Jonathan Hensley | The Blog | JHensley.org

The lastest Firefox news:

• Web apps faster with Firefox 3.1
  Firefox 3.1 will run many Web-based applications such as Gmail faster through incorporation of a feature called TraceMonkey that dramatically speeds up programs written in JavaScript, Mozilla said Friday. JavaScript has been very broadly used to add pizzazz or flexibility to Web pages over the years, but in recent years, it’s also become the plumbing for many rich Internet applications. However, because JavaScript has been hobbled by pokey performance, Web-based applications often struggled to work as responsively as “native” software running directly on PCs
• Useful Firefox 3 Configuration Tweaks
  Firefox keeps its advanced settings in a giant configuration file in your Firefox directory, and even offers an advanced interface to edit that file in the browser itself. To make these changes, type about:config in Firefox’s address bar. You’ll get a half-joking, half-serious message about voiding Firefox’s warranty if you change any settings. Press the “I’ll be careful. I promise!” button (because you will be) and you’ll be on your way.
• How to Skip the Installation Delay for Firefox Extensions
  As you may know, Firefox tries to protect you from malicious attacks by setting up a delay before allowing you to install a new extension. But if you’re confident in your browsing habits and you want to avoid the wait, just enter about:config in your address bar, then paste security.dialog_enable_delay into the filter box. Double-click that preference and change the value to 0.

Want your backpack to lose some weight.  Amazon is trying to help -

• Report: A Kindle for college kids?
  Amazon sees a chance to cash in by marketing the Kindle to college students, according to McAdams Wright Ragen analyst Tim Bueneman, by way of Seattlepi.com reporter Andrea James. A collegiate version could be just one of a number of potential Kindles-to-be, apparently. “There are already several new, improved versions of the Kindle in the works,” Bueneman wrote in a note Friday, per James.

Here are some interesting links from today:

• Seinfeld to be pitchman for Microsoft
  Seinfeld will be a key pitchman in a planned $300 million fall advertising campaign for the software giant, a person familiar with the plans confirmed to The Associated Press on condition on anonymity because the deal has not been formally announced. The Wall Street Journal first reported the plans. Citing people close to the situation, it reported the comedian will be paid $10 million for appearing in ads with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.
• Microsoft enlists Seinfeld in Vista battle
  Microsoft is reportedly paying Seinfeld $10 million for his role which will focus on the slogan “Windows, Not Walls,” and will stress the need to “break down barriers that prevent people and ideas from connecting.” The advertising campaign follows on from the recent Mojave experiment which attempted to prove that Vista’s biggest problem is perception, rather than actual flaws.
• Fair Use Must Be Considered In DMCA Notices
  US District Judge Jeremy Fogel has ruled that an ‘allegation that a copyright owner acted in bad faith by issuing a takedown notice without proper consideration of the fair use doctrine thus is sufficient to state a misrepresentation claim,’ which paves the way for a lawsuit against Universal Music over a ridiculous DMCA Takedown notice they filed.

Here are some interesting links from the past couple days:

• Dell and Facebook prepping ’significant’ announcement
  Two of the biggest names in tech are teaming up on a cloud computing project that they plan to announce at a special event next week.  Facebook amasses billions of photos, friend connections, and status updates and stores them up in “the cloud,” and Dell is working on being one of the main providers of the infrastructure–servers–that makes the cloud possible.
• Almost one mobile phone for every South Korean
  Tech-savvy South Korea now has 45 million mobile phones, equivalent to 91 percent of the total population, the Korea Communications Commission said Wednesday. The data means each of the country’s 15.8 million households has almost three mobiles on average, it said.
• 24 Ways to Make and Save Money With Your Computer
  You probably rely on your computer to accomplish a lot of things (and waste some time), but do you realize that computers and the Internet are some of the most powerful tools you can have in your financial toolbox? There are many ways that your computer can help you make and save money that weren’t available just a few years ago.
• We’re running out of IPv4 addresses. Time for IPv6. Really.
  Unless something unexpected happens, we’ll be out of IPv4 addresses at some point in the neighborhood of 2012. So when the next Olympics come around, it’s very possible that some of us will have to watch them online over IPv6. (Actually the official website of the 2008 Olympics is already available over IPv6.)

Tonight I flipped away from the Olympics during the trampolene competition and caught Lenovo’s new ‘Cast Away’ commercial featuring their new IdeaPad Y Series of notebooks.  This not so original commercial was however quite eye catching.

Lenovo is advertising their Veriface technology which is basically a facial recognition program that uses their built in webcam to automatically recognize the face of an enrolled user and log him/her on to the computer.  Pretty slick.

According to Notebooks.com, Veriface is quite secure and will only enroll, in the flesh, human faces and can’t be fooled by glossy photographs.  Veriface isn’t exactly new technology as IBM was bundling it with webcams years ago.  As cool as it is, I’m not sure it’ll actually sell any laptops but I can guarantee that anyone who puchases a Lenovo with Veriface will definitely use it.

Here’s the commercial.