrading your RAM is the best and most cost-effective way to improve the speed of your computer. RAM memory upgrades are also cheap--typically less than $200, and should be closer to $100 for a decent upgrade.
  
  Mac users should not run OS X with less than 1GB of RAM, especially if they're planning on doing anything with music, movies, or photos.
  
  
• Your computer does not have a dual-core processor
  Dual-core processors are not a necessity, however, you'll notice a significant speed improvement with a dual-core processor.
  
  
• Your hard drive is overfilled
  If your hard drive has less than 20% of it's free space remaining, you could be noticing slowdowns because the computer has to look longer for files before opening them. With the size of today's hard drives, typically 320-500GB for a desktop computer, users should not have a problem with this. However, if you're running an older desktop, or an older laptop with less than an 60GB hard drive, you may have less free space than you think.
  

Software (operating system issues)

• Windows XP has a half life
  As a computer is used frequently, the Windows operating system degrades over time. File fragmentation across the hard drive slows down an otherwise OK machine. Every computer user should know this and be defragmenting on a regular basis, especially if the machine is used regularly. Another solution, which will make your computer seem brand new is to reinstall a fresh copy of Windows. Reinstalling Windows will be like starting with a new computer--no fragmentation, no spyware, no viruses, no trial software.
  
  
• Malware (Spyware, Viruses, Trojans)
  Most Windows users, unless savvy with their browsing habits, are likely to have spyware crawling on their machine slowing it down. Most computer users that complain that their machine is slow

I'd love to hear your comments and questions. . . .

How to protect your computer from spyware

Spyware is becoming a growing problem in the computer world. A little knowledge can go a long way to prevent spyware from invading your machine.

Here are some tips to avoid spyware:

1. Use the Firefox Browser. Most spyware can be prevented by simply switching to the Firefox web browser. Firefox is protected from drive-by-downloads, spyware toolbars, and other security issues that are prevalent in Internet Explorer. By using Firefox, your computer won't be vulnerable to ActiveX related spyware that can be installed without the user's knowledge.
   
   
2. Only download software from reputable sources. Millions of computer users are unknowingly installing spyware and adware on their machines because they are downloading "free software". Don't download software from websites unless it's a trusted source. Download.com is one of the best places to find free software. All their programs are tested to be spyware and adware free. Most spyware infections require that you download and install something onto your computer. By downloading free software from legitimate sources, you eliminate the possibility of most spyware infecting your computer.
   
   
3. Use an anti-spyware program. If you're having trouble with spyware slowing down your machine, crashing your computer, or flooding your screen with pop-ups, scan your computer to remove spyware and adware. (Are you using Firefox? Are you being careful about downloading free programs?) Download.com's list of popular downloads includes some good free anti-spyware programs, Spybot Search and Destroy and Ad-Aware. These programs can help clear out some of the spyware and adware lurking on your computer.
   
   
4. Don't click on internet pop-ups. You can take simple steps, such as not clicking on internet pop-ups to prevent spyware from infecting your machine. Lots of internet ads will offer to scan your machine for spyware. Don't click on these advertisements! By clicking, you're giving an open invitation for spyware and adware to get on your computer. There are many fake anti-spyware programs that will offer to scan your computer, or say that your computer is infected. These bogus programs will trick you into installing them and actually infect your computer with spyware and adware.
   
   
5. Check your browsing habits. If you're already using Firefox and you're careful about what you download, also be mindful of your browsing habits. Thousands of bogus websites will try to install spyware and adware on your machine without your knowledge. By avoiding websites with pornography, software cracks, and torrents you can reduce the chance that spyware will make it's way onto your machine.
   

DVD Shrink runs fast in Parallels

DVD Shrink performs fast while running in Parallels.*

* MacBook Pro
2.2GHz dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 128MB Geforce 8600 graphics card
* Using a Windows XP VM (virtual machine) with 512MB of RAM and up to 15GB allocated to the VM.

A backup of a DVD movie took only 10 minutes in Parallels (using a pre-ripped DVD Video folder). This is faster than any compression I've done on a PC. Usually it would take around 15 minutes to compress a DVD on my old Dell Latpop (1.86GHz centrino processor, 2GB of RAM). DVD Shrink is performing faster in a virtual machine than it was on my midrange laptop from 2005.

* Note: Copying the ISO file created by DVD Shrink into a Parallels shared folder took about five minutes, so this actually evens out the amount of time for the compression.

Bottom Line: If you're a PC user that misses DVD Shrink, definitely consider running it in Parallels, unless of course you are already running Bootcamp. Mac users: DVD Shrink is probably the best DVD Compression program available on PCs or Macs, and it's also free!!

Be aware that DVD Shrink has not been updated in the last three years, so it cannot remove the latest copy protections. Use MacTheRipper to rip the DVD Video files to your hard drive, and then compress them with DVD Shrink.

If you know of any DVD Shrink equivalent (free) programs for the mac, post a comment. DVD2OneX is the closest thing I've found for Mac, but it only allows the main movie to be extracted, and it costs around $40. I want to keep the menus and the chapters when backing up my DVDs.


Coming Soon:

Burn and Backup your DVD movies on a Mac

Tip: Take screenshots with keyboard shortcuts (Mac)

Mac OS X offers a quick and application-free way of taking screenshots of just about anything.

Here's a rundown of the keyboard shortcuts.

• Command-Shift-3:
  Take a screenshot of the screen, and save it as a file on the desktop
• Command-Shift-4, then select an area:
  Take a screenshot of an area and save it as a file on the desktop
• Command-Shift-4, then space, then click a window:
  Take a screenshot of a window and save it as a file on the desktop

• Command-Control-Shift-3:
  Take a screenshot of the screen, and save it to the clipboard
• Command-Control-Shift-4, then select an area:
  Take a screenshot of an area and save it to the clipboard
• Command-Control-Shift-4, then space, then click a window:
  Take a screenshot of a window and save it to the clipboard
  

When a using the first set of shortcuts (with #4), the screenshot will be saved to the desktop as a PNG file.

If you need to do any extra cropping afterwards, simply open the images in Preview, crop, and re-save them.

Also check out the freeware application Backdrop for masking any desktop icons, desktop backgrond, or other clutter before taking the screenshot.

Download of the Week: Block out distractions with Backdrop

If you regularly watch movies on a Mac with dual monitor, backdrop may be perfect for you. Backdrop is a nice little freeware program for Mac that will block out the rest of the screen with a solid color of your choice. I use this on my laptop when watching movies on my 19" LCD monitor connected to my laptop so that the other screen is black while watching the movie.

Backdrop is also great for taking screenshots without the clutter of other application, desktop icons, or background images to inflate the image file size of your screenshot. You won't have to worry about taking the time to clear off all your desktop icons before taking the screenshot

If you're running Windows, check out Dropcloth featured on Lifehacker.

Backdrop website

Tip: Save time with Firefox Bookmark Shortcuts

A little know feature of Firefox bookmarks can save you even clicking on them. You can assign custom text as keyboard shortcuts for Firefox Bookmarks.

Here's how:

After creating a bookmark, edit the properties of the bookmark (PC users right click, Mac users go to the Bookmarks Manager). Enter whatever custom letters you'd like into the "keyword" field. See in the screen shot above an example for using "ym" as a shortcut to Yahoo Mail. Now I simply type ym into the address bar and I instantly go to the Yahoo Mail login page.