Have Laptop Will Travel

Waterproof, Interactive, iPod Protection

Originally posted on June 7, 2006 @ 8:09 am

DrypodHey Apple iPod fans, I found a pretty geektastic case for your iPod that offers waterproof protection. That’s right, you can go swimming, run around in the rain, jump into a lake, whatever you want and never miss a beat thanks to this new iPod case from SKB Cases out of Orange, California.

SKB Cases introduces the Drypod family of protective, interactive hardshell waterproof cases for the iPod Nano, iPod with Color Display, and iPod with Video. Wear the Drypod on the waves, in the rain or down the mountain while you’re staying in control of every audio function. The seamless “flex-pad” technology allows for the manipulation of the iPod click wheel right through the case.

A compression fitting completes the watertight seal for the headphone. The Drypod includes a flexible neoprene arm band, comfort-adjust lanyard and stainless steel belt clip. SKB waterproof injection molded cases have been a huge success over the past few years finally leading to the smallest product SKB has ever manufactured. Small in size, buy gigantic in performance, the Drypod line of personal A/V gear protection represents another breakthrough in product design and functionality.

Some people are probably thinking, “yeah right, I’m not taking my iPod in the water”, well the Drypod was certified by an independant testing lab to meet the Military Specification MIL-STD-810F Immersion test. Don’t believe me? Check out the Lab Report (Adobe PDF) or visit the Drypod Lab Test page.

Mozilla Patches 12 Firefox Flaws

Originally posted on June 2, 2006 @ 12:13 pm

Mozilla Corporation updated its Firefox browser last night to patch a 12 vulnerabilities, 5 of them tagged “critical.”

Firefox 1.5.0.4 is the fourth security update to the 1.5 edition of the browser since it released last November. The number of holes plugged in 1.5.0.4, however, is only half that of April’s mega-patch, when 24 total, 11 of them “critical,” were fixed.

According to the Official Mozilla site:

Firefox 1.5.0.4 is a security update that is part of our ongoing program to provide a safe Internet experience for our customers. We recommend that all users upgrade to this latest version.

Visit the Official Firefox download page for more information.

Mozilla To Release Firefox 2.0 Beta Tuesday

Originally posted on July 10, 2006 @ 9:38 am

Mozilla Corporation will release the first beta of its Firefox 2.0 browser tomorrow.

Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) can be downloaded from Mozilla’s FTP site, although the official Beta 1 won’t be released until July 11, according to notes published by the open-source developer.

The Mozilla Firefox Beta 1 features improvements that include close buttons on all tabs, a search plug-in manager to more easily add and remove engines from the search box and a browser restore feature that recovers the browser and all tabs if the application crashes or freezes. Other enhancements range from an integrated spell-checker to an anti-phishing tool that warns users when they surf to a site blacklisted by Mozilla. Very cool indeed.

In other news, Mozilla is also prepping a security update to the current Firefox, which will be labeled “1.5.0.5.” The update is scheduled to ship in approximately two weeks.

Did you know that Firefox 1.5 (Windows version) is also the first browser to meet United States federal government requirements that software be easily accessible to users with physical impairments? That’s just another reason for you to make the switch to Firefox.

Google Spreadsheets

Originally posted on June 6, 2006 @ 10:16 am

I posted yesterday afternoon that Google would be launching Google Spreadsheets, a Web-based spreadsheet application that will be able to read and write Microsoft Excel files.

Google SpreadsheetsAs of this morning you can take it for a spin at http://spreadsheets.google.com

According to a Google report, Google Spreadsheets is considered to be “alpha” software. The testing will be limited to an invitation only basis only but maybe you’ll be one of the lucky ones? Incase you were wondering, I was picked as one of the lucky prototype testers :)

Something I find very cool about this new application is it makes use of some of Google’s other software, such as Google Talk for online collaboration.

It’s completely web-based which is nice. All you need is a Internet connection and a Web browser – your spreadsheets are stored securely online. You can even save your spreadsheets to your own computer in CSV, XLS and HTML formats.

eBay To Unveil Further Skype Tie-Ins

Originally posted on June 12, 2006 @ 8:59 am

Reuters.comLAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Online marketplace eBay Inc. is set to detail on Tuesday how it plans to combine its Skype Web telephone-call service into its core U.S. auction business, executives said on Sunday.

“We will have some news on Tuesday about Skype,” John Donahoe, president of eBay’s Marketplace unit, told an audience of software developers at the company’s annual developer conference in Las Vegas.

Newsweek magazine reported on Sunday that the company plans to encourage eBay sellers to embed Skype calling links into auction pages in a few product categories, including cars, real estate and diamond solitaire rings.

So-called “click to call” features through which eBay customers can contact sellers directly via text message, voice or video conference have been a main selling point of eBay’s acquisition of Skype in October for as much as $4.2 billion.

This is pretty exciting news as I’ve been an eBay user since 1998 and a Skype user for about 1.5 years. Having a way to talk directly with a buyer or seller on Ebay will make transactions go much smoother I think.

Email’s are nice but having real time communication with someone is a lot better and sometimes people don’t want to give you their phone number, so now having Skype part of eBay, that helps solve a communication block.

Side note, eBay Live starts tomorrow in Las Vegas and goes through Thursday. There should be some good things coming out of this years conference!