The most significant of these new features are a self-hiding forward button that only appears when it has the ability to function, inclusion of APIs for full-screen web applications, OpenGL Anti-Aliasing support, CSS3 3D transformation support, a bug fix for crashing caused by moving bookmarks, and functional Firefox notifications in Growl 1.3.

Other new features in Firefox 10 are more geared towards developers, so if you happen to be one and would like to read about them, they are fully detailed in Mozilla’s release notes for Firefox 10. Unfortunately, support for OS X Lion’s full-screen feature, which has recently been added in a Firefox 12 beta release, is not present in Firefox 10, although we can expect to see it added when Firefox 12 goes public at the latest.

OS X users can update to Firefox 10 via mozilla.org or by going to “About Firefox” in the browser’s menu, causing the update to begin automatically. Windows users can also update via mozilla.org or by going to Help > About Firefox.

Product [Firefox 10]

Fetch is one of the oldest Mac OS applications, dating back to the early days of the Mac OS Classic era, but it’s still one of the best at doing what it does.

A full-featured Mac-only file transfer (FTP) client with a clean, simple, easy-to-use interface, Fetch supports both FTP and SFTP, the Internet’s most file transfer protocols on the Internet.

Rock-solid reliability has always been a Fetch characteristic. I’ve been using Fetch for years and have never encountered any bugginess or instability. It just works. The current Fetch 5.7 is engineered to automatically resume uploads, downloads, and mirror operations, ensuring that network glitches and server hiccups don’t mess up completion of successful file transfers—features that have been upgraded and enhanced in this latest version of the program.

To give users users greater control over files, Fetch 5.7 now preserves modification dates of uploaded files, making it easier to tell when a file on a server matches your local copy. Fetch’s new Find field enables users to zero in on files they are working with.

Fetch’s application window incorporates a file list view motif modeled on the familiar Mac OS X Finder, making it look and work like just another element of the operating system’s user interface. The program supports drag-and-drop for copying files and folders between servers and your Mac, or between two servers, and also droplet shortcuts and a Dashboard widget for easy uploading and tracking upload progress.

Fetch 5.7 now also helps users better monitor progress of file transfers. While previous versions reported the transfer progress of each individual file, Fetch now displays the progress of the overall transfer, making it easier to see when an entire operation will be complete. I would personally prefer multiple progress bars, one for each file being uploaded in a batch, but Fetch’s developers have opted for simplicity consistent with the application’s general approach.

It’s now easier to use Fetch on multiple computers without having to manually update shortcuts on each one. Fetch 5.7 introduces support for syncing Fetch shortcuts using Dropbox via the Shortcuts Menu, enabling individuals and groups to access an up-to-date collection of shortcuts no matter which Mac they use.

Other Fetch interface features include one-click editing of remote files using any application, with any changes made automatically saved back to the server, Quick Look previews of image, video, audio and other files from inside Fetch (but don’t expect it to be as quick as QuickLook on your Desktop), synchronizing of folders using the Mirror command (which only uploads or downloads files that have changed since the last transfer), and WebView (which lets you easily preview files in your Web browser and copy their Web addresses to the Clipboard). You can also upload and copy files between servers using Copy and Paste, and there’s automatic support for Zip, StuffIt, Gzip and other common file formats.

More new stuff in Fetch 5.7 includes an improved Edit command, allowing you to edit any kind of file using any application available, with the changes automatically saved back to the server; automatic resume of stalled or failed uploads and downloads; a redesigned Recent Folders menu to improve readability and display of folder hierarchy, a find field for filtering transfer window file lists; and new support for gestures on laptop trackpads in the transfer window, where you can now swipe left to go back to previously viewed folder, swipe up to go to the parent folder, and swipe down to open the selected folder.

Full Release Notes detailing fixes and improvements in Fetch 5.7 can be see at the fetchsoftworks.com website.

Of course, Fetch just wouldn’t be Fetch without its signature little running dog animation that indicates a transfer in progress.

In my years of use, I’ve found Fetch to be quick, easy and convenient to use, and reliable. My main complaint about Fetch is that it terminates its connection with the remote server after a short period of inactivity, making it necessary to wait while the program reloads the server’s file list again before it can commence a subsequent transfer.

