News (15)

Adobe releases CS4 details

Adobe released details today about Creative Suite 4, its first update to more than a dozen design and editing tools since Adobe CS3 some 17 months ago. Read more »

PlayStation 3 site hacked, 2.40 upgrade suspended

Sony has suspended its PlayStation 2.40 firmware upgrade following reports it has fouled up some users' systems — Sony has also removed hacked pages on its Playstation web site. Read more »

Google debuts Gears for Firefox 3

Gears, Google's project to make Web browsers a better foundation for elaborate online applications, now supports Firefox 3, the company plans to announce soon. Read more »

Yahoo and Google attempt to improve the browser

A year after Google launched its Gears project, Yahoo has decided to make your browser better, too. Read more »

Google reveals Android's sensitive inner compass

Google has shown off Android's inner compass which allows the screen's view to mirror the holder's orientation. Read more »

Security experts warn of potential malicious AIR code

On Monday, Adobe Systems rolled out its new Web 2.0 development tool, Adobe Integrated Runtime, or AIR. Following its release were some concerns from the security community. Read more »

Control your search with new Google experiment

Google is experimenting with a new Web search interface that allows people to influence the results they get by indicating whether or not they like particular results. Read more »

CBA admits to NetBank Firefox bug

A recent upgrade to the Commonwealth Bank's NetBank service claims to "make your online banking a whole lot easier", but a problem has emerged for Firefox users. Read more »

Windows update prompts Skype outage

Skype has come clean on the outage which made its service almost unusable for two days last week, claiming the disruption was the result of a restart which stemmed from a routine Windows update. Read more »

iPhone success depends on Windows?

Apple traditionally caps off its worldwide developer conference with a bang -- releasing a piece of news that coders, enthusiasts and journalists can stew over for days and weeks afterwards. Read more »

Features (56)

How to create a Blue Screen of Death

Feeling nostalgic about the Microsoft Blue Screen of Death, which used to plague desktops in the bad old days of Windows? No need to keep those feelings locked away. This handy guide will show you how to force your PC to recreate the infamous error. Read more »

Employ refactoring via Visual Studio to write better code

Refactoring is the practice of making your code cleaner and clearer without affecting the functionality. Find out what's included in Visual Studio's Refactor menu, and discover a couple of Visual Studio add-ins that bring refactoring to the Visual Basic community. Read more »

Improving the mobile Web user experience

Traditionally our experience with the mobile Web was pretty terrible, but the good news is that this is starting to change, at least according to Oliver Weidlich, usability specialist at Ideal Interfaces. Read more »

10 things you should do near the end of a project

When it comes to the end of a project, many project managers come up just short of the finish line. Failure to handle the final steps can add confusion to an initiative and may lead to customer dissatisfaction, unhappy staff, and a project dragging on longer than necessary. Read more »

How do I ... reject alpha characters in a SQL Server character column?

Enforcing your data's integrity is probably the single most important issue you face when designing a database. Validating user input is one way of keeping bad data from making its way into your analyses and reports. Read more »

Location-based publishing and services

Geocoded content is transforming our Web. By adding geographical coordinates (latitude and longitude) to our media, we can help others find it through location-based search engines and web maps. Read more »

Take advantage of code snippets in Visual Studio 2005

Visual Studio 2005 brings auto-complete for code snippets to C#, J#, and XML, as well as additional features for Visual Basic. Read more »

Customise your Web browsing experience with Greasemonkey

Discover how you can use Greasemonkey to extend and customise the Web browsing experience. Read more »

Create shortcut menus for forms in VB.NET using ContextMenuStrip

This VB.Net tip will show you how to implement shortcut menus for a form using the ContextMenuStrip control. Read more »

Configure GNU Screen to handle multiple terminals

GNU Screen is a fantastic terminal "window manager" in that it lets you handle multiple terminals from within one -- not only that, but what you run under Screen can be shared with other users or used remotely if you start a Screen session and then ssh into your box and resume the session. Read more »

Blog (5)

Chrome DNS shortcut revealed

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- The Chromium Blog has detailed one of the shortcuts that Google Chrome uses to enhance the browsing experience: DNS prefetching. Read more »

Confessions of an accessibility sadist

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- If your mouse dies because of a software update, most people would rollback the update -- a small minority will continue to move forward regardless. All in the name of science and testing the world of accessibility. Read more »

You need to be smart

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- One of the most popular buzzwords in software development agile. Today everyone wants to be agile. That is good! However, being agile is not enough. Read more »

When simplifying becomes patronising

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- Assumption is the mother of many things, and it allows well-intended simplification to go a step too far Read more »

Get more out of Safari with Debug mode

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- Safari's debug mode can open up a few nice features like a JavaScript consol and mask Safari as Internet Explorer. Read more »

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  • Staff Microsoft prescribes more REST

    Details have begun to emerge about the next versions of Visual Studio and Windows Server this week -- and the message from Redmond is to REST up Read more »

    -- posted by Staff

  • Chris Duckett .NET looks to REST

    With news that REST will play a big part in the next version of the .NET Framework, it is timely to take a look at ADO.NET. Read more »

    -- posted by Chris Duckett

  • Renai LeMay Spellr.us needs a new dictionary

    One of the only Australian start-ups to present at the recent round of conferences in the US was Sydney-based spellr.us, which has launched a Web-based tool to check and monitor websites for spelling mistakes. Read more »

    -- posted by Renai LeMay

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