Activity for June 1

Review - Mozilla Lightning for Mac OS X
1.0 Beta 1 (Jan 14, 2010)

As the first 1.0 beta, it's hardly finished, but it's working as well for me as 0.9.0 was already. This is the first time for me that Lightning is working with Thunderbird 3.x. It looks just a bit different but nothing that would be concerning. I have yet to see any new functionality but I'm not missing anything either. It picked up when 0.9.0 left off with Thunderbird 2.x.
Review - Mozilla Thunderbird for Mac OS X
3.0 Final (Dec 8, 2009)

As a long time version 3.0 beta tester, I'm glad to see it reach the final version.

The search everywhere is a good feature and there is a switch to let Spotlight search messages. The combined inbox is useful and the migration tool takes care of that. Integration with Mac OS X isn't seamless, but the Mac OS X Address Book can be accessed in the Address Book list.

The migration tool made a security change which may or may not annoy: it wanted me to use a master password and each time you start the browser it asks for that password.

A sticking point for me is that the Lightning extension is still in beta test and wasn't ready for use with Thunderbird version 3.0.
Review - Avira Free Antivirus
9.0.0.394 (May 16, 2009)

I've had this for a few days after removing AVG anti-virus free. A friend recommended this as the best ever.

The initial database was almost two months behind the current date and yet, it will not update due to a permissions error. I tried to find a solution on the company's web site but there doesn't seem to be another user with the same problem, though there seem to be many users with update problems.

Their forum registration complained that my password wasn't secure enough when I tried to join to post a topic. Hmm...anti-virus not secure...my password not secure enough...what's worse?
Review - VLC (VideoLAN) for Linux
0.8.6g (May 29, 2008)

So far, I can't watch anything but those DVDs without region coding. It's also skittish when dealing with time. It works, though, if you just want to sit through the lot of the content and don't disturb anything.
Review - VLC (VideoLAN) for Mac OS X
0.8.6e (May 29, 2008)

It works and it does more than the Mac OS X included application, but it's a pain to use and time-related functions don't seem to work well.
Comment - Mozilla opens up more on Firefox 4: Content Security, WebGL coming
0.8.6e (Jun 1, 2010 - 2:20 PM)

Go cleanse yourself!
Comment - Flash forward: Can Adobe leave Apple behind in the dust?
0.8.6e (May 18, 2010 - 12:08 AM)

If Adobe would fix Flash properly or better yet, turn it over for others to fix and secure the various runtimes, Apple would probably agree to use it.

Of course, Adobe isn't going to do that because they don't like to spend money to do things correctly or re-do things at all.

Yes, newly developed Flash runtimes perform better. That's not a surprise. Re-work the runtimes on Mac OS X and Linux, showing the world that they can do better and we'll all be surprised.
Comment - Skype 5.0 beta brings five-way video chat
0.8.6e (May 14, 2010 - 3:34 PM)

It's not that close to the Mac OS X version, either, and that's far from the Windows version, as well.

Still, going where the money is, should be the goal of most businesses.

Linux should get more love though.
Comment - Mozilla turns up the fire, Firefox 4 betas to begin in June
0.8.6e (May 12, 2010 - 2:00 PM)

It's likely that the Firefox version 3.7a5pre that I'm running today will become the 4.0b1pre we'll see later in the year since 3.7 as a release has been discontinued. For an alpha release, it's very stable.
Comment - What about the WiMAX networks that aren't Sprint/Clearwire?
0.8.6e (May 11, 2010 - 5:35 PM)

You can count BridgeMAXX as another of those WiMAX providers.