Mozilla Labs Jetpack – Intro & Tutorial from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

For those of you not aware with Jetpack is all about. Jetpack is a Mozilla Labs project that enables anyone who knows HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create powerful Firefox addons. The goal of Jetpacks is to allow anyone who can build a Web site to participate in making the Web a better place to work, communicate and play.

Jetpack Gallery is for Jetpacks in the same way as Mozilla Addons is for Firefox. Till today people installing Jetpacks had to either depend on the Wiki page maintained by Mozilla. However with the launch of the Gallery the floodgates have been opened and I expect to see some interesting uses of Jetpacks in the days to come.

Want an example of what Jetpack can actually accomplish?

• Adblock Plus the immensely popular addon for Firefox : ~25,000 Lines of Code
• Unad a Jetpack that does the same thing : ~80 Lines of Code

That translates into roughly 99% savings. Now would you were a developer what would you choose?

As of now I guess Mozilla is approving each Jetpack on an individual basis considering that Jetpacks are still in the experimental state and not ready for the real world yet. But the true power of Jetpack in my opinion lies in the fact that Addons are installed without the need for a restart of Firefox.

So those of you waiting for addons without a reboot, Jetpack is the best you can get right now. Head over to the Gallery to install the Jetpack add-on and try out some Jetpacks like JetWave (a Google Wave Notifier) and JetStatus (a Twitter client).

Jetpack Gallery | Jetpack – Mozilla Labs

Version 1.x released a few months back just does the basic Email notifications thing, but the upcoming 2.0 version will see Notify do a lot more. Features like viewing messages from multiple accounts (not restricted to GMail and Google Maps only), inline replies of emails, support for deleting mails and marking them as read etc.

Setting up Notify

Getting Notify up and running is quick and easy. Visit Vibealicious’s website and download the latest version. Once download simply drag the application bundle into your Applications folder and open it. Notify will now appear in your menu bar.

When you first open the application, you are greeting with what’s shown in the screenshot above.. Click Sure! to go ahead and add your first GMail account into Notify.

Notify in its current incarnation is nothing more than a EMail Notifier… It might look like a waste on your desktop, but the upcoming Notifier 2 will make it a compelling choice for anyone who wishes to manage their email like an expert.

Notify 2.0

Currently under beta testing, Notify 2.0 brings a lot more of new features to the table.. Here’s a preview of some of them.

The biggest new feature is full in-app message and reply creation. Something that I sorely missed in the first incarnation of Notify.

In Notify 1.x we had to click through to see and read any email bigger than 200 characters. With 2.0 it is now fixed with a Quicklook type UI. You can easily view full HTML messages.

Final Words

At the moment Notify is a solid application that seamlessly fits into the Mac Experience. Notify 2.0 will bring a lot more to this already beautiful app and help us manage email better rather than depending on complex applications like Mail.app etc.

Download Notify | Images via Notify Blog

XP Quick Fix Plus is a tiny portable application that provides fixes to 40 common Windows XP problems. Its Portable, small and fast, and is a must have on every computer.

The essential thing to be noted here is that the application is all about registry fixes since on Windows majority of the problems arise in the registry. However I suggest you create a system restore point before you proceed with any of the fixes.

What if there is no way for you to run XP Quick Fix Plus from Windows or if you need to run the fix from a batch file or script? There’s a small (~38KB) batch script that provides some of the most common fixes like :

• QFC /t – quick enable the Task Manager
• QFC /r – quick enable the Rgistry Editor
• QFC /f – quick enable the Folder Options
• QFC /e – quick restore the Run Dialog
• QFC /p – quick restore My Computer Properties
• QFC /x – Quick fix Windows can’t run exe files

So essentially XP Quick Fix Plus is a tiny and portable application that does its job perfectly well. A must have for any Windows XP user.

Download XP Quick Fix Plus | Via Download Squad | Image Credit : gui.tavares

Though it borrows some cues from OS X, am a big fan of the new taskbar, and feel that Microsoft finally has the best solution to managing multiple windows on a clutter free taskbar.

However there are people who wish to tweak this taskbar according to their own wish and desires.. If you are one of those, then 7 Taskbar Tweaker is worth a look.

7 Taskbar Tweaker, allows you to tweak the various aspects of the Windows7 Taskbar, in a simple and effective way. Some of the features of this small and useful tool is :

• Show standard window menu on right click instead of jump list.
• Close or focus a window on middle click instead of running a new instance.
• Disable grouping of windows by file path or application id.
• Cycle through windows of a grouped button on left click instead of showing a thumbnails preview.
• Open with while dropping a file on a taskbar button instead of pinning.
• Disable thumbnail previews.

