Web Talk

Spoken text is an interesting application to record (English, French or German) Pdf, plain text, Word, Rss, emails etc and convert them to speech automatically. You can decide to convert your recording into an iPod book or mp3 file. It also has an interesting FireFox add-on to have it always at hand. But the best part of it all it is that is free!

I m always worried (and maybe a little paranoid) about Wordpress security, and despite this CMS is pretty secure and stable there is no limit to the improvements you can add to make your website tougher. You can find a lot of plugins stating to make your site hacker-proof, but I try to stay away from them because I don’t like the idea to have something making changes I don’t know in the php code. That’s why I prefer to add manually little php strings and keep track of them so, if something goes wrong, I can delete them. Here is a little list containing useful tips. Continue reading »

Firefox 3beta 2 is available for downloading. Here are some of its features:

• Improved security features such as: protection from cross-site JSON data leaks, tighter restrictions on site-specific content using effective TLD service, better presentation of website identity and security, malware protection, stricter SSL error pages, anti-virus integration in the download manager, version checking for insecure plugins.

• Improved ease of use through: better password management, easier add-on installation, new download manager with resumable downloading, full page zoom, animated tab strip, and better integration with Windows Vista, Mac OS X and Linux.

• Richer personalization through: one-click bookmarking, smart bookmark folders, location bar that matches against your history and bookmarks for URLs and page titles, ability to register web applications as protocol handlers, and better customization of download actions for file types.

• Improved platform features such as: new graphics and font rendering architecture, JavaScript 1.8, major changes to the HTML rendering engine to provide better CSS, float-, and table layout support, native web page form controls, colour profile management, and offline application support.

• Performance improvements such as: better data reliability for user profiles, architectural improvements to speed up page rendering, over 330 memory leak fixes, a new XPCOM cycle collector to reduce entire classes of leaks, and reductions in the memory footprint.

For more info go here.
To download it go here.

This laptop drawn my attention not for its features (14.1″ wide UltraVivid display, Intel Core 2 Duo and Microsoft Windows Vista, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) but for its 2.5″ SideShow display allowing to check information without turning on the laptop. You can even make skype phone calls through the display. At last a laptop giving Skype the right importance!

Source: Laptops blog

If you have got a Nintendo DS and a nice DS SLOT-1 flash cart you can play around with a lot of homebrew softwares giving you the opportunity to do a variety of things your DS normally isn’t designed for. A wonderful piece of software changes your little console into an organizer able to: read rss feeds, chat, browse the web, read documents and pics and organize your life. Not bad for a little device which is supposed to run just games, isn’t it?

DsOrganize
Wiki Dsorganize

Now, this is really a digital frame I would like to buy. Despite the fact that I am not really enthusiastic about digital frames, this one drawn my attention for its features. In fact it is equipped with a WiFi antenna, integrated speaker and a dedicated chat software to send and get pictures instantly wherever you are in the world. You can also browse its calender, read news and made nice greeting cards. Find out more here.

This is an old news but I thought it could interest somebody. A couple of weeks ago the first update for Maemo OS2008 was released. Let’s read some of the Maemo team words:

” You can now use finger sized arrows in PDF reader’s full screen mode to change between pages. Page changing is as easy as switching through images in image viewer. In chat application’s side, layouts have got some updates and new features were added like support for avatars & instant messaging through SIP. Smiley selector in chat is also bigger to be more easily used by fingers. Selecting right contact from contacts list is now faster by using live filtering where only contacts matching the inputted characters will be displayed. “

Download N81o firmware
Download N800 firmware
Changelog

I use Firefox. I think Internet Explorer is crap cause is buggy, heavy, slow and I didn’t ask for it when I bought my HP Pavillon dv6000 (but hey I didn’t even ask for a brand new buggy Windows Vista!) That said I would like to speak about the best add-ons for this browser inviting all the readers to share their knowledge with the rest of this small but growing community. My preferred application is Fasterfox which increases the browsing speed by using a very efficient prefetching mechanism which caches all the links on the pages we are visiting. I also like Noscript. It allows JavaScript, Java and other executable content to run only from trusted domains of your choice. Sometimes I am FORCED to use IE tab for those sites which stubbornly are just compatible with Internet Explorer. With a click you can switch from FireFox to IE with no effort. Windows media Player plugin instead allows you to see wmp files directly from Firefox without switching to IE. What add-ons do you use on your FireFox?