In my review of the latest versions of Opera and Firefox I noted that I really appreciated not having to “roll my own browser” from scratch with Opera. Extensions can be great for Firefox but I think some of them should really come built-in. Maybe not enabled by default, but you shouldn’t have to hunt around to find this functionality.

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SDTimes is running a story about details of a new operating system being developed at Microsoft called Midori. It is supposedly based on Microsoft’s Singularity operating system built entirely on managed code ala .Net.  This could be Microsoft’s first non-Windows commercial OS since DOS. If SDTimes’ details are right it may be the first OS to support one of the features I have been pining for for many years: cloud computing within the home. Read more

I recently had an issue updating Google Gears to be compatible with Firefox 3.0.1. The Firefox updater didn’t find any updates and if I installed Gears again it was still at the same incompatible version. It was only after I uninstalled it and installed it again that it finally worked. This made me realize something, updating software on your computer should be a lot easier than it is right now and Microsoft should be the one to do it.

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There is a story making the rounds on the interwebitubes bemoaning that “there’s no real regulation over high-definition picture quality at all” in the “lawless lands of broadcast television”. They are over complicating things by suggesting the need for regulatory oversight for something as peripheral to broadcast television as programming payload though. Here’s why… Read more

The world of DRM-free online music sales has been heating up lately. AmazonMP3 was the first DRM-free store with music from the “big four” labels, and is my personal favorite (it is the only store I have made repeat purchases at actually), but if they really want to make a significant dent in iTunes’ market share they are going to need to do more. Here’s my $.02 on the matter. Read more