Fetch 5.7 is compatible with Intel Macs running Mac OS X 10.5 or later, including Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.

Appletell Rating:

Buy Fetch v5.7

Whether for a business or hobby, having a well-designed website is the key to having people find you and keep coming back. However, not everyone has the desire or aptitude to learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, or the creative eye to design how a website should look. That’s where Sandvox 2 from Karelia Software steps in to save the day. Its purpose is to help you easily create web sites with professional designs, integration with social networks, multimedia, and blogs. That’s a pretty tall order, so let’s see if Sandvox 2 delivers.

The first thing you do is pick a design from several provided, some of which have different color schemes. If none are to your liking, you can purchase additional designs for about $12 each and can view what’s available from within Sandvox 2. If you do know HTML and CSS, you can make your own designs or tweak what’s provided. If you’re not prepared to dig around in the code, you’re limited to changing only a few aspects, such as whether there’s a footer or change the picture in the banner at the top of each page.

To review Sandvox 2 I decided to make a website for a group in an online game I play. My first thought was to create a table or database with pictures of the members and information about them. However, Sandvox 2 doesn’t have a built-in way to make tables, and instead gives you a link to a website that will make the table HTML for you to then insert into Sandvox 2.

To do this, you go to the page on which you want to place the table, then create an HTML object, click on it to select it, choose “Edit Raw HTML” from the menu or the icon in the toolbar, and then paste your table HTML in the window which appears. As a plus, Sandvox 2 checks your HTML for errors and can even validate it to be sure you don’t have a typo. It’s great that you have the ability to add your own HTML with the added flexibility and power this provides, but having to do so for something as basic as tables annoys me.

Far easier was the ability to add picture albums, which can even contain other picture albums. Just drag and drop pictures from the finder or use the built-in Media Browser, which puts images, movies, audio, and links from Safari in one easy location. Adding the arrows to go from one picture to the next and back to the album index were provided by Sandvox 2 without me having to do a thing. If you use Flickr you have easy access to the pictures stored there as well.

Pictures is one thing, but what about video? Adding a YouTube object and providing it with a link lets you embed videos easily, and by adding a Media Placeholder object you can add movies, sounds, images, or Flash files you have on your computer or elsewhere.

Blogging is popular and can be used for site updates, news, or any information you want to share on a regular basis. All you have to do is insert a blog page, and presto, you have a blog. There are no restrictions as to what each entry can contain or how long they can be. If you want to allow people to comment you have the option of using Disqus, IntenseDebate, or Facebook.

However, unlike other blogs such as WordPress or Blogger, there a few features missing you may want, such as labels which can allow people to quickly find posts of the same subject. There’s also no obvious way to add a search feature, and the index function is a bit basic. There’s also no way to have different authors as Sandvox 2 doesn’t keep track of that, nor is there a way for people to work on different parts of the same website at the same time.

As you can see from the image to the below, there are many built-in objects that connect your website to social networks with the Twitter and Facebook buttons.

You can also connect to your Amazon store, let people see your IM status, and even show people how to get to your business with Google Map. If there’s a service you want to use that isn’t available, you can often insert an HTML object and still use it. In addition, there are other objects that can be installed, some for a cost, that expand Sandvox 2′s capabilities as well. All of the objects are easy to use and can be tweaked to your heart’s content.

Once you have your website finished, or just want to see how it looks in a browser, it’s simple to either upload the site to a remote host or to your own computer. It still mentions MobileMe despite its passing, but other than that, publishing is straight-forward.

While I’ve been somewhat negative of Sandvox 2, I still think it’s a great way to quickly make a website. It seems the goal was to provide the features and options that most people would use. If you need something it doesn’t provide, you can add your own code using the HTML object or by using a plug-in. Being able to connect your website to social networks and add multimedia and blogs are easily done, so I think most people will find Sandvox 2 just perfect for their needs.

Appletell Rating:

Buy Sandvox 2

Apple has released an update to their desktop Safari browser; the new 5.1.2 software brings a couple of bug fixes with some other improvements within the browser itself.