Go ahead, and download 7 Taskbar Tweaker if you wish to tweak the tiny details of your Windows7 Taskbar.

Photo Credit : Steve Punter | Download 7 Taskbar Tweaker

Perfect gift for the new years from Dev Team Here are the prerequisites before you can proceed with the unlock of the phone..

• You Must Have Jailbroken iPhone 3G Running Firmware 2.2 with the baseband modem firmware as 02.28.00
• To find the version of your baseband firmware, go to Settings->General->About and scroll down to find the version of your modem firmware..
• If you are not on Firmware 2.2 with baseband firmware at 02.28.00 you will need to restore your iPhone to 2.2 and rejailbreak/pwn using QuickPwn.

Alright now that you guys, lets proceed with juicy stuff of unlocking your iPhone..

Okay here we go….

• Fire up Cydia from your SpringBoard.

• Select the Manage Tab at the bottom of Cydia.

• Select the Sources Button.

• Press the Edit Button at the top of the screen.

• Now Press the Add Button at the top of the screen.

• Enter http://apt9.yellowsn0w.com/ as the source url and press the Add Source button.

• Return to Cydia once the source has been added, and press the Done button at the top of the screen.

• Tap on the just added repo apt9.yellowsn0w.com .

• Select yellowsn0w from the list of available packages.

• Press the Install button at the top of the screen.

• Press the Confirm button at the top of the screen.

• After the installation has been successfully completed, press the Return to Cydia button.

• Now Restart your iPhone, and pop in your third party SIM into the iPhone.. The Phone should now be unlocked and running on the carrier of your choice..

That was simple ain’t it? The Dev Team has really done brilliant job here, in making the process of unlocking the iPhone so darn easy! If you run into problems during this, read the following suggestions..

• It seems that getting your iPhone to pick up your new carrier can be helped by turning off 3G and perhaps toggling the Airplane Mode switch on and off.
• If you are still having problems try removing and reinserting the SIM or booting with the new SIM already inside.
• If none of these seem to work, wait for a couple of days since yellowsn0w is still beta, so there might be bugs the Dev Team will squash out in the coming few days.

The Beauty of yellowsn0w is that it makes no changes to anything on your iPhone.. Yes you heard it right, yellowsn0w will in no way modify the contents of your iPhone Baseband.. Here’s what MuscleNerd of the Dev Team said :

it doesn’t touch a bit of the baseband NOR…all the patches are injected on the fly in RAM…they go away with poweroff

So you can uninstall yellowsn0w anytime you wish, and still leave your iPhone in a pristine state..

A Big thanks to the Dev Team for the wonderful effort, and I am sure this is the perfect gift for new years for many many iPhone users all over the world…

Please post in your questions in the comments, I’ll try to help you as much as possible.. Happy new year to all of you

Photo credit: bwana

The world of Internet is constantly changing every minute, and the tools that we use currently can not stand up to our requirements in the future. Which means this is the right time to make some drastic changes in the way we interact with the web and prepare ourselves for the future.

Mozilla labs has put forward a call to anyone in the world to share their vision of how they would like to see the browser or the web in general in the future. Called The Concept Series, the project will track down and share future web concepts submitted through a very simple process. What would you like the web to look like in the future?

UI is very Important

For any application the User Interface is of the utmost importance. A poorly designed software however powerful it is, will turn out to be unusable. With today’s standards, there is so much of untapped potential in User Interface design.

Interface is not all about being pretty and good to look at. Case in point is the iPhone Software design. While the iPhone uses dell and subtle colors in its designs and hardly is good to look at, but is tremendous ease of use and fast response is what sets it apart from the others. I wouldn’t put the HTC touch in the same category as the iPhone even though it has a very pretty interface.

First Round of Concepts

As you would expect, Mozilla began the Concept series on a high note. Three concepts have been submitted so far. All of the three videos are produced by Mozilla, but that shouldn’t stop you from submitting your own concepts, including mockups, prototypes or ideas expressed in any way you feel is best. If you want to submit your own concept follow the  instructions in the Concept Series announcement or just tag an image "mozconcept" on Flickr.

Here are the first round of concepts :

• Aurora Concept Video

Aurora is a concept video presenting one possible future user experience for the Web, created by Adaptive Path as part of the Mozilla Labs concept browser series. Aurora explores new ways people could interact with the Web in the future based on projected technological trends and real-world scenarios. Here is the concept from Adaptive Path

• Bookmarking and History Concept Video

An investigation into a better way of visualizing and interacting with bookmarks, your history, and the browser in general. Here is the concept from Wei Zhou

• Firefox Mobile Concept Video

Firefox is coming to mobile. The innovation, usability, and extensibility that has propelled Firefox to 200 million users is set to do the same for Firefox in a mobile setting. Here is the concept from Aza Raskin

What Would You Like to See ?

