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Palringo's the first multi-chat protocol app for the iPhone.

(Credit: Palringo)

The new iPhone app from Palringo brings an official multi-instant messaging client to the Apple device. It supports eight chat protocols and includes some useful iPhone-specific features, but also suffers from several irritating limitations.

Palringo can handle Apple iChat, AIM, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, Gadu Gadu, ICQ, Jabber, and Windows Live Messenger. Assuming you’ve got no problems with the iPhone keyboard, creating a profile for one of these accounts is as simple as selecting the proper icon and typing in your username and password. First, though, you must set up a Palringo account. Not to worry: when you open the Palringo app for the first time, it will redirect you to their Web site for registration.

When you receive a message, it gets dumped into the universal in-box at the bottom left corner of the screen. This may sounds chaotic, but I was surprised at how well it worked. The camera feature worked flawlessly, too. When you select a contact to chat with, tap the camera icon in the lower right corner and you can either take a fresh photo that will be instantly sent, or send an already-saved photo from your album.

However, do note that the photo gets uploaded to Palringo’s servers and stored there for 10 days. Users must then download images to keep them. Click here to see the image that Jason Parker sent me from his iPhone.

Palringo offers a variety of status options, but no clear way to log out of one client.

(Credit: Palringo)

The big hang-up, if you’ll forgive the pun, is that the app doesn’t offer a way to sign out of an account once it’s been created. You can change the status of an account to Invisible, Busy, or Away, with the default status being Online, but there’s no way to be logged in to your AIM but not your ICQ.

Also, since the iPhone can currently use only one app at a time, you must be running the app to receive new messages. The phone vibrates when it does, but that won’t do you much good without having the app always on. The promised voice-chat feature has yet to be implemented, too.

Even with these drawbacks, for people who don’t have a jailbroken phone Palringo offers a solid and Apple-approved way to get access to all your IMs at once.

More:
One Palringo to rule iPhone IM?

Barely two days old, Firefox 3 has already been downloaded more than 12.3 million times at the time of writing. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, you can grab it here for Windows, Mac, Linux, and a Portable Windows version.

The price of early adoption, even on a heavily-tested browser like Firefox 3, is early questions. Here are four you’re likely to come across, and please add your own in the comments below. I’ll do my best to answer them.

Question one: How do you kill the “awesome bar”?

The much-debated Awesome Bar.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Answer: A Howitzer, a crowbar, or concrete boots should do the trick nicely.

Joking aside, I actually like the new location bar. I was surprised at how fast it picked up my browsing behavior. If it’s not your thing, or you share a computer and want to avoid your browsing history revealed to all, you’ve got a few options to keep it from returning any results. Users can also replace it with a reasonable facsimile of the Firefox 2 location bar. To stop listing results, check out CNET’s Tom Merritt and his Insider Secret on one way to edit Firefox’s config file.

Another config edit starts the same way, by typing “about:config” into the URL bar. No quotes, of course. Once you’ve gotten past the too-cute-for-words-so-I-won’t-even-mention-it warning, paste “browser.urlbar.maxRichResults” into the filter and hit enter. Double-click the interger and set it to 0. Wipe your cache, restart Firefox, and you’ll get to be “awesome” all on your own.

So I’ve given you the Howitzer and the crowbar. For the concrete boots, check out the Oldbar extension, which keeps the location functioning–but as it did in Firefox 2. If the Awesome bar is an obnoxious teenager, then Oldbar will de-age it back to the precocious, helpful child it used to be. Keep in mind that the algorithm running it is the standard one in Firefox 3–so you’ll get the same results list, just without all the extra drama.

Given the controversy surrounding this feature, there are sure to be more tweaks for it soon. If you’re looking to come up with one yourself, it’s not a bad idea to become a walking MozillaZine encyclopedia on the Firefox Config file.

Question two: Safari supports color management, but can Firefox?

Configure Firefox for color-managed images.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Answer: Gloriously so, but caveat emptor: it might cost you in performance on huge images. However, if you’re a photographer, this is a must-use feature.

The plug-in you want for this is called Color Management, but it’s flagged as experimental. For the sure-fire config edit, type in “about:config” as you did in question one. Type “GFX” into the filter. For “gfx.color_management.enabled” the Value needs be set to “true”. Double-click on it to change it, and check out this example to see what a difference a little config editing can make.

Question three: How do I find…?

Search within your Bookmarks, Add-ons, and Downloads.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Answer: By searching, naturally. You can’t google your personal Firefox settings–yet–but now you can natively search the Downloads, Add-ons, and Bookmarks Managers–no extra plug-in needed. Forget the name of an image you downloaded? As long as you haven’t cleared your cache of them, type in JPG to see all downloads in that file format. Know you’re looking for a bookmark with the letter Q? That’s all it takes to parse that needle from the haystack. If you’re looking for a particular add-on, download, or bookmark but you can’t remember where you put it, the Manager for each of those categories comes with a search field. Unfortunately, they don’t support Boolean terms, but the search tools are still remarkably useful.