The minor update from Apple will address the problems users were experiencing with webpages that were flashing white, as well as any sluggish performance with the Safari browser. Apple has added the ability to view PDFs within the web content.

Rounding out the enhancements are improved stability and fixes that prevent hangs and excessive memory usage.

This new update can be downloaded directly from the Apple website or from Software Update in your System Preferences.

Most of the time, auto-check is your faithful friend and companion. It brings you new messages as they come and keeps you up to date, like a digital pony express. However, sometimes you just want the express to stop. Let’s say you are switching between work emails for a presentation that you have to give to the department heads next week. Let’s say you have also recently posted a status update on Facebook; one that it turns out is pretty darn interesting your friends. While they discuss your post at length in the comments, sometimes with a level of abandon that makes you wonder if they have forgotten that you can see these comments, you are drowned in a sea of messages that are useless at the current moment.

Well, if you want to stop that from happening, then you will be able to do that in a very simple way (with a small penalty) and another slightly more complicated method that does not require giving up your Pandora stream at the same time.

The most simple solution is to disconnect from the net. With no connection, you cannot get messages. Another (and better) method is to make a smart mailbox.

A smart mail box will allow you to filter out messages from the unwanted elements (e.g.- your Facebook buddies) while dialing in messages from more relevant sources (say, your boss) without losing the Internet connection which has become for many of us professional lifeblood.

1. Open your mailbox by clicking on the Mail icon.
2. Click on “Mailbox” and then “New Smart Mailbox”

3. You will see a set of pull down boxes. Choose “From” in the first one and “Contains” in the second box. Then enter your boss’s email in the address field and click on OK. You will have a new smart box with only messages from that one address.

There you have it; a way to stop the deluge and get exactly what you want in one location without any of the stress, fuss or un-friending that you would normally have to deal with in order to get that level of piece and quiet.

Tincta, a new text editor for Mac OS X, was a nice surprise. I’ve been a longtime fan of Smultron, an Open Source text editor by Peter Borg. However, Smultron has decamped to the Cloud, specifically the Mac App Store where it’s now exclusively available for $4.99 as opposed to formerly for free via Sourceforge. I try to avoid Apple’s walled garden as much as I can, and that method of distribution seems to me against the spirit of Open Source.

Happily, I found a nearly dead-ringer Open Source clone of Smulton from French developer Jean-François Moy, and have been using it ever since. But development evidently ceased in March, 2010, and while Fraise 3.7.3 still works well with Snow Leopard, I’ve been concerned about its future compatibility.

My favorite feature of Smultron/Fraise has been that they display multiple open documents in a left-hand list similar to iTunes so you can easily switch between them—functionality that suits my purposes well when using the program as a work-in-progress database of research information.

So, I was delighted to discover Tincta last week. Tincta’s user-interface layout is quite similar to Smultron and Fraise, and it’s available in both a free version (“Always free” the Website pointedly declares) and a feature-enhanced Pro version. Tincta’s developers say the app was written and designed from ground up, that they don’t use any third party code or technologies (besides Mac OS X) and that they keep their codebase small and clean to maintain maximum speed, avoid bugs and add improvements very quickly. However, it seems obvious they have been inspired by Smultron.

I’ve been using the free version in place of Fraise, and it makes a perfect, up-to-date and actively-developed substitute that, as a native 64-bit Mac OS X app, will unequivocally support OS X 10.7 Lion if and when I finally upgrade.

Features in both Tincta and Tincta Pro include:

• native 64bit Mac OS X app
• line numbering
• syntax coloring
• find & replace
• auto complete brackets
• auto indent
• highlight current line
• convert line endings
• block selection
• column guide
• spell checker
• convert encodings
• show invisible characters
• browser preview

If you pop the 13 bucks for Tincta Pro, you also get:

• split views
• integrated file browser
• script support
• snippet manager
• regex search and replace
• search and replace in all open files
• smaller sidebar icons
• auto update

An attribute of both apps, which share the same basic core, is speed, and it is indeed a lively responder.