Those were some really interesting concepts right? I am making something complex in my mind as I write this, meanwhile what are your thoughts on this initiative? What do you want to see in the Browser of tomorrow?

Feel free to link to your own mockups or ideas in the comments.

If you are a Windows user, and your favorite browser happens to have a name Firefox 3, here is neat hack which you can use to tweak your Firefox install for maximum speeds and improved efficiency.. Don’t fret because this hack is really simple and doesn’t involve anything more than a couple of minutes of your time. Well I’m going to discuss about a freeware called FireTune, from Totalidea Software, which can give your Firefox browser some shots of adrenaline.

As you might already know most Firefox hacks involve messy fiddling up with options in about:config and there are a gazillion things than can go wrong and mess up with your Firefox install. Instead of dealing with all that mess, Firetune simply asks you a few questions about your computer and connection speed, then automatically configures Firefox for optimal performance—in seconds (No, Seriously!!).

FireTune does not muck up with Firefox executable file, or any other binary file, so you don’t have to worry that it’s going to turn the browser to a toast.

To get started download Firetune from here. Shut down all instances of Firefox and then fire up Firetune. It would be a good idea to back up your original configuration before you make any changes…

Now that you have backed up the configuration, select whether you have a fast Internet connection and a fast computer, or not. If you have at least a 1.5-GHz processor, 512MB or more of memory, and a reasonably fast broadband connection, select Fast Computer/Fast Connection.

Now click on the tab that says, “Other Optimizations”. Check the checkbox that says “Enable some performance tweaks common to all configurations’”.

Now click on the tab that says, “Other Useful Settings”. Check the checkbox that says “Optimize Firefox Memory Usage” 

That is it, now click the Tune It! Button and fire up Firefox once the tuning is done.

Browse through pages that usually used to be slow earlier. I’m sure you will see substantial improvements in the speeds. I’m sure you will find the overall experience of using Firefox much better, not that it was bad earlier!..

Now you must be wondering why many browsers are inherently built slow.. My guess is that coders build it for the people using the slowest internet connection, so that Firefox doesn’t render pages partially for the users.

But because you are a Dailyapps reader, I’m sure you want the fastest speed you can possibily get from your Firefox. That makes it exactly right for you to try out Firetune and give your Firefox a Nitro boost!

P.S. I’ve been a long time fan of Fasterfox, but I abandoned it in favor of Firetune because it doesn’t work with Firefox 3 at the moment.

Download Firetune

Screw those guys who said iTunes is the best music library manager out there. MediaMonkey is very much renowned for being the best media manager available today. This one’s for you music lovers!!

A lot of people have strongly rated MediaMonkey as the best music manager out there and its been downloaded nearly 3 million times on Download.com. Its got all the features that you’d expect to find in such softwares, but it is the advanced feature set that puts it light years ahead of the competition..

Here are some of the features of MediaMonkey

• Organize music and edit tags in your audio library with a powerful, intuitive interface.
• Automatically lookup and tag Album Art and other metadata.
• Manage 50,000+ files in your music collection without bogging down.
• Manage all genres of audio: Rock, Classical, Audiobooks, Comedy, Podcasts, etc.

• Play MP3s and other audio formats, and never again worry about varying volume.
• Record CDs and convert MP3s, M4A, OGG, FLAC and WMA files etc. into other formats.
• Create playlists and let Auto-DJ & Party Mode take care of your party.
• Sync iPhones, iPods, & MP3 players, converting & leveling tracks on-the-fly.

MediaMonkey has tons of options for all of the power users out there who have to have things their own way! You can configure everything from dozens of keyboard shortcuts/hotkeys, plug-ins, automatic podcast downloading, CD ripping, and lots more…. As a power user you can’t be asking for more!!

Here are some screenshots of MediaMonkey in action..

Here are some of the stuff you are gonna miss out on, if you don’t upgrade to the Gold Version..

• File Monitor automatically updates your Library to reflect changes on your hard drive.
• Auto-conversion converts tracks on the fly as they are synced so that all of your tracks can play on your iPod or other device.
• Advanced Auto-Playlists quickly generate a mix to suit your mood. Specify the criteria, and the mix is created.
• Sleep Timer gradually fades your music over a set period of time, and optionally turns off your PC before bedtime.
• Virtual CD catalogs your CD’s without creating duplicate entries for tracks that exist on both your hard drive and CD’s.
• Burn CD’s and DVD’s at full speed.

