The open-source GIMP, also known as the GNU Image Manipulation Program, has released the latest version of GIMP 2.6.1. For others who are not familiar with GIMP, you can consider as a substitute for the free version of Adobe Photoshop. This software is capable of performing complex tasks, such as photo re-touching, image composition and image authoring. On top of that, it runs on multiple operating systems and not just Microsoft Windows alone.

Release notes for this version is made available here. From a development point of view, GIMP 2.6 series is a rather important release as it features major changes to the user interface that addresses some complaints provided by users. Furthermore, there is a tentative integration of GEGL, the graph based image process library, that will bring a much detailed and comprehensive editing to the users’ experience.

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For Firefox fans, this is good news! The next version of Firefox 3.1 is now out; just to make things clear, it is the beta version per se, that is released.

With this long awaiting browser wars between Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, this will allow users (perhaps testers and developers) to verify the real speed performance across all the web browsers. Behold Google Chrome’s V8 engine against TraceMonkey to compete for Javascript performance.

What’s new in this version?

• * Web standards improvements in the Gecko layout engine.
• * Added support for CSS 2.1 and CSS 3 properties.
• * A new tab-switching shortcut that shows previews of the tab you’re switching to.
• * Improved control over the Smart Location Bar using special characters to restrict your search.
• * Support for new web technologies such as the and elements, the W3C Geolocation API, JavaScript query selectors, web worker threads, SVG transforms and offline applications.
• * Want to quickly switch between tabs? Press Ctrl-Tab to jump back and forth!
• * Control the Smart Location Bar results with special characters.
• * Watch Ogg video without the need for any plugins.
• * Drag and drop tabs from one Firefox window to another.

Strongly encourage all to give this Mozilla Firefox 3.1 (beta 1) version a try. So far, my experience with it seems very positive. Of course, you may have to be a little lenient on this application as it’s still in beta stage. Kindly note that, as this is still not official, perhaps it is advised not to deploy it on production machines.

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Mozilla Firefox 3.1 Beta 1

Just found something really cool! The UltraMixer 2.3.3 is a DJ audio mixing software that allows users to mix digital music in various formats, such as MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG, WAV or even CD in real-time. The basic hardware requirement is a good sound card. Similar to a physical DJ audio mixer, the DJ turntables are replaced by two digital SoundPlayers.

Here is some background information:

“…UltraMixer is the first DJ software in the world, that is available for the most popular operating systems Windows, Linux and Mac OS X…”

Exactly! Just when you need it at the party or in a restaurant, this “digitalised” version of DJ turntables will do just great! Three versions of UltraMixer are available; namely, the Free Edition, Basic Edition and the Professional Edition. The professional version costs as much as £129 and the Basic Edition costs approximately £59. If you are concerned about the cost, give the free edition for a trial run for no cost at all. However, it is only meant for private, non-public use.

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As I speak, OpenOffice 3.0 Final version is already released on several public mirrored servers for downloading. This was prepared way ahead of announcement time, which was due to be on Monday, October 13, 2008, as according to the source provided by ZDnet.

The path to the final download is usually listed under the category: stable/3.0.0/

As of now, the release note has yet to be made available, but it will soon be released. Meanwhile, if you cannot wait to get your hands on the latest copy of OpenOffice application suite, download it today.

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OpenOffice 3.0 Mirror Sites

Picasa should ring a bell when this name is mentioned. I believe most of you will know that this application is a photo software, made free by Google. In the past, only Windows versions of Picasa have been actively maintained and improved. With the rising demand from the Linux community, the Linux-compatible version is also catching up with the Windows compatriot.

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Developed by CPUID, the next version of CPU-Z 1.4.7 is now released. This application is a free-ware that allows users to obtain information on some of the main devices on your computer system, such as CPU, Motherboard, Memory and Operating System.

Some of the new addition to the support of the chipset are as follow:

• - Intel Core i7 processor.
• - Intel Core 2 Duo S Mobile processors.
• - NVIDIA MCP79/7A chipset.
• - AMD 790GX / SB750 chipset.

Personally, I often use this application whenever I need to find a quick information on my Windows system, especially on the hardware details. The advantage of this software is that, it does not require any installation of the software for it to work. You can run it on-the-fly!

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CPU-Z 1.4.7

Thanks to TorrentFreak, the release of the Mac version of uTorrent is made known publicly, although it is yet to be officially released. Despite made available, this application is still considered to be an early alpha release and is still in heavy development by the uTorrent developers team.

Given a very mac-like interface, Mac fans can now have something to cheer for, especially uTorrent is widely popular amongst Windows users and such progress is beneficial to the community. It was also mentioned in the TorrentFreak that it is better than its Windows counterpart.

The downside is that it’s not available for direct download from the website; it was made known when someone posted a torrent file on The Pirate Bay. You can definitely try downloading the application to use, but at your own risk. Since it is still in alpha development stage, there are likely to be some bugs that has yet to be suppressed. So, enjoy.

Microsoft has release the beta version of Windows Live Messenger. I presume this application should be quite familiar to you. This is the renowned MSN Messenger.

There are quite a number of new things from this release of Windows Live Messenger. Click on the screenshot on the right to see more details.

System Requirement

• Operating system: Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (32-bit edition only), or Windows Vista (32-bit or 64-bit editions)
• Processor for Windows XP: 800 MHz or higher
• Processor for Windows Vista: 1 GHz or higher
• Memory for Windows XP: 128 MB of RAM (256 MB or more recommended)
• Memory for Windows Vista: 512 MB
• Browser: Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or later
• Internet connection: Internet functionality requires dial-up or broadband Internet access (provided separately). Local or long-distance charges may apply.
• Resolution: Minimum 1024 x 768
• For Movie Maker only: Movie Maker does not support Windows XP, and requires ATI Radeon 9500 (or higher) or nVidia GeForce FX 5900 (or higher).

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Windows Live Messenger Beta

In less than 3 days, Mozilla released the next version of Firefox 3.0.3. According to the release note, the developers have found and fixed a problem where users were unable to retrieve saved passwords or save new passwords.

This bug has been filed under bug 454708. There is no any other changes. For more information on this new release, you may want to check out version 3.0.2, which was more of a major update from the previous version.

I did not realise the existence of this bug since I never save my passwords using the browser. I’m glad that Mozilla managed to turn this over within 72 hours.

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Mozilla Firefox 3.0.3

Just a moment ago, when I logged on to my laptop to use Mozilla Firefox, I found that Mozilla has released the next version of Firefox - Firefox 3.0.2. So, catch the latest version to update your Mozilla Firefox browser now.

Over the last few weeks, I’m sure you have been stormed by Google’s release of its own web browser - Google Chrome. A lot of comparison has been made on the speed improvement on the Javascript, benchmarking the Chrome’s V8 against Mozilla’s TraceMonkey. However, do note that this version does not include TraceMonkey, which was rumoured to be much faster than Google Chrome.

Anyway, users are advised to update to this latest version, as it contains several bug fixes.

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Mozilla Firefox 3.0.2