Other features in both versions include:

• Syntax Coloring – Tincta combines intelligent coloring algorithms with the least resource use and comes with syntax definitions for over 65 languages. And you can also freely change the color profiles according to your taste.

• Line Numbering – Tincta’s line numbering engine is blazingly fast and also manages line wrapping, calculating every line correctly, even for large files.
• Small Things – Tincta supports full drag and drop, indents selected text when you press tab, knows when an open file was changed by another application, supports the OS X spellchecker, features block selection, and has an in-window live search with highlighting. The latter is convenient and works fine, but the keyword entry field is obscured when one is using Tincta with its window interface minimized, which is my standard mode working on a 13″ MacBook where screen real estate is always at a premium. Both Smultron and Fraise have floating Search dialogs.

Text editing features include live search and replace with highlighting, change case, show invisible characters, page guide, printing, spelling correction, convert line endings and convert tabs to spaces (or vice versa).

Tincta Pro’s Split Views feature could be very handy, allowing one to edit two files simultaneously side-by-side to compare, edit and even drag text from one to the other. Tincta Pro also supports the full power of Regular Expressions to search your files. And to speed up repetitive tasks, you can search and replace across all open files with one click. Also exclusive to Tincta Pro is support for any Unix compatible scripts like Python, Shell, or Perl and more. That means script programmer users can just click “Run” to test their code. and immediately see the output in a log file within the application.

Another Tincta Pro wrinkle is its built-in snippet manager that lets you organize snippets in groups and makes them easily accessible from the snippets menu. By assigning each snippet a shortcut you won’t need to take your hands off the keyboard; just type the shortcut and on pressing blank Tincta Pro automatically replaces the shortcut with the appropriate snippet while your cursor is set to the predefined position within. An integrated file browser lets you browse your project, and for each file you instantly get a Quicklook preview along with important file info like size and modification date. You can also open files directly from the file browser—including multiple files at once.

Finally, Tinca Pro features subtile interface tweaks tailoring it better to the needs of professional users, such as the sidebar items representing your open files being significantly smaller, allowing at least 20 open files to be visible without scrolling (on a 13″ MacBook).

Not being a coder, I can get along well with the fewer-featured free version of Tincta. But for those who can make good use of the Pro version’s enhanced feature set, it’s not difficult to see thirteen bucks worth of value added.

Appletell Rating:

Buy Tincta Pro

Disclaimer: Neither Appletell nor Jaksta Technologies condone or encourage the illegal copying or sharing of copyrighted content. Per the disclaimer on Jaksta’s website: “Jaksta is not intended for use in circumventing copy protection mechanisms or for making illegal copies of copyrighted content. Please respect the rights of the content owners when recording.”

Have you ever seen the perfect live performance by an artist on YouTube, only to find out the live versions of those songs are not available anywhere to download? Or what about unique content that is published only on the web, requiring that you watch it on a device with a web browser and an internet connection (not all TVs are as smart as the rumored AppleTV)? Jaksta for Mac offers simple, configuration-free downloading, saving, and conversion of audio and video from a variety of sources around the web. With Jaksta, you can even capture homemade videos uploaded to Facebook for downloading or sharing whenever and wherever you like.

Islands in the Stream

Some artists give spectacular or unique live performances, like Adele or the ever-changing jam band Phish. Pandora is chock full of remixes that seem to be available nowhere outside the DJ’s set, which leaves listeners in a distinctly pre-iPod quandary; how do they take the music they love with them wherever they go? With Jaksta, saving the streamed media to your Mac is a cinch, and from there you can take it to your iPod or AppleTV, or watch on your Mac wherever you go. Jaksta can automatically convert downloaded streams for different devices, such as AppleTV or iPhone. It even offers extraction, which means you can take just the audio out of a movie file and automatically add it as an iTunes track, which can then be synced to an iPod. The best part of the conversion process is the lack of configuration options, which means no accidental conversions to an unplayable format—just pick your target device and Jaksta does all the heavy lifting.

