Dolphin Browser is just one browser alternative for Android.
(Credit: CNET)Google's default browser is just fine to get you started on your new Android smartphone. It's got some Grade-A tools, but style-wise it's a little bland and we have a bone to pick with its so-called tabbed browsing.
Thanks to a bustling Android Market, you have options when it comes to mobile browsing experiences. We present you with three alternatives with different looks, and in some cases, more substance: Bump off Google's default Android browser.
You can create a disk image in the Enterprise, Business, and Ultimate versions of Windows Vista, but if you use Vista Home Premium, you need a third-party app to image a disk or partition. I was delighted to find a disk-imaging component added to the Backup and Restore applet in the Home Premium version of Windows 7.
Why it took Microsoft so long to include disk imaging in a nonbusiness version of Windows is a mystery. Even more puzzling is why the company didn't try harder to make Win7's disk-imaging tool as fast and simple to use as freeware backup alternatives.
(The backup function in earlier versions of Windows lets you create copies of your files and settings but not your Windows installation, applications, and everything else on your hard drive. For data backups, I prefer the free iDrive online service I wrote about in a post from March 2008.)
When I compared Windows 7's disk-imaging function with the disk imager in the free Easeus Todo Backup from Chengdu Yiwo Tech Development, the third-party backup app came out on top in every category. Easeus Todo Backup is fast, easy to use, and reliable. The program even managed to fit on two DVDs the 88GB partition holding my Win7 installation. Windows 7's disk imager required four DVDs to back up the same partition.
Disk imagers go head-to-head
I tested the disk imagers on a relatively pristine Windows 7 Home Premium installation, the only program loaded on the test system other than Windows itself was Easeus Todo Backup. Easeus Todo Backup installed without a hitch, although I had to restart the PC to complete the installation. The three main options on the program's start screen are to back up a disk or partition, restore a previous backup, or clone one hard drive to another.
Easeus Todo Backup's main screen presents three options: back up, restore, or clone a disk.
(Credit: Chengdu Yiwo Tech Development)Choosing Backup starts the program's Backup Wizard, which prompts you to select a partition to image. You can also choose to create the image sector by sector, which backs up the free sectors on the drive or partition as well as the ones storing data. The advantage of this method is that the resulting image will be the same size as the disk or partition being backed up.
Select a disk or partition to back up and check sector-by-sector to create an identical image that includes unused sectors.
(Credit: Chengdu Yiwo Tech Development)Once you select the disk or partition to be imaged and click Next, the wizard offers to use the program's default image settings or let you customize the backup. I stuck with the default and clicked Next again. The wizard then lets you annotate the image with a comment. Click Next once more to start the imaging process.
It took the program just 20 minutes and two 4.7GB DVDs to complete the image. Easeus Todo Backup's Restore Wizard is just as simple to use and almost as fast at restoring a previously created image. The program also lets you create a bootable disc, mount the backup file as a virtual image partition, and make sure a backup image file is restorable.
Win7's disk imager is slow going
After my pleasant experience using Easeus Todo Backup, I expected Windows 7's disk-imaging feature to work just as well. Not so. The process took more than four times as long and required twice as many DVDs to complete.
You access Win7's Backup and Restore Center applet by clicking Start > All Programs > Maintenance > Backup and Restore Center. A faster method is to press the Windows key, type backup, and press Enter. After the program opens, click "Create a system image" in the left pane to begin the process.
Windows 7 Home Premium's Backup and Restore applet adds a long-overdue disk-imaging option.
(Credit: Microsoft)On the next screen, choose the device on which you'll store the image and click Next. Windows then gives you an estimate of how large the image will be and indicates which disks/partitions will be backed up. Click Start backup. If you chose to store the image on DVDs, Windows will ultimately prompt you to enter a blank, formatted disc in the drive (if the disc isn't formatted, Windows will format it for you).
Windows 7's disk-imaging utility prompts you to enter blank media into the target drive to begin imaging.
(Credit: Microsoft)I expected the imaging process to take about as long to finish using the Windows utility as it took Easeus Todo Backup to complete the task. Instead, I waited more than four times as long for the image to complete and ended up requiring twice as many DVDs. Restoring the image using Win7's utility was likewise slower than Easeus's image-restore component.
