Freeloader Friday Download of the Week

Apr 27 2009

Browser Bonanza

Opera (recently made free), Firefox and Flock have all released new versions, and they all come with great new features from feed handling to eye candy.

Firefox 2.0b1

firefox2b1 Browser Bonanza

New in 2.0:

  • Inline Spell Check (not shown) checks spelling in input boxes
  • New Feed Interface supports different feed readers including Google Reader and Bloglines
  • Search While You Type suggestions
  • Close Tab Buttons on the tab

Opera 9

opera9 Browser Bonanza

New in 9:

  • Widgets! Cool, but I wish you cold resize them
  • Integrated Bittorrent
  • Hover-over Tab Previews show you thumbnails and page info
  • Improved Richtext Formatting

Flock beta 1

flock07 Browser Bonanza

New in .7:

  • Drag and Drop Flickr integration
  • Search Auto-complete from history, bookmarks and more
  • RSS News View with a newspaper style layout and nice feed management
  • Better Support for Firefox Extensions

Wow. Unless you’re still hung on IE 5, there’s at least one cool new browser to try out. Have fun.

Brian

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Apr 27 2009

Pimp your Browser

You choice of a web browser is a very personal thing. I’m sure that the decision is somehow indicative of your personality, but that’s not the kind of thing we cover here. Instead, I have a few picks to jazz up your browser (whichever one you use).

Camino

I have to admit, Camino is really growing on me. The native interface and speed are great. But as a veteran of Firefox, I’ve grown dependent on a few features. Fortunately, free software fills in the gaps. Add themes to Camino with CaminIcon (Panther version here) has a limited but refreshing selection of themes. Camino may not support user scripts, but CamiScript brings all kinds of useful features to the browser via a script menu. You’ll want to visit the script repository for dandy extras like spell check. And, our tweaking would not be complete without hidden options. CamiTools offers options to customize the search box and more.

Firefox

Firefox addons are conveniently grouped at the Firefox Addonssite at Mozilla.org. There you’ll find search engines to add to the search box, extensions to extend Firefox’s functionality and themes to dress it to yout pleasure. We’ve spent a lot of time here on Firefox extensions, so I’ll save the space today.

Safari

Now the third most popular browser behind IE and Firefox, Safari has speed and flexibility. And, thanks to AcidSearch and SafariSIA you have a couple ways to add in your search engines of choice for easy menu-bar access. While Safari doesn’t support user scripts, you can modify the appearance of pages using the SurfRabbit add-on. SurfRabbit allows you to remove and reshape items from webpages to streamline your browsing. And, like Camino, you can change the look of Safari with SafarIcon.

Opera

Recently set free, this fast browser integrates email integrates email in a fast client. Of course, to compete with the browsers above, Opera is also a customizable application. Opera themes are available here, along with customized panels, toolbars and icons. But, if you want in on the newest add-on, you will need the new beta. With it, you can add Opera desktop widgets and let Opera break out of the box.

So, however you surf, make sure you are propery equipped.

Brian

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Apr 27 2009

Freeloader Friday– Newton Lives Part 1– Sync

In this two part Freeloader Friday special we’ll explore freeware to get your Newton connected to your OS X Mac and then fill it full of free software.

Some will be surprised that there is software out there to access a Newton and sync it with iCal and Address Book. Even better, there’s a whole collection.

NewtSync

NewtSync is a mature Newton sync solution that suports plugins. You’ll need to use another OS X tool to install NewtSync on your Newton before you can party.

newtsync Freeloader Friday Newton Lives Part 1 Sync

Once set up you can sync Address Book and iCal as well as notes to OPML, ToDos and more.

NCX

NCX is an exciting new project that aims to port the Newton Connection Utility to OS X. The result is a collection of utilities that allow you to get data off your Newton and back up its databases.

NCX Freeloader Friday Newton Lives Part 1 Sync

It requires Tiger and is the only solution I found that backs up your Newton on OS X. Because NCX interacts with your Newton using the native dock feature, you can run backups and install packages from the your MessagePad.

Escale

This slick Newton utility supports multiple connection methods and installs packages easily. Escale excels at TCP/IP syncs, once you get your Newton wireless.

NewTen

This is another installer utility for OS X. This choice works quickly and supports installing multiple packages at the same time.

Wifi, Bluetooth and more in Part 2.

The Newton is Dead. Long Live the Newton!

Brian

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