Upon launch, Jaksta asks for an administrator password which may (and indeed, should) feel a little uncomfortable to the alert Mac user. Although not plagued by the volume of malware present on Windows, Mac users have increasingly been targeted by shady hacker groups, so unexpected password prompts should be treated with suspicion. The app uses your password to connect to the network interfaces in use on your Mac, so as to monitor traffic for media streams to capture. A quick check of an outgoing network filter showed that Jaksta connects only to its own home server for authentication and to media servers when you visit a YouTube/Grooveshark/Pandora (etc.) page, so the app is on the up and up. This password requirement and system monitoring behavior are enough to keep Jaksta out of Apple’s tightly controlled Mac App Store.

Play it Again, Sam

Jaksta can be used on any unencrypted and DRM-free media stream. This means grabbing shows from Hulu or Netflix is a no-go (though Jaksta is perfectly happy to grab the unencrypted commercials that play in Hulu streams). As Jaksta monitors your Mac’s incoming media streams, it can alert you via built-in sounds or Growl notifications that a download/conversion is complete. Target formats for conversion include the arsenal of iDevices, AppleTV, Google TV, Android Smartphone/Tablets, and the PSP/PS3. The built-in sounds are intrusive when you are listening to streaming music, so the Growl support is really a killer feature for unobtrusive notices.

Jaksta’s list of compatible sites is really based on two factors: the availability of streaming media in one of the formats it understands, and the media being DRM-free. This means videos from sites like Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, iTunes (good for full length movie trailers) adult sites (if you are of legal age), any site with a live webcam (adult or otherwise), and thousands of others can be easily saved to your Mac and converted. Audio files need to come in one of three formats—including mp3, mp4/m4a, or Flash—which means sites like Grooveshark, Pandora, SoundCloud, and most artist’s websites or MySpace pages can all be used. Jaksta will intelligently keep iTunes-compatible formats rather than reconverting, so audio quality is not lost. This is a boon since most streaming audio is already compressed with a lossy codec. By establishing a direct connection to the media server and not playing the downloaded file, Jaksta is able to grab media at impressively high speeds.

By default, Jaksta does not automatically delete or clear its download list, so users with space constraints will need to pay attention to their downloads folder. As an example, a single three minute song on Grooveshark can take up about 8MB, which equals out to about 160MB per hour. If you listen to music all day, that adds up to over 1GB. Luckily, there is an option in the right-click menu to delete both the Jaksta entry and the corresponding file for all the songs in the download list, so clearing out a day’s worth of music is a snap.

While it is theoretically possible to capture any streamed media using just Safari and Quicktime, there is no doubt Jaksta’s simple interface and intuitive conversion features make the process infinitely easier. HTML5 and Flash (with a QT plugin) video is downloadable directly from Safari’s Activity window, but the additional work to locate the file, convert, and import to iTunes makes the process cumbersome enough to be functionally impossible. Jaksta makes it both quick and effortless to grab streaming media, so it is now possible to enjoy the wealth of unprotected video and audio content the Web has to offer even when you are not directly connected.

Appletell Rating:

Buy Jaksta for Mac

NetMarketShare’s desktop Operating System Market Share metrics for October 2011 show the Mac OS continuing its advance significantly by nearly a half point, Linux up a smidge as well, and Windows off by a little more than half a point, most of which went to Apple’s OS. September, 2011 metrics are shown in parentheses for comparison. The NetMarketShare researchers note that Mac usage share generally rises in late summer and fall, this year rising another half-point plus in October to reach 6.45% of worldwide desktop usage (with an over 14 percent share in the United States).

Desktop

• Windows – 91.85% (92.44%)
• Mac – 6.94% (6.45%)
• Linux – 1.19% (1.11%)

In the Mobile/Tablet category, iOS stormed ahead, gaining an impressive six points of share over the month. JavaME experienced a free-fall, dropping out of second-place and shedding a whopping eight points of share, while Android took over second place with an 18.90 share, up from 16.24% in September. Symbian and Blackberry were down sharply, and Windows Mobile and Windows Phone also down significantly.