In this case, it makes a lot of sense to download and install the free alternative to Windows' own disk-imaging utility, at least until Microsoft starts taking disk imaging as seriously as it's starting to take security.
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Google)
There's something to be said for instant gratification, and if you're the sort who wants to know where you are without pausing to open a map app, one of the handful of changes to Google Maps for Android (version 4.1) has your name on it.
To turn your wallpaper into a live, real-time map that tracks your location, press and hold the home screen, choose Wallpaper, then pick Maps from the Live Wallpaper folder. Before setting the wallpaper, you'll be able to choose satellite, terrain, or line map mode and whether you want to show traffic. While a little clunky and distracting depending on how cluttered your screen is, it's neat that you can still manage to zoom in and out. The live wallpaper works for Android phones running 2.1 of the operating system and up.
Also of note is the redesigned search results page, which replaces the tabs of yesteryear with buttons you can tap to view the location on a map, call up directions, dial, or engage Street View. When you open the profile page for a search result, you're now able to swipe right and left to see full-page profiles for the preceding and following results. In addition, there's a new home screen widget for Google Latitude, which lets you see your nearby Latitude-enabled friends plotted on a map.
Our favorite new feature is also the least flashy--the ability to switch among your Google accounts in the maps app. This means you can also get to all the little personalization extras you've come to rely on, like your starred items and saved My Maps, for more than just the Android phone's default account.
Android users can update the Maps app from the phone's Android Market.
iPhones can be great driving companions--unless you routinely tweet, text, or otherwise fiddle with the device while behind the wheel. That's a surefire way to get yourself--and possibly others--killed.
Aha Radio for iPhone helps you keep your eyes on the road. The app provides a dashboard-friendly, oversize interface for everything from podcasts and local traffic to Facebook and iPod playlists.
That interface consists of four giant icons per page, the idea being to make them more at-a-glance accessible to drivers. You can customize the arrangement of these icons to your liking and choose exactly what content Aha Radio should provide.
For example, there's Nearby Traffic, which taps your current location and then reads aloud the traffic conditions and construction delays for roads in the area. Tap the microphone icon to "shout" a recording about any traffic you've encountered; it'll get shared with other Aha Radio users. Neat.
Aha Radio puts handy and interesting audio content at your fingertips.
(Credit: Rick Broida)The Facebook station can read friends' updates, though in my tests it inexplicably skipped some of them. The cooler feature: tap the microphone and record an update that instantly gets posted to your Facebook status (as an audio clip, not transcribed text).
Aha's other station options include Coffee and Hungry, which will direct you to nearby coffee shops and restaurants, respectively--though configuring these stations can be confusing.
The app also provides one-tap access to a couple dozen popular podcasts, including Car Talk, Fresh Air, and Slate Magazine. What you can't get, ironically, is actual radio. Seems like integration with some kind of streaming-radio service would be a no-brainer, but for the moment you're limited to podcasts and your own media.
That's just one of several forehead-smacking deficiencies. Another is Twitter: You can listen to a handful of preselected feeds (Glee, anyone? Top Celebs?), but not your own. Seriously?
Meanwhile, the My Media station connects you to your own audio library--but lacks a shuffle-play option. It does have a 30-second replay button, which is nice for audiobooks, but no shuffle?! Come on, guys.
These are, to be fair, minor complaints. Aha Radio is a decidedly handy tool for drivers, one that makes quick (and safe) work of checking the local traffic or queuing up a favorite podcast. It just needs a few interface improvements--and some actual radio stations for those who want them.
Speaking of cool apps for the car:
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Amazon)
First came the Kindle electronic book reader device itself. Then the applications for the iPhone, BlackBerry, and for Windows. Now Amazon has brought the e-reader software to Mac OS X.
The Kindle for Mac beta version, as with the other apps and devices, lets people read electronic books they've purchased through Amazon's Kindle Store, the U.S. version of which currently has 450,000 books for sale.
The free software lets people purchase new books, read books they've already bought, view notes and highlights but not make new ones, and synchronize bookmarks and the last page read across other Kindle technology.
A future version of the software will add full-text search and the ability to make notes, Amazon said. The software requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later.
