First look – Internet Explorer 8 (RC1)

Microsoft made available Internet Explorer 8 RC1 (release candidate 1), which means that as far as Microsoft is concerned, IE8 is cooked and that barring anything major, this will become the final release. So, what’s the new browser like?

A new release of IE is always important because this is the browser that many millions of Windows users will be surfing the web with daily. Like it or not, by the very fact that IE is knitted into every Windows installation makes this an important event.

After what seemed like years of stagnation, Microsoft is continuing the tradition of kitting out IE8 with features that users of other browsers take for granted. According to its team blog, the latest version of the browser includes some general performance improvements, plus added security to avoid clickjacking attempts and some very nice features built-in, including:

* Smart Address Bar
The address bar isn’t now just a place to type URLs into. The Smart Address bar in IE8 tries to make sense of what the user is looking for by retrieving sites visited from the history and bookmarks. This is handy for those times when you want to find something but can’t remember where you saw it.
* Enhanced find
Sometimes it’s not finding the site that’s difficult, but finding where on the page you need to look for the information that you are after. IE8 offers a broad range of enhanced and improved tools to help you spot the information you are after. One such example if this is result highlighting.
* Tab groups
When one tab is opened from another one, the new tab is placed next to the one from which it was opened, and both are marked with a colored tab. This is a good way to keep track of your open tabs.
* InPrivate
Along with keeping track of stuff that you might later want to refer back to, IE8 also gives you powerful tools that allow the browser to have temporary amnesia in relation to the sites you’ve visited by temporarily halting the writing of information to the cache and history.
* Crash recovery
If your IE locks up of crashes while you’ve a shed-load of tabs open, with IE8 there’s a good chance that when you fire up the browser again that it will remember what what sites you had open and fire them up again. It can also reload information that you had typed into forms.

The RC1 version of IE8 is compatible with Windows Vista, Windows XP and Windows Server releases. It’s not currently compatible with Microsoft’s Windows 7 Beta operating system, which comes with its own version of IE8.

Add Video to your Twitter profile

BubbleTweet allows you to add a video to your Twitter profile. This is accomplished by adding a link to your “Bio” section. This link can also be forwarded at will by e-mailing or tweeting it. This way, you can greet your followers in person and cause a better impression, in the hope of consolidating your position in the Twitterverse.

View a Demo

Series on Funny Laws of United States – Georgia

Georgia Funny Laws:-

- If an organization non registered as “non-profit” fails to register their raffle with the local sheriff, that group risks paying up to $10,000 in fines and spending five years in jail.
- While Georgia operates its own lottery, it “protects” its citizens by making it illegal to promote a private lottery.
- The term “sadomasochistic abuse” is defined so broadly, that it could possibly be applied to a person handcuffing another in a clown suit.
- All sex toys are banned.
- Movie houses that want to show films on Sunday must reserve one showing a month for religious material.
- It is illegal to use profanity in front of a dead body which lies in a funeral home or in a coroners office.
- Members of the state assembly cannot be ticketed for speeding while the state assembly is in session.
- Donkeys may not be kept in bathtubs.
- Signs are required to be written in English.
- No one may carry an ice cream cone in their back pocket if it is Sunday.
- You have the right to commit simple battery if provoked by “fighting” words.
- It is illegal to change the clothes on a storefront mannequin unless the shades are down.
- It is illegal to take a bath of orange peel.

Its Official: Windows 7 Beta Available

Microsoft last night officially released the first beta of its Windows 7 to MSDN and TechNet subscribers. The beta will be open to all testers sometime today afternoon.

Windows 7 has been there Out in the Wild (Torrents, etc) since December. Windows 7 features and screen shots can be viewed here.

The release of the beta had been widely expected in recent days but CEO Steve Ballmer made it official Wednesday night in the opening keynote address at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

In his CES keynote, Ballmer indicated that he wants a broad swath of users and developers to test Windows 7 Beta 1 Build 7000. “We are on track to deliver the best version of Windows ever, we are putting in all the right ingredients — simplicity, reliability and speed and working hard to get it right and to get it ready,” Ballmer said.

A recorded video of the keynote address can be viewed here.

Add Nuke to your DotNet Applications

If you are creating DotNet Applications using Microsoft Dotnet framework, here is a fully compatible alternate to the same. DotNetNuke is an open-source Web Application Framework ideal for creating and deploying projects such as commercial websites, corporate intranets and extranets, online publishing portals, and custom vertical applications.

DotNetNuke is provided as open-source software, licensed under a BSD agreement. In general, this license grants the general public permission to obtain the software free-of-charge. It also allows individuals to do whatever they wish with the application framework, both commercially and non-commercially, with the simple requirement of giving credit back to the DotNetNuke project community.

DotNetNuke is built on a Microsoft ASP.NET (VB.NET) platform, and is easily installed and hosted. With a growing community of over 440,000 users, and a dedicated base of programming professionals, support for DotNetNuke is always close at hand.

DotNetNuke is designed for use on the Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5 platforms using Visual Studio 2005, Visual Studio 2008, or Visual Web Developer.

Key Features:
Easy to install and to host.
Fully extensible and scalable.
Clearly licensed under a BSD-style license.
Constantly evolving through real world trial.
Simply efficient and manageable.
Priority on security.
Fully customizable.
Fully localized.
User-friendly interface.
Easy to access community support.

View the Video Introduction to DotNetNuke (this will open in Windows Media Player)
Download the Video for Offline viewing

You can also check DotNetNuke’s Online Demo

Website: http://www.dotnetnuke.com

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