Google Translate for Android adds offline translation option
The latest update to the Google Translate app for Android aims to solve one of its trickier issues: how to use the app when you're traveling abroad without incurring expensive overseas data roaming charges or fiddling with foreign SIMs.
Previous versions of the app required you to be connected to the internet, and all of the actual translation took place on the Chocolate Factory's servers.
The new version now gives you the option of downloading "offline language packages" for some 50 different languages, enabling you to translate text even when your phone is in airplane mode. Read more...
Opera updated following unexplained Outlook.com lockout
Opera Software is working on a fix to ensure Microsoft’s Hotmail successor Outlook.com works in its browser.
Opera has pumped out Update 12.01 to make Outlook.com work with its browser but warned fans might continue to encounter problems with attachments. It has also patched a critical vulnerability in desktop versions of its browser software in the update.
The browser company said here: “There may still be some issues with attachments for the time being, but we are working on getting that taken care of as soon as possible too.”
The idea of Outlook.com is you can open Word, Excel, and PowerPoint attachments in a browser window through the hosted version of Office, Office Web Apps.
You can get Opera’s fix here.
Microsoft launched Outlook.com on Tuesday and immediately Opera users found themselves unable to use the service. Read more...
Microsoft silently kills silent, automatic Skype install via Updates
Microsoft has pulled the plug on a Windows update that snuck Skype onto business PCs.
Corporate admins got a nasty surprise on Wednesday when Skype 5.9 was automatically and silently installed on work machines via Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) - including PCs that did not have the voice chat software previously installed.
IT bods on this microsoft.com forum complained of hundreds of computers infected by the update and scrambled to remove the VoIP client centrally from PCs. Read more...
Adobe fixes Flash Player for Firefox to stop crashes
Adobe yesterday updated Flash Player to solve a weeks-long problem for users of Mozilla's Firefox browser.
The update, Flash Player 11.3.300.262, was released Thursday and applies only to Firefox on Windows.
Since Adobe shipped an update to Flash Player to 11.3 two weeks ago, users of Firefox, including older editions as well as the current Firefox 13, had reported crashes when trying to access Flash content.
Initial suspicions at Mozilla pointed to Flash Player 11.3's new sandboxed plug-in for Firefox, but yesterday Adobe claimed that there were "different causes" for the crashes, which seemed to be concentrated on Windows Vista and Windows 7 machines. Read more...
Adobe auto-update eases Flash update chore – on Windows only
Adobe has introduced an auto-updater for its Flash software packages that reduces the chore of updating the widely-used application by automating the process for all supported browsers on Windows machines. Previously users had to apply individual updates to Chrome, Firefox and IE add-ons and plug-ins, a process that often went neglected, leaving systems open to attack. Read more...
IBM’s top network exec talks strategy
IBM reversed course on networking in 2010 when it acquired Blade Network Technologies, one of its key network suppliers. Network World Editor in Chief John Dix and Managing Editor Jim Duffy recently caught up with Vikram Mehta, founder of BNT and now vice president of IBM System Networking, for an update on IBM's network visions going forward. Read more...
Mozilla slows pace of Firefox 9 upgrades
Mozilla dramatically slowed the update pace of Firefox 9, the browser it shipped late last month.
The company also said it may repeat the slow-down in the future.
Firefox 9, which Mozilla released Dec. 20, has yet to be completely "unthrottled," or offered as an update to all users, according to notes from a company meeting last week.
Like other software vendors, including Microsoft and Apple, Mozilla can offer upgrades to a fraction of its users rather than to everyone at once. The practice is designed to ensure that download servers aren't overwhelmed, and to prevent bugs -- if there are any in the update -- from reaching all users.
Firefox 8, the edition that launched Nov. 8, 2011, accounted for 40% of all versions of Mozilla's browser five days after its release, and broke the 50% mark 18 days after it shipped, according to usage statistics from Irish metrics firm StatCounter. Meanwhile, Firefox 9 accounted for just 7% of all editions of Firefox five days after its debut and required 24 days to reach 50%. Read more...
Microsoft: We won’t update others’ Windows apps
Microsoft on Tuesday slammed the door on updating third-party software via Windows Update in the upcoming Windows 8.
One security expert said the company was missing a big opportunity to improve the overall security of Windows PCs.
The new operating system will not update non-Microsoft software, said Farzana Rahman, the group program manager for Windows Update, in a blog post.
"The wide variety of delivery mechanisms, installation tools, and overall approaches to updates across the full breadth of applications makes it impossible to push all updates through [the Windows Update] mechanism," said Rahman. "As frustrating as this might be, it is also an important part of the ecosystem that we cannot just revisit for the installed base of software."
Rahman's statement was the clearest one ever made by Microsoft regarding the fact that it would not take other applications under its update wing. Read more...
Firefox 8 to slurp updates silently
Mozilla is changing the way Firefox installs on computers in an apparent concession to enterprise users it previously ruled were irrelevant.
New versions of the open-source browser will download and install silently on your machine, saving you the bother of downloading and authorising the update.
It is hoped switching to Chromesque updates in the background will eradicate "update fatigue" creeping in following Mozilla's decision to pump out upgrades more frequently. The plan for 2011 was four updates: we've had new code delivered every six weeks.