“If you’ve been looking for a free program that can be a kind of one-stop-shop of audio, doing everything that you might possibly want to do with your library of audio files (and doing it well) – MediaMonkey just might be that program.”

Nothing beats MediaMonkey when it comes music management, not even iTunes..

The Giveaway

Well during the birthday celebrations of DailyApps we have 10 Gold Licenses (Valued at 19.95$ each) of MediaMonkey to giveaway to you guys. All you have to do is drop a comment below providing both your name and email address so that we can get in touch with you later.

We will be selecting the winners randomly using a random number generator. Here’s how we are going to give out the licenses for the giveaway of xplorer².

• 2 Winner will be picked from Comment Number 1 through 5
• 4 Winners will be picked from Comment Number 6 through 20
• 4 Winners will be picked from Comment Numbers 20 through how many ever comments are there.

You can leave your entries till 28th July 11:00 PM Eastern Time…

What’s the most common thing that you do on your PC? I’m sure it has to be managing thousands of files on your computer. Managing files is something that most of us do on a daily basis. Be it organizing music, documents or finding that important presentation there are times when the default Windows Explorer can be downright irritating and a pain to use.

But if you are a power user, I’m sure by now you should be loathing upon Windows Explorer. For those of you who have grown sick of Windows Explorer, xplorer² is the solution to many of your problems.

Once you’ve installed xplorer² the first thing you will notice is the dual pane navigation system. Having a dual pane system (as shown in the screenshot above) means copying and moving files has become a lot more easier than it was with Windows Explorer.  And if dual pane navigation isn’t enough for you then there is still tabbed navigation. I’m sure having a tabbed navigation will help you in performing complex directory management operations in a few clicks, compared to what it’d take you with Windows Explorer.

What’s the most irritating thing about Windows Explorer according to you? For more it has to be the process involved in creating a new folder. It takes a minimum of 3 clicks to create a new folder, which is a little too much. With xplorer² it just takes a single click to create a new folder, and most importantly you can even assign a keyboard shortcut for it, something that the default Windows Explorer have.

xplorer² comes in two flavors, Lite and Pro. The Lite version is completely free to use while the Pro version that runs you down 29.95$ has many features that you don’t want to miss.

Here are some of the stuff you will only find in the Pro version..

• Save and restore tabs
• Multi-column sort (using shift+column click)
• Individual folder settings
• Search for text in office and PDF documents using filters
• Search within archives, FTP, webfolders, and more
• Search for text using regular expressions
• Customizable info bars (status bar for each pane)
• Mini- and densely packed thumbnails
• Deep synchronization (including subfolders)
• Detect duplicate files & cleanup
• Robust background file transfers
• Color coding of filenames based upon a custom pattern (ex. by file extension)
• Keyboard (hotkey) customization

The Giveaway

Well during the birthday celebrations of DailyApps we have 5 Pro Licenses of xplorer² (valued at 29.95$ each) to giveaway to you guys. All you have to do is drop a comment below providing both your name and email address so that we can get in touch with you later.

We will be selecting the winners randomly using a random number generator. Here’s how we are going to give out the licenses for the giveaway of xplorer².

• 1 Winner will be picked from Comment Number 1 through 5
• 2 Winners will be picked from Comment Number 6 through 20
• 2 Winners will be picked from Comment Numbers 20 through how many ever comments are there.

You can leave your entries till 28th July 11:00 PM Eastern Time…

There was a time when browsers were nothing but simple tools that allowed us to browse web pages.. Remember the good old days of Netscape anyone? Well these days browsers are trying to be the center of everything you do on your computer. Almost every service is now available online and the browser plays an important role in the growth of these services.

Social networking is a rage these days, and browsers like Flock are full fledged social media powerhouses connecting you to every popular social networking site. No wonder Flock is called the Social media browser.

Flock had earlier release a green version of its browser called the Flock – Eco Edition, and now it has come up with a similar branding to bring Flock Gloss and it aims to bring fashion and entertainment right into the browser, and quite unsurprisingly it is the first browser to do so.

Have a look at the screenshot below and you will see that it is all pink, and complete with all sorts of glossy effects.

Flock Gloss is the original Flock plus the additional features that are related to entertainment and fashion. Flock Gloss automagically pulls in feeds from many popular fashion/entertainment sites such as InStyle, TMZ, ThisNext, PopSugar and Glam among others.

In addition to the feeds, you can also access media streams of fashion interviews, red carpet events, style shows and more directly from the browser’s Media Bar, and you can also easily communicate and share content with your friends as it was in the original Flock.

If you are a Fashion and Entertainment freak then maybe Flock Gloss is a perfect match for you.. Don’t blame me if you fall in love with pink!! ..