Steven's Blog » Technology News

Mozilla Firefox 4 released

Steven Jones — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 19:12:49 +0000

Mozilla has released version 4.0 of its popular browser to its official download page after two Release Candidates found their way to testers earlier this month. Mozilla will be hoping to top their previous Guinness World Record of 8,002,530 downloads within 24 hours for Firefox 3.0, which took place in June 2008 with parties in over 25 countries.

Based on the Gecko 2.0 engine, Firefox 4 comes with an all new user interface, new ways to organize tabs, a revamped add-on manager, support for HTML5 video standards, multi-touch support on Windows 7 and a range of performance and security enhancements.

Windows 7 / Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 now RTM

Steven Jones — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 11:21:53 +0000

The Windows Team Blog the other day has announced that Windows 7 / Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 has finally reached RTM.

On February 16th, both will be available to current customers of the Windows Volume Licensing program, as well as subscribers to Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) and TechNet. On February 22nd, both will be available to all customers through Windows Update and will also come preinstalled on new servers ordered.

Apple iOS 4.21 released and MobileMe’s Find My iPhone now free

Steven Jones — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:28:10 +0000

Yesterday Apple released iOS 4.21 for the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, the iPod Touch 2nd, 3rd and 4th Generations and the iPad. Get the update now though iTunes.

The battery life once again seems to be better on my iPhone 4 but will see if the improvements stay.

In other Apple News, the “Find My iPhone” feature of MobileMe is now a free service, just add a MobileMe account using your existing Apple ID from your iPhone to activate the service.

25 years of Microsoft Windows

Steven Jones — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 12:33:21 +0000

Computer World has created a nice article for the 25th birthday of Microsoft Windows. On November 20th 1985 Microsoft released Windows 1.0 and didn’t catch on as well as Microsoft had hoped.

It was not until Windows 3.1 which started to get the ball rolling with the major turning point being Windows 95 which really started to get home computing going en masse.

Visual Tour of 25 years of Windows

Office 2010 now Released to Manufacturing

Steven Jones — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 16:50:44 +0000

On Thursday the Microsoft Office blog reported that Office 2010 has reached the RTM milestone.

The RTM build will be made available for download on the MSDN and TechNet Subscription download sites on Thursday 22nd. Volume Licence customers with SA can download it from Tuesday 27th otherwise you will have to wait till May 1st.

Google Street view UK imagery now complete

Steven Jones — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 18:51:19 +0000

I’m not sure when this was completed but I‘ve been made aware that Google’s Street view imagery of the UK has been completed and appears to covers pretty much all of the UK road network. Have a look for your … Continue reading →

Windows 7: More than 90 Million Copies Sold

Steven Jones — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:31:10 +0000

Over on the Windows Team Blog, they have reported that over 90 Million copies of Widows 7 has been sold making Windows 7 the fastest selling Operating System in history.

Virgin Media to offer 100Mbps cable broadband by end of year.

Steven Jones — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:52:05 +0000

Virgin Media, the UK’s leading internet service provider, today announced it would begin the roll-out of a 100Mb broadband service, the fastest available commercial product in the UK, by the end of 2010.

Virgin Media customers will be the first to get broadband speeds more than 24 times the average speed provided by other ISPs. The new speed tier is designed for tech-savvy users who want the very best the internet has to offer, and will act as Virgin Media’s flagship product in a strong portfolio of broadband speeds.

Virgin Media already leads the market for next generation broadband services in the UK and will have increased its top broadband tier from 20Mb to 100Mb in less than two years. By leveraging the technological superiority of its fibre optic cable network, the company has brought next generation internet speeds to 12.6 million homes throughout the country and is the only mass-market provider of ultrafast speeds in the UK. In addition, Virgin Media’s cable network means it is able to deliver very close to advertised headline speeds, unlike its ADSL competitors, or that claimed by other operators’ embryonic investment in fibre.

Microsoft plans to roll out browser ballot screen for Europe

Steven Jones — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:49:48 +0000

Over the next few weeks starting from next week. Microsoft will be offering a web browser choice ballot screen to Internet Explorer users in Europe.

External testing of the choice screen will begin next week in three countries: the United Kingdom, Belgium and France. Anyone in those countries who wishes to test it can download the browser choice screen software update from Windows Update.

The browser choice screen software update will be offered as an automatic download through Windows Update for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. The software update will be installed automatically, or will prompt you to download or install it, depending on which operating system you are running and your settings for Windows Update. If you do not have automatic updating enabled, you can get the choice screen by going to Windows Update and clicking on “Check for Updates.”

Windows 7 RC expiration coming soon

Steven Jones — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 08:00:45 +0000

Just a heads up that Windows 7 RC will start displaying expiration notices in two weeks and users should reinstall with the RTM release or reinstall a previous version of Windows.

Effective February 15, 2010, the expiration notification process begins:

Windows 7 RC users receive an expiration notification in the task bar one time per day.
Windows 7 RC users are presented with the Notification Wizard one time every four hours and then one time every hour.

Effective March 1, 2010, Windows 7 RC enters the next phase of expiration:

Expiration notifications in the task bar continue.
Computers that are running Windows 7 RC restart every two hours.
Important When the computer restarts, your work will not be saved.

Effective June 1, 2010, Windows 7 RC expires:

Windows starts to a black desktop.
Windows 7 RC users are presented with a Windows Activation screen. The screen states that the Windows that you are running is not genuine.
Computers that are running Windows 7 RC restart every two hours.