Amazon also is working on a version of Kindle for Apple's iPad, a device that already comes with Apple's own electronic book technology.
Xobni for BlackBerry dramatically expands your address book, ranks contacts by how often you interact, and pulls in other information, like from LinkedIn and Facebook.
(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)If you're one of the many BlackBerry-toting hot shots who fret about the fastest, least laborious way to get their work contacts onto their phones, I have an answer for you. Or rather, Xobni does.
Xobni for BlackBerry is a utility that dramatically expands your mobile address book by ingeniously scanning all incoming and outgoing e-mail for contacts and phone numbers it can capture. It builds a profile for every e-mail it detects, regardless of whether you've typed it yourself, or if it's already in your address book. That includes people who have been copied in an e-mail, and e-mail addresses contained within the message body.
Xobni for BlackBerry is the first mobile version of the highly useful Outlook add-on. We got a sneak peek at it at the BlackBerry Developer conference last November, and we're only too happy to take a deep dive now that it's available to everyone. We like the convenient and time-saving features, but there's still room to grow for this brand-new app. Be forewarned that Xobni is a premium app; although it's expensive for the casual 'Berry owner, the price point fits in with other BlackBerry apps geared toward business users.
Except for the much-ballyhooed arrival of Street Fighter IV, it's been a fairly quiet week in iPhone gaming. That said, there's always a steady stream of new and intriguing titles, as evidenced by this decidedly eclectic bunch:
1. Doodle Kart A charming little racing game in the increasingly popular "doodle" style, Doodle Kart offers top-down action across 25 different tracks. Collect power-ups as you go, unlock new stages, and try to beat the AI in all four difficulty levels. Alas, there's no multiplayer, but Doodle Kart offers plenty of fun for one. It's 99 cents, but you can test-drive the lite version free.
2. Frogger Inferno Picture the coin-op classic Frogger. Now picture your little jumper leaving a trail of fire as he hops, meaning he can't go back the way he came. That's Frogger Inferno in a nutshell. Lame! My advice: Stick with the original. Both versions cost 99 cents.
Anybody can fly an airplane. Let's see how you well you pilot a dragon!
(Credit: Glu Games)3. How to Train Your Dragon: Flight of the Night Fury Also known as "movie tie-in of the week." Of course, the movie's not even out yet, so it's hard to say how well the game represents it. But it looks an awful lot like the classic Glyder, though at $2.99, Dragon is two bucks cheaper.
4. Jailbreak: Voice Onrush Adapted (is that code for "copied"?) from the Nintendo DS title Escapee Go, this weird-looking arcade game with the weird name might prove enjoyable to fans of maze-escape challenges. You tell me: I'm not one of them.
5. ZombieSmash Yay! Zombies! Yes, the list of zombie-themed iPhone games is getting longer all the time, but there's always room for one more--especially one that has castle defense-style gameplay, lots of fun weapons (wrecking ball, anyone?), plenty of cartoonish gore, and a good sense of humor. ZombieSmash costs $1.99. Take a look:
Google has updated the Chrome browser for most of its multiple versions on all platforms in the past few days, although most of the updates have been minor. However, high-priority security fixes have been made to the stable version of Chrome.
Five security fixes labeled "high" have been applied to the stable Windows version of Chrome, including a fix for a bug that was discovered by Sergey Glazunov. He has received the first $1,337 Chromium Security Reward for the discovery. The security fixes include plugging holes in tab sandboxing, memory errors occurring with malformed SVG images, integer overflows in WebKit JavaScript objects, and an cross-origin bypass error. One security fix applied to the Chrome beta plugged a hole created by memory errors in empty SVG elements.
One new feature in the stable version since the upgrade to v4 has been disabled. The experimental anti-reflected-XSS feature XSS Auditor was disabled because of rare but "serious performance issues," according to the release notes.
The Windows beta version now includes the translate infobar, for automatic page translation using Google's translate function when you visit a Web site with a different language than your system default.
The Chrome dev channel has been updated for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Google says that users on all three platforms should see significant improvements in the performance of the autofill feature. Mac OS X dev channel users have also received many fixes to the bookmark bar, but that users will still experience significant problems with their bookmark folders for now. A fix is coming, say Google's release notes.
