Saturday, June 23, 2007

Preview CSS in IE 6 and Firefox simultaneously with CSSVista

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Windows XP only: Freeware app CSSVista offers side-by-side live previews of CSS (cascading style sheets) code in Internet Explorer 6 and Firefox simultaneously.

CSSVista is a three-paned editor—one window is a CSS editor, one window the IE 6 preview, and the third is the Firefox preview. Although Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7 ages ago, boatloads of users are stuck with IE 6. Unfortunately, the rendering engine for IE 6 is an odd bird requiring lots of special attention from developers—especially when it comes to creating cross-browser compatible websites.

CSSVista requires the .NET 2.0 runtime and, despite the name, is a free download for Windows XP only.

CSSVista [Site Vista]

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ChipIn Empowers Micropayments On Facebook

chipin.pngChipIn, a free widget based service that enables users to collect money has launched a Facebook application that brings micropayments to Facebook.

ChipIn on Facebook supports existing Facebook events or can be used separately with ChipIn created events. Creation of new “ChipIn’s” is simple, the ChipIn Widget can be customized using photos from a users Facebook account and each ChipIn can also be promoted directly to Facebook friends.

We covered Lending Club, the exclusive Facebook P2P lending service on June 20; ChipIn is at the other end of the spectrum targeting micropayments, yet together they demonstrate the continuing growth of finance on Facebook. There is any number of new Facebook applications being launched daily, and whilst many provide a wow factor and are useful, not that many to date have a real world financial use. It’s not too farfetched to imagine ChipIn being used as a political or charity fundraising tool on Facebook in the near future. chipin1.png

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Apple passes Amazon to become the #3 US music retailer

Things must seem pretty rosy in Cupertino -- just a week before the mega-hyped launch of you-know-what, market research group NPD's quarterly survey shows Apple has passed Amazon to become the third biggest music retailer in the US. This isn't the biggest of surprises, since Steve himself predicted that the iTunes Store would overtake Amazon at the Showtime event back in September, but the leap to #3 is a little unexpected, since Apple also outpaced Target last quarter. iTunes is now rocking a 10% market share, just behind Wal-Mart at 16% and Best Buy at 14%, and while we don't expect to see it pass those two giants anytime soon, we'd bet that uptick in DRM-free sales has got the iTMS crew at Apple licking their chops.

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Friday, June 22, 2007

Linux-powered VoIP uber-phone does WiFi video conferencing


We're not sayin' we'd put one of these bad boys in our living room or anything, but adorning the board room table with a four-line VoIP phone that sports a built-in 3.5-inch LCD, webcam, and Zach Morris-style handset wouldn't be a half bad use of resources. The SysMaster Tornado M20 uber-phone does a lot more than hold down IP calls, as it also manages to handle video conferencing, IPTV, video- / audio-on-demand, internet radio, voicemail, email / chat / news, and local weather information. This conglomerate even touts a dual-core processor, 32MB of RAM, and 32MB of flash memory, and the integrated Ethernet jack, WiFi, RCA audio outs, and Linux-powered UI are all welcome additions. Of course, we've no idea if you can rig up Tetris on this thing and use the 4, 8, and 6 keys to control your pieces, but it'll only cost you $260 and a tick of your time to find out.

 

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System X: Ross Lovegrove's modular fluorescent lighting

It's been a long time coming, but someone has finally developed a fluorescent lighting array that isn't completely hideous -- just somewhat hideous. Shakespearian actor (see photo) Ross Lovegrove's diabolically named System X (designed for Japanese manufacturer Yamagiwa) allows for all sorts of interesting and "artistic" combinations of the X-shaped bulbs, permitting large, linked arrangements, or simple, singular set ups... or circles. Truly a minor development in the de-uglifying of offices everywhere.

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