Mobile/Tablet

• iOS – 61.64% (54.65%)
• Android – 18.90% (16.26% )
• JavaME – 12.84% (18.52% )
• Symbian – 3.48% (6.12%)
• BlackBerry – 2.48% (3.29%)
• Windows Mobile – 2.48% (0.27%)
• Windows Phone – 0.25% (0.34%)

Operating System Versions

In terms of OS specific versions, Windows is still out in front by a wide margin, with greybeard XP dipping below a 50 percent percent market share, but not by much. Windows 7 continus to gain, now solidly over 30 percent. Apple’s OS 10.6 Snow Leopard at 26 months since its release in August, 2009 and now superseded by OS X 10.7 Lion, remains the most prolific Mac OS version by far, and increased its share again in September. However, OS X 10.7 Lion has decisively displaced OS 10,5 Leopard in in second place in the Apple OS spectrum, although OS X 10.4 Tiger held on to a O.29 share—down just a hundredth of a point on the month. As noted, Linux gained a bit again, and remains above a one percent share.

Desktop

Windows:

• Windows XP – 48.03% (50.50%)
• Windows 7 – 34.62% (32.42%)
• Windows Vista – 8.85% (9.09%)
• Windows 2000 – 0.19% (0.17%)
• Windows NT – 0.14% (0.23%)

Macintosh:

• MacOS X 10.6 – 3.62% (3.53%)
• Mac OS X 10.7 – 1.83% (1.41%)
• Mac OS X 10.5 – 1.14% (1.15%)
• Mac OS X 10.4 – 0.29 (0.30%)

Linux – 1.19% (1.11%)

In the mobile/tablet category, Apple’s iOS remains on top by a yawning margin, but Android is making gains at other platfroms’ expense, especially Java ME.

Mobile/Tablet

iOS:

• iPhone – 30.05% (27.59%)
• iPad – 28.60% (24.11%)
• iPod – 3.00% (3.14%)

JavaME – 12.84% (18.52%)

Android:

• Android 2.2 – 7.25% (7.93%)
• Android 2.3 – 6.03% (4.89%)
• Android 2.1 – 2.95% (2.14%)
• Android 3.1 – 0.38% (0.23%)
• Android 1.6 – 0.25% (0.30%)
• Android 3.2 – 0.23% (0.14%)

Symbian – 6.12% (6.21%)

BlackBerry – 3.29% (3.33%)

Windows:

• Windows CE – 0.20% (0.23%)
• Windows Phone OS7 – 0.25% (0.22%)
• Windows Mobile – 0.07% (0.11%)

Total Windows Combined – 0.52% (0.56%)

For more information, visit netmarketshare.com.

Browser Share

In browsers, Safari’s usage share on the desktop gained in correlation to the gain in Mac OS X overall share, passing 5 percent for the first time. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer still has a commanding lead in Desktop Web browsers, with 52.53 percent of the total market, albeit trending down slightly from last month. Second-place Firefox was essentially static again. Google’s Chrome browser continues its steady advance and cruises past 17 percent, gaining a point and a half on the month. Fifth-place Opera fades a bit more.

In the Mobile/Tablet browser category, Safari for iOS is again way out in front, with the many versions of Opera Mini cumulatively in second place but sharply dropping, while third-place Android continues to gain, the others finishing well back.

Browser Total Market Share October 2011 (September ’11 figures in parentheses):

Desktop

• Microsoft Internet Explorer – 52.63% (54.39%)
• Firefox – 22.51% (22.48%)
• Chrome – 17.62% (16.20%)
• Safari – 5.43% (5.02%)
• Opera – 1.56% (1.67%)

Mobile/Tablet

Safari:

• Safari 5.1 – 8.72% (0.15%)
• Safari 5.0 – 46.26% (47.73%)
• Safari 4.0 – 5.95% (6.31%)

Opera:

• Opera Mini 4.2 – 4.79% (6.26%)
• Opera Mini 4.1 – 2.50% (5.13%)
• Opera Mini 5.1 – 2.48% (3.21%)
• Opera Mini 4.3 – 1.16% (1.42%)
• Opera Mini 6.1 – 0.92% (1.19%)
• Opera Mini 6.2 – 0.60% (0.90%)

Android:

• Android Browser 4.0 – 18.08% (15.50%)
• Android Browser 3.1 – 0.39% (0.45%)

Symbian – 2.55% (4.70% )

Blackberry – 2.04% (2.68%)

You can check it out at netmarketshare.com/.