Question four: How do I get that incredibly cool plug-in from Firefox 2 to work in Firefox 3 if it hasn’t been updated?

Answer: With another plug-in, of course.

Use the MR Tech Toolkit add-on to enable Firefox 2 plug-ins in Firefox 3.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

MR Tech Local Install has adopted a more descriptive name with a version upgrade for Firefox 3 compatibility. Now called MR Tech Toolkit, it’s still the power user’s all-purpose add-on. It comes with a Toolbar button for restarting Firefox, and can do just about anything–from modifying config behavior, to changing bookmark- and extension-saving locations, to disabling the throbber.

One of the best things it did in Firefox 2 was disable extension compatibility checking, and it continues to do that quite nicely. Be warned that not all your old extensions will work even with the compatibility feature turned off, but it went off without a hitch for TinyURL Creator–which hasn’t seen an update since 2007.

If you have a FAQ you’d like answered or an answer you’d like to share, tell me in the comments below and I’ll compile them in a future blog.

Read more here:
Four FAQs on Firefox 3

YouTube isn’t the only way to share video, and it’s certainly not the way to store and share professional screencasts with hiked-up bitrates. After 18 months as a beta mewling, on Wednesday, TechSmith’s Screencast.com graduated to a full-fledged release.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Version 1 of Screencast.com continues to receive screen recordings produced in the freeware Jing Project (for Windows and Mac) and premium Camtasia Studio, though it’s available to anyone willing to register and pay for storage. It has come some distance from the site covered by Webware.com as part of a July 2007 review of Jing Project. Webware editor Rafe Needleman had remarked that

“the well-established Screencast.com site is the weak link in the chain. It’s unattractive, and the links you need (the embed codes) are nearly impossible to find. Plus, after 60 days, the free trial service expires–so don’t get hooked if you can’t stomach the $6.95 a month fee for screencast hosting.”

A lot has changed since then. Screencast.com’s makeover addresses most of these critiques. In addition to a revamped interface, said Dirk Frazier, Screencast.com’s product manager, in an interview with CNET, “we’ve moved from what was a very confusing workflow to a polished workflow.”

Clicking "Share" pulls up URLs and embed codes you can copy to the clipboard.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Though still simple, Screencast.com’s UI is intuitive and pleasant to behold. As a new addition to version 1, a details dialog springs up with each newly created folder. A portlier Help Center features a new design with improved search and deeper answers to common questions. Similarly, a new Tools page lays out links to TechSmith tools, like a media uploader for desktop videos and the MediaRoll embed widget that shares folder content for public folders.

The navigation buttons along the left remain useful for executing uploads and managerial tasks. Clicking an entry in the visual file system similarly offers up intuitive icons to open, edit, delete, or share the recording. (P.S. Clicking “share” is one way to get at those embed codes.)

Screencast.com’s developers have also been sweating over back-end changes, like adopting a multiserver architected back-end that can bear more visitors and their recordings. Over the past six months, Frazier added, “lots and lots of improvements have been made on the data center side.”

Fans of the service can expect more, too, in the upcoming months. Frazier’s blog shares a snippet of Screencast.com’s technical road map that includes H.264 encoded playback and social tools to “create a conversation around your content.” “Oops,” he writes, “that might be too much sharing.”

Read more from the original source:
Screencast.com springs into version 1

There’s no doubt that the browser wars are back in full swing, with updates in the past week to Opera, Songbird, and a new Flock beta.

The training wheels are finally off Firefox 3, too. If you haven’t checked out the five beta versions and three release candidates because you were worried about stability, security, and the all-important extension compatibility, take a look at the new Download.com review for the world’s most popular open-source browser, for Windows and Mac.

Want something a bit more visual? Hot off the presses, this Firefox 3 First Look video showcases new features for managing add-ons and saving passwords, the controversial “awesome bar,” and why Firefox 3 is the safest version of the browser yet.

Go here to see the original:
First Look video: Firefox 3

The torrent client Azureus changed its name and added some nifty social-networking features with the release of its latest upgrade. Now called Vuze, after the name of desktop video player it launched last year, the new client bundles the two together and throws in some new features.

The new Vuze torrent-searching Web site.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

The two most notable things about Vuze 3.1 are the search engine and the social networking. It’s rejiggered but still open source; users can spider across multiple torrent-tracking Web sites such as MiniNova while looking for content. The social-networking features let you share your favorite torrents directly with friends and create profiles, although more advanced features like chatting haven’t been introduced yet.

Although Vuze has taken steps in the past few months that put it squarely in the path of the oncoming ISP juggernaut, taking on Comcast with the introduction of a plug-in that tracks and compiles statistics on ISP throttling behavior, it’s not clear how many Azureus users welcome the jump to the new Vuze.

See original here:
Azureus is dead, long live… Vuze?