Google's Internet Explorer booster add-on, Chrome Frame, has also several repairs. Chrome Frame now uses IE's default pop-up blocker, and clicking one link with both mouse buttons will no longer crash the browser. Note that Chrome Frame is still considered experimental, and isn't recommended for casual use.
Google's assault on Microsoft's enterprise software business continues to advance with a new tool that helps companies move away from Exchange.
Google Apps Migration for Microsoft Exchange is one of the final piece of the puzzle in Google's quest to make ditching Microsoft easier.
(Credit: Google)The Google Apps Migration for Microsoft Exchange tool will launch later today, designed to give Exchange administrators help in moving their users' data into Google Apps. It's all part of Google's pitch for the benefits of cloud computing, which might sound nice to some administrators in theory but can require a lot of work.
Administrators can now download the tool from Google and move 200 users per hour from Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007 to Google Apps, including e-mail, contact, and calendar data, said Chris Vander May, senior product manager for Google Apps. It will be available for Google Apps Premier Edition customers as well as Google Apps for Education customers.
Just as Microsoft is throwing resources into Bing and Internet search in hopes of denting Google's enormous market share, Google is trying to do the same thing to Microsoft's huge advantage in office productivity software. Over 25 million users are on Google Apps, according to the company, which sounds like a lot but is a fraction of the businesses still using Microsoft products.
Last year Google released a similar tool for letting administrators enable Google Apps but allowing their users to keep their Outlook clients.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview release on Tuesday sent a strong message to Web programmers that a host of standards will become safer to use. But in the case of one standard, Web video, Microsoft arguably pushed one controversial impasse deeper into gridlock.
The standard in question involves Web video that doesn't require a plug-in such as Adobe Systems' Flash or Microsoft's Silverlight. It's one of the big elements of HTML5--the Hypertext Markup Language standard now under development and aiming to expand the abilities of Web pages and Web applications.
The rough version of IE9 that Microsoft demonstrated includes HTML5 video encoded with a particular technology called H.264. Apple's Safari also supports this encoding and decoding technology, or codec.
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But Mozilla is adamantly opposed to open-source-unfriendly H.264, supporting the rival Ogg Theora codec instead, and Opera is in that camp with its new version 10.5. Google's Chrome supports both, tying the score at Ogg Theora 3, H.264 3.
It's no surprise Microsoft signed up for H.264. It owns many of the patents in the technology, which is licensed on behalf of Microsoft and several other patent holders by a group called the MPEG LA. And Microsoft of course isn't afraid of proprietary technology. H.264 support is included in Windows 7. Finally, H.264 by most accounts provides superior quality than Ogg Theora.
It's not inconceivable Microsoft could add Ogg Theora support in the future, but for now at least, Microsoft did little to break the logjam. That means Web sites with video will either have to include two streams for different browsers or--and this is more likely in the near term--continue to use Flash. (Much Flash video, by the way, uses the H.264 codec.)
The HTML5 standard describes how to build video into Web pages but, because of the disagreement among the major browser makers, leaves the codec unspecified. One wild card in the situation is what will happen now that Google has completed its acquisition of On2 Technologies, the company whose earlier VP3 codec underlies Ogg Theora and that was working on a newer codec called VP8. Google said regarding the acquisition that "video compression technology should be a part of the Web platform."
IE GM Dean Hachamovitch
(Credit: Microsoft)The preview version of IE9 also didn't lend Microsoft's clout to a number of other developing standards: WebGL, which is designed to bring hardware-accelerated video to the Web; Canvas, which makes it easier to construct two-dimensional graphics such as bar charts on Web pages; and Indexed DB, which is designed to enable Web applications to work even when there's no network connection.
Indexed DB support seems likely. Microsoft has endorsed the technology and over a rival called Web SQL, which along with a Mozilla's similar stance should help give Indexed DB a big boost in the HTML standardization process.
In an interview, though, IE General Manager Dean Hachamovitch wouldn't commit. Pointing to the "fun controversy there," he said, "We've got some of smartest peole engaged in a bunch of conversations between the principals right now."
He was cooler about WebGL, though, because adopting it will require Web developers to learn a new variety of programming.
"WebGL is yet another markup," Hachamovitch said. "How much do devs want that?"
