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If you've been using the Firefox 3.5 beta, you now get to upgrade to the release candidate for Firefox 3.5. Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, The noticeable changes to the release candidate from beta 4 and the b99 pre-release version are not readily apparent. Generally, you can expect the release candidate to be more stable than its beta predecessors, although if you're using an add-on such as Nightly Tester Tools or MR Tech to force incompatible add-ons to work in the beta you may be compromising your stability somewhat.

The upgrades to Firefox 3.5 … Read more

Much like studios do with movies that are still months from hitting the theaters, Microsoft is looking to generate some advance buzz for the next version of Office.

The company has posted a movie trailer that teases Office 2010 and last week added a "behind the scenes" video that pokes fun at recent leaks of the product onto the Internet (and the fact that some leaked versions also came with a virus).

The "actor" being interviewed on camera likens the leaked preview to him being seen without his make-up and with a virus all over his … Read more

On the same day that Apple released the public version of Safari 4 for Windows and Mac, Mozilla published an update to its Firefox 3.5 beta. Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, they're not calling this a beta version, but it's not a release candidate, either.

Within the next 24 hours, the Firefox 3.5 beta 4 will auto-update to what Mozilla is calling a "preview" version. Users can also force the update by going to the Help menu, then Check for Updates. At the time of writing, it doesn't appear that users can … Read more

Adobe on Tuesday said it is offering a free preview of its BrowserLab service, which allows Web developers to quickly see what their site looks like on a number of browsers.

The technology, previously code-named Meer Meer, was shown last year at the company's Max developer conference. Using virtualization, the tool can show how a site will look in Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari running on different operating systems. Running BrowserLab requires a Mac or PC with Adobe Flash 10.

"Cross-browser testing has been one of the biggest challenges for Web designers because it is such an arduous … Read more

Gmail has a new feature in its labs section aimed at people with bad connections who still want to use the fancypants JavaScript-filled "new" version of the popular Web mail service. It shows a quick preview of the latest 10 messages while Gmail's loading bar makes its slow march toward completion.

You can't actually read these messages, but you can quickly see if you have new ones. Users on a fast connection will only see the preview for a mere second or two before the in-box opens up. But for those on the very thread of … Read more

Public testing of Microsoft's Office 2010 suite wasn't supposed to start until July, but a leak on Friday of the software onto torrent sites has sped up that process.

I first heard about the leak Friday evening from this site, which also links to the torrent files themselves. (A word of caution, though--in addition to facing possible legal entanglements, those who downloaded the Windows 7 release candidate from unofficial sites recently found themselves unwittingly making their PCs part of a botnet.)

The leak included both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the Windows software.

For those who just … Read more

There are plenty of reasons to get excited about March if you're a gamer. Now that highly anticipated titles like Street Fighter IV and Killzone 2 have been released, it's time to look ahead to March. We're starting to see a spike in the portable console games department as both the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS have various titles making their debut.

Highlighting this month's screenshots are Tom Clancy's HAWX, Resident Evil 5, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, and Madworld. Make sure you check out all of this month's featured games in our slide show … Read more

With estimated unit sales approaching 100 million worldwide, Nintendo has proven itself time and time again as the industry ruler of the portable console market. With the DSi--the second refresh of the Nintendo DS--we're starting to see the company move in an evolutionary direction with its flagship handheld.

The DSi takes with it most of the features the DS Lite had to offer, but adds new multimedia capabilities. The DSi has been on sale in Japan since November 1 of last year and has already sold well over an astonishing 1 million units. Now that Nintendo has announced that the DSi will go on sale April 5 in North America, it certainly leaves everyone asking one big question, "Should I buy one?"

First, let's look at what exactly separates the new DSi from the DS Lite. In terms of actual form-factor, the difference between the two portables is negligible. The DSi is slightly slimmer, but you're not going to see the massive change in size like we saw when Nintendo upgraded the original DS to the DS Lite. What you may notice is that both screens are a quarter of an inch larger. The DSi hardware also actually eliminates the Game Boy Advance slot found on the Lite, so you won't be able to play older Game Boy Advance games or DS titles that make use of the port, such as "Guitar Hero: On Tour." … Read more

Docstoc has a new service for site owners that makes Web documents more readily accessible. Called Docshots, it presents any linked document in a pop-up viewer that site visitors can read without leaving the page.

If you've ever seen the pop-up thumbnail previews from Snap.com, the idea behind Docshots is the same. You simply hover your mouse over the link and the viewer pops up. Presumably the people visiting your page won't leave and forget to come back if they can read it right there. It also cuts down on any embedded Docstoc Flash viewers that can … Read more