Chair of the Mozilla Foundation Mitchell Baker blogged here: "Today people are telling us – loudly – that the notifications are irritating and that a silent update process is important. This work is underway."
Baker said Mozilla had been "very careful" in the past about making sure people knew its browser was changing and said Mozilla had "erred on the side of caution". Read more...
Mozilla aims to add silent updating to Firefox 10
A year after it pulled the plug on silent updates in Firefox 4, Mozilla said it will debut most of the behind-the-scenes feature by early next year.
Assuming Mozilla pulls off silent upgrading this time around, it would make Firefox only the second browser to take that route. Google's Chrome has been the poster boy for automatic updates that remove the user from the equation and can't be switched off.
Mozilla did not say it was copying Chrome -- it's denied doing so with other features -- but the chairman of the Mozilla Foundation, Mitchell Baker, acknowledged what she called "update fatigue."
"In the past we have been very careful to make sure people know something is changing with their Web browser before it changes," said Baker, who heads the non-profit organization that oversees the Firefox-making Mozilla Corp. "Today people are telling us -- loudly -- that the notifications are irritating and that a silent update process is important." Read more...
Microsoft promises patch to block BEAST attacks
Microsoft today said it will issue a Windows security update to plug a long-known hole in the protocol that secures websites.
Although the flaw in SSL (secure socket layer) 3.0 and TLS (transport layer security) 1.0, the follow-on Web encryption protocol to SSL, has been known for about a decade, a practical exploit only surfaced last week when a pair of researchers demonstrated what they called BEAST, for "Browser Exploit Against SSL/TLS," a hacking tool that attacks browsers and decrypts cookies, potentially giving attackers access to encrypted website log-on credentials.
Opera Software's flagship desktop browser relies on TLS 1.1, which is not vulnerable to such attacks, but others have either not made that move or as in Microsoft's case, have left TLS 1.1 support disabled by default.
In a security advisory issued Monday, Microsoft said it is working on an update for Windows, but did not say what it would patch or modify, or when it would deliver the fix. Read more...
HTC’s Mango phones, Titan and Radar, out next month
HTC launched two smartphones on Thursday running Microsoft's latest update of its mobile operating system, called Mango, as Microsoft struggles to gain market share from Apple and Android smartphones.
HTC said the two devices, the Radar and the higher-specification Titan, will be available next month first in Europe and Asia. An HTC official said that the Titan will cost ¬599 (US$855) and the Radar will cost ¬399 without subsidies.
HTC is the second company to launch devices running Windows Mango, known as Windows Phone 7.5, after Fujitsu Toshiba Mobile Communications announced in July the IS12T, which will only be available in Japan.
Microsoft faces an uphill battle in the rapidly changing smartphone market, highlighted by Google's acquisition last month of Motorola Mobility for US$12.5 billion. Microsoft held just 2.7 percent of the smartphone OS market for the first quarter of this year, according to analyst firm IDC, losing ground from a year before despite a complete rework of its mobile operating system. Read more...
Apple delivers first Mac OS X Lion update
Apple today issued the first update for OS X Lion, the new operating system it launched four weeks ago.
Mac OS X 10.7.1 comes in two versions for client systems: One for the new MacBook Air and Mac Mini that Apple refreshed last month, another for all other machines running the new operating system.
Apple said both updates fix problems users have encountered while playing video in Safari, improves the reliability of Wi-Fi connections, and quashes a bug that silenced audio when using routing data from a Mac via optical or HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) adaptors. Read more...
How to make Mac OS X Lion more like Snow Leopard
So you've downloaded Mac OS X Lion from the Mac App Store and updated your Mac. You're delighted by many of the new features, but there are some that rub you the wrong way. You may wish you could revert some of them to the behavior they had in OS X Snow Leopard. Maybe you just can't get used to the changes, or perhaps you simply don't find them appealing. Here's a look at some of the many new features that you can revert to the old way. While it may be a good idea to get used to the way Lion does certain things, it's certainly understandable that you might want to change some of them back -- I know I did.
(Note that when I mention preferences that can be changed, unless I name a specific application, all these preferences are found in the System Preferences application, which you can access from the Apple menu.)
General behavior
Scroll direction: The first thing you probably saw when launching Lion was a video informing you that the default scroll direction has changed. In the past -- since the advent of scrolling mice and trackpads -- when you scrolled up, the content of your window went down, and vice versa. Now, scroll up with either a scroll wheel or a mouse, or with two finders on a trackpad, and the window content follows your movement. Read more...
Why is it so hard to push good .Net patches?
Why can't Microsoft turn out decent patches for its sprawling .Net Framework? That's what I -- and about a million admins all over the world -- want to know.
Last month's Black Tuesday .Net patches, MS11-039 and MS11-044, set new lows, even for Microsoft, even for .Net patches. There's a list of known problems with MS11-044, documented in KB 2538814, that's as long as your arm. As long as Michael Jordan's arm, for that matter -- and those are just the problems Microsoft has fessed up to.
Susan Bradley updates a lot of different Windows systems and, as a Microsoft MVP for Small Business Server, catches a lot of flak from other admins who are trying to keep their boxes running. She puts it succinctly: "I think Microsoft ought to be ashamed of how difficult it is to keep .Net updated. I don't come to this conclusion lightly." Read more...