Compared to Firefox 2, the newly released Firefox 3 offers faster page rendering, a vastly reduced use of system resources and clever new data-mining tools for your bookmarks and browser history.

Firefox 3 also includes many built-in security-related features, such as the best-of-breed antiphishing protection, making it the most secure browser on the market today.To find out more about Firefox 3 read our latest review – www.qbs-pchelp.co.uk/firefox.html

Microsoft has sent a letter to its customers telling them to expect Windows 7 in 2010.

The letter from senior vice president Bill Veghte says “our plan is to deliver Windows 7 approximately three years after the January 2007 general availability launch date of Windows Vista.”

The letter slightly contradicts Steve Ballmer’s declaration last month that Windows 7 would arrive in 2009, although Microsoft’s press office has steadfastly stuck to the “three years after Vista” line ever since Ballmer’s speech.

Veghte’s letter is the second indication in as many days that Microsoft is keen to clarify its roadmap. Yesterday, the company insisted that it would stick to its plans to withdraw Windows XP on 30 June, albeit with a series of notable exceptions and workarounds.

Source: PC Pro

A new video gives a first glimpse at Mozilla’s radical plans for the mobile version of Firefox.

Like Apple’s mobile version of Safari, Firefox Mobile concentrates on full web browsing. However, the manner in which users navigate the web is entirely different.

Firefox Mobile works on touch controls, with users scrolling around by dragging their finger across the screen, in a similar fashion to the iPhone browser.

However, none of the normal browser controls – back, forward, reload etc – are visible within the browser window. To locate these controls the user has to drag the page to the left, where the buttons are found in the margin to the side of the web page, and the URL bar fades into view. “By using horizontal panning to access the controls, we avoid the iPhone’s problem of needing to go to the very top of the page to enter

URLs,” says Aza Raskin, the son of interface expert Jef Raskin, who was recently hired by Mozilla to work on the project.

Take a look at Raskin’s video demonstration of the Firefox Mobile concept. www.vimeo.com

Source: PC Pro

The open-source browser entered Release Candidate 3 yesterday, but that was only to mop up some outstanding issues with the Mac OS X version of the browser.

Mozilla said the Windows and Linux versions were ready for launch after RC2.

“We have a lot of indicators that help us understand when the product is ready for release: feedback from our pre-release milestones, excitement in the community and the press, availability of compatible Add-Ons, and a large active beta community helping us ensure that the release is compatible with all the various sites on the internet,” Mozilla claims on its Developer News website.

Source: PC Pro

I’ve now been using Ora Time and Expense for more than 7 months and it has really helped in tracking the time I spend on web design, repairing PC’s and calculating PAYE for several local companies.

This great little time saver is ideal and can be used for tracking all the hours you spend on business and personal projects. It can also generate time-sheets, expense reports and invoices if you need them!

It has customisable templates in xml format and new templates can be added to the Ora templates folder to further customise things to your liking.

The application is now at version 1.1.8. There have been many improvements since Ora Time and Expense became a winner of the ‘Adobe AIR Developer Derby Best Business HTML Application’ in June 2007.

In particular the task timer can now be paused and resumed. And the duration of each task is clearly displayed in hours and minutes.

It just a great little program and it works so well. It also works in the background and does not impact on your computers performance at all.

To get your own copy of Ora Time and Expense visit the developers web site at – www.johnwu.com/ora

If your thinking of buying a top of the range computer or a home entertainment system you may need to use a credit card to spread the cost.

Our free Credit Card Calculator will help you to budget for those larger items and let you see how many months it will take to repay the credit card loan, how much interest you will have to pay and the total amount you pay back to the credit card company.

You can also grab a copy of this calculator for your own site.

See the Calculator – www.qbs-pchelp.co.uk/creditcardcalc.html