In a Dev.Opera entry, Chris Mills and Opera CTO HÃ¥kon Wium Lie blog that around 2,000 years ago, the Romans developed the codex, which was a significant advance over scrolls that had been the previously accepted literary format. The codex had pages that could be bound together into what we today call books, and by the 5th Century scrolls were no longer used in Western cultures. Books, being compact, sturdy, and quickly “searchable”—as well as a lot more portable and easier to manage than scrolls—made the codex the “killer app” of the 5th Century Mills and Lie observe.

However, they contend that with computers we took a step backwards, with software and most notably Web pages adopting the scroll metaphor and offering scrollbars for navigation up and down our content. Mills and Lie concede this is an easy solution for software, since it allows all content to be accessible without needing to worry about pagination, but it leads to chopped lines of text, and doesn’t work so well on mouse-less devices. “And,” they suggest, “mankind misses the beauty of a nicely laid out page.”

To that end, Mills and Lie say Opera would like to present Opera Reader, which implements CSS3 extensions that allow content to be split into pages. These pages can be “turned” in a natural manner through gestures rather than point and click, with figures able to be floated to the top and bottom of pages, and the documents having a sense of themselves and their environment; “knowing” about documents above, below and on the sides. In their article, they show how you can paginate common HTML files with just a few lines of CSS.

In short, Mills and Lie maintain, Opera Reader is the codex for the Web. They think it has to power to dramatically improve the way in which Web content is consumed, by presenting it in a much more compelling fashion.

To learn more, and for a link to download a development build of Opera Reader, visit people.opera.com.

For more information on this topic, see dev.opera.com.

Although Firefox 6 was released just last month, Mozilla has been working hard on the next major update, and today marks its official public release. Firefox 7 brings memory and engine improvements to make it faster and more reliable than ever, improving memory handling to use 50% less memory when addressing memory leaks, crashes, and general instability when multiple tabs are open. Windows users gain a new rendering backend in Firefox 7 that increases performance on Canvas operations, and all platforms gain an improved built-in sync tool for password and bookmark syncing.

A visible new feature in Firefox 7 on all platforms is the removal of the http:// prefix in the address bar, which you may already know had you been testing the Nightly or Aurora builds prior to today.

Developers also gain some new features in Firefox 7, with new tools that allow for the building of much snappier Web experiences for users, and a new version of the hardware-accelerated Canvas improves the speed of animations and games within Firefox 7. Another addition for developers is support for the W3C navigation timing spec API, which allows for measuring page load time and website navigation against bandwidth speed, website traffic, and others.

Updates include:

• Added support for text-overflow: ellipsis
• Added support for the Web Timing specification
• Enhanced support for MathML
• The WebSocket protocol has been updated from version 7 to version 8
• Added an opt-in system for users to send performance data back to Mozilla to improve future versions of Firefox
• Fixed several stability issues
• Fixed several security issues

To help Mozilla improve future versions of Firefox, the company has also implemented a new feature called Telemetry that collects usage statistics such as memory, CPU, and startup speed and sends them back to Mozilla. However, Firefox 7 also contains additional functionality able to send Mozilla non-personal usage, performance, and responsiveness statistics about UI features memory, and hardware configuration which is disabled by default. With this functionality enabled, the only potentially personally identifying information sent to Mozilla is a user’s IP address, but since this feature is disabled by default anyway, there is no need to worry unless you’ve enabled it. Even with the feature enabled, statistics are sent to Mozilla over SSL and are only used to improve future Firefox releases. Both Telemetry and the additional usage statistics collection feature can be enabled/disabled in Firefox’s Options/Preferences menu.

If you’re a Firefox user, grab Firefox 7 for your platform from Mozilla’s web site. Firefox 7 doesn’t yet contain features specifically for OS X Lion, but those will likely be added into a future release.

Read [The Mozilla Blog] Via [MacStories]