For those who keep up with tech news you have probably heard that Firefox 3 is in the works. It has been in development for about two years. There are promised to be numerous features including increased browsing speed, one-click bookmarking, better security and anti-phishing measures, smart location bar,and many many other things that have techy names but don’t mean much until you actually use them.

Well finally Mozilla has released that the launch date for Firefox 3 is June 17th. Furthermore there is a report that Mozilla is attempting to set a Guinness world record by having Firefox 3 become the most downloaded software in one day. I for one plan on downloading Firefox 3 right away. However I will keep Firefox 2 just in case. Many of you know the problems that software early adopters have to put up with. However my past experience with Firefox upgrades has been good so I expect it to be a painless experience.

So I will do my part to help Mozilla make their world record. How about you?

Josh H.

Alright, guys and gals I am back in action. After a brief hiatus due to a lightning storm and a subsequently damaged modem I am back. Though computer-wise I am not back up to exactly where I was before. I have good reason to believe the lightning damaged my Mac Mini desktop computer. My Macbook is fine and I can still get online wirelessly same as I could before. But my Mac Mini no longer recognizes when I plug in an Ethernet cable (for those who aren’t down, the Ethernet or networking cable connects my Mac Mini to the router thus allowing it to get online as well as access my other computer). Granted we hardly ever use the Mac Mini for getting online and I only use it occasionally for managing some files, so it is not a huge problem for it to be unable to get on the network right now. Though one irritation is that I have my network set up so that my two computers can share my one printer even though the printer is only hooked up to my Mac Mini. Well now, in order to print from my wireless Macbook I have to go physically plug in the printer to the Macbook which I didn’t have to do before.

Stuff At Work

Work has been a nail biting experience lately. The first of the year we found out that there would be a delay in the renewing of one of our major contracts. This particular contract is also a huge source of income and workload for us. It has been a very secure contract in the past but due to some hold ups in the contracting office on base, it was delayed until the fall of this year. This resulted in the laying off of several of our personnel.

As Lyndsay mentioned in a recent post of hers, we have successfully connected our Macbook laptop to our high-definition LCD television. It all started when we found out that our Skyangel satellite service was changing dramatically. So we had to figure out something different.

In the past couple of months I have been researching and learning more about digital television and how it works. All of this is in the light of my purchase of a Vizio HDTV in December and the announcement that all networks will broadcast in digital starting February 2009. Now I consider myself to be “up” on all the new technology. I am a geek. I have no problem with that. But right before I bought my TV I learned (from my friend David Plunk) about off-the-air digital television. You can purchase special “bunny ears” antennae that are able to receive not only traditional analog signals but also digital signals. So if you are in range of a network that broadcasts their digital signal over the air, then you can capture it with your HDTV antenna and the difference in quality and sound is amazing. It literally looks like you are watching cable or satellite.

Did He say “Free”?

Online media content and access to it is all the rage these days. Nevermind music, because consumers are looking for bigger fish. Consumers want to download or stream and watch their favorite TV shows and even movies. For those on the go this desire has grown exponentially. Apple and others have scrambled for the past two and half years to settle content contracts with movie and television studios resulting in some great partnerships as well as some nasty breakups.

In the wake of NBC’s departure from iTunes came a new kind of service from the combined forces of NBC and News Corp.: Hulu. Launched March 12, 2008, Hulu is an ad-supported free content service which allows users to watch hundreds of television shows and movies on-demand on their PC or Mac. Much in the same way that some networks (e.g. NBC, CBS) are offering free video-on-demand (VOD) on their websites, Hulu streams content to your computer that you can watch as many times as you want and as long as you want.